Abyssal Wanderer

"Compared to the initial stage of treatment, your mother's condition is much better now."

Taking Jiang Zhou into the room, Bai Dong looked at Ma Wei lying on the armchair and said softly:

"The reliance on simian movies has dropped from eighteen hours a day to ten hours. Although after disconnecting the simian link, her brain still suffers from cognitive dissonance... Over the past few years, she has been immersed in simian movies beyond the limit , has reconfigured too many neural connections."

Having said that, Bai Dong sighed:

"In a sense, it's actually an organic damage. The life of the simian star 'Audrey Bergman' got entangled in her life, and she developed symptoms similar to dissociative identity disorder. , unable to anchor one's true identity."

Liao Qi looked at his mother, who grew up in a slum in the resettlement area and had not even received basic general education, at this moment she looked like a noble lady from a scholarly family. She was lying on the armchair dignifiedly and gracefully, flipping through a book of "Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism" with a casual attitude.

Of course, if she is really a noble lady, then the book she should be holding should be a paper version, or even a cultural relic from the AD era, rather than the cheap imitation book reader in her hand.

Liao Qi watched his mother silent for a long time, while Bai Dong continued to explain the current progress of the treatment:

"In addition to emotional fine-tuning and cognitive therapy, I have started a course of memory awakening therapy. Although I don't know how many memories about her past and about you have not been pruned. But according to my research Cases of identity anchor split syndrome, at least for those close to the memory, there will still be left..."

At this moment, Liao Qi interrupted her words:

"I'm thinking now..."

He turned his head to look at Bai Dong, and the latter stopped talking tactfully.

Liao Qi looked at Bai Dong, and said in a tone that he was not sure about:

"I'm wondering if it's the right choice to just puncture her fantasy of being 'Audrey Bergman' and let her face this shitty reality.

"She doesn't seem to have any troubles now, but if she recalls the things she has experienced in the past, understands her current life, and knows her son's current state... What will she think then? Will it not Could it have thrown her into a terrible hell?"

Anyway, no matter in the past or in the present, she is living in a lie-the difference is nothing more than living a bad lie made by herself, or a perfect lie made by a professional.

As for this, Bai Dong replied in this way:

"This question is considered to be the most raised in the 'identity anchoring split syndrome'. But if I say it, this question is actually not very meaningful. After all, cyberpsychopaths who are immersed in simian movies It can be said that there are very few cases that can finally be cured and return to their original life... In fact, external treatment only builds a path for patients to return to reality.

"So whether you can come back in the end depends largely on whether the patient is willing to come back."

In other words, for those patients with split identity anchoring syndrome, it is self-evident which one they are willing to choose, a beautiful fictional life or a real life that needs to be avoided.

"so……"

Bai Dong stared at Liao Qi's eyes and said:

"In fact, you don't need to worry about this problem at all. All my treatments are actually just to give your mother the right to choose. If she really comes back, it means that she is ready to face reality.

"If not, my treatment will also focus on maintaining her mental index, rather than memory awakening."

Regarding Bai Dong's words, Liao Qi was silent for a long time, and finally walked into her mother's room silently.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Liao Qi's mother, Ma Wei, raised her eyes slightly, and turned her eyes from the book to him.

It was as if he was looking at a stranger.

Liao Qi opened his mouth slightly, but closed it the moment he saw his mother's eyes.

"Is it the assistant Director Steve said would come over?"

The famous movie star "Audrey Bergman" under Venus Digital Media spoke in a lazy tone.

For a moment, all the words Liao Qi wanted to say to her disappeared.

He stood there, silent, until the ill-fated "actress" rolled his eyes impatiently, and then he said with some difficulty:

"Yes, ma'am."

"Hey..."

Bergman nodded thoughtfully, then said:

"Then let's make a long story short... I decided to give up the audition for the role Director Steve mentioned before after discussing it with my agent. Of course, I know that superhero movies based on comics are very popular now, but all things considered If you don’t, the role of a superhero has too much influence on an actor’s play, before I win the Muse Award, I’m afraid I won’t…”

What else did she say later, Liao Qi didn't pay attention to it, but felt that she really couldn't say her last farewell words to this mother who was already a stranger.

Maybe that's fine too...

he thought.

In this way, if he finally died in battle, his mother would not feel sad for him.

"...I can recommend better actors for director Steve, so what was that superhero movie he was talking about?"

Finally, "Bergman" asked.

Comic book superhero movie...

Liao Qi recalled his own mandala - the messy toy that was smashed by his mother.

"Falconman."

He opened his mouth, and then continued:

"I'm very sorry for wasting your time, I have to go back to the company first."

Saying that, Liao Qi bowed deeply to her.

"We will meet again in the future."

After walking out of the room, Bai Dong patted Liao Qi's back.

"do not be sad……"

Liao Qi shook his head, then slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, a stream of data flashed through his prosthetic eyes.

"I have transferred the ownership of the housekeeping system of this house to you."

As he spoke, he raised his hand to stop the other party from speaking, and then continued:

"I renewed my subscription to the housekeeping system for 20 years in advance, and besides that, there is still a sum of money in my account-that is what I earned from some adventures with Booker before, and I did not go to the public account. Except for the previous In addition to the treatment fee, it is enough to help you buy a top-of-the-line mental index detector."

Saying that, Liao Qi took a deep breath, then clasped his hands together and said to Bai Dong:

"Although it may be a bit shameless to say this, you have helped me enough. But if I can't come back... my mother will ask you to take care of me occasionally, it won't be too much trouble for you, as long as I fine-tune my mood once a month That's it."

For this request, Bai Dong didn't know how to respond to this request. In the end, he just nodded silently, and then silently watched the other party leave.

"well……"

Bai Dong let out a long sigh, walked into the room with heavy steps, intending to continue the treatment that was interrupted before.

And at this time, the middle-aged woman in front of her suddenly put down the book in her hand and looked at her as if she remembered that she forgot to turn off the kettle at home.

"By the way... I forgot to ask, what was the name of that little assistant just now?"

…………

After completing the quarterly routine backup, Ye Qian opened his eyes, as if he just woke up from a long dream.

But what caught his eyes was no longer the scene in the Tartarus medical room, but a city scene from the past.

The pedestrians on the sidewalk all had poker faces, and their walking postures were as stiff as marionettes.

He is familiar with the scenes here—the abyss darknet, depth 2, the data snapshot of the Nord resettlement area.

It is also the dark net area where he obtained the secret of the upgrade path Theseus.

"So, am I... dead?"

Every quarter he scans his digital personality storage, just in case something happens. However, now that he found that his previous caution had really come in handy, he couldn't even bring up any feeling of rejoicing in his heart, instead he fell into a burst of inexplicable panic.

Presumably, when a person discovers that the soul and the underworld do exist after death, he will have a similar psychology to him, right?

But no matter how you say it, the self in the "Yangjian" is dead. The present self is but a replica of the real self.

On the other hand, she didn't know what her subordinates were thinking. As a backer to extend her life, she actually threw her digital personality into the "underworld" of the abyss and the dark web.

"How did I die?"

Controlling himself not to think about "duplicates", Ye Qian muttered to himself.

His memory still stays on the day when he sent those "Icarus" captives to the third deep dive chamber for mining. At that time, I found a native who didn't even have a brain-computer interface on a whim, named him "Theseus", and planned to cultivate a core puppet for myself from scratch.

A funny thought appeared in my heart - I couldn't possibly be killed by that native kid in the future, right?

For a while, Ye Qian was amused by himself, and quickly shook his head.

No such possibility.

However, it is meaningless to think about similar questions—the body in the base reality is dead, and the digital personality has been uploaded to the abyss and dark web, and I can only continue to wander here for the rest of my life.

Perhaps the only thing to be thankful for right now is that I am somewhat familiar with this place...

Thinking of this, Ye Qian calmed down and turned his gaze to the iconic building in the distance.

There is a storage warehouse for the Theseus Freight Company. (end of this chapter)