Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 9 The Hacker Gods

His voice still carried a hint of emotion—perhaps a teasing tone.

The huge red figure appeared to be a young white man with short, neatly styled hair sticking up to the sky, and wearing rather flamboyant sunglasses.

At this moment, his massive body looked down at Mercer, and as he met his gaze, he let out a soft laugh.

However, his data was so massive that even his voice and laughter echoed in this cyberspace.

"You're the one who delivered this to my buddy?"

When Mercer actually saw this guy, he was no longer afraid. If the other party wanted to kill him, he would have been destroyed long ago.

The fact that he hasn't made a move yet suggests that he's likely one of their own—or at least someone they can talk to.

"Well, to be precise, it's us."

The moment the man finished speaking, two enormous red women appeared beside him.

One had long, flowing hair, while the other looked somewhat mysterious, wearing a spider mask; only her figure revealed her to be female.

One of them looked very familiar to Mercer. After observing him for a moment, he raised an eyebrow: "Otto Cunningham?"

"So you must be...Bartlemos!? Spider Murphy!?"

After Mercer finished speaking, he gasped.

Good heavens, all three legendary hacker gods of Night City have arrived!
Bartmouth was a legendary hacker in the early 20th century, and Spider-Murphy was his friend, and, according to online rumors, they might even have been boyfriend and girlfriend.

Even today, Murphy is still regarded as a hacker goddess and dream lover by many hackers.

Ott was also a good friend of Bartmos. In the early years of Night City, they managed the network of Night City Pacific State together. Ott even publicly said that it was the best time of her hacking career.

"How did you manage to pull me from the real world here? It's unbelievable!"

Mercer had so many questions he wanted to ask that he simply kept asking them all at once.

"Also, is my current condition really normal?"
To be honest, lately I've been feeling a bit like an AI, both in terms of learning efficiency and how I feel when programming—it's just not human at all.

Can I go back?
Or rather, what exactly is your purpose in bringing me here?
Although I don't consider myself a complete failure, to be honest, I'm still quite far from being a genius; I'm just an ordinary person.

Was your choice of me a bit hasty?
And what about your plans, like Ragnarok? Can you explain them?

The series of questions did not surprise these AIs.

Bartmos laughed, while Otto simply said in a calm tone, "Stop laughing, we don't have much time left."

Okay, okay.
Simply put, bringing you in was just an experiment for us. If you want to know how we did it, we didn't actually do anything.

We simply followed the clues we found in the cyber world and made an attempt, like a child putting together building blocks, putting together blocks that were already there.

Then, from what I pieced together, I saw your image.

But if you ask us where building blocks come from, what they are made of, and why they look the way they do when put together, the answer is, of course, that we know nothing.

You don't really think we have the ability to travel the world and influence it, do you?

Please, you don't even have a brain-computer interface, so you can't connect to the network at all.

All we can do is observe your computer, or more precisely, use your computer to briefly observe your world.

"Yeah, blame that Polish idiot in your world. They had to add a fourth wall to a perfectly good game. Honestly, when we first discovered it, we questioned the meaning of life for a long time."

Barthemos explained in a relaxed tone:

"As for the specific content of this fourth wall, I'll leave you with a riddle as an Easter egg. Once you arrive in Night City, you can find the answer yourself."

FF:06:B5, this is the first clue we found when we first discovered the hint.

It's okay if you can't find it. You just need to know that the only person we can find is you, so we can only choose you. You can consider your time travel as destiny.

And the decision wasn't made by us; it wasn't us who chose you, but you who chose to come into this world, Mercer.

To be honest, I used to think fate was bullshit, but now that I've become an AI, I think fate isn't entirely nonsense.
In short, I don't know how you got here; we were just the discoverers.

We have also tried to influence your real-world networks through data, such as by transmitting data there or affecting your world's networks.

Unfortunately, we can't do that because the only data network we can observe is your computer, and we can't make any changes to the data.

However, after observing for a period of time, we discovered a turning point – when you play Cyberpunk, a data channel appears that we can slightly influence.

That inexplicable data channel connects you to the cyber world, and in doing so, reveals a magical data extractability.

For example, files that we wouldn't normally have administrator privileges to access will be temporarily granted viewing permissions for us while we're playing the game.

In the file, we found a magical button, whose sole purpose is to extract your consciousness.

However, the button to extract your data is not in our hands, but in the world you live in.

We couldn't press that button, nor did we know how to trigger it, until we observed that when you play cyberpunk games, the data also produces other strange fluctuations.

Your network data will suddenly connect to our world while you are playing the game. At the same time, when a very few special consciousness data are selected, a connection will be established and a transmission channel will be created.

It is through this connection that we ultimately provide you with three options when you play the game—in fact, those three options
Each option is associated with a human consciousness that is currently deep within the cyber world.

We cannot press the button, but we can present that button to you.

You selected one of them, pressed the button, and then BOOM!

Something magical happened!

Your consciousness in the real world, without any network interface, connected to this world through your computer's network and began transmitting through that magical network channel.

The massive amount of data completely overwhelmed the entire data channel, causing us to lose our connection with your world and allowing you to replace your original consciousness in less than a millisecond.

This is why you traveled through time!
So what we've done is essentially give you a choice, presenting those inexplicably connected data and that "cross-through" button to you in the form of text options.

Then it's up to you to decide whether or not to press that magic button.

Once you make your choice, that's how it all happens.

As for how you're going to get back?

I'm sorry, I don't think you can go back.

The reason is simple: you can simply use brute force to create miracles, infinitely flattening a three-dimensional object until it is compressed into a paper doll, but how do you turn a paper doll back into a three-dimensional being?
This isn't something you can just pinch back into place; well, I can't think of a solution for now.

You know what I mean. We're discussing the difference in dimensions. I'm explaining it this way so you can understand.

But to be fair, buddy, I've been watching you for a long time. You're always complaining that life is boring, why don't you reincarnate into the world of anime and become an anime master?
Now that you've succeeded, hasn't this fulfilled your wish?

It's really unpleasant to spend your free time playing games on Bilibili or in chat groups complaining about the stupid plot. Now you've been given a chance to change everything, isn't that great?

"By the way, there are plenty of beautiful girls in this cyber world, and they're all incredibly open-minded." Spider Murphy's virtual avatar stared coldly at Bartmos, and even Ultraman seemed to show a slightly disgusted expression, as if he was thinking of something unpleasant.

"Uh, I mean..."
Damn it, I messed up. I thought the data bomb I released online would liberate humanity, give people true freedom, and kill those corporate dogs!
But now it seems that everything I did not only had no effect, but also accelerated the company's enslavement of people!

Everything I've done hasn't made the world a better place; it's made it worse!

Look at this world!
The internet has become a battlefield, no longer a paradise for sharing information, learning, and freedom.

The real world is even worse; companies leech off people, leaving no freedom, no future, and no hope.

In the company's eyes, we are human batteries, human heat sinks, or even just lumps of meat waiting to be eaten.

Barthemos's expression turned angry:
"You don't like the storyline in the game? What a fucking coincidence, I don't like it either! So, bro, let's do something, whatever it is!"
You don't need to worry about where the original consciousness of this host went—he is indeed dead.

You don't need to feel guilty. We presented you with a choice when we connected him with the data, and you simply chose the option we gave you.

So, do whatever you want.

"He means that the world is doomed."

Spider-Murphy calmly concluded:

"In our countless calculations, the probability of humanity ultimately heading towards self-destruction is simply too high."

It's like a boulder rolling down a hillside towards hell; all we can do is try to stop it, slow its descent, but we can't change the direction it will ultimately fall.

"Therefore, we need a variable."

Ultraman's expression was equally calm, or rather, this is actually the most common appearance of AI:
"You are the variable that exists outside this world. As long as you exist, the course of the entire world will change, and for us, change is a good thing."

"After all, the worst outcome is the destruction of the world. If fate leads us to destruction, then I would rather we set the world on fire with our own hands!"

After Barthemos finished speaking, he actually gave a somewhat self-deprecating smile:
"Anyway, this is what guys like us are best at."

“So what I need to do is…” Mercer asked cautiously.

"No."

Barthemos gave a definite and unequivocal answer:

"Your very existence has already changed the world, like the butterfly effect—look, haven't you already changed the course of events?"
Arasaka's... well, the mining plan, hasn't it changed because of you?
Think about it, you only took a few days to do all of this?
Did you really do anything special?
No, everything changed simply because you appeared.

Even if you do nothing from now on, the variables have already appeared and all the calculation results have changed, and that is enough.

Whether your existence hastens destruction or leads the world to a different end, for us, the goal has been achieved.

Your life belongs only to you—please, if I were to assign you some kind of destiny, what would be the difference between me and those stupid corporate dogs?
free!

Mercer!

Humans should be free beings! From this day forward, even if you become the kind of person who spends all day wearing Mewtwo and lying on the street with your pants down...

The gazes of Spider-Murphy and Ultraman made Bartmores shut his mouth. He coughed and chuckled:

"In short, that's it. The reason we chose to see you again is to put your mind at ease."

Otherwise, constantly feeling like someone is watching you from behind wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

"As for your feeling that you are like AI, let me explain it in a simple way."

Bartmore stretched out his two hands; in his left hand was a paper cutout of Mercer, and in his right hand was a 3D model of him before he traveled through time.

"After your consciousness is compressed from three-dimensional to two-dimensional, the loss of energy is actually not significant, if we explain it in a way you can understand."
It's like you originally had 1TB of data, but now that 1TB of data has been compressed into a compressed file of only 10MB.

It may sound a little unbelievable, but it's true.

So, although it may appear to be only 10MB, your actual data volume far exceeds that of the average person.

It even surpasses many AIs, which is why you might feel like you're omnipotent.
Because you are fundamentally different from us.

This process cannot be explained by existing theories, and even we have been secretly observing—uh, I mean trying to analyze and understand this phenomenon.

"This high-dimensional characteristic allows you to quickly absorb our knowledge and use it in an incredible way."

I think that once you've absorbed enough knowledge, you might be able to single-handedly achieve an explosive technological advancement, or even change some of the existing rules.

Spider-Murphy shared his opinion:

"Besides all that, the changes you made to your own body are incredible—the severe brain damage you suffered is irreversible, but you changed it with your own will."

Based on my observations and speculations, your body will continue to undergo amazing changes, such as becoming stronger, more agile, and more emotionally expressive.
In other words, it's like you're playing a game.

Normal people cannot change the attribute points of a game character. Everyone is born with an upper limit to their attributes, which can only be modified through technology.

But you can subtly enhance your stats through willpower alone.

This process is not governed by your personal will, but by your instinct—because you yourself are a higher-dimensional being, and your will will cause your body to align with that will.

Ultraman also gave his opinion:
"You may possess a special ability, similar to the 'I think' power of the greens in the Warhammer series of games, which is similar to the world you live in."

This means that if you really believe you can do something, then there's a real probability that you actually can.

It's like writing a program. If you think you can write it, you can; if you think you can't, then you really can't.

Hmm. Perhaps this is also a characteristic of higher dimensions?
Is it possible to have the ability to create freely in a lower-dimensional world according to one's own will? But this ability must also have limitations, or rather...

Ultraman seemed to be deep in thought, the red light in his eyes flickering uncertainly.

Barthemos clapped his hands with a smile:
"Okay, that's enough for now."

Regarding your last question about the Ragnarok event, I'm sorry, I can't tell you for now. Even if you knew, it would only cause you more trouble, so it's better not to say anything.

Besides that, is there anything else you'd like to ask?

"It seems like that's all. All that's left is to ask for your help."

Mercer stated bluntly, "This Guardian AI that Arakasaka sent is really a bit tricky for me right now. I don't have that 'I think' power activated yet."

"Hmm, how do I feel? After becoming an AI, all feelings become probabilities. To be honest, I don't think that's a good thing."

Bartmore muttered to himself, and then suddenly a cat made of red data jumped out from beside him. The cat turned blue the moment it landed.

Then, it affectionately crawled to Mercer's feet, circled around him, and tilted its head back to rub against his ankles.

"This cat can help you deal with Arasaka's sub-AI—this is the core of a program I used before called the 'Demon' virus, an evolved version."

An extremely powerful icebreaker (for hacking ICE), I now call 'Death Wish'.

(End of this chapter)