SOTOPIA: Artificial Pseudo-God

Steven had a dream.

He found himself in a sea of ​​books in his dream.There are almost no walls around, only floor-to-ceiling glass windows.The body was quiet and silent, and the smell of plant fibers and ink was strong, mixed with the smell of a hospital after disinfection.But he soon discovered that although he was surrounded by countless typefaces, the letters were clearly visible, but the combination was incomprehensible in language.

--Dyslexia.

Even in the dream, Steven quickly made a judgment.The chain of meaningless letters was like an invisible iron chain, strangling his throat, making him unable to breathe.But in the next moment, the imprisonment of the typeface suddenly dissipated without a trace.Steven raised his head and saw a familiar figure standing in front of the window.

That was Moskevich.But he was not wearing a hospital gown, and there were no signs of injury on his body.Even so, the incarnation of "rational will" still has an expression that does not match Steven's impression.The other party was staring at himself with almost sad eyes.In the quiet and silent dream, this is like a frozen scene, which is shockingly desperate.

"Moskevich" spoke.But only a few meters away, Steven can clearly read the other party's mouth shape, but can't hear a sound.The silent cry was like water mist that evaporated instantly under the high temperature. Before it could reach the front, it was bound by invisible chains and dragged back into the silence with no end in sight.

"help me."

"Take me away."

That was the silent cry for help from the white-haired youth.

Steven watched Moskevich being engulfed by the dazzling white light bit by bit, but he couldn't take a single step towards where he was standing - the ropes that bind the consciousness are more terrifying than those that bind the body.

It's certainly a quiet nightmare.

When he woke up, Steven heard Caroline laughing in the living room.He struggled to get up and glanced at the clock beside the bed—it was not yet nine o'clock in the morning, and he didn't have to go to work that day.Seeing the guardian yawning and walking sleepily towards the living room, Caroline, who was used to getting up early to watch morning comedies, quickly turned off the TV, sat obediently on the sofa, and looked at him innocently with big clear eyes.

Steven scratched his hair helplessly, and said, "It's okay, you didn't disturb me. Let's watch it."

After finishing breakfast for his adoptive daughter, Steven sat on the sofa and ate the baguette he bought on a whim, watching her with a smile on his face as she sat at the table and finished the glass of fruit and vegetable juice with a serious expression.Half an hour later, he got a call from Kay.

"Aren't you moving too fast?" He laughed.

The female detective on the other end of the phone spoke proudly: "Don't underestimate me, and don't underestimate my lovely classmates." While resting at home, she browsed the scanned samples received in the computer, and the old files showed The typeface is fairly legible, but the handwriting is a little hard to read. "Ah, by the way, let me tell you what I told Thorin to come from the old forensic doctor."

"Forget it in private, but don't call the old forensic doctor face to face. Old Langdon will blow up their entire office when he gets angry, and we will be in bad luck."

"Okay, okay, I'm as obedient as an unweaned cat in front of him. Do you still remember the terrorist whose head I accidentally blasted off?"

"Of course I remember, you still use my gun."

Kay flipped through the notebook at hand, and all kinds of words and lines criss-crossed on it, just like her habit when analyzing events and clues of characters. "Langdon said that traces of tattoo washing were found on that person. The feedback from the forensic department was: Although the facial features could not be detected, the fingerprints and DNA were still there. When checking the archives, it was found that he was a soldier before." , but the post-retirement file record is zero, and there is no clue of employment or the like. Well, this is not the point of today. When can you go to the Federal Document Center? There may be something you want there.”

Steven subconsciously glanced at Caroline, who was still struggling with fruit and vegetable juice, and asked in a low voice, "Anytime. Who should I contact?"

He heard Kai sigh: "I'd better go together... I seem to have found something interesting."

The center staff member who received Steven and Kay was a young Asian woman with glasses who also seemed to be a professional in archival research.Perhaps it is the natural advantage of race, she looks very young, almost like a college student.

Kay pulled over the staff member who didn't seem so cheerful, and took the initiative to introduce: "This is Vera, who is at the same level as me. I remember that the original name was—"

"My original surname is Xu. It doesn't matter, anyway, my real name is hard for you to pronounce." Vera ended the greetings bluntly.She handed gloves to the two visitors and waved them to follow her.The temperature of the central air conditioner was low, so she put on a white coat, the hem of which shook slightly as she walked, disturbing the thin dust on the ground.

Steven, who focuses on field work, rarely visits places like the archives.In front of him, every ordinary individual who has lived on this land seems to have pressed their lives into a thin piece of cultural and historical materials, bound them together with other strange lives, and then collected them into boxes and placed them in the In the control field of view of the superior.There are cold file racks all around, leaden gray like Moskevich's eyes.The file boxes on the file rack are labeled with various departments and periods for easy identification, but when faced with such a huge amount of files, the determination and motivation of ordinary people to enter them are often replaced by an almost instinctive retreat before they can pack up their mood.

Fortunately, none of them are strictly "average people."

Vera brought them to her workbench, on which there were already two boxes of files.She pointed to one of the boxes, and Kay took out the case file knowingly.

Across the desktop, Wei La pointed out to her the location of the required information: "Fortunately, what you want doesn't have encryption permission, so you can call it directly."

Steven glanced at the label of the case file, and not only frowned: "Criminal case files from 1960-1969?"

Vera looked up at him, and replied mechanically: "We just finished digitizing this batch of files and retrieved the original files directly. However, Irina Komorowski's immigration records are not in Los Angeles, and we need to Cross-regional query?"

Steven shook his head, as if he had no such plans for the time being.But when he saw the contents of the file, indescribable shock and growing doubts occupied his heart.

"My God—" Kay, who quickly browsed through the contents of the case file, did not suppress his astonishment like Steven did, but exclaimed directly.

Elena Komorowski, the researcher and "mother" woman Moskevich knew best, turned out to be the victim of a serious violence in 1963.

Born in an immigrant family from Eastern Europe, she was raped by three men when she was 14 years old. The serious violation led to her being forced to remove some of her organs.However, due to insufficient evidence, the three suspects were only sentenced for the crime of intentional injury.After the father and brother who rushed into the suspect's home to take revenge before the verdict were issued were imprisoned, Elena, who had just been discharged from the hospital, was reported missing immediately.Four years later, the Komorowski family, scarred by numerous events, left the United States.

"In addition, I did not find her exit record. She just disappeared and never appeared in the file again." Vera added.

That seems to be all that is officially recorded in America for a star-crossed immigrant girl.

With a livid face, Steven carefully examined the file.Photos of the victim and a medical report are also attached.Although the yellowish black-and-white photos often make it difficult to see the details, the shocking wounds are enough to illustrate how heinous the violence that occurred more than 40 years ago.

Kai frowned, also feeling heavy about this old file. "I'm afraid she was not in a good state when she disappeared. A 14-year-old immigrant girl is too likely to have an accident. Could it be that someone used her identity later?"

Steven flipped through the files, only to feel that things were not simple: "I'm afraid not."

He looked back at the photo of the victim in the medical report.The girl who suffered severe physical and mental injuries looked haggard, her eyes were filled with heart-wrenching fear, and the bruises and bruises on her face were the marks left by the perpetrator.

"In the testimony of the witnesses, Elena is a gentle and introverted girl. Their family is a wealthy immigrant who has just arrived, and was very excluded by some people at that time. The three prisoners also picked quarrels more than once, but the ending this time was too much. It’s been miserable.” Vera’s expression was also full of injustice and resentment, which may also have her empathy as a Chinese.

Looking at the photo, Steven felt a little familiar: "I always feel like I've seen her somewhere."