Copyright 2025 Old King All rights reserved

  It was past midnight when Ruoxi reached Circuit North, the South Sea breeze cutting through the muggy dark. From Tanglang Hills, she’d glimpsed the neon halo piercing the night, bleeding down high-rises—an urban beast panting with desire. Circuit North’s main drag, patched up hastily post-war, shimmered under the glow, reclaiming its old glory. The SEG Plaza towered, a sanctioned StarLink hub beaming digital salvation to all corners. Police cruisers flashed blue, silently sweeping the streets, their presence propping up a fragile order. The Women’s World Mall had morphed into a garish sprawl of nightclubs and bars, Chicago Club’s entrance flanked by a dozen Abai hostess bots, indistinguishable from humans, swaying to electronic beats in a mute seduction. Human hookers staked out their turf, exhaustion be damned, cooing “Handsome, wanna play?”—their calls drowned in the din. This was a city that never slept, drunk on excess, despair simmering beneath.

  Behind Circuit North Road, the decayed industrial zone bared its rot. Zhenhua Road’s back alleys were a free-trade haven, LED-lit ghost markets hawking fake Rolexes, luxury bags, jade, and artifacts from the first Dynasty to the People’s Republic, all convincing as the real deal. Ruoxi, disguised as a food delivery rider with a helmet and AR glasses masking her face, slunk through the ghost market. Survival instinct burned in her gut—she’d fled HuaCent, then Bastion, now she’d reached Circuit North, dodging drones in the outer zones and tougher patrols within. She had to find Avei, whether in AbyssNet’s depths or the Soul Ore tide.

  Her clothes were soaked with sweat. Ruoxi rode on, with her drone jammer at 60% battery. Her AR glasses tapped the dark web—hackers’ forums were ablaze: “Big scoop! Ghost hacker! Secret of Bastion Soul Ore! HuaCent’s $100K bounty!” HuaCent InfoSec’s relentless terror shadowed her, and Slade stayed online to guide her through these mazes. His steady voice was her only comfort. Avei’s grin flashed in her mind—virtual flower fields, him pointing at nebulae: “Sis, this beats Punyaksetra CBD’s skyline!” Her chest ached, teeth clenched.

  SEG Industrial Park sprawled like a cybernetic graveyard, its four multi-story buildings forming a hollow square around a chaotic cargo yard, where cracked asphalt drowned in oil-slicked puddles and splintered crates. The factory lofts were covered with faded paint flaking under black rainwater grime. Open-air corridors sagged under flickering LED signs—phone shops, gadget stalls, software dens, robot workshops, cyberlimb clinics, cut-rate dentists, greasy canteens, and cramped apartments—emitting a shrill neon hum. Trash mounds festered with circuit scraps and rotting food, feral cats and rats darting through shadows.

  Ruoxi pushed her e-bike through the yard, dodging a modder’s guttural Cantonese curses as he bartered scavenged Soul Ore drives, his voice clashing with a glitching bot’s Mandarin wails. A dive bar, “Amazon Fang,” flickered with pink holographic signs, spilling drunken laughs and clinking bottles. The air was thick with burnt bioplastic and vomit. Ruoxi shoved her bike into a dent-scarred freight elevator, its creaking cables and grinding gears muffling a distant brawl over fake chips.

  The stale reek of sweat and unwashed feet choked her, grating her nerves—she was used to this chaos but loathed its suffocating rot. In a corridor doorway, a holographic escort danced, purring, “Handsome, full service?” through a voice modulator, the “BUSY” sign glowing red, anime decals plastered beside a no-camera warning. The LED sign on the door flashed rates—$80 hourly. The woman’s isolated hustle for survival twisted Ruoxi’s gut with bitter recognition.

  On the third floor, a bleary-eyed tech stumbled out of a sweatshop. Ruoxi sidestepped, helmet hiding her scowl, the heavy cigarette scent stinging her nose. She navigated past discarded cartons and a spilled lunch box, a wrench’s clatter echoing from a robot studio. The pulsing bassline of a nearby loft bled through cracked walls, amplifying her disgust at the familiar sleaze. She propped her bike against Sima’s door, its LED sign warm and silent.

  Sima, face hidden by a holographic mask, waved her in. His studio-apartment was tidy—no surprise for an ex-HuaCent data guru now living off black-market data trades, seldom handling hardware. He glanced at the door, voice low: “Slade spilled everything. Get in!”

  Ruoxi took off her helmet and AR glasses, short hair matted with sweat. She unclipped her USB drive, voice hushed: “Sima, check this—my brother’s memory fragments. Can you analyze the log? How much?”

  Collapsing onto a chair, limbs heavy, she snatched a half-empty water bottle from the desk, gulping it down, fingers brushing the USB—Avei’s laugh under neon nebulae flickering in her mind. Sima’s holographic mask glinted as he muttered, “Hold on, sis,” sliding a fresh water bottle across the desk. He stepped into a cramped kitchen, the clatter of dishes mingling with a whirring microwave’s low hum.

  Sima returned from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag, his eyes catching Ruoxi’s weary frame. “Wait a sec,” he said gruffly, voice tinged with concern, as he took the metal-shelled USB drive. Chuckling darkly, he added: “Real talk, how’re you so careless, cracking a file and letting HuaCent ping you? Believe me, this is hot as hell! You’re green—cracking HuaCent’s encrypted data needs Faraday, local AI, and spectrum analysis, triple-layered protection. HuaCent can literally control all smart devices, everything made locally is based on HuaCent solutions, except Apple. Slade’s shop’s fine for street bot repairs, but this? Laughable.” He eyed Ruoxi, probing: “Real talk, I’ll do it at cost—5,000 ChainCoins. Worth it?”

  Ruoxi’s throat tightened. She pulled out her iPhone XX, opened her dark web wallet, fingers trembling. The ChainCoin icon glowed, balance barely over 5,000, each coin worth a dollar. She gritted her teeth, tapped 5,000, and the transfer chimed, zeroing her account. Looking up, she said, “I finally found Avei. Do it. HuaCent or a fire pit, I’m jumping in.”

  Sima emerged from the kitchen again, balancing a steaming plate of char siu rice and a bowl of winter melon pork rib soup, its earthy aroma cutting the studio’s flickering screen glow. “Eat,” he said softly, “You’re running on fumes, sis.” He set the food before her.

  As Ruoxi wolfed down, Sima started flicking switches. The studio’s lights dimmed to a crimson glow. He crossed himself, plugged the USB into his rig, and data began to load. Muttering, “Believe me, Bastion’s experiments… Soul Ore’s a rotten mess. HuaCent’s consciousness refining is a total shitshow.” Ruoxi swallowed a mouthful of rice: “Refining? What’s that mean?”

  Sima lifted his mask slightly, revealing a burn-scarred half-face, eyes heavy: “Real talk, consciousness digitization kicked off with brain-computer interfaces, like that chip you got wired in. They tried scannin’ brain signals, turnin’ ‘em into code, but it was a damn mess—total bust. Consciousness is like AI, man. You can’t tell how it knows this and that; it's too wild to crack. Then they hooked up some AI, and bam, it worked. Trained AI figures out what your brain’s tryin’ to do, and feeds sights, sounds, feels back to the brain—started with remote ops—controllin’ bots for bomb squads, deep-sea gigs, or just joyrides like virtual hikes or fake-ass tourism. You unplug, bot shuts down, no backups kept. That’s the law, even here in Shenzhen.”

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  Ruoxi hurriedly finished the food and washed it down with the rest of the soup. She wiped her lips with a tissue. “I have heard of it. It's kind of 101 on cybernetics. What about refining?”

  Sima chuckled, “Our ol’ friend HuaCent got greedy, fucked it up. They decided to copy consciousness, refined it into installation packages, and flashed it into robot cores to fake AI—a shortcut to tech supremacy. Calling it ‘Soul Ore’ is too kind; it’s Human Ore AI.”

  He gestured, and a wall screen flared: a lab, a neural extraction pod like a metal coffin, blue lights pulsing. A body twitched inside, dozens of data needles piercing the skull, wired to a quantum parser. Machines hummed, coolant gurgled, consciousness data cascaded like a waterfall, progress at 89%.

  Sima sneered: “Westerners need surgical implants for the interface—too pricey. At HuaCent, they slapped on electrode patches, scraped data off scalps, and boosted the operating voltage, first Win. Signal was shaky, efficiency sucked—one hour per consciousness copy. Subjects griped, low compliance. So they developed new tech: ten minutes flat. How? Steel needles straight into the scalp, signal-to-noise ratio up six decibels, plus active electrical stimulation, voltage as high as possible—speed and efficiency soared. Second Win! It’s a Chinese Win-Win situation, they said, China won twice! Real talk, those paid Human Ores, even with electro-anesthesia, were still in agony. Suechin Liang, the project’s chef—you know her? Probably classified. A real genius, got the idea from acupuncture, digging into Mao’s Cultural Revolution-era electro-acupuncture studies. Double, triple wins! Ancestral wisdom, can’t lose it, huh? We, the team I led, then used AI to slice the data: strip emotions, memories, keep behavior, language, logic. Pack it with skill libraries—diving, repairs, driving, flying or any language you want. HuaCent churns those out easily. They call it ‘consciousness purification’ and ‘tech empowerment.’ Bullshit—it’s butchering minds, like a slaughterhouse carving meat from bone.”

  The screen shifted: an Abai spasmed, eyes flaring red, screaming unknown names, clutching air, sobbing “Mama,” then its chest exploded in sparks—system overload. Sima shook his head: “Tech’s shaky. Memory fragments don’t scrub clean. Human consciousness isn’t that simple—Buddha might grasp it, but he cannot split it. Real talk, love, hate, joy, rage—can you cleave those from memory and the real soul? Any speck left, it’s a tickin’ bomb. An Abai with this? Fine till it’s not—then it’s jumpin’ the sea, smashin’ heads, or simply blowing up. HuaCent’s connected, buries incidents, so nobody knows.”

  Ruoxi wasn’t shocked in a way—local bots’ shoddy quality was infamous, from glitchy limbs to exploding batteries. But this depth? She’d never touched it, her work was more like fixing over-glorified e-bikes while Abais were Ferraris to her. “How’s this not on the dark web?” she asked. “Shouldn’t it be?”

  Sima said flatly: “Real talk, you think HuaCent has no control over the dark web?”

  The screen flashed AI-analyzed logs. Sima read slowly: “This drive’s refining log mentions the Chest-Born Project, IronGrip’s request—probably her, Suechin Liang, I’ve seen that codename. But SilverEye… that’s a top-tier exec, way above my paygrade, no clue who.” He waved the screen off. “HuaCent’s current trick: if a Soul Ore shows ‘anomalous non-structured data fluctuations’—aka waking up—they shred it. Client sends it for repair, just reflash with a new Soul Ore. Simple. Sometimes the shredder leaves fragments on purpose, bait for nosy types like you. Curious? Crack it, and it pings an alert. Without StarLink and American AI, you’d never break it, and no alert.”

  Ruoxi’s pulse raced, sweat streaking her face. The explosion—Avei yelling “Sis, run!”—she’d been shoved aside, his hand slipping free, then gone. She clutched the Peppa Pig keychain from her bag, Avei’s gift, stains hiding its smile, like her irretrievable past. Voice hoarse, she choked, “Avei signed up HuaCent’s digital immortality scam. I couldn’t stop him…” Sima sighed, hand trembling, eyes darkening: “My sister volunteered, too. Even worse. Entered the extraction pod, came out in fragments, burned to ash. Voltage was too high… I tried to save her, got half my face torched, didn’t make it.” He paused. “That’s why I bolted.”

  Ruoxi’s fists clenched, nails digging into palms, voice shaking: “So, Avei’s original consciousness… where is it now? HuaCent trained him as a top engineer—they wouldn’t just install him into one Abai. This has to be a copy. How do I find the original?” Virtual flower fields haunted her—Avei laughing at nebulae. She growled, “I lost him once. Not again.”

  Sima glanced at the USB, sighing: “Believe me, the original? That was his flesh—long dead.” He patted her shoulder, softening: “Real talk, the consciousness he agreed legally to upload to AbyssNet, you could call that the original. Premium Soul Ores are for Abai cores, not like the cheap ones—hundreds crammed on a drive, maybe duplicates, for low-end bots or even eyeless smart appliances. Premiums are custom, skill libraries tailored one-to-one. Rich folks’ tastes are wild—each gets unique hardware encryption, digital signatures stacked thick. Storage, assembly, and Soul Ore vaults are HuaCent’s tightest secrets, locked down hard.”

  Ruoxi’s throat tightened: “How do I save him?”

  Sima gave a bitter laugh: “Save? Best case, you pull his consciousness to a drive—then what? Flash it into an Abai or make him a virtual world to live? I don’t know how. Real talk, my take: AbyssNet’s project kept Avei’s full consciousness active in a simulation, throwing stimuli at him to map where consciousness splits from memory. With enough test subjects, they’d crack rational-emotional separation. It’s a long game. Once they’re done with a subject, they archive it in the Soul Ore vault—servers aren’t cheap. Your brother’s consciousness is likely there. That Abai you fixed crashed, right? It could be an inside job—some insider pirated and sold him on the black market. Premiums don’t get trashed—they’re cycled back to AbyssNet for retesting. So, Avei’s probably safe, for now.”

  Ruoxi gasped, picturing Avei trapped in a data coffin, dormant. “Sima, please, tell me how to find the Soul Ore vault! Name a price, I’ll get it!”

  Sima hesitated, then said: “It’s not that simple… Either hit a physical storage or hack their intranet. Nanshan’s SpecterForge flashes Abai cores—its boss, BladeScar, has ties to HuaCent execs, might know something. HuaCent also runs a front, StarPulse Tek, posing as a chip maker but funneling Soul Ores. Their shipping lines are shady as hell. On the dark web, a hacker, CobraLens, nearly breached AbyssNet’s servers—ThunderVolt turned him into a vegetable. His partner, VenomSpike, might have some code.”

  Ruoxi tried to memorize and pressed: “StarPulse Tek? Where’s it at?”

  Sima tapped his keyboard, a dark web message flashing: “Weird! Believe me, SouthSea Logistics is asking me about Soul Ore vaults too! Heh, I could milk them dry! Look… I won’t charge you—for my sister’s sake. VenomSpike hit me up two days ago about a deal. Got a StarPulse dark web pickup order, wants to pose as a buyer and snag the shipment. Asked me to front the ChainCoin. The order’s disguised as chips, but it’s Premium Soul Ores, sourced from SilverEye. Here’s the play: you join VenomSpike for the deal—my stake’s in it. Scope it out for clues. I’ll front 5,000 ChainCoins, another 5,000 when you deliver. But real talk… this could be a trap. You’re on your own. And watch out for ThunderVolt—HuaCent’s enforcers, they hunt smugglers.”

  Leaving the Park, Zhenhua Road quieted, the ghost market packed up, barbecue smoke fading, silence amplifying her heartbeat. Chicago Club’s bass thumped its last gasps, drunk foreigners horsing around with women on the street. At Zhenzhong Junction, a fight erupted—two men shoving, one yelling, “Your Soul Ore’s fake! Bot blew up! Pay me back!” The other stammered, then drew an arc knife, slashing the man’s cyberarm, sparks flying. A crowd gathered, AR glasses streaming on the dark web: “Breaking! Circuit North Fighting!”

  Ruoxi donned her helmet, slipped into the mob, jammer recharged, blocking drone scans. She hugged SEG Industrial Park’s factory walls, slipping into Huafa North Road’s tree shadows. Sima’s warning—“This deal could be a trap, you’re on your own!”—stabbed like a needle in her chest.