Ideal City

A red glow flared. A shooting star streaked across the sky, plunging into the easternmost reaches of the Central Continent and slamming heavily into a field. The dull thud was loud enough to be heard hundreds of meters away—to say nothing of Wang Dashan, who was driving his tractor through the field. "Damn it... what the hell was that?" Startled by the noise, the scruffy man hopped down from the tractor, pulled free the shotgun mounted beside the cab, and racked a shell into the chamber as he walked toward the sound. This place lay on the frontier of Yunjian Province, nestled in its forsaken northwest corner. Normally, no one ever came to such a wretched place. Even traveling merchants deemed it too barren to bother with, preferring to push a little farther and try their luck in the neighboring province. Still, nothing was absolute. Only last month, he had spotted several mutants—deserters, likely scattered by an Enterprise patrol. Even a distant glimpse of those hideous creatures had turned his stomach. Before him lay a crater more than a dozen meters across, looking as if it had been scooped out by an artillery shell. Seeing his ruined crops, Wang Dashan felt a sharp pang of distress, yet he still cautiously edged forward. There seemed to be something inside the crater. He glanced at the Geiger counter strapped to his wrist, confirmed the radiation levels were normal, and only then crept in for a closer look. A silver-white metal sphere lay nestled in the dirt, wisps of steam curling from its surface. The blistering heat had even baked the moisture right out of the surrounding soil. "What kind of freak contraption is this?" Wang Dashan stared down at the metal sphere, studying it for a good while without making head or tail of it. Reaching up to tap the communicator clipped to his shoulder, he reported the situation to the village guards. Before long, a pair of headlights flared at the edge of the field. A guard clad in an exoskeleton jumped down from the vehicle and strode briskly toward him. "What happened?" The moment the words left his mouth, the guard noticed the crater. He shone his flashlight inside, his eyes narrowing slightly. Standing nearby, Wang Dashan chimed in at once. "I was just working the field when I heard this massive crash. Walked over to take a look... and found this thing stuck in the dirt." The guard continued, "Did you see where it came from?" Wang Dashan pointed up at the sky. "Above." "The sky?" A look of shock crossed the guard's face. He glanced up toward the heavens, looked back down at the metal sphere, and then seemed to recall something as a flash of realization washed over his eyes. "Keep watch here. I'll go call the Enterprise—" Before the words could even settle, before Wang Dashan could answer, a dark silhouette swept in from the distance. It was an Enterprise aircraft. The jet-black airframe spanned a dozen-odd meters, resembling a giant predatory bird. Its twin ducted fan engines rotated smoothly, shifting from spewing blue arcs of exhaust backward to directing their thrust downward. The gusting downdraft flattened the wheat, and the aircraft touched down smoothly in the field. As the hatch hissed open, six soldiers in exoskeletons filed out of the cabin. One of them carried a massive crate taller than his head. He marched straight down into the crater, scooped up the silver sphere, and stowed it into the container. "Hey, wait! You ruined my—" Seeing them turn to leave the moment they secured the object, Wang Dashan clutched his shotgun, scurried forward, and summoned the nerve to shout after them. Yet before he could finish, a banknote was shoved into his hand, cutting his words off in his throat. The soldier in the exoskeleton stared down at him and asked curtly, "Is this enough?" "E-Enough, more than enough, heh heh..." Looking at the banknote in his hand, Wang Dashan's righteous indignation vanished instantly, replaced by a beaming smile. He cordially saw the soldiers back onto their aircraft. 100 Cr. Forget about a patch of trampled wheat—this was more than enough to buy the entire field's harvest. The guard cast an envious glance at him, then turned back toward his vehicle. If only he had spotted it first, he would have had a cut of that windfall. Working for the Enterprise never left you shortchanged; across Yunjian Province, that was practically common knowledge. While those folks were hardly generous out of goodwill, they never scrimped on payment... *** If any place on this wasteland could still behold the last twilight of the People's Federation, it was undeniably the jewel of the East Coast—that utopian metropolis known as the Ideal City. Tier upon tier of concrete and steel skeletons stretched from the surface straight toward the heavens. Standing on the ground and craning one's neck upward, the vista seemed to go on forever. Glaring neon light pollution was the city's truest portrait. Holographic projections cast across the outermost skyscrapers could be seen from dozens of kilometers away. No matter what bustling hub a wasteland wanderer hailed from, stepping foot here turned them into wide-eyed country bumpkins, gawking about in utter bewilderment, completely overwhelmed by the shimmering lights and crisscrossing transit arteries. Maglev trains darted among the soaring towers like schools of fish gliding through kelp forests. Only a handful of big fish could swim to the highest crests to savor the very first rays of the morning sun... Standing before a floor-to-ceiling window, a man gazed quietly outside, as though admiring an aquarium in his living room. His name was Luo Yong, a core member of the Silverwing Group's board of directors, holding a seventeen percent stake. "An emergency transmission... Looks like our Pioneer has run into real trouble." The guest seated on the sofa examined the wine glass in his hand with great amusement, speaking as if passing the time. His name was Kang Le, a core member of the Kangmao Group's board of directors. Unlike the Silverwing Group, whose primary business lay in heavy engineering equipment manufacturing, the Kangmao Group dealt primarily in auxiliary equipment and medical devices. Though the two men were drinking buddies, whenever they sat together, their conversations had nothing to do with wine. "Mm." "I heard your son is aboard that Pioneer?" "He is." Seeing how composed the man remained, Kang Le raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. "You're not worried?" "Doesn't your company offer custom cloning services? If he dies, I'll just clone another," Luo Yong remarked casually, his flat voice devoid of the slightest ripple. Kang Le lifted his brow slightly, casting an intrigued look at him, seemingly not expecting such an answer. Averting his gaze from the back of the figure by the window, he smiled faintly. "...We can clone cells, but we cannot clone memories, much less a soul." "You actually believe in that sort of thing?" "It has nothing to do with belief; it's merely an abstract concept. I hold that a human being is fundamentally distinct from an object, and flesh is merely the vessel for that concept. Fabricating a vessel is easy—we achieved that long ago, and can even build them better than what nature produces. Yet to this day, we still cannot transfer abstract thought from one vessel to another..." Kang Le rattled on, but Luo Yong, standing by the window, had no interest in listening. His eyes remained fixed on the world outside. Not far off, an "Electric Ray" transport plane slowly wove between the tightly packed skyscrapers, touching down upon a rooftop helipad. He watched as several soldiers carrying a container hurried into the building. Soon, the satellite housed in that container would be sent to a dedicated technical department for disassembly and data extraction. Though he had not yet read the data stored inside, Luo Yong could already guess its contents. Such an emergency transmission channel was reserved strictly for the direst moments. The mere fact that the satellite had abandoned its orbit and plunged down here already spoke volumes... "I have no interest in your theories." Pulling his gaze back from the window, Luo Yong cut short Kang Le's rambling. Fixing his eyes on the man on the sofa, he continued in a solemn voice, "Shelter 0 is the faith of the Ideal City's people. After two centuries... we have finally found it. So long as we open that door, we can end all the chaos across the wasteland and return this land to that glorious era." Kang Le paused briefly, then burst out laughing as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the world. Shaking his head, he set his glass back onto the table. "...You mock me for believing in souls, yet you place your faith in an even wilder myth." Luo Yong corrected him flatly, "That is no myth. It is a conclusion reached through rigorous, precise calculations." Kang Le's amusement did not waver. "Calculations... Heh, if technology truly existed to calculate the future, didn't those fellows lying in their graves ever foresee that things would turn out like this?" "What can be deduced is not the future, but probabilistic possibilities. Isn't our very existence the best proof?" The Ideal City had been founded directly atop Shelter 6; strictly speaking, everything here was a product of Project Fortress. Unable to refute that, Kang Le fell silent for a moment before remarking in a soft murmur, "...Let us assume for a moment that Shelter 0 truly possesses such power, that it can sweep away the chaos on this wasteland like autumn leaves in a gale. Who can guarantee that it won't dismantle our current prosperity?" If the Pioneer had merely gone out for a tour, all would have been well. Whether it was spreading Enterprise ideals, sowing the seeds of civilization, or flaunting their prosperity and strength... all of it served the Enterprise's interests. After all, trading with a band of primitives yielded a few shells or animal pelts at best. Yet if you sold miner exoskeletons and rock drills to those wastelanders, showing them the lavish lifestyle of the Ideal City, then when the merchant caravans rolled through again, a few slips of paper would be enough to buy cartloads of ore. An expedition for ideals was nothing more than a slogan. Even if they returned empty-handed, no one would fault them. Yet no one had expected that bunch of hotheads to actually locate Shelter 0. Precisely because of this, the various mega-corporations that had initially backed the expedition had begun turning ambiguous in their stance. The only faction steadfastly supporting the expedition was the Silverwing Group. Not out of any grand ideals, of course—primarily because the Pioneer had been built on their dime. That land fortress represented not only their blood and sweat, but the crew aboard it was composed of elite cadres nurtured by the group. Setting everyone else aside... His own son was aboard that fortress. Though he claimed he could simply clone another if the boy died, that was merely talk. Technology could resolve many troubles, but not every trouble could be fixed with technology. Luo Yong stared at Kang Le on the sofa and said in a grave tone, "...I don't expect to convince you with reason. Let's talk terms." Without asking for conditions, Kang Le kept his eyes locked on him. "Oh? What do you want me to help you with?" "In another two hours, the data extraction should be complete..." Luo Yong hooked back his cuff with an index finger and glanced at the watch on his wrist. "At noon today, we will submit a proposal to expand the scale of reinforcements. We already have the backing of the Changge Group, leaving us just one vote short... I want you to persuade the Kangmao Group's board to back our motion at the Enterprise Supreme Directorate Meeting." The Changge Group was the largest arms dealer in the Ideal City. Kang Le was not the least bit surprised that the Silverwing Group had secured their backing. Those arms dealers wanted nothing more than to see the outside world burning in flames. Their favorite pastime was offering discounts on their own products while howling that the Enterprise's armaments were utter rubbish, constantly demanding to expand the assault corps. Although the Enterprise possessed tens of thousands of subsidiaries, and every subsidiary holding shares in the parent company possessed voting rights on major resolutions, the overwhelming majority of equity remained concentrated in the hands of the Big Five. Therefore, whenever a proposal secured the backing of three giants, its passage was guaranteed without suspense. Conversely, if three giants opposed it, no proposal could ever pass. Kang Le mused inwardly that this fellow had come knocking on his door likely because he had hit a wall with the other two. Naturally so. The Endpoint Group, whose core business lay in artificial intelligence and computing, and the Ideal Group, which dealt in public utilities and urban construction, could not care less about wasteland affairs. The only ones who could be swayed... Seemed to be his side. "Expanding the reinforcement scale... The Kangmao Group can accept providing equipment and financial aid, but only that. I don't know what deal you struck with the Changge Group, but the assault corps is already bloated enough. You wouldn't want to see those warmongers grow even larger, would you?" Luo Yong's expression remained unchanged as he replied, "The deal we reached with them has nothing to do with expanding the assault corps. It concerns other fields." Kang Le stared at him for a moment, then gave a slow nod. "Fine. I can help you, but I'm only one shareholder on the Kangmao Group's board. You can't expect me to convince the rest with nothing but hot air." Luo Yong remained silent, waiting for him to name his price. After a brief pause, Kang Le continued, "If you're willing to soften your stance on the proposal granting bionic androids participation in public affairs... I think they would agree to your request." Hearing that demand, Luo Yong breathed a quiet sigh of relief, the tension on his face finally melting into a faint smile. "Deal." *** Far away, in the River Valley Province. A pale hint of dawn finally crept across the horizon. Residents of Dawn City pushed open their windows and stepped out of their homes, greeting the new day. Meanwhile, inside Shelter 404, a certain someone had not slept a wink, sitting in high spirits before a peculiarly designed computer. "...Unbelievable! Guess what I found in that data?!" Without so much as a glance at Yin Fang, whose dark eye circles rivaled a panda's, Chu Guang reclined on the nearby sofa and replied absently, "What?" "An order for the retrofitting of the docking module on the Lagrange Space Station!" Yin Fang's face beamed with delight as he babbled at high speed. "I knew it! Any research institute that possessed its own dedicated scientific satellite couldn't possibly be ordinary!" A Lagrange Space Station, no less. That was certainly a hell of a distance away. With the Legion pressing in step by step, Chu Guang had no luxury to worry about matters so far removed. Compared to distant space technology, he cared far more about reinforcements from the East Coast. Still, he quipped idly, "Are you planning to finish the order for them?" Yin Fang rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding me? That order is from over two centuries ago! By the time the Doomsday War broke out in 2125, the design work was only fifty percent complete..." Chu Guang asked, "And then?" "...And then, they planned to replace the astronomical telescope on Docking Arm 41 with a two-kilometer-long mass driver. And then, we recovered several salvageable technologies from the inventory list!" "Among them are twelve electromagnetic-control-related technologies, as well as four critical gas-molecule manipulation technologies! Five meet Rank-E standards, three reach Rank-D, and two are Rank-C!" *Damn, Rank-C technologies!* *And two of them at that?!* A look of astonishment crossed Chu Guang's face. His previously lukewarm interest vanished, and he sat bolt upright on the sofa. At present, the New Alliance possessed only two Rank-C technologies in total: solid hydrogen and a3 aerospace aluminum alloy. Doubling their high-end technological reserve in one fell swoop far exceeded his wildest expectations. Technology was the bedrock of the Alliance's growth. To Chu Guang, recovering new technology was even more exhilarating than seeing more players break through Level 20. "Can you elaborate on those Rank-C technologies?" "I was just about to." A proud look spread across Yin Fang's face. Clearing his throat, he went on, "One is the synthesis pathway for N10-azide anions, used in ejection buffer airbags... This stuff is similar to solid hydrogen, possessing an extremely high energy density. Unlike solid hydrogen, however, azide compounds are inherently unstable. They're far better suited for bombs than batteries." "The other concerns nitrogen molecule manipulation... By using a gas-manipulation field, one can generate a gas shield. Your hammer uses similar technology, so you should be familiar with it. However, it's quite power-hungry. Without a portable reactor, it can only run for short bursts using chemical batteries and capacitors." Chu Guang chuckled. "That's fine! My shelter residents won't mind! By the way, what about that electromagnetic control technology?" "Oh, that. It's related to the mass driver—in plain terms, a railgun. You can't use it for the time being... Well, then again, maybe you can." At that point, Yin Fang paused, shifting gears. "Once the fusion reactor in Xizhou City is reignited, setting up a few mass drivers as anti-aircraft cannons shouldn't be an issue." "The required materials aren't too hard to come by, and those things are vastly more effective than your conventional artillery." *A railgun!* Recalling the electromagnetic point-defense system on the Pioneer that could swat artillery shells right out of the sky, Chu Guang grew thrilled. "Can a mass driver be mounted on a tank?" As if anticipating the question, Yin Fang shook his head the instant Chu Guang finished speaking. "Forget it. Not unless you can obtain miniaturization tech for railguns... This thing was designed for space stations and requires a fusion reactor to run. No matter how much you scale it down proportionally, there's no way you can cram it onto a vehicle." *Nuclear fusion again...* "All right, pretend I didn't ask." Reining in his excitement, Chu Guang let out a slight sigh of regret. If only the Alliance could manufacture its own fusion reactors. Still, dwelling on it now was pointless. Far more crucial than fusion technology itself was the nuclear fuel required to feed it. The nearest Helium-3 harvesting station lay on the moon, three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers away. Seeing Chu Guang's unsatisfied look, Yin Fang couldn't help but scoff, "Count your blessings! Two Rank-C technologies! In the Academy, a merit like this would be enough to promote a Rank-D prospector to Rank-C." "No, I'm not dissatisfied. I'm just wondering when our reinforcements will arrive." "Then you'll have to ask the Enterprise folks. Though I advise you not to keep your hopes too high—those people aren't necessarily easy to deal with." Yin Fang's expression turned somewhat subtle as he spoke. Catching that nuanced look, Chu Guang suddenly recalled something and remarked, "Speaking of which, there's something I've always been curious about." "What's that?" "The relationship between the Academy and the Enterprise doesn't seem very cordial?" Yin Fang pondered the question seriously for a moment. "That's accurate enough. While I personally don't harbor ill will toward Enterprise people, we do share profound disagreements on several matters." "Because of their exploitation of ruins?" Chu Guang asked thoughtfully. Yin Fang smiled faintly. "That's merely the surface. How they choose to use the ruins is their own business... What is ultimately disappointing is that they hold a priceless legacy, yet possess zero ambition. Whether in terms of territory or knowledge, you'll find they don't truly crave either. Wealth? Perhaps, but rather than a thirst for wealth, I'd call it an insatiable greed for indulgence." "You'll see them decorate their homes exquisitely, living in luxuries scarcely different from the Prosperity Era. Many wastelanders and popsicles dream of living there for the rest of their days. Yet in my eyes, that place is unmistakably the farthest thing from the Prosperity Era." "The Prosperity Era left behind a great deal—unspent fusion batteries, recyclable scrap, black boxes capable of turning trash into treasure... But all of those things will run out sooner or later, if not today, then tomorrow." "Once we finish cataloging the technologies left behind by the former civilization, we will immediately embark on exploring new frontiers, seeking ways to restore this planet's ecology to its pre-war state." "Whereas they are merely squandering what little legacy remains." Yin Fang paused here. "Of course, there are some people within the Enterprise worthy of respect. Searching for Shelter 0 is a decent idea... I recall the Academy previously dispatched a scientific expedition into the desert as well." Chu Guang started slightly. "The Academy went looking for Shelter 0 too?" "That was many years ago," Yin Fang sighed. "I only remember that the expedition vanished into the wastes... and no one ever spoke of it again."