CNS | Chapter 16

Chapter 16 Infiltration

Quhao, banquet hall.

Joy sat beside the round table, staring blankly at the tabletop. Perhaps because he was hungry, even the ordinary-looking food had begun to seem temptingly colorful and fragrant.

Beside his ear, that charlatan in the white robe was still chattering away, preaching the doctrine of the Spirit Summoning Cult.

The charlatan kept talking about things like, “All matter is made up of spirit,” “The souls of the dead do not vanish, but enter the world of spirituality,” and “The network space is a paradise of spirituality.”

Joy did not believe a single word of it.

When the hell was this going to end? I want to eat!

He glanced at the councilman beside him. His own boss was listening with obvious enjoyment, looking as if he were completely immersed in the white-robed charlatan’s sermon.

He couldn’t really have bought it, could he?

Joy quietly rolled his eyes.

He was the assistant to Councilman Hainasen. Just yesterday, the councilman had suddenly given him a ticket for a sea cruise and invited him to go on an ocean trip with him.

Thanks to that damned SGPD, Joy had recently been living the life of 007, with endless things to handle every day, and he still had to help his employer deal with troublesome reporters.

So when he received the invitation, he agreed without even thinking.

But after he followed the councilman out to sea, things began to seem off.

Unlike the trip he had expected, there was no sunshine or chance encounters, only big men with dreadlocks, guns in hand, who brought him into the banquet hall and forcibly fed him all kinds of bizarre doctrine.

Not only that, he also discovered to his surprise that although his access pod was connected to the ship’s intranet, it could not send any messages to the outside world.

If he had known earlier that the so-called “ocean trip” was just a front wrapped up by a cult, he would never have boarded Overture even if it killed him.

Sigh.

Joy sighed. He propped his chin on his hand and let his eyes wander around.

When his gaze accidentally swept over the pillar beside him, it froze. There was somehow a man dressed in a black suit standing there.

The man looked very young, with black tousled hair that almost covered his eyes. His ears were full of earrings. He just stood there quietly leaning against the pillar, staring unblinkingly at the white-robed charlatan in the center of the banquet hall.

Who was he? When had he been standing there?

Joy widened his eyes and looked left and right. Councilman Hainasen and the tourist on the other side both looked normal, as if they had not noticed that someone had suddenly appeared beside their round table.

What was going on?

He rubbed his eyes. Colorful afterimages, like garbled code, appeared over the man’s body. Only then did Joy realize that this mysterious man was not a real person. He was a signal projected onto his mechanical prosthetic eye.

“You, who are you?” Joy did not make a sound. Using the same method he used to communicate with his AI assistant, he cautiously asked the man a question.

Hearing the voice, Shen Run turned back. He looked the “host” named Joy up and down, tilted his head, and answered with a smile.

“Master, I’m Xiaoqi.”

Joy opened and closed his mouth in a daze. As if he had seen a ghost. A few seconds later, he realized that he had actually turned red.

Of course he knew the man was joking. If that AI assistant who looked like a trash can could really turn into a handsome man and stand right in front of him, that would be great.

But how had he been projected onto his prosthetic eye? Was he a network hacker?

Thinking this, Joy blushed as he looked at Shen Run. “You, are you here to save us? Are you from the SGPD?”

“SGPD?”

Shen Run let out a soft laugh. “As Councilman Hainasen’s assistant, Mr. Joy, you should know what kind of organization the SGPD is. Have they ever cared about the personal safety of ordinary citizens?”

Joy froze for a moment. “You know me?”

Shen Run did not answer him. He lifted his chin and gestured for Joy to look ahead. “Look at these people, do they look like they’re being forced?”

Joy followed the direction he indicated. Including his employer, Councilman Hainasen, the tourists in the banquet hall all wore devout expressions, as if they were all longing for the “world of spirituality” spoken of by the white-robed charlatan.

“They…” Joy opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

Shen Run turned back, his attention once again returning to the white-robed pioneer in the center of the banquet hall.

The white robe he wore was similar in style to Silver Butterfly, whose head had been smashed halfway open by the City Ranger. Within the Pioneer faction, his status should have been higher than that of the three clones in the arcade.

“Brothers and sisters.” The white-robed pioneer’s deep voice, carried by the amplifier implanted in his throat, rang through every corner of the banquet hall.

“I am the priest of the Spirit Summoning Cult, Philip.” He swept his gaze across the banquet hall. “Last night, the Lord bestowed a revelation, asking me to enlighten all brothers and sisters and tell you the truth of the world.”

Philip spoke with a heavy accent, and his wording was also very obscure, making Shen Run’s head ache.

“The flesh is the prison of the devil, confining our spirits. The Lord has compassion on us and grants us a paradise, so that we may break free of the flesh and roam within it.”

Pfft.

Shen Run nearly laughed out loud. So in the Pioneers’ mouths, neuro-network technology had become a paradise granted to mankind by the cyber god.

If that were true, then at the very least he would have to be a great archangel with six pairs of wings…

“The network space was originally a pure land, a spiritual world. There is no death or pain here, only gospel and bliss.”

“Under the Lord’s mercy, we have once again opened this heavenly road leading to the world of bliss!”

A long, narrow device appeared in Philip’s hand. Shen Run recognized it as a portable holographic projector.

A pale blue light shot out from the top of the device, and the image of a little girl in a floral dress appeared beside Philip.

The little girl looked about four or five years old, with short golden hair and a playful smile on her face.

“Ginny!”

Councilman Hainasen beside Joy cried out in shock.

He rose from his seat and quickly ran to the virtual projection. The little girl sweetly called out, “Daddy!”

“Is that his daughter?” Shen Run glanced at Joy.

Joy was also somewhat surprised. He nodded. “Yes, Mr. Hainasen’s daughter, Ginny. She died at the age of five during brain-machine reconstruction surgery, from systemic organ failure caused by nano-machine rejection. There are no more than twenty people in the world who have this condition.”

As a type of immune system disease, nano-machine rejection was almost impossible to cure.

Councilman Hainasen knelt beside the virtual projection, tears brimming in his eyes. “Ginny? Is it really you? You really didn’t die…”

The little girl in the floral dress nodded. “Daddy, Ginny misses you so much. I’ve been waiting for you and Mom in Paradise. Why have you never come to find me?”

Hainasen was stunned for a moment. “Paradise?”

“Yes, there’s no pain there. Ginny is very happy there every day. Daddy and Mom should come to Paradise too and play with Ginny!”

The little girl looked very lively. If not for the thin layer of hazy filter covering her whole body, she would look just like a real person.

Digital persona?

Shen Run tapped his chin with one hand. At this level of digital persona, specialized equipment would be needed to scan brain neurons. Ginny had been dead for so many years, so how had the Pioneers done it?

Philip’s sonorous voice rang out. “Mr. Hainasen, this is a miracle bestowed upon you by the Lord.”

He put away the projection device, and the little girl vanished instantly.

When Hainasen saw his daughter disappear, he hurriedly reached out to grab her, but could only feel empty air.

“Where did Ginny go? Mr. Philip, where did my daughter go?”

A faint smile appeared on Philip’s face. “She has returned to the Lord’s paradise. Do you want to go find her?”

“Yes! I can’t live without her, I have to go find her!” Hainasen gripped Philip’s hands tightly, tears rolling out of his eyes. “Can I?”

Philip smiled and patted the back of Hainasen’s hand. “Of course you can.”

He gave a meaningful look to the Pioneer by the banquet hall door. The other man understood immediately and took a military briefcase out from the corner.

Inside the briefcase was a head-mounted device with many synapses. Shen Run recognized it as a behavioral feature capture device, something that could be used to generate a digital persona.

“As long as you join the Spirit Summoning Cult and become our brother.”

Philip took the capture device and handed it to Hainasen.

“No.”

The one who said that was Shen Run.

But right now, he was only a virtual image, so apart from Joy himself, no one could hear his voice.

As for using a digital persona to simulate a deceased person, that was a matter of personal judgment. Shen Run had no opinion on that.

If Hainasen were not a city councilman, Shen Run would absolutely not stop him from uploading his consciousness and living with his daughter in the virtual world.

But unfortunately, Hainasen. Lori was not only one of the ninety-nine council members of Saint Grange City, he was also a senior executive of Waves Transport.

As a port city, transport was one of Saint Grange’s pillar industries. Just this alone gave Hainasen considerable say in the city council.

Shen Run knew exactly what the Pioneers were planning. Wrapping themselves up as charlatans and hijacking an entire ship, they obviously were not doing it to save the common people.

After obtaining Hainasen’s digital persona, they could completely imprison the real Hainasen. Lori, and then rely on the clone technology in their hands to create another puppet for them to manipulate at will.

The upper-class circles of Saint Grange were already openly and secretly fighting over the matter of forming the new SGPD. By holding this weighty chip in hand, the Pioneers would also have the chance to sit at the negotiating table.

There were already enough people sitting at this table. Shen Run would not allow any new force to cut in from the side.

Annoying.

Sitting on the Pathfinder, Shen Run rubbed his forehead. Tonight’s operation had originally been a personal grudge between him and the Pioneers. He had not expected it to accidentally become official business for Heimdall.

“Shifu, I found their server. It’s under this sea area.”

Chi Yu was lying almost flat, with a wrist-thick data cable plugged into the interface on his head. His eyes were open, and his prosthetic eyes were glowing blue, which meant he was currently in deep-dive mode.

“But, tsk, this thing isn’t easy to hack. The protocol looks like some antique from the last century. Even Odin can’t identify it.”

The “Odin” in his mouth was the ice-breaking program Shen Run had written for him.

Chi Yu looked a little embarrassed. After disconnecting from deep dive, he sat up straight. “Shifu, why don’t you try it?”

Shen Run did not refuse. “Send me the coordinates.”

He did not need to connect to a deep-dive device, and his eyes did not glow blue. He simply sat quietly, with a portion of his consciousness entering the network space and following the torrent of data toward the coordinates sent by Chi Yu.

Another portion was projected onto the artificial intelligence chip in the brain of the civil servant named Joy.

“Mr. Joy.”

The virtual image in the banquet hall turned back to look at the brown-haired young man. “Do you want to return to Saint Grange?”

Joy was suddenly called by name. After freezing for a moment, he nodded. “I want to.”

He did not want to spend even one more moment on the terrifying Overture, cooped up in the same room with the cultists.

Shen Run clicked his tongue. “You’re lucky, although I’m not here to save you.”

“But I am here to kill this group of charlatans.”

His figure blurred, turning into colorful code that vanished into the air, then in the space of a breath appeared behind Joy.

“Thanks for being my eyes and ears. In return…”

Shen Run’s virtual image lightly gripped the back of the chair behind Joy and bent down to whisper in his ear.

Joy jolted all over, feeling as if someone really were speaking into his ear. Goosebumps rose on his arms, and the flush on his face spread to his neck and the tips of his ears.

The person behind him pointed under the round table. “Get in.”

“?”

Joy blinked, not understanding why.

“If you don’t want to die, get in.”

Joy scratched his head, then bent down in considerable embarrassment, lifted the tablecloth on the round table, and crawled into the space beneath it amid the astonished gazes of the people around him.

Almost at the same moment he crawled under the table, a huge explosion rang out outside the banquet hall.

The entire Overture shook violently.