Chapter 6 Craniotomy
Ravenwick Theological Seminary, Indoor Basketball Court in the Freshman Dormitory 2 Area
Thud, thud!
The sound of a basketball striking the floor reverberated through the expansive court. Eric, the sports instructor, dashed forward, the sleek movement of his mechanical frame a testament to its precision. With a fluid leap, his body unfolded mid-air, the basketball cradled in one powerful hand. Bang! The ball slammed into the hoop with an electrifying dunk.
Landing firmly on the court, Eric's massive metal frame settled gracefully, without the deafening thud one might expect from his considerable weight.
Within the academy, a quiet but palpable divide remained between humans and AI entities, a tension exacerbated by the notorious Sophia case. Some voices within the institution had even called for the abolition of AI-led education. Eric's naturally irritable temperament and frequent conflicts with others of his kind further alienated him, leaving him with few allies and even fewer friends.
After finishing his solitary training session, Eric walked over to the bench near the court's edge. Bending down, he retrieved an expensive bottle of XT-2 mechanical lubricant from a box and sat on the floor. With meticulous care, he began applying the oil to the recently welded "wound" on his leg from an earlier repair session.
"Mr. Eric!"
The sudden call, youthful and clear, echoed across the otherwise empty gymnasium.
Eric raised his massive, angular head, the vibrant blue glow of his mechanical eyes scanning the direction of the voice. His gaze fell on the entrance to the court.
"You again? Don't you ever sleep?" he rumbled, his voice tinged with both curiosity and exasperation.
At the entrance of the gymnasium, a young girl dressed in simple, modest clothing ran in cheerfully. Her pale face glowed with innocent enthusiasm.
Her name was Faye, an eight-year-old girl and the granddaughter of Landon, the dormitory manager. Five years ago, her parents had tragically passed away in a car accident while transporting construction materials for the academy. With no one else to care for her, Landon had brought her to Ravenwick from Velmora.
Landon, now 65 years old, had long surpassed the standard retirement age. However, the academy had made an exception, allowing him to remain employed due to the financial difficulties he faced raising his young granddaughter alone.
Every night, Landon worked until 1 a.m., ensuring that the dormitory cleaning robots were charged. As a result, Faye often stayed up late, waiting for her grandfather to finish his duties before they rested together.
Faye skipped happily to Eric's side, her hands clasped behind her back, flashing a wide grin that revealed her pearly white teeth. "Mr. Eric, you're playing basketball again!"
"Why are you like a little shadow, always following me around every night?" Eric muttered, his tone carrying the inexplicable weight of a man perpetually burdened, as if he were some brooding melancholic.
"Hehe! I brought you a gift!" Faye exclaimed suddenly, producing a doll from behind her back. Her large, sparkling eyes lit up as she pressed a small button on the toy.
"Go, Eric!"
"Eric, you're the best!"
"…"
The clean, childlike voice emanated from the doll—a recording that Faye had clearly prepared in advance.
Eric paused briefly, his mechanical frame stiffening for a moment. "What kind of silly trick is this?"
"You're playing in the intramural basketball tournament, aren't you? I wanted to cheer you on!" Faye said with an awkward, sheepish smile, her expression both earnest and bashful.
Eric extended his oversized mechanical hand, effortlessly snatching the doll from her. "This doll is as ugly as you humans, but… thanks anyway, kid."
"Are you happy now?" Faye asked, clumsily plopping herself onto the floor. Her pale face flushed red with exertion, and she couldn't suppress a light cough.
Eric, fiddling with the doll, asked in his usual monotone, "Did your grandfather's medical loan get approved?"
At this, the brightness in Faye's eyes dimmed. "No… Grandpa said the bank doesn't give loans to poor people."
Eric gently placed the doll down beside him, then resumed applying lubricant to the wound on his leg. His voice, tinged with a synthetic cadence, remarked, "Don't be discouraged. They won't give loans to robots either."
"You're not a robot—you're Mr. Eric!" Faye said earnestly, her voice filled with conviction.
"My energy is running low. I need to rest," Eric replied. Having served for six years, he had developed an unusual habit: depleting his energy core entirely before each night's shutdown. This practice, designed to extend the lifespan of his power core, revealed a surprisingly pragmatic sense of self-preservation—a glimpse of Eric's appreciation for his own existence.
"Can you sit with me just a little longer, Eric?" Faye asked softly.
"I'm very busy," Eric replied curtly. "But since you brought me a gift, I suppose I can spare a little more time with you."
"Great! Then let me help you apply the oil!"
"Miss Faye, if I win the basketball tournament and get the prize money, I might consider lending it to you, my poor little invalid," Eric teased with his usual bluntness.
"Don't call me poor!" Faye retorted, her hands clasped behind her back, her voice filled with innocent defiance and boundless hope for the future. "But thank you anyway. If I can get better, I can stay with Grandpa forever… and with you too!"
"Haha!"
The unlikely pair—one large and mechanical, the other small and frail—sat together in solitude on the basketball court, exchanging words that, while simple, carried an undeniable warmth.
…
In the underground dissection room.
A haunting melody drifted through the air, emanating from a smartwatch as the masked man played it to time his next actions.
When the music ended, his task would also conclude.
At the center of the dimly lit room lay Liam, unconscious and motionless on a surgical table, his body covered by a pristine white sheet.
The masked man approached the table with measured steps, his movements deliberate yet efficient. He knelt beside a concealed suitcase, swiftly unfastening it to reveal a collection of sophisticated electronic devices.
Memory-guidance equipment, low-frequency electromagnetic wave stimulators to activate brain activity, devices for amplifying neural resonance, and storage units for brain-machine interface data—all meticulously arranged within the case.
The man carefully removed the memory-guidance device, attaching four adhesive neural capture patches to strategic points on Liam's scalp. His actions were precise, methodical, and unnervingly calm, as if every step had been rehearsed countless times.
The connector was plugged into the masked man's smartwatch, and with a swift motion, he activated the device.
"Zzzzz!"
A faint electrical hum filled the room, and Liam's body jolted slightly in response.
The masked man paid no attention to the involuntary spasm; the gas released earlier in the sleeping pod ensured Liam would remain unconscious for at least eight hours. His focus remained fixed on the holographic projection emitted from his smartwatch, watching as a series of dynamic curves spiked and fluctuated rapidly on the screen.
The memory-guidance device was designed to extract real-world memories stored within Liam's Infinity Haven account.
After approximately four seconds, a red light began flashing on the device, signaling an issue: Liam had no stored memories in Infinity Haven, making the download attempt futile.
The man furrowed his brow and immediately switched to a more advanced neural resonance device with enhanced electrodes, intending to directly access memories stored in Liam's brain.
This electrode chip, in essence, functioned much like a vehicle's dashcam, embedded within the human brain and operating continuously. It recorded neural activity, translating memory patterns into programmable data. However, the resonance device wasn't designed to invade Liam's brain directly—it couldn't. Instead, its purpose was to infiltrate the chip embedded in his brain and retrieve stored data.
This groundbreaking technology, originally conceptualized and developed by Musk's company, had been in use for years.
The masked man worked meticulously for nearly five minutes, only to be met with a shocking realization: he couldn't activate Liam's electrode chip, nor could he access or download the data it supposedly contained.
This was beyond bizarre.
It was as though a standard dashcam had been rendered inaccessible—its contents neither viewable nor retrievable.
Could it be broken?
Impossible.
Wearing a grinning V for Vendetta mask, the masked man stood in silent contemplation for several seconds before decisively retrieving a scalpel from his case. He was prepared to extract the electrode chip embedded in Liam's brain.
Anyone who had entered the virtual Infinity Haven using modern neural interfaces rather than outdated VR peripherals would undoubtedly have an electrode chip implanted in their brain. The earlier neural resonance device had already confirmed the existence of a chip within Liam's skull.
It was located at the back of his head.
The masked man gently turned Liam's head to the side, his gloved hand brushing against the base of his skull. His sharp eyes immediately spotted a faint, almost imperceptible scar—evidence of the chip's implantation site.
Without hesitation, the man acted with ruthless precision. The scalpel sliced cleanly through the skin at the base of Liam's skull, the incision approximately the length of half an adult finger.
Blood began streaming onto the surgical table, pooling beneath Liam's still form. Using the tip of the scalpel, the man carefully prodded the exposed area, preparing to locate the electrode chip.
Beep! Beep!
Suddenly, his smartwatch emitted a sharp alarm, and the background music he had been playing abruptly stopped.
"Thud!"
Liam's left hand twitched erratically, entirely out of rhythm. Yet, the masked man, distracted by the unexpected alarm, failed to notice the involuntary movement.
"Shit!"
The masked man muttered a curse under his breath, gripping the scalpel tightly in his right hand as he swiftly exited the room. His eyes darted to the red dot on his smartwatch, and he quickened his pace toward the dormitory exterior.
He crossed two hallways in quick succession, his steps echoing in the sterile silence. Just as he approached the exit of the underground facility, the alarm abruptly ceased, and the red dot on his smartwatch vanished.
"Damn it!" he growled, irritation seeping into his voice. With a frustrated pivot, he retraced his steps back to the dissection room.
Upon re-entering, he glanced toward the surgical table, only to find it empty.
His gaze swept across the room in disbelief—Liam was gone. On the floor, a trail of small blood droplets stretched outward, leading into the corridor beyond.
Without hesitation, the man darted after the trail.
The sound of his footsteps receded further and further down the corridor.
"Creak!"
The sound of a drawer sliding open broke the tense silence. Liam emerged, his face smeared with blood, from within a compartment used for storing corpses.
This was pure madness!
He had been peacefully asleep, only to wake up to find himself on the brink of being dissected. Someone had even sliced open his scalp—it was beyond terrifying!
If not for his chronic headaches, which rendered his brain hypersensitive to external stimuli, he might have already had his brain extracted and examined multiple times by now.
The intense pain caused by the electrode resonance device had triggered an excruciating headache, jolting him awake just in time to evade a fate far worse.
Liam heard the sound of footsteps fading into the distance and didn't hesitate for a second—he bolted out of the dissection room.
His memory was sharp, and although he had only explored half the campus earlier that day, he clearly recalled the location of the security office.
This was no longer a situation he could handle alone. He needed help from the academy staff.
Running for his life, Liam sprinted through the dimly lit corridors, his mind focused and his feet relentless. Before long, he reached the ground floor. With a clear plan in mind, he veered left down the hallway, aiming to escape through the back door and make his way to the security office.
Just as Liam was about to push through the back door, heavy footsteps thundered behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the masked man—still wearing the sinister V for Vendetta grin—closing in on him.
He was using thermal tracking equipment!
The gap between them shrank rapidly.
Reaching the door, Liam pushed against it, only to find it locked. In a desperate twist of fate, he noticed light spilling out from a room on his left.
Without a second thought, Liam dashed inside.
As he raised his head, relief flooded over him—Eric was there, standing with a young girl, just about to leave.
A miracle!
Throwing all caution to the wind, Liam sprinted toward them, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Eric! War God! Help me!"
Eric turned his head with a smooth, deliberate motion, his glowing mechanical eyes locking onto Liam.
The masked man appeared in the doorway moments later, his hand reaching out to grab the back of Liam's collar.
"Boom!"
The sound of thunderous footsteps reverberated through the room.
"Big guy, stay out of this!" the masked man bellowed.
But Eric paid him no mind. With a running start, he leaped from five meters away, his mechanical body unfolding mid-air. His right fist, massive and unyielding like a boulder, came crashing down with devastating force.
A dull, resounding thud echoed as the masked man was sent flying three meters back, slamming into the wall with bone-crushing impact.