svetikya Chapter 38 - That's Fear
Chapter 38 - That's Fear
He spent about thirty-six hours in his personal space.
This was the longest he had ever spent in his personal space, twice as long as after #001 and about ten hours longer than after #002. He hadn't planned to stay this long; he was just sitting at his desk, flipping through his memos, when he realized there was a lot to organize. After organizing one part, he found there was still more to do. He just sat there until he felt he had finished organizing, and when he looked up, he realized that thirty-six hours had passed.
What he did in those thirty-six hours:
I compiled the threat entity behavior log for #003, which took four pages to write.
I compiled an analysis of the cyclical changes in swells and wrote two pages, including a draft design for a "cyclical change early warning mechanism".
I compiled the individual assessments of twelve people, which were written in three pages. They included each person's behavior, points of error in judgment, and a comparison between their initial estimate of each person's probability of passing the game and the actual results.
He discovered something in this comparison: four out of his initial estimates of passing/dying were wrong.
Old Chen's initial estimate was that his "probability of passing the level was below average" because of his age; in reality, Old Chen's performance throughout the entire instance was stable, his fixed operations were precise, and his pace control was better than Xie Chengzhou expected. He was one of the last batch of people to pass through the P3 exit.
Wu Ming's initial estimate was "medium probability of passing"; in fact, Wu Ming was the best performing newcomer. His recording ability made up for Xie Chengzhou's blind spots in observation, and his footwork control was better than Xie Chengzhou expected.
Wang Bo's initial estimate was "low probability of passing the level"; he was the first to die, and his estimation was correct, but the reason was not his physical ability, but his way of processing information—he treated the hypothesis as confirmation.
Fang Yuan's initial estimate was that his "probability of passing the level was below average due to his ankle injury." Fang Yuan's death was not due to his ability, but because of his own choice, because he made a specific decision in a specific situation.
Xie Chengzhou confirmed one thing in this comparison: his initial estimation of people was not very accurate. His initial assessment of the physical environment was accurate; his initial inference of the rules was accurate; but his judgment of people, his initial estimation, had a large margin of error.
In his memo, he wrote: "Human variables are more difficult to predict than physical variables. This is not a new finding, but the amount of data this time is large enough and the bias is significant enough to warrant formal documentation: the initial estimates of humans should have a lower confidence level than the initial estimates of the physical environment, and more observational data is needed to update them."
---
Qin Gong appeared at the door when he finished his 30th hour of work.
She knocked on the door. "May I come in?" she said.
"Come in," Xie Chengzhou said.
She came in, sat down across the table, and placed her hands on it. She didn't bring anything—no notebook, no memos—just her hands flat on the table, backs up.
Xie Chengzhou noticed her hand—there was a shallow mark on the back of her right hand, the same as the one on the back of his own hand, made by the edge of a piece of wood, left when he ran past Exit P3.
"I want to ask you something," she said.
"Speak," Xie Chengzhou said.
"A moral dilemma," she said. "Do you know that term?"
Xie Chengzhou went through the word in his mind. "I know," he said. "This concept exists in the scoring mechanism of constitutive systems. It's in #001, but I didn't see it in the explicit rules. I saw it in the settlement data."
"I encountered this in #002," Qin said. "It was an injured player whose movement was restricted, and we needed to decide whether to take him away or leave him behind."
"How did you choose?" Xie Chengzhou asked.
“Take him with you,” she said, “but he died, not because I took him, but because there was an unforeseen danger on the route.” She paused. “If I had left him behind, he might have lived or he might have died, but he wouldn’t have died in that danger.”
Xie Chengzhou went through the scenario in his mind without saying a word.
"Fang Yuan," Engineer Qin said, "is the one who chose to stay."
"Yes," Xie Chengzhou said.
"But he made this choice," she said, "because the argument between the two of you made him feel like he was an issue to be discussed, rather than someone who could make decisions."
Xie Chengzhou went over those words in his mind.
"You mean," he said, "I should have asked him before arguing."
“Yes,” she said, “he listened the whole time you two were arguing about him, he listened for a long time, and then he said to himself, ‘I’ll stay’—that wasn’t a free choice, it was a choice he squeezed into when neither of the other options included him.”
Xie Chengzhou remained silent.
He went over the sentence in his mind twice.
"I'm not blaming you," Qin said. "I'm saying that I made a similar mistake in #002. I took that player away because I thought it was the right thing to do, without asking him what he wanted."
"What does he want?" Xie Chengzhou said.
"He said he wanted to stay," Qin said. "He said he knew his situation, and he felt it was safer to stay than to go with them. I didn't listen to him. He died."
Xie Chengzhou compared this situation with Fang Yuan's situation and found a difference: Fang Yuan said "I will stay", but Xie Chengzhou told him "you don't need to stay in my plan", and Fang Yuan still stayed.
Qin Gong's situation was that she didn't ask, then made a decision that she thought was right, and then that person died.
Xie Chengzhou's situation was that he asked, but he asked Fang Yuan by telling him "you don't need to stay," rather than "what do you want to do?"
"I understand what you're talking about," Xie Chengzhou said.
"You don't need to understand," Qin said. "You just need to remember next time: ask first, then decide."
She stood up and walked towards the door. "I want to be with you again next time," she said, "if the subject matter is assigned."
"Why?" Xie Chengzhou asked.
She paused at the doorway but didn't turn around.
"Because of your mistake," she said, "it's the kind that can be corrected."
Then she left.
After she left, Xie Chengzhou sat at the table for about two minutes without moving.
He went over what she had said in his mind, then opened his memo and added a third item to the "Mistake Analysis" section:
"Mistake 3: When discussing Fang Yuan's future, we did not first ask for his opinion, but went straight into debating the plan. Improvement: For all decisions involving specific individuals, we must first ask the individuals involved before making a judgment."
He paused at the end of this line, then put down his pen.
---
Xie Chengzhou sat at the table for about six more hours.
During those six hours, he turned to the last page of his memo and wrote down something he hadn't written before:
"#003 Death Record"
He paused, put the pen on the table, and did not write immediately.
He mentally reviewed those people's faces, not to write them down, but because he needed to do so before writing them down.
Then he picked up a pen and began to write.
"Wang Bo. Programmer, 29 years old. The first to die. He mistook the hypothesis for confirmation, he stepped onto the pier, he ran, the buzzing sound turning into a roar in his first step. I called his name, but he didn't stop. He died. My mistake: before the verification was over, I didn't clearly tell the others to wait for me to say 'start' before taking any action."
"Lin Xiao. Design Institute, 23 years old. She was terrified the whole time she entered the site. Her hands were trembling. She remained frozen in fear for a long time, then her body made a decision that her mind hadn't approved—run. The corrosive liquid burned through the soles of her shoes, she screamed, and then the steel plate snapped. Zhang An rushed forward and grabbed her wrist, not letting go, and the two of them fell together. Zhang An's hand never let go."
He paused after the sentence, "Zhang An's hand never let go."
He put down his pen, mentally reviewed the image, then picked up his pen again and continued writing.
"Fang Yuan. Logistics, 33 years old. He injured his foot. He listened to us arguing about him, and then he said he would stay. He sat in the concrete area, back against the crane base, feet flat on the ground. When I was on the P2 platform, the surge period shortened to 3.9 seconds, and the amplitude was increasing. I heard a short sound from the direction of P1 on the P2 platform, and then the surge covered it. I don't know how he died, but I saw the spot where he had been sitting on the P1 platform—the edge of the indentation, with a scratch extending towards the steel plate, not towards the passage. He knew his legs couldn't support the takeoff of the boom gap, and he knew the longer he waited, the lower his chances of success. He made a calculation, and then he went to try."
"Hu Jian. Welder, 45 years old. He was one of the most useful people in this instance. His technique was clean, and his fixed operations were precise. He didn't feel the changes in the swell cycle. He stepped into the sinking point and his right hand pressed against the steel maggot. Corrosive liquid began to spread outward from the point of contact, changing the color of the blood under his skin. He let out a low groan, not a cry, but a sound squeezed from the depths of his throat after the pain exceeded the range of words. The steel plate broke, and he fell."
"Dr. Cao. Surgeon, 42 years old. He went to save Hu Jian. He ran, his steps heavy, the buzzing turning into a roar on his third step. He grabbed the steel handrail, he held onto Hu Jian, he braced himself with both hands in two directions at the same time, he held on for about five seconds. He glanced in my direction, then looked down at his hands—his palms were already black, corrosion was spreading outward from the point of contact, and the muscles were losing control. His thumb loosened first, then his index finger, then his middle finger. When he fell, he was a little slower than Hu Jian because he fell from the hanging position, not directly from the steel plate."
"Liu Feng. Former soldier, 38 years old. The passageway was re-covered with steel maggots, and Xu Kai and I were trapped inside the P3 exit. He walked from the concrete safety zone towards the passageway. When he reached the entrance, he planted his feet firmly and stretched out his arms. He said, 'Quick, when the surge comes, you run. I'll hold them off here. I'll block them, and you run past.' I said, 'After you run, you run too—' He said, 'I can't run. They'll come as soon as I move. I know, stop dawdling.' The surge came, and I ran. I reached the concrete safety zone, and I looked back. He was still standing there, arms outstretched, steel maggots gathering from his hands, corrosive liquid spreading from the contact point. He didn't move."
"Old Chen. A construction worker, 55 years old. He was steady throughout the entire instance. His foot stepped into a settlement joint, his hand was cut three times by the steel column shell, he clenched his fist, said nothing, and kept walking. He walked through the interior of P3, he walked onto the pier between P3 and P2, he reached the sinking node, his stride was affected by his clenched right fist, his foot stepped on the edge of the sinking node, he staggered, he fell to the side, he grabbed the handrail steel pipe. He regained his balance. He glanced in my direction, about five meters away, I was on the P2 platform, I took a step in his direction. He looked down at the hand that was gripping the steel pipe—his right hand, three cuts, steel maggots on his fingers, corrosion was in progress, his fingers were trembling. He looked down, looked at the sea. Then he let go. Not because he was corroded out of control, he let go on his own. He'd been working on construction sites for thirty years, he figured out that situation faster than I could."
Xie Chengzhou paused for a long time after saying, "He finished calculating that situation faster than I did."
He put the pen on the table, flipped back to the memo, and went through everyone's names from the first page to the last.
Wang Bo. Lin Xiao. Zhang An. Fang Yuan. Hu Jian. Dr. Cao. Liu Feng. Old Chen.
Eight names.
He had dealt with accidents on construction sites, he had dealt with worker deaths on projects in Africa, and he knew that feeling—that feeling of sitting alone late at night after an accident, after all the procedural work was done.
He knew that was fear.
It wasn't fear of myself, but fear of the event itself—fear that it had already happened, couldn't be changed, and could only be recorded.
He picked up his pen and added a line at the end of the death record:
"I'm scared."
Then he closed the memo, stood up, and walked toward the bed.
He needs to get some more sleep.