The baseball bat let out a soft groan, and the sharp pain in his head warned him not to move recklessly.
No one noticed him.
Tinfoil and John were discussing sothing.
The baseball bat vaguely heard a few snippets of their conversation.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"This serum is expensive."
Pfft—
[Drug: Combat Ergency (Extre Efficiency Version)]
The baseball bat curled up like a thin twig stuffed into a trash can after a good beating, and he lay by the table, vomiting violently.
"The dosage was definitely too strong."
"Then call to complain to Gaia Cells, why isn’t there a dosage indication for minors."
John threw the empty vial into the corner.
The baseball bat held his stomach, looked around, and glanced vigilantly at the two people in front of him.
John noticed his gaze and said.
"We’re Ghouls. Try to run, and I’ll break your legs."
"Hey, John!"
Tinfoil had taken sleeping pills before bed, her mind was a ss, and she still had to connect to avoid Plato’s tracking. She didn’t want to deal with a kid running for his life.
She stopped John’s joke.
"Can you give us so ti?"
Tinfoil took on the task of communication and started chatting with the baseball bat.
She ntioned the Wanderer Alliance, Serum, and her deep web handle, among other things.
The baseball bat gradually cald down.
He hadn’t expected to et soone he knew from the web in real life. He was very wary of John, who had saved his life, but he trusted Tinfoil.
[Talk with the baseball bat. (Optional)]
"How did you even get mixed up with Plato?"
"Before Serum disappeared, the last person she t was Bismarck, the head of Plato’s special laboratory."
"How do you know?" Tinfoil countered.
"I live in Whistle Community, have you heard of it? It’s full of illegal immigrants who snuck into Eden City, a godforsaken place."
The baseball bat had typical Columbia features.
His hair was short and rough, his nose slightly flat, but the network interface he had installed was top-notch, with a wildly aggressive tal ornant dangling from his earlobe.
Serum was a super hacker, her real identity a mystery.
She wanted to hide her identity so well that no one could find her, and Tinfoil was skeptical of the baseball bat’s information.
The baseball bat explained:
The community he lived in received an anonymous donation.
The items were distributed through a gang leader, including ergency room drugs, warm clothes for new residents, and various synthetic foods.
The baseball bat wanted to find out who was behind the generosity.
He hacked into the district network, tracked the corresponding emails but unexpectedly discovered encryption thods very similar to Serum’s, and so he traced the records back...
After months of work,
he really uncovered the public identity of this super hacker.
"That’s nonsense. If Serum were online, she wouldn’t leave a loophole big enough for you to trace back like that?"
Tinfoil shook her head, crossing her arms.
"If she were still around, she would have strangled . She’d been missing for over half a year by the ti I found out."
The baseball bat’s prosthetic eye flickered.
He gestured like dealing cards at John and Tinfoil and sent the data over.
The file was uncompressed and unfolded.
Inside was a photo of a middle-aged woman:
Brown hair, slightly weary expression, dressed in a simple cotton jacket, smiling in front of a house converted from a tal box.
There were three young people beside Serum.
Their bodies covered in tattoos and dangerous modifications, just from the skin’s condition and their gaze, you could tell they had been long-term users of illegal substances. Judging by the style of implants...
These guys were all Ghouls.
"Are you sure she’s Serum? Why’s she with scum like them?"
"It’s definitely her!"
The baseball bat wanted to prove his theory.
He continued sending photos to the two.
These were newly taken, obviously having found the location, the container door and inside covered with dust, the room hadn’t been visited in a long ti, with several terminals on the table, logging in could take you directly to the Wanderer Alliance through a network loophole.
This proved that the baseball bat found the right place.
There were also so exchanged email ssages.
Serum’s public na was Pacific Connor.
She apparently worked at a European company, left fifteen years ago, moved to Eden City, and began her hacker career online using the ID Serum.
The baseball bat had clearly investigated thoroughly.
"Those three Ghouls were her test subjects."
Serum wanted to attempt a cure for cyber psychopathology.
She believed one type of illness was due to data conflicts in prosthetic neural transmissions leading to body collapse, so she attempted to tackle neural barriers through network technology...
"Sorry, I’m a layman. I don’t understand any of this, plus, how badass is Serum?"
John got a headache listening, and he directly interrupted the conversation.
The baseball bat pursed his lips and explained.
Serum was quite high-ranking among Eden City hackers and had developed several technologies even major companies vied for.
Tinfoil brought up a specific example.
"Raqi Industry’s intelligent weaponry lab was once exposed for an AI malfunction, have you heard dia reports about it?"
"Stock prices plumted, it was later proven a rumor, and several CEOs were swapped one after another."
John certainly rembered such city-wide shocking news.
Tinfoil and the baseball bat both looked at him.
"It wasn’t a rumor. An AI truly went rogue, forcing users of intelligent weaponry to commit suicide, it’s just that all docunts from that ti were sealed."
"Serum rescued half the city’s subnet with her homade logic confinent, preventing tens of thousands of citizens who owned that model from gun suicides. Raqi Industry sought Serum’s help, paid a hefty price for a solution and successfully curbed the rebellious AI, Raqi Industry’s CEO at the ti jumped off a building, and photos from the scene were circulated within the Wanderer Alliance."
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