Reality shattered like a mirror, and Chen Mo fell into a void where even metaphors lost their meaning.
"Betrayal?" Professor Li Mingyuan's voice echoed from all directions, his form flickering in and out of existence, the light in his eyes swirling into strange nebulae. "When you view this from a high enough dimension, you understand that the continuation of a species is far more important than a concept as quaint as loyalty."
Lin Zhan's pistol searched fruitlessly for a target in the void, his voice as cold as absolute zero. "Tell me how to stop this."
"Stop it?" Li's head tilted at an impossible angle. "You might as well try to stop the speed of light, or reverse entropy. The 3iAtlas is not a ship; it is a living law of the universe. And we… we have transcended the boundaries of life and death as you understand them."
Chen Mo forced himself to ignore the pulsating cracks in the void, which flexed and contracted like living veins. "If the 3iAtlas is a collector, why use such a violent method to collect humanity?"
"Because beauty is always most potent at the threshold of destruction," Li's tone became poetic, almost reverent. "A cathedral collapsing in an earthquake, a final charge on the battlefield, an embrace at the end of the world—these are the moments worthy of eternity. We don't want cold, sterile specimens. We want the most incandescent state of a civilization."
Lin Zhan's finger tightened on the trigger, his knuckles white. "So the disasters… they were all a stage you set?"
"We are merely the photographers, adjusting the lighting and the angles," Li smiled, his lips splitting to his ears.
A wave of vertigo hit Chen Mo. In the floating reality fragments, the frozen figures of people suddenly became crystal clear: a mother's fingers, millimeters from her child's coat; a couple's lips, forever paused at the moment of a kiss; a firefighter, suspended in mid-air, leaping from a burning window. Each was a pinnacle of emotion, each now an eternal exhibit.
"Enough," Lin Zhan's voice cut through the void. "How do we shut it down?"
A strange light flickered in Li's eyes. "Shut it down? Why not first take a look at the real collection?"
The void contracted, and Chen Mo found himself floating in an infinite gallery. Countless transparent cubes drifted around him, each containing a miniature world: silicon-based lifeforms shimmering in crystal forests, self-replicating AIs in mechanical cities, glowing jellyfish-like beings floating in the oceans of a water planet.
"Welcome to the preview gallery," Li's voice resonated directly in his consciousness. "Here are displayed the finest specimens of collected civilizations."
Chen Mo forced himself to analyze, to remain a scientist. Most of the cubes displayed a perfect, static beauty. But a few of the exhibits had a subtle "noise" at their edges, like the static on an old television. In one cube, the arrangement of a crystalline lifeform seemed to be reconfiguring itself at an infinitesimally slow rate.
"These are all…"
"Treasures collected by the 3iAtlas over billions of years," Li's voice was filled with rapture. "Soon, the most brilliant moments of human civilization will join them."
Chen Mo drifted toward a smaller cube and his breath caught in his throat. Inside was the final moment of Pompeii, the embraces and prayers beneath the volcanic ash, all the fear and love frozen for eternity.
"You… you stopped time?"
"No. We saved time," Li corrected. "We saved the most beautiful moments from the tyranny of entropy."
A cold dread, like liquid nitrogen, slowly filled Chen Mo's chest. He now fully understood the horror of this collection. It wasn't destruction; it was the transformation of a living, breathing civilization into a timeless, lifeless work of art.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because you are special, Chen Mo," Li appeared beside him, his fingers tracing a glowing string of mathematical symbols in the void. "Your mathematical intuition, your perception of higher dimensions… the 3iAtlas is very interested in you."
Chen Mo's eyes were drawn back to the cube with the static. The scene within it was moving, resisting the complete stasis.
"What is that?" Chen Mo pointed.
For the first time, a crack appeared in Li's composure. "A… flawed exhibit. A civilization that refuses to become completely static. It will be corrected soon."
*Refuses to become static?* A thought sparked in Chen Mo's mind. This meant the collection process was not perfect.
"I need time to consider your offer," Chen Mo said, stalling, his mind racing.
"72 hours," Li smiled. "The most brilliant parts of Earth's civilization will be preserved for eternity. The remainder… will be purged."
*Purged.* The word echoed in the void, carrying the chill of absolute death.
***
Chen Mo found himself back in the fractured laboratory. Lin Zhan was pinned to a wall by glowing energy tethers, struggling against them.
"A necessary precaution," Li said dismissively. "Colonel Lin's combat instincts are an excellent specimen for collection, but he is too unstable at present."
Chen Mo and Lin Zhan exchanged a look.
"So, what is your decision?" Li asked, his expression expectant.
Chen Mo took a deep breath. "I need proof. Proof that joining you will truly grant me the power you speak of."
The light in Li's eyes flickered, and he finally nodded in satisfaction. "A reasonable request."
He waved his hand, and a complex series of symbols, equations, and graphs materialized in the air. Chen Mo immediately recognized them as formulas from higher-dimensional geometry, some of which were far beyond humanity's current understanding.
"This is the basic algorithm the 3iAtlas uses to fold space," Li explained. "Master it, and you will begin to understand how we manipulate reality."
The beauty of the formulas was breathtaking. They were as elegant as Euler's identity, yet they held the power to tear reality apart. As a mathematician, Chen Mo had spent his life in pursuit of such pure, abstract beauty. But the frozen figures of the victims flashed in his mind: the mother's outstretched hand, the firefighter's leap… No matter how beautiful, no equation was worth the price of a living civilization.
"May I study these?" Chen Mo asked, his voice filled with a feigned eagerness.
Li gestured to a still-functional console in the corner. "This terminal is for your use. When you understand the elegance of these formulas, you will see how wise it is to join us."
With that, Li's form began to turn translucent. "72 hours."
As Li vanished, the energy tethers holding Lin Zhan dissolved. He immediately rushed to Chen Mo's side. "Are you alright?"
Chen Mo quickly described what he had seen in the preview gallery, emphasizing the cube with the civilization that refused to become static.
"That means resistance is possible," hope rekindled in Lin Zhan's eyes. "But how do we find a way?"
Chen Mo walked to the console. "It starts with these formulas."
Lin Zhan looked at the console warily. "You're not afraid it's a trap?"
"It might be," Chen Mo admitted. "But it's our only clue. And…" he paused. "I think Li has underestimated the potential of human mathematics."
Chen Mo immersed himself in the sea of equations. Outside, the world continued to decay, the sounds of collapsing buildings and the shriek of tearing space a constant backdrop.
Lin Zhan stood guard at the entrance, watching as entire city blocks were cut up and rearranged by an invisible force. Skyscrapers were sliced into floating sections, time flowed at different rates on the same street, some figures moved in a blur while others were as slow as snails.
"It's getting worse," Lin Zhan said, looking back. "Any progress?"
Chen Mo's eyes were shining with an excited light. "Lin Zhan, this isn't a math problem—it's a weapon!"
His fingers paused over the console. He mentally calculated the risk. These particular solutions in Riemannian geometry were known as "mathematical singularities." They existed in theory but had never been observed in reality. If his calculations were correct, this would be the first time a human had deliberately created a spatial singularity. If he was wrong, it could accelerate the collapse of the entire lab. Lin Zhan's look of trust made him push aside his hesitation.
"These formulas are the tools to manipulate reality," Chen Mo's voice trembled with excitement. "To write these equations is to directly edit the source code of the universe."
"Can we use them to fix everything?"
Chen Mo shook his head. "The key parameters are hidden. Li gave me the tools, but not the user manual."
"So it's a false hope?"
"Not necessarily," a look of determination crossed Chen Mo's face. "If I can't use the formulas they gave me, maybe I can create my own."
His fingers flew across the console, pulling up the most extreme and esoteric solutions in Riemannian geometry. A new set of equations began to take shape—more organic, more fluid, filled with the unique beauty and complexity of human mathematics.
"What are you doing?"
"Writing a command the 3iAtlas hasn't anticipated," Chen Mo replied. "If their system is based on a complete understanding of known mathematics, then a completely new spatial configuration might…"
Chen Mo's words trailed off. The Riemannian equations he had just written began to glow. The symbols on the screen writhed and rearranged themselves, emitting a low, inhuman hum.
The space within the lab began to fluctuate. The cracks on the walls opened and closed like they were breathing. The figures of the people trapped in the reality fragments all turned their heads in unison—and looked directly at them.
"What did you do?" Lin Zhan's pistol snapped up.
"I gave the system an answer it hadn't studied for…" Chen Mo's voice trembled. "And now, it's stuck."
At that moment, a perfect circular rift tore open in the center of the lab, its edges shimmering with a halo of mathematical symbols. On the other side of the opening was a completely alien world. Crystal clouds floated in a purple sky, spiral-shaped mountains reached to the heavens, and geometric creatures swam through the air.
Most alarmingly, the creatures had noticed the opening and were now flying toward it.
"What did you open?" Lin Zhan aimed his weapon at the rift, his voice tight.
"I don't know… according to my calculations, this should have just been a minor local adjustment…"
Suddenly, Chen Mo understood. His formula had inadvertently connected to the space occupied by the civilization that was resisting collection.
An ethereal, complex chiming sound came from the other side of the rift. Several beings made of pure geometry reached the opening, extending crystalline tendrils to test the boundary.
At the same time, the other cracks in the lab began to flicker erratically, and the entire building shook violently. In the distance, they could hear Li Mingyuan's enraged voice, clearly aware that something had gone wrong.
Chen Mo and Lin Zhan exchanged a look. The rules of the game had just changed.
The 3iAtlas's system now had a vulnerability it had never anticipated—a vulnerability created by human mathematics.
And as the first geometric being passed completely through the rift, Chen Mo suddenly understood everything.
That wasn't an alien visitor. It was the 3iAtlas's first "curator," who had betrayed its creator eons ago.
Now, it was making a gesture toward Chen Mo, forming the most ancient symbol in human mathematics: ∞
"So…" Chen Mo's blood ran cold. "We're the copies."