The bronze wolf claws scraped against the floor with a sharp sound, and Elvira stopped when she counted the seventh claw mark. The gallery's sensor lights lit up above her head one by one, illuminating the newly hung abstract paintings on the wall - the combination of those distorted blocks of color was exactly the same as the layout of the corridor she was chased in her dream.
"A surrealist work by a German artist." Max turned the gilded cane, the top of which contained a silver-winged beetle encased in amber. "It is said that the inspiration came from the courtroom murals of the medieval werewolf trial."
Elvira's fingertips hovered over the edge of the painting frame, and the surface of the painting suddenly rippled. The metal powder mixed in the paint gathered into the shape of a wolf's head with her breathing, and two micro-radio chips were embedded in the pupils. When she tried to scan it with her mobile phone, the chip suddenly burst into an arc, leaving a charred burn mark on the screen.
"Be careful of static electricity." Max wrapped a handkerchief around the frame. "These exhibits have all been shielded from electromagnetic interference."
When the midnight closing reminder sounded, Elvira used the excuse of dropping her earrings and returning to the exhibition hall. The flashlight beam swept across the base of the bronze wolf sculpture, and the nameplate engraved with "LN2015" showed a second layer of etching at a specific angle - it was a set of binary codes, which, after being converted into longitude and latitude coordinates, pointed to the old site of the laboratory that exploded three years ago.
The rust on the wolf's claws peeled off. Elvira scraped the bronze surface with a silver leaf bookmark, and the metal debris floated in the air into constellation patterns. When she pressed the bookmark into the wolf's pupil groove, the security system of the entire gallery suddenly went silent, and the display case glass reflected countless double images - in each mirror image, she was wearing a broken crescent necklace, and her clavicle scar was oozing with fluorescent blue blood beads.
"You shouldn't have activated it." Max's voice came from behind, the tip of his cane pressed against her lower back. The sensor light suddenly went out, and in the darkness his pupils glowed with a swampy green phosphorescence. "On November 5, 2015, Lucas planted the first memory anchor here."
The moment the emergency light came on, the bronze wolf sculpture's abdomen opened automatically. Damp cold air with a smell of formalin poured out. Twelve pieces of cerebral cortex tissue were soaked in the built-in transparent cabin, each of which was connected to a nanoscale golden wire. The cabin label showed that these biological samples were extracted from different clones, and the number of the latest piece was Elvira's birthday.
"The Dream Corridor is the entrance to the Memory Labyrinth." Max took off his monocle, revealing the red light scanner of his mechanical eye. "Every time you are caught up by the bronze wolf sculpture, the consciousness of a clone will be completely formatted."
The gallery floor suddenly tilted at a 45-degree angle. Elvira grabbed the wolf's claws to steady herself, and found that the frames of all the paintings were secreting fluorescent blue mucus. Max's suit and leather shoes dissolved in the chemical mist, revealing the liquid metal armor covering his entire body - the Neumann Group's triangular wolf head emblem was etched on the chest armor.
"Mrs. Audrey sends you her regards." His vocal cords made a grinding sound like gears meshing together. "The real prom is about to begin. The sacrifice needs to stay awake to taste the taste of despair."
The bronze wolf sculpture collapsed at this moment, and tens of thousands of nanorobots emerged from the wreckage, condensing into a holographic projection of Lucas in the air. His mechanized right hand pressed on his heart, where a still-beating biochip was embedded: "Go! There's a hidden thing under the gallery..."
The alarm swallowed up the second half of the sentence. When Elvira smashed the glass curtain wall of the emergency exit, she caught a glimpse of the signature column of the last painting - Max's name was washed away by chemical reagents, revealing the real creator's signature underneath: LN2015.