Chapter 28: The Fourth Person第二十八章：第四个人
📖 Previous Chapter / 上一章： The Ghost in the Machine第二十七章：机魂
My muscles locked up. Every drop of blood in my body rushed to my ears, hammering in a manic, deafening rhythm.
Why did you bring her back here?
The flat, mechanical copy of Lu Yan's voice still hung in the dust-choked air of the relay station, trapped inside the dead researcher's skull. I didn't dare turn around immediately. My fingers tightened instinctively around the grip of my combat knife, the cold steel slick with sweat and my own blood from earlier.
I shifted my gaze downward, watching the reflection in the dark, cracked glass of the main terminal.
Lu Yan was standing right behind my left shoulder. Her face was pale, half-lit by the sickly amber glow of my tactical flashlight. Her lips were parted slightly, eyes wide with genuine, unfeigned terror. She was staring at the mummified corpse in the swivel chair, her breath hitching in her throat.
"Feng..." she whispered, her real voice trembling, cracking at the edges. "That... that thing is mimicking me. How does it know my voice patterns?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
Because in that exact microsecond, my cybernetic implants picked up an anomalous local data packet pinging right from the terminal keyboard beneath the corpse's dead hands.
BEEP.
The dead screens flickered. A line of archaic, glowing green Pan-Asia Corporation command-line code dragged itself across the monitor, cutting through decades of static. The system was booting up, triggered not by electricity, but by voice recognition.
Voice match verified: Administrator Lu.
My blood ran cold. I snapped my head back to look at Lu Yan. "Administrator Lu?" I hissed, my voice dropping an octave, razor-sharp. "Care to explain what an administrative clearance code from fifty years ago is doing locked to your vocal frequency?"
She stepped back, hitting a rack of dead servers with a dull clatter. "I don't know! You know my file as well as I do, Feng! I'm just a freelance contractor hired for this data extraction run!"
"Freelance contractors don't have level-nine override access to a black-site subterranean bioweapon facility," I snapped, raising the blade an inch higher, keeping it positioned between us. The trust we had built over the last three days cracked right down the middle, brittle as old glass.
Before she could defend herself, the terminal screen changed.
A live-feed security window popped open, overriding the green code. The camera label in the corner read: CAM-09: Lower Relay Station - East Entrance.
The timestamp read: Current.
In the grainy, night-vision green footage, the heavy iron door we had just locked behind us was clearly visible. We had spun the wheel until the metal groaned and seized. We had checked it twice.
Only, on the screen, the door wasn't closed.
It was slowly, silently swinging open.
And stepping out of the absolute darkness of the corridor, dragging a heavy tactical rifle through the dust, was a figure wearing a familiar blood-soaked tactical vest and a familiar grease-stained cap.
Old Chen.
Not the replica that had tried to kill me on the gantry. The real, weathered, tobacco-chewing Old Chen. He looked exhausted, his face caked in dried mud and sweat, staring directly into the lens of the security camera with a grim, urgent expression.
But as my eyes darted back and forth between the screen and the dark tunnel behind us, a freezing panic paralyzed my lungs.
If the real Old Chen was standing outside that locked door right now...
Who the hell had been leaving those bloody boot prints and cigarette stubs inside the tunnel with us for the last ten minutes?
And more importantly—as a soft, wet shuffling sound echoed from the dark corridor just behind Lu Yan's back—what was currently standing in the shadows, waiting for us to turn around?
我的肌肉瞬间僵死。体内的每一滴血都疯狂涌向耳膜，敲击出一种近乎疯狂的震耳欲聋的节奏。
“你为什么又把她带回这里？”
那具干尸头骨里传出的、属于陆嫣的冰冷机械复制音，依旧悬浮在布满灰尘的中继站空气里。我甚至不敢立刻转过头去。我的手指本能地攥紧了战斗匕首的柄部，冰冷的钢铁沾满了汗水和先前裂开的血迹。
我将视线微微下移，借着主控终端那块布满裂纹的黑暗屏幕反光，死死盯着身后。
陆嫣就站在我左肩后方半步远的地方。她的脸色惨白，被我肩灯昏暗的琥珀色光晕切割得阴晴不定。她的嘴唇微微张开，眼睛里满是真实的、毫无破绽的惊恐。她正死死盯着转椅里的那具干尸，喉咙里发出压抑的呼吸声。
“峰子……”她用真正的声音低语着，带着明显的颤抖和破音，“那……那东西在模仿我。它怎么会有我的声纹数据？”
我没有回答。我没办法回答。
就在这微秒级的瞬间，我的赛博植入体突然捕捉到一个异常的本地数据包，正从干尸枯死双手之下的终端键盘里发出刺耳的蜂鸣。
滴。
死寂的屏幕突然闪烁了一下。一行行上古时代的泛亚公司绿色命令行代码，像绿色的藤蔓一样划破了长达半个世纪的死寂。整个系统正在重启，而唤醒它的不是电力，是声纹验证。
声纹匹配成功：管理员·陆。
我的血液瞬间冻结了。我猛地转过头，死死盯住陆嫣。“管理员·陆？”我从牙缝里挤出声音，低沉而锋利，“你是不是该解释一下，为什么一个五十年前的黑洞级生物武器设施的最高管理员权限，会绑定在你的声波频率上？”
她惊慌失措地后退了一步，后背重重撞在身后的服务器机柜上，发出沉闷的碰撞声。“我不知道！你比谁都清楚我的档案，峰子！我只是个被雇来跑数据的自由雇佣兵！”
“自由雇佣兵可不会自带黑契约地下实验室的九级最高覆写权限，”我厉声打断她，将手中的匕首往前提了几寸，横亘在我们两人之间。过去三天里建立起的那点薄弱信任，在这一刻碎得像劣质玻璃。
还没等她开口辩解，主控台的屏幕猛地一跳。
一段实时监控画面强行覆盖了那些绿色的代码。屏幕右上角的摄像头编号写得很清楚：CAM-09：下层中继站·东侧入口。
时间戳显示的是：刚刚。
在雪花噪点密集的夜视绿画面里，赫然就是我们刚刚关死的那扇重型耐压铁门。我们当时亲手转动了闭锁手轮，直到金属发出牙酸的摩擦声彻底锁死，甚至检查了两遍。
然而，在监控画面里，那扇门根本没有关。
它正在无声无息、极其缓慢地向外推开。
紧接着，从通道绝对的黑暗中，一个身影拖着一杆重型战术步枪走了出来。他头上戴着那顶标志性的、沾满油污的战术鸭舌帽，身上穿着那件熟悉的战术背心。
是老陈。
不是之前在栈道上想阴我、被一记电击送进深渊的那个粗制滥造的复制体。那是真正的、带着满脸风霜和劣质烟草味的活人老陈。他看起来疲惫不堪，脸上糊满了干涸的泥浆和冷汗，正死死盯着监控摄像头的镜头，眼神里写满了急迫和警告。
但当我的目光在监控屏幕和身后那条漆黑的走廊之间疯狂拉扯时，一股冰冷的寒气瞬间炸裂在我的脊椎骨上。
如果真正的老陈此刻正站在那扇被锁死的铁门外面……
那过去十分钟里，一直和我们并肩同行、在隧道里留下带血脚印和熄灭烟头的那个“人”，到底是谁？
更要命的是——伴随着一声从陆妍身后那条绝对黑暗的走廊深处传来的、湿漉漉的拖拽声——有什么东西，正贴在我们的阴影里，咧开嘴，等待着我们回过头去。
Author's Note： ️ Author's Note / 原创声明
[EN] This chapter’s text is 100% human-authored. The original story was written in Chinese (my native language) and then manually translated and refined to break away from AI-generated stiffness. I am doing my best to preserve the authentic cyberpunk vibe and emotional tension in the English translation. (Note: The cover illustration was generated using AI tools strictly based on my original story prompts.) Thank you to the CCC community, the curators, and all my readers for supporting genuine human creators and following my journey!
[CN] 本文正文为本人 100% 全手工原创。原版故事使用我的母语中文创作，并经过人工翻译与精心润色，以摆脱 AI 翻译的生硬感，尽最大努力在英文版中保留原汁原味的赛博朋克氛围与情感张力。(注：本文封面配图为作者根据本人小说情节，使用 AI 工具生成的概念视觉图。) 感谢 CCC 社区、各位策展人以及所有读者对真实人类创作者的持续支持与鼓励，感谢大家一路以来的陪伴