Chapter 113: The System Girl Living in the Mindspace
Outside the room, Dr. Green, a father, was stirred by his daughter's smile—memories and emotions flooding back from years past.
Inside the room, Anna, the girl-next-door dressed in white, smiled warmly at Chuck. She raised her arm, trembling constantly, and struggled to reach for a chess piece on the board. It took her a full five seconds to finally grasp the piece and place it.
Chuck sat across from her, studying the chessboard intently.
Dr. Green watched Anna's radiant smile flicker across her face, then fade back to a blank, distant expression. His eyes dimmed, and he sank back into memories.
Years ago, he had discovered that Anna responded to Chuck. Overjoyed, he'd urged Chuck's parents to let Chuck, whose condition was nearly identical to Anna's, stay with them. They could be companions, and he would care for Chuck just as he did for Anna.
Unfortunately, while Chuck's mother was willing, his military father completely disagreed with the facility's approach, believing his son could adapt to the harsh world through rigorous training.
He then took Chuck away.
Unable to change Chuck's father's determination, he could only arrange for correspondence between Chuck and his daughter Anna.
When Chuck returned to the States for college and began visiting regularly, their contact became much closer.
But he still wasn't satisfied.
With each passing year, Anna's engagement with reality became increasingly tenuous. She used to speak to him occasionally, but now, she hadn't spoken in years. Aside from her phone contact with Chuck, she spent most of her time in a trance-like state, as if preparing to drift away from this world entirely.
This condition was eerily similar to his late wife's.
His daughter had just turned 18!
He was terrified!
So he pinned all his hopes on Chuck, the only person who could capture Anna's attention, and went to extraordinary lengths to get him to visit every year on her birthday, December 14th.
He knew that for Chuck and Anna, who could communicate by phone anytime, such visits were essentially meaningless. Their meetings consisted of chess games, and beyond Chuck's initial greeting, no conversation occurred.
But he simply needed them to see each other once a year, to allow Anna to temporarily escape her mental world and return to reality.
Even if it was just to witness that fleeting, precious, profoundly human smile cross his daughter Anna's face, he felt it was worthwhile.
Watching the two in the room existing in unusual harmony, Dr. Green tucked away his complex emotions and quietly departed without disturbing them.
This continued throughout the night.
When the clock struck four in the morning, Chuck, like clockwork, checked the time and said, "I'm going home."
Anna nodded silently.
Chuck stood and walked out.
Just as Dr. Green had expected, for Chuck and Anna, seeing each other made little practical difference. The insistence on annual meetings had begun as Dr. Green's request, and the rest was pure routine.
So, having fulfilled his obligatory habit, Chuck naturally chose to leave.
However, as he reached the door, he paused, his eyes falling on a painting on the left wall.
It depicted a spider web.
Chuck studied it for a moment, then turned back to Anna and asked, "Who painted this?"
Like him, Anna enjoyed art and painted occasionally.
But the style of the painting on the wall was clearly not Anna's.
Anna simply stared at the chessboard, unresponsive.
Chuck, unconcerned, asked the casual question, then glanced once more at the spider web painting and left.
Dr. Green often acquired artwork to capture his daughter's interest.
When the door closed, Anna looked up and, expressionless, gazed at the spider web painting on the wall.
Underground parking garage.
"Leaving?" Dr. Green, who hadn't slept all night, approached Chuck as he emerged.
Chuck nodded.
Dr. Green was quiet for a moment, then sighed. "Chuck, I know nothing I say will influence you and Anna, but I still have to say this: you and Anna are best friends. Friends should see each other more often, both for your development and for Anna's."
Chuck's transformation over the years had once amazed and thrilled him.
If Chuck could become a functional person, then perhaps his daughter Anna could too.
But upon learning about Chuck's training methods, he felt despair again.
Regardless of whether he'd want his daughter to use such self-punishing techniques, even if he did, Anna wouldn't engage. And logic told him that not everyone could withstand such training.
Otherwise, instead of succeeding like Chuck, most would destroy themselves and break down completely.
The fact that Chuck could endure this level of conditioning was a miracle in itself.
And miracles can't be replicated!
Seeing Chuck staring at him in silence, Dr. Green spoke earnestly, "Anna is like a kite right now, soaring high in the sky, connected to the ground only by the kite string. Though I've tried desperately to be that string, I can't. Only you are the string, preventing Anna's kite from snapping and drifting away, then crashing in pieces somewhere unknown..."
At this point, his eyes reddened. "But you're just a young man, holding the string with one hand, running recklessly, completely unaware that the kite might break, or crash into obstacles as you run. To you, the kite is just your favorite companion, but to the kite, you are everything."
"A 6'4" young man," Chuck suddenly said.
"What?" Dr. Green was confused.
"Your analogy is inappropriate." Chuck shook his head. "Compared to a kite and string, what constitutes youth? In my perspective, Anna is a system."
"System?" Dr. Green didn't know how to respond.
"Yes." Chuck didn't explain how this system differed from conventional understanding. He looked at him and said, "Anna isn't as fragile as you think. Neither am I. Perhaps one day, you'll see the Anna you hope for."
Anna's condition was similar to his own, except she didn't exercise and didn't have access to the enhancement serum that had helped him. Her condition was deteriorating. Rather than focusing on her uncontrollable body, she preferred to retreat into her mental world, where vast neural networks could be manipulated at will.
Normally, this situation would be untreatable, as current medical technology couldn't address her neurological deficits.
However, Chuck possessed access to an experimental enhancement protocol. Through what Dr. Green called "reckless running around," he could accumulate resources and synthesize the enhancement serum.
This serum amplified all bodily functions. With sufficient quantity, it could perfectly address Anna's neurological impairments and allow her to regain bodily control.
At that point, her physical form would generate countless sensory inputs to capture Anna's attention, allowing her to achieve balance between reality and her mental world, thus revealing the "normal" aspects that Dr. Green desired.
But the serum was scarce, and Chuck himself had significant needs. He prioritized using it for himself. Once he could better control his condition and manage his symptoms, he would share some with Anna.
But not now.
He wouldn't tell anyone about this.
"Will that day really come?" Dr. Green trembled.
He yearned and despaired, but seeing Chuck, who was nothing short of miraculous, speak so seriously, he couldn't help feeling a spark of hope.
"Yes," Chuck nodded.
With life becoming more intense, his resource acquisition was accelerating. What used to take three years to synthesize now took roughly six months.
"Alright, alright," Dr. Green smiled. "If I could really witness that day, I'd die happy."
"That would be something out of American Horror Story," Chuck said seriously. He nodded to Dr. Green, got in his car, and left. He needed to return to New Jersey.
"Your birthday is February 12th. Why don't you visit then and let Anna celebrate with you?" Dr. Green stood by the car window, making the same suggestion he offered daily.
"No!" Chuck refused as usual.
He knew Dr. Green was simply trying to establish another tradition. He wasn't naive. In his experience, he'd seen businesses create countless holidays to drive sales. There was practically a new celebration every day, often multiple ones.
Leonard's mother Beverly, though unpleasant, had a sharp understanding of societal mechanisms, and therefore viewed such things merely as subjects for studying human social psychology.
Naturally, Chuck wouldn't be manipulated again.
Anna's room.
After Chuck left, she glanced expressionlessly at the spider web painting. She stood, trembling, and walked to a corner of the wall. She pressed a concealed button, revealing a keypad. After entering the code, the wall opened, revealing an elevator. Anna entered, and the wall closed again, as if nothing had ever existed.
The elevator descended to a spacious underground chamber. The first thing visible was a dense array of small monitors, silent and displaying countless live feeds.
Anna walked to the computer station in the center and sat down. She stared at the overwhelming array of images with a calm expression, and once again entered the trance-like state she exhibited when studying the chessboard.
Chuck drove away from the facility silently, took out a pair of black-framed glasses from his pocket, and put them on.
In the underground control room, one of the densely packed small monitors changed its display to show speeding landscape footage. Anna, who was lost in contemplation while watching the monitor array, gradually focused her attention on this moving landscape.
When Chuck's car passed a traffic camera, the monitor beside the landscape feed showed the image of Chuck's vehicle passing by. Anna's hands, which took five seconds to shakily move chess pieces, now trembled with apparent rhythm as she operated the keyboard at superhuman speed.
The camera feed flickered, but the image remained unchanged—the footage of Chuck's car passing had been erased.
(End of Chapter)