Chapter 1028

"Silver Wolf" looked at the slippery embryo and showed an interested expression.

She had already tasted enough doujinshi on related themes, but the Foundation had actually developed a set of technologies for isolating memory and information using tentacle monsters, without developing it into something for Qzone.

"What a pity."

Tentacles, aliens, mind control, visual deprivation, brainwashing... these words sounded pretty bad just hearing them.

"Maybe it could even counter Kafka's 'Spirit Whisper'."

"Silver Wolf" lay on the soft and comfortable bed; her script had come to a temporary end, and she wouldn't have to appear again until the "Charmony Festival" in Penacony.

Taking advantage of this time, she could refresh the historical records of many games.

As for the "Grand Game"... "Silver Wolf" was not interested for the time being; when she encountered a fun script, she wouldn't mind running through it.

But before that, hacker offense and defense were more interesting.

When Hughes entered S167-00-1006, four key figures were already gathered in the room.

Marion Wheeler, in charge of operating Site-41; Graves, the Director of Site-45; Michael Lee and O5-8 were talking at the back of the room.

They were all wearing embryos, and four large eyeballs turned in unison, converging on Hughes as he walked into the room.

This felt too weird... Hughes felt like he had entered a secret gathering place for cyclopes.

Hughes couldn't see the full picture of his own cyclopean image, but judging from the faces of the people present, he guessed he should be a human disguised as a cyclopean monster, while the other four were real.

"You're here," O5-8 said.

Hughes had never seen any O5 before; the O5-8 before him was vastly different from the image he had expected.

He tried his best to suppress the urge to pry into the other party, but his embryo looked for him very skillfully.

"Did you all catch up?" Hughes asked.

The first quarter of such meetings was often used to read the long notes left over from the previous meeting.

The four people present should have already held a preparatory meeting and were now taking a break, preparing to continue the previous agenda.

"Yes."

O5-8 responded while pointing to the empty chair reserved specifically for him, which was facing Marion, where there was also a printed document.

"Should I read it now?"

"No rush, take your time."

"Where is my team?" Hughes asked. "Three people are missing."

"Read the document, Dr. Hughes," O5-8 ordered again.

Hughes obediently sat down and began to study the two-page A4 paper.

The author column clearly marked his own name, as well as several researchers who should have been in the same room at the moment as co-authors, including the two missing team members.

He had no impression of the title and content of the paper, but this was not strange in his work.

The paper claimed that the research team had observed a brand-new and extremely dangerous antimemetic complex, tentatively designated "SCP-3125," and applied for an Apollyon-class rating for it.

The front of the A4 paper detailed a series of anomalous phenomena, while the back was filled with complex mathematical deductions.

However, between these rigorous scientific statements, a sudden logical gap hit Hughes like a boulder, making him feel intense terror on a physiological level.

Even though he had long realized the meaning of the word "Apollyon," and even though he was mentally prepared to face the extreme horror that might be hidden behind the paper, he still couldn't suppress the trembling in his heart.

"Damn it! Hell!"

The others remained silent; they waited patiently, hoping Hughes could sort out some valuable insights from his chaotic thoughts.

The scene displayed by "SCP-3125" was distant and unimaginable; Hughes had only taken a terrified peek through the keyhole.

He needed to sit in front of the computer for a while longer before he could be sure of the calculation results.

But before that, he had to build a filter; He might have also peeked at him.

An Apollyon-class anomaly meant it possessed extremely high destructiveness; in fact, it was impossible to achieve any form of containment, an existence beyond Keter-class.

An Apollyon-class anomaly was basically an anomaly that would definitely destroy the world, and no matter what was done to stop it, it would be useless.

The only thing that could stop an XA-class scenario was if something else destroyed the world first.

Their threat level was not measured by the difficulty of containment on a material level, but by the inevitability of them causing a global catastrophe and the expected time of the catastrophe.

And the conclusion Hughes reached was only a single digit.

"This thing is aimed at exterminating us."

Hughes scanned the people sitting around the table, his tone heavy: "Have we ever had an Apollyon classification?"

"No," O5-8 said.

"No?" Hughes couldn't believe it.

O5-8 smiled slightly: "The current Overseers believe that an Apollyon classification is equivalent to admitting total failure, which is not conducive to boosting morale and easily breeds defeatism."

"Therefore, the Keter-class is currently the peak of the entire classification system."

"All existing Apollyon-class anomalies will be re-evaluated within the next year and may be downgraded to Keter."

"Besides that, what did you think of?"

Hughes: "Containment procedures? We've talked about this countless times before, right?"

"Let's pretend this is the first time," O5-8 said.

Hughes's gaze fell back to the paper in his hand: "We could choose to exterminate all intelligent human life."

"If there are no intelligent hosts in the universe, 3125 cannot descend," he added.

As soon as these words were spoken, a brief and shocking silence filled the room.

"That's right, you did indeed propose this plan once," Marion broke the silence first.

"I'm not sure if everyone here can determine if you're serious."

"I am one hundred percent serious about the determination to execute this plan and the effects it might produce," Hughes stated.

"Our motto is 'Secure, Contain, Protect.' Should we add a sentence below it: 'Ensure as many humans as possible survive'?"

"Protecting humanity is a matter of course," Graves retorted. "Control anomalies, contain anomalies, protect humanity—could there be any other interpretation?"

Of course there is... the viewers outside the screen silently added.

"Protecting normalcy," and "protecting anomalies."

In different containment files, they had already seen many ways to interpret "Secure, Contain, Protect," each leading to different results.

There even appeared a crazy O5 who would rather destroy humanity to "protect normalcy," which also prompted the birth of the "Chaos Insurgency."

Protecting humanity, protecting anomalies, protecting normalcy... besides these, what other new interpretations were there?

"We seem to have gone off-topic," Marion interrupted at the right time. "But... we will not take the extreme measure of exterminating all intelligent life."

The problem wasn't humanity, but whether the Foundation had the strength to go to war with the entire universe's civilizations to eliminate all intelligent life... could they win?

Dr. Hughes pondered, throwing this somewhat extreme plan out of his brain, and then, another feasible plan naturally emerged in his mind:

"Then, we could also immediately terminate and suppress all meme and antimemetic research globally."

"We could completely abolish this field—stop all experiments, destroy all research results, and perform memory wipes on all researchers."

"As long as no one actively ventures into this field, no one will discover 3125, and it will be buried forever in the deepest part of conceptual space, like sealed radioactive waste."

"Genius idea! As long as I commit suicide first, no one can kill me again!"

"Although I'm dead, it wasn't destroyed by 3125. In other words, we won the war against 3125! Win! And 3125 won't be able to destroy humanity in the future either! Win-win!"

"Show-off."

"How did this galaxy end up with a bunch of crouching dragons and hidden phoenixes like you guys?"

"Known: People are going to die anyway, but my fate is in my hands, not heaven's! Conclusion: As long as I commit suicide, I firmly grasp my own destiny!"

"Now I can understand why the Foundation's attitude toward those 'anomalous' technologies is so contradictory: before touching those terrible existences capable of destroying the world, no one knows what's hidden in the research topics; but once something incredible is discovered, it could trigger a world-destroying disaster at any time."

"It's very similar to the paradox of eliminating antimemetics, but it seems there is a solution to the antimemetic threat, although it's very difficult to achieve."