At first, nobody cared about this disaster. Itâs just a few Dog Soldiers escaping; a shepherd dog having been lost; the crowd of sheep descending into chaos; a slave having been revealed to have been in cahoots with rebellious instigators; an Inner City aristocrat falling to temptation⊠until everyone in the City is entwined with this disaster. (Adapted from the opening of âThe Wandering Earthâ)
The military of Outer City is fighting the Dog Soldiers. That Inner City aristocrat whose body and mind had been stolen is personally seeing the slave off to his grave. The rioting mob have mostly been taken into custody, with only minor characters left at play. The minds of the Inner City residents have settled down. While they are staying behind in the meeting room to wait for the chaos to subside, the mood has taken a casual turn. Theyâre all discussing how they would relax after this, and what entertainment programme has churned out some fresh gimmick.
They do not notice at all, that the City is in the process of a radical change. It will topple all their common sense. Nothing that they have been used to will continue to exist.
The one that has triggered such radical change, is currently in discussion of an important topic with his lover inside a flying vehicle, doing so rationally and emotionally.
âNo. This is not the time. Weâre almost at Citadel, how many minutes do you think it takes before we can be done?â
âBut this might be the last chance to do it before we die.â Hopkin looks at him with reddened eyes.
Bright stands by his principles, âweâll do it Outside. Wait a bit, will you?â
He gives Hopkin a French kiss. Heâs so happy he can even meow, but then his image would probably shatter into pieces. He patiently convinces both Hopkin and himself, âI have made arrangements. We will both be fine, and be together after this happily ever after. Youâll be able to do it for as long as you want.â
Hopkin is worried that the both of them together wonât even make worthy opponents of the Citadel. As an Inner City resident, he understands the Citadel well. Just one aspect of it is enough to describe how terrifying Citadel is â for how long Inner City has been in existence, all technology that it uses to rule over Outer City has been provided by Citadel. This is only also just the tip of the iceberg of Citadel. Its actual power is immense.
âI want to go see Citadel.â
Bright is also really curious. What secrets does Citadel hold? Why is the City like this? How did the people of the City turn into beings you can hardly call humans after all?
While he had been curious, he didnât particularly have the drive to explore these questions. He is of the opinion that exploring these secrets is nowhere as important as escaping.
Brightâs strength gives him confidence and assurance. He was already strong, but psychologically he has never been able to do as he wanted when he is troubled by his fate of the human fleshlight. He had been hesitant before he has managed to secure Hopkinâs complete love, now the fog that clouded him has finally been dispersed, and he is no longer worried.
In Hopkinâs expression, he can see the affection and cherish he has for him that is unconcealed. He has descended from the top of the all-consuming food chain and put himself low on his position, to walk onwards towards the unknown future with him together.
His fate, his tragedy, theyâre all gone now. Bright can only see the words âBig Happy Ending.â
Since heâs in a good mood, having acquired love, and no longer feeling pressured, he now feels like exploring the secrets the City holds.
It can be taken to be his present for this City of Sins before his departure.
The Citadel is not a city in and of itself. It is only a group of buildings that are situated in the centre of the Inner City. It is by no means far from Inner City. It has the highest level of security clearance. Entry is granted only after layers upon layers of electronic security checks. If any issues arise then there will be a laser grid treatment for you, capable of slicing one into a thousand pieces, even scarier than drawing and quartering.
Citadel has never had much contact with the outside world, not a single piece of news coming out for hundreds of years. It can even be said their contact is cut off. Whether Inner City residents or Outer City citizens, nobody has walked out of Citadel alive. Since records began, it has always been somewhere people went in but never went back out. So, even Inner City aristocrats donât know much about Citadel either.
Bright walks along the corridor, heading inside with Hopkin. It is a twenty-odd metre long narrow pathway laid out with white bricks. The whiteness is a bit spooky, a bit like the part just before facing the last boss in a game or a movie.
The corridor is not one straight path to the end. There are many branches to the path. Bright can see the bricks sometimes emitting a green light at crossroads, forming a luminescent arrowhead on the ground, guiding the two along.
âWeâre in a maze,â Hopkin concludes.
âCan the walls be smashed?â Bright asks.
A countless number of âNOâs suddenly appear across the walls.
Bright tries to ignore the spookiness that is making his hair stand on end, âIâm kidding.â
The symbols on the walls immediate turn into smiley faces.
Bright feels he is being mocked.
After walking a while in the maze, they reach an empty hall in the end. The moment they enter, the corridor shuts off from them. Bright and Hopkin look each other in the eye as they put up a defensive stance. They both look at the environment around them. There are no furniture like seats or tables here; only several machinery and devices that appear futuristic are there.
âGreetings, Hopkin, Bright. Welcome to Citadel. I am the supercomputer you can refer to as the AI. My serial number is KL233 .â Accompanying the crisp and comforting voice is a little girl about 12 to 13 in appearance who is in a white flowery dress suddenly appearing in the middle of the hall, greeting the two of them, âthis is a projection of my humanoid form. I hope I do not cause any distress.â
Bright asks directly, âare you the only one here? Whereâs the one that summoned me?â
âNo other beings alive are present here besides you. It is I who have issued the command to send you into Citadel.â
Hopkin is shocked in his mind. He didnât expect for Detectiveâs previous suspicions to have been true. Everyone in Citadel is already dead, and it is only the AI making decisions. The AI has probably been programmed not to interfere in human affairs extensively. This explains why Citadel never establishes contact with the outside world for such long periods of time.
Bright asks, âyour goal?â
âYou are a threat to the safety of humanity, and I will have to eliminate you.â The AI is also direct, laying out Brightâs threat to the City bare, âall Internet activity in the City is under my surveillance. Your communication with other contestants of the show has been backed up here. After a thorough analysis I have listed you as a potential threat of the highest order. Before you have made any actual moves, I have only focused on observing you. After I have become aware of the werewolves attacking Outer City, I have concluded that you will threaten the entire human species. I then immediately issued orders to Statistician for your immediate arrest.â
The AI is in no hurry to eliminate Bright. It seems to be highly confident and patient, decreeing to the criminal sentenced to death his crimes, and the reasons for his capital punishment.
Bright, the death row inmate, asks with curiosity, âon what basis do you judge me as âa threat to the safety of humanityâ? Do the fact that Inner City residents attempted to kill me not count?â Nobody would be more in love of the human species, humanistic values and human civilisation here than me, alright?
The young girl nods, looking like a mature kid before proclaiming something earth-shattering, âwhile your origins have been untraceable, genetic analysis has indicated you to be human; however, rescuing you or overlooking your actions will be in contravention of Law Zero.â
Bright does not understand, and Hopkin explains, âitâs the four Laws of Robotics proposed by Asimov.â
Law Zero: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Law One: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm except where such orders would contradict Law Zero.
This has made something clear, but not completely. Bright is still confused, âso it is not because I am a threat to a certain being among humanity, but the whole of humanity? How would that be possible? I am only hostile to Inner City residents, not necessarily the whole City.â
Hopkinâs eyes flicker as he seems to have realised something. His expression turns serious.
The AI notices Hopkinâs expression, and smiles, âit seems Hopkin has realised already. The truth is as you imagined.â
âWhat?â Bright also gradually thinks it through, even if he is unwilling to believe the truth.â
âOnly Inner City residents are human in the whole City. Outer City citizens and Outsiders are all humanoid creatures whose genetic material is contaminated by the virus. They do not belong to the human species. My highest priority is in protecting humanity as a whole, and then to protect individuals among them, and after that is to help human society function.â
With this ridiculous truth laid bare, Bright again feels a bit surreal.
Yet a sense of understanding also overcomes him.
No wonder Inner City residents are always peculiarly unified as a group in external affairs, as if rather than predators, theyâre the prey that are facing predators, so they can only join forces and coordinate to act as one against outside threats. Their extreme cruelty and coldness that is realised as they become conditioned and their authoritative regime is all in emphasis of their position atop the food chain to mask their weakness inside.
Through the AIâs explanation, Brightâs questions are resolved one by one.
Going back through the history of Inner City, when the City was first established, as the checks are not adequate enough, a small amount of âContaminatedâ people were mixed inside. As the population reproduced over time, the genetic material of impure humans was spread far and wide. When this fact is revealed to the top brass of humanity, it was already too late. To protect the stability of human society as a whole, and protect as many humans as possible, the leader at the time strictly withheld the information. They gradually adjusted the percentage of humans in the upper echelons of society, kicking out all the Contaminated from the top. While the impure humans do not know the truth, they werenât going to stay quiet to injustice either, and started to act against them in secret. In this slow, twisted, bloody process, with the assistance of AI, humans have won, establishing Citadel and Inner City, offering protection to Inner City residents.
Genetic material that has been contaminated by the zombie virus is unstable, prone to mutations. It makes all the offsprings of these humanoid creatures evolve in polarising ways. Ones that bettered continued, and so did the ones that worsened. Some are dazzling in appearance like Beauty, some are intellectually brilliant like Ronald, some have birth defects like being retarded or disabled. One example is Harryâs biological younger brother Big Retard, whose intelligence is that of a human child at best.
Perhaps their cruelty is ingrained in themselves, humanoid creatures are more emotionally handicapped, more bloodthirsty, more warmongering than humans. They enjoy eating meat instinctually, especially meat of humans and their fellow species, which enabled products like âstarmeat,â becoming wildly popular since its introduction. Up to 250,000 kg of the stuff is consumed in the City every day. Besides the effect of the stars that propel its popularity, it is actually more to do with their instincts compelling them to commit cannibalism.
Bright is feeling an inversion like he has confused black and white, and right and wrong.
He has always been critical and disdainful of the barbarism of Inner City residents who do not possess what morals and values make humans human. And yet, it turns out they were actually the purest humans there are, ones that are left after the viral apocalypse and all the catastrophes that followed.
Theyâre his fellow men.
Authorâs notes: Iâve revealed all my settings haha~
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Credit to all the great works that inspired me here. I didnât list them because I was afraid of spoilers here, so now Iâm giving confessions en masse ,
1. Dog Soldiers â Netflixâs short animation series Love Death + Robots;
2. Outer City soldiersâ chips â Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 5;
3. Starmeat â A really, really old sci-fi horror movie Iâve only seen the teaser for, when a company would sell the virus, blood and flesh of idols when they get sick
4. Curly-haired Detective: Sherlock, my absolute number one favourite!