Gino led him to the back of the boxing gym.
The staff passage was filled with stacked goods, and gang mbers sneaking a smoke and watching prohibited Super Sensing Chips during patrol ti.
The corridor was lit by only a few dim lights.
She lifted the plastic sheeting and nimbly climbed onto the pile of junk.
John followed behind Gino’s rear, crawling through an old abandoned pipe section...
They actually ended up on the second floor of the boxing gym.
"This is the storage area, and my temporary bedroom too."
Gino and Macao both relied on running the boxing gym to make a living. Compared to the often-vacant rental apartnt, the few square ters of this cubicle contained the girl’s childhood and most of her youth.
John stood on the creaky scaffolding, and if he listened closely, he could hear various noises coming from the gaps.
The bustling custors.
The languid whispers in the dark corners of the mall.
Using a storage area as a room wasn’t a unique idea; every holess or cost-saving business owner would do the sa.
John also saw the lock Gino ntioned.
It was just an old industrial U-shaped iron piece— you could buy a synthetic burger for the orphans in the alleyways, and they’d unlock it for you.
Behind the small iron door was her independent workspace.
But Gino didn’t touch the lock.
After narrowly escaping death from a Ghoul, she had given Macao, who was exhausted, ample assurance.
John glanced around, caught by certificates with curled edges on the wall.
[Item: Graduation Certificate]
[Na: Gino Imwe]
"Holy shit, you’re a graduate of Eden Public School? And in Network Engineering to boot!"
"Macao likes that piece of paper more than I do."
Gino flicked a cigarette out and tossed it to John. "That damned place, aside from burdening poor folks like us with unpayable loans, only had campus bullying and class discrimination."
"What about the company’s recruitnt program?"
"Signing those contracts that make you drop dead, enjoy a dical package to replace organs with electronic ones after liver failure."
Gino took two drags. "Idiots whose grades were way worse than mine sat in spacious offices, calling female employees in for queue ’casting couch’ sessions through the speakers."
John let out a couple of wry chuckles.
"Who got kidnapped this ti?"
"A friend of mine."
"You an Tinfoil?"
John blurted out a na.
He ntioned that just a few hours ago at Harbor Company, he had spoken with the hacker in the Deep Diving Suit about her.
"You’re friend from the sa circle?"
"That’s right."
Gino nodded.
She started to brief John.
Within the public network of Eden City, there are many small gateways leading to hidden spaces, where many hackers gather to exchange and explore, engaging in various trades.
So talented hackers not absorbed by companies grouped together, forming small organizations.
They learn from each other, share their technical achievents, and beco friends.
Gino’s organization is called the Wanderer Alliance.
The mbers are economically underprivileged city dwellers but possess unique talents in certain tech fields, frequently sharing their lives and emotions online.
So ti ago.
The founder of Wanderer Alliance went missing.
Her nickna was Serum, frequently guiding other mbers, and was a renowned super hacker in the underground world.
"You want to find your online friend?"
John felt a bit prickly.
"Serum has been missing for over half a year." Gino shook her head. "She left a Pandora’s Box online, rumored to be hidden in the data labyrinth which attracted much attention, but there’s still no concrete evidence that it truly exists."
"Everyone cares about her legacy, but only the friends of Wanderer Alliance worry about Serum’s safety."
Until the day before yesterday...
A mber nad Baseball Bat reportedly found clues related to Serum’s disappearance, tied to the Plato Company’s recent warehouse explosion case.
He also ntioned sothing about mory-related technology.
He didn’t get a chance to upload the relevant information before being forcibly taken offline.
Hearing a few keywords, John’s eyebrows twitched.
Gino looked worried.
"Tinfoil and I both suspect Internet Surveillance is involved."
The network world of the Cyber Era is quite special.
Due to a world-class terror action, the old network completely collapsed decades ago.
Then with rampant smart AIs, coupled with corporate wars and city-state independence incidents, the new network we use today was finally built.
Its bottom-level structure is very rudintary but extrely deep, almost extending its tentacles into every aspect of life.
The world has been divided into independent cities, each human settlent having its own LAN.
To safeguard public safety, the Cyber Era has a dedicated organization managing the network environnt, called...
Internet Surveillance.
"Let get this straight."
John rubbed his brow.
"You guys stretched your hands into a company with a complete network departnt and cutting-edge market firewalls to investigate a friend’s disappearance, and now soone’s missing!"
"Pretty much."
Gino could only nod.
"Earlier, Baseball Bat ca online again, sent a mobile coordinate and a plea for help, saying he had information about Serum."
She thought John was reluctant to get involved because he found it troubleso.
"Serum’s intel could sell for a high price on the black market. We just need to know what happened to her, sell the news, and then you take the money!"
"What’s the point?"
John was a bit surprised.
But Gino shook her head with a wry smile.
"We can all be concerned about Serum, but with just the strength of Wanderer Alliance, we can’t stir up any storm. Only by getting more treasure-seeking hacker hunters to join this ga can we possibly dig out more clues."
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