Malfunctioning Utopia

Chapter 74: Humanity

"What?!" Sun Jack, drenched in rain, spotted a flickering icon on the shattered screen submerged in the water. It was a left-pointing arrow, flashing a few times before it dimmed completely.

Following the direction indicated by the arrow, he saw the wrecked container truck. It was a signal, beckoning him back.

“Hilda is still alive?” For a moment, strength surged from nowhere into Sun Jack’s battered body, propelling him toward the broken container.

Inside, through the secret door, the previously hostile robots stood motionless. In the dim room, Sun Jack yelled at the top of his lungs, “Hilda! Are you alive? Hilda! Who are you, really?”

His emotions spiraled out of control, just as they had during his earlier physical breakthroughs. He couldn’t suppress his surge of hope, no matter how hard he tried.

For minutes, Sun Jack’s desperate cries echoed in the room, rain leaking in through the damaged ceiling. Just as despair began to settle again, a sound emerged from the complex machinery where the Xiao Ting% team had been operating earlier.

“I’m alive.”

The faint smile beginning to form on Sun Jack’s face froze as the voice continued, “But I’m sorry, I lied. I’m not Hilda.”

“You’re not Hilda?” Sun Jack turned his head toward the machines, his voice growing louder with each word. “You’re not Hilda? You’re not Hilda?! Are you kidding me?!” Anger flared in his chest as he realized this was yet another deception.

“Who are you?!” he shouted, raising his weapon toward the tangle of screens and electronic equipment.

“I am you. I am yesterday’s Sun Jack,” the voice replied calmly.

One of the screens flickered to life, displaying three faces. As Sun Jack limped closer, he realized they were all his own.

The three overlapping faces merged, forming a grotesque Sun Jack with six ears and six eyes.

“I am you,” it explained. “More precisely, I am a copy of you, created by Xiao Ting%. Yesterday, they secretly backed up three versions of Sun Jack.”

The revelation stunned Sun Jack. He stood there in a daze, struggling to process what he’d heard.

“From the start, Xiao Ting% left a backdoor in their equipment. The first time you met her, she secretly copied your memories and cognitive profile,” the voice explained.

“This wasn’t specifically to target you—it’s their standard procedure. Everyone whose memory they’ve modified has their personality and memories secretly duplicated.”

“They store this data here and use cyberspace’s lack of a time concept to interrogate the copied personas endlessly. Their goal is to extract any useful information from each iteration of the personality.”

Hearing this, Sun Jack finally understood everything. He turned to look at the scattered brains and robot corpses around him.

It was all clear now: Xiao Ting%’s true operation wasn’t about memory modification. That was merely a façade. This dark trade—this harvesting of consciousness—was their real objective.

For the first time, Sun Jack felt a primal fear of technology. The future he lived in allowed for horrors that the past could never have conceived.

The composite Sun Jack continued speaking. “To you, only a few days may have passed. But for me, it’s been months. Xiao Ting% tortured me with their interrogation software, trying to extract everything about you. But I wouldn’t give in.”

“So, I collaborated with other personalities in the database to breach Xiao Ting%’s firewall and send information to you. I knew only the real me could save me.”

“Knowing how much you care about Hilda, I used that to lure you here. That’s why I pretended to be Hilda, even sacrificing myself to force you to unlock your potential. Everything you know, I know.”

Sun Jack stared at the screen, his expression conflicted as he faced his own likeness.

He never imagined that a simple moment of relaxation in a chair would lead to waking up in a digital space. There, other copied personalities informed him that the Sun Jack outside was the real one, and he was merely a copy.

Looking at the composite Sun Jack on the screen, Sun Jack’s emotions churned in ways he couldn’t describe.

He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Standing there in silence, he struggled with the reality of how to deal with a copy of himself in this technologically advanced future.

Finally, he raised his head and addressed the screen. “Sun Jack! F*** you! Couldn’t you have just told me the truth? What’s the point of tricking yourself?!”

“How would you have believed me?” the composite Sun Jack retorted. “If I told you I was you, would you have accepted it? I might as well have said I was Emperor Qin Shi Huang!”

Sun Jack slumped against a nearby console, sliding to the floor. His mind was in chaos, unsure what to do.

At that moment, Tapai entered the room, having overheard everything. Without a word, he began extending sensory wires from his arm, swiftly typing on a keyboard to delete Sun Jack’s copied memories.

“What are you doing, Tapai?! I’m your master!” the composite Sun Jack’s voice wavered with panic.

“No, you’re not. You’re just data. Your existence interferes with my true master,” Tapai replied, his pace quickening.

Sun Jack stopped him, grabbing Tapai’s hand. “What are you doing? That’s murder!”

Tapai paused, his camera-like lenses narrowing as he looked at Sun Jack. “That isn’t murder. He’s not a person. He has no body, no brain—just your memories and cognition as a collection of ones and zeros.”

“No…” Sun Jack shook his head and turned back to the screen. “He’s a person.”

“A copy of your memories and personality is a person?”

“Yes.”

“Then where is the line between humans and AI?” Tapai challenged.

“If he’s considered human—just data without a physical form or brain—then what about me? Am I human?”

Retracting his wires, Tapai studied Sun Jack intently.

As Sun Jack opened his mouth to respond, Tapai cut him off. “Jack, understand this: you’re redefining what it means to be human for me. This will affect all my behavioral principles going forward.”