Surviving a catastrophe indeed requires a bit of alcohol.
John once talked to Oulos about Black Light, but back then, they had just begun to trust each other, each still holding back. Now they filled in every detail.
Oulos listened intently, eyes glowing, gaze fixed on his face.
"Where did you get the Black Light?"
"I don’t know."
John shook his head.
All the life experiences in his mind belonged to ’John Chavez.’
"It wasn’t until the transport accident at Tiebang Logistics that my consciousness was shoved into this body... What’s crazier is, it wasn’t until you laid the photos and evidence in front of that I realized I had a different face."
John frowned as he looked at his own hands.
His prosthetic arms were an ’Igdrasir’ and a ’Glider,’ with a silver-gray patch in his palm, a ballistic calibrator.
What he’s doing now completely diverges from the trajectory of the first half of his life stored in his mories.
His hands were already stained with blood.
"I woke up in the partner hospital of Tiebang Logistics; HR said I was laid off, my social security was frozen, I didn’t have enough balance to pay the remaining bills, so I was kicked out. I was seriously ill then, with abnormal fever, persistent weakness, mory and physical deterioration..."
John ended his recollection, looking up at her.
"Later, I realized it was a side effect of the Black Light."
"Relying on sothing like this for treatnt? It’s incomprehensible, it’s not a drug, it’s purely chanical material. Scans and CT both show you’re alive."
"That’s the truth."
John shrugged, pursing his lips slightly.
He had just used it once in front of her.
Oulos frowned, rolling a recently acquired, intact ’Special Inhibitor’ between her fingers.
She used the equipnt in the workspace to retrieve data, even daring to insert it into her own data slot.
Without drawing any conclusions.
It was just a chip stuffed with redundant data.
"Isn’t this psychological?"
"Heh, psychological, speaking of which..."
John hesitated for a mont, twirling an empty wine glass with his fingers, locking eyes with Oulos.
"I often see so special information that guides to do various dangerous things, and sotis it even predicts the future..."
John described the mission prompts to her in detail.
Oulos was focused.
Her cybernetic eye was very advanced, a custom model from the ssiah Laboratory, no one could lie in front of her.
"You’re crazy."
Oulos squinted and shook her head.
"These things... they’ve already surpassed the scope of technology, and the scarier part is you show no signs of lying, which ans you truly believe in what you’re saying. Damn, that’s where your cyberpsychosis data cos from."
"I know it’s incomprehensible, maybe it’s countless ’coincidences,’ but I’ve relied on these prompts to get to where I am today, step by step."
John was only responsible for being honest.
How to think about it is soone else’s business.
Oulos’s reaction was very peculiar at this mont.
Unlike Eden and Tinfoil, who were quick to deny, she seriously asked back.
"About , um... I an, our eting and cooperation, all the interactions before tonight, and that prompt, sorry, I’m not used to calling it that... the coincidences between us, did it tell you all of that?"
"I don’t know."
John showed a confused expression as if recalling.
He looked at the legendary middleman in front of him.
"Usually, things happen first before it gives a prompt. In so sense, you barged into my life, rember? In the shared apartnt on Dan Street."
John poured himself another drink.
"That’s all I have to say, your turn."
Oulos snapped out of her thoughts, glanced at him, then looked away, speaking after a brief silence.
"Do you rember the Armored Behemoth?"
"Hard to forget, right? That muscular guy worse off than , I hear he’s a living legend too?"
"Behemoth ans a lot to , I’ve tried a lot to save him... This ti coming to Eden City, I heard there might be a way to save him here. Ugh, I was too hasty, for a middleman to leave familiar territory ans starting over..."
Upon arriving, Oulos contacted old friends.
Including Kuang Xin from Tiebang Logistics and Blake from Gaia Cells. Lacking rcenaries and connections, she began sorting through materials on the street, eyeing tie clip resources, and happened to see John’s na.
"This feels like a coincidence."
John comnted.
Oulos shook her head.
"These kinds of coincidences seem to serve you."
The Alloy Skeleton on John’s body, Igdrasir, cost Oulos a significant amount of resources and ti.
It was initially intended for Armored Behemoth, planning to wait for his health to improve before using Igdrasir to replace the original, burdenso prosthetics.
"All its paraters were designed by the ssiah Laboratory for Behemoth’s condition, they updated it six tis, did you know..."
Oulos leaned back on the couch, half-closing her eyes.
"When you fell off the derailed train, your sternum and arms shattered to bits, it was perfectly suited for Igdrasir’s clinical trials. I was there during the surgery, it was like it was made just for you..."
These coincidences, upon reflection, are terrifying.
The apartnt didn’t have its ceiling light on.
The room’s light ca from the open workspace and the city’s night view outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
Oulos sat back on the couch with crossed legs.
Her cybernetic eye glimred.
The wine in the glass swirled slightly.
"John, do you know how many people in this world get cyberpsychosis from prosthetic modifications every day? Igdrasir is an unproducible experintal-grade prosthetic, yet in your body, not a single standard unit of anomaly has appeared."
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