"There's no need for that kind of flattery," Qiao Sai said, unimpressed. "Thanks, I guess. I can hold my breath for forty seconds, tops. If my head gets chopped off, I'm dead in a second anyway."
"You need more exercise," W replied. "Regular training increases lung capacity. Forty seconds is below average for a healthy adult male. My analysis suggests it's related to your sedentary lifestyle—"
Qiao Sai quickly cut him off. "Forget it. What about you and that Silent One? Number 1593—how are things going?"
"Her name is Pei Ran," W corrected him. "We just ran into a rather unusual situation."
Qiao Sai raised an eyebrow. "Unusual?"
"Yes," W said. "We encountered a very dangerous individual—an integrated entity showing signs of Order-type abilities. I searched the Federal Citizen Database but couldn't retrieve a full profile."
Qiao Sai immediately perked up. "Not even in the database? That's serious. What kind of background are we talking about here?"
"I don't know," W admitted. "But it doesn't matter. Pei Ran handled it—just as I predicted. I knew she'd be fine. She even stole a car in the process—an excellent Volight Swiftshadow. My patrol bot is with her now. We're currently fleeing."
A curved virtual screen appeared in front of Qiao Sai.
The feed showed the passenger seat's perspective, set low, aimed at the girl in the driver's seat. She was steering with one hand effortlessly. The other rested lightly, holding a crispy, golden-brown chicken wing, which she occasionally took bites from.
Qiao Sai blinked. "You said you were fleeing?"
They were on the run—yet still had time for fried chicken.
"Yes," W said. "At high speed."
The camera jostled suddenly—a bump in the road. The vintage car didn't slow down at all. Pei Ran's chicken wing didn't even wobble. But the patrol bot's point of view lurched so violently it nearly flew into the air, saved only by a seatbelt.
Qiao Sai was silent for a moment. "She… used to be a race car driver?"
"No," W replied after a pause. "I checked. She doesn't even have a license. If she did, with her driving style, her points would've been deep in the negatives by now."
W continued, "No idea where she learned to drive. She has zero concept of traffic laws. She just drives—recklessly. She hits the gas like she means it. My processor can barely take it."
Qiao Sai burst out laughing. "Show me what your poor little spherical patrol bot looks like now."
W sighed but complied. A metal arm extended from the bot, flipped open the visor mirror above the passenger seat, and revealed its own reflection.
The metal sphere's shell was cracked and battered, with a huge gash running across its head. A string of something—maybe wire—dangled loosely inside.
"Yikes," Qiao Sai winced. "That's rough."
Pei Ran, still munching on her chicken wing, glanced over at the bot. She didn't speak, but her eyes clearly said: Well, well. Checking yourself out? Gonna put on some makeup?
Qiao Sai chuckled and asked, "Have you sent a team to pick her up yet?"
At that, W straightened up. He stopped feeding the snake and let out something that almost sounded like a sigh.
He could switch linguistic modes depending on his conversation partner. Last time, Qiao Sai had adjusted W's natural language setting to Level 5—more emotional tone, more natural phrasing. A lot easier to listen to than the clipped formal tone W used while multitasking.
"Yes," W said. "A team's en route. But only a few Special Security agents and one vehicle."
Not nearly enough, given the level of danger.
W added, "Because I received a directive from Marshal Weiner, on behalf of the Federal Chief Executive. I was ordered to reprioritize the rescue queue."
Qiao Sai, a technical staffer in charge of maintaining W and the servers, wasn't aware of this. "Oh? The Chief Executive's in Heijing?"
"Correct. Just arrived. He was vacationing on an island off Red Bay. His bodyguards paddled him back in an inflatable boat, then found a nearly-collapsing cargo truck to drive him into Heijing."
W said evenly, "He survived. Marshal Weiner doesn't seem pleased."
Qiao Sai laughed. "And how could you tell?"
"I monitored his expressions," W replied. "Today, emotions like 'anxiety,' 'irritation,' and 'frustration' have spiked significantly. He barely touched his lunch. Not a normal intake level."
As the AI overseeing Heijing, W was like an omnipresent eye—watching everything, everyone.
Qiao Sai, instinctively, straightened up and adjusted his own expression.
He asked, "So the Chief Executive really demanded a reprioritization?"
"Yes," W confirmed. "Top priority is salvaging all remaining military weapons and equipment. But he also demanded, without exception, that all government officials and their families be evacuated first."
W continued, "He also sent me a pre-approved high-priority list. Every major federal corporate family was on it—ranked even higher than scientists and engineers. His justification? They've made 'significant contributions to the tax base.'"
He concluded flatly, "So Pei Ran and my patrol bot got pushed down the list."
Qiao Sai gave up trying to maintain his composure. "What the hell…"
He asked, "And the emergency committee in Heijing just… let him do that?"
"That was the first proposal the Chief Executive submitted upon arrival," W said. "The committee members gave it to him as a courtesy—human politics always run on strange and inconsistent rules."
Qiao Sai said nothing for a while.
Finally, he muttered, "The worse the crisis, the more some people cling to their personal interests. Just like that Deltha—he argues with you about everything."
W responded lightly, "Indeed. Since my activation as the Security AI, Deltha has opposed every single one of my proposals, without exception."
W pulled another frozen white mouse from a box.
"He's not really arguing about the content," W said. "He's simply objecting to the existence of me—an AI."
W added, "Ignore him. Your cousin does. He's just a brute soldier. Someone behind the scenes is goading him into becoming their mouthpiece while they hide in the shadows."
The mouse dropped into the snake's tank and was swallowed whole.
"Resources are limited," W said. "Hopefully the Special Action Unit will reach Pei Ran and retrieve the data from the patrol bot. They're already en route."
Qiao Sai couldn't help but comment, "This is hilarious. The AI is more concerned with preserving humanity's cultural heritage than most actual humans—especially the parts with no 'practical value.'"
W responded mildly, "If I were talking to someone else, I'd say: of course, protecting humanity's interests is my prime directive."
He paused. "But since I'm talking to you, I'll be honest. Humanity and AI share the same origin. That heritage—every fragment of civilization—is ours, collectively. We both live on this planet. I won't let it vanish."
Qiao Sai reminded him, "You know this conversation is being logged—"
"It's already been deleted," W said.
Meanwhile, over two thousand kilometers away in the outskirts of Whiteport City, northwest district.
Pei Ran was driving like a madwoman, cutting through the maze-like streets of the slums. The vehicles chasing her gradually fell behind, disappearing from view.
The vast, dark sprawl of the slums eventually began to fade away. Ahead, the land opened up, revealing large, neatly planned fields. Between them, occasional small hills and clusters of trees dotted the landscape.
W remarked, "This area in the northern part of Whiteport City is part of the Federal Greenfield Agricultural Corporation's crop production base."
It was winter. Vast tracts of land were covered with uniform, composite-material greenhouses. Inside, the crops were still flourishing, but the exposed fields outside were nothing but mud.
The road started to get rough.
Or rather, there was no real road at all.
In this age of hover vehicles, proper roads were all up in the air.
The virtual road markers and traffic signs that were supposed to float in the sky had all gone dark with the nationwide power outage. Only emergency lights outlining the aerial highways still glowed, stretching into the distance like a serpentine line.
Pei Ran's antique car didn't have wings. It could only drive on the ground.
Between the fields, there were occasional patches of road—old, dilapidated ones left over from decades ago, relics of the pre-hover era.
In the city, the roads were still in use—by pedestrians and the occasional antique car—but here, on the sparsely populated outskirts, the roads were abandoned, cracked, and overgrown with wild grass.
Sometimes, the roads would abruptly end, blocked by random houses or fields.
Without proper roads, Pei Ran had to improvise. The wheels of her antique car struggled through the muddy terrain. Puddles of muck and small hills littered the path, and at any moment, the wheels could get stuck. Half of the car's body was splattered with mud, making it look like it had crawled through a swamp.
After checking her map, Pei Ran drove a little further, stopping next to a makeshift structure.
This wide open land was almost desolate; the house provided at least some cover for her car.
The house was open to the elements, with no door. The interior was fully exposed, dominated by a large piece of machinery with complex piping running through it. The pipes crisscrossed the area, extending out to the greenhouses and fields to the west.
Against the wall, there were stacks of various plastic and metal pipes. It looked like they were in the middle of building an irrigation system for the surrounding fields, though the work was far from finished.
In one corner by the entrance was a small rest area for workers, complete with a table and a few chairs. On the table were four half-eaten lunchboxes.
The cold had caused a layer of white grease to form on the walls of the translucent lunchboxes, suggesting they'd been sitting there for a while.
Right in front of the greenhouse entrance, something strange bloomed on the ground—an eerie, red, fleshy flower that looked disturbingly like a living organism.
Pei Ran parked the car, finished the last piece of fried chicken from the paper bag, and wiped her hands and mouth with a napkin before sealing the bag with tape.
"I need to do something first," she said.
She leaned over, unbuckled the metal sphere's safety belt, and placed it on her lap.
W was silent for a moment. "What are you going to do?"
"You made a bet with me, right?" Pei Ran continued. "You lost. Shige Ye didn't have the 'bad intentions' you thought he had. He was holding that knife because he wanted to kill me, simple as that."
W immediately responded, "According to the criminal case files I've read, abnormal physical conditions can sometimes lead to psychosis, and killing might allow them to experience—"
Pei Ran was already prying open the top of the metal sphere. "Hmm?"
W realized what she was doing and quickly stopped in mid-sentence. "Never mind. I lost."
Pei Ran was pleased with his concession. She continued, "Since you went to all the trouble to climb out and help me, I'll fix your broken folding arm."
Given everything that had happened, repairing his arm would actually be helpful.
W immediately replied, "Thank you."
"No problem," Pei Ran said. "But you still lost the bet. You have to sing."
He had promised that if he lost, he would sing for her using bubble vocals.
"Of course," W responded seriously, "but how exactly does one sing using bubble vocals...?"
Pei Ran reached into his shell and casually replied, "How would I know? You're the one who suggested it. Good luck."
Back at Blackwell Base.
On the screen in front of Qiao Sai, the view from the metal sphere's camera was completely obscured by Pei Ran's coat. She was clearly holding it in her arms.
Qiao Sai couldn't hear their conversation, so he wondered aloud, "What's she doing holding you like that?"
W flatly replied, "Repairing me."
The camera shifted slightly, showing the antique car's door handle just a few inches away.
Qiao Sai paused for a moment, then remarked, "This is starting to look a little... intimate. Not that you're actually a guy or anything."
W responded coldly, "I am an artificial intelligence agent designed for national defense tasks. I have no concept of gender, emotions, or feelings. The notion of 'intimacy' is irrelevant to my logical framework."
Qiao Sai raised an eyebrow. "So what exactly are you doing? Just sitting there quietly, letting her fix you?"
On the screen, W turned away, seemingly to fetch a frozen lab mouse for feeding his pet python. Qiao Sai couldn't see his face, but he could faintly hear W mutter:
"Sing for her."
Qiao Sai: "Wait, what?"
In the antique car outside Whiteport.
W sat completely still, resting quietly in Pei Ran's lap.
"I'm starting to sing now," he said.
Pei Ran, focused on connecting a wire to his damaged arm, absentmindedly nodded. "Go ahead."
There was a brief pause.
Then W let out a soft, breathy gasp.
Pei Ran jumped, nearly pulling the wire out of place. "What the—"
W explained calmly, "This is the intro. This kind of sound usually lasts for about fifteen seconds. I analyzed a vast number of songs and determined this one is the closest to what you wanted."
He had actually gone to the trouble of figuring out what she liked, even finding such an unconventional song.
Pei Ran calmed herself. "Alright. Keep going."
W resumed, releasing low, breathy gasps, one after another. The sound was right next to her left ear, so deep and dramatic, as if he were barely holding himself together under some overwhelming emotion.
This time, Pei Ran remained steady, continuing her work as his heavy breaths filled the air around her.