Chapter 553 - 524: The Mystery Left by Burger King

An hour after the Zero Hour Nuclear Explosion, network monitoring was at its busiest—

From the direct attack on the Ye Group by Lille, Blais’s recorded leave time was less than 20 minutes. However, when he returned to work, he found that the workload of network monitoring had increased exponentially!

Even Blais hadn’t anticipated the final outcome...

The Ye Group was directly attacked! The data barriers were even displayed in public domains!

He thought Lille was just trying to bravely save Ryan; however, both Ryan and Perares emerged from that underground space, walking shoulder to shoulder, and they immediately brought in a new security team.

What exactly happened here?

Originally, Arasaka Saburo’s emergence was supposed to shift most of the work focus to information gathering against the Arasaka Group, but now the situation was off; people realized that the affairs of this city were quite complex.

Blais returned to the network monitoring office in Night City. He wasn’t in Cyberspace at the time, but the monitoring software and programs had left behind their readings:

Undoubtedly, there were traces of AI in the attack on the Ye Group, and they weren’t just any AIs!

Preliminary estimates showed that there were even multiple AIs at the scene, and the computational power involved in the battle reached thousands of CCUs—

You must know, the same amount of computational power, to script kiddies and hacker experts, could mean worlds apart—one CCU unit, script kiddies might run a few translation software effectively.

For hackers, that single unit of CCU was enough to crack open a few unguarded neural interfaces; with preparation, the damage they could inflict might be stronger than several units of power in the hands of script kiddies!

And all these expert hackers, in front of AIs, were just beginners—perhaps even worse.

That is to say, the attack on Ye Group revealed not just one, but several extremely potent AIs, and they had all vanished without a trace!

Blais sat at his desk, undergoing equipment maintenance by automated devices, completely lost in thought.

He indeed wanted to see Burger King save Ryan; as a corporate employee, he was the type who was indifferent to the company but found a unique sense of mission against AIs, which comforted him.

But now, the situation had far exceeded his imagination—

Exceeded everyone’s imagination.

There are nuclear bombs in reality, and in Cyberspace, the nuclear bomb has shown its claws.

Like those startled by the nuclear bomb, people who worked in Cyberspace year-round had similar doubts:

Where did these AIs come from?

[Dragon Hunter (ID hidden) is connecting to the communication.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted ID communication: I guess you can no longer contact those three, headquarters suspects they have other AIs besides Munemasa.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted ID communication: It’s even possible that one of them is an AI, who knows.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted ID communication: Headquarters sent me to support you, how’s the server situation in Taiping State?]

Blais hesitated for a moment, then responded:

[Blais: I thought our primary suspect was the Ye Group? The traces of the attack that day showed that the Ye Group seemed to have very unusual setups on the public network.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted ID communication: Maybe, but you know, that’s other companies’ legal property; we normally wouldn’t target them.]

[Blais: That’s not very convincing, Arasaka’s Soul Killer is also legal property.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted ID communication: Don’t ask too many questions, I’m going to access your network in Taiping State, act quickly, don’t let them get away.]

So now he had to join the forces chasing after Burger King?

Network monitoring suspected Lille was an AI, which was actually a suspicion of Blais’s ability in his work.

Blais didn’t believe any of the three were AIs, but... but the attacking capabilities clearly weren’t something just Munemasa could achieve.

As a company employee, Blais felt the company’s judgment must be reasonable, and he felt that many things could only be explained in this way, but...

But if Burger King was an AI—

Blais’s worldview was somewhat shaken: He had always held to the belief that AI was inherently evil, considering human oversight the last bastion before AI dominance. It was this belief that fueled his passion for his job.

Yet he did not feel that Lille was a ... bad person. If the Ye Group was indeed the target of Lille’s attack, then it meant that saving Ryan, and even facilitating a handshake and reconciliation between Perares and Ryan, was a necessary step.

He didn’t think that was bad.

It was this hesitation that led him to submit false intelligence to the company for the first time in his life.

[Blais: The equipment in Taiping State has all been taken offline. I need time to redeploy, requiring a new communication vehicle request.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted communication: Approval granted.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted communication: By the way, I remember they had some ties with Military Technology, but I just attempted a tentatively offensive attack on Military Technology, and the result was not good. What hackers do they have at their disposal?]

Blais was somewhat astonished.

Of course, Military Technology had prowess in cyber technology. Yet, since the collapse of the old net, they mainly relied on high-power, wide-coverage, high-tech hardware streams akin to traditional military style.

The spy capability in Cyberspace, especially hacking and decryption skills, was average; they focused more on protecting facilities from intrusions. As for the hackers, they could physically unplug the enemy’s connection with plenty of military units at their disposal.

In today’s environment... even Dragon Hunter found it troublesome?

Are there still masters out there?

[Blais: Could be a newcomer.]

[Blais: Speaking of which, I had dispatched a squad to Evil Land to intercept someone suspected of being pursued by Arasaka, but they haven’t returned yet.]

[Blais: I’d like to request another external squad.]

[Dragon Hunter encrypted communication: It’s not realistic, you’re quite busy over there.]

[Blais: I... have some connections, I might be able to find a mercenary squad already in Evil Land. You just need to watch over them for me.]

Although these connections were actually the up-and-coming super fugitives of Night City and the mercenary squad was practically the henchmen of those fugitives.

Suddenly, Blais felt he understood Ryan:

When Burger King left, his henchmen somehow started to look appealing.

...

Military Technology Building, like all other companies, had all their technical staff woken up and brought back to work through the night.

All standing-by robots in the maintenance bay were dispatched, collaborating with the engineers for a comprehensive equipment overhaul.

Needless to say, with the experience of the Company Square having been attacked by an EMP last time, their efficiency had greatly improved this time around.

Interestingly, there was only one hacker in the hacker pod in the building.

The hacker was a woman, with long and soft hair, appearing slim at a glance. Closer observation revealed that almost her entire body had undergone prosthetic enhancements, lying in the access pod with eyes glowing all over.

An active cooling system, graphene shielding layer, multi-layer data access interfaces...

In short, very advanced.

[Lark: The network monitoring initiated a tentative probe on our network, it looks like they also suspect the fugitive’s... human identity, thinking we got involved too.]

[Lark: This is a problem, we better find a solution soon.]

[Susan: What was Thunder Power Company’s response?]

[Stott: They said they could dump all Mackinaw concept stocks to us. Reports indicate that even if we don’t accept, they plan to liquidate them all anyway.]

In the communication channel, the operation team was stunned for a moment.

Is Thunder Power panicking?