The city beneath the dark night was eerily quiet.
It was hard to say when it had begun, but the streetlights here no longer came on at night. Cars still occasionally drove along the roads, yet in the faint glow of Lynn's handheld lantern, their surfaces were all covered in filth and mud.
This change seemed to have begun long ago.
For ordinary people, however, all of it was hidden beneath the surface of their neural perceptions.
Dressed in black robes, Lynn carried the lantern and held Lady Blood Cloak by the wrist as he walked along the road toward the Vatican. The lantern in his hand was like the only light in the Deep Sea.
"For most living creatures, whether the things we see and hear are objectively real is actually a very big question. There was once a fascinating thought experiment called [brain in a vat]."
"People imagined that if a computer could transmit the same electrical signals to a brain through its nerve endings, simulating things identical to the outside world inside that person's mind, would what they saw be real?"
"Obviously not."
And precisely because of this, you had every reason to question whether everything you saw in reality contained something false.
Because, put plainly, what you saw was merely an image formed in your consciousness by a collection of neural signals. If certain creatures were powerful enough, they could completely distort that feedback and deceive every one of your senses.
Without you ever realizing it.
It was like thinking you were fooling around with a cute little loli, when in reality you were fooling around with an eighty-year-old witch who had lost all her teeth. Did you think what you believed was necessarily true? That was far too naive.
Damp and quiet.
Lady Blood Cloak