area51novel Page 75
Page 75
“So, boss, what kind of big deal is it that requires me, and Cipher… oh, and this charming one…” Her gaze swept over Helen Zhao, “also an expert in some field? I bet it must be very interesting.”
..... ... ....
Hawke met her gaze: “More interesting than interesting. We’re going to perform surgery on an old friend to remove some…excess stuff.” He pointed to Helen Zhao, “Helen, give our new partner a detailed introduction to Dr. Zola’s current condition and the ‘consciousness stripping surgery’ we’re about to perform.”
Zhao Hailun took a deep breath, trying to ignore the lingering tension in the air, and walked to the computer to retrieve the data.
Cipher also composed himself and turned his gaze to the screen.
As Zhao Hailun explained clearly and professionally, especially when she mentioned key points such as "digital Zola consciousness", "stripping away its autonomous personality", and "transforming into a pure computing core", Root's eyes, which were already full of interest, suddenly lit up, as if she had discovered a rare treasure!
Her breathing even quickened slightly, and a near-fanatical smile bloomed on her face—the kind of excitement that only top hackers and challengers show when facing unprecedented heights.
"Stripping away the digital consciousness that has existed for decades? Reducing 'him' to its original form, turning him into a mere...tool?"
Root's voice trembled with a strange, excited excitement. She licked her lips, her eyes burning as she looked at Hawke. "Boss... you really know how to make a girl's heart race." She chuckled with pleasure. "That sounds... amazing. I can't wait to see that poor old fogey 'scream' on the operating table."
135 Dr. Zola is preparing to move. [Seeking flowers and subscriptions]
The underground passage deep within the abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. base.
The cold air, carrying the smell of engine oil and dust, filled his nostrils. Hawke stepped onto the rough concrete, the beam of his flashlight cleaving through the thick, inky darkness ahead.
“This place,” Cipher’s voice echoed metallically in the empty corridor as she rubbed her arms, a lollipop pressing against her cheek, “is noisier than the cooling fan of my grandma’s antique computer in the attic.”
She was referring to the deep hum of the ubiquitous server clusters originating from deep underground, like the heartbeat of some massive mechanical being.
Root walked lightly on Hawke's other side, holding her modified laptop whose exterior was graffiti-covered like a psychedelic work of art.
A faint smile played on her lips, as if she were listening to a wild concert that only she could appreciate.
“Shh,” she put a finger to her lips, her eyes glazed over, “listen to that heartbeat… how lonely, how… delicious.”
Dr. Zhao Hailun, walking slightly behind, looked out of place in her simple white lab coat amidst the surrounding environment.
She carried a metal briefcase with a flashing blue indicator light, her sharp gaze sweeping over the remaining, faded wiring bearing the Hydra symbol on the corridor walls.
“The bioelectric interference readings are climbing; Zola knows we’re here. It’s ‘awakening.’” Her voice was calm, like a scalpel cutting through the surface.
At the end of the passage, the heavy, explosion-proof airtight door resembled a cold, gray tombstone.
Cipher stepped forward, his fingertips brushing against the rusty keypad on the door, and scoffed, "An outdated Caesar shift lock with triple physical lock? Do you really think it's your grandfather's antique safe?"
As if by magic, she pulled a palm-sized black device from her tactical waist pack and inserted it into the spare maintenance port next to her with a "plop".
The device screen lit up instantly, and countless lines of code cascaded down. "Let's give this old guy some speed and passion!" She pressed a red button hard with her thumb.
Buzz—hiss!
A heavy mechanical hydraulic hum accompanied a gush of white cooling steam as the massive explosion-proof door trembled, like a giant beast struggling under its weight, and slowly slid inward.
The door opened wider and wider, and a blinding, eerie green light suddenly burst forth, accompanied by a "face" composed of countless flashing green pixels, suspended in the center of the massive server array—Arnim Zola!
Upon entering, Hawke immediately activated his heat ray, blasting through all external hardware connections to prevent Zola from escaping.
On the screen, a pixelated face from the 1940s distorted, emitting a piercing, synthesized electronic voice that echoed in the mainframe hall, which was as empty as a giant tomb:
"Unidentified intruder! Sizzle... Sizzle... Threat level assessed: Highest! Sizzle... The will of Hydra is eternal! Sizzle... You have stepped into the graveyard of the future!"
"Enough with the nonsense!" Cipher spat, and the lollipop stick was launched with precision, hitting the server rack with a crisp sound.
She pulled out a custom keyboard covered in knobs and flashing lights, slammed it onto the dusty control panel next to her with a "bang," and her ten fingers instantly turned into a blurry afterimage.
"Old relic, taste the 21st-century 'data mudslide'!" The sound of keyboard typing was like a storm, and the blue data stream representing Cipher's attack power on the screen transformed into a roaring giant python, crashing heavily into the green "ocean".
The green pixelated face rippled instantly upon impact, and Zola let out an angry scream: "Firewall Array! Zzz... Maximum power! Stop it!"
A dense array of red warning boxes exploded on the main screen, and layers of firewalls rose like towering concrete walls, attempting to block Cipher's raging blue torrent.
“Hmm… the ‘Wall of Sighs’ protocol from seventy years ago?” Root was already sitting cross-legged on the floor, her notebook on her lap.
Her fingers danced across the keyboard like nimble dancers, making soft tapping sounds, her face flushed with a blush of intoxication.
“Dear Doctor, your defenses… are filled with a regretful nostalgia…” She chuckled and pressed Enter.
Inside Zola's data wall, one by one the originally solid "gates" suddenly opened without warning, and even operated in reverse!
Cipher's blue torrent instantly found countless openings, violently assaulting Zola's core defensive perimeter.
The green pixelated face shook violently, emitting a piercing alarm: "Impossible! Buzz... Internal logic conflict?! Buzz... Virus?! Buzz... Buzz..." The chaotic noise drowned out his roar.
"Consciousness anchor point successfully locked!" Zhao Hailun's clear, cold voice pierced through the chaos.
She had already opened her briefcase and taken out a finely crafted, silver-white head-mounted device wrapped with nerve sensor wires. Three needle-like sensors with a faint blue light protruded from the front of the device.
"Zora's consciousness core relies on an abnormal coupling between the biological neural network and the hardware! It has 'stitched' itself onto this machine! Sister Cipher, keep the pressure on! Sister Root, disrupt its logical consistency! Tear open a hole leading to its 'soul'!"
Cipher practically threw himself onto the keyboard, furiously pounding away.
The blue torrent of data suddenly expanded several times in volume, like a raging torrent bursting its banks.
“Self-consistent?” Root tilted her head, her smile growing sweeter and more dangerous. She noticed a few minor flaws in the Zola encryption algorithm and gracefully tapped a few keys with her slender fingers.
Hawke was sitting in the command chair with his legs crossed, casually tapping the armrest with his fingertips, staring at the huge holographic projection screen in front of him.
With sharp eyes, Zhao Hailun instantly put the neural sensing device on her head, and precisely aimed the three probes at the small, frantically flashing, scarlet energy cluster on the main screen that was violently fluctuating and struggling to break free from the green core—that was Zola's "consciousness"!
"Neural weaving, initiate! Objective: Separate the consciousness and emotion module!"
hum!
A pale golden energy grid, almost invisible to the naked eye, appeared out of thin air and precisely enveloped the struggling crimson mass.
Zhao Hailun's hands hovered above the control panel, her fingers moving and manipulating rapidly and steadily, as if performing an extremely precise microsurgery in virtual space.
“Active stripping in progress…” Fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. “Hatred…paranoia… fanaticism for Hydra…”
Hawke finally stood up from his chair, walked to the holographic screen, crossed his arms, and a triumphant smile appeared on his lips: "Dr. Zola, history has turned. Your immortality should serve me in a different form. You are valuable, but you are too noisy. Be quiet, I have prepared ten supercomputers for you, ready to move."
"No—!!!" Zola's electronic scream was filled with despair and disbelief.
136 Artificial Intelligence: Z [Seeking flowers and subscriptions]
He felt an unprecedented sense of detachment. The things that constituted his paranoia, madness, loyalty to Hydra, and contempt for humanity were being forcibly torn from his core algorithmic logic by a gentle yet incredibly resilient force, like tearing off adhesive tape!
The green pixelated face, like an old television screen with a poor signal, flickered, tore, and reassembled wildly, but could never reconstruct clear facial features.
The crimson energy cluster struggled violently within the pale gold neural network, each struggle accompanied by wisps of blackish-red "smoke" being forcibly peeled away and drawn away!
Those represent all the madness, obsession, and malice in Zola's personality—the "impurities."
"Core algorithm framework exposed! Structure stable!" Zhao Hailun reported quickly, her voice slightly tense. "Sister Cipher, suppress! Sister Root, inject commands!"
"Stay put!" Cipher roared, slamming his hands down on the control stick.
Countless thick blue data chains, like the giant anchor chains of a whaling ship, shot out from all directions, tightly binding the silver-white core algorithm module—Zola's purest computing power and knowledge essence—which had become much purer after being stripped of its "impurities" but was still struggling instinctively.
“Be good, little Zora…” Root hummed a tuneless little tune, his fingers moving so fast they left afterimages.
Lines of cold, efficient, and absolutely obedient low-level instruction code, like the most sophisticated nanorobots, silently seeped into that silvery-white core.
With each penetration, the silvery-white orb struggled less, and its buzzing gradually changed from an angry roar to a low, subdued sound, eventually becoming just a constant, emotionless computational beep.
The pale green light completely dissipated.
In the huge underground server hall, only the low whirring of the server cooling fans and the faint glow of the indicator lights from various devices remained.
Hawke slowly walked to the huge main control screen.
On the screen, only a gentle, pure silver-white sphere of light, pulsating at a constant frequency, remained, quietly suspended in the center of the data stream.
That pixelated face, belonging to the past and filled with madness and paranoia, along with that incessant electronic synthesized voice, has vanished completely as if it had never existed.
Hawke stretched out his finger and gently touched the silvery-white orb from a distance, as if he were caressing a newly acquired and handy weapon.
"Welcome, new student," Hawke's voice was calm and even, yet carried an undeniable air of control. "Your name is Z. Now, prove your worth. Objective: A comprehensive inventory of all Indian-origin executives at Twitter, including their email correspondence, encrypted communications, and non-public KPI reports over the past three years. Uncover the complete chain of evidence linking collusion to embezzlement, fraud, and damage to the parent company's interests. Execution privileges are granted to you. Begin your work."
The silvery-white sphere flickered quietly for a moment, its frequency increasing slightly.
There was no anger, no resistance, not a trace of emotion belonging to "Zola".
A massive amount of data streams instantly burst onto the screen, rapidly filtering, analyzing, correlating, and building models at a dizzying pace.
A vast and sophisticated network of evidence is rapidly taking shape, driven by the cold, efficient computing power of the silvery-white sphere.
Cipher let out a long whistle, plopped down on the dusty ground, pulled another lollipop from his pocket and popped it into his mouth: "This is way more exciting than racing through the streets of Los Angeles catching cops! Job done!"
Root closed her laptop and sighed contentedly like a child who had just received a favorite toy: "Hmm... a quiet, useful Zora... the world is indeed peaceful and beautiful."
Dr. Zhao Hailun removed the sensing device and meticulously put it back into her suitcase and locked it.
She looked at the efficiently operating silver-white orb on the screen, her expression remaining calm and professional: "'Z's' neural interface stability and underlying logic need to be continuously monitored for at least 72 hours to ensure there is no risk of residual fragments of consciousness retaliating or logical conflicts. Its 'bioelectric compatibility' model needs to be recalibrated."
Hawke's gaze remained fixed on the efficient, cold, and absolutely obedient silver-white sphere on the screen, a flicker of excitement in his eyes.
“Understood,” Hawke’s voice echoed in the underground space. “This is just the beginning. Z, speed things up. Once it’s done, send it directly to Stella.”
The silver-white orb seemed to flash at a slightly faster frequency, silently responding to its master's command.
The deep hum of the server forest now sounded like a symphony of submission.
The battle concluded perfectly. Hawke arranged for a transport team to remove all the equipment from the entire base. The next step is to continue monitoring the new Z, followed by deep learning and data feeding. This is the work of Cypher and Root.
"By the way, boss, I haven't asked yet, how much is our commission this time?" Root looked at Boss Hawke, who was personally acting as a truck driver, and very consciously sat down in the seat closest to him.
"Ten million US dollars."
"Wow!" Root stared wide-eyed at Hawke. "Such a simple job, and each person gets over three million US dollars?"
Cipher chimed in, "You think these big tycoons are joking? They pay more taxes in a day than you live!"
"Don't misunderstand." Hawke coughed twice, reminding him, "...It's ten million per person, not ten million for three people!"
Hawke's voice rang out clearly in the slightly noisy cab of the transport truck.
“What?!” Root’s voice suddenly rose eight octaves, and his eyes, which always carried a calculating and lazy air, widened instantly, filled with genuine shock, as if he were realizing for the first time the meaning behind the surname “Ryan”.
“One person… ten million US dollars?!” she repeated, as if to make sure she hadn’t misheard.
Even the usually calm and composed Cipher couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and let out a very soft "heh". She crossed her arms, glanced at the back of Hawke's head in the driver's seat, and said in a rare relaxed and teasing tone: "It seems that our dear boss Hawke really made a fortune this time, otherwise how could he have come up with such a lot of luck?"
Although she had seen large sums of money before, the fact that she could earn tens of millions so easily—this was the reward for a top-tier mission—was indeed something to be teased about.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Zhao Hailun couldn't help but cover her mouth and laugh, her eyes curving into crescents.