“So,” Phurder Puler started a display monitor in the middle of the crowded room, “let me explain our job very briefly.” He glanced around the nervous faces and looked back at his presentation.

“Our first task is very simple, find her location and meet up with her in the simulation,” Phurder pointed at a map display of the simulation with Tann’s location marked as a red cross, “her identity is giving off a special signal that will allow us to track her down.”

“Then,” Phuder carried on, “we will use our ‘Emergency Mirror’ to help her log out. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try to use as the admin portal to restore her admin rights. If that does work either, we’ll go into the backup plan: we will use the duplication function to make a copy of her mind and then we’ll log out and force disconnect her from the simulation and implant the copied information into her mind again.”

“Won’t that cause a short circuit?” a young woman asked, she had the same hairstyle as Tann and was wearing a lab coat similar to Tann’s but it was only an imitated version, “Since you are force disconnecting her from the system.”

“You are correct,” claimed Phurder, “that’s why it is our last resort, but if we put her into an unconscious state inside the simulation, then the chances of a short circuit will be lowered significantly.”

“Sounds easy to me,” a man in military uniform said, “so we are just gonna log in and take her out like what we do with shell shock?”

“Sounds about right to me,” Phurder agreed, “you must be Lieutenant Casio?”

“That’s me, sir,” Casio stood up, closed his foot and saluted, then he relaxed and sat back down, “since I have introduced myself, can I please know who the rest of you are?”

The Tann-like girl stood up and introduced herself, “I am Secny Inverse, a digital psychologist, just call me Secny.”

In the corner of the room, a skinny man remained silence throughout introductions, until Phurder pointed at him, “that is Dr Inqua Ranger, the assistance programmer of the CREATORS. You may not know him very since he doesn’t like to appear on camera, but he one of the founding member of the CREATORS team. Wanna say hi Inqua?”

Inqua raised his hand slightly and waved for about a few centimetres and rested it down quickly. Secny looked at him curiously and took out a digital notebook, “Dr Inqua, may I have your signature, please? I’m trying to get every CREATOR’S signature, I am just missing yours, Dr Cotanian and Dr Tann’s signatures.”

Inqua looked at Secny coldly and reached for her digital notebook with his boney hand. On the screen, he simply did a horizontal swipe that generated a straight line.

“Th…thank you…” Inqua saved her document.

“Okay, are you prepared to enter?” A cute voice attracted Inqua’s attention like a magnet, it was Cotanian, “we don’t have much time.”

“Almost,” replied Phurder calmly, “still waiting for the psychologist to arrive.”

“Let me guess,” Cotanian grabbed Phurder’s name list, “is it that guy who visited us last year?”

“Yes,” Phurder checked the time, “he should be here at any moment.”

“Whatever,” Cotanian handed the list back to Phurder, “if he doesn’t show up in time, guess we’ll log in just with you guys.”

“I’m here,” a muscular man appeared at the entrance, “Dr Cotanian, you seemed unusually nervous like I have seen last time.”

“Of course I am nervous,” Cotanian replied with annoyance, “Dr Angle is in grave danger!”

The muscular man disabled his digital hat revealing his bald head that looked like a pearl and bowed apologetically, “I do mean in that way Dr Cotanian, but you seem nervous in a different way.”

“Different?” Cotanian’s face reddened, but the surge of blood pressure was quickly reduced by her artificial heart, “You better do your job probably, or we’re just gonna ask another psychologist to take your job.”

“There isn’t anyone to replace me isn’t it?” the man laughed, “I am pretty sure you are the one who sent me the invitation letter.”

“So what?”

The man ignored Cotanian’s question and turned to the rest of the group, “I am a psychologist who’ll ensure the mental stability of Dr Angle in the simulation and use appropriate psychological tricks to stabiles her identity function. My name is Zeta Sckard, just call me Zeta if you like.”

“OHH!” Secny shouted, “you are that researcher who used traditional psychologist analysis to predict the thoughts of a person?! Even until now, no digital psychologist had surpassed your level of accuracy!”

“Thank you,” Zeta grinned with his thick lips, “ but I am afraid that my way of study will inevitably fuse with digital psychology technology, that’s why Dr Angle asked me to make suggestions on the ‘Bot Creator Function’.”

“Really?!”

Seeing Zeta had got the attention, Cotanian silent sneaked out of the room.

“A whole team of anti-terrorist specialists,” Inspector Dex Pluscy walked around the abandoned swimming pool, “the Northern Side sure had gone mad in this week.”

He walked towards the side of the pool that was peppered with billions of shell holes, “what on Earth happened without a single drop of blood, a single bullet case, or even a single bullet.”

“I am not sure exactly what kind of weapon made such damage but it is probably a weapon with the calibre above 12.5mm which, without any bullet nor casing, my best bet is that it is fired from a 20mm.” Candy stood up from and greeted Dex, “Despite all these damages, no blood was found.”

“Interesting interesting,” Dex squat down on the ground and pointed at a strange circle when it seemed whitewashed compared to the other dust-covered areas of ground, “but what I am wondering is: who tried so hard to clean this section of the ground.”

“You might be right about that,” said Candy, “but if it is cleaned by any normal cleaning agent, there should be traces of chemicals left, but here, not even a single atom of that acidic fluid was left.”

“Hmmm…” Dex pulled out a pen and bit it like a cigar, “can you send a few men to check all the arms dealers in the city?”

“No problem…” Candy stopped speaking and looked at someone behind Dex. Dex turned around to find a large group of men in white, chemical-proof suites appeared behind him, “Now, who do we have here…”

One of the men walked towards Dex, “Inspector Dex?”

“Yes?”

“The Governor of Qchong City just passed the case to us,” the man presented a transcript covered with golden words, “to allow us to fully commit to our investigation, I want you and your crew to be leaving the site at once, and no further investigation of this matter is allowed.”

Candy watched as Dex attempted to argue but resulted in nothing, “Candy, we’re out, tell the rest to head to base.”

“What’s happening?”

“God damn North Köloñ is taking over the investigation!” Dex said angrily.

“Are you serious?!” Candy laughed, “North Köloñ?! I only know that they are trying to massacre the working class, not us?”

“Hurry up,” Dex’s emotions were as hard as stone, “we gotta head out.”