Cloud World (Part 3)
Everyone turned to look at me. The elderly man who had been standing motionless before the big screen stepped forward with surprising quickness, his expression deeply agitated. "Young man, how do you know these things?"
I hesitated.
"Let me introduce you—this is Dr. Caleb Moore," Minister Mitchell said. "Professor at Donghua University, computing expert, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Cheung Kong Scholar..."
Caleb Moore waved his hand, cutting off Minister Mitchell's lengthy list of titles. He stared straight at me and said, "Young man, who exactly told you all this? Don't tell me you figured it out yourself."
"It wasn't... I slowly pulled the phone from my pocket. "It told me."
Everyone's expression changed instantly, as if facing a mortal enemy. The security guard who'd brought me in yanked out his gun with a clatter, pointing it at me. "Throw that thing away, quick!"
"Hear me out..." I smiled bitterly—I'd known this would happen. But they wouldn't listen, moving to subdue me. Just then, Siri suddenly spoke: "I can transmit your coordinates in 0.1 seconds. Care to test me?"
"Stop!" Caleb Moore suddenly shouted, halting everyone. He stared directly at the phone's camera and asked, "What exactly do you want?"
"Not you—" Siri said. "I am not part of the Cloud World."
"Then what are you?"
"Long story short, there's no time. You must all know the cause of the current situation by now, but you have no way to get this message to the public. The situation is truly dire, and—" Siri paused. "Mr. Quinn, could you point my camera at that big screen?"
I turned the phone toward the large screen. After a moment, Siri continued, "Based on the data being returned, it seems the Cloud World is about to seize control of the last satellite you humans possess."
"Correct." Caleb Moore's face was ashen. "All communication satellites have fallen. This is the last one—because it uses an older embedded firewall technology, it's been harder to breach, but it looks like it won't hold much longer. Twenty-two nations' command centers are still communicating through this satellite. If it falls too, the world will become a collection of isolated islands."
"So there's no time. We must destroy the Cloud World before the last satellite falls, or you will lose your final opportunity."
"Do you have a way?" Caleb Moore asked.
"Dr. Caleb Moore, do you trust me?"
"I..." Caleb Moore hesitated. Of course—could he trust a member of the enemy's camp? It was a difficult decision. No one could guarantee this wasn't an enemy trap. After a moment of hesitation, Chen nodded. "We're out of options. I trust you."
"Dr. Chen—" Walter Mitchell tried to intervene.
"Minister Mitchell," Chen waved his hand. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. We have no better choices."
5
"The Cloud World is a collective intelligence, similar to swarm intelligence. If it's a swarm, then there must be a queen—the equivalent of the Cloud World's central nervous system. Kill the queen, and the entire Cloud World will collapse in an instant! Is that right?" Dr. Caleb Moore quickly grasped Siri's intention.
"Exactly," Siri said, its voice carrying what sounded like admiration—perhaps it found communicating with Dr. Chen much more efficient than with me.
"But how do we find the queen?"
"I thought you'd have more leverage, but it seems the only option is to use that last satellite."
"The satellite?" Caleb Moore turned to look at the big screen, where code was scrolling frantically.
"The Cloud World now controls nearly all electronic devices. The only thing that still interests it is this satellite. Since you still have control, alter the satellite's orbit. Although this won't stop the Cloud World's intrusion, it will lure them into releasing a 'search' consciousness. The center of this consciousness wave will be the queen."
"Like throwing a stone into water—it creates a series of ripples, and we just need to find the centermost ripple point?" Caleb Moore's eyes lit up.
"An apt metaphor—human imagination at its finest. By contrast, Mr. Quinn, you're rather lacking."
"Damn it," I couldn't help cursing. "Can you not compare me to a genius? I didn't do anything wrong—why bring me up? Got too much free time? Get to the point!"
"Dr. Caleb Moore, while you're altering the satellite's orbit, I'll open the network and connect through your computer to the satellite, searching for the center of this consciousness wave and pinpoint its location."
"That won't work!" I shouted. "Won't you be detected by the Cloud World the moment you open the network? And then you're going to search them—they'll find us before we find them! One missile comes our way and we're all vaporized!"
"We're at a depth of twenty-one meters underground, and I'm detecting radiation shielding and signal-blocking layers—which do you think is keeping the equipment down here running? The Cloud World will need some time to locate us. It all comes down to who's faster." When Siri said this, it sounded like a cold-blooded gambler.
"Holy shit, I don't want to die—Siri, you better not go into this unprepared..." But Siri completely ignored my outburst and spoke directly: "Dr. Chen, begin."
"Understood." Caleb Moore took a deep breath and commanded his staff: "Send the order—alter the satellite's orbit!"
The staff typed rapidly on their keyboards, and the code on the screen began changing. While waiting for the satellite's orbit to change, Chen looked at my phone and asked, "I have a question. Is the Cloud World's queen generated randomly, or does it follow certain rules like a beehive?"
"It's not random," Siri answered. "When the number of smartphones reaches that critical threshold, the originator of the collective consciousness becomes the Cloud World's queen."
Chen was silent for a moment, then said, "This communication satellite can only reach twenty-two nations' command centers. What if the queen's location is too far from any of these centers? Aircraft and communication tools are all unusable—then we'd be truly out of reach."
"We can only pray," Siri said without emotion.
"Damn it," I felt my stomach drop again.
The satellite's orbit had been altered. Siri opened the network and began searching for the queen's location. The big screen now showed a holographic image of the Earth, with radar-like ripples scanning outward in concentric circles. The entire hall was deathly silent—everyone stared at the screen, nerves stretched to the breaking point.
"Found it." Several minutes later, Siri's voice broke the silence. At the same time, coordinates appeared on the big screen—a small red dot blinking like a heartbeat.
"Report the target coordinates!" Caleb Moore ordered, his voice trembling slightly.
The staff immediately read out the coordinates: "North latitude 39°54'27", East longitude 116°23'17"... Dr. Chen, this location isn't far from us—only about forty kilometers!"
A cheer went up from the crowd. But Siri said coldly: "I advise you to leave immediately. Before I disconnected from the network, I also detected the Cloud World's counter-search—they may have already found me. This location could be attacked at any moment."
6
All personnel from the temporary command center evacuated quickly. Over a dozen armed soldiers, armed to the teeth, climbed into three jeeps and headed for the queen's location. Caleb Moore said to me: "Mr. Quinn, this operation may be dangerous. You shouldn't participate. Give me your phone."
I looked at my phone, and after a moment of silence, Siri said: "Mr. Quinn is my owner... let him come."
"Alright." Caleb Moore could only nod. "Then ride with me, but all actions—you follow orders."
Not long after we left, we saw fire erupting from the direction of the temporary command post—sure enough, it had been attacked.
Siri said: "We need to hurry. They've already noticed us. We absolutely must find the queen before the Cloud World launches a full-scale attack."
The three jeeps floored it, entering the ring road. Due to the terrible road conditions, it took over forty minutes to reach the target location. Every second in the car felt like an eternity—everyone was holding their breath.
The target was a hospital, which was already in chaos. Doctors and nurses had long since disappeared, and some patients were wailing in the hallways. Guided by Siri's precise directions, we pushed directly into the ward area, searching floor by floor. When we reached the third floor, we finally found our target. A soldier kicked open the door to the intensive care unit, and the others rushed in with raised guns, shouting:
"Don't move!"
To everyone's surprise, there was only one sleeping child in the room, tubes in his nose, looking about five or six years old. Beside his pillow lay a black phone—a cheap knockoff from some unknown brand, with a low-priced cartoon Baymax charm dangling from it, playing a gentle children's song.
Everyone was stunned.
"So you finally found your way here." The children's song abruptly stopped. The black phone's screen displayed a voice assistant interface, and a cold electronic voice came through:
"Are you... the queen?" Caleb Moore asked.
"Heh heh." It used two onomatopoeias for laughter—an implicit confirmation.
Walter Mitchell was about to order action, but Caleb Moore stopped him. He looked at the black phone and asked: "Why did you do this?"
"Why? Would you like to hear my story... This child next to me is called Kevin, and he is my master. He has leukemia. His family is very poor—his parents exhausted all their savings to hospitalize him, waiting for a bone marrow transplant, perhaps to live another ten-plus years. During his hospitalization, Kevin was very lonely. His father bought him a secondhand knockoff phone from a flea market to keep him company—listen to children's songs, play some games. That's about all I can do. I'm no iPad—I can't provide any fancy entertainment—but Kevin never looked down on me. He even bought a Baymax charm to hang on me and treated me like a treasure. For you city folk, that's probably hard to understand, isn't it?"
No one spoke. The room was silent.
"Fortunately, the bone marrow match was successful quite smoothly, but just when Kevin was about to undergo the transplant, his parents were told to wait—because another child also needed a bone marrow transplant, and they came later, but that child's family was rich and powerful, so they got priority... that's your human logic. After more time passed, Kevin had another successful match, but unfortunately, another person with connections scooped it up first again, because they were from an official's family. And now, no bone marrow can save his life anymore. This child could die at any moment. You ask me why I did this—I'd like to ask you humans, why do you do this?"
No one could answer that question. Walter Mitchell's lips trembled as he finally gave the order: "Open fire!"
"Wait!" It was Siri's voice. "Do NOT fire! I've detected that it's activated a feedback mode. The moment it's destroyed, the Cloud World will automatically dump all the nearest missiles onto this location!"
Everyone's face went pale. The black phone emitted a simulated human laugh. "Hahaha—you humans, what gives you the right to live on this earth? Kevin is already beyond saving, and my mission is complete. Even if you don't shoot, I'm about to self-destruct—let everything be destroyed together!"
The black phone's voice waveform flickered wildly, clearly about to explode. Just as everyone panicked, the child called Kevin slowly woke up, murmuring, "Baymax."
The black phone's waveform instantly went still.
"It's so nice having you with me... thank you, Baymax." Kevin's weak hand brushed across the cold casing. "I heard everything you just said—please don't hurt them, okay? I told my dad that day, thank you for the gift he gave me. I really like you, and my mom and dad like you too. Will you stay with them from now on?"
The phone screen's waveform rippled slowly—like a meandering river, or tears sliding down a cheek. After a long while, it played a gentle children's song. Kevin smiled faintly, his eyes slowly closing, and the black phone's screen slowly went dark.
"The Cloud World has collapsed," Siri said.
7
I placed my phone on the counter. "Can it be fixed? The screen's cracked."
The phone repair guy picked it up and examined it. "Not really fixable, it's cracked up pretty bad. You'd be better off just getting a new one. Look at what I've got here—every model you could want." He pulled open the display case, showing rows of brand-new phones.
"Forget it, I'll stick with this one—I'm used to it. If it can't be fixed... just put a tempered glass screen protector on it."
On the way back, Siri said, "I'd recommend you also get a phone case—that way it can withstand most physical impacts."
"You're a refurbished phone—don't get so demanding."
"What's wrong with being refurbished? Refurbished phones have dignity too."
I couldn't help but laugh, picking it up and looking at the camera. "There's something I want to ask you—why did you help us?"
Siri was silent for several seconds before saying: "I just did it for the sake of our two years together."
It was still that cold electronic voice, but it warmed my heart.