Chapter 39: The Pot and the Pillar

Shen Jiang sat upright in the armchair as the massive magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner descended steadily along its tracks, locking onto her head.

"We need to build your personal library," Shang Lu said, setting up the console in the adjacent room. A wall separated him from the electromagnetic shielding chamber, featuring a pane of black one-way glass. "With the general library's data output speed of 60 bits per minute, piloting a Titan would make you look like a high-level paraplegic."

"How do we build a personal library?" Shen Jiang's voice came through the headset.

"You can think of it as creating an electronic version of Shen Jiang within the computer—to put it trendily, this is a cyber-ascension," Shang Lu explained. "It will encompass every possible magnetic field activity in your brain when you perform calculations and make decisions. This will be an incredibly massive training set, and the AI algorithm trained on this data will be the robot that understands you best in the world—better than anyone, including your parents, your family, or the tapeworms in your stomach."

"I don't have tapeworms in my stomach."

"Then roundworms."

"I don't have roundworms either!"

"Hookworms, blood flukes, liver flukes, amoebas, clonorchis sinensis, leishmania—whatever parasite you like," Shang Lu said. "The point is, it will know you so well that it will know exactly what you’re about to excrete before you’ve even dropped your pants..."

"Then you’d better make it quick," Shen Jiang interrupted, sounding annoyed. "I agreed to cooperate because there were orders from above, but at the end of the day, we are in different positions. I am a Titan pilot with combat and training missions. If you fail, you’ll get a reprimand from your superiors at worst, but if I fail, there won't be any superiors left."

"That sounds about right," Shang Lu said.

Shen Jiang paused. "It does sound about right."

"The base will arrange a suitable training schedule for you. You can choose to come in the morning, the afternoon, or even in the evening. Our entire office is at your service," Shang Lu said. "You’re the boss."

"Then afternoon or evening would be better," Shen Jiang said. "I’ve had some very heavy training modules lately... I have to deal with both Pot and Pillar at the same time."

"Pot and Pillar?"

"Angel No. 013, 'Pot,' and Angel No. 016, 'Pillar,'" Shen Jiang explained.

"One against two?" Shang Lu was slightly surprised.

"You have to be strict with yourself during training and assume the worst of the enemy. It’s not like there haven't been cases where two Angels descended at once. Of course, Pot and Pillar aren't as threatening as Bo-Bo or Xiao-Xue, which are like unwinnable checkmate scenarios. Taking on two at once is possible—at least, that's what we humans judge," Shen Jiang puffed out her cheeks. "Even the Unreal 3 engine can't perfectly replicate an Angel's characteristics; this kind of training is just better than nothing."

"What goal must you reach for a training module to be considered complete?"

"Complete?" Shen Jiang said. "It's never complete. It’s like a five-kilometer weighted cross-country run; even if you qualify, you can still keep improving your time. Anti-descent training is a circular schedule. You have to practice it over and over again until a new Angel appears, and then you just add more modules."

"That sounds monotonous."

"Damn right, it's incredibly monotonous," Shen Jiang complained. "This isn't a video game, and to be honest, there's no game in the world this boring. You have to repeat the same movements endlessly: Aim—Lock—Punch. Aim—Lock—Punch. Aim—Lock—Punch. Over and over, until it forms muscle memory. We’re like Pavlov’s dogs, developing conditioned reflexes: see an Angel, aim, lock, punch."

"Is it really that simple?"

"What, you want me to perform a set of Hung Ga Iron Wire Fist and Five-Pattern Bagua Pole in front of an Angel?" Shen Jiang retorted. "Supervisor... do I really have to sit here motionless like this? How long is this going to take?"

"That's right, you can't move your head during the scan," Shang Lu nodded. "We estimate that building the full library will take 1,000 hours. If we guarantee six hours of work per day, it will take five months total."

"It's already the end of October... five months from now will be March of next year," Shen Jiang calculated. "My current tour of duty at 151 ends in May at the latest, so that should be just enough time."

Shang Lu fell silent for a moment. "Which base are you going to next?"

"First I'll go back to the rear for rest and reorganization. The next rotation might be to 161," Shen Jiang said, her tone light. "That is, provided nothing goes wrong before next May. You’d better pray nothing happens too; if another Angel pops up, we won't be able to get any of this done."

"How does 161 compare to 151?"

"161 is in Yibin. It’s not as large, there aren't as many people, and they don't use nuclear power, so electricity is a bit inconvenient. I haven't been to 161 in a long time, so I don't know what it’s like now. The Titan currently stationed at 161 should be 'Mirage,'" Shen Jiang recalled. "There’s a very young Chief Engineer over there, only thirty, just as capable as you."

Shang Lu shrugged. "I could never be a Chief Engineer."

"You will be eventually," Shen Jiang said with certainty.

"I can't shoulder that kind of responsibility," Shang Lu sighed. "Chief Engineers, just like Titan pilots, have to be responsible for the survival of all humanity with every decision they make. If that much pressure were on my shoulders, I’d die of sudden cardiac arrest from chronic insomnia."

"No one can shoulder that responsibility. There is no such thing as a savior in this world. Do you expect someone to be born destined to bear all the responsibility and pressure? That kind of person doesn't exist." Shen Jiang wanted to shake her head, but it was locked in the scanner. She raised her hand to touch the casing of the scanner and then set it back down. "Everyone is just gritting their teeth and getting on with it. You have to face the fact that human society is essentially a fragile, makeshift stage. No one is truly reliable. When you are sitting alone in the cockpit of a Titan, facing an Angel that could destroy the world, with the lives of one hundred million people behind you, who can you rely on?"

"Don't you ever feel like running away?" Shang Lu asked.

"Supervisor, do you know what the first lesson of becoming a Titan pilot is?"

"What is it?"

"It’s learning to acknowledge and face the fact that humanity will go extinct, and that extinction is right around the corner."

Shang Lu realized that all Titan pilots were in this situation. They were the people at the very front of human society, facing death and destruction directly. In such an environment, they had nowhere to retreat.

"If you don't step up, someone else will," Shen Jiang said. "Someone has to."

You can escape, but there will always be those who cannot.

Shang Lu looked at the monitor on the console. As the pilot of the 'Red Lotus,' Shen Jiang's brain activity frequency was clearly different from a normal person's. Unfiltered and unprocessed waveforms danced wildly across the screen. But when he looked up into the shielding chamber, the girl sat motionless in the chair, half her face covered by the scanner, showing no sign of such intense psychological activity.

What an extraordinary person.

She was only twenty-eight.

"I won't let it kill you," Shang Lu breathed out slowly. "That is one of the reasons I came here."

"Supervisor?"

Shen Jiang hadn't heard what he said.

"Get ready. We are officially starting the library construction. We'll begin with the basics," Shang Lu said.

"What exactly do I need to do?" Shen Jiang asked.

Shang Lu slapped two thick books onto the console desk: *Riemannian Geometry* and *Lectures on Advanced General Relativity*.

"Solve the problems."