Chapter 22: The Ship of Theseus (II)

Joel Carey looked like an utterly ordinary, gloomy man.

He stood silently by the subway station waiting, squeezed into a crowd with the masses, showing nothing special.

The biting cold wind made him hunch his neck, shivering all over.

"Damn, I wore too few clothes when I went out today!" he muttered, his complaint drowned out by the crowd.

In his memory, he had gone to work day after day, like a gear endlessly turning within the giant machine of the Company.

Every day's routine had been planned the day before; he just needed to follow the steps one by one to finish the rest of his life.

"What is that man named Joel doing? Detective Hitah?" Yahweh was happy to continue acting in the morning's "Detective Hitah" little skit.

Couples always influence each other.

Living with the playful Hitah, he had inevitably picked up some amusing, witty colors.

"Use your brain! Assistant Mr. Yahweh!" Hitah pretended to wear a small hat, looking up and pointing at some idiot assistant.

A gust of cold wind passed by, seeming to spot her arrogant manner, and angrily snatched away the precious heat she had stored on her body.

"Eh! So cold." She shivered, quickly burrowing into the arms of her dear Mr. Yahweh.

Yahweh was wearing a large trench coat today, which could perfectly wrap Hitah entirely inside.

"Pay attention, don't lose him!" He seized the opportunity to severely teach a lesson to some incompetent, foolish Miss Detective.

"Tch! Just an assistant cricket; subordinates aren't allowed to kiss their bosses, understand?" Hitah hid in his arms, yet her mouth showed no weakness at all.

The surrounding crowd seemed unable to bear the pink atmosphere radiating from the two of them and quickly left.

"What's going on? Are they dazzled by us?" Hitah frowned, greatly dissatisfied.

"The subway is about to arrive..." Sometimes he really wanted to crack her little head open to see if it was filled with water.

"Oh..." She awkwardly touched her cheek, looking around unnaturally, but unexpectedly spotted the target they were tailing—Joel Carey behaving strangely.

Joel Carey seemed to be listening intently to something.

Joel looked up at the station clock once, immediately turned around, and ran toward the Night City Line 6 Subway, which had been at the station for a long time.

"Damn, he seems to have spotted us!" Hitah gritted her teeth, pulling hard on Yahweh's arm, rushing toward the Line 6 Subway about to depart.

Holding hands, they ran with their heads down, like the idiot couple protagonists in the currently popular Superdream Movies.

Yahweh estimated they wouldn't catch up in time, so he simply scooped Hitah up by the waist, protecting her with both hands, and sprinted forward at a faster speed.

He used his shoulder to push through the crowd and, at the last critical moment, successfully boarded the subway.

He put Hitah down, looked around, and for the moment found no trace of the mission target.

"Huff, huff, huff! Moon landing successful!" Hitah whispered, lying in his warm embrace.

"The target hasn't spotted us..." Yahweh helplessly shook his head, holding Hitah and wrapping her back up in the trench coat, leaving only a small hat visible. "I was eavesdropping on the whole thing just now; the target hasn't had any communication with anyone... I initially suspect he is experiencing auditory hallucinations."

"Auditory hallucinations?"

"He might have just lost some memories... perhaps a soul forgotten by him is talking to him..." Yahweh softly stated his guess in her ear.

"Wow, very professional, Assistant Mr. Yahweh!" Hitah gazed at his handsome profile, stood on tiptoe, and gently pressed her lips to it as a reward.

Yahweh helplessly sighed; while talking to her, he had already successfully locked onto the target via the network.

He carried the amateur Miss Detective toward the carriage where Joel Carey was, maintaining a certain distance, following at neither too far nor too close.

"Where is he planning to go?" Hitah hid in Yahweh's arms, quietly watching that black-haired man.

"Line 6 Subway... the destination should be Heywood District." Yahweh spent a few seconds searching the subway system.

"Not going to work, but going to Heywood instead?" Hitah raised her delicate eyebrows. "It seems there is something there that haunts the amnesiac him..."

"I was right to take this commission; it's so interesting." She lightly clapped her hands. "As expected of me..."

"I think you just want to take the opportunity to travel..." Yahweh looked at her with an eye-roll of disdain.

"Tch..." Her little scheme exposed, Hitah frowned her perky nose and touched her chin with her small hand.

"Shh, focus on the target, stop playing." He pulled Hitah into Joel's blind spot, and together they quietly monitored the target's movements.

The subway stopped for a while, and many seats became empty.

Joel Carey randomly chose a window seat, sat down, opened the briefcase he had been carrying, and unexpectedly found a diary lying among a pile of miscellaneous items.

"I'm acting very strangely today... skipping work because I'm in a bad mood... this isn't like me..." He muttered to himself while flipping open that somewhat familiar diary.

"January 9th... January 6th..." He quickly flipped through those unfamiliar words, and a strange feeling in his heart kept accumulating with the movement of his fingertips.

The flipping motion stopped; he was surprised to find that all the diary entries before January 5th had been torn out by someone, leaving only empty paleness and ragged tear marks, silently mocking this poor man who had forgotten his past.

Joel Carey frowned in thought, briefly reviewing his life.

Joel Carey, male, twenty-seven years old, Company executive, owns a house and a car, no bad habits, has a few close friends, no partner...

"Hi! Hello, is the seat next to you taken?" A girl dressed in bright, flashy clothes walked over and asked him softly.

"No..." He opened his mouth, suddenly realizing his voice was terribly hoarse.

"My name is Clementine Kroski," the girl said, smoothing her blue-green gradient long hair with her left hand. "Just call me Clementine."

"Joel, Joel Carey." Out of politeness, Joel lightly grasped the right hand she extended, touching it for a moment before letting go.

"I'm planning to go to the Aqueduct District in Heywood; there is the sea there..." Clementine tilted her head, looking at this somewhat familiar man, and couldn't help but open her floodgates of conversation.

Joel felt somewhat uncomfortable with this strange woman's enthusiastic actions; he slightly shifted his bottom, moving a bit farther away from her.

The gloomy him and the enthusiastic her seemed to be people from different worlds.

Moreover, in this ghost place called Night City, trust no one; even if you get cheated, you must bear the consequences yourself.

"What's wrong? Do I have a strange smell on me? Why are you staying so far from me?" Clementine glared at Joel with her beautiful eyes, directly firing off three questions in a row.

"No... no strange smell..." On the contrary, the smell on you is a bit familiar to me...

Joel did not voice his inner thoughts, because saying that would make him sound like a pervert.

He just wanted to be ordinary, unwilling to be overly noticed, whether for a good impression or a bad one.

"What about you?" Clementine raised her eyebrows, shifted her body closer to the man, and continued to press.

Their distance had returned to the starting point.

"Today... I'm not in a good mood... I woke up this morning with a terrible headache, so I wanted to go to the Aqueduct District to see the sea and clear my mind..." he spoke haltingly, carefully choosing his words.

He realized he was inexplicably concerned about the blue-green-haired woman before him.

"Does this count as a romantic encounter, Yahweh?" Hita Castelli leaned against Yahweh's chest not far from Joel and Clementine's seats and asked with a straight face.

"I don't know, Hita Castelli; I'm just an AI," Yahweh retorted pettily.

"Stop pretending, you stinky man hiding behind an AI skin..." Hita Castelli snorted through her nose and lightly pinched his waist.

"Let's just wait and see... I have a feeling things are getting interesting..." Yahweh narrowed his eyes and caught Hita Castelli's mischievous little hand.

Not far away, the exchange between Joel and Clementine continued.