True Apocalypse Game

What do you do when you’re in a game you don’t understand the rules to, but you refuse to lose?

You flip the table, of course.

It didn’t matter if the Whisperer and the owner of the voice from the deep were on the same side, or what their ultimate goal was. Everything they planned had to be carried out through the Arctic Stone Statue Ruins.

If the ruins were gone, everything would be much simpler.

Jingwei, appearing on the computer screen in the form of a small bird, exclaimed in surprise:

"Just drop a nuke on it? What are you thinking? Are you trying to start a world war and destroy human civilization? Let me tell you, I’m not on board with that. I haven’t had my fill of fun yet!"

Shen Feng smacked his lips and said:

"Shouldn’t an ambitious AI like you be jumping for joy at the news, worried the nuke might not be powerful enough? Why am I the one who sounds like the supervillain here?"

The little bird on the screen rolled its eyes at him and said:

"Who made the rule that AIs have to subvert the world and slaughter humanity? Can’t I be lazy? I think you need to see a therapist. This is a peaceful world, not a wasteland ’pacified’ by nukes. Setting off a nuclear weapon will cause massive chaos! Besides, nobody knows where that Whisperer thing is hiding. It could use this as a pretext to trick the UN’s five big powers into throwing nukes at each other."

Shen Feng’s expression turned serious. "It’s precisely because the Whisperer is likely to cause a nuclear apocalypse that I need to use this to send a wake-up call to the so-called political elites... Also, get started on developing True Apocalypse Game 1.0 as soon as possible. Add information about the Whisperer to it, too. You can’t expect me to fend off that treacherous entity from the darkness all by myself. I’m just an ordinary high school student, you know..."

"Fine, ’ordinary high school student.’" Seeing her words had no effect, Jingwei couldn’t be bothered to argue. She agreed, vanished from the screen, and quietly got to work.

Shen Feng shifted into a more comfortable position, his Silicon-Based Brain whirring to life as he once again began to connect his consciousness to the network terminal.

Staring at the ceiling, he murmured, ’...If the enemy hides in the shadows, we will melt into the darkness...’

In the next instant, his consciousness, like a lone fish, vanished into the ocean of the internet...

...

Inside the Arctic Base, Jiang Bing’s face was grim. She hadn’t been out of the submersible for long.

At her side, three other team members looked equally dejected.

They thought they were on the verge of a monumental achievement, one that could even rewrite human history. They never imagined the key inscribed relics would be destroyed by a simple mechanical failure.

The cause of the robotic arm’s malfunction had been identified: a simple signal transmission error had caused it to suddenly clamp down with force.

Even more surprisingly, none of the footage recorded on the seabed had been saved. It was as if the camera had never been turned on at all!

Even the camera’s memory card was fried, as if it had been zapped by an extremely high-voltage current.

In other words, all the data on those inscribed relics was gone. Not a single character was saved.

They hadn’t even managed to bring up a single stone statue.

Their entire trip had been for nothing.

What rotten luck.

Nearly a hundred researchers had come for this expedition. Their team was just one of many.

A single mission failure meant they wouldn’t be involved in any of the subsequent ones.

But it was so hard to accept...

The song from the bottom of the ocean, the deep-sea ruins... of course they wanted to be the ones to explore such fascinating mysteries.

"Director Ni, I request permission to dive again! There has to be more than one site with inscriptions. We can definitely find another one!" Jiang Bing shot to her feet, addressing a middle-aged, bespectacled man at the head of the conference table.

This was Director Ni Zhenhua, one of the chief directors of the Arctic Base.

To balance the powers involved in this operation, there were two other top directors at the base besides him: Vladimir from Bear Country and Edward from Eagle Country.

Hearing Jiang Bing’s plea, the three directors exchanged a look and shook their heads gently.

Ni Zhenhua said, "There won’t be a next time, not for now. It seems we were hit by a strong cosmic ray flux, causing an electromagnetic pulse. Three minutes after your return, all our communication equipment failed. We’ve lost contact with headquarters..."

What!?

The other staff members present were all stunned.

There were plenty of people at the Arctic Base, but the operation had been organized in a hurry, so supplies weren’t plentiful. Contact with the outside world was critical for replenishing resources and equipment.

Before anyone could recover from the shock, Ni Zhenhua continued.

"That’s not all. Our power generators were also damaged by a strong current and short-circuited. We can’t repair them for now... The single remaining backup generator isn’t powerful enough to sustain the entire base."

The room burst into an uproar.

A communications blackout was one thing, but what was with the damaged power equipment?

They still had plenty of fuel reserves to survive the low temperatures, but it wasn’t enough to support normal operations.

Without power, they couldn’t do a thing here.

Were they expected to record all the scientific data by hand?

What about the calculations that required massive amounts of data?

The three directors looked exhausted and resigned. Vladimir spoke.

"The committee has deliberated and decided to temporarily suspend the expedition. We will leave the base and supplies behind and evacuate all personnel. It’s currently the height of summer, so the sea ice isn’t as stable anyway. We will return in a month."

As directors, their first responsibility was the safety of their personnel.

This was the Arctic—not the wilderness or a desert, but a frozen wasteland dozens of degrees below zero.

The gale-force winds outside could freeze an improperly dressed person into an ice sculpture in minutes.

The events here were too bizarre. Many were already wondering if the communications blackout and power failure were the work of that cryptic voice from the depths of the sea.

As researchers who had spent years working in remote locations, most of them were familiar with all sorts of mysterious legends. Ghost signals were a perennial topic of conversation.

Most of the crowd now understood the directors’ decision. A number of them broke into relieved smiles, while Jiang Bing and the other researchers could only nod in resignation.

They had no choice but to obey orders; after all, they were also responsible for their own teams.

Fortunately, the Permanent Base they had already constructed wouldn’t need to be moved, and there was no danger of it collapsing on the permanent ice sheet.

The several hundred people at the base grabbed only simple equipment and personal belongings, boarded the arctic rovers, and set off in a long convoy for the icebreakers’ mooring.

Five icebreakers were there in total, more than enough to take everyone.

Once aboard the ships, they were finally able to contact their headquarters in Reykjavik.

Headquarters had also sensed how strange the situation was and reluctantly agreed to suspend the operation for the time being, deciding to regroup and plan for the long term.

A few days later, the fleet had left the Amundsen Basin, heading for Iceland to resupply.

Meanwhile, at the Severodvinsk Shipyard in Bear Country, a new Borei-class (Project 955) strategic nuclear submarine was being prepped for torpedo loading.

The weapon being loaded was the latest Poseidon Super Cavitating Nuclear Torpedo, making the task a mission of utmost importance.

Consequently, the crew had already set up the loading platform, preparing to reverse-load the weapon through its launch tube.

The torpedo had already been lifted by a crane and was hovering over the water, waiting for the final loading step.

However, a false fire alarm had gone off a short while ago, forcing the crew to temporarily evacuate the dry dock. Once they figured out it was a false alarm, they had some afternoon tea in the break room before finally returning.

The crew quickly returned to their stations, ready to proceed with loading the torpedo.

Just then, Anatoli, holding his teacup, widened his eyes. A mouthful of tea spewed from his lips.

The crane’s harness was empty. There was nothing there.

Where’s the torpedo!?

Where’s my torpedo!?