Chapter 1014 - 57: Smuggling for Freedom

The military power of New America is definitely not sufficient to both secure the rear and have enough strength to intervene in Night City. If it were, they could have launched an attack two years ago when Arasaka withdrew from Night City!

Although there’s no detailed data, Lille fully understands Miles’s current predicament:

After a warlord captures a city, the resources consumed to maintain order and enforce willpower could completely exceed those used in war!

In war, you can choose whether to pour resources into capturing strategic points, but occupation is different. If Miles decides to abandon those uncontrollable cities, either by bloody measures or simply giving up, all resources invested would become sunk costs, potentially even disrupting the expected economic output, which is unacceptable!

However, man proposes, God disposes. Now that the Euro has completely collapsed, the global financial system has fallen into semi-paralysis due to the European civil war——

New America, while having the US Dollar, is just like everywhere else in the world, its economy relying on the Euro. With the Euro’s collapse, and cooperation with EBM resulting in the rockets being blown to the sky, irrespective of the purpose, she must urgently deploy troops to address the mess in Night City.

In her view, though risky, this policy isn’t overly extreme:

Firstly, it’s not just Europe who wants the Euro to stabilize quickly; it’s everyone engaged in economic activities through the European Bank.

Secondly, Night City is just a city. Without interference from a peer company like Arasaka, taking over Night City should be as easy as pie.

Can Night City summon a meteor or something to blow up their home base?

In the Pentagon, Miles was issuing one command after another to Military Technology and the New American Defense Department, utterly infuriated:

The European civil war should have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but now she has to prioritize cleaning up after the EU!

However this time... they’ve reached the end of the road.

"Burger King... a clown with a weird name, touched things they shouldn’t have..."

Compared to the harsh words said privately over the past two years, this time Miles spoke the fiercest.

But also the least confidently—despite her rational mind telling her she had the upper hand, her emotional side left her feeling... uncertain:

Is it really a sure win?

Thinking of this, she immediately sat up.

[Presidential Emergency Meeting Notice: Joint Logistics Bureau and State Defense Department members immediately log on.]

Having the troops redeployed, she needed someone to monitor those greedy state parliaments and state governments.

...

Lille pointed at Texas on the 3D sand table and said, "This is a war; advanced weapons and fierce offense are crucial means, but they cannot be the sole ones.

We need to win over the former Free States through espionage and political means. I know Texas is the most uncontrollable state for New America, so we’ll start there.

Next are several resource-rich states. Capturing them is equivalent to securing mineral resource supply. At that point, neither the European Union, New America, nor the Mexicans would be able to hold us by the throat."

Hansen quickly grasped the objective and immediately agreed with Lille’s idea and approach:

Indeed, this is a war where the strength of the frontline is crucial, but a war cannot just consist of frontline battles.

Hansen quickly found his work and mission: "So the City Defense Army should independently capture Southern California..."

Lille nodded in affirmation: "Yes, you must capture Southern California on your own—but don’t think it will be too difficult; first of all, you’ll have reinforcements, robotic reinforcements."

Lille referred to the Latovian soldiers identified as robotic characters in virtual training.

On the Middle Eastern battlefield, Night City aided the people of the Marvel World. Now, the Marvel World’s new recruits also need such a brutal virtual training while helping Night City capture Southern California.

"Are you talking about those... intelligent robots in virtual training?" Hansen felt it was somewhat fantastical; those robots’ intelligence far surpassed any company’s combat robots!

Let alone making them physical robots, even stuffing so many high-intelligence AI into virtual scenarios as sparring partners is nearly impossible!

However, he quickly thought of Lille’s plan: "Those things... are they roaming AIs? Do you plan to deploy roaming AIs to the battlefield?!"

Lark tightened up along the side, wordless: Theoretically, it’s impossible; roaming AIs would be attacked by electronic warfare weapons using Black Wall as a driver, theoretically yielding poor results!

But... ultimately, Black Wall is just a means for attacking roaming AIs. Perhaps Lille discovered a technology to embed roaming AIs in robots on a large scale and low cost, then block electromagnetic signals for autonomous operation?

If so, that would be terrifying...

Lille shook his head in denial: "That’s not roaming AI, it’s a... technology I will reveal in the future."

Lark let out a sigh of relief, but Lille immediately stated something that made her heart skip again: "However, I do plan on deploying roaming AIs to the battlefield; it’s a weapon modeled after the hazardous critical mass on her."

Lille pointed to Lark while summoning a weapon design display on the holographic projection desk—

This is an electronic warfare device modified from Munemasa.

[Name: Black Wall Bomb Electromagnetic Interference System]

[Description: Utilizes AI coding and communication bandwidth to directly contact the opponent’s network, inducing a self-destructive network bomb that instigates Black Wall counterattacks.]

[Ideally, the attack is divided into three parts: One, signal implants into the network; Two, Black Wall identifies and implements indiscriminate attacks; Three, all connected network devices are rendered useless.]

[In less ideal conditions, Black Wall may enter a defense mode to remove interference yet would still cause the enemy’s network load to overload, even resulting in severe congestion.]

In essence, this is a one-time electronic bomb integrating quantum computer technology and targeted intrusion systems. Essentially, it uses Lille’s shielding effect of AI and powerful computational power of quantum computers to mount an AI, hack into enemy networks, and then proactively expose, leveraging the fundamental logic of Black Wall’s all-encompassing destruction to implement hacker strikes on all enemy network devices.

Once deployed on the battlefield, this is an electronic warfare system designed specifically for networks equipped with Black Wall—should the enemy have bona fide hackers to achieve physical intrusion, quantum computers aren’t even necessary.

This thing is extremely lethal—

Any network that contacts this thing will collapse.

It can almost be believed that if it is effective in a city’s network, the entire city or even the entire state’s network will collapse, potentially directly affecting the stability of the entire public domain... actually initiating two or three more times to directly dismantle the entire public network is normal too.

The people in the operations room couldn’t help but gasp:

This implies Lille and his roaming AIs have actually breached Black Wall...

Though it’s a weapon developed by allies, a sense of sadness inevitably welled up: If roaming AIs have breached Black Wall, what path is left for humans?

It must be said Hansen, worthy of being a veteran, quickly snapped out of this sentimentality: "So our goal is to demonstrate strength, capture Southern California, and, using espionage, join other Free States in launching a war...

I have two more questions, the first one being why don’t we directly attack Washington and blow that woman Miles to the sky?"

"Too far away, the precision and range of the first batches of missiles have yet to be verified, so it’s best to be cautious."

"Alright... second question, what espionage methods are we using? Directly threatening the mayor? As far as I know, the first thing New America did after unification was abolish the power of all cities to have autonomous forces, even the National Guard was forever abolished as dross."

This question wasn’t just Hansen’s concern; more accurately, Lark and Arasaka Yorinobu were more eager to know, as it was likely they’d undertake this task.

V was simply curious; she was quite interested in recreating the feat of threatening the mayor and city council. This time the stakes were much bigger than before, feeling like playing a second run in a game.

Lille had prepared for this, pointing to his head and said, "I don’t want to fall into the next quagmire of a counter-insurgency like Military Technology, use your brains: financial system collapse, who suffers the most?"

This, V knew: "The wealthy suffer the most!"

"Yes—short-term, the wealthy bear the brunt, the biggest loss: money finds it difficult now to command the poor."

A multitude of faceless people appeared on the holographic display, densely packed, countless, a sea of faces...

"Night City is full of dissatisfied people in its chaotic regions. It’s not enough to have those demand-spouting beneficiaries as middlemen—just a little spark can set off the fire on its own."

Lille cast a glance at V, who was bursting with questions but held her tongue: In theory, this is impossible, wandering AIs would be targeted by electronic warfare weapons utilizing the Black Wall as a driver, theoretically resulting in poor effectiveness!

But when all is said and done, the Black Wall is merely one means of attacking roaming AIs. Perhaps Lille found a way to embed roaming AIs into robots in large numbers and at low cost, then screen out electromagnetic signals for autonomous operation?

In such a case, it would be terrifying...