Then cautiously, Mercer read through the computer data again, manually handling some backdoors and vulnerabilities inside the notebook, and deleted some garbage programs left by Mercer in the past...
Well, to him now, those programs are truly bad, redundant code piled up like a mountain of crap, equally garbage as Arasaka's programs.
Because of his inexplicable talent, he views data and programs as if he's observing a human, instantly discerning tall, short, fat, thin, and even seeing the 'blood, flesh, and bones' of the programs.
Thus, he can clearly see where the core of the program is, where the skeleton and flesh necessary for operation are, where the deformed, unnecessary redundant code lies.
After that, he officially began his work.
First, he deleted all the software sent by Lucy—not that it couldn't be used, but rather than using her software for optimization and upgrading, constructing a segment of core code from scratch would yield higher benefits for him.
In just a minute and a half, Mercer rubbed his temples with some fatigue and unplugged the connection, while simultaneously sending the new program to the three people present.
[Lucy: This creature is... a penguin? I didn't expect you to know about creatures as well.]
Lucy's voice directly rang in his mind, no wonder she was surprised because, in this world, there's only a solitary AI existence left in Antarctica.
Many people believe the so-called penguins should have been extinct, and not many actually know about penguins as creatures.
Because most people in this world are busy—busy working, busy surviving, busy studying, busy entertaining, no one would bother knowing those seemingly meaningless things, like the supposedly extinct penguins.
As for why it's a penguin icon...
That's because Mercer made an encrypted communication software, choosing this icon was just his pure fancy or, one might say, a kind of nostalgia.
[Mercer: Mm-hmm, you can set the character icons yourself and use them for chatting later, voice, video, and file transfers are all okay.
I adopted pure random encryption, if there's a signal present outside of authentication, ICE will alert, at which point you should cautiously halt it to prevent eavesdropping.
You can establish temporary chat groups using group chat mode, if abnormal signals appear in group chat, it will directly kick out the owner of the abnormal signal, so if you're kicked out, immediately check your device.
The program has an auto-hide feature, operating with the original communication framework, usually lurking within the code of ICE's external signal detection program.
The downside is that since the program body is small, it requires more personal memory when running.]
[Tamura Anko: Wow! It even has UI design...]
[Tetsuya Daichi: The data is beautiful... unbelievable, your technical progress is too fast.]
[Mercer: Just integrating existing knowledge... Anyway, Lucy, you can talk now.]
[Lucy: Wait a bit, there's another partner, I'll bring him in.]
[Leon: Is this... a new version made by Lucy?]
[Lucy: This is Mercer.]
[Leon: Whoa, that's awesome.]
[Lucy: Let's not chat casually, let me briefly explain the situation to Mercer... Mercer, what's your view on the company?]
[Mercer: No special view, all ravens under the sky are of one kind.]
[Lucy: What about the current situation?]
[Mercer: Just ask me directly if I want to run away, of course, who would be foolish enough to stay here as mining slaves and expendables?
These idiots don't even give salaries, deceive child labor into selling themselves let alone that, the salary must be automatically handed over to forcibly repaid educational loans, the repay date counted till 22 years old.
Working is impossible, I'll never work again in this life, tell me about your plan.]
[Lucy:... I always thought you were quite aloof.]
[Tamura Anko: +1!]
[Tetsuya Daichi: Mm...]
[Leon: Whoa, wait for me! I need to go to the room for a face-to-face chat!]
[Lucy: Anyway, indeed, we don't want to die here.]
[Lucy: A few days ago it was Tony, last week was Hanako, a month ago was Shadow Bear...
The death rate is increasing, those wandering AIs probably have already discovered a group of kids regularly coming online for mining, start catching people right on schedule, even learned to wait by the tree for a rabbit, hiding traps in the mining data...
I don't want to die, none of us want to die, so... we decided to escape!
Mercer, your strength is very strong, your talent far surpasses ours, if you're willing to join, I believe we can definitely escape!]
[Mercer: What's your plan?]
[Lucy: Right now we've already mastered the list of security personnel and the replacement sequence, and secretly hacked into employee information, we plan to start escaping on Christmas Day.
Because that day has a particularly high number of employees applying for leave, it seems working underground for years has truly worn them out, all wanting to enjoy the holiday.
Also, things outside are chaotic enough that day, I believe many company employees will be on leave that day too, so escape on that day.
The detailed plan... we originally planned to take advantage of the opportunity to dive deep into the old network that day, leveraging our connected servers to launch a massive information strike against them.
But now... if the project changes... I don't know.
If we're really going to face AI... can we still hold out until Christmas Day?
Lucy showed a slightly sad expression, rather than sadness, it's more of fear, Mercer just looking at her face could easily discern the fragility hidden by the girl's efforts.