Cat and Rose - Cat & Rose - Chapter 75 - An Unspeakable Matter (6)

Chapter 75 – An Unspeakable Matter (6)

Tang Ning had his own aesthetic sense in this area.

From his aesthetic perception, Vivian was good, while Lucia was flawed. Everything about Vivian was composed of exquisite algorithms; she was the pure code itself, had requirements for hardware, but did not depend on it. As long as it could provide computing ability, any device could be used. Lucia was different as she needed that piece of hardware, the core processor on which she lived.

“When I took over this project, she was a semi-finished product. Many functions depended on core hardware,” Tang Ning said. “A lot of her functions were achievements across several generations. Because the previous generation responsible for this project cooperated with the Chimera project, and they converted some technically impossible things into bioelectricity to solve. I always disapproved of programs relying on hardware, and wanted Lucia to get rid of that thing. But during that time, navigation accidents were very frequent, and humans were bad at dealing with complicated conditions. Area 2 and 3 were also rushing me a lot, so I didn’t do it in the end.”

After finishing his long speech, he added, “After finishing Lucia, I immediately loaded her onto Area 6 for testing. You were thrown into a black hole, and fortunately came back. After some tests, it was put into use. I only slowly wrote Vivian later on.”

“So, Lucia’s core processor was a product of the Chimera project, and the parts of living organisms were incorporated in it?”

Tang Ning nodded. “She has a very high level of intelligence. Brother Zheng said that what happened on the spaceship recently was done by Lucia, I think it’s quite possible. As long as someone attacks Lucia’s program and issues an order to her, she’ll automatically generate a plan almost immediately, then execute it. That’s why, the murderer will be very difficult to find, since they might’ve simply just planted a string of codes onto her a long time ago.”

“She was carrying out orders, that’s also a possibility…” Lin Si looked at Tang Ning and asked, “Is it possible that she has intelligence? I mean the kind of independent intelligence that allows her to attack the spaceship of her own accord.”

The worst case scenario always needed to be considered. Evidently, Lucia’s active attack was much more frightening than if someone was manipulating her behind the scenes.

“She made the decision to attack independently?” Tang Ning understood what he meant, then shook his head. “Impossible. Because the Chimera project was so controversial, we did some very strict tests on the processor. She didn’t even pass the Turing test.”

“That was when you got the processor.” Lin Si rapped his knuckles on the desk. “After that, something else happened.”

Ling Yi suddenly let out an “ah”.

“Lucia has biological tissues, so she was also mutated by radiation!”

Lin Si nodded. “At the beginning, Area 6 was directly attacked by the radiation from the black hole’s horizon. It took at least ten minutes from leaving the Voyager’s Fangel field to entering the horizon. During that time, the ship was completely exposed to strong radiation. All specimens became inactive or abnormally proliferated, so Lucia’s processor couldn’t have been spared.”

“Then she should’ve been completely damaged long ago,” said Tang Ning.

“There are also accidents.” Lin Si looked at Ling Yi. “If one survives black hole radiation, they can be endowed with many special structures.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll have to rethink things,” said Tang Ning.

“If Lucia is the source of all accidents, whether she’s active or forced, the solution is very simple,” said Lin Si. “Remove her processor.”

He was correct. No matter what, once it was removed, everything would be solved.

The key question was how to take it apart.

Lucia could kill Madam Chen soundlessly and unnoticeably. Naturally, she could also kill anyone who threatened her processor.

“If I give her a function that she definitely wants, she’ll probably give me the hardware,” said Tang Ning.

“If she wasn’t reinstalled after she was taken off at the beginning, so many things wouldn’t have happened,” he continued. “But Brother Zheng didn’t trust Vivian and never agreed to abandoning Lucia.”

At this point, any “ifs” were useless, so he simply mentioned it as a passing remark and did not further pursue the issue.

There was a knock on the door; a few patrolmen last night expressed that they were here to repair the surveillance. The leader admonished Lin Si on how important it was to keep the surveillance operating normally during these extraordinary times. Everyone’s privacy also received proper protection, and as long as there was no danger, no one’s lives would be exposed to the eyes of others.

Lin Si was in a pessimistic mood. He only reluctantly nodded his head when the patrol captain became more and more emotional about the issue and gave a profound lecture, like if they did not repair the surveillance, Lin Si would be found murdered in his room tomorrow.

After the new invisible camera was installed, Tang Ning really began to discuss with Lin Si about the “Heiben problem”. Ling Yi felt dizzy after hearing all the information, so he leaned on Lin Si and passed his time by chatting in the “limitless” group chat.

The next day, Tang Ning proposed to the Marshal for an all-round upgrade to Lucia, adding a weapons defence system that could quickly respond to emergency situations. Because of its significance, they even initiated a small vote among the high-level executives, so many people knew about this matter.

The proposal was approved, emergency weapons were installed on every important part of the spaceship, and Tang Ning actually spent a long time programming a defence system.

On the day of dismantling the processor, Ling Yi accompanied Tang Ning just in case.

The tightly sealed walls of the control room were opened, revealing the black block that was connected with countless circuits.

In the past, before everything happened, it was simply an ordinary processor. But now, when it fell upon the eyes of the two, it appeared as a mysterious, unpredictable black box.

Ling Yi took it out.

Nothing happened.

He put it on the master control panel.

Still nothing happened.

He pulled out his gun and jammed it against the edge of the black box.

Still nothing happened.

“…Is that it?” said Ling Yi.

Was it resolved just like that?

Tang Ning had absolutely no doubts on this matter, “In theory, that should be it.”

So the way to resolve the ship’s biggest threat was to just make up a reason and quietly dig out a hardware from the wall of the control room? 70

The walk to Lin Si’s laboratory with the black box was so smooth that not even a single ripple occurred.

Looking at the thing, Lin Si only spoke a sentence.

“Take it apart.”

Tang Ning had all the documents for this collaborative programme in hand and all the detailed drawings made readily available. He was originally familiar with the composition of this black box, but according to Lin Si, some changes should have taken place inside.

But even though they had mentally prepared themselves, the situation on the inside still surpassed their imagination.

After dismantling the shell, the inside was white, nearly spherical with a metallic lustre, yet it also exuded a faint watery hue, extremely similar to the texture of Chimera metal.

Within the translucent white, there were countless, intricate and twisting copper-coloured lines. They were densely packed inside, extravagant and unbridled like dendrites that unfolded and spread out, or like abstract works of expressionism.

Tang Ning opened up Lucia’s original multiview projection.

A straight and satisfactory processor, regular circuits and electronic components, and occasionally some bizarre devices which were the so-called bioelectric excitation devices.

Comparing the two, they are not the same thing at all.

Lin Si’s guess was correct.

He took a photograph, dismantled the wiring inside, and lifted this thing out of the black box.

Tang Ning’s face was a little pale.

This giant translucent ball looked incredibly strange and terrifying, like a deformed human brain or a mutated lychee, which reminded Ling Yi of Lin Si and Adelaide’s conversation that day in the cold storage.

There are two types of frightening things in this world. One was the strange form, unseen and unheard of, while the other was the indescribable ugliness caused by the distortion of something familiar.

Lin Si put it into the laboratory’s waste disposal.

He turned all the indicators to the maximum and pressed the button.

High pressure, high temperature, strong acid.

The various parts of the thing squeezed and rubbed against each other, emitting an ear-piercing screech. Its decibel was exactly the upper limit of the frequency that the human ear could handle, so it was extremely sharp and terrifying, causing headaches in the brain. This sound also appeared extraordinarily strange because it was on the verge of reaching the limit, resembling the sharp howl of an unknown creature.

Twenty minutes later, everything was over. Ling Yi stared at the pale ashes, and suddenly, there appeared the divine and beautiful image of the blond female knight, with a torch in one hand, and a large sword in the other.

He could not connect the two, just as he could not understand why Lucia was the murderer of such cruel events.

There were some clear mucus stuck on Lin Si’s hands. He took a slide, smeared the mucus on it, then washed his hands.

“If possible, I want to study it.”

He finished speaking, but continued again. “But in the end, we’re a human society.”

No matter how worthy of research was the mutation Lucia received in that black hole incident, no matter the level of intelligence this mutation granted it, how amazing of a fusion of living organism and machines it had transformed into… it could not be studied, as it blurred the boundaries between life and non-life and shook the foundation of human society.

They informed the Marshal about everything that happened.

This matter came to an end, and all the big questions were resolved. Even if someone was actually puppeteering behind the scenes, without Lucia’s help, all major conspiracies could not be carried out.

And those little uncertain aspects could also be explained by the argument that the program’s thinking was different from that of normal people.

As for why Madam Chen and Zheng Shu were able to glimpse the truth from the fog, it also remained unresolved, as one had died and the other had just been frozen. Defrosting rashly would only prompt accidents in the process.

Vivian finally took over the spaceship as she wished. Observing the past few days, she did a good job, except she often cut off Tang Ning’s electricity unreasonably.

The Voyager began its journey to the purple planet in silence and peace.

The development of science and technology always grew exponentially. There was a long-standing law in electronics: the number of transistors that could be accommodated in a dense integrated circuit could double every eighteen months. This law still applied in today’s day and age, and moreover, it could be extended to many aspects. For example, it took the Expeditioner three years to fly from TKM-IV to the purple planet, while the current Voyager only needed three months.

The murderer who killed Madam Chen was also finally found; it was the medical robot that failed to implement rescue in the emergency situation. When Madam was focused on the calculation results of the supercomputer on the screen, it approached from behind, the slow sliding of the wheel on the smooth ground made its movements silent, then a sharp surgical tool on the mechanical arm popped out instantly, puncturing Madam’s heart with precision.

In the end, whatever was written on the screen she last glanced at before her death could not be recovered.

Ling Yi sometimes wondered, if he had learned a little more about mathematics and physics, would he be able to understand what it meant, and why it was judged as “must be destroyed” by Lucia’s program.

*

The author has something to say:

Changed the chapter name orz, this chapter remains part of the Unspeakable series

“The number of transistors that can be accommodated in a dense integrated circuit can double every eighteen months” is Moore’s Law. It’s what Boss Intel says, not a strict scientific law.

And of course this matter is not so simple (:3J∠) The most crucial part of the plot is coming soon!

We’re really counting down to the ending now~

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