pdf-ebookys Chapter 546 Head Cage
Chapter 546 Head Cage
泰拉
In the early morning, Sisyphus was awakened by the sound of an alarm clock.
He jolted awake, sitting up abruptly from his workstation. Perhaps he had worked too late and was too tired last night, because instead of reclining his chair, he simply slumped onto the desk and fell asleep.
Then he felt his face get wet.
Because of his irregular sleeping position, he drooled, and not only that, the muscles in his neck also became stiff.
He was immediately alarmed. Drooling was a minor issue, but getting the documents wet with saliva would be a problem—although getting them wet wouldn't cause any major trouble, it might lead to those guys laughing at him, which would be very bad.
So he wiped his face with a tissue while looking at his workstation, and then breathed a sigh of relief. The documents he had been pressing under his arm were intact except for being a little wrinkled.
Out of caution, after glancing around to make sure that none of his colleagues had arrived yet, he picked up the documents on the table and brought them close to his nose to smell them.
Um--
Sisyphus nodded in satisfaction. He remembered that when he first joined the institute a few years ago, the department's printer paper always smelled bad. Recently, his project had made some progress, so he was more confident and dared to write an extra zero when applying for funding from the institute... although the final approved funding was often cut to one-third of the application... so the quality of the printer paper also improved.
He glanced at the time; there were less than ten minutes left before the official start of work. However, Sisyphus knew his team well. Under his loose management, these lazybones would be lucky to arrive on time. Even if they did arrive on time, they would spend half an hour to an hour on the first floor eating breakfast, drinking coffee, or even doing some exercise, organizing their thoughts, or slacking off.
Sisyphus, however, didn't care. He didn't mind lazy people, as long as they weren't idiots. If you were so good that you could finish a month's worth of work in an hour, Sisyphus would even take the initiative to clock in for you for a month, record all your attendance, call you for supper, and make sure you didn't miss out on your salary, bonuses, or subsidies.
However, he still decided to wash up, not for any other reason than that he found the smell unpleasant.
On his way to the restroom, Sisyphus stopped as he passed a window.
It wasn't the scenery on the other side of the window that attracted him, but rather his own reflection.
The reflection in the window showed a young man, tall and wearing a white lab coat, with a face that made it somewhat believable to call him handsome.
Tall, handsome, and working at the core research institute of Lorosa Corporation, he's practically a winner in life.
But Sisyphus's lingering wasn't due to narcissism. He didn't care about appearance, wealth, or power. Well, to be precise, he could only say he didn't care after he possessed them. Before he had them, he certainly wanted them, but after he had them, he genuinely didn't care much about them anymore.
What truly stopped him was the thing he was wearing on his head.
It was a metal cap with many exposed wires, indicator lights, and resistors. The most prominent feature was the two beer cans on either side, which accounted for nearly a third of the cap's weight. Moreover, the cap constantly produced a slight noise. Although Sisyphus's auditory system could automatically filter it out after listening to it for a long time, it would still subtly annoy the wearer.
Bellit scanner.
The lazybones at the research institute called this thing a "head cage," saying that wearing it was like being tortured.
Indeed, it was far less than a real torture device, but wearing it was certainly uncomfortable. To wear it, Sisyphus had his hair shaved off and his hair follicles destroyed with lasers, contributing his hair to science. Then, he was covered with a hairnet and electrodes were attached.
The iron helmet he's wearing now is the improved 3.0 version. The original iron helmet was actually a set with a chair, and people could only wear it while being fixed to the chair. At that time, it was called an electric chair.
Although the second version of the chair was optimized, the power cord was still there, and the person wearing it could only move within a limited space of two meters around the main device. Now, with the update to the third version, a larger capacity battery and a more efficient transmission interface have finally given the wearer some initial freedom.
However, this freedom was still very limited. In order to prevent the possibility of sudden malfunctions, Sisyphus still chose to spend the night at the research institute. He had not slept well for almost half a month.
However, he believes it's all worthwhile, compared to the cause they are undertaking.
Because they are about to uncover the nature of consciousness.
Sisyphus admired himself by the window for a while before remembering that there was a proper mirror in the bathroom. He slapped his forehead, thinking to himself that he had been half asleep.
Half an hour later, Sisyphus threw the clothes into the washing machine and began his day's work.
Before returning to his department, he went downstairs to grab a croissant, a sausage, and a cup of coffee for breakfast, and also picked up his medication for the day before passing the health terminal.
However, when he stepped into the department with bread in his mouth, he was stunned, because his colleagues, who usually took half an hour to arrive, were all there and waiting for him. Among these people, Sisyphus saw someone who almost made his heart stop.
So he quickly put his unfinished breakfast into the bag, threw it back at his workstation, then ran over to the person, stood in front of him, and greeted him:
"Director Sorenrot, what brings you here?"
Director Sorenrot is a woman slightly shorter than Sisyphus. Judging from her appearance, she is probably between thirty and forty years old. Half of her face has been replaced with machinery. In fact, with current technology, she could perfectly hide the traces of the implantation and modification. However, perhaps for other reasons, the director did not choose to do so. Through the remaining half of her face, it can still be seen that this director, who is about to enter middle age, is well-maintained. Her eyebrows and eyes still faintly reveal the remnants of her youthful appearance.
Sisyphus was somewhat afraid of her, not only because she was his boss, but also for some other inexplicable reasons, perhaps because their auras clashed.
Sisyphus and his department members had a relaxed and leisurely atmosphere under his leadership. The department that he directly managed was known as the Hell Department. It was said that the researchers there worked a week as long as Sisyphus's department worked a month, and they were able to produce a large quantity of research results that were not very valuable.
Having been a member of the Lonosa Institute for so long, Sisyphus was always on guard against the devilish director who might come to punish him one day. But several years have passed and the punishment has never come, making Sisyphus even more uneasy.
Moreover, becoming the head of a department at the Loresa Institute was already the pinnacle of Sisyphus's life, but the director of the Loresa Institute was just one of Solorente's many identities. She also had many other identities, such as the honorary president of Terra Institute of Technology, the director of the Wasteland Corporation, and the Sun Knight. Any one of them could easily crush Sisyphus.
There are even rumors that the minister may actually be over two hundred years old, and that she was among the first and last people to receive technological improvements at the beginning of the Golden Age, which is why she is still alive today.
However, no one could confirm this rumor. Sisyphus had looked up relevant research materials, which only stated that the project to improve human genes had been permanently abandoned because it could bring unexpected disasters.
"Unexpected disaster"—Sisyphus always felt a chill run down his spine whenever he saw this word. As a researcher, Sisyphus knew all too well just how much trouble they, as researchers, could cause, so it was hard for Sisyphus not to be afraid of her.