Arriving at the Upper Level, it was filled with futuristic skyscrapers, and the pedestrians walking on the streets were all true magnates, upper-class individuals.
These people transferred their consciousness into customized mechanical bodies via neural network transmission, so even if damaged, it wouldn't affect their health.
Funi seemed to realize Simon's lack of common knowledge and began to explain this world to him.
The former world had become history in a war, and after the war, a conglomerate called Temple Corporation united the remnants of the old world to create five paradises, managed and coordinated by an artificial intelligence called Eden.
The rich were still rich, and the poor were still poor.
The rich had everything; the poor could only survive on minimal supplies in cramped personal spaces.
What was most disheartening was that the class of the rich was already saturated, and no one else could ascend to the upper echelons.
...
Funi took Simon on a conveyor belt out of the city; thanks to Simon's extraordinary attire, Funi was not suspected along the way.
They appeared in a quiet town where the sun was gentle, the air was humid, the temperature was neither high nor low, and various potted plants lined the streets, with flowers and plants growing gracefully.
Sweat beaded on Funi's face, and the grime was washed away by the sweat, streaking down like glass being cleaned.
"I... I need to prepare," he swallowed, ran into an empty alley, took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a pile of cleaning supplies, along with a somewhat decent formal suit.
He undressed, talking to Simon to ease his nervousness, "I met her online... Of course, I used a few tricks; I used to be a scoundrel, but she always encouraged me..."
Funi gestured with a spray bottle on his body; the dirt easily dissolved from his skin, a scene like spray-painting a human body, leaving the sprayed areas clean and white.
"I don't really trust others, but she's truly different; she taught me so much. We, the people at the bottom, have no poetry, only LSD; she taught me poetry..."
He carefully put his dirty clothes back into his bag, then changed into new clothes.
"I don't know what those sentences mean, and I don't know Federico García Lorca, or Tagore... She told them to me, sentence by sentence."
Funi, tidied up, looked at Simon with renewed vigor.
Simon then realized that the person in front of him was just an eighteen or nineteen-year-old youth, with a hint of childishness on his serious face.
"There is a calm star, it has no eyes," he told Simon. "This is my secret code, from Lorca's 'Poet in New York.' Her code is 'The world kisses me with pain, I will repay it with song,' from Voltaire's 'Stray Birds.'"
Funi rubbed his hands, "I'm going... You need to watch out, if things go wrong, save me... No, save both of us..."
Simon nodded, watching him stride towards the sunny world outside.
Funi walked up to a house with a garden and rang the doorbell.
A girl poked her head out of a second-floor window of the white house, looking very surprised.
"Who is it!" a woman's voice came from inside the house.
"I'll get the door, you rest, Mom!"
Footsteps thudded downstairs, and Funi showed an eager smile.
Everything was like in the stories...
The girl and the boy met, talked...
But the ending...
The enforcement team surrounded the yard.
After a struggle, Simon returned to the city with Funi's body.
"Kill me," the young man said.
"Why don't I go kill her?"
"It's not her fault. I was lying to her."
"Do you want to go back now?"
"I can't go anywhere anymore; the good-tempered Funi is dead."
"..."
Simon plunged the sharp sword in his hand into his tender heart.
"Beep beep beep!" A patrol drone flew over Simon's head. "Citizen, you are suspected of murder. Please stand still and cooperate with law enforcement..."
"Bang!"
A flash of sword light, and the drone fell to the ground.
"Squeak—zzz." The static quickly ended, and a familiar male synthetic voice came out, "Oh, you're here, and quickly. And you avoided those people. Come to the company branch, I'll arrange everything."
...
The Temple Corporation, shaped like an inverted silver bowl, looked out of place against the city's unchanging night sky.
Simon entered through the main entrance and walked to the front desk; a service robot in uniform politely asked him if he had an appointment.
A line of text appeared on the electronic screen on the desk.
"Mission: Obtain the golden apple, Destination: Temple Corporation Second Branch The Core, Mission will begin in five seconds."
Simon was startled.
"Where is The Core?"
"You are not a member of this company and are not authorized to know," the service robot said in a dull tone.
The countdown on the electronic screen reached zero.
Suddenly, alarms blared throughout the entire company.
"Warning! Warning! Eden is under attack! The Core's sealed structure is damaged! Initiating forced isolation measures!"
Dark gun barrels extended from the ceiling, beginning indiscriminate firing; for a moment, parts flew everywhere in the hall, so this was the so-called isolation measure!
Electromagnetic pulses surged, and Simon felt his body severely damaged, having been hit by machine gun fire.
He fell to the ground, and a dazzling path icon appeared on the floor's holographic screen; he clawed at the ground and crawled forward.
The massive Second Branch was thoroughly cleared by Eden's isolation measures; Simon was not intercepted by anyone along the way.
He smoothly arrived at a central hall where a long pillar stood, covered in interfaces, with data cables densely connected to the room's surroundings.
Simon crawled to the pillar; there was no electromagnetic pulse here, so after a struggle, he managed to stand up.
"I'm here!" he shouted.
"Blank One, all your actions, in this world digitized by the golden apple, will leave no trace, so only you can end all this..."
A tank rose from the ground, immersing a pale, bloated brain, and the male synthetic voice came from within it.
"My name is Desmond Miles. I am latent in this brain, latent in Eden's data."
Simon looked at the wriggling brain, his whole body tingling.
"You're surprised? But there's no need."
"How can I leave here?"
"I don't know. But I have some clues; if you agree to take the golden apple, I'll tell you."
"Of course, I agree!"
"Alright then... Your kind, I have many in my memory, but the data tells me you don't exist, like ghosts, isn't it?"
"My kind?"
"Yes, no one knows who you are, but you indeed appear in our history... You are a very weak one."
"..."
"You need to find your connection to your original world, like a beacon, like a secret code. If you can find this thing that exists in your subconscious, you can return home."
Simon remained silent, at a loss.
"It seems you need a little help. Alright then, take the golden apple first and see if its power can help you."
The central pillar opened, revealing the golden sphere truly radiating light inside.
"The technology of the predecessors is gradually eroding us."
Simon raised his hand to touch the Eden fragment.
In an instant, everything went dark.
...
Simon stood in front of a mirror, with his own reflection in it.
The room was spacious and bright, but it wasn't anywhere he had ever been.
The reflection smiled at him and said, "I am your subconscious."
"This has been a very interesting adventure; I had a lot of fun."
"Now, it's time for you to go back."
"From your pocket."
Simon felt his pocket; there was a pen inside.
It was the homework pen he had tucked into his pocket.
As he saw it, the mirror in front of him shattered.
The reflection was smiling at him.
...
The afternoon sun shone into the room.
Simon woke up and looked at the clock on the wall; it was already five o'clock, and his homework was still not done.
He returned to his desk, holding the pen.
The dream was just a dream after all.