"The situation isn't looking good. His brain nerves are severely burned." A weary female voice sounded by his ear.
"Just give me the results." A cold male voice replied with impatience.
"Alright. The result is, even if he wakes up, there's a significant chance he'll become an idiot. If not, he'll most likely suffer from memory loss. His brain nerves have been eroded to an extremely fragile state, so fragile that even a network fluctuation might prevent him from standing upright." The woman sighed by the end.
"Understood. Has the tech department's assessment come in? Was it an AI or the Blackwall?" The man turned to speak to someone else.
"Can't be determined, but it's most likely an AI. If it were the Blackwall, it wouldn't have been so gentle as to only fry one person's brain."
Then another cold female voice chimed in.
"Once he wakes up, run the tests and evaluations. If he's useless, follow procedure. I'm heading to a meeting now."
"Understood."
Footsteps gradually faded away, followed by two crisp sounds of automatic doors opening and closing. The room fell silent again, leaving only the beep of some unknown instrument sounding every ten seconds.
Mercer struggled to open his eyes wide, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see anything.
He attempted to move his arms, but it felt as though they had disappeared; only his body kept twisting.
"Click."
The door opened again.
"Don't move." A calm female voice spoke up. "Listen, you'll find that you can't see anything right now, your arms won't move, and you're feeling dizzy, nauseous, and want to vomit. All of this is normal because most of your cyberware has been removed."
"As for not being able to see, that's because your cybereye has been forcibly shut down. We'll deal with recalibration later."
"Next, I'll activate your cybereye. Try to stay calm."
Mercer could only let out a muffled grunt.
The sound of tapping on a screen echoed in his ears, and soon after, his vision suddenly brightened.
[Arasaka Seed-3 Cybereye rebooting...]
[Recalibrating...]
"Just like when you first got your cybereye, take deep breaths. The blurriness will fade soon."
Mercer did as instructed. After about ten seconds, the nearsighted-like blur in his vision cleared up.
He looked around and saw a woman in a white coat staring at data on several display screens nearby. The room was brightly lit and looked like a clean operating room.
Hmm... In the cyber world, an operating room usually just means a bed, a doctor, and a bunch of equipment.
Mercer looked down at himself, and fortunately his hands were still there. The reason he couldn't move them was probably because his Neural Link had been disabled.
At that moment, he could see where the interfaces connecting to his cyberware components on his forearms had been cut open with a scalpel, revealing flesh and partial mechanical structures, held in place by cold restraint straps.
"Good, the cybereye's matching data is stable. Looks like you're not completely useless after all." The female doctor's voice sounded relieved. "Stay awake now. We need to gradually test your maximum cyberware capacity. If you start feeling headaches, nausea, or any mental abnormalities, you must speak up immediately."
"Okay." Mercer could only agree. The stabbing pain in his head had lessened considerably, but it still struck him intermittently like a sudden spasm, causing his body to tremble uncontrollably from the pain.
"Do you understand your current situation?"
The doctor tapped away on the screen. From Mercer's angle, he could only see her face, a typical East Asian middle-aged woman, well maintained and exuding an elegant demeanor.
"I overheard a bit."
After speaking, Mercer couldn't help but ask, "What does 'handled according to procedure' mean? Termination?"
"Most likely." The female doctor turned to him expressionlessly, staring at his face. "If I were you, I'd worry less about being fired and more about how to report this incident to the company.
"This is the first time a rogue AI has attacked the servers. All operations at the training facility have been suspended, and the supervisor has already been held accountable.
"The severity of the incident is far beyond your imagination. In the worst-case scenario, the project will be terminated, and a large number of people will lose their jobs or be reassigned. As the direct instigator of the incident, termination might be the best outcome you can hope for."
All Mercer could do was twitch the corner of his mouth, typical Arasaka. No, typical of corporations in the cyberpunk world.
Sending ignorant children to mine in the Old Net, where they could be attacked by AIs at any moment, and then forcing these clueless, coerced kids to take the blame when an incident occurs.
After a moment of thought, Mercer immediately recognized the gravity of the situation.
No matter what, he couldn't let them pin the blame on him. Otherwise, once he lost his usefulness, Arasaka agents might immediately eliminate him under the pretext of harming the company's interests.
"It wasn't my fault."
Mercer quickly gave his answer: "It was Tony's problem."
Tony was the young boy netrunner who had been sitting next to him and had his brain fried to death shortly after Mercer regained consciousness.
Although he hadn't had time to fully digest the additional memories of 'Mercer' in his mind, at this moment, the original Mercer's memories were like data waiting to be accessed, all available for his use.
With just a thought, he could extract the relevant knowledge and concepts.
"Tiny and I were mining data in the same area when a tall, red female AI appeared. Its characteristics matched the extremely dangerous AI mentioned in the company's training materials, Alt, Alt Cunningham."
Mercer started his story, and the lies flowed out smoothly from there: "Tony's ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) was instantly breached after just a brief touch from Alt.
"The moment I saw Alt, I began preparing to log off. Following company procedure, I successfully logged off after returning to the other side of the Blackwall in time. But Alt had already noticed me and launched an attack to cross the Blackwall.
"Fortunately, the Blackwall held up and prevented Alt from directly attacking me. Even so, the overflow from the data stream nearly killed me."
"That's a well-phrased argument. If I were you, I'd add one more point, the corporate firewall didn't hold up either. Of course, unfortunately, I'm just a doctor. Your explanation is useless to me."
After speaking, the woman turned back to her screen and typed, "Excellent, your thought process is clear, and your memory doesn't seem to have major issues. Are there any other unusual circumstances you need to report?"
"Nothing for now," Mercer said.
"Then that's all for now. Your brainwave activity data shows significant improvement. Rest for a day so we can observe your neural condition. After that, we'll gradually restore your cyberware and then test whether you can still function as a netrunner."
The woman glanced at his body and added, "We'll start by reinstalling the cyberware in your hands to monitor your response. If any abnormalities occur, call me immediately."
"I've sent you the contact details. If there's an issue with your neural link and you can't make a normal call, press the red button by the bed."
A profile picture popped up in Mercer's vision, like a friend request interface in a chat app.
Oda Junko, the doctor's name.
After saving her to his contacts, Mercer watched as Oda Junko raised her hands. Her arms usually appeared ordinary, but now they began to transform.
One finger on her right hand shifted into the shape of a syringe, while her left hand picked up a vial and loaded it.
"Alright, get some sleep. When you wake up, your hands will be reattached."
Unable to refuse, Mercer could only watch as she injected the solution into his neck. Within seconds, he lost consciousness.
—--
When he woke again, sensation had returned to his previously numb hands.
[Data link established.]
[Arasaka Biomonitoring System assessing...]
[Arasaka Monowire (Corporate Edition V2.03) connected.]
[Hand data connection pathways normal.]
Mercer blinked, looking around. The cold operating room was empty except for him.
Finally alone to think in peace, he let out a long sigh and wearily pushed himself up, only then noticing faint phantom pains throughout his body.
Surprisingly, the discomfort wasn't as unbearable as he expected. The throbbing in his head didn't hinder his rapidly processing thoughts; in fact, he felt sharper than before.
This wasn't just an illusion.
With a mere thought, memories belonging to 'Mercer' began flowing through his mind at high speed, like watching a movie at ten times, even a hundred times, the normal pace.
The memory of writing his first virus at age six... being scolded by his foster mother...
The moment Arasaka representatives came to offer him 'elite education,' and his foster father's ecstatic expression upon seeing the contract's sum...
Memories of classes at Arasaka...
The life of 'Mercer' was being absorbed at an astonishing rate. Not just the memories, but also the years of knowledge Mercer had accumulated at Arasaka, netrunning skills, cyberware expertise, social norms, all assimilated rapidly.
It's hard to imagine that just a few hours ago, he was just an ordinary office worker playing games in front of his computer. Now, lying in bed, it took him only a dozen minutes to completely absorb the entire knowledge and memories of a genius netrunner.
Without exaggeration, Mercer, in terms of netrunning skills alone, is now even stronger than the original Mercer, much stronger, in fact.
Mercer gently rubbed his temples; his rapidly functioning brain was brutally straining his fragile nerves at the moment.
After finishing his excavation of 'Mercer's' memories, he decided to ponder some relatively lighter questions to give his brain a break.
For example...
The voices he heard before losing consciousness.
He didn't think it was his imagination.
"Operation Code: FF:06:B5 successful."
"Operation Code: Ragnarök."
What were these operation codes? Where did the voices in his head come from?
His now much sharper brain had already formed some conjectures.
First, for the meaning of the FF06B5 code, Mercer couldn't think of a reasonable explanation for now. He could only analyze it based on the knowledge in his mind: if interpreted using the hexadecimal color code chart, it would correspond to the specific color 'magenta.'
Code: Magenta?
What a strange code.
Unable to figure it out for the moment, Mercer moved on to the second code.
Ragnarök.
The automatic translation software in his mind had already rendered it into readable text.
Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
Ha, that code sounded downright terrifying.
Mercer sighed. The two codes, along with the voices that had appeared in his head, were most likely related to rogue AIs in the network. With just these two pieces of information, there was no way to deduce anything concrete.
But without a doubt, his transmigration, including his miraculously fast-functioning brain, were probably all tied to these rogue AIs. To uncover the truth, whatever he needed to do would inevitably involve these mysterious rogue AIs.
The headache, however, was that the number of AIs in the Old Net wasn't just one or two.
There were dozens, even hundreds.
In other words, if he foolishly dived into Cyberspace looking for answers, he might be lucky enough to encounter the powerful AI that sent him here. But if he ran into an unfamiliar one, he'd most likely end up like poor Tony, with his brain fried on the spot.
For a human facing an AI in the network world, it was like sending a baby to fight an adult driving a tank, the adult would probably run it over without even realizing what they'd hit.
So, until he was strong enough, or at least capable of protecting himself, even if he deep-dived into the network world, Cyberspace, Mercer would absolutely not attempt to cross the Blackwall into the Old Net to confront the AIs directly.
Mercer shook his head, temporarily setting aside these existential questions of 'Where did I come from?' and 'Where am I going?'
Right now, a bigger problem loomed before him; survival.
At the very least, he had to survive the fallout of this incident and avoid being made the scapegoat.
After that, he'd need to figure out how to escape this Arasaka 'Netrunner training faclity.'
Staying was out of the question. This damn Arasaka project treated him and the other poor kids like expendable materials, throwing them into the Old Net to dig for data? Hell, even the Voodoo Boys wouldn't do something that stupid. If Mercer remembered correctly, based on the memories of Lucy, the female protagonist from the cyberpunk anime Edgerunners, only one person from this entire batch of netrunners survived, Lucy herself.
The other young netrunners either died in rogue AI attacks while data mining or perished on the run from Arasaka.
But this also made one thing abundantly clear; escape was entirely possible!
But before that...
Click.
The automatic sliding door opened.
A young girl hesitantly stepped inside.
It wasn't Lucy, as Mercer had expected, but a cute little girl with red twin tails.
"...Kyoko?"
The girl's name immediately popped into Mercer's mind.
Nishimura Kyoko.
From Osaka, a genius netrunner girl sent here two years ago.
At just eleven years old, she was the youngest in the Netrunner training facility.
Hearing him call her name, the girl nervously watched his expression. Seeing his puzzled look, she didn't respond.
Instead, she hesitated for a moment before slowly walking over to him, her eyes faintly glowing gold, clearly scanning something.
She stopped beside Mercer, stayed silent for a few seconds, then asked as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, "Mercer... are you okay?"
"Me? Still alive for now." Mercer studied the girl's expression thoughtfully.
"Um..." She spoke in Japanese, but Mercer understood every word without needing a translator. During training, he'd been required to learn Japanese, Arasaka's 'mother tongue,' a mandatory subject for trainees like him.
In Arasaka's Netrunner training facility, most netrunners were Japanese or mixed-race Japanese, with very few from other ethnic backgrounds. That's because all selected netrunners were orphans.
And since most of Arasaka's so-called orphan welfare facilities were located in Japan itself, it stood to reason that most of these young netrunners came from Japan.
Mercer himself was mixed-race, though he wasn't sure of the exact mix. From what he remembered, the original Mercer was also an orphan, adopted by foster parents as far back as his memory went.
Unfortunately, those foster parents weren't exactly good people. When young Mercer showed talent in netrunning, Arasaka investigators showed up and bought his life for a mere 50,000 eurodollars.
Judging by his features, though, his primary ancestry appeared to be East Asian.
Nishimura Kyoko stared intently at Mercer's face, as if trying to discern something from him. In the end, she just whispered, "If you need help... please, make sure to contact me."
"We're... still friends, right?"
She spoke softly.
Mercer simply watched her calmly, then after a moment, smiled. "Yeah, we're friends."
Nishimura Kyoko seemed to relax slightly. After scanning the surroundings once more with glowing eyes, she cautiously said,
"After you're discharged, let's all talk together. Me, Lucy, Daichi-kun, and Leon, just the few of us for now. Would you like to come? It's just a... small get-together."
"Mm." Mercer nodded, then narrowed his eyes meaningfully and added, "If I make it back alive, that is. With the incident of a suspected rogue AI attacking the servers, I'm not entirely sure what will happen to me afterward, termination? Transfer? Or something even more troublesome."
He sighed and then added, "Anyway, now isn't a good time for gatherings. The company will definitely be conducting strict internal investigations recently."
Nishimura Kyoko's eyes widened slightly; she hadn't even mentioned what the matter was!
"I understand! I'll let them know! Well, Mercer, you take care and rest well!" She immediately turned to leave but couldn't resist glancing back at Mercer. After a moment of hesitation, she suddenly blurted out, "Mercer... I... I actually saw it."
"I... I believe you!" She seemed to regret her words the moment they left her mouth, hastily adding this line before scurrying away as if fleeing.
Saw it?
Mercer narrowed his eyes.
Saw what?
In just a second, a bold guess sprang to his mind.
Could it be... she... saw those AIs!?