Chapter 1031

Hughes suddenly realized—he had been working for the Foundation for a long time.

And this was definitely not the first time they had discussed the response strategy for "SCP-3125," and he must have made such a request before.

"It's already built!" he blurted out, his eyes shining with excitement.

"The laboratory is repaired! It was repaired twenty years ago!"

"And we secretly dispatched the top researchers, and now it's a success!"

"So, we are gathered here today to launch the anti-memetic plan!"

"Because we discovered how to deploy anti-memetics! This is great!"

"This will be a historic breakthrough! I guessed right, didn't I!"

He turned his head to look at his companions, his eyes full of expectation.

But what greeted Hughes was not applause, nor the salute of victory declaring the war, but the gravity well called reality.

"Hughes, on the first day you joined the Foundation, someone told you that one day, you might have to pay a huge or even total price without warning, just to protect those existences that are crucial."

Marion said in a deep voice: "You have spent thirty years here, and you have always understood that this moment would come sooner or later."

Hughes's heart sank, as if dark clouds were obscuring the sun; he looked at Director Michael Lee, waiting for his response.

Michael Lee spoke slowly: "You are right, the laboratory has indeed been built."

"In the past forty-eight hours, the construction team has completed all the work, accepted memory erasure, and has been disbanded."

"However, the real challenge has just begun, and this is the topic we are discussing today."

Hughes's heart skipped a beat: "My people went there."

"That's right, your people went there, and they are already on standby in the bunker," Michael Lee said calmly.

"We have already woven a perfect illusion of departure for you. Now, you need to change your name and go underground."

"Now? No, I... I'm not quite..." Hughes struggled a bit.

"Your team participated voluntarily. I personally conducted psychological counseling for them, and they are all trustworthy people," Michael Lee comforted.

"Hell!" Hughes's tone was unkind. "Am I participating voluntarily too?"

Marion wanted to dissuade him: "Hughes!"

Hughes took a deep breath and slapped the paper in his hand on the table: "Any version of me that agreed to this before is a damn fool! I want to completely overturn his decision!"

"This is simply imprisonment! I can't stand spending twenty years underground without seeing the light of day! I don't want to be buried alive by work! I have..."

His voice stopped abruptly, and his gaze crossed the table, focusing blankly into the distance.

Hughes wanted to say: "I have family."

It's just... this reason couldn't be used.

His sister was still alive, fighting side by side with him in the Foundation.

But he couldn't talk to her, and she couldn't talk to him.

Such an excuse that didn't even need to be refuted naturally didn't need to be spoken out.

Hughes knew very well that the four Foundation high-level officials who wanted to send him to a place where no one could find him must have prepared various reasons in advance, blocking his retreat from all aspects.

This is a real strangulation.

He was very familiar with this set, because he used it too.

"This... the probability of success is really too low, time is completely not on our side," Hughes tried to change his strategy.

"You know, it's 2008 now, and 'SCP-3125' is expected to descend at the end of the 2010s—"

"The success rate is very gratifying," Graves said firmly.

"Can you define this 'gratifying' specifically?" Hughes pursued.

"Higher than fifty percent. For you."

Graves said while pulling out a thick stack of reports, clearly to support his point of view.

Hughes's gaze swept over those documents, and the name Bartholomew Hughes was clearly printed on the cover.

Damn it, a fifty percent chance of winning is rare.

If he were one of the others in the room, he would probably be impatient to seize this glimmer of life.

But damn it, he wasn't the one sitting at the table giving orders; he was the one being used on the table!

Damn it!

"You were the one who urged us that we must take action," Graves seemed not to see Hughes's expression, continuing to push the topic, and with one move, he stifled Dr. Hughes's words.

"You said you had to be that core. You also said you were ready to sacrifice."

He opened the document, turned to the last page, and the embryo's eyeball gaze accurately locked onto the target paragraph:

"Let me quote your own words:"

"'SCP-3125' represents a threat on a universal scale."

"It threatens the neighboring realities of our reality. It threatens the micro-universes within our macro-universe. It threatens the universe embedded in our universe as fiction—"

"Consider this a form of imprisonment, as long as it works," O5-8 decided to open the skylight and speak clearly.

Since soft tactics don't work, then we have to come hard; if that doesn't work, we have to come strong.

"If you want, you can certainly withdraw your consent. But regardless, the place you are going next is, and only is, the bunker."

Hughes couldn't imagine how the words from O5-8's 36.5°C mouth could be as cold and hard as iron and stone.

Is he a ruminating iron-eating beast?

Hughes looked around again.

All of this fell into O5-8's eyes, and what Hughes was thinking was clearly revealed.

"The door is locked, Dr. Hughes," O5-8 said, "but you can't go out this way."

Well, Hughes didn't think his door-opening command would be valid with an O5 present.

And he knew the strength of the walls in this ghost place.

Hughes didn't think his old bones could punch a path out with his own amateur martial arts.

"What is the cover-up accident?" Hughes softened a bit, "What are you planning to do?"

"S167-B03-312 had a helium leak," Graves answered concisely.

"The leak is real. A body that is difficult to distinguish from the truth has been prepared at the scene. We even modified your public itinerary for this, ensuring you were guided to that room, not here."

"As for..."

"He is stalling for time," O5-8 ignored Hughes's full-faced resentment, signaling to Graves and other members, "He doesn't need to know all the details."

Hughes: "..."

Can you not target me like this?

The previous me ≠ the current me!

Can this Foundation still be good? Coming to cheat, coming to ambush an old comrade in his fifties.

"Say the names of other possible candidates," Michael Lee said seriously.

"Think carefully, in this world, besides you, who else can have a greater chance of solving this problem? Besides you, who else can we send?"

Asked by his superior, Hughes fell into silence.

In this world, it seems there really is no one who can surpass him in the field of antimemetics.

In other words, he is the absolute authority in this field; to defeat "SCP-3125" by deploying anti-memetics, he must be involved.

"Is there anyone else? Even if they are unwilling?"

"Who else has the technical capabilities we need? Besides you, who else is not in the underground vault?"

Seemingly to force Hughes to recognize reality and accept this arduous, inhumane task, Michael Lee asked continuously.

But in the midst of these continuous questions, the world seemed to have undergone some subtle change, seemingly appearing a slight tilt.

Michael Lee seemed a bit excited, standing up, but this undoubtedly aroused Marion's vigilance; she scanned the surroundings, gripping the armrest of the chair tightly.

She held a fountain pen without a cap tightly in her hand, seemingly suddenly remembering some important thing.

O5-8 looked at Marion in confusion, feeling puzzled by her abnormal behavior.

Only Hughes, who was deep in the vortex and surrounded by the storm, was completely unaware of this.

He was silent, searching for possible names in his mind over and over again, a subordinate who might belong to him, someone who might come from the Antimemetics Division Alliance, someone who might come from a journal author's signature...

But one name after another was rejected by him, and even Michael Lee and Marion Wheeler were rejected by him one by one.

"Only me," he recognized reality and sighed.

"Only you, that's enough," Michael Lee showed a satisfied smile, a weird smile.

"Wait a minute!" Marion suddenly spoke.

But her words clearly didn't have much use.