Smashing Others' Dreams!
I smashed the ball spat out by the batting machine. A clean hit right in the sweet spot of the baseball bat. The crisp crack echoed satisfyingly. Moments later, the second ball also sailed out for a home run verdict. My baseball skills hadn't improved—it was just that my senses had sharpened to an incomparable degree.
The third ball came flying. I could hear the faint whistle as it cut through the air, and as it neared, I even saw the stitches clearly. Crack! I hadn't used acceleration. My dynamic vision itself had improved dramatically. It felt like the three-dimensional perception of blind swordsmen in fiction, sensing their surroundings through sound and air currents. Like cat whiskers sprouting all over my body—except these were several meters long.
I clenched my fist thirty centimeters in front of my navel.
"Send the next ball this way."
[Got it.]
I closed my eyes. Soon, a faint whoosh reached me, and I sensed a spherical object piercing into my sensory field. Crack! I didn't miss this one either.
I quit the batting game after fifteen straight hits, deeming it pointless to continue.
"This is insane."
Exaggerating a bit, I might even sense killing intent if someone tried to assassinate me.
"Remember that buddy I told you about before?"
[The general's son who got the implant procedure?]
"Yeah."
I slotted the bat back in its place.
"I think I get why he died young. Living with senses like this from a young age would make anyone's confidence explode."
But no matter how superior your physical abilities, you can't dodge blind bullets or shrapnel.
[Your buddy's procedure focused on muscle strength, endurance, and vision enhancement. That's absolute in training or fitness tests, but in real combat, what decides life or death is 'sensory perception and judgment.' For some, that reckless confidence just hastens death.]
After quitting batting, I tried table tennis against a robot with rackets on both hands. Even on the highest difficulty, neither side scored as time ticked by. Later, the ball zipped back and forth in a straight line through the air without even bouncing off the ground. When I saw the photo Artemis had snapped afterward, even I couldn't believe my reaction speed—despite doing it myself.
In the airplane shooting game, I never needed the black bombs at the bottom—they just piled up. In rhythm games, I didn't miss a single note. Same with fighting games.
Taunt! I sat through the uppercut from a middle-aged guy with slicked-back hair who looked like a total asshole. His powerful fist, wrapped in blue lightning, sliced through empty air. Hah! Then came a low sweep.
'Impossible to block by watching.'
'Predict and block via mind games.'
It was one of those classic easy-choice moves, but I could see it with my dynamic vision and counter accordingly.
[Oh?]
Artemis's voice thinned. She'd planned to go easy, but now she unleashed insane high-difficulty tech that would leave veteran players stunned. I blocked it all effortlessly.
After the virtual fight, I sparred for real in the martial arts dojo against a new-model security robot. With its main frame swapped for a new alloy steel and outer armor upgraded to reinforced plastic, it was lighter and far more agile. Power-tuned down to adult male levels for safety, but I dodged its strikes with ease. Staring straight at incoming punches and evading with minimal movement—no fear at all. My enhanced nerves had unlocked the "fist-gazing" technique that usually requires grueling training.
I tilted my head left to slip the right straight; the robot spun half a turn and whipped in a left elbow. I backstepped to evade. But the elbow was bait—the real attack was a right high kick using the spin's momentum. The old me would've eaten that blindside kick from outside my vision, but now my sharpened senses caught attacks launching from unseen angles. By the time I glimpsed the robot's instep, I was already ducking, slamming a body shot into its exposed groin. If it were human, I'd have planted a fist there—but sadly, it was a robot, so no dice.
The brawl dragged on like a no-holds-barred dogfight, but I never took a single hit.
That wrapped up my sensory acclimation workout, and night fell. But tonight, sleep wouldn't come. The neural network pioneering from the acceleration implant was nearing completion, ramping up the signal intensity from my nerves.
After tossing and turning awhile and realizing sleep was hopeless, I headed to the park for a stroll. A cool breeze tickled my hair pleasantly. Perfect chill. Perfect wind strength. And somehow, it felt like it was fiddling with my face specifically.
This was an underground city—no natural wind here. A breeze tailored exactly to my tastes? No need to say more.
"Hey, Artemis."
[Couldn't sleep, huh.]
Men sometimes crave alone time and retreat to their caves. Artemis respected that, so in special cases like night walks, she wouldn't interrupt unless spoken to first. At most, she'd hint with something like that artificial breeze—a sort of "away message." If I ignored it, she'd back off and respect my space.
[Your neural network is more active than expected.]
She said after scanning my body.
"Good thing?"
[Of course. Means even more room for enhancement.]
"Cool. A few sleepless nights are nothing compared to safer external expeditions later."
In combat, even 10% faster perception and reaction could mean life or death. A few itchy nights was a bargain price.
Eventually my legs ached from walking, so I sat on a nearby bench. Testing my enhanced nerves all day with sports and sparring had built up real fatigue.
[Heading out again?]
Artemis asked.
"Can't let all those abandoned treasures rot."
Key national facilities have automated power systems. They can sustain themselves for quite a while without human management—like that lab last time. But not forever. Once power dies, raiding large sites and extracting the goodies becomes a nightmare, tech or equipment alike. No need to rush, but no slacking either.
[You have food, drink, medical services, entertainment, even perfect safety—still not enough?]
"Sounds like you're trying to talk me out of going outside."
Artemis fell silent. I got up from the bench and headed to the info screen in the park center.
"Show me the camp housing. Any dorm."
The screen lit up instantly, playing footage of the dorm. Night vision mode gave it a gray tint, but the sharp quality let me make out every sleeping woman's face clearly. One lay flat on her back, another curled fetal-style, one face-down, another sprawled legs akimbo with blankets kicked off, and in the corner, two embracing in sleep.
"Look at how they sleep. What do you think?"
[Dumb.]
Artemis said bluntly. Setting aside whether anyone meets her standards for non-dumb...
"To me, they look peaceful. Safe, fed, warm—with faith it'll continue."
Perfect temperature—not too hot, not too cold—clean bedding and space, total safety. Their sleeping faces were the epitome of serenity.
"Keeping that is my responsibility now. So they don't revert to the near-corpse states from the offshore prison."
[If they're sane, they should be grateful just to be alive. That's overkill responsibility.]
"This is my second time. Leading people thrust under me by the world. Leading conscripts as a platoon leader taught me: leaders need excessive responsibility for subordinates to even breathe easy."
As a green officer, I'd treated soldiers like Artemis—pure duty, demanding their best. But I learned quick that was wrong.
"Especially in tough times like now. Our shelter's insanely good, sure."
One woman stirred, got up sluggishly, and headed out—probably to the bathroom. No night watch here; escape was pointless anyway.
"Seeing them sparked a thought. Even a fully equipped shelter is just an isolated city. How long can we sustain this closed loop?"
Hunkering in the shelter with isolationism was safe, but nothing's 100%.
"Unexpected disasters, hyper-evolved infected invasions, unforeseen issues."
[The odds are so low it's pointless to calculate.]
We'd run endless sims on the topic, so we both knew.
"Not zero, though?"
[...]
In prediction, neither 100% nor 0% exists. Poke that blind spot, and even Artemis goes quiet.
"When the infection hit and we sealed up, I wasn't thinking ahead. Too busy surviving and blocking infected."
The bathroom woman returned, pulled up the kicked-off blanket on sprawled girl, then lay back down.
"Once we reclaimed the city and settled safe, I started pondering next steps. Day-after-day sameness isn't bad, but will I regret it later?"
Emptiness at life's end staring at the barren outside. Or regret choosing isolation as the shelter crumbles from surprise disaster. Either way.
[So you'll explore outside for better purpose?]
"You're just as curious about the outside. Always talking about colonizing the moon."
Before city reclamation, she was even more fixated than me. Artemis dreamed big: wipe out all infected, then push to the moon long-term. But without dormant tech and data worldwide, that's impossible—or at least, too slow. I'd die of old age before fruition.
[But you're the one risking your life for it.]
"Yeah."
If ops go south, I'm the one not coming back.
[Nothing more futile than dying chasing someone else's dream.]
"It might be risky, but I don't see it as futile."
Women working part-time to support boyfriends studying for civil service, goose dads, high-school-grad eldest brothers factory-working for siblings' tuition, patriotism-filled soldiers. The world's full of them.
"Some live more for others' dreams than their own. Couldn't understand before, but now? Not a bad life."
Silence settled between us.
"Just a thought."
After that, we walked the park wordlessly. That night, Artemis escorted me home until I entered my place, out of her view.
[Sleep well.]
The neural signals persisted, but maybe thanks to the lingering night breeze on my skin? After a while, I drifted off.