Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 123 The Wandering AI Lilith?
[Panan: Really? Hansen is willing to let us do this part of the work?]

[Mercer: The Ghost Hounds are short-handed right now, but we need people to stock and transport goods. You guys are very familiar with the area, and dealing with smuggled goods is your specialty. So, are you coming or not?]

[Panan: Come on over! We're so broke we can barely afford food lately. Your medicine isn't cheap even at cost price. Damn, this stupid biotech company.]

[Panan: By the way, I heard you haven't been doing well lately? What happened?]

[Mercer: Don't ask anymore. Anyway, things are fine for now. You and Thor discuss it, and then find a group of good people to handle the shipments.]

[Panan: Okay, thanks, Mercer. I feel like I've gotten a lot of freebies from you.]

[Mercer: Back when I was freeloading in Adcardo, nobody complained about me, right? Okay, I'm busy now, waiting for your message.]

[Panan: Okay.]

Now it's the second day since Hansen returned, and everyone can finally go back to base, breathe a sigh of relief, and enjoy two rare days of leisure.

In particular, Arasaka Yoriyuki explicitly told Mercer that he would take Takemura and Adam Hammer back to Japan to find an opportunity to steal Silver Hand's consciousness chip. In the short term, Mercer didn't have to worry about Arasaka's people causing trouble.

Of course, the team members could rest, but Mercer dared not relax at all.

Mercer intends to dedicate most of this precious development time to research, especially the development of the Little Beidou facility and the development of vaccines to combat viruses spread by biotechnology.

The former was to possess a lethal nuclear deterrent against Arakawa, while the latter was for a simple reason: money.

When biotechnology tries to profit from disasters, Mercer will unceremoniously use vaccines to take the money that should have gone to biotechnology.

Besides that, the most important thing is to use Hansen to quickly gain access to Hansen's network of contacts, whether they are Cubans or social elites from Night City and Europe.

At this moment, Hansen had begun to gradually hand over the contact permissions of some important clients to Mercer, who always liked to have Morning Star 'impersonate' his live assistant to complete these tedious social interactions and exchanges of benefits for him.

As long as he can stabilize the basics of Dogtown's trade, Mercer will have a solid rear base and won't have to live in fear like before.

The reason why they were so eager to take over Hansen's network of connections was actually very simple—because Hansen was now just a defective product.

Mercer didn't manage to brainwash Hansen perfectly. All he did was modify all of Hansen's memories and constantly suggest to his subconscious data that Mercer was the most trustworthy person.

However, the effectiveness and duration of this brainwashing, as well as whether Hansen will notice anything amiss over time, are all unknown.

Mercer's understanding of consciousness data is still incomplete. In fact, even Ultraman, the creator of the Soul Killer, probably wouldn't dare say that he has figured out this consciousness data.

Despite Mercer's exceptional talent, the progress of this work remained slow.

Human consciousness data is far too complex. Even a simple modification of Hansen's memories, adding suggestions to his subconscious, took Mercer a full week.

Having Hansen work for Mercer now is just a temporary measure. Nobody knows when Hansen will suddenly have a mental breakdown, or when he will suddenly become aware of something is wrong.

Just in case, Mercer placed a Soul Killer subroutine in his brain-computer interface and had Morning Star take over his brain-computer access, monitoring Hansen's words, actions, and even thought patterns 24 hours a day.

However, the massive memory consumption of this surveillance and soul-killing subprogram will keep Hansen, whose mental state is already unstable due to the modifications, under constant pressure, and he may suddenly develop cyberpsychosis at any time.

Therefore, the seemingly peaceful situation in Dogtown is nothing more than a beautiful illusion, which is why Mercer doesn't even hide the sudden and drastic changes that have occurred in Hansen.

To ensure nothing went wrong, Mercer would periodically use the guise of medical checkups to repeatedly modify Hansen's consciousness data, which would then trap Hansen in a vicious cycle.
But Mercer remained optimistic, thinking, "Just consider it another guinea pig for repeated experiments. With more attempts, who knows when I might make an unexpected major discovery and technological breakthrough in interpreting and modifying consciousness data?"

With the cooperation of Hansen and Mercer, the internal structure of the Ghost Hound also underwent significant changes.

First, the Ghost Hounds were divided into more detailed categories, and the responsibilities of the previously somewhat vague departments were clearly defined.

Mercer and Hansen assigned about twenty Ghosthound soldiers to a special security department, where they would be responsible for tasks similar to those of the police.

In addition to maintaining public order, these twenty people are also responsible for street patrols and other duties; they can be simply understood as the sheriffs of Dogtown.

Afterwards, the seventy professional Ghosthound soldiers were assigned to the 'Security Department'. Apart from taking turns to perform inspections at the Dog Town border checkpoint, the rest of them would receive professional combat training and would not be responsible for daily work except for their duties at the checkpoint.

Their duties are singular: first, to recover airdrops that land outside Dogtown Stadium; and second, to remain on standby 24 hours a day. When support is needed, they are currently Dogtown's only armed support force.

The security department's hounds have their dormitories in Gemstone Blue and their training base in the stadium, which means that these two places are usually guarded by hounds on a rotating basis, providing a certain level of security.

Of course, Mercer had more faith in the unmanned equipment controlled by the Morning Star than in these hounds.

Drones, robot dogs, spider robots, cameras. Mercer's inventory of unmanned equipment is increasing almost every day.

The humanoid robot he developed that can be used with the octopus arm, even with the cost of the octopus arm, is priced similarly to commercially available security robots, but its combat effectiveness is terrifyingly high.

This robot, equipped with two types of octopus arms, can not only use the octopus arms for high-speed maneuvering and, combined with thicker armor, also use its incredibly strong octopus arms to attack in close combat, and wield various weapons with its flexible hands.

When necessary, these octopus arms can also be equipped with different robotic arms to transform the robots into engineers or technicians. With the support of AI, Mercer himself felt that as long as the AI ​​inside was smart enough, it would indeed be much more useful than a human.

As business in Dogtown began to recover, Mercer finally realized just how much money Hansen had made in the past.

The goods bought for 500,000 can be sold for several times that price after circulating through his hands. Even if it's not a deal Hansen negotiated himself, but just someone else's goods being transported, he can still get a staggering amount of cargo parking fees.

Compared to large-scale transactions, the most profitable items are actually various Night City restricted-level cybernetic bodies and military equipment.

These prosthetic bodies and weapons, which are officially military products that are not allowed to be sold on the market, are being purchased in large quantities every day in Dogtown.

Then, people smuggle goods from Dogtown to Night City and the surrounding Free State, where the price can easily double or triple. Some items that were originally worthless can even be sold for ten times their original value here.

Moreover, many of these are inconspicuous little gadgets, such as certain high-end chips, processors, various electronic components, and basic materials, which are always in short supply on the black market.

There were even some expensive foods, drinks, and works of art.
The daily net profit, after deducting the wages and labor costs of the Ghost Hounds, is in the millions of euros—of course, if you take into account the hidden costs such as donations to important figures and investments, the profit will not be that large.

But earning ten or twenty million euros a quarter is not really that difficult.

This money is pure cash, because the seller only needs to send an airdrop to Dogtown to receive payment directly, completely saving the trouble of past transportation losses and finding buyers.

Buyers in Night City are always in short supply; items thrown onto the black market are snapped up instantly.

In the past, Dogtown was only responsible for selling goods to the big merchants on the black market, who were responsible for distributing the goods themselves.

But now, Mercer is even getting involved in this business – he recruited several Adca people and gave them a list of goods and a list of purchases, so they could personally negotiate with the buyers in Night City.

The numerous smuggling routes that have sprung up in Dogtown today are ultimately due to the fact that too many people are willing to make a profit. Mercer, on the other hand, is now sold directly to the outside world by Adka's team, allowing them to not only earn money from the middlemen but also gain a cost advantage.

This will greatly reduce the impact on individual smuggling businesses in Dogtown, and also save the trouble of checking every few days to see if anyone is secretly digging tunnels.

The Adka people are very familiar with this kind of work. They are best at secretly tinkering with these things and selling them everywhere, and they even have a way to transport and sell them across states.

Mercer simply provides them with goods; they can find customers and sales channels on their own, even selling throughout the New America. Once they have a means of making a living, the Adka people of Night City Badlands will only gather in ever larger numbers.

These homeless people have always wandered wherever they can make a living. Mercer plans to hand over the entire downstream of Dogtown's industrial chain to the Adka people in the future, so that they can act as agents to sell Dogtown's goods.

He simply acted as a middleman, taking a cut of the price difference, expanding the market, and gaining favors—a win-win situation.

Mercer wants to earn the money Hansen earned, and Mercer wants to earn even more of the money Hansen couldn't earn before.

After analyzing the model using only the Morning Star, Mercer was able to estimate that the revenue generated by Adcados in the downstream market alone could double Ghosthound's revenue next quarter.

Time flew by as Mercer quietly developed, and soon, the excavation and search of the Little Beidou facility, a collaborative effort between the robot and the Ghost Hound, began to show results.

Mercer successfully located the entrance to the small Beidou facility buried deep beneath a building, but then encountered a minor headache—the base was deliberately blocked off, and to get in, they would have to dig a path through it.

The entrance is relatively narrow and located just below a tall building, making it difficult for large equipment to get in.

Even more troublesome than this problem is how Mercer will deceive the military personnel and how he will deal with the Beidou facilities afterwards.

Once the Military Science discovers that the Ghost Hound is excavating the Little Big Dipper facility, it will probably not easily reveal its secrets. At that time, Arasaka's troubles will probably not be over yet, and the Military Science and New America will be in a hurry.

The original purpose of developing this thing was supposedly to compete with Arasaka's Soul Killer program for dominance on the network. Although it is unknown why the Military Science Academy did not dare to take it with them when the facility was sealed, it is clear that the Military Science Academy absolutely did not want this thing to fall into the hands of others.

Therefore, Mercer could only use a robot equipped with octopus arms to dig, and even then, he had to dig secretly.

Considering efficiency, it will probably take about two weeks to completely clear the obstacles and enter the facility. After entering the Beidou facility, Mercer will also face a choice.

That is, how exactly should we deal with the things here?

Are experiments being conducted on the Black Wall AI and AI capture program within the Xiaobeidou facility?
Mercer was somewhat tempted, but quickly suppressed his greed—while the Beidou facility could be described as a standard super research base with an investment of over 100 million, there were many pitfalls inside.

It's possible that Mercer might be messing around in the Beidou facility one minute, and the military science team might send people to forcibly take it back the next. Even if the military science team doesn't find it, Mercer still has another problem to worry about.

Those are either the roving AIs detained in the Xiaobeidou facility, or some roving AIs that have been monitoring the Xiaobeidou facility.

The group of roving AI is very complex, and judging from the information in the game, the roving AI that Xiao Beidou facility came into contact with is undoubtedly the kind that stands against humanity.

Textual information available in the game clearly reveals that many horrific accidents occurred within the Little Beidou facility. These included the malfunction of some automated equipment and the rampage of robots.

This also includes some human researchers who inexplicably developed an obsession with the online world behind the Great Firewall, and exhibited all sorts of strange mental problems, almost as if they were bewitched by AI or under a spell.

Mercer even had a speculation—was the lark being manipulated and influenced by the Black Wall AI to enter the Little Beidou facility in the game because the Black Wall AI was instinctively attracted by the wandering AI that was influencing the Little Beidou facility?
The reason why the Black Wall AI behaves so frighteningly in the game and shows signs of madness is perhaps because the roaming AI here, or the research of the Little Beidou project itself, has a corrupting nature similar to the rabies virus of Bartmouth.
Is the real goal of the research project conducted by the Institute of Military Science to use some kind of terrifying program to corrupt the consciousness of humans and AI through the network and turn them into some kind of killing tool?
Or perhaps their research is not the problem, but the stray AIs attracted to their research institute possess some kind of terrifying corruption program, which may even affect the human mind and will.
Mercer had many questions and concerns in his mind, but for now, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and go for it.

After all, sooner or later, as long as he still wants to live freely in this world, instead of having some wandering AI suddenly press the nuclear button and cause the mass extinction of mankind.

Or, if he doesn't want his will to be altered for no reason, he must take the initiative, confront these risks, and then resolve them.

However, before Mercer could officially enter the Little Beidou facility, an unexpected phone call added even more pressure to his efforts to excavate it.

The caller was none other than the lark, who lived far away in Washington.

[Lark: Hey, how have you been lately? I've noticed your Dogtown is quite lively these days.]

Mercer: It's alright.

[Nightingale: We agreed to chat some more when we had time, right? I've invited you to go deep-sea diving several times, but you always say you're too busy.]

Mercer: I really don't have time. I'm busier than Miles right now.

[Lark: Okay, okay~ I can see that you're busy dealing with Hansen, dealing with Arasaka, and preparing to take over Dogtown. You've got a lot going on.]

[Mercer: You guys are really well-informed. How did you manage that? Would you mind telling us?]

[Nightingale: Ha, do you want me to go to jail for selling state secrets? I can only say that Dogtown's success depends on its backers, and that's precisely where Dogtown's risks come from.]
Unless you're confident you can get all buyers and sellers to follow your rules, and besides, aren't you somewhat underestimating the FIA's capabilities?

Mercer was skeptical of the first part of her statement, but the latter made him ponder deeply.

In the original game, Night City seemed to have only two abandoned agents left, operating incognito.

In reality, however, the new America and the military science would never rely solely on two agents who had been abandoned once and whose credibility was questionable to gather intelligence on Night City and Dogtown.

Perhaps one of the seemingly ordinary residents of Dogtown is actually an informant for New America's military science.

Mercer: Since you know I'm so busy, is there anything you want to ask?

[The Lark: I'm just worried about you.]

Mercer: I believe you.

[Nightingale: President Miles is very interested in you. Since you're currently overwhelmed by Arasaka's problems, have you considered finding a powerful backer?]

[Mercer: Colonel Hansen values ​​me highly now; our cooperation is just entering its honeymoon phase.]

[Lark: Ha~ Do you even believe what you're saying?]

[Mercer: You underestimate my charm, don't you? Miles is also madly in love with you, wishing he could lock you up and keep you by his side 24/7, right? Of course, I have my own ways.]

[Lark: Ugh, what you're saying is making me sick. Anyway, while working in New America has its share of annoying things, for you right now, getting involved with President Miles might not be such a bad thing.]

[Mercer: If you were to choose now, back to when you were recruited by the New America, would you still make the same choice and join the New America?]

[The Lark: I guess I didn't have any other choice back then, and your situation is pretty much the same now, isn't it?]

[Mercer: I think I do. I'll handle Arasaka's situation myself; I won't beg your President Miles for help.]

[The Lark: I hope you won't regret it when that time actually comes.]

[Mercer: Ha, you think I would? I'd rather be blown to pieces by a missile than be locked up, not even knowing if I'm still the same person, being used and discarded until death in a daze.]

[The Lark: Don't you think about the people around you?]

Mercer: I've considered it; they all say they'll listen to me.

[Lark: Alright, anyway, if you run into any trouble, remember to let me know in advance, otherwise I won't have time to save you. President Miles's offer to recruit you is always valid.]

Mercer: Fine, I'll consider becoming your colleague when I'm desperate.

[Lark: Haha, I hope you come early then, I'm so bored by myself. By the way, have you ever heard of an AI named Lilith?]

Mercer: What?

[Nightingale: A wandering AI. I still don't know where it came from, but it's acting very mysteriously. If you have any relevant information, let's share it and show some internet spirit.]

Mercer: I haven't heard of her. Can you give me some information? I'll try to find out her background.

[Lark: Not sure, this guy probably started watching me because I frequently traversed the black wall, and he even made some alarmist remarks. Well, actually, it wasn't exactly alarmist.]

It said my body couldn't support my spirit, and my fragile brain would eventually be overwhelmed by data, you know? Which hacker hasn't had their brain and body burned a few times?

Well, anyway, she said a lot of mysterious things and told me to contact her when I was desperate.

To be honest, I'm a little scared. Mercer, that guy is surprisingly strong. He's definitely not some ordinary wandering AI left over from the old network. This guy definitely has a super-large server base station.

The computing power of this AI named Lilith is basically on par with that of the 'Boundless' AI that watches penguins in Antarctica, and also with Otto Cunningham!
I have never heard of any other place on Earth besides Hong Kong and Antarctica where such a massive server base station is controlled by AI, let alone what Lilith's AI is all about.

I have currently identified three areas. The first is a ghost town in South Korea, where roaming AIs are everywhere. Even with the combined efforts of internet surveillance and AI, they haven't been able to completely eliminate them, and the situation is unclear.

Another one is a large Eastern country, you know, they always have many secret plans over there.

The third region... I suspect it might be on the moon.

Mercer's mind raced, and soon he suddenly thought of a game plot related to Lilith.

In the game, there is a side quest, part of the Cyberpsychosis series, called: Blood Ritual.

In this side quest, a group of crazed Vortex Gang members are performing a blood sacrifice, which eventually creates a wandering AI that takes over the body of one of the Vortex Gang members. In the text, you can find some information about this wandering AI named 'Lilith'.

Mercer's expression turned serious. If that were the case, it meant that this girl named Lilith was very likely also active in Night City.

His mind immediately conjured up the image of that stray AI that had previously caused trouble for the Night Corporation. Could that guy be related to Lilith?

Mercer pondered for a long time before cautiously replying to the lark.

[Mercer: I'll investigate, but you'd better be careful. This level of roaming AI can easily outmaneuver you.]

[Lark: Haha~ Thank you for your concern. Please be careful too, and feel free to contact me if anything happens.]

[Mercer: Come on, you've done your best to keep our chat history. I hope you retire soon, or come work for me. It'll definitely be better than working for Miles.]

[Lark: Is this an invitation for me to elope? XD~ Then the New America will send people to arrest both of us.]

[Mercury: I'm not interested in old ladies XD~ But just you wait, one day, neither Arasaka nor Gunko will ever expect me to bow down.]

[Lark: You're the old one! I'll say it again, I'm not that much older than you! By the way, I wish you all your dreams come true, and it would be even better if you could lend your older sister a hand then.]

[Mercer: We'll see how sincere you are then—hanging up, busy.]

[The Nightingale: OK~ My coffee time is over, bye-bye.]

After hanging up the call, Mercer fell into deep thought. After a while, he sighed. There were some things he needed to confirm in advance before making any arrangements.

The sudden appearance of the name Lilith gave Mercer a bad feeling, and this bad feeling was closely related to the small Beidou facility he was currently excavating.

To ensure things were still under control and to avoid stepping into a trap, Mercer needed to confirm some important intelligence as soon as possible.

How do we obtain intelligence about a roving AI?
The answer, of course, is to find another group of wandering AIs to answer your questions.

Several days later, Mercer entered the deep dive and, without hesitation, passed through the Black Wall accompanied by the Morning Star.

After passing through the black wall, Mercer rudely and aimlessly sent data streams representing only the name 'Ultraman Cunningham' into the old network.

Just a few minutes later, in the pitch-black old network world, huge red data formed the figure of a towering female giant.

"Long time no see, Ultraman."

"Long time no see, Mercer."

An echoing female voice rang out, and Ottkeningan's figure clearly appeared before Mercer's eyes.

(End of this chapter)