Chapter 490: The Underground City! Omnipresent Sophons! Unexpected Turns!
After completing the investigation procedure, Paul and the others left the police station and returned once more to the desolate streets. Agent K asked, "What should we do next?"
He glanced around. This place clearly held no value for gathering information—only hopeless addicts and the barely surviving hibernators lingered here.
"Let's check out the underground city first. After all, the vast majority of people live down there."
While they were talking, Paul seemed to sense again the sophons watching them. His brow furrowed, and his mood grew heavier.
Those ever-present eyes constantly monitored their every move. Whatever they said or did could not escape the sophons' notice. Although Paul had not revealed anything about the Universal Megacorp, he knew this secret would, sooner or later, be pieced together from scraps of clues.
For now, they still had to continue their mission—though who knew what measures the sophons would take against them next?
"We need to pick up the pace."
Soon, Paul and his team drove to the entrance of the underground city. Entry was via a long elevator that descended a full kilometer into the depths.
Only after a long while did they see the appearance of this era's city.
Contrary to the expected cramped and stifling layout, humanity's underground city in the Three-Body universe offered astonishingly vast space. One's gaze could not reach the end—it hardly seemed like scenery that should exist underground at all.
Paul made a point of noting the name of their current location: New Life Fifth Village. Yet unlike any traditional village, its urban facilities were complete in every way, deserving to be called a new international metropolis.
Fresh air swept over them, a pure blue sky with drifting white clouds, the sun slowly rising in the east. Everything here clashed completely with the apocalyptic wasteland outside.
Compared to the desertified surface, this place was a paradise.
Seeing it, Agent Leon couldn't help but exclaim, "This environment almost rivals Reach. I really can't understand why those hibernators up top don't come down here and live a good life. What's the point of staying up there?"
Agent K used the instruments on him to carefully examine the so-called blue sky and clouds. He discovered it was all merely a vast projection screen. Even the air was filtered layer upon layer before being delivered here.
This was nothing more than a grand illusion of a metropolis, not Earth's true natural environment.
"Some immerse themselves in false prosperity. Others face bleak reality head-on. Everyone makes their own choice." K spoke with a thoughtful tone.
After all, Agent K himself had once had an AI girlfriend—Joi. He had truly felt emotions for that virtual collection of data.
But whether that emotion rested only on behavioral patterns fed by big data, or if it was real soul-to-soul connection, he could not tell. Many times, he preferred not to.
Paul, expressionless, continued observing the city's layout. This underground city resembled a vast giant forest, with numerous massive branches reaching up toward the artificial heavens.
Each branch extended laterally into dense, orderly offshoots that interlinked into a sprawling web of roads and transit lines. At first glance, the distribution of buildings seemed random, but careful observation revealed everything was meticulously designed.
The overlapping layers of space inevitably evoked Chongqing's mountain city. Moreover, the vehicles here were all anti-gravity craft, moving in orderly streams along the designated traffic networks.
They looked like shoals of fish weaving through coral, ceaselessly flowing through every corner of the city.
This was humanity's present world—both prosperous and desolate, whole yet fractured. Who could have imagined that the seemingly happy people here would soon face annihilation by the Three-Body civilization?
At this moment, Paul, Agent K, and the others stood upon one of the city's branchways. The elevator they had taken earlier was itself a main trunk, one of the underground city's primary conduits.
Arriving at street level, they took particular note of the passersby. Unlike the hopeless, bewildered hibernators above, these people's faces brimmed with confidence and joy.
Their stylish, fashionable attire evoked memories of humanity's most prosperous and peaceful eras.
Robotics also seemed to have advanced greatly here. Robots could be seen everywhere, handling the most basic physical labor in place of humans.
Cleaners, waiters, customer service—everything was covered.
At first glance, one might think humanity in the Three-Body universe had encountered no apocalyptic crisis at all. This was a brand-new, radiant world.
"These people are even more optimistic than I expected—almost excessively so."
Agent Leon couldn't help but sigh.
Outside, people were so pessimistic they committed suicide. Down here, people were so optimistic they drowned in pleasure, utterly indifferent to the Three-Body fleet approaching the Solar System, as if entrusting everything to Fleet International would somehow solve it all.
Paul still remained silent, calmly parking their vehicle. Then, together with his team, he walked into this forest of steel.
The spatial and transit systems of this city already resembled those of an ideal city. Unfortunately, limited by the stagnation of basic physical technology, they had not yet achieved the ultimate in spatial utilization.
Even so, the city's planning was impressive. Despite the high population density, traffic jams simply did not occur.
Pedestrians walked, vehicles hovered—each in their own lane. As a result, only a handful of traffic accidents occurred throughout an entire year.
"Seems I'll have to change my view of humanity here. At least their urban construction is commendable. It's not far off from Reach."
Agent Leon smiled faintly as he spoke.
In the Halo universe, Reach was one of the Universal Megacorp's most prosperous urban planets. For a city here to reach a scale comparable to Megacorp territory was in itself something of a miracle.
"Not bad, though it's still just a city built underground."
Paul looked at the construction sites in the abyss below. Crews were still expanding the city downward, Infinityly carving out more space. Humanity could only dig deeper.
With the Three-Body civilization looming overhead, they had gradually become moles dwelling in burrows.
Not far away, a colossal holographic screen in the main square broadcast news about Fleet International reorganizing its warships and heading toward the edge of the Solar System.
The crowd erupted in frenzied cheers, some voices even mocking the Three-Body civilization.
"What? The Trisolarans only sent a tiny probe, yet we deployed over two thousand warships? Hmph, talk about using a sledgehammer to kill a chicken!"
"Exactly! Two thousand cannons just to swat a mosquito? What kind of joke is that?"
"Come on, you should understand Fleet International. This is their only chance to actually fight the Trisolarans. From now on, the Trisolarans will have no choice but to follow our orders."
"Hahaha, well, that's fine. Call it humanity's show of strength—a parade for the Trisolarans. If two thousand warships don't scare them into soiling themselves, I'd be surprised."
"…"
Hearing the crowd's unrestrained mockery and chatter, Paul honestly didn't know what he should say. Should he laugh at these arrogant people, knowing they'd soon be slapped in the face by the Trisolarans' droplet, or should he nod along with them?
The arrival of the Universal Megacorp would certainly rewrite the war, but at the same time, it would no doubt fuel humanity's blind confidence.
Paul lowered his head and hurried away, but in the next second he was yanked back sharply by Agent K.
A speeding airship swept past them, crashing violently into a building at the side. Shards of metal burst out, spraying across their vision.
The neon billboard by the roadside was riddled like a sieve by the fragments. If it had been a human body instead, there'd be little chance of survival.
Luke's reflexes were quick. He immediately rushed over to the crashed airship, intent on dragging out the culprit behind the wreck, but the completely twisted wreckage was empty.
Only crackling sparks and tangled wires filled the interior. On the driver's seat—there wasn't even a steering wheel left, let alone a person.
"There's no one in the vehicle…!"
Luke Skywalker was dumbfounded.
With Agent K and Leon's support, Paul steadied himself. He patted the dust off, checking his body. Luckily, he hadn't been hurt.
After running into one bizarre incident after another, Paul was now certain: sophons were watching them, and the assassination attempts were only growing more intense.
"I'm afraid the intelligence-gathering mission is only going to get harder from here. The sophons won't let us go."
Paul's voice was heavy.
In the Three-Body universe, he had no Force to rely on—just decent physical strength and combat skills. But no matter how strong, he wasn't made of steel.
If Agent K hadn't pulled him back in time just now, he would most likely already be crippled or dead.
"Should we pull out?" Agent Leon asked nervously.
Even though the near-victim hadn't been him, he had witnessed the whole scene—their captain, Paul, had been just a hair's breadth from death.
This mission was terrifying. An unseen enemy lurked everywhere, striking without warning, and their survival depended entirely on whether they reacted quickly enough.
"The sophons don't yet dare target us too openly. We still have a little time to finish the mission. Move as fast as possible—deploy the AI Red Queen to harvest network intelligence."
Paul gave the order.
The AI Red Queen had once been integrated with The Megacorp's Matrix. Unless the sophons directly sabotaged the city's network infrastructure, nothing could stop her from gathering data.
But Red Queen needed time to collect it. Their job now was simply to survive—to hold on until she was done, then withdraw intact.
"Yes."
Agent Leon nodded, quickly locating a network access point along the street to implant Red Queen.
In this city, network ports were everywhere—pry open a railing and you could find dense bundles of cables inside.
By now, the commotion from the crash had drawn more and more bystanders. They stared at the wreckage with astonishment.
After all, accidents this severe happened fewer than ten times a year—rarer even than plane crashes in the past—so naturally the crowd buzzed with speculation.
Five minutes later, two floating police cars descended with sirens blaring. Heavily armed officers disembarked, stringing up a cordon around the site.
Their gear and uniforms were clearly far superior to ordinary street police—at first glance they looked more like special forces soldiers.
Yet when they went to ask if there were any victims, they found nothing but a crowd of gawkers. Paul and his team were already gone.
Once they were clear of the scene, Paul immediately contacted the other investigative teams across the district, wanting to know their status.
The answers were all more or less the same—they too had run into strange assaults, every one of them disguised as accidents.
Even when police arrived, all they could do was file them as mishaps. Aside from notifying the insurance companies, no investigation would be opened.
"Damn it, these sophons are downright sinister. If direct attacks don't work, they switch to shadows. We've still got hours before Red Queen finishes—things are only going to get worse."
Agent Leon cursed under his breath.
Now every Megacorp operative on Earth could be sure of one thing: their every move was under sophon surveillance, and more "accidents" were waiting in ambush.
Though they were all battle-hardened advance operatives—not easy to kill—this would still heavily interfere with their investigation.
Aside from unleashing Red Queen to dig up intel, they had no other options.
"In just the past hour, our people have been hit with falling billboards, snapped high-voltage wires, gates slamming shut and trapping them, even manhole covers suddenly popping open."
As Paul recounted the others' encounters, everyone's brows furrowed deeper. Clearly, the "accidents" were escalating.
This underground city was full of potential hazards waiting to be exploited. How much longer could they hold out?
"The sophons seem able to manipulate electronic devices—destroying, altering them—to launch completely unpredictable attacks against us."
Luke reported what he had seen himself: a driverless floating AI car. In this era, such vehicles were commonplace.
Even if today's crash had killed someone, it would just be settled between insurance companies and the manufacturer.
"We should keep away from electronics as much as possible. Who knows what filth they'll throw at us next." Luke's eyes swept the surroundings warily.
After what they'd been through, they were more than a little jumpy.
Paul shook his head, his expression grim. "Unless we get outside, there's no avoiding it. As long as we stay here, this kind of trouble won't stop. All we can do is stay sharper."
As he reminded the team to keep alert, Paul silently reproached himself. He had nearly failed to react in time just now.
If it had been before, he would have anticipated the danger in advance, his foresight alerting him long before it struck.
But now, his prized precognition was temporarily blocked. Relying only on his physical instincts, he was no match for Agent K's replicant reflexes.
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