"This is non-lethal mode?"
On a small rise overlooking the area, an Iron Soldier watched in hiding.
Tony's brow knotted like a twisted rope. He was pleased with the firepower mounted on the Iron Soldiers, but something didn't add up — the weapons seemed out of step with the non-lethal combat profile he had set.
To make the Iron Soldiers usable in non-lethal scenarios, he'd added a new weapon: a repulsion cannon. It's a byproduct of his fusion research — it accelerates plasma to produce massive thrust and, if necessary, high heat. As a non-lethal system it's basically an upscale air-cannon: very adjustable.
Yet these Iron Soldiers were electing to come down violently and spray indiscriminately?
[JARVIS: Sir, I suspect the exoskeletons biased the combat AI toward higher lethal-force weighting.]
The feed cut to a twisted form on the ground — a worker mangled, flesh and bone exposed.
[JARVIS: No need to panic. Our partners at CyberTech also have prosthetics tech; military-to-civil versions are already being rolled out by that company.]
"Right." Tony put his glass down and stared at the projection that represented JARVIS's data structure with a peculiar look.
[JARVIS: Sir, our enemy was not significantly impacted by that sweep.]
Onscreen Frank dove from a sentry tower and a shadow saved him from the bullets.
"This is—" Tony zoomed in rapidly. "Captain Carter?"
His brow furrowed even deeper.
What's going on? He'd expected the WWII veteran to be tied into restraints and exploited for blood samples — not leaping through machine gun fire like that.
The sweep ended. Tony was still processing, but the battlefield changed in an instant: from the ruins, the Atlas troops surged again— and a data-blade punched into a robot's seam!
Seeing that, Tony unconsciously let the glass slip from his fingers and wiped his forehead.
Having been tripped up so many times on the information side, the nervousness was real.
No matter how many Iron Soldiers he used, no matter how powerful the weapons, the fight always ended the same way once a data-blade penetrated a robot.
So the new adaptive AI had a function: if a unit was compromised, abandon it — cut internal links and let other Iron Soldiers retaliate.
But any function can be hacked. As someone who knew network tech well himself, Tony knew that all too clearly.
The robots on screen suddenly froze while bullets hammered their helmets.
Tony felt his heart skip.
Then they moved again.
Tony slammed his fist down. "So that's it!"
Bang! The head of an injured worker on the ground was crushed under an Iron Soldier's boot — the scream cut off abruptly, replaced by the hiss of escaping steam.
The Iron Soldiers had switched to full output mode.
Tony stood motionless.
What had just happened?
"Done?" Carter asked, staring at the indicators that had stopped flashing.
The Iron Soldiers lowered their arms.
Was it over?
In the mine, Moss — shaken by the gunfire's cessation — looked toward the robot that represented Leo.
When the Iron Soldiers landed they had broadcast long-range communications jamming; that caused Leo's temporary robot to pause for an instant.
But it soon restarted, albeit moving oddly: it dug quickly, then pulled some components from its own body and began assembling parts.
That brief pause had allowed it to recover and continue its work.
[static]
[Leo: Move— get out—!]
Only Leo's warning came through the comms.
Leo — still in cyberspace — reconnected to the field robot. Remote control links are fragile, so the improvised machine carried a subroutine written by the Little Octopus AI: when interference occurs, the subroutine lets the robot switch to autonomous mode, continue mining, and use its onboard tools and parts to fashion new weapons.
But just now, the communications had been restored.
The data-knife's built-in communication plugin instantly redirected the data flow into this robot. Through this relay station, it reached the server behind it:
Leo's brain!
The chaotic data in cyberspace began to push against the data barriers controlled by Leo, merging and interweaving, until the streams of data took on a bizarre black-and-red hue. This color…
was like the color of the Blackwall!
The black-and-red data stream gradually formed a shape: scattered circuit boards, sharp metal plates, screeching friction noises, finally converging into a massive skull!
The two shattered eyes of the skull resembled bottomless abysses—
[!: Finally, I finally caught you!]
The skull's voice was mixed with countless metallicized human screams, piercing and unbearable, each sound like it was tearing apart eardrums!
A direct attack strong enough to fry the brain!
In his office, the cooling fins on Leo's cybernetic spine fully expanded, but he, already unconscious, could no longer control his body to make effective responses.
In network warfare, the one who strikes first seizes an overwhelming advantage!
After a ten-thousandth of a millisecond of assault, Leo's body had yet to show any change, but the Octopus in his spinal implant fully unlocked its restrictions, taking over the fight—
Meanwhile, the skull was pressing outward through Leo's data barrier, heading toward the outer perimeter: the ctOS system!
Still wandering idly in cyberspace, Skye had not yet noticed the looming danger.
At a thousandth of a millisecond, a single octopus tendril, moving at exaggerated speed, gathered the broken fragments of data scattered in cyberspace, piecing them together into its own form bit by bit—
At two hundred and fiftieth of a millisecond, the massive skull opened its jaws and bit toward the data barrier representing ctOS.
Red data began to corrode the barrier.
At two hundred and fiftieth of two milliseconds, Skye, on the other side of the wall, finally noticed. When she turned her head, the terrifying skull froze her in place with fear.
The strongest data barrier of this generation, in the face of this assault, was like nothing more than a cookie—
For this skull, the invasion was as easy as eating a cookie.
Skye's brain temperature rose as the data collapse approached. But though she had computational power, without the necessary knowledge, she was little more than a slightly larger bun before such an enemy.
Or rather, from the moment the skull succeeded in ambushing Leo, the great colossus of the internet—ctOS—was already on the brink of collapse!
Given the sheer aggression of this skull, once ctOS fell, what could possibly stop it?!
In the pitch-dark cyberspace, the skull locked tightly onto ctOS's core—or perhaps, it seemed to be locking directly onto Skye herself within the barrier's heart.
But just as the skull was about to smash into the core barrier, it suddenly froze—
[óò: Huh?]
Bang!
A red-and-blue iron tendril pierced through the back of its head!
Skye stared blankly at the scene, unable to comprehend what was happening.
As the skull was impaled, Skye could finally see what had seized it—
Countless iron tendrils.
With a violent pull, the tendrils tore the massive skull into fragments, dragging the pieces out of the barrier!
[Ж: You should really learn whose side you're messing with—mine!]
The broken metallic voice echoed in the hollow cyberspace.