Huyger's desperate face flashed through Meyer's mind.
Only the buzz of the flies remained in his ears.
His eyes were locked on the woman's corpse lying on the ground. Her face—smeared with blood, crushed, half-devoured. And yet, in her gaze, there lingered the last fragile hope of clinging to life. The eyes of a young girl.
The vectors bounced inside the girl's severed head as if it were a trash can, spreading that cursed stench from one place to another.
The Devil Chip hummed loudly. For the first time, Meyer could almost hear the growl of the device at the back of his neck.
"Aren't you going to enter the tower? Code 43 must be waiting for you."
"I have doubts. Is the one who contacted me really Code 43?"
"You doubt that?" asked the Devil Chip, as if doubt itself were fatal and inevitable.
Meyer knew he couldn't extract his thoughts from this mechanical sieve.
The moment a thought dropped into his brain, the chip vacuumed it up like dust pushed through a hose.
Meyer asked, "Whose body is this?"
"This girl's death seems to have shattered you," said the Devil Chip. Meyer sensed a mocking undertone in the signal—and he loathed it.
"A dead person is lying in front of me," he said, forgetting everyone he'd beaten in the back arena.
The spiders that tore Cutter to pieces. The moment he broke Magnus' nose. Unforgettable scenes—already erased.
He slowly walked toward the corpse and raised his hand, catching one of the buzzing mosquitoes. The sticky little thing sizzled in his palm. He flung it to the ground. Thousands of thoughts tangled in his mind.
"2047. The death of the Chief Director of the Precious Minerals Union spread terror everywhere!" That headline echoed and faded. But what connection did it have with the corpse on the ground?
"It's the year 10,290. So who's on homicide duty now?" he asked.
"Code 43," replied the Devil Chip.
Meyer's stomach turned, and he vomited again.
"Why are you so surprised, friend?" the Devil Chip asked.
"Why? Puah! Maybe because I just found out there are no special units anymore? Have you gone back to monarchy or something? That ended centuries ago, didn't it?"
"Let's not call it monarchy. Let's say... a free dictatorship."
"Dictatorship?" Meyer repeated. "What did you just say?"
"Dictatorship," the Devil Chip said again.
"Dictatorship…" Meyer mumbled under his breath. What was it about that 2047 headline that he couldn't let go?
"Go online and search it," Meyer muttered as he moved away from the corpse and sat on a stone step.
The flying creatures didn't care—he let the mosquito in his hand buzz away. He didn't want to trigger any more "freedom shield" responses from the vectors.
"Year 2047. The death of the Chief of the Department of Precious Resources."
"That's a very old date. Sadly, the data from that time has likely been lost."
"And back then, they thought they were advanced in technology. What a joke!" Meyer shouted. He held his head in his hands and began to think.
First, he needed to go home.
The Devil Chip picked up on this idea immediately.
"You're going to keep Code 43 waiting? He invited you to his tower," it said in a cold voice.
At least, that's how Meyer interpreted it in his neural pathways.
"That voice wasn't Code 43's. That much I know," he said, rising to his knees. "I'm already 64 anyway," he added with the hopeless smile of a man sentenced by fate.
"How did you figure that out?" asked the Devil Chip.
Meyer got to his feet and started walking toward the house he had left years ago.
It stood behind the earthquake ruins, across from a small playground with a swing set.
He remembered watching the sunrise and sunset from there, and the little kid swinging alone at midnight after being thrown out of the house.
He always thought some families were luckier than others.
Having once been kicked out of his own home, Meyer now identified even more with that lonely child.
It was as if pancakes were flailing inside ovens heated by the very core of the earth.
Honey had become too runny, and since bees had evolved, their combs were now misshapen.
Meyer had no idea what state anything was in anymore.
Speaking of honey—the house was painted pale yellow. He remembered now.
The neural noise in his brain had softened. The house was still standing.
His father had said, "This house will never fall," and swore on it.
Meyer had claimed it wouldn't last two years. But it had been more than forty.
Its foundation held firm.
He thought about the body he saw in the tower. There was no one left to report it to.
Imagine finding a loved one's corpse lying outside, deemed worth less than trash.
He knocked on the door twice. His heart pounded.
The excitement running through his blood had even taken his intestines hostage.
A voice came from inside.
"Huh?" It arrived just as he was about to give up hope.
The footsteps… slow, uncertain.
An old woman opened the door, leaning on a cane. It was Meyer's mother.
Meyer nearly fainted from shock.
She asked, "Hello? Who are you looking for?"
Meyer opened his mouth, wanting to say something—but nothing came out.
He was speechless, stunned. Only one word escaped his lips.
"Mom."
The woman squinted instinctively. A chill ran down her spine.
Her eyes locked onto the small birthmark on Meyer's still-young-looking face.
"Steve," she whispered and covered her mouth, beginning to cry.
Meyer knew this was the beginning of his real fight.
Inside, she told him everything.
The family had thought their son was dead. They'd plastered missing posters everywhere.
But the municipality quickly tore down posters of the unemployed wandering aimlessly.
His guilt-ridden father had been beaten by a government officer over one of those posters.
When lava floods turned everything to ash, most people drowned in waves of molten rock.
His parents' finances had collapsed. Two years ago, his father fell to his death from the seventh floor of a tower construction site.
"He died with a heart full of regret. The world is short," she sobbed.
Meyer could feel her pain, deep down.
"I know," he simply said.
After that, his mother stood up. In their house full of wooden furniture, she insisted on preparing something in the kitchen.
Meyer wanted to tell her about the last few hours. But he couldn't remember.
What had happened to him? All he could recall were corpses, spiders, Magnus, and Emma's blurry face.
It was like he had been someone else just a few hours ago.
He gave in to his mother's persistence and let her go make some chicken soup.
The fireplace crackled. He missed the days they were warmed by the earth's heat.
Now everything felt as cold as death.
When he touched the concrete counter by the wall, his finger chilled.
A photo frame was looking back at him.
His mother, his father, and Steve Meyer.
A tear rolled down his cheek.
He quickly pulled himself together and forced his mind to recall.
"I woke up. I saw Emma. Then what?" he asked himself. "Why can't I remember?"
His mother returned with the soup, served in a nice plate with herbs.
Meyer drank it quickly. It burned his mouth, but he didn't say a word.
The Devil Chip activated again.
"Code 43 is waiting for you!"
Meyer felt his mind empty out.
Since his mother had studied history, he asked:
"Mom, what do we know about the year 2048 in history?"
She didn't understand why he asked.
"It's a very old date," she murmured. "Old records are still records, though." She paused.
"Back then, artificial intelligence was just making major strides.
To separate themselves from machines, people turned to physical movement—rowing, wrestling, and eventually, mineral mining."
"Chief Administrator Frank Cut was a man with two kids, living in a small town.
Rumors spread that he was cheating on his wife. Her brothers shared reputation-shattering posts on social media.
Those tweets still exist today."
"Eventually, it wasn't clear whether Frank was murdered or took his own life after losing support from his million-follower fanbase.
Police called it a homicide. But if there was a killer, they left no trace. It was as if a ghost did it."
"Then a global economic collapse hit.
Hunger crises, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes shook the world.
People cared more about survival than murder cases.
The story faded from memory.
Only his black horse remained—and even that didn't live another five years."
"Black horse…" Meyer repeated, and something inside him said he had to visit the tower. That one leader might be the key.
He asked for his mother's phone. He'd have to go beyond the city to get one for himself.
The Devil Chip warned him: he had little time left to complete the mosquito mission.
So he got online and searched:
"Most effective mosquito repellent spray."
Ads for various brands popped up.
Meyer clicked on one—and ended up on a missing page.
Only an email address was listed.
"V-mail?" he muttered thoughtfully, lifting his elbows from the table.
"This is an old method of communication. Why would a modern company use outdated tech?"
He suspected only privacy-obsessed old-timers still used it.
He asked the Devil Chip how much time he had left.
Two hours.
Meyer's instincts burned with curiosity about the product listed there.
The mystery set him on fire.
He got up from his empty plate and walked outside.
At some point, his body had grown larger—and then returned to normal.
He just noticed it now, and it shocked him.
When had he grown? When had he risen into the air like a giant?
At that moment, his fingers felt as heavy as concrete.
It was like he was holding the weight of the world in his fingertips.
His mind was a mess. His vision blurred.
The clinking sounds from his mother's kitchen turned into a deep, buzzing echo.
"You're experiencing memory fog as a side effect of the Devil's Curse," said the Devil Chip.
"You must get to the tower as soon as possible."
"I have to go to the tower," Meyer said as he pulled the door shut behind him, ignoring his mother's warnings.
"I have to do this. No matter what."
And just as he stepped outside, something clicked.
The drawer in his room.
It must still be there—his drawing of the black horse.
He'd drawn it with his own hands. He remembered.
He saw himself approaching the drawer, reaching for the handle, sliding in that notebook with the picture.
"The b-black horse… it has to still be in my drawer."