Boundary Convention

On the way to the conference room, Ingleff lit a cigarette.

It was just a whim.

It wasn't a specific brand, just an ordinary low-quality cigarette. He couldn't tell what brand it was. There was a word of unknown meaning printed on the box, which might be derived from a dead language based on a certain Latin alphabet. But it doesn't matter to him, he just likes to light a cigarette in a non-smoking place, and he doesn't even have to smoke.

Violating the rules is firstly an affirmation of his ability, and secondly it is also a symbol of his status.

Before returning to New Milan, he thought he could get a triumph, but in the end he only got the leader's indictment. He brought a tenth of the Vikings (mostly killed by himself) close to New Milan. When it was off the coast of Milan, it was captured from the Directorate's radio, and it was eager to use an unencrypted channel. Thinking about it, the three big men above were already out of breath.

Although annoying the people above was considered one of his small hobbies, but this time, he really didn't know why the people above were so angry. Therefore, he accepted the accusation from the supervisory committee with great interest, and prepared to experience the scolding from the supervisory committee for the first time in his life. This is not an exaggeration. Before that, as long as the superior said something that didn't suit his mind, he would immediately cut off the call, then connect again, and then cut off again, until the person above him in name calmed down a little and was able to calm down. Talk to him carefully before you are willing to continue the conversation.

Of course, if he judges that the dialogue is meaningless, he will directly terminate the dialogue early. This is not only the privilege of the powerful, but also a reward for his 10-year undercover career.

He was raised by Mo Shixin, but he was never cooked.

The smoke rose from the man's slender and beautiful fingertips, and drifted slowly in the quiet and deserted corridor at night.

He felt a little bit of comfort, thinking of the fun he would have to lead the next time, he felt that he could live a fulfilling life again today.

At this moment, the spark standing in his hand was extinguished, and the other party pinched the cigarette butt with his fingers, as if he wanted to break the thin, inferior cigarette into crumbs before giving up.

"Smoking is not allowed in the corridors of the headquarters."

The smoke extinguisher said that his voice was very deep, but it was not the magnetic kind, and he just narrated the facts in an emotionless voice.

Ingolf is not the only powerful figure in GST.

There are people like Ingolf who do what they want, and there are naturally people who stick to the rules. For example, the young man standing in front of him now is one of them.

"Haven't I smoked yet?"

Ingleff maintained a frivolous and fake smile on his face.

"How would you justify your actions when you walked into the sanctuary with a gun in your hand?" the other party responded seriously. "And with smoke alarms and fire sprinklers installed here, do you know how many places people still don't have access to clean tap water?"

"330 million, 330 million people do not have access to clean tap water, Your Excellency Zwingli."

Zwenli is the new security captain of GST. Since the faction headed by Mo Shixin left the group, he succeeded Tang Ren and became the new security captain logically. It is also a kind of fate, his father, old Zwingli, was Tang Ren's previous security captain, that is, the man who took the blame for the Iceland tragedy.

When most of the world's land was submerged, many countries disappeared forever on the map, along with their languages ​​and cultures, and the Zwingli nation was the lucky one that survived. Because a large part of their motherland is a high-altitude mountain range. In ancient times, it was often considered a harsh environment, but unexpectedly it saved their lives at this time.

"Now that you know it, you'd better not repeat your mistakes over and over again."

Just like his ancestors, Zwingli is a somewhat rigid person.

At least in the eyes of the casual Ingolf, he is an interesting man, flexible enough to be interesting.

See, even today, Zwingli still wears that stupid police uniform-even when he goes shopping; It hasn't changed over the years, it's always been that cut with no bangs.

"I heard you caused big trouble this time?" Zwingli asked, "Even alarmed the Three Kings Council."

"It's just a small matter, there is no need to exaggerate."

"Small thing? Do you know what you did?"

"I don't know, maybe I did my job." Ingleff lowered his eyes, blue light flickered under his delicate eyelashes.

Zwingli looked at him seriously, and began to explain the other party's mistakes one by one: "You attacked the headquarters of the eternal undead without authorization, and you conquered this fortress with a serious shortage of troops..."

"Then shouldn't you praise me? With just a few of my men, the terrorists' base was taken down."

"It's impolite to interrupt someone. Please listen to me." Even when he was interrupted, Zwingli did not show any anger or annoyance. After pointing out the other party's inappropriate behavior, he continued, "Now Attacking the eternal undead is not in our plan, it may cause very big trouble, and the result of this operation is very strange, you must know that we have conducted many investigations and small-scale trials before, and nothing happened Effect."

"So you mean that the main force of the eternal undead is not in that mountain, or that they are ready to flee? Your Excellency Zwingli, do I think there are traitors in the supervisory committee?" He challenged He raised his eyebrows, showing a very deliberate surprise.

"Ingleff, I hope you can speak responsibly. This action was originally your own initiative without anyone's consent. Besides, you didn't catch anyone. You didn't deal with Mo You's problem at all."

"The little girl's words can be dealt with at any time. Are you afraid that Mr. Tang will betray you? He has already been infected with decomposing disease, and the time is running out. It is easy to solve." Ingleff replied calmly.

"It's not a question of whether it can be solved!" Zwingli raised his voice a little, "it's a question of your lack of permission at all!"

"Is there any problem with this? Since he accepted this task, he should be able to do it naturally. How wonderful it is to kill relatives righteously. Killing people can also get double fame and fortune. If it were me..."

"...if you continue to make statements like this, I might get pissed off, I'm not kidding."

"Didn't you say it's impolite to interrupt others when they're talking? Why are you interrupting me?"

"Because your words are too offensive!!"

Zwingli suddenly roared.

His face could be seen turning red visibly with the naked eye due to the surge of blood. Although Zwingli appeared to be indifferent on the surface, he was actually quite a simple person. As long as he found the right way, he could easily be angered. Of course, Zwingli is not stupid. Even if he is provoked, he can always react quickly, then calm down, and will not lose his composure easily. So after yelling, he quickly adjusted his breathing and threw away all the things in his mind that interfered with his thinking.

"Feel sorry."

"It's okay." Ingleff waved his hand.

"I hope you can reflect on it carefully, and you don't need to imply anything. The Iceland accident that year has been settled. Let the matter of the father's generation pass." Zwingli strode away.

What a pity, Ingleff thought.

He originally wanted to provoke Zwingli again, maybe he should have taken advantage of Zwingli's adjustment of mentality just now to pursue the victory. Zwingli is very sensitive to the term "killing relatives with righteousness". As long as he mentions what happened in Beihai back then, maybe he will do it. Anyway, there are surveillance cameras here, and if Zwingli strikes first, he can also stand on the high ground of the victim.

Ingleff watched Zwingli's back disappear into the corner of the corridor, and threw the stubbed cigarette butt into the trash can.

It was almost time to meet with his dear boss, thinking this way, he went in the opposite direction to Zwingli.

After walking a few steps, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something.

He forgot to ask Zwingli how the box of pickled lamb testicles that he had given him last time was like, an Icelandic specialty.

It seemed some time since Ingleff had last been in this room.

He still vaguely remembers that this room was designed by him. When Shixin's mother was still in GST, she gave them homework when they were still children, and the best design was his. It had been built as a bonus, and he'd only played in it once.

In order to increase people's mental stress to the greatest extent, he designed the entire room to be minimalist. The wall is pink. He has studied that pink will increase people's anxiety and manic-depressive tendencies, so that they can more easily attack their psychological defenses. In the past, some prisons used a lot of pink inside, and everything was pink, hoping to reduce the aggressiveness of prisoners, but the result was just the opposite.

There is no extra furniture in this room, only a stool and a long table. This long table is to keep the interrogator as far away as possible from the interrogator. In such an oppressive atmosphere, the sense of distance is reversed Can create more oppression. Although this design is often not used.

Because most of the time the interrogation in this room is done by a computer called 'Jacob' which spends most of the time running around the room with a camera on a robotic arm, what a waste The role of the table.

However, this time, it came in handy.

When Ingleff sat on the purposely designed uncomfortable bench, he noticed that it was not 'Jacob' who was interrogating him this time, but a human being.

Three people, sitting behind a piece of frosted glass that divides the room, can only see their shadows.

This piece of frosted glass was also designed by Ingolf, and its purpose was also to increase the sense of oppression by playing tricks. Because the interrogation is usually done by computer, this piece of glass is kept away most of the time. In conjunction with the frosted glass, there is a set of small lights on the floor, walls, and ceiling embedded behind the frosted glass. By manipulating these lights, the size of the shadow can be controlled. Subject suffers from a low-level hallucination.

"Ingolf."

Just as he was thinking, Ingolf's familiar voice came from behind the frosted glass.

Isn't that the leaders who give orders to him behind the communicator every day? It seemed that it was really those three mystifying guys who came to interrogate him in person.

"What did I do wrong?"

Not intending to be passive, so before they attack, he strikes first.

"You made an unauthorized attack on a confirmed settlement of the Eternal Dead."

A voice answered.

"And failed without authorization."

Another voice added.

"How can it be said that it failed? I did tear down their castle and shattered their organization. In at least five years, these terrorists will no longer be able to pose any threat to GST. You put Calling my efforts a failure, I am very disappointed in my devotion to my duty..."

As Ingleff said, he seemed to rub his hands in annoyance, showing a slightly disturbed expression.

"Ah, again, my behavior disrupted the internal political balance of the Supervisory Committee and caused any trouble to the current bureaucratic system? If this is the case, I should really apologize. I am still young and too shallow."

Just as he finished speaking, three sighs came from behind the frosted glass.

"You really know how to play tricks. You have indeed failed. For a terrorist organization like the Eternal Dead, if you don't completely wipe them out, you will only be born again."

"Also, considering the contagious nature of Catalytic Disease, it is not a good decision to break them up at all. If they mix into a densely populated place like New Milan and start to infect Catalytic Disease, it will bring great pressure to our administration. .”

"In order to completely eradicate the terrorists of the eternal undead, we have been planning for nearly five years, and our insiders have been providing us with information. Judging from his disappearance, he was probably killed by your people. .”

"Oh, this is an oolong."

Ingleff shrugged.

In fact, he knew that there was an insider, but he thought that there were no other friendly forces, so he directly set up an indiscriminate attack on the Vikings.

"Now, we have to rediscover the bases of these terrorists."

"It is also necessary to re-arrange insiders to provide intelligence."

"We're going to have to wait another five years, which is problematic for our grand scheme of things."

that's all? Just such a ridiculous reason?

No, it must not be like this, Ingleff's gut told him. This reason is far-fetched, and decomposition syndrome is not contagious. Although GST claims that decomposition syndrome is contagious, it is actually not. Basically everyone knows this.

There must be something deeper.

He intends to dig out the reason.

"However, in the past five years I know, you don't seem to have any tendency to attack the eternal undead? It seems that you don't intend to eradicate the eternal undead at all."

Ingolf asked tentatively.

"In the past five years, I have noticed that most of the efforts and time of the supervisory committee have been devoted to public security control and ideological propaganda...Obviously because of the achievements of GST, we are no longer so stretched for resources. Such a 16-hour work system for working overtime? Some industries, such as scientific research, even have no maximum working hours.”

Of course Ingleff knows why, it's a common feature of capitalism, isn't it? As long as there is surplus value, we must continue to squeeze. Claiming that resources are insufficient is just to make people willingly bear this high-pressure state.

But he wanted to see how the three of them would answer, and then use their attitudes to formulate their words.

These guys must know his nature, and they also know that his current attitude of being so righteous is just pretending. If they were telling the truth, he continued to play nice and accuse them. If they yelled at him, he would turn them down and force them to say what made them so sensitive about the raid with an invented excuse.

However, something doesn't seem right.

After listening to Ingolf's words, behind the frosted glass, he did not give a clear answer.

The three heads gathered together and whispered, as if they were discussing something with each other, and the voices became louder and even tended to get out of control. Even if they lowered their voices, Ingolf could still hear some broken words.

Just when their quarrel was getting louder.

"okay."

Something interrupted them.

The sound coming from the ceiling at that time, it was the sound from the microphone, without any emotion.

In an instant, the three people behind the frosted glass stopped moving.

Accompanied by the continuous mechanical sound, a head-like camera slowly fell from the open ceiling, supported by a mechanical arm.

"Next, let me talk to him."

The three figures were silent for a while, and finally left without saying a word.

The camera slowly turned to the brown-haired man in the room. The frivolity on his face had long since faded away, replaced by seriousness—not the false sincerity that was deliberately shown before, but a whole-hearted and serious attitude.

"Ingolf."

Hearing his name from the microphone, Ingolf lowered his head slightly, as if hoping to show due respect.

"It's true that you didn't do a good job."

Not doing it wrong, but not doing it well. Hearing Jacob's verdict, this haughty and elegant man actually showed a somewhat discouraged expression, like a child facing a teacher's accusation, if Mo Xiao saw him like this, he would definitely mock him.

"Feel sorry."

"There is still a chance, I believe you can do better next time." Accompanied by a slight mechanical voice, Jacob said in an emotionless voice. "Since it's over, there's no need to mention it again. It's been a long time since you and I have seen each other. Taking this opportunity, why not come and chat."

The calm, dry voice speaks to its identity as an artificial intelligence, but its content is not.

Ingleff didn't answer, and Jacob's red eyes—or rather the camera—rolled, and he said, "Have you been... homesick lately?"

The room fell into silence. After a long period of silence, the brown-haired man finally raised his head: "I almost forgot why you brought it up again. They sold me to the professor."

"You know, that's not true, they still love you..."

"But what's the use of that, they were all killed by Mo Shixin!" Ingleff's sapphire-like eyes showed a sadness that was rarely seen in normal times, "What can I do, I can only destroy her What I care about, let her feel my pain!"

Only the sound of the mechanical arm moving slowly remained in the room, which further highlighted the presence of the previous roar.

Ingleff gradually calmed down, and he said in a low voice: "...Sorry for interrupting your words."

Jacob sighed for a long time, and slowly came to Ingolf with the mechanical arm, his red eyes stared at the man, maybe he wanted to comfort him, or maybe he wanted to criticize him, but in the end there was nothing explain.

The calm and emotionless voice sounded again from the microphone: "Love can cross the boundary between life and death. Ingolf, when you are still a human being, you should not give up the love in your humanity."

After all, the long mechanical arm made another clicking sound, and Jacob returned to the ceiling again, as if he had never appeared in this room before.

The hair on the forehead fell down, covering Ingolf's charming eyes, making it difficult to see his emotions clearly.

The room fell into a long silence again.

The night wind in New Milan is not cold, but hot.

At night in New Milan, the furnaces of the factory burn as brightly as they do during the day. The wind passed over the furnace, and then became a smoked wind, tainted with the heat of industry. Zwingli drove his loyal mount, quietly feeling the hot wind blowing on his face, which even mixed with a little iron smell.

New Milan is a sophisticated city.

It is also the capital of GST, but it is indeed the most crowded place in the world. Here has the highest population density, the most complicated traffic, and the narrowest roads. Fortunately, Zwingli's mount is currently the most advanced light bike in the world. In a city like New Milan, public transport can barely function without the use of light-floating vehicles. Ordinary vehicles will definitely crash if they can't run two miles here.

However, the light pollution caused by this is also very serious. More than ten years ago, when optical floating vehicles were not popular, people could only see the stars with the naked eye, but now, even with optical telescopes, people can't see much of the starry sky.

People are giving up on the stars.

People are giving up their dreams of going to the stars in a way that can clearly feel the progress.

When Zwingli was a child, his father told a story about a fool who was chasing the sky. There was a fool who presumptuously climbed to the highest point of the palace in order to reach the sky and touch the stars, and fell to pieces. And because the people thought this fool was stupid, no one paid any attention to that fool... until that fool collapsed the roof of the palace and killed many innocent people.

In the 21st century, people always want to climb up, go higher and farther, and launch a large number of rockets and probes to go to the sun and Mars.

But now, it's as if an invisible hand has grabbed human beings, dragging them down on the earth, and pulling them deeper and deeper.

This new Milan is an example.

Walking on the heights of New Milan, you can see the big pit that was dug not far away, and the engineering lights are shining day and night.

Excavators dug up large amounts of soil, which was then transported to the seaside for reclamation. The large pit dug out will be used to build underground streets, and then covered with a reinforced cover, on which buildings with limited weight can be built.

People, it's going down now, down.

Perhaps it is because people already have so much light, so they no longer yearn for the light cast by the stars on the earth.

"Almost, the workers are about to turn over."

he thought.

From a distance, two waves of crowds could be seen in the factory in the distance. That's the flow of people going to work, and the flow of people going to get off work.

New Milan never rests. Here, all production is carried out with 24-hour overtime. It's all about continuation.

Zwingli was running on the street at this moment, not just because of the conversation with Ingolf just now, which made him feel depressed. He is also working. The townspeople do not rest, and neither will he. And he does not rest, which means crime will rest.

As a security officer of the Supervisory Committee, he patrolled New Milan non-stop, and was known for his extremely high efficiency and ruthless methods, and was respected and feared by the citizens.

He cracked down on criminals, arrested shift skippers, stormed marches and protests, and smashed contraband. I don't know when, people dubbed him the "Knight of the Gendarmerie".

He knows that this is not a good name, because what he protects is only the law, not the safety and property of the citizens.

The current laws of the supervisory committee are harsh in the eyes of a person like him who is strict with himself.

Extremely low living and entertainment, high-intensity work, rationing system, because it is too harsh, this law can only be implemented in New Milan and its surrounding areas, where the supervisory committee has the strongest control, and other cities are handed over to autonomous management.

But he doesn't think it's wrong.

Compared with the world at the beginning of the disaster, the resources in the hands of GST are indeed much more generous.

But not all places are the same as New Milan. In many places, such as Dyson Bay, people there are still dreaming and dreaming, relying on virtual reality and the Internet to paralyze themselves, and their production is maintained at a barely sufficient level.

If, if one day they encounter unforeseen disasters, only GST and New Milan can save them. Even if they are like this, they cannot give up on them.

Because they are also human beings, and for the continuation of human beings, everything is worth it.

He still remembers the last conversation he had with his father.

It was at home, in the spotless room my father cleaned up, and the father drew the curtains to make the room very dark. At noon, this man would be taken away by the police for trial.

Zwingli was standing outside the door talking to his father

"Unexpectedly, Lanna chose that girl in the end." Father said.

"What? Father, I don't understand what you said, but you are not a murderer." Zwingli said with tears.

"No, each of us is a murderer, only that girl is not."

"Father, I don't understand! Isn't it a matter of course for criminals to bear their own crimes?"

"The world needs her," said the father self-consciously. "She must live."

"Father!"

"I'm sorry, boy, maybe I'm being selfish. Now you go out, I made breakfast, go drink up your milk."

"Father... I can't forgive her, that person named Mo Shixin."

"Son, let me ask you, if you were me, what would you say in court?" Old Zwingli sighed, and suddenly asked a strange question.

"I, I, I will yell! I will call those people lackeys, traitors, and ungrateful villains. They forget that their father is good to them, and that their father is an excellent captain. Rudder, put the responsibility on the innocent father! I will curse them!" Little Zwingli said with red eyes.

"Well said! Son, well said!" Old Zwingli stood up suddenly, as if he had suddenly got the answer, which made the little Zwingli next to him a little puzzled.

"Kid, remember, you have to go back to GST in the future, come back here."

"I remember, father."

After finishing speaking, his father nodded, and then closed the door of the room, leaving little Zwingli in a daze.

That was the last time he spoke to his father. He still remembered that for breakfast that day, his father still made the smoked asparagus that he didn't like very much, and he put in more.

Once upon a time, he might have understood what his father was doing and respected him for it. But he could never forgive his father. God only knows, Zwingli understood the father, but the father did not understand the girl.

Therefore, he secretly vowed that he would try his best to stop those "guys who like to chase the sky", no matter what method they use.

Thinking of this, he slammed on the accelerator, and in the middle of the city, it was like a ray of light flying away.