novelBattle Royale: Jedi (XXIV)
| ← Ch.282 | Ch.284 → |
7am, in the private cottage of Councillor Edward.
Edward, a politician who has been a staunch opponent of the Shifter movement from the beginning, has an important meeting to attend at 9am this morning to discuss the frequent Shifter riots that have been occurring in recent days.
The shifter who caused all this, is a recent shifter fugitive from E, surnamed Bai, a student.
Two days earlier, he had revealed a video of the unbelievable Battle Royale.
There is no collage, no editing, no show, and a large HD image of an ugly face with the name of the gambler, overlaid with anonymous ID numbers, makes it impossible for anyone who thinks they can get away with it through a computer screen to hide.
Within ten minutes, some people recognised that the gamblers included their classmates, colleagues and even successful and prestigious business people.
Soon, there was a huge wave of deletions and blocking, with countless IDs exploding in place and websites 404ing one after another.
On the same day, all websites with a modicum of traffic experienced a variety of problems, ranging from frequent lagging to outright collapse.
To let such a scandal, which is so bad that it ignores human rights and tramples on human lives, spread is to sit and wait for death; to delete the post in a big way is to cause public discontent.
But at a time like this, there's no official way to juggle all that.
It is reasonable to assume that with such a strong blockade, the person who posted the information would be deaf and dumb, and no information would be able to get out.
The official wanted to shut people's mouths, but the surname Bai turned the tables on them and stuck it right down their throats, causing them to roll their eyes.
- That video was actually plastered directly to the headline position on the government website, not only as a prominent propaganda poster, but also with a list of gamblers and their heads replacing the list of wanted fugitive aliens that scrolled by.
The website, which used to publish political events, was rarely used, and when the news spread, the site's already less than stellar servers were nearly overwhelmed by the swarm of bystanders.
Officials are gobsmacked.
It would really be a travesty if even government websites were to 404 together.
Not only that, the TV signal and frequency band were also hijacked by force. The station sent professionals to repair it in an emergency, and within a short while of fixing it, it would be taken away again.
No matter which channel you tune in to, you will see an oily face on the screen maliciously pointing and swaying the life and death of the alien.
All TV channels were closed on the day.
Snowflakes take over every TV station.
Some people have named this day the "Day of the Avalanche".
The "avalanche" is in every corner of major cities, on the radio, on advertising LED screens and even on the subtitles scrolling in front of banks.
The only thing left to struggle is the declining paper media.
But no one bothered to read the verbal diatribes in the paper media by those in the media against the frailty of the alien.
What they see is a truth that the officials are desperately trying to conceal, and the people are never afraid to speculate, with the utmost malice and imagination, about the stinking swamp of muck hidden beneath this layer of truth.
In conjunction with the content of the video, the rumours about Bai Anyi are becoming more and more mysterious.
The most widely circulated story is that Bai Anyi is in fact the true multi-powered one.
As for his cousin" Chi Jiangyu", he was just a shield he put up to play the tiger.
The more rumours are told a hundred times, the truer they become.
Whether it is a new round of official trampling on the human rights of psychics, or the possible emergence of a "new species" of multi-powered psychics, it is a great stimulus and invisible encouragement to those psychics who do not want to live like this.
There has been another wave of marches by psychics at home and abroad, and a bloody clash just yesterday at noon in the city where Edward lives.
This is what has caused Edward's troubles today.
Edward worked almost all night last night to prepare for today's meeting, using the example of the excesses of the Altered as an example, and while acknowledging the mismanagement of the E. , to put a stricter Altered management bill on the agenda.
He squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush and stuffed it into his mouth.
I don't know if it's because of the late night, but his eyes are so sore that he can't open them much.
Edward fishes out the eye drops from the small cupboard where he keeps his toiletries, puts them in and then brushes his teeth with his eyes closed.
His lover, a blonde woman, woke up to the noise he was making, came into the washroom, put her arms around him from behind and made love to him.
She asked, "What time did you sleep yesterday?"
Edward replied, "About three o'clock, baby."
The woman looked surprised, "Today's meeting looks like it's really important to you now."
"That's for sure."
Edward's eyes are closed and spider webs of blood appear in front of his bloodshot eyes.
It was the shape of a capillary in the sunlight, but it called to mind a memory of a frightening scene.
Five years ago, Bailey left a meeting to discuss the Alien Regulation Bill and gouged out his eyes in front of a crowd in front of the Capitol to protest the unfair treatment of aliens.
If he had not protested in such a bloody way for the so-called "human rights" of the alien, which led to the first alien-related legislation being introduced too loosely and other countries following suit, Edward believes that society would not be in such a mess today.
Human rights are for people.
Altered beings, whether evolved or mutated, are always alien to human society with a threatening nature and need to be regulated by the machinery of violence.
Collaring and caging the beast is, in Edward's view, a true human right.
Now, with the E thing pushing the envelope, the plan he didn't finish back then can finally go ahead.
The television in the living room, unsurprisingly, shows news related to Bai Anyi.
On the screen was a clear facial mug shot, a file photo taken when he enrolled in school, not a bad shot, but unfortunately he didn't catch the smile, his facial lines were clear and cold, he looked like an icy inorganic teenager.
He has been a headliner in various countries for two days in a row with this high resolution frontal photo, but not a single person in the world knows where he is now.
The blonde beauty leaned against the lavatory door and lit a cigarette, "The first possible case of multiple psychic powers in the world, ah....... If you had psychic powers, what would you want?"
Edward didn't hesitate: "Look through everyone and see through their powers so that those alters don't hide their identities."
"How annoying." The woman held her cigarette in her mouth and re-examined Bai Anyi on the TV, "He looks so young."
"It takes youth to get a head start."
Edward opened his eyes, cleaned his mouth and then started washing his face again, running the water from the tap to a roar.
"That shelter I heard has been closed down, all the working alters have been taken away for investigation, and E officials have cut ties with them, saying it was a private act. Do you believe that?"
"This has nothing to do with me." Edward said coldly, "Who has the chance of being able to do anything excessive to a shifter as long as they wear a collar and follow the rules? Causing social unrest is the most irresponsible thing you can do ......"
With that, he looked up at himself in the mirror to see if he had any moustache stubble on his chin that needed tending to.
The original turquoise blue eyes of the man in the mirror had turned into two colours, one grey and one yellow, which was extremely strange.
Edward froze.
He raised his hand to touch his eyes, but they were unusually sensitive, and tears flowed uncontrollably, stinging his eyelids raw.
Edward stood still for a moment, rubbing his eyes so quickly that they creaked with panic.
Opening his eyes again, he saw gold stars straight before his eyes.
It's just a matter of distinguishing colours, which isn't too difficult for Edward.
In the mirror itself, the eyes do turn one grey and one yellow.
Can any one disease change the colour of a person's pupils overnight?
...... is aware that there is currently such a "disease".
The world he sees is not quite the same as it was before.
He saw himself in the mirror with a blurred word etched on his head.
Edward's eyes blurred a little and he raised his hand to touch it; the surface of his skin was smooth and not unusual.
But as his vision gradually returned, he could see the invisible brand that had struck his head.
"inhuman".
...... inhuman.
As he had hoped, he had gained the ability to distinguish between a psychic and a "normal human" and had found an extremely appropriate adjective to stick squarely on the centre of his head.
The blonde woman headed to the open kitchen to make a cup of cereal when she heard a strange, sparse noise coming from the washroom.
Surprised, the woman folds back into the washroom.
The sight that met her eyes made her gasp in horror.
All the bottles and jars on the vanity were broken on the floor, including her new perfume, and Edward was picking through the vanity cupboard, taking out the stash of globulin A inhibitors from it and shoving them into his mouth in huge gulps, clicking and chewing out a mouthful of white foam.
The woman was busy coming up to grab the pill bottles, "...... are you crazy? These are old pills, they may have expired ...... My goodness!"
...... she saw Edward's eyes.
Her mouth fell open and closed, "You ......"
Edward fled in disarray, slipped in the foyer and bumped his lip.
Despite the wretchedness, he escaped from the house.
Chi Xiaochi sat on the roof of Edward's house, his feet resting on the outside of the railing, watching him fall onto his lawn, pulling at the sod and crying out in pain and cursing, taking the remaining spores back into his palm.
He has not slept for the past two days, capturing a hundred spore-powdered creatures in the air.
Chi Xiaochi does not have a laboratory, but Lou Ying is a fully equipped mobile laboratory in its own right.
After analysis, the spores are essentially bizarre microscopic organisms, active and intelligent, that feed on the A globulin secreted by the human body, which it stimulates to secrete large amounts of A globulin from human glands upon entering the body.
And class A globulin is the inevitable element that stimulates the evolution of the human body.
A single active spore inhaled into the body can lead to the evolution of a human being, the greater the number, the greater the stimulation of the secretion of globulin.
Only the way they reproduce is not yet known.
Their instinct to avoid harm is so strong that, as creatures, they will swim through the human body on their own and will evolve intelligently to avoid risk as the Class A globulin is absorbed, even if blood tests are drawn and tested.
Moreover, this creature has an extremely special nature of mu strong.
If the parasite dies naturally, or at the hands of another creature, the creature immediately detaches itself from the body and transfers to the nearest target.
However, if the parasite is killed by someone, the spores immediately end the symbiosis and transfer directionally to the person who killed the parasite.
...... This is the secret of the so-called "evolution by killing psychics".
Chi Xiaochi recalls that the main systems of all the 'capsule' modules in the institution are connected in one place.
It is small enough that once the parasite dies, the spores can burst through the gaps in the 'capsule' and travel along the thin air inside the cable to kill the original parasite.
However, Chi Xiaochi has no way of knowing how this creature came to be.
The mid-Jurassic period saw an 'evolutionary explosion' of mammals, an unnatural leap in evolution that remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of archaeology.
Who knows if they are witnessing the birth of a new Jurassic.
Chi Xiaochi took the spores he had collected and instead of heading to the research facility, he took them to the people who were supposed to be there.
-The invisible bright red spores have been fluttering around Edward since last night, when he began to write a draft for tighter control of psychics.
" Edward, the famous anti-shifter politician." Chi Xiaochi flipped through the memo, "During those five years, verbally attacked the Shifter and pushed hard for the Shifter Management Act to be militarised and institutionalised. Once publicly stated that he would immediately kill himself if he became an alien."
"Bai Anyi" looked at Edward, who was sitting on the lawn in a daze, having regained his senses after a spill: "I don't think he has any intention of dying."
Having travelled with Chi Xiaochi for so long, and with Chi Xiaochi actively feeding him, he has inhaled a lot of spores, and his morphing time and ability levels are certainly not comparable to those of the past.
Chi Xiaochi shrugged, "Who knows."
Lou Ying suggested, "Don't we announce the spores first?"
Chi Xiaochi is certain: "Let's not go public yet. We are now wanted criminals and there is no chance of an equal dialogue. If people don't believe me, I'm wasting my breath; if they do, the world will be in chaos. So why am I talking about it, it's much less work to just do it."
He spread his palm and let the spores gather in his palm, gathering the shape of a maple leaf, "Escaping from prison, releasing the video, blatant provocation, since we've made such a big world news story, we might as well make it even bigger and tell these politicians to pave the way for the future of the Alter Ego. For these stubborn opponents, this is the fastest way to get them to figure out what side to take."
Lou Ying discussed with him, "Edward, we're OK here, should we take a break or go to the next person's house now?"
"Just a moment." Chi Xiaochi folded his legs, "I want to see if he's going to kill himself or not."
Bai Anyi" on the sidelines lost his smile.
...... is just really afraid that Edward will not be able to think straight.
Throughout, Chi Xiaochi is both emotional and rational, so I don't know whether to call him cold-blooded or gentle.
It's a good thing Edward is so fond of life.
He got up slowly, went back to the villa, shooed away his lover, sat at the table for a while, picked up all the printed out speeches and fed them one by one into the shredder.
If the purpose of designing drawings for a prison is to lock yourself in, anyone with a little bit of brains should know how to choose.
-What constitutes a human right?
In the eyes of most ordinary people, the concept of human rights is simple: what kind of person one is, one should appeal to and claim the rights of that kind of people.
Opinions don't matter at all, positions do.
Isn't that the case?
Chi Xiaochi was relieved to see that Edward showed no signs of looking for his life.
He ticked Edward's name off the roster, "Next?"
Lou Ying: "Well, the next one."
" Bai Anyi" got up with him, " Jiao Qingguang just don't care?"
"Manage. Why not?" Chi Xiaochi fished out another instant card, "He's almost four times full of remorse, so he's cashed in enough instant cards for us to go to ten countries and pollinate them slowly."
| ← Ch. 282 | Ch. 284 → |