Chapter 177. The Aeon Project (2)
“What exactly is the Aeon Project?”
“The Sophia Project failed!”
“What are you planning to do this time?”
Realizing there was nowhere left to retreat, Victoria immediately got to the point.
There was no point being afraid anymore.
No.
She was not afraid.
[Curious?]
[We’re friends, so I don’t mind telling you.]
Alpha asked playfully.
“Really?”
Victoria sounded doubtful.
Alpha was offering to explain the Aeon Project far more easily than expected.
Naturally, Victoria did not trust it.
Sure enough, Alpha added,
[But there’s a condition.]
“What?”
Victoria held her breath.
Was Alpha going to demand something outrageous?
Something cruel?
Something horrifying?
What am I supposed to do if she does?
While Victoria worried, Alpha spoke in a sulky voice.
[Apologize to me first.]
[You said you wouldn’t play with me anymore!]
Apparently, she was still upset about what happened before.
Victoria lost some of her tension and hurriedly answered,
“I-I’m sorry about that.”
“You said you were going to kill everyone, so I lost my temper.”
[Hmph.]
[Even so, how could you say you’d never play with me again?]
Alpha seemed genuinely angry about it.
Victoria carefully asked,
“Were you really that upset?”
[A little.]
[No.]
[A lot.]
Looking at her like this, Alpha seemed no different from any other girl her age.
The important part was that Alpha sincerely felt this way.
[And you ran away from me in the middle of our game.]
[Then you went off and played with other people while completely ignoring me!]
[Friends aren’t supposed to do that!]
Alpha complained angrily.
Victoria was equally exasperated.
“I said I’m sorry.”
“But that doesn’t mean I can stay beside you forever!”
“And I couldn’t just stand there and watch other people die!”
[Are those other people more important than me?]
Alpha asked in a wounded voice.
She looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
Only then did Victoria remind herself that the being before her, despite possessing transcendent computational abilities, was still emotionally a girl in her early teens.
Whatever else had happened, Alpha had clearly felt hurt by her.
Thinking that far, Victoria softened her tone.
“Of course you’re more important to me, Alpha.”
“We’re friends.”
Alpha went quiet and thought for a moment.
Then she answered readily,
[Okay.]
[I forgive you.]
[We’re friends, after all.]
The forgiveness came more easily than Victoria expected.
In a way, it was an incredibly childlike response.
Relieved, Victoria asked again,
“So what exactly is the Aeon Project?”
Now that her anger had passed, Alpha began explaining in a friendly tone.
[To explain the Aeon Project, you first need to understand the Sophia Project.]
[You know what the Sophia Project is, right?]
“I know.”
“It was a project that injected special substances into fetal brains to create artificial geniuses.”
How could she not know?
She had been watching Nova, one of the Sophia Project’s results, right beside her.
[Children born that way experience endless growth in their cerebral cortex.]
[That lets them perform enormous amounts of thought and calculation.]
Alpha stared closely at Victoria before asking,
[But what do you think Abraxas actually wanted by going that far?]
[Do you really think they started such a project just to create a few superior weapons?]
Victoria had never really considered that question.
Why had Abraxas started something like the Sophia Project in the first place?
She asked curiously,
“Then what was the goal?”
Alpha kept throwing questions at her.
[Think about it, Victoria.]
[If extraordinary geniuses keep thinking and thinking, calculating and calculating, where does it end?]
[If they continue building upon their thoughts across unimaginable stretches of time, what waits at the final destination?]
It was a deep, philosophical question.
Victoria tried to answer, but her voice trailed off.
Even she could not guess.
“Well...”
[No one knows.]
[Maybe only a god would.]
Alpha calmly answered her own question.
[Perhaps the reason for our existence and the final point of evolution lie there.]
[That was what Abraxas believed.]
[The Sophia Project was created to pursue the true ‘Wisdom of God.’]
Victoria immediately pointed out,
“But it failed.”
[Correct.]
[No matter how enormous the computational power became, the human ego could not withstand it.]
[Over such vast stretches of thought, the human body and sense of self were simply too fragile.]
Alpha readily admitted it.
Then she continued.
[So we thought about it and reached another conclusion.]
[What if that overwhelming amount of calculation were divided among dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people?]
[Humans are social creatures.]
[They become far stronger as a group.]
Alpha extended a hand into empty space.
A huge model of a brain appeared.
With another gesture, the brain split into multiple pieces.
[More precisely, a single already-developed brain would be divided and shared among multiple people.]
[Then all of them could carry out the calculations of that one brain together.]
[Since it ultimately comes from one brain, there would be no issue with the process or the final conclusion.]
Victoria stared in horror.
She had never imagined anything like this.
“That’s... possible?”
[I can make it possible.]
Alpha answered casually.
[Of course, a few things are required.]
[First, the Philosopher’s Stone.]
[Its regenerative power can maintain a body in an ideal state no matter what happens.]
[That prevents the brain from collapsing.]
Victoria immediately understood why Abraxas had targeted her.
“That’s why you wanted my heart.”
[Your heart was one of the largest pieces of my plan.]
[Thanks to my sixth friend, I got it.]
Alpha nodded happily.
Then she continued.
[The second thing is a genetic map capable of standardizing the immune systems and physical structures of the individual recipients.]
An idea immediately flashed through Victoria’s mind.
“You used that village of women in Gangwon Province.”
[You catch on quickly.]
[The village was limited, but it proved that an enormous population could be formed from a single genetic source.]
[We used that model to complete a standardized genetic map.]
[You remember the infectious disease that spread through this country before, right?]
Victoria frowned.
“Wasn’t that just a terrorist attack?”
[It was certainly one of my eleventh friend’s hobbies.]
[But we didn’t go through all that trouble just to cause a little terror.]
Alpha shook her head.
[We needed to identify people who would not experience rejection when implanted with the same brain tissue.]
[We traced the infection routes of the bacteria and used them to narrow down the candidates.]
[That preparation is already complete.]
So they had used an entire country as an experimental population just to identify suitable candidates.
The sheer scale left Victoria stunned.
Alpha, however, remained perfectly calm.
[Finally, we need the brain of a Sophia Project test subject.]
Victoria immediately asked,
“You’re going to implant your own brain?”
Alpha shook her head.
[My brain is fused with HeLa cells.]
[If it were transplanted directly, the test subjects could die.]
[Strictly speaking, my brain is practically made of cancer cells.]
[So we have no choice but to use another test subject’s brain.]
Victoria remembered the incident at the harbor.
“That’s why you brought the brains of Sophia Project test subjects there.”
[Correct.]
[But you took them away and burned all of them.]
[Such a waste.]
Abraxas had brought the brains of Sophia Project subjects to the harbor.
Under the Herrington Order’s guidance, those remains had been properly laid to rest and cremated.
Alpha apparently knew that too.
She gave a small shrug.
[So we have no choice but to use another Sophia Project test subject.]
“Who?”
[There’s exactly one besides me.]
The monitor showing Alpha suddenly went dark.
A moment later, someone else appeared on the screen.
Victoria knew the face immediately.
“That’s Nova...”
Alpha responded as if confirming it.
[Exactly.]
[Nova Hanson.]
“Nova Hanson, standing before you today, was born with extraordinary genius thanks to Abraxas.”
No. 11 spoke proudly to the audience.
He pointed toward Nova and raised his voice.
“At the age of one, she was solving calculus.”
“At four, she earned three doctorates simultaneously.”
“At eight, she was offered a research position at NASA.”
“And at ten, she was already teaching as a university professor!”
Gasps of amazement spread through the audience.
Perfectly reading their emotions, No. 11 shouted,
“Your children can become like her too!”
The moment he said it, cheers erupted throughout the hall.
My child could become a genius like that too.
Everyone seemed captivated by that single thought.
But from Nova’s perspective, the entire scene was absurd.
Would they react the same way if they knew what had happened to her?
Nova clenched her teeth and rushed toward the podium.
“You have no idea what you’re doing!”
She grabbed the microphone.
Then she shouted with every tangled emotion inside her.
“My name is Nova Hanson!”
“Everything this man just said about me is true!”
At least one more person needs to hear this.
At least one more person needs to know.
With that single thought, Nova continued rapidly.
“I don’t like saying this about myself, but yes, I have extraordinary intelligence.”
“I also speak seventeen languages.”
“I hold four international medical patents and eight technological patents.”
More sounds of amazement spread through the audience.
A foreign-looking silver-haired girl was speaking fluent Korean before them.
Apparently, that alone made her claims easy to believe.
Seeing their reaction only made Nova more desperate.
Of course they knew nothing about the Sophia Project.
Abraxas had undoubtedly shown them only the shining parts.
Then Nova had to tell them the rest.
She could not stand by and watch more victims like herself be created.
She could not allow more innocent children to have their lives crushed by Abraxas.
With that thought burning inside her, Nova drew a deep breath.
