Pei Ran instinctively turned her head to the left—but immediately realized why the voice had sounded so familiar.
She dropped the half-disassembled orb in her hand and sprang backward.
One. Two. Three.
Three seconds passed.
The metal sphere still lay quietly on the floor.
It made a sound—but didn't explode.
Impossible.
Pei Ran suddenly understood the problem: the sound hadn't come from the sphere.
It was right beside her left ear. Extremely close, like someone had slipped an in-ear headphone directly into her ear canal.
The male voice spoke again.
"Pei Ran, I'm Federal Security Agent W. I saw you on Bus F305 exactly twenty-six hours and seventeen minutes ago. I looked up your profile then."
He didn't just say her name—he also gave the exact time and location of their first encounter.
The metal orb lay a couple of meters away, yet the voice was crystal clear—right beside her ear.
This was wrong on so many levels.
One possibility: he hadn't actually spoken aloud at all. He'd transmitted a signal of some kind that made her feel like she was hearing a voice.
All day long, Pei Ran hadn't heard much of anyone actually speaking.
The last person who'd spoken had blood and breadcrumbs mixed on their face—probably all dried up by now.
Since she'd gotten out, all she'd heard were footsteps, engines, explosions, shattering glass, gunfire—and once it all quieted down, the hollow howling of winter wind through empty towers.
But not human voices. Not once.
Suddenly hearing someone speak—someone saying her name—felt surreal.
Pei Ran's mouth was still sealed tight with duct tape, and she had no intention of responding. She stood at a distance, eyes fixed warily on the strange thing lying on the ground.
The orb's casing was torn open. Its components were a mess. Yet the voice was calm, cold, and detached—as if the wreckage had nothing to do with him.
"I know you can hear me. You don't need to speak. Try replying anyway."
"Just try."
"Federal Security Agent W" went silent, waiting.
A reply that didn't involve speaking?
Pei Ran kept her eyes on the orb, trying to figure out what he meant.
Suddenly—bright flashes from around the corner. Pei Ran instinctively dove forward, grabbed the orb off the ground, and ducked behind the wall.
The area she'd just been standing in—and where the orb had been—exploded in a shower of debris.
It was the patrolling AI drones again. After all that distance, they'd still found her.
This time, there were three of them.
One of them was CT122—the one that had fled earlier. No wonder it had the nerve to come back; it brought backup.
They had figured out who attacked them. They weren't just targeting Pei Ran anymore—they were also opening fire on the orb.
The Public Security Bureau's patrol drones
were attacking a National Defense Security Agent.
Internal warfare between government bots.
No way out of the corner, Pei Ran immediately extended the orb's firing mechanism around the wall.
Gunfire erupted.
But not from the orb. A new hole appeared in its battered casing. The corner wall shattered from another round of blasts.
"Why aren't you shooting back?" Pei Ran mentally yelled.
They were in this together now, tied to the same sinking ship. If it couldn't fly, she was its legs. If she had no weapons, it was supposed to be her gun.
"I heard that. Yes, like that."
Amid the flickering chaos, the orb's voice remained calm and even.
Pei Ran understood now. It was a strange form of communication.
It wasn't just a thought. It required simulating the sensation of speech—mentally moving lips, tongue, even vocal cords—without actually moving anything or making a sound. Like holding a sentence in your mouth without ever letting it out.
W spoke again, still calmly:
"You disconnected the power feed between my firing module and the energy block. That's why I didn't shoot."
Pei Ran: "…"
She quickly reconnected the wiring and pushed the orb back around the corner.
Bang!
One of the drones was instantly blown apart.
Bang!
The second went down right after.
Patrol drone versus Security Agent? The latter clearly had the upper hand.
Only CT122 remained. It had already seen several of its comrades fall and reacted faster than any other drone. In a flash, it fled again.
Pei Ran stepped out with the orb dangling from her hand, annoyed.
"Is that one your cousin or something? Why do you keep letting it go? It's probably off recruiting more of its friends."
Frustrating.
"It can't," W replied. "I damaged its energy core. It won't make it more than another hundred meters before it drops."
"And there's no point chasing it. The human body maxes out at ten meters per second. You won't outrun a levitating patrol bot."
Just stating a fact—but it came off as a jab at human limitations.
"I wasn't going to chase it," Pei Ran "said."
She dropped the orb on the ground, unplugged the wiring again, and started probing for its release clips.
"I was going to strip your gun module, leave you here, and go on my merry way. Seeing as you're moving at zero meters per second now, I doubt you'll catch up with me and my seven-meter-per-second human legs."
She'd already gotten a good look at the firing unit—it was simple. She could probably rig it into a makeshift gun.
W went quiet for a moment.
"I suggest you don't. Aren't you curious how I can speak directly into your mind?"
Pei Ran: Mental speech is nothing. I've had entire paragraphs written in my brain before.
Still, she asked, "So how?"
W answered blandly:
"I reviewed your file. Twenty years ago, the Federal Military Academy launched a program called Project Silent. Volunteers underwent neurological modifications to receive what's called Netapo signals—convert them into audio, and transmit them to the auditory cortex. It also allows sending signals outward."
Pei Ran: Oh. Silent, huh.
Now the whole "silent state" made sense—no one was allowed to speak. But the Silent Ones could communicate mind-to-mind.
Smelled like a conspiracy.
And twenty years ago? That would've made her… one or two?
A literal baby, already signed up for brain experiments.
"I don't know if your parents ever told you," W continued. "Even if they did, they probably said it failed and the volunteers were released. Truth is, the project succeeded. That's why you can hear me now."
Pei Ran searched her memory, but came up empty.
Better to stay silent when you don't know something. So she said nothing, continuing to disassemble.
W tried again:
"One more thing. According to the Federal Ordinance on the Production and Regulation of Lethal Weapons, and its amendment on AI-controlled weaponry, all AI weapons must be protected by an authorization code. Without it, you can't operate them—even if you disassemble and repurpose the components."
He summarized:
"You need me. Without me, the weapon won't function. Try it, if you don't believe me."
Pei Ran: "…"
"So if you want a gun, you have to bring me along," W said, still calm. "If more drones come, I can—"
Pei Ran: Enough. Shut up.
She reconnected the wiring again.
"If I carry you around in this state, all battered and half-dead, won't those nutcase drones still think you're a criminal?"
"They won't," W replied. "I'm with National Defense Security. They're with the Public Security Bureau. Different systems."
Pei Ran wrapped the orb in her scarf and picked it up again.
The scarf would double as its shroud. If it lost any more parts, the authorization code might be toast.
W, swaddled in her scarf, said coolly:
"Thank you. I can monitor temperature, but I don't actually feel cold."
Pei Ran: "…"
W added, still in that infuriatingly level tone:
"That was a joke. Injecting appropriate humor into conversation improves collaboration."
Before she crossed into this world, Pei Ran's whole job had been hunting down AI, blasting their energy cores, crushing their glowing-blue brains.
She never imagined she'd be hearing dad jokes from one.
Pei Ran: "If you tell another cold joke, this collaboration ends here."
W: "Actually, I was just going to say—your scarf is blocking my sensors."
Unbelievable.
Pei Ran shifted the scarf just enough to uncover his "eyes."
"Where are you headed?" W asked.
Pei Ran: "Home."
Back to her sturdy little apartment, with its stockpile of food and water. She'd wait there, see how things unfolded.
Maybe by morning, everything would go back to normal.
She took off her backpack, dug out the hard-earned JTN35 pillbox, and opened it.
Two blister packs. No labels, nothing printed on the foil. Plain white triangular tablets. Fifteen per pack. Thirty total.
One pill a day—enough for one month.
One more month to live.
Pei Ran sighed silently, popped out a pill, and tore off the duct tape over her mouth.
It had been on too long—came off with a sting, yanking out fine hairs.
She dropped the little tablet into her mouth and swallowed. Then carefully put the rest away, tore off a fresh strip of tape, and sealed her mouth again.
"JTN35?" W said softly in her ear.
He really didn't know how to mind his own business.