CNS | Chapter 15

Chapter 15, Revenge

Golden Bell Street, Nirvana back entrance.

A row of hovercars painted with the totem of a fire-bathed phoenix was parked by the roadside. Several of the vehicles had been modified, with all kinds of heavy weapons hidden beneath the heat-dissipation covers.

As an intelligence organization, Heimdall was good at espionage and infiltration. These heavily armed hovercars belonged to Phoenix.

At the end of the line, there was also a military armed shuttle, its huge body taking up nearly half the street.

Aylan Military Industries’ Pathfinder-Ω, a Titan-class vehicle weapon, was also the precious “inheritance” Sam had brought back from the Yalan Navy.

The outer shell of Pathfinder-Ω was coated with automatic camouflage, its frame made from some kind of new alloy with extremely high hardness, and the shuttle was equipped with anti-ship missiles as well as top-tier tactical calculation AI.

Luxiusi stood in the rain smoking. Jiede stood beside him, and after a while, she finally took off the bartender uniform that looked like a layer of native skin and changed into a black tight training suit.

She had two black-and-red thermal katanas inserted on her back, and her messy blue-black hair had also been tied into boxing braids. Although her face was still covered in heavy smoky makeup, she looked much more energetic.

Shen Run saw the katanas on her back and was a little surprised. “You even brought out the family heirloom?”

Jiede crossed her arms and shot the boss an annoyed sidelong glance. “Aren’t we going to avenge your heart and liver?”

Sigh.

At the mention of Shen Ze, a wave of bitterness rose again in Shen Run’s heart, but he did not refute Jiede’s words.

“Where are they?”

Shen Run boarded the armed shuttle and, without any extra words, directly asked the only question he cared about.

“Overture. That bunch of cult freaks hid their church on the cruise ship.”

Chi Yu was sitting in the leather seat of the shuttle, wearing a specially made heat-resistant deep-dive suit, holding a laptop in his hands, and constantly tapping at the keyboard.

“How did you find it?” Shen Run sat down across from him.

“Hainasen Lori, a city councilman, and also a senior executive of Waves Transport. That Lin something was working under him.”

Lin?

Shen Run thought about it and remembered the Director Lin mentioned at Heimdall’s meeting that afternoon.

“Brother Mizuno said this person has been getting very close to the Pioneers lately. A day ago, Hainasen and his assistant went missing together. His wife reported it to the police, but SGPD is now unable to take care of itself and has no time to look for people at all.”

“Mrs. Lori even hired several mercenaries to find her husband, but they didn’t find even a shadow.”

Chi Yu raised his head and gave Shen Run a proud smile. “Mercenaries in Saint Grange can’t find it, that doesn’t mean Heimdall can’t find it.”

Shen Run nodded. “What about the server?”

“From the signal, it seems to be under the water.”

“An underwater compartment?”

Shen Run frowned, faintly sensing that something was off.

With Mizuno’s help, he reread Heimdall’s report on the Pioneers. What could be confirmed was that these wanderers had only come to Saint Grange a month ago.

A month was too short, no matter what, they could not have conjured up an underwater data cabin used for such a difficult technology as consciousness transfer out of thin air.

“Weird, right, I thought the same.” Chi Yu snapped his fingers. “With just these few days, how did they lay the cables over there?”

At this, he let out a snort of laughter. “Could there really be a cyber god in the sky helping them?”

Shen Run was in no mood to joke. His eyebrows knitted together, and he thought of a possibility.

“Could it be data parasitism?”

So-called data parasitism, in plain terms, meant opening a back door on an already existing server, implanting one’s own algorithm program, and stealing its computing power.

He raised an eyebrow at Chi Yu. The disciple he had brought up himself was extremely in sync with him, and immediately understood what he meant.

After typing a few times on the keyboard, Chi Yu shook his head. “I checked, Shifu. In nearly twenty years, there has been no news of any underwater data center being built in the sea area near Saint Grange.”

“Hiss. This is really haunted.” Chi Yu muttered.

Shen Run was deep in thought. He held a lighter in his hand, opening and closing the lid over and over, making crisp metallic clicks.

“Luxiusi.”

“Brother Shen, I’m here.”

Luxiusi was in another hovercar, and his voice came through the vehicle channel.

“Find a way to get me a Trident.”

As soon as he said this, Chi Yu, sitting opposite him, let out a cry first. “Shifu, what do you want a nuclear-powered torpedo for?!”

Shen Run glanced at him. “Of course it’s to blow up their underwater compartment.”

His tone was relaxed, as if he were only going to catch a few fish, nothing more.

How had the Pioneers provoked him…

Chi Yu couldn’t help but shiver.

That was Trident, a nuclear-powered heavy torpedo, capable of diving to depths of over a thousand meters. It was a weapon Aylan Military Industries had developed to deal with high-speed nuclear-powered submersibles, and many years ago, the former naval vice admiral Sam Phoenix had taken away the prototype and the data together, becoming the foundation of Phoenix’s dominance over Jade Bay.

On the other end of the communicator, Luxiusi’s tone was somewhat difficult. “Brother Shen, if you want to call up Trident, I’m afraid you’ll have to go and talk to Young Master yourself.”

Joshua Phoenix. For the time being, Shen Run did not want any communication with him.

Regarding John of Sting Gang, Rosha, the intermediary in White Tower District, and the “Prometheus” mentioned by the Pioneers, Shen Run felt that he still had a debt to settle properly with Joshua.

“I’ll give you my authority. Send the order directly to Sun Goddess. I will take responsibility for all consequences.”

Luxiusi replied with a “Received.” After obtaining Shen Run’s authority, he hurriedly cut off the communication and contacted Sun Goddess.

The shuttle began to rise into the air. The automatic camouflage device activated, and Pathfinder-Ω’s massive body disappeared into the dim black sky.

Those Phoenix armed hovercars followed closely behind, driving toward the depths of the Misty Sea.

“Ah, Xiaoyu.”

Shen Run had originally been lying on the seat with his eyes closed to rest. He suddenly opened his mouth and called Chi Yu.

“Starting tomorrow, go stay in 1709 for a week by yourself.”

“Hm?” Chi Yu looked blank. “Me? I didn’t do anything, Shifu!”

“Did I ever tell you not to bring up work in front of Shen Ze?” He glanced at Chi Yu.

If Shen Ze had not come to Nirvana to find him, there would not have been so many troubles. By now he should have been sitting with his younger brother in a restaurant on the west coast eating caramel pudding.

“Huh?” Chi Yu was even more confused. “I didn’t…”

I clearly didn’t even talk to him!

The Shifu opposite seemed to have already decided that he was making excuses. He closed his eyes again and no longer listened to his explanation.

I am really wronged!

For some reason, Chi Yu faintly felt that he was being targeted by his Shifu’s younger brother of unknown origin.

Chi Yu’s instincts had always been very sharp. For that long-haired handsome man whose legs seemed longer than his life, Chi Yu always felt that he was not as pure and harmless as he looked, and instead had a dangerous feeling.

Thinking of this, the previously injured forehead suddenly began to ache faintly.

“Didn’t it already get changed to an iron skull?” Chi Yu muttered. “Could this be the legendary phantom-limb pain…”

He looked out the shuttle window. The field of view widened. On the sea surface, a brightly lit cruise ship was sailing through it, like a pearl dotted on a black velvet curtain.

Overture, the cruise ship of Oasis Cruise Line, over two hundred meters long, was a small cruise ship built by Oasis Company more than ten years ago that could carry three thousand passengers.

At this point, the ship’s route passed through the sea area near the Laurel Archipelago, so it should have been seized by the Pioneers while passing through.

The Oasis Company logo was already gone from the ship’s hull, replaced instead by the Pioneers totem made up of a triangle and a black cross.

“It’s almost twelve. Why is the ship still so lively?”

Shen Run did not know when he had opened his eyes, and, like Chi Yu, he was looking at the brightly lit Overture below.

Jiede’s ghostlike voice sounded in the vehicle channel. “The informant that Code Gray slipped in said this bunch of idiots thought night represented spirituality, and that midnight was the time when spirituality was most abundant, and also the most suitable time to make pilgrimage to that fucking cyber god.”

“So we came at exactly the right time, they’re holding a mass right now.”

“Doing this in the middle of the night, hiss, why does it sound so evil…” Chi Yu shrank his neck.

“I’ll go down and take a look, Jiede, you go in first. Try not to make a move yet.”

Shen Run rested his chin on his hand, and after thinking for a moment, began assigning tasks.

“Xiaoyu, stay on Pathfinder-Ω and find the server location as soon as possible. Everyone else stay alert and wait in place.”

“Yes!”

A neat response sounded in the vehicle channel.

The hovercar with optical camouflage activated slowly approached the deck, and after picking a hidden corner, Jiede jumped down from dozens of meters in the air without even blinking.

She first knocked out a Pioneers member who was patrolling with a gun, quickly stripped off his clothes and equipment, then threw this unlucky bastard into the sea to feed the fish.

The “virtual image” mask covering her face began to change. By the time Jiede had changed clothes and walked out from the corner, she had already turned into the appearance of that unlucky Pioneers member from before.

She took the gun and walked toward the cruise ship cabin.

“Hey, you brat, you’re fucking slacking off again.”

The black barrel of a gun blocked Jiede’s path. She scratched her head. “I was just going to the bathroom.”

“It’s still early before shift change, hold it in for me!”

His attitude was forceful, and the sound of the two of them arguing attracted the attention of the other Pioneers on deck. Jiede remembered Shen Run’s instructions and temporarily held back the thought of stabbing this person twice, returning to the area that unlucky bastard was responsible for.

On the other side, Shen Run on the shuttle easily broke through Overture’s firewall and took over the ship’s interlinked network.

Compared with the firewalls of other organizations, the Pioneers’ ICE really had something to it, but not much.

The neural processors and access pods connected under the same network were laid bare before Shen Run’s eyes, along with the information of the people using these machines.

Only by looking did he realize that these “tourists” on Overture were truly a gathering of elites, from the city councilman of Saint Grange City Council at the top to gang punks surviving on illegal business at the bottom.

Shen Run followed the network into Overture’s compartments. Right now, he needed to find an output port and free his eyes and ears.

After floating along the black-green data flood for a short while, he found a suitable target.

It was an artificial intelligence chip from Qixiang Technology. Inside the chip was an AI assistant called “Xiaoqi”, directly connected to the neural processor, intelligently controlling the cybernetic prostheses and implants throughout the body.

The chip’s anti-intrusion defense was pitifully weak. Shen Run hacked in and gave that trembling mass of data the order to go offline.

Ding——

He replaced the program of AI assistant Xiaoqi and connected himself in. After obtaining the host cyber-eye permissions, his field of vision immediately became clear.