Chapter 32 Attachment: "Professor"'s notes

Three days after the Ninja raid on the Pittsburgh Police Department, the "Professor" was found dead in his own cell at the Ashercliff Asylum.The coroner determined he suffocated himself with a plastic bag.Among his belongings, five names were found handwritten in black ink on the last page of a Bible: Jack Daniels, Ian McCarthy, Jason Gregg, Nicholas Gu and others. Own name: Kilgore Trout.Each name is marked with a cross, and below it is recorded a phrase "time-quake", and a combination of numbers and letters, which looks like a set of user names and passwords, but no one knows what it is used for. where.

"Initially, I thought I was the 'lucky one' who was chosen and was granted the most generous gift by God. Through 'Time Shock', I could become the only person in the world who could predict the market, although I was not interested in stocks and futures before. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff, but once you can predict the future, that kind of stuff becomes completely secret. I started imagining what my life would be like when I had a lot of money—traveling the world? No , I'm too old for that sort of thing. Maybe I'll buy a beach house with a dock and a yacht in the warmer south, and stock my liquor cabinet with enough spirits to last a decade huh, that was my college dream, but sadly, there will be no bikini girls on deck, no wives in chiffon dresses with swinging hems, kids, no one to share with me I never had any illusions about love when Angela ripped me in two in a long and painful divorce case six years ago. I've dated a few women since then , but it got worse every time. Nowadays, I don't have any interest in old women who can't understand dirty jokes, and young girls are too dangerous for my old bones. Unbelievable, If I quit my job at the university, what's left of my life - God, what am I writing about..."

"I sometimes think, since I can bring the memory of the 'future' back to before the 'time shock' and change it, then what is the 'future' that exists in my 'memory'? Maybe only TS Ai This situation is best described by a line from Lieter's line: 'The present and the past may both be in the future, and the past contains the future.' I think I need to seriously consider whether to make my discovery public- — even if that would bring me a Nobel Prize — I can’t imagine how the world would change when everyone gained the ability to rewrite history. I guess if that happens, maybe just pray God really exists to keep human society from collapsing. But on the other hand, what right do I have to take this discovery away from mankind? Maybe it won't be so bad. Why should I Make a choice? It would be naive to assume that you are the only person in the world who perceives 'time shocks'. I think I should stop thinking about it for now. My student Michael brought me some Chinese tea, I think making some tea should help me get rid of these nagging thoughts.”

"There is an old tree in my backyard. I am not a plant taxonomist, so I can't name it. I only know that it was planted long before I was born. Since the beginning of the trend of urban suburbanization in the 1950s , it has survived several times from real estate developers, and now it is the most 'veteran' resident in the entire community. When I was a child, my father built me ​​a tree house in the tree, after such a Years of pulling the branches, the tree house has been torn apart, but the ladder nailed to the trunk for climbing is still intact. So the children in the community always try to climb up when I am not paying attention, leaving a place of their own Marking or something. Later, I had to get a great dane to guard the tree and scare away kids who wanted to climb it.

“Danny was the kid across the street from the Greenwoods. Maybe because of his asthma, he was thinner than his peers, and he was never seen playing basketball or baseball with the kids in the neighborhood. He always wore In full tracksuit, but can only sit on the sidelines. Like other kids, he always tries to find a chance to climb up the tree house behind my house, but every time my dog ​​named 'Bobby' The dog scared off. He was probably the only one of all the kids in the neighborhood who had never climbed that spot. Most recently, the naughtiest of the kids, Simon, stole two sleeping pills from his mother's medicine chest. , mixed with meat to feed 'Bobby', so that Danny climbed up the tree house while the dog was asleep. But maybe human sleeping pills didn't work on the dog, or the medicine was not strong enough, Danny only climbed two levels, 'Bobby' woke up and barked at him - he fell off and peed his pants, which made him a laughing stock among his classmates and couldn't hold his head up for a week.

"Then the 'timequake' happened and time went back nine days. I thought, maybe I should help this kid. So I got 'Bobby' in early on the day they were going to drug my dog. inside the house. "However, things did not go along the route I expected, but turned into a tragedy. When little Danny was engraving his name on the tree house, he stepped on a rotten board, fell from the top of the tree, and broke. I lost three ribs, my right kidney was damaged, and my hip bone was broken into four pieces. And I will face a $500,000 compensation lawsuit. "This was the first time I realized the danger of 'time shocks', which I call 'the first shock'. From then on, I had to remind myself to be very careful in order to avoid 'time shocks' ruining my life. But I I still don't want to believe that the 'time shock' is not a blessing, but a punishment from God."

"On March 11th, on this day, you can see the report of 'Kimberly Underwear Store Sign Collapse' from newspapers and TV. The Kimberly Underwear Flagship Store at the intersection of Jefferson Road and Seventh Avenue was reinstalling the neon signboard, because The hoisting rope snapped and the huge metal-framed lingerie mannequin crashed onto the pavement from the height of a three-story building.' Miraculously, no one was injured in this serious accident at this busy intersection in downtown Spooked, and several customers were briefly trapped in the store before the fallen sign was removed.' I'm sure people will remember this as the report. But there's another version in my head: 'Girl Killed by a falling sign'. In the same accident before 'Timequake', I witnessed the girl get hit by a huge falling underwear mannequin. It was the bloodiest scene I have ever seen in my life. She The body was split from the left shoulder, the upper body was almost cut in half by the metal frame, and at least half of the ladies who were shopping for underwear in the store passed out. In fact, the first ambulance to arrive took away those few Fragile lady still awake, not the poor girl's body on the ground.

"For a month after going back in time, I struggled with whether or not to inform the girl named Emilia about the signboard accident. Finally, the day before the accident, I gave her a brief call from a payphone. Anonymous call, gave her a simple warning, and hung up before she had any response. I was careful that the pay phone was at least ten blocks from my house and the university where I worked lest I get caught in In the investigation of this accident. The next day, I still passed that route. When I passed by Kimberly’s underwear store, I looked around and didn’t find Emilia. That’s what I caused myself I had some troubles, I was only looking for someone, but I ignored the moment when the signboard fell, and it was too late when I realized it. In order to avoid the signboard falling from my head, I had to escape into the Kimberly underwear store. The signboard was sealed When the ambulance, reporter and videographer arrived at the same time, I found out suddenly and embarrassingly that I was the only 'male customer' trapped in the underwear store, and the reporter interviewed me. Oh shit! For a whole semester after that, I was kept at arm's length by female colleagues, rumored by students that I was a pervert who stole women's lingerie, and by neighbors, even when I explained the whole thing at family gatherings on weekends, parents didn't agree. Children are no longer allowed near my home.

"Despite the way things turned out to be, I was relieved to be able to save the girl. But then I read about her death in the society and crime section of the weekend paper. Police were at The body of a young woman was found in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Her limbs were broken and stuffed into an abandoned oil drum. The dead was confirmed to be the missing sixteen-year-old girl Emilia Linklater , according to her parents, she received a mysterious phone call before she disappeared... "My God! Things are starting to go really, really wrong!" "I met Karl Manning at my 40th anniversary high school reunion. In high school, he was a nerdy nerd, and when we were debating whether the cheerleader was a Cancer or a Leo, he Will tell you about the Leonid meteor shower or something. I also vividly remember him mail ordering a 'high school student nuclear power plant model' from somewhere. It blew up and resulted in the whole family being treated for radiation sickness for over two months, State police evacuated residents within two kilometers of his home, and experts dressed like astronauts and FBI and DHS agents came and went from his home and hospital wards, and eventually they had to tear down the house , A concrete pier was built on it.

"And Carl is now the president's science adviser. "I asked him about cosmology and time machines under the pretext of writing a science fiction novel—if we go back in time, can we change history? His answer was similar to those I found online: Time is only a tool for human beings to understand the universe, just like the Cartesian coordinate system, which does not actually exist. And the time machine can be understood as a tool for reversing all material states and making them regress to the previous state, to achieve that kind of thing, The energy required is greater than human imagination. Einstein's energy equation reveals the energy contained in a gram of matter: E=mc2, the energy is amazingly large, but to turn back time, even if all the matter in the entire solar system is transformed Not enough energy.

"'What if it was the energy of the entire universe?' I asked. Then I explained to him the idea of ​​'instantaneous contraction of the universe. Such an interesting idea. He thought about it for a while, and gave me an interesting answer - that kind of thing can happen, that for some reason we don't understand yet, the universe spontaneously returns to the previous state, and then follows A different path forward than 'before'. According to chaos theory, the next phenomenon is 'emergent' and there are no strict rules of cause and effect, so 'changing history' is possible in this case. But even if that happens , and still follow the established law of the universe. For example, when the universe shrinks and expands again to the point before the contraction, the entropy will inevitably become larger, because if not, the slowdown of the universe’s expansion rate will be observed. But now humans have not found any signs of slowing down the expansion of the universe. In fact, he explained that entropy increase is the basic law of the entire universe, and chaos, destruction, and death will be the inevitable fate, and local entropy like humans The example of reduction is very special. In the entropy change of the scale of universe contraction, the local entropy reduction system of human society will also obey the direction of the whole universe. That is to say, if the universe shrinks after the extinction of human beings, we are powerless to reverse it. own destiny. "'That is, things can only get worse? And any attempt to improve is futile?' I asked. "'So to speak,' answered Karl. "I think he's right. All the bad things after the 'timequake' can be explained by this theory. The insurance salesman who disappeared after winning the lottery probably didn't move to the beach in Santa Fe either. Villa, but something unfortunate happened - that is probably the most depressing news since I realized that 'Timequake' exists. 'Timequake' is really God's hammer. No, there will be no more About the Nobel Prize, I must keep my mouth shut about the 'time shock', once the news gets out and more people know, the 'judgment day' will come earlier." "This is the fourth time I have found inconsistencies in the news of deaths before and after the 'Timequake' - people who died in accidents were murdered after the 'Timequake' occurred. The serial killer behind the 'Timequake', he obviously Knows the nature of 'timequakes' better than I do. Since it's futile to try to steer fate in a better direction, let's just make it darker and more chaotic. I can only watch him kill those Innocent people, and nothing can be done. "No, it's not like I can't do anything - I can't save the victims, but at least I can get rid of the murderer. I don't think the universe would mind giving Timequake another victim. Of course, I have to find him first!" "I'm not a legendary detective like Matthew Scudder or Harry Bush, nor a criminal expert in the FBI's behavioral analysis team. I have never been trained in tracing, tracking, and detection, and I have no connections in the police world. I don’t even have a gun license. But don’t underestimate a professor of literature—I’ve always been familiar with high-tech gadgets because Angela is a digital columnist, even though she’s a cheating wife and Compassionate, penny-pinching ex-wife, a beautiful but deeply destructive woman, but I've always loved reading her digital column, even post-divorce. I know where to buy those latest tracking devices ——Pinhole cameras, miniature cameras, wireless microphones, small disk array servers that store surveillance data, GPS trackers... Another advantage I have is that I know the existence of the other party, but the other party is defenseless against me. He even would deny the existence of a man like me in search of psychological security. He would tell himself that all others who sensed the presence of 'time shocks' would kill themselves for the temptation to alter their fate. If I were him, I would You will also deceive yourself like this. "I began to pay attention to the 'death reports' in the newspaper every day, and I had to read each one more than a dozen times until I knew it by heart. I thought that as long as I could lock potential victims through 'time shock', I could find the serial killer It's not very difficult. But things are far from as simple as I expected. Leaving aside those "time shocks" that nothing happened but still consume a lot of my energy, even if they become the "time shocks" of research samples, If the time back is too short, the victim is killed before I even have time to find him or her; and those allow enough time for me to find the 'potential victim' who will die soon My poor stalking skills are also difficult to use. In fact, there have been many times when I almost got myself into trouble for stalking victims, and eavesdropping was out of the question. Her) usual haunts with high-definition cameras for surveillance—that's easy, like in a Hollywood movie, as long as you're wearing a thrift store uniform and driving a car with a municipal contracting company logo spray-painted vans, no one will be suspicious. But the images taken by those so-called 'high-definition' cameras can only be seen during the day, and the image quality drops to almost completely indistinguishable at night. The infrared surveillance system used at night not only needs a license to purchase, but also its expensive price and complicated installation steps are not something I can afford. "I collected the names and background information of the victims, and made a wall in the study room to compile the information according to the clue map. Since then, I have never held a family gathering on weekends, nor have I attended the Parties at the homes of neighbors and co-workers. I got fewer and fewer invitations until I was never invited to any parties, and in their eyes I must have become a withdrawn psycho. The murderer hardly Let go of any chance of murder, some victims' bodies will be found soon, and some victims will always be 'missing', although their bodies have never been found, but I know they must be dead. Those bodies that were quickly found were all killed by neat means, such as being strangled or having their throats cut. There were no traces of violation or torture on the bodies. I believe these victims were just 'training objects' for the murderer '; and those victims who really interested him are often 'disappeared' for a long time. Some corpses hidden in very hidden places are only discovered by chance (such as being tied in the trunk and sinking into the river) 19-year-old Mexican boy Juan Sergio Manuel). Only those victims can really reveal the murderer's horrific dark personality-they are usually violated and abused, and the corpses can be found long-term tortured or broken bones To this end, I have borrowed a large number of books on criminal psychology and serial killer profiling from the library in an attempt to paint a psychological portrait of the killer. But so far, these efforts have had little success. "The above is not the most unbearable part of the whole thing. "With every minute of my investigative work, I challenge the ethics of half my life - people who know they're about to be murdered, but I can't warn them - that any kind of involvement could put me on the line." Go in. On the one hand, I hope to have more valid samples to study; on the other hand, every time the 'time shock' occurs, I will pray that there will be no more serial murders, and let those poor people just die in accidents like that. It's good to die in the middle. God, even Odysseus will be better off than I am now. Before I completely collapse, I think I must end this as soon as possible, whether it succeeds or eventually gives up. "It wasn't until Bella, the whore - who was supposed to die of a drug overdose - disappeared that I started to realize that my previous tracking methods weren't working. 'Reaper' - I needed a Code name, let’s call him like that for now-preferring children who live at the bottom of society: young prostitutes, students who are used by drug dealers, children of illegal immigrants... They have a high mortality rate, and they live in no fixed place and have no life. Irregular and extremely difficult to track. I had to change my approach to find him. "I've learned from criminal psychology textbooks that there's a good chance that a serial killer will return to the scene of the crime and that environmental stimuli can sustain the high he's had. But 'Reaper' is very cautious and he doesn't take that risk. However, In addition to his murder scene, there is another unknown scene - the accident scene before the 'timequake'. For him, that can stimulate the same imagination. He believes that no one but him He will know the existence of those 'scenes', he doesn't have to rush back to the 'scenes' in the dark to enjoy a moment of pleasure in order to avoid the police's surveillance, but he can go there during the day, stay as long as he wants, and even sit down and have a cup of coffee , until the pleasure completely disappears. After the 'time shock', it will be my last attempt to set up surveillance cameras at every 'accident scene' in advance - it is worth a gamble." "The whole surveillance program took me 10 months and I bought 6 massive hard drives to store all the surveillance footage. Eventually, I was sure I had him. That guy shows up after every murder' In the live' video, he is in his early forties, gray hair, white, ordinary in appearance, body and clothes, but he seems to enjoy it every time, jerk! He often drives different cars, sometimes a Ford Taurus, Sometimes it's a Toyota Camry, sometimes it's a Chrysler Sebring, just the kind of big sedan that's most popular with the middle class in America. I checked all the license plate numbers, and he's really careful, all of these cars are leased. "On October 9th, the weather had just turned cold, and I waited for the best time to reveal the identity of the 'Reaper'. Another girl 'disappeared'. Later, he drove a Chevrolet Epica in the 'accident' Live' surveillance footage. This time he actually bought donuts and coffee, leaned against the side of the car and ate everything, and then stayed another ten minutes before leaving. If I can rent that car as fast as possible car, I'm sure I'll be able to get his fingerprints in the car - from the video, he wasn't wearing gloves. The next day, I took the day off and went to the store he frequented early in the morning Lemo Rent-A-Car. I told the receptionist that I would like to check out their parking lot and pick out a car I liked, and he readily agreed.” "The parking lot was about the size of a football field, and there were about thirty cars—mostly big sedans. I walked from the far east end of the lot to the west end and back—damn, The Chevrolet is not there, I am a little bit at a loss. The receptionist smiled and asked, is there not one you like? I will look again, and I responded vaguely. He stood there until I walked five meters away , and then took out the cell phone in his trouser pocket and made a call. "I froze when 'Reaper' came up to me - he was all smiles, the blazer had been replaced by a crisp suit and shiny shoes, but I recognized him and walked towards me This man is the same murderer who has been on 'live' surveillance footage eight times. I gasp and try to look natural. He reaches out and talks to a man I've been tracking for three years. The killer handshake is the most disgusting thing I've ever done in my life. 'Jack Daniels, the man in charge here, how can I help you?' "'Mark Webb,' I gave a random name, since I already know his identity, there is no need to register for a driver's license to rent a car, 'I just want to rent a car, no big deal.' "'Really, Mr. Webb? My colleague says you've been driving around here a few times, and I take it you're looking for a certain car?' "Oops! Looks like I've got my head around it and I've got to get out of here before he sees me. 'Guess what? I don't think I'm going to rent a car with you guys, you've got a bad attitude!' I whined While walking outside. "'What the hell are you looking for? Are you a private eye? Mark Webb!' I pushed open the glass door between the parking lot and the office building, and he asked behind me—in saying the name, he used The accent, obviously he has seen through the fake name I gave. "Damn it, old fox! I must get out of here as soon as possible." "Speaking of which, for the first confrontation, I almost lost my ass and suffered a complete defeat. But it couldn't be over like this. I went around in a big circle. After confirming that no one was following me, I went back to the car rental park in Alemo. In my car 200 meters west of the entrance of the company. Anyway, I have already asked for a full day off today, so I decided to monitor this company. "Things went smoother than I expected—in retrospect, it was too smooth, the kind that makes people let down their guard. After waiting for about ten minutes, I saw the Chevrolet Epica pull out. The company gate. The guy must be in a hurry to dispose of the body, I bet the missing victim's body is still in the trunk of that car. Even if there is no body, there is enough evidence to be found - blood, hair, clothing Fibers... I came too fast, he must not have had time to clean up all the evidence. “It started to rain, and in those seasons it rains so quickly and hard that the sound of the rain hitting the windows is loud enough to drown out the sound of the engine. I started to worry if my driving skills could keep up in this rainy day. Reaper's car, but he was driving ahead at a leisurely pace and didn't seem in a hurry. I followed him for about ten miles, and we went up the ramp to the Ford Pitt Bridge, across the bridge, It was the Ford Pitt Tunnel leading out of the city, and he started to speed up—no, once out of the city, it was under the jurisdiction of the Highway Patrol, God knows how long it would take them to arrive in this weather, on the highway with empty roads and few cars Come on, it's hard for me to stop him. It's better to stop him when the traffic on the bridge is still dense, so he can't run away. Yes, make a traffic accident and stop him, as long as it is serious enough to call the police and a tow truck , he is finished! "I checked that the seat belt was fastened, and then I jerked the steering wheel to change to the left lane. At the same time, I stepped on the accelerator pedal hard with my right foot, and the pointer of the tachometer swung to the right suddenly. The squealing sound overwhelmed the sound of the rain again, my car began to approach the Chevrolet in front, I gritted my teeth, when my car passed half of the Chevrolet's body, I turned on the right turn signal, and then turned to the right Circle the steering wheel. "The car accident completely deviated from my plan - I followed 'Reaper' all the way, with his vigilance, he should have found me. Before the impact, I had turned on the right turn signal to warn him that I was going to hit him. He must have understood me, he should have braked immediately. But I didn't hear the brakes at all, and the Chevrolet crashed into the right side of my car at sixty miles an hour. My right window shattered instantly, and the rear view The mirror was hit and embedded into the windshield, which shattered the windshield into a spider web, and the car was knocked over. I watched the world in front of me turn upside down and become fragmented. The car slid on the roof, crossed a driveway, and hit the concrete median in the middle of the bridge. The airbag deployed and slammed my suspended body back into the seat. "I don't know how long I've been unconscious. When I came back to life, before the rescuers could drag me out of the car, I unbuckled my seat belt and hit my head hard on the roof of the car. , my vision was blurred, and I couldn’t feel anything other than severe pain in my left shoulder and arm—a bone must have been broken. I panted, carefully adjusted my body posture, and waited for my vision to clear up. The right side of the car Half of it was almost flattened, and it was impossible for me to get out from there. Enduring the severe pain on the left side of my body, I struggled to open the left car door with my right hand—at this moment, someone came to help me. "Although I experienced a moderate concussion, I can still be sure that I did not hear the sound of brakes at the time, and no brake marks were found during the on-site inspection. This is why the police did not hold me fully responsible for the traffic accident——Police The mechanics of the Chevrolet think there may be something wrong with the brakes, and do not rule out the possibility of human damage. In other words, they suspect that it may be a murder. But that is impossible to prove, because the car is completely destroyed up. "When they dragged me out of the car and put me on a stretcher, I begged the EMTs to push me closer to that Chevrolet, and they told me not to look, but I insisted. Fuck , although this is a desperate attempt, but I finally brought you down, you devil! "The left half of the Chevrolet engine room was folded like an organ, and it was only half the original length. The driver was stuck in the deformed cab, covered in blood, with his head drooping, and seemed to have died. Firefighters Tried to get him out by cutting off the steering wheel with alligator scissors, but half of the steering wheel was embedded in his chest cavity. "My heart sank quickly. "He's not Jack Daniels at all, he's blonde! "I was fooled! I killed an innocent man! "At the last moment before being wheeled into the ambulance, I looked back at the popped-up trunk of my Chevrolet and it was empty. "I had a fractured shoulder blade, a fractured left upper arm, a broken rib, 22 stitches on my face, and a moderate concussion. I lay in the hospital for two weeks, during which time the police came twice. It was more of a cross-examination than an 'information' - until I was sure I had nothing to do with the Chevrolet driver. They didn't mention anything about what happened at the rental car company this morning. Apparently Jack Daniels didn't say a word about my morning 'visit', he wanted nothing to do with the police. "When I was discharged from the hospital, my left hand was still hanging from my shoulder and it was in excruciating pain. I was told to go to the police station first, deal with the aftermath of the traffic accident, and then I could 'take my car back'. The pile That piece of steel that killed an innocent, just leave it there—no, don't pass the buck, Kilgore Trout, it was you who killed! "I returned home with a mixed body of pain, exhaustion and frustration. When I opened the door, a smell of rancidity and blood came out, almost making people sick. I turned on the light, and what I saw was that 'Bobby' had already Dry corpses and brown-black blood on the floor. I closed the door, rushed to the bathroom, and held the toilet with one hand to vomit until only clear water came out. "He killed my dog! "I went back to the living room, and there was a piece of scotch tape on the TV with a sentence printed on it in thick black letters: 'Don't fucking play games with me, you can't afford it!' "This is a warning, and it also means that we already know each other's existence. "The note and the dog, it was obvious - he wanted to scare me away. And if I quit and didn't happen to die in an accident that happened just before the 'timequake', he would Not ready to lay hands on me. "Maybe I'd really be scared off - if he hadn't killed my dog!" Note: All the geographical conditions of Pittsburgh in this article are fabricated by the author, please do not verify.