Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 604: Chapter 135: Capturing the Warship (Part 1)

A powerful organism is capable of danger perception.

But when the enemy is outside the atmosphere, even Gao Gong couldn’t know that a group of mechanical bandits led by Cao the Bandit had targeted him. In fact, after dialing a number, Gao Gong did not leave Arasaka Tower; instead, he opened a room, seemingly waiting for something.

A moment later, a virtual projection suddenly appeared, presenting a holographic image of a female attendant. The ’female attendant’ smiled and said:

”Guest, would you like to order something first?”

”I don’t recall ordering room service,” Gao Gong raised an eyebrow and asked.

”Indeed you haven’t,” the image of the female attendant started flickering, her smile becoming pixelated, and the picture grew increasingly blurry. Even the light flickered, akin to a classic scene from a ghost film.

However, the light did not vanish but instead became incredibly bright in an instant. The entire room lit up, and the dazzling radiance caused Gao Gong to shield his eyes with his hand. When the light dimmed slightly, a hoarse voice sounded.

”Did you succeed?”

An elderly figure appeared before him, with sparse hair and a bald patch in the center, but upon closer look, the sides of the white hair were all slender neural lines.

The elder in sight was none other than the famous enemy of corporations, the former minister of the Ghost in the Shell Mobile Division, Aramaki.

”You actually came in person!” Gao Gong was slightly surprised.

The reason was simple: most Super AIs primarily operated in host mode, meaning their essence was a vast computing center hidden where no one knew, merely driving avatars to handle issues.

But the figure before him was undoubtedly the essence, emitting powerful signals that only the essence could produce. His aura alone seemed capable of turning reality into virtual space.

”Did you find the person behind it?” Aramaki continued to ask.

Gao Gong nodded and then shook his head, finally shrugging and saying, ”See for yourself.”

Gao Gong extended his palm, where it began to split, revealing a port, and Aramaki, without any further ado, flicked his hand lightly, inserting several neural lines.

In the next moment, encrypted data flashed through both of their eyes, and the vast, peculiar data collection beneath the cosmic starry sky was also loaded.

”Ah—”

Aramaki suddenly clutched his head, and the ’clack clack’ sounds of his electronic eye filled the air, with tiny electric sparks emanating from the back of his head.

The presence of the ’Memory Mother’ was destined to be the nemesis of artificial intelligence. Even just an image caused significant signal interference to the opposing party.

Finally, with an electronic eye exploding, Aramaki regained his senses, a trace of incredulity in his eyes. Cosmic information monsters, hidden Descent factions, information pollution—this was far beyond his expectations.

”No wonder, no wonder every time I got close to the truth, the enemy either went mad or mysteriously disappeared. I originally thought it was a tightly structured force, with linear connections and ready to eliminate traitors at any time, but I never expected that it was a group of people unaware of their own infection. Or rather, seemingly normal crazies!”

”You’re right. In a way, the Descent faction is indeed a bunch of lunatics, acting solely on instinct.”

”You mean that powerful information entity doesn’t seem entirely awakened yet?” Aramaki’s intuition was sharp, hitting the hidden message in Gao Gong’s words with one sentence.

Gao Gong remained silent but nodded.

Aramaki fell silent, exhaling deeply after a long pause: ”Our enemy is unimaginably powerful.”

As an information-based life form himself, Aramaki, this Super AI, most understood the terror of the ’Memory Mother’. He even suspected that even the Mother City would be unable to halt the opposing party’s information pollution.

”I must warn Ms. Deep Web!”

Aramaki hurriedly left, fully aware that relying solely on his strength would never stop such a formidable monster. Only the Mother City could protect this planet.

And Gao Gong was also curious to see what Ms. Deep Web would do when she learned about the ’Cyber Tide’ in advance.

But whatever she did, the planet plot, along the inertia of history, had already begun to change little by little.

”Done, heading home.”

...

”Sister Du, according to our satellite system’s detection, Mr. G’s location has been pinpointed, and he is moving in our direction.”

In the Du Gao Technology laboratory, the secretary was reporting to Director Du.

”Oh, he’s back,” Director Du remarked while standing in front of the console, continuously directing the mechanical arm to adjust the large mecha in front of her, speaking without turning her head. But only those who knew her well understood that Director Du was genuinely pleased.

”But there’s some bad news,” the secretary Bean Sprouts hesitated before saying: ”It seems someone else is monitoring Mr. G besides us.”

”Monitoring?”

Director Du turned her head, took the ’pen’ from Bean Sprouts’ hand with a frown, and clicked lightly. The next moment, a projection of a communications satellite deployed in near-earth orbit appeared.

As a company advancing toward a large military organization, owning its satellite surveillance system is inevitable. In fact, the prerequisite for participating in global corporate warfare is to have one’s military satellite.

And the Du Gao Technology satellite system was procured from their partner, Mas Sharpness, named ’Celestial Base’. It comprised 30 military communications satellites, capable of 24/7, non-dead-zone monitoring of the entire planet, with strong signal interference and signal counter-detection capabilities.

The screen displayed that under Gao Gong’s coordinates, there was another set of coordinates of the same type, synchronized at the radiation layer’s height.

”Notify Gao Gong and inform the hacker group to hack the signal. I want to see who has the audacity to touch my people!” Director Du said coldly.

Three minutes later, Bean Sprouts pressed the earpiece under her synthetic skin and reported quietly, ”Sister Du, the hack failed. The opposing party seems to have an extremely powerful signal defense system. We cannot synchronize with their signal.”

”Such a level of signal defense system is typically installed only in Level 4 enterprise headquarters,” Director Du mused, suddenly recalling where Gao Gong was headed, causing her expression to change.

”No, there’s another weapon with such a defense system: the starship, Cybertron’s mechanical battleship!”

”Sister Du, President Gao’s signal has connected!”

As soon as she spoke, a holographic projection flickered out, displaying Gao Gong. Gao smiled and said:

”Director Du, it’s only been a few days since we’ve met, and you miss me already?”

”You’re being tracked, did you know? The one tracking you is likely Cybertron’s battleship. What exactly did you do in the Mother City?”

”Cybertron, tracking?”

Gao Gong was stunned for a moment, instinctively glancing at the gloomy sky, unsurprisingly seeing nothing.

Could it be that his handiwork was detected? Impossible, he had handled the loose ends very cleanly.

”Director Du, are you sure it’s a battleship? How many battleships?”

”Based on our hacker group’s hack results, there’s only one type of large signal defense system, preliminarily estimated to be one.”

Director Du’s hand swiftly switched over the holographic screen:

”I’ll give you a few coordinates now; these locations are crowded areas. If you quickly move to these places, you won’t be vulnerable to targeted attacks.”

Undoubtedly, Director Du’s perspective was reliable. No matter which Mother City, there’s a rule prohibiting experimental interference, especially the mass destruction of ’experimental data’. As long as Gao Gong moved to these busy locations, he wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked suddenly.

Cybertron battleships are intended for star wars, a product of a Level 3 Civilization, inflicting damage akin to a ’Civilization Weapon’, which means at least hundreds of thousands of damage. If Gao Gong were unlucky, he could indeed be instantly killed.

However, after pondering for a moment, Gao Gong slowly shook his head, rejecting the suggestion and instead proposing another seemingly absurd plan.

”You want to capture that battleship, Cybertron’s battleship!?” Director Du’s petite mouth opened adorably, her expression visibly breaking out of management.

”Do you know what you’re doing?”

”I’m well aware, this is going against Cybertron,” Gao Gong said meaningfully, ”But I also know that once corporate warfare starts, Cybertron won’t have time to bother us.”