Outdoor cat backpack

Wherever the police mechas went, the dust they kicked up cast a grey fog over the dusk. The bustling crowd did not actually disperse; instead, after the crushing incident, they gathered in even greater numbers, pressing tighter and thicker, quickly filling No. 11’s line of sight.

No. 11 came from a civilian background. High tuition fees had cut his education short after middle school, but facing this scene, a fitting proverb flashed through his mind—

Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it.

No. 11 looked through his panoramic periscope and felt a wave of dizziness.

The crowd was rioting in a fury, wave after wave, surging like a tide. Wherever the mechas drove, the people blockaded them; as one wave retreated, another immediately stepped up to fill the gap, an endless and continuous stream that seemed to have no destination.

“Get down, marine scum! You won’t even spare a child!”

“Go back to your undersea hell and die, you demons!”

No. 11 could no longer move forward. Lacking confidence, he shouted through the loudspeaker: “Get out of the way, all of you get out of the way! Do you not value your lives?”

His mind was a mess, and he couldn’t stop himself from wondering whose parents these were, or whose children those were. Every time he stepped on the throttle, how many families would be destroyed…

The voice of his superior came through the communicator, cold and devoid of a shred of humanity: “No. 11, continue to disperse the rioters. I repeat, continue to disperse the rioters.”

That voice was like a blade hanging over his head. The command was repetitive and mechanical, yet its purpose was to slaughter his fellow human beings.

No. 11 finally slammed his fist into the communicator, which was buzzing and sparking with embers, and shouted in a total breakdown: “I can’t do it! I don’t want to kill people! I refuse the order! I quit—”

The other side fell silent for a few seconds. “You want to be a traitor?”

No. 11 slumped over the control console, burying his head in his hands to escape. His superior let out a cold laugh, disconnected No. 11’s channel, and patched into Guard No. 12 right next to him, coldly issuing a command:

“No. 12, eliminate the traitor No. 11, and I will promote you.”

“Yes, sir,” No. 12 answered cleanly and decisively.

The world of the seafolk was one where the weak were meat and the strong ate them; it was either you die or I perish. A weakling who couldn’t harden his heart was destined to be consumed by his own kind.

The New Empire of today was no longer a place where a good person could survive.

Amidst the wave-like movement of the protest lines stood a lean young man. A camera hung around his neck, and his finger remained rested on the shutter button, unwilling to miss a single snapshot.

Just moments ago, the photographer believed he had captured the best-composed, most profoundly meaningful photograph of his life.

He instinctively pulled up the screen to admire it in meticulous detail:

The photo’s color palette was intense, and the contrast between the foreground and background was stark. Under the rays of the setting sun, the entire image was suffused with a crimson hue as delicate as an oil painting. That blood-like red sun hung behind the sculpture, resembling a halo marking the descent of a deity. The giant bronze-cast, iron-forged sculpture bore a fierce expression, overlooking the earth and gazing right into the center of the frame, where the young man, run over by the mecha treads, strained to hand the little girl out from beneath the wheels. At the same exact moment, countless hands reached in from outside the frame, desperate to catch the child.

At the fraction of a second where hand met hand, the photographer had released the shutter.

Freezing this split second into eternity.

The cleverness of this photograph’s composition and the conflict of its meaning possessed a Picasso-esque absurdity reminiscent of Guernica, yet the delicacy of the tones and the golden ratio proportions were filled with a fervor akin to Liberty Leading the People.

The photographer casually added it to his portfolio, naming it The Handover, preparing to submit it to this year’s Interstellar Alliance Photographic Art Competition.

At this moment, he had no idea that this photograph would become a powerful dark horse, not only clinching the grand photography prize but also plastering the annual covers of major media outlets worldwide. Because of this, he would gain the opportunity to be invited into the core stronghold of the Revolutionary Army to conduct an in-depth interview with the story’s protagonist.

The photographer caught a casual glimpse and noticed that the white-haired young man was sitting on a roadside bench to rest.

The other’s cheeks were sharp and exquisite; though he still appeared young, there was a calmness in his eyes that had been weathered by trials. Facing the gazes of the passersby coming and going, he was neither uncomfortable nor evasive; instead, he completely openly pulled out a screwdriver he carried with him, attempting to dismantle the remnants of his ruined prosthetic.

Dismantling his own broken parts right on the street, in front of a massive crowd.

The photographer’s pupils dilated, his heart rate accelerating uncontrollably as he raised the camera to his eye.

Adjusting the focus.

Contradiction.

It was simply too contradictory. The young man’s sheer habituation stood in stark contrast to the shock and rage of the crowd; his inorganic, bionic-like beauty contrasted heavily with the crude dismantling. It felt like a BUG in the execution of the world’s programming, carrying a heart-stirring, eerie beauty.

The photographer pressed the shutter with a click. The LCD display flashed, and a line of text suddenly interrupted the screen:

[Image Error Occurred!]

He took three more rapid shots and switched back to check.

[Image Error Occurred!]

The photographer froze. He had never encountered such a thing. Could the freezing temperature have caused the camera components to malfunction? Impossible; this camera had accompanied him to storm zones of minus 40°C and its build quality had always remained rock-solid.

Just as he wanted to remove the battery to reboot, convincing himself this wasn’t a paranormal event, the crowd around him suddenly accelerated their flow.

Like a school of sardines encountering a massive, slow-moving blue whale, the dense crowd parted naturally and fluidly to either side. This yielding was not out of coercion, but born from a genetic respect and submission toward a colossal entity.

The photographer stood on tiptoe, throwing his gaze over the moving heads.

A line of bodyguards cut through the protest lines. Their average height was two meters, and the exposed data interfaces on their necks indicated this was a group of AI-controlled bionics. They were tall and silent, dressed in uniform greyish-white smocks, the trim on their shoulders woven from deep crimson and navy blue side-by-side.

This color scheme easily reminded one of the flag of the Old Empire.

The bionic bodyguards advanced calmly. A biting gust of sea wind swept over, lifting their hems. Everyone’s pupils shrank as they caught a faint glimpse of the anti-materiel particle sniper rifles slung beneath the smocks.

Those 1.5-meter-long monsters possessed terrifying power, but their muzzles pointed down. Able to take out an armored vehicle in a single shot, they were clearly not directed at the civilians.

Such a prominent yet restrained display of force made the photographer realize something. The manufacturer of these bionics should be the Gorgon Design Bureau, the eldest son left among the populace by the Old Empire.

In the photographer’s eyes, the bodyguard contingent was like a great wave of white sand, forcefully carving a deep trench through the shallow beach of the crowd. Within this walkway of deep, still water, a single individual came walking slowly, carrying a “coffin” on his shoulder.

No, to call it a “coffin” wasn’t quite right; it resembled a case for a cello.

The light coffee-colored case was about two meters long, with slim, elegant contours. Its exterior was wrapped in crocodile leather with a subtle, sophisticated texture. Leather straps buckled across the main body on both sides, adorned with embedded brass rivets. Turning to the side, one could see a gold-inlaid handle and a combination lock. These design choices were enough to declare its purpose: transporting something highly valuable.

The sunset scattered its final twilight rays, transforming that silhouetted figure into a landscape of shifting light and shadow. The scattered glints poured down, emphasizing the rugged, steep contours of his physique.

In the eyes of the crowd, he carried a two-meter-long case upon his shoulder without a single tremor. That was a manifestation of strength that a top-tier male animal could take pride in.

Thud.

The case landed on the pavement, kicking up a swirling ring of dust.

The onlookers involuntarily held their breath, watching that towering alpha drop to one knee. Disregarding the grime of the dust, he extended pale, slender fingers to pick up the scattered fragments of the prosthesis from the ground. One piece, then another. For components broken too small to be picked up individually, he cupped his palms to gather them.

The crowd watched this display in shock, looking back and forth between the man and the scattered parts, seemingly having an epiphany: he was here to “retrieve the remains.”

Yet in reality, there was no blood on the ground; the alpha’s actions appeared somewhat excessive and frantic. The onlookers shook their heads, finding it difficult to understand.

But the alpha merely kept his eyelashes lowered, silently suppressing the vortex deep in his eyes, wordlessly gathering the shards. Shards, ashes, self-sacrifice, throwing oneself against an electric fence, a wooden bird broken beyond retrieval… These concepts revolved relentlessly in his consciousness.

Even though he didn’t utter a single word, he inexplicably made people’s muscles ache with tension. A terrifying, oppressive solemnity quietly diffused through the air. Synchronizing with the rhythm of their heartbeats, it caused their arterial contractions to tighten and heavy up. This seemed, in essence, like a funeral procession caught in a distortion of time and space.

“Holy shit!” A shocked curse broke the silence.

The photographer snapped out of his daze, turning toward the source of the voice. He saw the white-haired young man leaping out from the crowd on one leg, throwing himself toward that half-kneeling silhouette. Like a young bird returning to the forest, he securely hooked his arms around the man’s neck, shouting in a panic:

“Stop picking them up, stop picking them up—”

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the young man forcefully pressed his fractured self into the man’s chest.

“The big pieces are right here, I have them all for you!”

The dialogue was so bizarre, carrying a hint of intimate intensity amidst its strangeness; the people couldn’t comprehend it, yet they couldn’t look away.

The veiled alpha raised his hand. The square-cut green emerald ring on his finger glinted darkly in the twilight, capturing one’s soul with its aristocratic poise. He uttered two low words:

“Get in.”

The case opened, revealing an interior lining of light beige leather wrapped around shock-absorbing foam.

The crowd didn’t understand the purpose of that wooden box, but the photographer’s eyes widened in astonishment. Having spent a period as a war correspondent on the front lines, he had seen this type of [Retrieval Box].

Indeed, its full name was the [Vital Signs Maintenance and Recovery Box]. It was essentially a condensed medical pod, designed specifically for high-ranking generals when injured on the battlefield. A fully equipped, high-spec version was worth over a hundred million credits, and each one required years of custom fabrication; it wasn’t something one could enjoy simply by having money.

However, in recent years, many aristocratic guardians had ordered lower-spec versions worth two or three million to transport their omegas over long distances. It gave a distinct impression of… storing a porcelain doll.

The white-haired young man was as exquisite as a puppet. His thin lips parted in a daze and his body shivered almost imperceptibly, not yet free from the stress response of being crushed. In reality, he was experiencing unprecedented phantom limb pain.

Just when he thought his expression was calm and perfectly watertight, a hand locked around his waist. With a strength that left no room for argument, he was lifted and placed into the case like a cat with its fur bristling.

With a few crisp clicks, the case’s internal restraint brackets activated, conforming to his body’s curves and locking the young man’s limbs inside to achieve a secure hold.

A phrase inexplicably popped into the crowd’s minds: an outdoor cat backpack.

Before Bai Ling could even react, the lid had completely sealed over him. However, the designer had clearly taken claustrophobia into account; a window screen rapidly materialized on the inner surface of the lid, allowing him to see the outside world in real time, while no one outside could peer in.

For a veteran perpetually trapped in a state of stress response, this rescue-style transport was far more considerate of his psychology and self-esteem than being carried openly through a crowd.

Soon, that square patch of sky swayed gently; he had been steadily hoisted onto a shoulder once more. An alpha’s shoulder, the old Emperor’s shoulder.

Bai Ling lay flat, dazed, being transported with absolute security.

Strange, so strange…

Crimson clouds rolled across the sky, and the blood-red setting sun dyed the world. At the edge of his vision, slightly wavy golden hair escaped from around the man’s ear, swaying brilliantly and magnificently in the wind.

Bai Ling’s heart skipped a beat, and his mind felt like a flooding dam, instantly unleashing countless images.

A soldier shedding blood and sacrificing his life for the people, dying in a foreign land, only to be packed into a case and solemnly transported by a squad dressed in the colors of the old national flag. This was perhaps the best end the Commander Bai of his past life could have imagined.

Yet, in his previous life, his physical remnants had been scattered everywhere, and the only thing that came to “receive” him was the early morning garbage truck. He had never imagined that his broken self could be gathered up by someone. So cherished, so respected.

Now, his motherland was hoisting him up, supporting him on his shoulder. He gazed at that deep red sky, but tears began to well in his eyes as he muttered to himself:

“This is truly insane…”

Why bother with this kind of ritualistic sentimentality?

With his hands and feet locked, he couldn’t raise a hand to wipe his face. He could only let the teardrops roll down his cheeks, unable to control the twitching of his facial muscles, which ultimately curled into a tight sliver of happiness.

But he liked it exactly like this.

“I’m insane too,” he didn’t even try hiding it.

Translator’s note:

Anyway the girl scene reminds me of Lucky Cyan’s background from TBHX: https://youtu.be/9S9IZLH5FzY?t=1m35s

Milgram’s experiment: In the early 1960s, Yale social psychologist Stanley Milgram, PhD, conducted an experiment whose purpose was supposedly to study the effects of punishment on learning. The experimenter told the subject that his job was to teach a learner in an adjacent room to memorize a list of word-pairs, and every time the learner made an error, the teacher-subject was to punish the learner by giving him increasingly severe shocks by pressing levers on a shock machine. There were 30 levers whose shock values ranged from a low of 15 volts to the maximum of 450 volts. (In actuality, no electric shock was involved. The “learner” was an actor who only pretended receiving them, but the subject did not know this.) Despite the learner’s increasingly pitiful screams and pleas to stop, a majority of subjects (over 60%) obeyed the experimenter’s commands to continue and ended up giving the maximum “shock” of 450 volts.