"It's okay." Victor Harris smiled, his voice carrying a slow gentleness. "My younger brother is afraid of heights too, he often reacts like this. He's about your age."

Adam Carter tried to figure out the rules of human interaction and tentatively asked, "Did he also come out into the wild with you?"

"Yeah," Victor Harris said. "We always used to go together."

"He's not here this time?"

"He's dead," Victor Harris said. "It's been two months. He was killed by a judge at the base gate."

Judge—this was the third time Adam Carter had heard that word.

The first time was from Aaron Carter, who tried to stop him from going to the human base, saying, "You can't escape the judge's eyes."

The second time was from Anthony Carter, who didn't want him to join the team, saying, "We're not judges, we can't be sure he's one hundred percent human."

And in the memories he had acquired from Aaron Carter, it seemed to be a term that appeared very frequently.

So he repeated, "...Judge?"

"You don't know?" Victor Harris's voice rose in surprise. "Where on earth did you come from?"

Adam Carter said softly, "I didn't use to interact with others."

"I can tell." Victor Harris twisted open a knob on the compartment wall, and a dim white light lit up from the ceiling, barely illuminating the cramped space. He took some rations from a cubby in the wall, and Adam Carter also took out food and water from his own backpack, sitting down across from Victor Harris.

Then Victor Harris said, "There's a system at the base called the 'Judges Act,' and then there's an organization under the military, very high-ranking, called the Tribunal. The members of the Tribunal are judges." Victor Harris continued, "They're usually on duty at the base gate, and each of them has a license to kill—killing isn't a crime for them."

After hearing this, Adam Carter vaguely remembered, and found something related in the memories he got from Aaron Carter.

He said, "...They determine whether people entering the base are human or infected?"

Victor Harris: "Yeah. Besides the kind of infected that can be spotted, there are some people you can't tell. The mutation process hasn't started yet, or the mutation level is so high that they look no different from humans. The base calls those people 'variants.'"

Adam Carter's eyes widened.

If that's the case, then he was a variant.

Victor Harris took off his jacket and draped it to the side, unscrewed the cap of his canteen, and continued, "The base population is too dense. If a variant gets in, they'll go on a killing spree, and then there will be a massive infection. The Tribunal's job is to judge whether every person entering the city is human or a variant. The process is called a 'judgment.'"

"Then..." Adam Carter: "What happens if they find a variant?"

"What else can they do?" Victor Harris raised his eyebrows. "They shoot them on the spot."

Adam Carter didn't say anything, lowering his head to take a bite of a compressed biscuit. He had just learned to eat like a human, but human food was a bit rough for him; swallowing it scratched his mouth and throat. He ate very slowly, but his heart was racing.

After a moment, he asked again, "Can they really identify all the variants?"

Victor Harris took a big gulp of water, leaned against the wall of the vehicle, closed his eyes, and his tone carried a hint of despair. "Who knows? The dead can't testify. No one knows if the people killed were really variants. My brother was like that."

Adam Carter didn't speak. Victor Harris seemed to be answering a different question, but he still listened quietly.

"He... that time he went with me to the First Plain. The contamination level there is even lower than the Second Plain. I watched him the whole time, I can be sure he wasn't hurt." Victor Harris smiled, but his voice was hoarse. "When we got back to the base gate, the one on duty that day wasn't an ordinary judge, it was their boss. Everyone calls him the 'Adjudicator.' Other judges give a reason when they kill, but he doesn't have to. He doesn't need a reason to kill anyone, and he doesn't accept any defense, not even from the top brass at the base. If he kills, that's it. That day, that's what happened—he just glanced at my brother and pulled the trigger."

"I didn't believe it, but there was nothing I could do. It happens a lot. He's killed many people. There are too many people in the base who hate him—one more or less doesn't matter. Maybe one day, he'll shoot me too."

After saying this, Victor Harris stared at his right hand in a daze for a while, then tossed the canteen aside, lay down with his arm as a pillow, but kept his eyes on the ceiling of the compartment. He finally got back on track, answering the question Adam Carter had asked at the very beginning: "They'd rather kill by mistake than let one go. If a real variant sneaks into the base, they'll definitely be found. This whole year, there has only been one variant attack."

Adam Carter felt uneasy. To hide this unease, he closed his eyes and rubbed them with his left hand.

Victor Harris said, "Go to sleep, kid."

Adam Carter lay down next to him. No matter what happens tomorrow, at least tonight is safe—no monsters, no Henry Watson, only a very kind Victor Harris.

Before falling asleep, he held the shell casing in his hand and looked at the door at the end of the corridor.

If—if he quietly opened the door now, got off the vehicle and left, returning to the monster-filled wilderness, he could still survive. He wouldn't face judgment, wouldn't be shot on the spot. He didn't know how long he could live, but it would definitely be longer than tomorrow.

But, are spores more important than life itself?

—Yes.