San Jose, California, 2025

☆☆☆

Because it was set to vibrate, the phone buzzed on the bedside table. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Add rolled over, one hand pressed tightly to his ear, which was exposed outside the pillow. It was not pleasant to be woken up from his sleep, and he had not slept for long before returning home from the company in the middle of the night.

Expecting a good night's sleep, he reluctantly glanced at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table, the dim blue light blinding him.

4:17 a.m.

He drilled his head back into the sheet again.

There is no cessation of shaking. He smacked his lips and muttered, "Whoever it is, this thing had better be important!"

Grabbing the phone in his hand, Eddie put it directly to his ear.

"Who?" he asked in a rough voice, to show his displeasure.

"Add, I'm Zhou Jia. ”

"Dr. Zhou?" Eddie rubbed her sleepy eyes, she was the least likely person to call herself in her private time. "What's wrong?"

"Chris ......"

Eddie sat up slowly, repeating mechanically, "...... Chris?"

He had a vague cynical look in Chris's mind, and before leaving, she made a joke of herself, saying that before the new product launch, you should relax. Of course, Chris's relaxation refers to letting himself find a woman to be happy!

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.

"Add, she's gone, right in front of my eyes. ”

"Who?"

"Chris!"

"Chris?" was the name Eddie repeating in a matter of seconds.

Chris had played Disappearance before, and Eddie had been worried about it as well. He remembered Chris's distress at sea, when she sailed alone and lost contact with her, and there was no news for a long time. Later, when everyone found out that the sea area she was sailing through had encountered a great storm, Eddie was so mad that he called the Coast Patrol to find it, and sent a ship to find it. Eddie couldn't sleep for the night, his face was stubble, and his face was ugly, and it was then that he thought about the worst possible consequences, what would happen to Lancer without Chris...... When the news came that Chris had been found, Eddie immediately jumped into the helicopter and went for it himself.

What he saw was Chris, who was sleeping on the broken deck.

And the first thing Chris said after waking up was that he felt that he had experienced the feeling of an old man and the sea. As soon as he saw Chris, Eddie's eyes moistened, but then, he couldn't suppress his anger, and on the dilapidated ship, he loudly reprimanded Chris. He tells Chris what responsibility is, the consequences of her accident, and shouts things like "your life is no longer your own".

After shouting, Add regretted why he was so fierce to a person who had just experienced a disaster, but Chris looked at him intently, with a serious look that Eddie had never seen before. As soon as she returned to San Francisco, Chris immediately consulted with a lawyer, not only formulated an emergency response plan, but even wrote a suicide note, and she assured Eddie with practical actions.

But after that, Chris still disappears, and every time she disappears, there is a group of people who are anxious for her, but she often shows up at the right time before everyone goes crazy. For Add, "the wolf is coming" jokes don't always work, and he's used to these kinds of things.

"Add!" the voice on the other end of the line came again, "I need you!"

Eddie knows that as the world's top biomedical expert, Zhou Jia is an extremely rare woman in this field and this age, even if she is away from the office, her brain is always in a working state, nearly half a year, Zhou Jia has spent almost all of her time in the center of her research room, she is wrapped in a cold suit all the time, facing all kinds of pressure and doubts from all sides alone.

At this moment, she was so helpless.

Eddie thought to himself: I must have quarreled with Chris over the matter of "Kryptonite", right? On the matter, Zhou Jia's identity has a deep relationship with the Lan family, and on the public, she is also a very important collaborator for Lanther, and Chris has hidden it from her in this matter, and he has not felt that it is a good idea from the beginning.

Eddie has always felt that Zhou Jia is not as calm and indifferent as she appears on the outside, she is actually a sensitive and emotionally fragile little woman who longs to be protected.

Once a man's heroism complex is touched, the desire to protect will seep out from every cell of the body without hesitation.

"I see! Where are you now?"

"Where else can I be? ”

Next, there was a busy sound.

yes, where else could she be?

Eddie slipped on a pair of sweatpants and got out of bed. His head was still groggy, and the fatigue did not pass, but instead of passing, it was eating away at his brain even more violently. After working for several days on a line because of his busy work on "Kryptonite", he felt like he had drunk a whole bottle of whiskey, a little drunk, and ironically, he never drank a single bit.

I took the key, went downstairs, and the garage lights came on automatically. Eddie is not interested in SUV kind of large cars, he also drives a sky blue Cadillac of '59, the body is wide and flat, the metal grille extends to the sides of the body, and with the thick bumper, the unique shape of the taillights, so that the body exudes a sense of luxury and heaviness, he called it "classic American model".

The doors will open automatically when the owner approaches. Of course, if you say "start" softly, the engine will start with it.

Add didn't do that, and he turned it off. Pulling the car door and sitting in the cab, he inserted the delicately crafted oval key into the groove on the side of the steering wheel, and under the concept of modern technology, the key has lost its original function and has become a status symbol, a decoration.

Eddie lamented that for anyone, the evils of modern technology sometimes surpass the ignorance of the Savage Age.

He likes to turn the keys and listen to the sound of the engine starting, it's a wonderful feeling. He refused to voice control his car, and although it was not as enjoyable as twisting the key, he still had to go through the extra step every day by personally pressing the round silver button that "started" the car.

The car started up, and an old song "Help_me_make_through_the_night" (1) came out on the radio, Sammi_Smith the sexy and lingering voice came out, Eddie liked her voice, and a woman's loneliness was softly chanted by her straightforward and explicit, "Please untie my headband, let my hair hang down, whether it's right or wrong, help me get through tonight." This song sings the heart of the "Beat Generation" in the sixties and seventies who pursued one-night stands:

Give tomorrow to the devil, God, I need a companion tonight.

Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is still far away.

It's sad to be alone, and help me through the long night.

Add often asks himself, "Who's going to help me through the long nights?"

Chris always teases Eddie for this, "Honey, you're not nostalgic, you're sullen." If in today's society, you are alone waiting to meet a beautiful opportunity? It is harder than being abducted by aliens! You will be suffocated to death! Or you can find a way to make a time machine, go back in time to find it, and I guess you can find such a woman!" He couldn't cry or laugh in his heart, and said in his heart, no matter what era, he couldn't find a woman like Chris.

Eddie turned off the music, the car drove out of the garage, and the neighborhood fell silent in the middle of the night. Eddie is reluctant to be like Zhou Jia, who is almost at the company, even though it only takes 20 minutes to drive to and from work, he still wants to separate work and life. The city of San Jose, where he lives, is the 10th largest city in the United States and holds the record for the safest city in the country, which is also a big factor in Eddie's choice to live here.

As the car pulls out of the palm-planted neighborhood, Eddie opens the window and lets the cool breeze of the night blow in.

The complex is within close proximity to the highway, just five minutes away. Next to the highway is a small commercial plaza with Target supermarket, Panda fast food, Jack-in-the-box and other fast food, as well as a 24-hour drive-in Starbucks.

At this time, if he didn't have a cup of strong black coffee, Eddie estimated that he would fall asleep while driving. Although I don't like Starbucks' coffee, I don't have a choice in the middle of the night.

He hurriedly ordered a large latte on the ordering machine, turned around and drove into the waiting area. After a short while, the window opened, and instead of his trademark smile, the waitress put the cup of coffee on the bar counter with a bitter face, collected the money, and closed the window without saying a word.

Eddie rolled his eyes, he didn't expect warm service at this time, took the cup of coffee that was like saving the world, turned the steering wheel to the right, and drove onto Highway 85.

There are almost no cars to see along the way.

Ten minutes later, the car drove into a high-rise exclusive parking lot at Lancer's headquarters.

There were all kinds of luxury cars parked inside, and after walking through some new hybrid and solar cars, Eddie saw Mark's "Jaguar" first, which really suited his style, and Mark's taste was also classic.

Immediately after, Eddie saw Chris's "Tesla". Chris is not a car enthusiast alone, the role of a car is to take her from one place to another, and that's it. She chose the electric car simply in honor of Nikola Tesla (2).

She told Eddie that once advanced, positive, and progressive forces dominate, the formation of a monopoly is bound to become a backward, passive, and conservative force, hindering the progress and development of others. Just like Edison back then, in order to prevent others from seizing the market, he preemptively registered thousands of scientific and technological patents, if he hadn't sent someone to destroy Tesla's laboratory, if Tesla's electromagnetic experiment could be successful, history would have been rewritten earth-shatteringly, and now the world they live in will be a different scene.

Chris's words completely went to Eddie's heart, he is also a fan of Tesla, and they want to replace Tesla to complete the innovation that turns the world upside down, technological innovation.

Add thought that the new technology they were about to unveil at the press conference would definitely make the "old guys" step aside, and he couldn't help but smile at the corners of his mouth.

Her car is still here, where can people go?

Eddie suddenly remembered Zhou Jia's wording, she actually used the word "disappear evaporate"! A feeling of uneasiness spread faintly in his heart, and he quickened his pace and walked towards the elevator.