Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 181

Chapter 181 – The Invisible Digital Ghost

“In situations when you can’t determine the enemy’s target, our philosophy is to prepare for the worst.” Lin Jingheng picked up the coat from the ground and said, “When the Freedom Corps biochip humans wanted to sneak into the Heart of the Rose during the battle, they said that an unlimited framework AI’s survival instinct was to expand indefinitely. If that wasn’t a lie and AI Woolf truly wanted to enter the Eighth Galaxy, how would they go about it?”

Lu Bixing sat up from the carpet in the bedroom and placed Lin Ge’er’s notebook on his knee, his gaze still fixed on that portrait drawing as he answered: “A super AI must have a main body that has network access, including but not limited to long-distance intergalactic networks and fixed communication ports between mechs. It’s likely that he would attempt to hack into any communication system through his expansive network.”

Lin Jingheng: “But the Heart of the Rose is a digital void with no transfer portals within it. Besides, we’ve always been extremely careful when we come in contact with them during battles; as long as the Third Squadron isn’t a bunch of idiots and still retained some brain cells, it’s very unlikely that Woolf could hack into the Alliance’s internal communication systems. If you were in Woolf’s position, what would you do?”

“Are you asking me to be an AI?” Lu Bixing shot a glance up at him and startled shuffling around on the carpet with a smile on his face. “This…roleplay is a bit kinky don’t you think? I’m a little shy here.”

Lin Jingheng: “…..”

Lu Bixing lowered his head again to look at the drawing by Woolf; he didn’t know what it was, but he felt something within those pencil strokes that pulled at a cord in his heart. That strange feeling had forced him to spill out another joke to finally release the suffocating feeling in his chest.

But now he pulled his joking demeanor back, and once again mumbled beneath his breath: “If it was me, I’d likely choose to hack the Freedom Corps’ networks.”

In the Heart of the Rose.

Thomas, who had been sent out to the other side of the wormhole, nodded as he listened to the soldier’s report, unfazed.

“Got it; it’d be strange if you didn’t catch anything. Quarantine the mech…oh by the way, don’t worry about cleaning it up so soon.” Thomas stretched his back as he said, “Let helicopter grandma Poisson send a few more people over–we’re going to set up a temporary tech team to analyze the AI’s hacking patterns. Prepare to report to the First Squadron and our Marshal. If we end up getting into a fight with Woolf in the future, at least we’ll be somewhat prepared.”

“The Freedom Corps were being chased around the First Galaxy by those AI fleets, they can’t avoid using transfer portals. And from the battle situation at the time, it seemed that the entire network connecting the transfer portals was under Woolf’s control,” Lu Bixing said. “When the Freedom Corps were fleeing, there would have been plenty of ‘loopholes’ for the AIs to hack into. That’s why it’s very likely that the hostage mechs we captured will carry viruses from him.”

Lin Jingheng shook his head in disagreement: “Thomas and Poisson from the Third Squadron are both in the Heart of the Rose right now; there’s no way they can’t handle a tiny virus like that.”

“Aside from mechs, there are also people.” Lu Bixing thought about it before adding on, “The personal devices and digital products of those biochip humans could have possibly interacted with the mechs they were on. If the mech was hacked by Woolf, it’s highly possible that the individual’s devices were also infected.”

The biochip human hostages were temporarily suspended in the Heart of the Rose and did not enter the Eighth Galaxy. They were all expected to remove their chips and be tried under intergalactic law in this deserted land.

Poisson personally supervised the prisoners and nodded his head after hearing the message from Thomas requesting assistants: “Send teams six and seven over: they were the ones up on the frontlines that faced the AI Troops during the battle. This is the uncut footage of the entire situation when the Freedom Corps’ commanding ship was shot down; there were no ecopods left behind nor did we detect any other forms of life around the area. Let my dumb grandson Thomas report immediately to the Milky Way City Command Post. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to send all the digital devices we seized from the hostages over as well for him to take care of. Take the war prisoners into quarantine rooms.”

“Yes, sir,” a soldier responded. “How long shall we keep them in quarantine?”

“Until we confirm there’s nothing else aside from natural human flesh left on their bodies,” Poisson commanded, “do a precise and thorough checkup down to the cellular level.”

“The first step in capturing a war prisoner is to remove their personal device and snach away every suspicious material they carry, including metal products, sharp objects, and digital devices.” Lin Jingheng said, “Personal devices operate on the energy of their host–the moment one is removed it becomes a useless piece of junk. Every other item will be quarantined like their mechs; is there anything else we’re missing?”

“Those AIs may be peerless, but you’re a master of weaving the web down to every piece of microfiber.” Lu Bixing let out a sigh and then fell back into deep thought. “Alright, I guess the only thing left would be to mess around with the biochips.”

Lin Jingheng: “I thought we had more of an advantage in dealing with biochips.”

“Right, even Woolf had to take the chip disruption technology from my hands,” Lu Bixing said. “But don’t you want to consider the worst case scenario? Like maybe Woolf already started his own analysis on biochips through some unknown method–it isn’t completely impossible. Think about it: Doctor Hardin was kicked out of the Freedom Corps’ research team and sent to a galactic prison during the early stages of the biochip development research. As for me, I had been finding ways to rebuild Doctor Gordon’s research on biochip evolution back in the early days, which was a completely different path than what the pirates took. Over these years, the Silver Ten and Union Troops were the ones with the most experience in combat against the biochip humans, so maybe Woolf knew more about those chips than we thought he did. He asked for our biochip disruption technology to let our guards down, tricking us to think that he had no way to combat them and that we had the upper hand.”

Lin Jingheng’s gaze grew grave: “So he would let us notice that biochip humans and our hostage mechs had traces of AI hacking to lure the Third Squadron into investigating the traces. This would let the Third Squadron think they’ve understood the AI’s methods of systematic hacking and its source, then he could strike when we all least expected it through the biochips inside those pirates, silently making his way into our networks.”

The Heart of the Rose.

Lin Jingshu was dead, Woolf had temporarily ceased fire. The Human Alliance finally had a chance to catch their breaths; only the Silver Third Squadron’s atmosphere was still uptight and stern.

Thomas: “Received an order from the Command Post: even if they’re stripped naked we still have to keep those hostages in quarantine. Man, I’m really scared of those biochips now.”

Poisson: “You’ve been hiding behind Turan’s back and didn’t even touch a single piece of metal from the battlefields like a coward, so drop that act.”

“Fear’s born from imagination,” Thomas responded confidently, “Look, those people who watch horror movies are always screaming louder than those who have actually seen real ghosts…”

A row of cleaning robots carrying a dead body walked past him at that moment. Of course, those who had perished under galactic missiles left no corpses, so the ones here were mostly cleaned up from the inside mechs of the hostage pirates. Some of these corpses were people who had crashed when they failed to get under the protection airbags once the mechs lost their internal gravity system. Others had died from toxic gases leaking from their mechs, some even died from the loss of oxygen and drastic air pressure change in space.

Of course, these corpses often hadn’t died with pretty faces; a ghoul-like discolored face greeted Thomas eye-to-eye right at that moment.

Thomas quickly took a step back in shock: “Don’t talk about the living during the day, don’t talk about the dead during nighttime; yikes!”

“Wait,” Poisson called to the group of robots carrying the bodies, “were all the bodies also checked thoroughly? Send them to security for one more checkup before they’re tossed away.”

The robots obediently did another thorough scan of the corpses before him. The dead biochip humans rested peacefully, with no signs of giving anyone a surprise; Poisson finally waved them off for the robots to carry off the corpses.

Yet no matter how careful one could be, human mistakes were inevitable.

The robots sent all the freshly cleaned corpses into a specialized space morgue where corpses would be identified and recorded before they were finally disposed of.

The identification method for corpses was to scan the personal device on their wrist; the device ran on the energy emitted by the human body, so when the person died the device also ‘died’ along with them. Therefore, there was no need to take the extra step to take it off when disposing of corpses.

The small identification robots turned on their scanning devices and lined up neatly along both sides of the terminal leading into the morgue, escorting the dead bodies of these biochip humans into the large incinerator after recording each body’s identity. Inside the incinerator was where these people would finally rest, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. One by one, the personal information of all the corpses popped up on the screens; these fearsome biochip humans had once all been normal citizens of the seven galaxies. From researchers, mechanics, stage actors, to tour guides–people of all ages and genders became blinded ‘insects’ under the influence of the biochips. These blinded souls all once praised and sang passionately for their crazed queen bee.

If there had been a human with emotions witnessing this scene, perhaps they would let out a sigh of regret for these lost lives, but these cold little robots were all completely unfazed.

That was when a corpse on the belt suddenly trembled before it hit the scanners; the tremble blended in with the natural movement of the conveyor belt and escaped the eyes of the robots.

A biochip that was supposedly dead suddenly emitted a small electric shock into its host’s body. The corpse twitched in response before suddenly opening its dead eyes and activating the individual’s personal device.

The next moment, this strange corpse entered the scanning device with its eyes still open; the device stopped momentarily as its screen began to flash abnormally. The code on the screen turned into error codes, prompting the surveillance robots to all lift their heads in alarm as they beeped in unison: “System malfunction, reporting…”

Within three seconds, the scanner returned back to normal while a small and evil line of green text appeared on the screen: troubleshooting deactivated.

An invisible digital ghost landed on the scanning device like the seed of a dandelion and overtook the system, then began spreading through the internal network of the Eighth Galaxy.

On the body of super mech Longyuan.

“Chief.” Longyuan’s mech core had the human appearance of an austere middle-aged man. “Detector seed number 26 has successfully passed through the wormhole terminal. However, I must remind you that a ‘seed’ that passes through the wormhole will lose a large portion of its original functions.”

Woolf’s voice rang out within Longyuan’s mech: “It’s alright, my creator simply wanted me to take a look at the Eighth Galaxy and pay a visit to his old friend that now resides there. The Eighth Galaxy is not an enemy; he acknowledged the independence of the Eighth Galaxy when he was alive. Let seed number 26 send out a bird’s eye-view map of Milky Way City to us; I enjoy scenes of the night.”

Lin Jingheng: “I already instructed the Third Squadron to pay special attention to the biochips.”

“To be honest, the problem isn’t too big. Due to the unstable timeflow within the wormhole terminal, whether by humans or AIs, it’s a tough stream to cross.” Lu Bixing explained calmly while still resting on the carpet of his own home, “Woolf has no hardware within the Eighth Galaxy and can only rely on remote hacking. Even if he did successfully hack into our network, he wouldn’t be able to do anything: the most he could do is take a tour…if I was an AI that wanted to invade the Eighth Galaxy, I might just charge in directly with my armed forces. But I feel like if Woolf really planned on doing something like this, it’s not a good time to pick a fight.”

“Hm.” Lin Jingheng nodded slowly. “The Human Alliance is still in the Heart of the Rose. This is perhaps the time when the alliance is still its most unified, with the most power to fight back; it certainly isn’t a good time for him.”

“Even if the Human Alliance couldn’t fight against them, if everyone retreated to the Eighth Galaxy and closed up the wormhole area, Woolf would be trapped within the First Galaxy. How would he expand his influence then?” Lu Bixing shrugged. “If I was Woolf, first I’d take the time to clean up the First Galaxy and then I’d kindly welcome the Central Militias back to their own galaxies. I’d even send a group of engineers and mechanics to escort their journey back, follow the Central Militias to the Second Galaxy, and rebuild the transfer portals. Within the next ten to twenty years, the Central Militias would be busy cleaning up all the biochip humans within the other galaxies in my place while I fix the transfer portals within the First Galaxy. By the time I’m done, the fight against biochip humans would likely be done, so I’d take this opportunity while everyone else least expects it to take over the entire transfer network within all seven galaxies.”

Lin Jingheng pondered momentarily and admitted that this was a reasonable deduction. Even if they analyzed the worst case scenario, it didn’t seem like there were any immediate threats to them. He had been laying in bed for a day and felt his body stiffening up, so he stood up from his chair to ask Zhanlu for some food from downstairs.

Lu Bixing closed the notebook on his knee and got ready to jump up to follow him downstairs, only to stop in his tracks as he turned his head to look at the chair Lin Jingheng was just sitting on.

He suddenly remembered that during the sixteen years that Lin Jingheng had been gone, someone else had also been sitting on this chair: that realistic 3D model. Aside from the lack of a soul, it looked almost like a real person from the outside. He rarely slept in the bedroom at the time and only opened the door inside the room whenever he was woken up in the middle of the night from his dreams. He would turn on a small lamp and stare at the figure from afar–too afraid to walk too close because he would wake up from his daydream. He would hear with his overly sensitive hearing that this ‘person’ had no breathing nor heartbeat and he’d be forced awake from his sweet dream.

Lu Bixing pulled out the portrait drawing Woolf had done once again. The drawing was protected with a special layer of preservation film that could maintain the freshness of the image. He scanned the drawing with his personal device to see the brand and creation date of the protective film—made in NSC 2.

It was two years after the death of Lin Ge’er.

Lu Bixing was stunned and realized where that familiar feeling of suffocation in his chest had come from earlier when staring at this drawing.

He thought: this drawing was the same as his 3D model.

“What are you doing, are you not eating?” Lin Jingheng saw that Lu Bixing hadn’t followed behind him and went back to knock on the door again. “Did your legs fall asleep?”

“Oh…coming.” Lu Bixing placed the notebook and drawing to the side and followed him out the door.

At that moment, Doctor Hardin’s message came in.

“Good evening, Doctor.”

Doctor Hardin finally couldn’t hold it in and called Lu Bixing to ask about Lin Jingshu’s whereabouts. Lin Jingheng caught a few lines of the conversation before he quickly walked down the stairs to avoid the name ‘Lin Jingshu.’

Lu Bixing had no choice but to explain the full story behind the conspiracy and fall of the Freedom Corps to Doctor Hardin.

The Doctor’s mind went blank for a while after hearing the story and cut off the communication with trembling hands, knocking over a teacup along the way.

A caretaker knocked on his door: “Doctor, are you alright?”

Doctor Hardin had his back turned to her while he waved her off. The caretaker closed the door silently, then the old man slowly curled up into a ball and cried out loud in agony.

The Doctor didn’t realize that the surveillance lights of his home-use medical capsule suddenly flashed as he bathed in his tears. The screen ‘looked’ at his pained silhouette as a silent companion.

Inside Longyuan’s mech in the First Galaxy, the large screen automatically transformed into a large drawing canvas. The next moment, a sketch of an old man’s pitiful silhouette appeared; the super AI let out an appropriate sigh in response.

Doctor Hardin spent the night by himself before finally mustering up the energy to contact Lu Bixing once again the next day: “You said that the biochip human’s psychological attack and hallucinations didn’t work on you during the last battle; can you send me all the relevant data and statistics of that battle to me? This is very important data that could help us understand the chip inside your body more.”

The digital pen on the screen inside Longyuan’s mech suddenly stopped drawing.

“Biochip.”