Chapter 2: The First Appearance of the Black Mist

Lia and I dashed headlong into that rusty pipeline network, running helter-skelter. These pipelines were winding and twisting, much like the labyrinthine old alleys in Paris where I used to scurry around when I was a kid. But instead of raindrops, what dripped here was sticky and stinky machine oil, with the rusty smell of abandoned oil tankers in Rotterdam Port. The odor drilled straight into our noses, making our heads dizzy.

"Aiden, how long are we going to run? In this damned place, where on earth is the end?" Lia gasped, her voice full of exhaustion and helplessness. I wanted to know just as much, but the guys from the Flint Group were hot on our heels. I could only grit my teeth and say, "Let's just follow these pipelines for now. We'll surely find a way out. Surely we will..." In fact, I wasn't confident at all. I was more or less saying these words to myself, to boost my own morale.

The vibrations that came from the ventilation openings from time to time had the same frequency as the vibrations when a train enters the Atocha Station in Madrid. The resonance made our ears buzz and our minds feel restless. As we were running, I suddenly remembered when I was a kid, my father took me to a bakery in Berlin. The aroma of the freshly baked bread was warm and cozy. Compared with the current cold, damp environment filled with the smell of machine oil, it was like two different worlds.

Just as I was thinking, a strange black mist suddenly appeared in front of us. It was like a huge black curtain, blocking our way. "What the hell is this?" Lia stopped abruptly, her voice clearly showing fear. I felt a shiver down my spine too. There was an indescribable eerie feeling about this black mist. But the footsteps of the Flint Group behind us were getting closer. There was no other choice but to face it bravely.

The closer we got to the black mist, the more strange things we could see. In the area shrouded by the black mist, ERROR#47 code chains, like those error tapes from the ENIAC prototype at Cambridge University, emerged on the surface of the gears of those mechanical bodies. They pulsated like blood vessels. "This... This is really creepy." I couldn't help mumbling, my voice trembling a bit. Lia gripped my arm tightly, her palms all sweaty.

Suddenly, I heard the shouts of the people from the Flint Group behind us, "Hurry up, they must be ahead. Don't let them get away!" "Let's go!" I pulled Lia and plunged into the black mist.

As soon as we entered the black mist, we felt something was wrong. My throat felt as if it was being pricked by thousands of fine needles, extremely uncomfortable. I couldn't help sneezing, and the light patterns refracted by the mucus crystals from the sneeze were like the chaotic screen when a computer crashes with a blue screen. "Cough, cough. Aiden, how are you?" Lia asked anxiously. I waved my hand to signal her to keep going, but this black mist was really choking. Every breath I took felt like swallowing a ball of fire.

Groping around in the black mist, we found a place that looked like a laboratory. There were strange instruments everywhere, and some mechanical devices that had been eroded beyond recognition by the black mist. I saw a fragment that looked like a gear in the corner, covered with those strange non-Euclidean geometric topological patterns. I reached out to pick it up. As soon as I touched it, the pressure value suddenly popped up on the wrench in my hand: 2510 psi (17.3MPa) → Exceeds ASME B31.3 Threshold (Criticality Level III) "Strange, what's going on here?" I frowned and put the fragment into my pocket.

We continued searching and found several similar gear fragments. The third one was stuck in the pipeline. When I tried to pry it out with the wrench, it was as difficult as prying open a tightly sealed bottle of Bordeaux wine. I finally managed to get it out with great effort.

"That's enough. Let's get out of here quickly." Lia urged. I was just about to nod when a figure flashed out from the nearby shadows. "Stop! What are you doing here?" A woman's voice came. I took a closer look and saw that it was Maggie, a well-known black market merchant in Scrap Iron Town, who was very shrewd.

"Maggie, why are you here?" I was both surprised and suspicious.

"Hmph, I was just going to ask you the same thing. What are you up to on my turf?" Maggie crossed her arms and looked at us warily.

I showed her the gear fragments in my pocket, "We're just looking for something. We have no other intentions."

Maggie's eyes lit up immediately, "Well, this is something interesting. Look, you give me these fragments, and I'll give you some useful information."

Lia and I exchanged a glance and hesitated for a moment. "All right." I thought that anyway, we didn't know what these fragments were for, and maybe Maggie could really give us some clues.

Maggie took the fragments and turned around to rummage in a box. At this time, I saw her draw something on the table with verdigris. As the content of the transaction changed, the verdigris actually turned blood red, and a trilingual price list in English, German, and French appeared on the table. Maggie winked and said,"Want Antimaterie-Ware(反物质货)? You have to wait until next Vollmond(满月)." [Annotation]: //Was zum Teufel ist das?// I wondered what Maggie was up to, being so mysterious.

After leaving Maggie's place, we continued running. As we were running, I noticed that Vivian beside me was not right. The mithril patterns on her spine were flickering, and a firewall prompt box popped up: [ERROR#47] Protocol_Valkyrie engaged. An electronic seal of the Geneva Convention actually appeared on the back of her neck, with [//ERROR#47//] Protocol_Valkyrie: Geneva Convention Article 8 Violation | an experiment number ETH-Zürich Lab#2025-471 on it. "What on earth is Vivian's background?" My doubts grew deeper and deeper, but Lia was urging me to hurry up in front, so I could only hold my questions back and keep running.

We ran for a while longer, and the black mist still followed us closely. Suddenly, I felt my foot slip, and I almost fell. It turned out that the black mist had risen above my ankles. At this time, I saw pixelated warning symbols floating in the black mist, one after another ⚠️, which made my heart flutter with anxiety.

"Where on earth is this black mist going to lead us?" Lia's voice was filled with despair. I didn't know how to comfort her, so I just pulled her and "kept going, energy fluctuations synced to North Sea Storm Alert Orange vibrating through our boots,As we were walking, I suddenly smelled a familiar scent, the aroma of the stew my mother used to make. In this place filled with the smell of machine oil, this fragrance seemed extremely unreal, but it also warmed my heart a bit. I suddenly craved my mother's stew, even though the smell of the machine oil here was so thick that it was almost suffocating.

"Aiden, look! Those patterns are changing color!" Lia suddenly shouted. I looked up and saw that the patterns on the mechanical bodies eroded by the black mist were changing colors, sometimes red and sometimes green, just like the strange and unpredictable patterns on the leather pants at the Munich Oktoberfest.

At this time, we reached a fork in the road. In the passage on the left, the black mist was even thicker, like a thick black wall. The passage on the right was relatively quieter, but there were some strange sounds faintly coming from it, like someone crying in a low voice, or like the low rumbling of a machine.

"Aiden, what should we do?" Lia looked at me, her eyes full of expectation and confusion. I gritted my teeth and thought that no matter which way we chose, it would be a risk. "How about... we take the right passage?" I hesitated for a moment and voiced my opinion. Lia nodded.

We had just walked a few steps when the wrench in my hand suddenly vibrated, and I almost dropped it. The intensity of the vibration was like the vibration mode of a Nokia 3310 multiplied by three, as crazy as when those ivrognes at München Oktoberfest smash their wein glasses Before I could figure out what was going on, I heard footsteps ahead. These footsteps didn't sound like the mechanical footsteps of the people from the Flint Group. Instead, they were more like... like the normal footsteps of a person. But in this damned place, how could there be anyone?

Lia and I exchanged a glance, and we both saw the tension and doubt in each other's eyes. We walked forward cautiously, each step filled with fear, not knowing what was waiting for us ahead...