Traveler, High School Student, Homeless

"Give it to me—wait a minute!!!!!!"

Kamijou Touma stretched out his hand amidst the roar, as if trying to grab the twisted flesh and blood thing in the dark sky.

But in the next second, darkness engulfed everything.

The boy felt as if he was drowning, unable to breathe, and kept rolling in the darkness.Then, a gleam of light suddenly illuminated the closed eyes, and before the consciousness was completely awakened, a burst of pain suddenly hit the cheek.

Snapped!

Jiang Ming slapped Kamijou Touma on the face.

"Hey, are you awake?"

Covering his flushed cheeks, the boy opened his eyes at this moment.

There are many police cars and ambulances around.

Kamijou Touma, who sat up from the stretcher, looked at the Araragi Koryo who was lying on another stretcher not far away, who seemed to be in a coma, for a moment, then looked not far away. The apartment building he had just entered hours ago.

"You really have a talent for getting involved in trouble, Kamijou."

Jiang Ming's sigh sounded beside Kamijou Touma.

"Hey?"

There were also some teenagers who hadn't realized what was going on, subconsciously had a bad premonition at this moment, and raised their heads to look at Jiang Ming.

"In the entire apartment building, all 337 residents, including the security guard at the door, died. The method of death is unknown. All the flesh and blood disappeared, leaving only a layer of human skin that was carefully peeled off without any blood. Everyone is like this .”

"You, and this classmate, you are in this community, and you are the only two people who survived."

"This time, it seems to be true, it's a big deal."

Jiang Ming sighed deeply at this moment.

Chapter 150: Vicious Compound Meme - Concerto of Marginal People

"What is a meme? This is a concept that must be clarified before we start talking about today's things. If we don't explain this thing clearly, we will not be able to expand on many topics in detail. Therefore, I will come here as a It’s time to be the first enlightenment teacher.”

The time was the night after Kamijou Touma left the apartment building where no one survived, and it belonged to the second branch of Devil May Cry opened by Jiang Ming.

At this moment, in the lobby of the closed office, a man wearing a cap and carrying a shotgun, who looked rather cynical, sat on the sofa and spoke with a funny smile on his face.

"Memes, in the final analysis, are information and the process of transmitting information."

“If for example, there’s an apple on the table, I see it and think it’s an [apple], then that’s a meme, and I tell someone there’s an apple on the table, that’s what I get The meme of cognitive [Apple] was contagious to that person's cognition."

"This is memes, information, and the transmission of information. That is to say, every moment of our daily communication, we are transmitting memes, and there are countless memes that are contagious. This is an unavoidable civilization. , there is absolutely nothing that can be eliminated.”

As he said that, the man knocked on the table, as if the teacher was reminding the students who didn't listen.

"So what is memetic contamination? It's the message itself that is delivered, carrying harmful stuff."

"This harmfulness can be a straightforward threatening behavior. For example, if the meme of [using chopsticks] is combined with the meme of [smearing one's neck to commit suicide], then all the people in the world who use chopsticks will immediately wipe their necks and commit suicide without hesitation. Without an iota of hesitation, it's a straightforward hazard meme."

"However, the harmfulness of some memetic contamination is very complicated, very strange, and even difficult to judge. For example, we once accepted a dangerous site from a parallel universe with a large number of containment failures, and sent the members of the Foundation Rescued. There is an incomprehensible complex pollution meme in that site, I don’t know if it is caused by a series of containment failures. Our soldiers were walking, and suddenly hung upside down on the ceiling and were disembowelled. The strange thing is that the communication Here we can still talk to the dead guy, he hasn't noticed what happened yet."

The man sighed a little as he spoke.

"What do you mean by containment breach?"

Jiang Ming was a little curious.

"Mr. Jiang Ming, you should understand this, right? After all, you have been contained before. Some things are dangerous and uncontrollable. If you try to destroy them, it may cause more trouble. Therefore, for the sake of safety, after fully identifying Before its nature, the Control Containment Center will store it for protection. Of course, you can also think of it as detention, which almost means the same thing. What the Supreme King is enjoying now is Canceration-level collection, er, dangerous objects Treatment. Tsk tsk, I almost forgot that the classification has changed from containment difficulty to dangerous level."

The man sighed as if he was missing something.

"Although we have judged that this is meme pollution through analysis, the effect of the pollution is too complicated due to the excessive complexity of the pollution information, so we have no way to analyze the cause of such harm. Of course, although we can't find out the reason for this effect, But we were able to get to the source of the harm, which was the meme carrying the tainted message."

The man lay back on the sofa.

"What meme?"

This time it was Kamijou Touma who asked the question.

"It's that corridor, numbered C59-022. Anyone who clearly recognizes that they are walking in that corridor will become that ghost. Of course, don't worry now, this meme has been removed by us Nullified."

The man shook his head and said.

"In short, the direct harm caused by the meme itself is probably the same thing."

"However, the characteristics of memes are more than that. If it is only the information itself that has the nature of pollution, it is probably just that. But in general, memes, as information, are empty things without substance and quality, so it needs a carrier to exist. The Supreme Being of Earth Crisis 233 is a bunch of meme-contaminated entities. But this time, it’s okay, what we have to deal with is just a memetic object left by a dead superpower.”

"But as I said, memes have various characteristics, such as one of them: [antimeme]. If a normal meme is to make people 'aware of something', and then 'distort something' for it ', then the antimeme is to make you unable to recognize something, not to feel something. For example, if a bug has antimemetic properties, then no matter whether it lies on your face, gets into your mouth or Eat your head off and you won't even realize it's there, and neither will anyone else."

"There used to be a containment, which was a red knife, and the person holding the knife would intermittently kill other people and eat them. But because of the antimemetic nature, the killer is not aware of himself Even if the person's stomach is dissected, no one can see the remaining flesh and blood, even if the surveillance video is turned on, people can't see it The remains of corpses piled up in the camera. Those who died will even be completely erased from society because of the antimemetic nature, and all the things that record the information of those deceased people can only see a blank piece.”

"It's scary, right. There used to be a person who held this knife and killed all his family members, but he would not feel guilty, because after the death of his family members, he would only think that he has always been alone. It is taken for granted. The cops didn't do anything to him either, because the dead people 'don't exist' and no one knew they existed. But then the man with the knife committed suicide because he couldn't bear to be alone One guy is too empty in the house."

"And these are actually just some of the characteristics of memes."

"Okay, so much about popular science, can you understand a little bit, what is meme pollution?"

The man who had talked a lot picked up his water glass and took a sip.

To be honest, I still don't understand it, but this thing is terrible and disgusting, Jiang Ming can be sure.

Virgil on the side also didn't understand very well.However, after frowning and thinking for a while, Virgil equated this thing with the curse of the conjurer in hell, and barely understood it to a certain extent.

Xiao Wei was taking notes seriously. Although she didn't understand much, she wrote down all the main points, and she could understand them slowly later.

"So, what is the meme left by [Faceless]?"

Kamijou Touma rubbed his head, took a deep breath and asked.

The teenager's emotions were somewhat irrepressible.

He still remembered the old lady who was a little wary but kind enough to tell him many things when he went upstairs.

She obviously did nothing wrong, but when the police arrived, she had already turned into a half-skinned old lady on the first floor.Moreover, the person who became human skin with her also lived with her grandson who was under five years old.

The tragic cries of the children's parents who rushed back from other places made the boy unforgettable. Until now, Kamijou Touma's expression is quite ugly.Especially after knowing that this kind of thing is not accidental, but happens in many places.

For example, a private company in the urban area, that is, the company that fired Takeshi Yoshida because of poor performance, and the company that Jiang Ming had no time to investigate, has become an empty building this morning.From the board of directors of the company's bosses in a meeting, to ordinary staff, and even the little brother who came to the company to deliver food, all their limbs were cut off, pierced with iron hooks from the mouth to the lower body and hung on the roof of the building. It was a bloody field, and it took five or six hours for everyone to die. During the process, no one passing by noticed such a tragedy.

Such weird things are happening everywhere. For example, in one school, there appeared a group of bullying students and teachers who were messy. Something like a centipede.When rescuers tried to separate them, these people suddenly spontaneously ignited and burned for more than half an hour before stopping. During this period, all fire fighting measures were completely ineffective.

And according to the containment and control center, this kind of thing is now happening in the entire star field, which is beyond the scope of the G star field and is truly a terrifying disaster sweeping the whole world.Many powerful beings have already taken action to prevent these weird events from spreading.However, even with the efforts of many people, the source of the meme, that is, the initial carrier, has never been found, making this disaster impossible to truly end.

"This is what I want to say. The meme that caused this crisis, currently tentatively named [Concerto of Marginal People], has been confirmed as a vicious compound meme."

"Although the design and participation of this meme came from the Faceless, the one who created it and endowed it with power is likely to be the Supreme King himself, so the essence of its power is unique even among the first-tier powerhouses in the entire universe. Very powerful."

"First of all, [The Marginal Concerto] has obvious distinguishing features and antimemetic features. The external performance of this thing is a piece of music that sounds ethereal. Normal people don't care about it, because this thing will only pollute certain groups of people. , characterized as [ordinary human beings, marginalized classes, suffering great setbacks or trauma, falling into despair], people with this characteristic will become a new source of pollution after listening to music. And the thing that seems to be the hell is that as a new The source of pollution, the infected will not continue to spread the original meme, that is, the [Marginal Man Concerto] itself, but will produce a new meme pollution itself, and start a new round of transmission in a new way."

"Let's take that Ms. Lu Jia as an example. After she was infected by [Concerto for Marginal People], the information she carried changed, and finally pointed to the file that carried her indecent video when she was a child, causing all her indecent video files to be changed. became an extremely dangerous offensive meme that would quickly and brutally kill anyone viewing the video."

"Every person infected by [Concerto of Marginal People], the new meme pollution produced by themselves is completely different, and basically they are mainly destructive and murderous, usually in the beginning to retaliate against the people the infected person hates , and then there will inevitably be further distortions, and even heavy pollution of irregular killings. And just in Yunhai City, we have found more than [-] infected people of [Marginal Man Concerto]."

"That's why this thing is called compound meme pollution. It's not the meme pollution that directly causes damage, but the meme that breeds new pollution memes. By continuously infecting more people, creating More tainted memes of different nature, the hell will get more complex over time."

"And another headache of the ghost thing I mentioned before is the antimemetic nature. Yes, this thing does not exist for all people with extraordinary power."

"We managed to contact Dr. Manhattan. Although he has lost his original strength, he still possesses certain high-dimensional vision capabilities. However, even one of the most powerful members of the Alliance of Espers cannot find this thing. It It is completely invisible to all people who do not meet the pollution conditions, especially those with powerful supernatural powers, and it is a non-existent thing. The ghost knows how the Supreme King did it, but this thing is true."

"We also have doubts whether the body of this thing does not exist in the real dimension, but in a place similar to the spiritual world. However, things like the Mind Gem that can connect the life and thinking of the whole universe have disappeared with the fusion of the universe and become It is something that cannot be used, so it is also a return of nothing.”

"So now, that's how this damn thing behaves today."

"The main body is unknown, it is hidden from the extraordinary, and it cannot be detected. It will only look for specific groups to infect. The infected will produce a new meme pollution, causing more information concepts to become extremely dangerous things."

"Although the information hazard department can quickly neutralize the secondary hazard meme. However, it has been found that people who have fallen into despair because of the disaster caused by the spread of the meme pollution seem to gradually begin to choose this thing. The target, that is to say, the scope of transmission is expanding a little bit."

"We speculate that if this thing continues to develop, it will cause an XK-class end of the world, causing extremely terrible damage to the entire star field that is difficult to rebuild."

"And this is the status quo today, everyone."

Sighing softly, the signature smile on his face could no longer be maintained. At this moment, the man showed a slightly distressed expression.

Chapter 150 Two: The Gathering and Methods of the Teenagers

The originally peaceful Yunhai City seems to have fallen into a gloomy atmosphere.

After the XK-class doomsday crisis was confirmed, the Containment Control Center took over the political situation and implemented compulsory management.Schools are closed, most factories are also suspended, business activities are basically at a standstill, and even the Internet has been restricted and cannot be used, so as to deal with this meme crisis in an all-round way.

This phenomenon of martial law and blockade of the whole city is now being staged on various planets. In order to resist the meme pollution without any entity, we must do our best to control everyone's actions.Of course, this kind of coercive measure has met with a lot of and fierce opposition, some people even suggested that this is just a conspiracy to control the detention center to control the world, the so-called meme pollution does not exist at all, and encourage people around to resist martial law Measures, even in Yunhai City, such a situation has appeared.

Of course, then these people unfortunately ran into a meme contamination incident during the parade, and none of them survived.

"The only good news at the moment is that the main route of transmission of this meme contamination comes from electronic devices connected to the Internet."

The man scratched his head, then turned to look at Jiang Ming beside him.

After the evening meeting, Kamijou Touma returned home under the escort of the staff of the control and containment center, while Jiang Ming and Virgil remained in the office.In the current situation, even if it is to control the containment center, there is no way to find an immediate effect, so the three of them are useless and can only wait for the next development.

The manager of the containment and control center, who did not want to reveal his name, seemed to be afraid of Jiang Ming's strange man. He said carelessly that he wanted to live in. He found a vacant guest room on the third floor of the office and settled down. I don't know what the purpose is.As for now, Jiang Ming, who was going to sleep after washing up, saw this man standing by the window looking at something inexplicably in the corridor, and walked forward with some curiosity, but the man started talking on his own .

"The control and containment center has successfully located the location of the original meme file information on the Internet. However, this can only prevent the spread of [Marginal Man Concerto] itself to a certain extent, but it cannot change the new meme that has been bred by the infectious disease people."

"Now there are at least millions of meme pollution raging everywhere in the 26 divisions of the entire star field. We can only keep looking for gaps and leaks, and then fill them. During this process, there will be people constantly Die, someone twisted into an indescribable monster."

"A real super-catastrophe, and one that's so hard to stop, isn't it?"

The man smiled at this moment.

"If this is the case, there is absolutely no need for you to come to Yunhai City, right? People of your level should not be able to come to work in such a small place. You deliberately replaced O'Brien and came here in person. The reason is right?"

Jiang Ming looked at the other party very seriously and said.

This guy, there should be something hidden that he didn't say.

"Let me tell you, Jiang Ming, have you ever thought that the world we live in is not real. It is a movie, a series, or a novel, with protagonists and supporting roles. , is it a story of being destined to die?"

Then, the man suddenly started to riddle the man.

"I don't think so at all. If this is a story, it would be too bad."

Jiang Ming laughed.

Long Aotian is not like Long Aotian, the mainstream of abuse seems not to be completely the mainstream of abuse, nor is the romance novel, how can there be such a story.Anyway, from the perspective of Jiang Ming's own experience, he would never have such a strange idea that his world is a story.

"Well, this kind of thinking is also normal, but well, I chose this city to come to the city, naturally there is a reason."

With a slight smile, the man seemed unwilling to continue talking.