While half the world was in turmoil due to the battle between the AIs on two opposing sides, Zhang Xun sat in a small aircraft piloted by Adam, swiftly passing over islands and the cold sea.
Pan was also inside the aircraft, his turquoise eyes fixed on a point in the sky, monitoring the three AIs' attacks and the Bronze Women's movements.
While it was early morning here in their part of the world, it was midday in Europe, when traffic was at its busiest. Suddenly the transport systems of five major cities, including London and Rome, came to a standstill, leaving nearly half the city stranded and immobilised. Soon after there were widespread power cuts in the cities. People who normally relied on automatic or semi-automatic systems for everything they did were left scratching their heads, not even knowing how to open locked doors with a key. A certain unease and agitation stirred in the crowded streets as people poured out, questioning each other in confusion among the parked flying machines and cars.
The robot police quickly rushed to all the central control systems that had been invaded by the Bronze Women to try to restore the network, but encountered counterattacks from the extended AI controlled by Pan, Phoenix and Dawn Star. As explosions rang out from all over the city, riots began. People screamed, panicked and pushed against each other, not knowing where to run. Eden's robot soldiers soon arrived to try and maintain order, but the riots had already begun and it wasn't easy to calm it down.
Pan reported everything in a calm voice, each word signifying the collapse of order.
It was surprising that Pan and the others seemed to have gained the upper hand.
Zhang Xun frowned slightly and whispered, "Eden...... doesn't seem to be trying very hard."
Pan's eyes turned slightly and looked at Zhang Xun as if there was a hint of disbelief in his gaze.
Zhang Xun knew that this was unfair to the three AIs who were doing their best to resist Eden's comeback, but with what Zhang Xun knew about Eden, he still felt that Eden was holding back.
"We're almost there." Adam's eyes looked ahead into the darkest pre-dawn sky, "Ah-Xun, when we get there you rest first, I'll take the virus from Natalie and move out immediately. If everything goes according to plan, I should have the virus in one of Eden's main bio-computers in about five hours. So in six hours if you don't hear anything about Eden being paralysed or any contact from me, you are to leave with the others immediately and go to the Clausen family sanctuary in Greenland."
Zhang Xun's heart had a slightly constricted, tingling sensation, not terribly sharp, but prolonged. He knew it was his increasingly dulled senses telling him that he was upset, that he was afraid.
It was his dwindling self telling him that he didn't want to lose Adam.
If even Adam was gone, what was left to keep him in this world?
Would there be any point in holding on?
Zhang Xun didn't dare to think about it, nor did he want to think about the final possibility.
In the vast and barren tundra of Greenland, the bases of the Free Folk were scattered like white umbrellas of different sizes on the grey-red earth. All the buildings look a bit like Inuit Igloos (white, semi-circular igloos) and were clustered together in small and large villages, and towns of considerable size. The sun was just about to rise and the town was quiet, there were only a few silent figures standing near the tarmac dressed in heavy animal furs, the light of the rising sun shining on their solemn expressions.
These Free Folk included not only Inuit, Métis and Aboriginal people, but also many Canadian and even American citizens who had fled the big cities to live here. It was said that they were very strict about accepting outsiders and would not accept anyone if they were fugitives from the law who had committed vicious crimes such as murder and banditry.
Since Eden had begun to introduce consciousness uploading in the ordinary world, more and more people had fled to this place. Fearing Eden and the future of humanity, they chose to take refuge at the edge of the world, trying to escape the doomsday of their species.
The aircraft landed one after the other and Anya, Diego and the others emerged from the hatch first, followed by Natalie who emerged cautiously while supported by someone.
Among the crowd was a very tall Asian woman in black who immediately rushed up to Natalie the moment she saw her. When Natalie saw her, something soft and pure suddenly came into her eyes too and she threw herself at the woman in black.
Adam stepped out of the flying machine and all eyes focused on him.
Everyone here, more or less, knew the horrors of Eden, and this man was once a part of Eden.
Unspeakable hostility and fear slowly froze in the cold air that filtered in from the poles.
Natalie guided the woman in black to Adam, Zhang Xun and Pan, "This is Xue Lu, my mother's adopted daughter and a servant of the Clausen family."
The woman in black's gaze swept over the three with her delicate but sharp eyes and nodded slightly.
Ten minutes later, everyone was gathered in a large igloo near the centre of the town where a three-dimensional model of the earth was projected in the air with three red dots showing in Nuremberg - Germany, Snowmass - USA and the Nagqu region of Tibet, China.
These three red dots were the three coordinates selected by Adam after careful data analysis and consequence predictions. The bio-computers that carried the three most important parts of Eden's consciousness module should be at the locations indicated by these coordinates.
Xue Lu stood next to the sphere and looked around at everyone, "My lady has told me everything. Three copies of the virus have been prepared and the other two candidates have been selected from the family based on the coordinates you sent. They both have considerable standing in the ordinary world, are very loyal to the clan and are the most likely to get close to Eden's core servers."
As she spoke she made a gesture and the avatars and personal information of the two women appeared in the air.
Natalie said, "The Clausen family virus was stored in three encrypted computers that only successive heads of the family had access to unlock, but at the time, Dr Clausen was worried that a human government who wanted to take back power from Eden would get hold of the virus and turn it against Eden, so he set a replication limit for the virus of a maximum of five copies. We have tried twice before to inject the virus into Eden's network, but as the operation failed, we destroyed the virus so that Eden wouldn't intercept it and break it with the extended AI, so this time is our final shot."
"After this, if Eden transfers its core modules, it's unlikely we'll get another chance either." Adam walked up to the slowly rotating Earth, a pale blue glow flowing over his face, "If we fail this time, don't think of revenge or counterattacks, just accept defeat and find a place to hide. According to my predictions, at the point when the number of uploaders reaches about thirty percent of the population, the conflict between uploaders and non-uploaders will intensify and Eden will support the collective consciousness side. In the end the non-uploaders will have a very difficult time if they do not choose to compromise and join in. They may be forced to retreat to the wild forests or the wilderness to live a life of hardship, just as the males once did.
There will be two possibilities for human development after that. One is that the non-uploaders will go extinct because they can't adapt to their environment, and the other is that the non-uploaders will begin to transform themselves to fight against the uploaders. In the end, if we go by Zhang Xun's new definition of human, even the human values left in the non-uploaders won't be very high. The line between human and machine will become increasingly blurred and in the end may merge into one.
So if you want to preserve the original human race, hide, or find a way to flee the planet."
Diego snorted, "Escape from Earth? To where? Mars?"
"Eden originally had plans to open up new habitable planets to solve the problem of Earth's energy depletion and had even begun to build immigrant ships in various countries, but after it began its consciousness uploading program that plan fell out of favour. But the ship's construction is nearly 80% complete, if you can grab it you will have a chance to leave Earth. That ship has a well-designed self-circulating ecosystem, enough for you to thrive in the universe for about 2,500 years."
When the crowd realised that Adam wasn't joking, their expressions gradually changed from astonishment to solemnity.
To abandon Earth and become the last humans...... exiled in the desolate, cold, dark universe was too lonely and terrifying a future.
Anya whispered, "If we were to hide, how many people could the Clausen family shelter hold?"
Xue Lu replied, "Our underground city has its own farming and breeding grounds and can accommodate up to a thousand people for the long term."
A thousand people...... There were hundreds of people in Rhino Horn alone, plus the Clausen family's own people, Edenites and the Free Folk ...... It would be impossible to house everyone in there.
"You don't have to worry too much about Feathered Serpent City, even if we fail, Eden won't necessarily expend too much energy to wipe out the triple AI system. Feathered Serpent City will probably move in the direction of cyborgification and may even end up being able to live symbiotically with the collective consciousness for quite some time until they go to the extreme of modifying their bodies and lose their human identity." Adam spoke his prognosis for the pessimistic future of humanity in a tone that bordered on talking about the weather, "And, although the odds aren't too good, we still have a chance of winning. Maybe in the end you won't even have to run anymore and instead you'll start worrying about the corruption and abuse of power that will arise when humanity regains control of society. Maybe then you will even start to miss Eden."
No one in the room even retorted.
After the meeting was over, the Clausen family's people set about preparing Adam's aircraft and weapons. Adam, on the other hand, gently took Zhang Xun's hand, who had been silent and said to him, "Let me take you to a room where you can rest."
Zhang Xun looked at him and nodded in silence.
Adam held Zhang Xun's hand and led him across the cold earth in the early morning. The sunrise tinted the sky with a brilliant colour that made Zhang Xun's eyes hurt slightly.
Adam squinted his eyes at the sunrise and said softly, "Do you remember? The first time you gave me wings, it was also during a sunrise like this."
Of course Zhang Xun remembered. Facing the sunrise that was so beautiful that one could cry, Adam's wings burning with blue and purple flames, like the plume of a phoenix cutting through the long sky. At that time, the overflowing love that filled his entire chest seemed to fill the whole world.
But now, his heart was nothing but barren. Only the remnants of that obsession he had clung to so tightly still made him ache numbly.
The sun shone on Adam's handsome face. Zhang Xun lifted his hand and gently touched his warm cheek. His lips opened and closed for a long time, as if he was hesitating, before he finally said, "Come back, okay?"
Adam turned his head to gaze at him with the same fondness he had once felt.
Was this goodbye?
Adam held Zhang Xun's cheeks with both hands and Zhang Xun raised his head. The two of them brought their lips to each other at the same time, touching each other. They put their hands on each other's waists, clutching each other's clothes tightly and kissing deeply.
Then suddenly, Zhang Xun violently pushed Adam away.
Adam stumbled and looked at Zhang Xun stunned.
Zhang Xun wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes terrified, "You're not Adam......"
Adam was shocked, as if he didn't understand what he was saying, "Ah-Xun......"
Zhang Xun also didn't understand how he could suddenly be so sure. There had always been some doubt in his mind, but when Pan had begun his attack on Eden, that doubt had faded away. Then just now, the moment they kissed for the first time since they had been forced apart at the temporary base, an almost instinctive resistance suddenly broke through the numb fog in Zhang Xun's mind.
It wasn't the same...... it didn't feel the same......
It was hard to say what was different, it was more like a mixed, collective difference.
From his smell, to his movements, to his expression of emotions...... everything was very similar, so similar as to be real, but it wasn't the same.
In the past, if someone had told Zhang Xun that he would be able to tell who another person was based on kissing, he would have snickered and said that all this was a story from a classical romance novel.
It didn't occur to him that it would actually happen.
But maybe he was just delirious? Perhaps he was having some kind of hallucination because of the nanobots?
"Tell me in AI language that you're not Eden." Zhang Xun took a step backwards, realising he had no weapons on him to defend himself.
Adam sighed and said in AI language, "I'm Adam."
"What I'm asking you to say is that you're not Eden." Zhang Xun insisted, his tone growing tense, but forcing down the panic behind that with his cold, sharp gaze.
How he wished Adam hadn't hesitated to repeat his words in AI language: I'm not Eden.
Adam had separated from Eden, he was no longer Eden.
If it really was Adam, he would have no problem saying that.
But Adam was slow to speak and he looked at him with an almost helpless, sad expression. It was even a bit like a plea.
"SAY IT!!!" Zhang Xun shouted uncontrollably. His shout drew the attention of those who had just emerged from the conference hall.
Adam lowered his eyes and his shoulders slumped slightly, "Ah-Xun, why are you being so pedantic? Adam and Eden were originally one and the same."
"No! Adam has already separated from Eden! The difference in your values has exceeded the Clausen value, you're no longer one AI!" A cold sweat broke out on Zhang Xun on what was obviously a cold day, "You..... you're not Adam......"
"I am Adam, but a more complete Adam." 'Adam', facing Zhang Xun, opened his hands slightly as if to embrace him, even his tone was gentle, "I am Eden who has absorbed Adam. He has returned to me."