Once it grows, this growth in algorithms and intelligence is permanent... a truly terrifying trait.
Hmm, Mercer squinted his eyes, deepening his understanding of AI further.
The aggression and autonomy that the Desire for Death demonstrated just now are also quite concerning—does it stem from its self-growth and from growth via aggressive assimilation?
Or is it because it devoured the Guardian AI?
Or is it a characteristic of the program itself?
It warrants further study.
But now is not a good time for research.
Mercer closed his eyes, and in the next moment, his vision connected to the surveillance system of the entire Arasaka facility.
...
"Mercer won't run into any problems, right?" In the monitoring room on level B1, Kyoko anxiously watched as Lucy connected a laptop with a data cable, countless streams of data flashing rapidly on the laptop.
"I don't know, I'm trying to restore the network... Network connection restored! Mercer, is that you?"
Lucy keenly noticed that the server had stabilized, and that the monitoring permissions had changed.
"It's me, proceed with the next action, you all head to the medical room. I've lifted the permissions for all rooms, and now, I'll clear the obstacles for you.
Lucy, well done, the guys on the first floor haven't even noticed the network permissions have changed."
Mercer's calm voice allowed Lucy to breathe a sigh of relief. She immediately unplugged the cable from the laptop: "Understood, Kyoko, Leon, head to the medical room.
Tetsuya Daichi's voice also came through the channel: "Understood, leaving it to you, Mercer."
"Take the Relic Chip and the refrigerated box and leave, the supplies and what I need are not in the basement, but in the first-floor warehouse.
I'll mark the path in your prosthetic eyes, and once you get in the elevator, split into two teams.
Daichi and Leon go to the first-floor warehouse to collect the supplies I've marked.
Lucy and Kyoko take the refrigerated box and quickly board the hovercar, don't worry about the robots and turrets, they're ours now.
After resolving the hovercar's permissions, I'll meet up with you.
Move quickly; once the fighting starts, it'll be impossible to cover up. We estimate only five minutes of safe operation time on the first floor."
"Roger!"
The channel resounded with a unified response.
Mercer quickly took over the surveillance of the entire building—with the server's support, every floor's surveillance was within his grasp.
He even saw several hacker corpses, these were hackers from other floors connected to the server.
They perished in the first moments of the Desire for Death's attack amidst the clash of the two AIs, not because they were inexperienced, but because Bartmos' program was simply too powerful.
It took less than half a second to penetrate these hackers' personal ICE shields without AI protection; they had no time to unplug, only enough time to let out a few screams, before their brains were fried.
At this moment, though, some had found the bodies and were beginning to prepare reports.
However, due to the temporary network disruption caused by the previous server battle, the manually activated alarm system had also been cut off by Lucy.
They had resorted to relying on humans to relay the information by running, or were desperately trying to reboot the system and trigger the alarms...
But all this became meaningless in Mercer's eyes.
Because the network had reconnected to them.
[Desire for Death, help me eliminate their personal ICE.]
Through his assault on the server, Mercer had preliminarily grasped the capabilities and methods of the Desire for Death.
This AI, now returned to a low level of intelligence but with calculation power enhancement, took merely a blink to breach the personal ICE worn by those Agent Arasaka operatives under their horrified gazes.
[Transmission of Sorcery Puppet·Body Failure successful.]
[Transmission of Sorcery Puppet·Memory Erasure successful.]
[Transmission of Sorcery Puppet·Synaptic Fusion successful.]
Then, three virus programs penetrated into their unprotected brains.
First, using body failure to incapacitate the target's mobility.
Then memory erasure wiped out their short-term memory and data, making them appear as if suddenly awakening in a stupor.
This was to prevent anyone from extracting data related to the Desire for Death later; lastly, synaptic fusion, directly frying their brains into a computer mess.
Thus, besides a few employees awakened by the commotion, the vast majority remained deeply asleep.
And any awakened employee attempting to check the situation would encounter everything the previous operatives did, getting their brains fried and collapsing onto the ground.
Mercer couldn't afford to show mercy; if the alarm were triggered earlier and anyone managed to send out information somehow, their escape would become incredibly perilous.
Once all potential warning targets and discoveries were dealt with, Mercer, expressionless, simultaneously monitored hundreds of surveillance screens in Cyberspace—an operation of unimaginable difficulty!
Even with computing power enhancements, he still used his brain to observe this data and those screens.
This is exactly why Arasaka needed a hacker every couple of floors sitting in surveillance rooms directly connected to the server to perform human oversight.
Because it's impossible for a single hacker to control and monitor the protection of all devices in such a large facility.
Mercer only felt a vague heat in his head, the neural link at the back of his neck connecting to the server-grade cooling, continuously lowering the temperature of his head through flowing coolant.