Chapter 988: Ninth Hundred and Sixty-Second Chapter: Steven Fauci

"Decepticon?"

Joshua's face darkened.

Whether it was the military or KSI itself, everyone wanted to create a type of mechanical Warrior that was similar to the Autobots—relatively gentle in temperament and easy to control.

Over the past few years, the Decepticons had brought heavy disasters to the United States.

Although there were many Decepticon corpses available for research within American research institutions.

Yet, no one liked the Decepticons; even if only the appearance was similar, it would still provoke dissatisfaction from KSI's main future procurement target—the U. S. military.

"Is it just a problem with an icon?"

Joshua looked at Steven Fauci and asked, not very happy.

Steven Fauci opened his mouth, then finally pointed to the glass wall not far away, signaling for him to continue watching for himself.

After KSI had spent more than two years, invested massive amounts of supplies and money, and built that Beetle car inside the laboratory, once the data was input into the car and it was activated to start running, everyone could see it begin to change.

On the car body, the large sections of car shell that were originally connected began to split into fish-scale structures of various sizes, and they began to twitch irregularly.

At the same time, the crackling sounds produced by various gears and metal rubbing against each other also kept coming from that Beetle car.

Through the tempered glass wall, Joshua watched the transformation the Beetle Autobot was undergoing in the laboratory without moving, and his breathing began to grow heavy.

As the CEO of KSI, he could access a lot of classified information.

This included a large amount of video footage of Autobots captured by the U. S. military during the existence of the NEST unit.

There was no lack of footage of them transforming in there, so Joshua immediately realized that their research had succeeded, and the effort they had put in was finally about to be rewarded.

"Pop, pop, pop..."

The Beetle car's transformation grew larger and larger, and the noise it emitted also began to become piercing.

The research personnel surrounding it had already begun to retreat several meters away.

They were also watching the transformation of this car, just like Joshua.

After about twenty or thirty seconds, accompanied by the last piece of armor moving to the chest.

Inside the laboratory, a black mechanical Warrior, standing a full five meters tall with a ferocious face, immediately appeared in everyone's line of sight.

And on its chest, a pattern representing the Decepticons was especially eye-catching.

"What is this thing?"

Joshua pointed at the black mechanical Warrior that had finished its combination and transformation inside the laboratory with an annoyed look on his face, and asked the Chief Technical Consultant of KSI angrily.

Steven Fauci shrugged helplessly, "Mr. CEO, this is the technical problem we mentioned earlier that we still haven't been able to solve!"

"I want an Autobot... an Autobot... an Autobot..."

Joshua repeated his important requirement three times in anger, then continued to point at the black mechanical Warrior inside the laboratory and questioned them with dissatisfaction: "Then what is this that you have built?"

Steven Fauci was also very helpless; he rubbed his somewhat messy hair in frustration.

"CEO, I have already explained this just now. I don't know if it's because most of the alien corpses we have on hand are Decepticons. Even though we have tried to continuously modify the database, once the database we created for them by imitating the alien thought logic starts being transmitted and loaded into their bodies, an unsolvable BUG appears: they automatically turn into Decepticons!"

He beckoned to one of his assistants, and the other party quickly walked over holding a bundle of documents.

Steven Fauci took the documents from his hand, flipped through them skillfully, and handed them to Joshua.

Joshua took them with a huff and saw that they were some experimental data from the laboratory before he arrived.

"Up to this point, we have already conducted seven tests on this car."

"Because the military requires a controllable mechanical Warrior, not an artificial intelligent lifeform... we need to use a manually edited database to support the movement, daily behavior, and combat of these mechanical Warriors!"

"We gathered over seven hundred Computer Science programming Engineers and spent over a year creating a database that could run inside a mechanical Warrior!"

"However, in the past, every time we input the database into the car and activated it to start running, it would cause the car to uncontrollably turn into a Decepticon due to some unknown reason!"

"And the reason behind this is something we still haven't found to this day!"

Joshua read quickly, taking in ten lines at a glance.

Before long, he had finished reading the records of the several experiments.

"Do you clear the database after every test?"

"Yes!" Steven Fauci nodded: "It's strange to say, but as soon as we clear the database, it returns to its original state, the icon belonging to the Decepticons disappears, and even its appearance in combat mode changes back to the look we designed for them when we were imitating Autobots."

"What about the database you developed? Have you conducted a serious check on it?"

"We checked, we studied almost every line of code one by one. But we still didn't find where the problem was, so we suspect it might be because we have too few Autobot corpses, and we have mainly studied Decepticons in the past, which is why we were influenced!"

After Steven Fauci finished answering, he also looked at the mechanical Warrior in the laboratory, which stood there motionless like a giant model.

Joshua held the experimental report and also looked at the mechanical Warrior with a frown.

After a good while, he spoke again: "Will it affect its use?"

"No, at least we haven't discovered any yet!" Steven Fauci answered immediately.

He turned to the technical staff in the office area who were all waiting for their word and said: "Conduct the three standard indoor tests!"

"OK!"

He gestured for Joshua to proceed, and Joshua nodded; his tightly furrowed brows gradually relaxed after hearing from Steven Fauci that it would not be affected.

At this moment, on the other side of the laboratory, under the control of the technical staff, the black mechanical Warrior, which looked like a giant model, also began to move around the laboratory.

The so-called three standard indoor tests were walking, jumping, and combat alert.

Under the control of the technical staff in the KSI laboratory, the black mechanical Warrior walked back and forth in the laboratory several times, its pace steady and its state stable.

When it began to jump, its weight of several tons instantly made Joshua, who was on the side of the tempered glass wall, feel the ground shaking.

And when it entered combat alert status, two short blades were instantly drawn from the body by the black mechanical Warrior.

At the same time, four brackets extended from its back and rested on its shoulders.

Although they were empty, with Joshua's eye for detail, he immediately recognized that this was where the Combat Missiles were mounted.

These tests were very simple and could be completed inside the laboratory.

However, even so, Joshua was very satisfied with what he saw.

Not until the fourth group of indoor Normal Mode tests were completed did he immediately wave his hand in satisfaction, "Alright, you can stop now!"

Joshua turned his head and looked at Steven Fauci again, "Can these big guys be put into actual combat immediately now?"

"It still needs some time!"

Steven Fauci shook his head, "The energy supply problem hasn't been solved yet. We currently designed a set of electrical power supply devices inside its body, along with a set of diesel power supply devices, but even with two sets of energy, it can only sustain less than four minutes of high-intensity combat at most."

The Spark of the Cybertronians is, for the current Earth, a technology comparable to and surpassing cold nuclear fusion.

Steven Fauci sighed with emotion: "Unless the military provides us with the relevant technology for ultra-small Nuclear Reactors, we have no way for the time being to make it possess the ability for sustained combat!"

Joshua looked deep into the Laboratory at the black mechanical Warrior that seemed to have turned back into a giant model, the corners of his mouth gradually revealing a smile.

"Ultra-small Nuclear Reactors? They will, because they are even more anxious than we are!"

After saying this, he lowered his head to glance at the time on his wristwatch, then comforted Steven Fauci and gave him a few more instructions, especially emphasizing that he should find out as soon as possible why the image of the mechanical Warriors changed from the designed Autobot to Decepticon.

Afterwards, he then hurriedly left the Laboratory.

And Steven Fauci, after Joshua left, exchanged a few words with other researchers, then his expression suddenly changed slightly, and after giving a few more instructions to the others, he walked toward his own office.

Once he entered the office, his face already deathly pale, he hurriedly covered his left hand and let out a low sound of begging for mercy.

"NO... NO... NO... please spare me, I have already done as you requested!"

Following Steven Fauci's wailing, on his left wrist, a mechanical watch that originally looked ordinary and unremarkable rapidly began to transform, turning into a multi-legged, hideous mechanical monster insect form.

"You are lying!"

A low, cold mechanical voice rang out in his office, "Why did you not follow the requirements and apply the Pseudo-Spark technology we provided to those mechanical Warriors you manufactured!"

Steven Fauci looked in terror at the terrifying multi-legged mechanical monster insect that had climbed along his arm to in front of his cheek and was still baring its fangs and brandishing its claws to threaten him, so scared that even his voice began to tremble.

"I need time... I need time... The technology provided by you Decepticons is too advanced; it is impossible to develop it in just a year or two... Before, when the military came for the inspection, someone asked me how I solved the database, and afterwards they even investigated my family background and all my relatives..."

"Please... please don't hurt me and my family... I have already followed your requirements and disguised the Decepticon life genes as ordinary code and programmed them into the database!"

It was unknown whether Steven Fauci's begging for mercy was effective, or if the cold mechanical voice accepted his explanation.

In his terrified line of sight, that multi-legged mechanical monster insect that had been baring its fangs and brandishing its claws in front of his cheek for a while, finally, after scaring him, not long after, once again crawled back along his arm to Steven Fauci's left wrist and transformed back into a mechanical watch.

"Whew!"

Not until he had crawled back from the edge of death did Steven Fauci let out a long breath, then he collapsed into the chair in the office, speechless for a long time.