Chapter 58 Chapter Four

There is a mindset that people born on Luthers never want to step outside the hive, and that anything more than a shopping mall would instantly make them agoraphobic.But in fact, most of my business comes from...or involves...the outside world: jump-tracking guys who are out of debt, who change identities, use teleporters to escape to distant places, and try to regain their lives. rebirth; or finding out-of-the-way husbands who thought they'd get away with dating on another planet, and that sort of thing.And, of course, the search for missing children and vanishing parents. Through the teletransmitter in the central square of the Iron Pig District, we came to an open and rocky plateau that stretches infinitely. At this moment, I still hesitated in surprise.Behind him is the bronze-colored rectangular portal of the teleporter. Apart from this, there are no other signs of the civilized world.The air was filled with the smell of rotten eggs.Disgusting, dim clouds that turned the entire sky a boiler-like yellow-brown.The surrounding surface is gray and scaly, and there is no life, not even a moss.It is impossible to imagine how far the horizon is, and although it feels high up and has a wide view, there is no sign of trees, shrubs or animals in the distance.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked.I know all the Worlds of the Ring, and I've always been confident that I know all the worlds of the Ring. "Look," Johnny replied, sounding like "The Magic Flute." "I've never heard of this place," I said, with a hand in my pocket, fumbling for the automatic my father had left behind, fumbling for the pearl handle. "This place has not officially joined the ring network," said the cyberman. "From the record, this is the colony of Parvati. But it is only a few light minutes away from the military base. The teleporter here The connection was established long before Modi joined the Protectorate."

I looked at this barren land.The stench of sulfur dioxide was nauseating, and I feared the corrosive gas would ruin my suit. "Colonies? Around here?" "No. On the other side of the planet, there are several small cities." "What's the name of the nearest settlement?" "Nanda Devi. The town has about three hundred people and is two thousand kilometers to the south." "Then why was the portal built here?" "This is a mining site to be developed," Johnny replied.He pointed to the gray plateau, "There are heavy metals there. The alliance approved the construction of a hundred or so teleporters on this side of the planet, so that once mining is started, it will be very convenient to go back and forth."

"Well," I said, "this place is a good place for murder. Why did you come here then?" "I don't know. This part of the memory is lost." "Who's with you?" "I do not know either." "what do you know?" The young man put his elegant hands in his pockets. "Whoever... or whatever is attacking me is using a weapon called HIV Type 2 at the core of technology." "What it is?" "HIV-2 was a pre-pandemic disease of humans," Johnny said, "and it disabled the immune system. This... virus, it's also effective against artificial intelligence. In less than a second, It can infiltrate the security system, reverse the deadly phage program on the main body...on the artificial intelligence itself. On me."

"So, don't you get the virus naturally?" Johnny laughed. "Impossible. It's like asking someone who's been shot by a bullet if he hit the bullet himself." I shrugged. "Listen, if you need a datanet or artificial intelligence expert, you're looking for the wrong person. Like the other 20 billion wooden people, I know how to connect to the datanet, but that's all. No idea." I used the old phrase, to see if it would piss him off. "I know," Johnny said, still looking calm, "that's not what I want you to help." "Then what do you want me to do?"

"Find out who brought me here, who killed me. And his motives." "Okay. So why do you think this is where the murder happened?" "Because this is where I...after copying and reorganizing, regain control of the cyber body." "You're saying that when the virus kills you, your cyber body loses its ability to move, doesn't it?" "right." "How long did that state last?" "My death? About a minute, and then my backup personality was activated." I laughed out loud, I couldn't help it. "What's so funny, Ms. Lamia?"

"Your idea of ​​death," I replied. A trace of sadness flitted through the hazel eyes. "It may be funny to you, but you have absolutely no idea what it means to lose a minute of...connection...to members of the technical core. That's time and information through the ages. Thousands of years of incommunicable dead silence." "Okay," I said without much effort, holding back tears, "so, what is your body, your cyberbody, doing when you switch personality tapes or something?" "I think he's in a coma." "Can't it automatically solve this kind of problem?"

"Well, it could, but not if the system crashes." "Then where did you recover?" "what?" "Where was the cyber body when you reactivated it?" Johnny nodded to show I understood.He pointed to a boulder less than five meters away from the portal. "It's right there." "This end or that end?" "That end." I went over to inspect the scene.No blood.Not marked.No tools of crime were left behind.There were not even any footprints or signs that Johnny's body had been lying there for an infinite minute.The police forensic team might be able to discern traces of tiny microbes left there, but all I could see were hard rocks.

"If your memory is really lost," I said, "how do you know anyone else was here with you?" "I checked the teleporter records." "Didn't you check the name of that mysterious person on the Universal Card payment record?" "We both used my card to transmit," Jonny said. "It's just another person on the record?" "right." I nod.If the Portal is true teleportation, its teleportation records could solve every crime in the networked world.Transmission data records can reproduce transported objects down to the last gram of matter and vesicles, yet the teleporter is just a rough hole cut in space-time by an oriented singularity.If criminals don't want to use their cards, the only data we have is origin and destination.

"Where did you two teleport here?" I asked. "Whale Center." "Do you have a transmission code?" "certainly." "That's enough discussion, let's go and see," I said, "this place stinks." Whale Heart—the Whale Center had this nickname a long time ago, and it was undoubtedly the most densely populated and prosperous planet in the Ring Network.Its five billion people squeezed into less than half of the former earth's land area, and another five hundred million people lived on the ring-shaped ecological circle that revolved around it.As the overlord's capital and seat of the House, Whaleheart is also the economic hub of the entire Ring Network trade.Naturally, the teleport code Jonny found took us to the terminal area, containing six hundred portals, on a vast conical spiral in New London, one of the oldest and largest urban areas.

"Damn it," I said, "let's go get a drink." There are many bars near the terminal area, and I chose a quieter one: a spaceship-style tavern, dimly lit, shady, with a lot of imitation wood and copper decorations.I ordered a beer, I never drink hard liquor or use flashbacks when I'm on a case.At times, I even feel that this need for self-discipline is what drives my work. Johnny also ordered a glass of beer, which was dark in color, brewed in Germany on the bottle, and bottled by Revival Arrow.I suddenly wondered what vices the Cybermen had.I told him: "What else did you find before you came to see me?" The young man spread his hands. "Nothing at all." "Nonsense," I said respectfully, "you really know how to joke. As an artificial intelligence with great powers, don't you even have the ability to track your cyber body... don't you even have the ability to track the activities of the few days before the accident?" Can't find the situation?" "No," Johnny sipped his beer. "Actually, I can too, but there are some important reasons why I don't want other AI companions to know that I'm investigating." "You suspect that one of them did it?" Johnny didn't answer, and he handed over a piece of paper, which listed his payment records using the Universal Card. "The interruption caused by the murder, I lost five standard days of memory. Here is the payment record on the card for those five days." "I remember you saying you only had one minute to be disconnected." Johnny scratched his chin with one hand. "I was pretty lucky and only lost five days' worth of data," he said. I waved to the waiter for another beer. "Listen, Johnny," I said, "whoever you are, we're not going to make a breakthrough on this case unless I know more about you and your situation. I ask you, if Why would anyone want to murder you when they know you'll rebuild yourself, whatever you call it?" "Two possible motives come to mind." Johnny looked over the beer to my side. I followed suit and nodded. "One is causing you to lose your memory, which they've managed to do," I said, "and that also means that whatever they want you to forget must have been something you've noticed in the past week or so thing. What about the second motive?" "Send me a message," Johnny said, "but I don't know what it is or who sent it." "Do you know who is trying to kill you?" "have no idea." "Have you ever guessed who it is?" "No." "Most murderers," I said, "are reckless and impulsive, and they know their victims well, family members, friends, or loved ones. A large percentage of premeditated homicides involve victims. What people around you do." Johnny didn't speak.There was something incredibly attractive about his face—a mixture of masculine strength and feminine sensibility.Maybe it was his eyes. "Do AIs have families?" I asked. "Are there any arguments or feuds? Or quarrels between lovers?" "No," he smiled slightly, "we have family-like ties, but without the sensibilities or demands of responsibility that human families display. AI 'families' are basically practical coding groups for Indicates how certain processing patterns have evolved." "So, don't you think another AI attacked you?" "It's possible," Johnny said, turning his glasses on, "I just can't figure out why they would attack my cyber body." "Isn't that easier?" "Maybe. But it will be more troublesome for the attacker. Attacking on the data plane is the real lethal. And I can't think of any other artificial intelligence with any attack motive. It doesn't make sense at all. I'm sorry There was no threat to anyone." "Johnny, why do you have cyberscript? If I could know your role in life, I might be able to understand motives." He picked up a pretzel and started fiddling with it. "I have a cyborg...I am a cyborg in some ways because my...responsibility...is to observe humans and respond accordingly. In other words, I was once human." I shook my head and frowned.So far, his words sound like fantasy to me. "Have you heard of the Personality Reconstruction Program?" he asked me. "No." "A standard year ago, the Army's simulation network recreated the personality of General Horace Glennon Gao, studying how he became a great general. Remember those news?" "Ok." "How should I put it... I... actually originated from a more complicated reconstruction plan in the early days. My core personality is based on a poet in the old land before the Great Exile. The ancient poet was born at the end of the 18th century in the old calendar .” "How can a person with such a long history be rebuilt?" "Through his writings," replied Johnny, "his letters, his diaries, his critical biographies, and bits and pieces of his friends. But mostly his poems. The simulation reproduces the circumstances of the time, inserting the known elements, and with these creative Look - that's the core of the personality. Of course, it was crude at first, but when I took shape, it was much more refined. The first thing we tried was a 20th-century man named Ezra Pon The poet of Germany. This personality is very opinionated, almost to the point of absurdity, and irrational, paranoid, and a bit abnormal. It took us a whole year to find out that it was not the reconstruction of the personality that was inaccurate, but that the person A madman. A mad genius." "And then?" I asked, "They built your personality out of a dead poet, so what's next?" "This reconstructed personality becomes a template on which my artificial intelligence grows," Jonny replied to me, "and the cyber identity allows me to perform my duties in the data plane society." "As a poet?" Johnny laughed again. "A poem, exactly," he said. "A poem?" "A work in progress...but not a human concept, or a puzzle. A variable puzzle that occasionally offers unusual insights into more serious issues." "I still don't understand," I said. "That's fine. I doubt very much that the...purpose of my existence...was really the reason for the attack." "Then what do you think is the reason?" "I have no idea." I feel like I've come full circle and come back to where I started. "Okay," I said, "I'm going to look into what you did and who you were with during those five days. Do you have any leads other than that credit history?" Johnny shook his head. "Do you know why I must know the identity and motives of the attacker?" "Of course," I replied, "they might try again." "exactly." "How can I contact you if necessary?" Jonny handed me an access chip. "Safety line?" I asked. "very safe." "Okay," I said, "I'll let you know as soon as I have news." We left the bar and walked towards the terminal area.When I was about to leave, I caught up with him in three steps at a time and grabbed his arm.This is the first time I touch his body. "Johnny, what do they call that reborn old land poet..." "It's rebuilding." "Oh, never mind that. I want to ask you, who was the predecessor of that intelligent personality?" The handsome cyborg hesitated for a moment.I noticed that his eyelashes are very long. "What's the big deal?" he asked. "Who knows what's important?" He nodded as a default. "Keats," he said, "born 1795 A.D. Died tuberculosis 1821. John Keats." Tracking someone through a series of different teleporters is an almost impossible task, especially if you don't want to be spotted yet.The Ring Police could do it, if only fifty or so men did it together, equipped with all those bizarre and damn expensive high-tech toys, and that's not counting the great cooperation of the Transit Authority.For someone like me who works alone, this is basically an impossible task. Still, it is important to observe where this new customer is headed. Johnny walked across the terminal square without looking back.I walked over to a nearby newsstand and stared at the display of the portable imager: he typed a bunch of codes on a pocket touch display, inserted his World Card, and walked through the glowing rectangular portal. Using a pocket touch display, it should mean that he went to some kind of universal portal, because the private transmitter code is usually printed on a chip that is only visible to the naked eye.awesome.In this way, I narrowed down his destination to about 2 million portals, and the possible locations are about 150 ring worlds and 70 or 80 satellites. I pulled out the red "lining" of the jacket with one hand, and at the same time pressed the playback button on the imager, looking at the magnified touch-display serial number through the eyepiece.I pulled out a red hat that matched my current red jacket and pulled the brim low over most of my face; bit transfer code.I know that the first three digits represent the planet Xishuangbanna in Qingdao, and I have already memorized all the planet prefixes by heart.Then, the query result told me that the transmission code points to Wangxie City on this planet, the residential area of ​​immigrants during the first expansion period. I hurried into the first open teleportation room and exited through another portal.I am now in a small terminal plaza with a brick surface that has worn away over the years.The ancient oriental-style small shops have double eaves, and the eaves of the pagoda-shaped roof hang down the narrow street.People crowded in the square, and some stood at the door. Although most of them were descendants of the exiles who settled in Qingxi, there were still many people from other worlds.The air smells of exotic plants, sewers, and fragrant rice. "Damn it." I cursed softly.All three nearby portals are idle.Johnny could lose the communication room to another place at any time. But instead of going back to Luthers, I spent a few minutes observing the situation on both sides of the square and the street.That's when the melanin pills I swallowed kicked in, and I'd transformed into a young black woman—or maybe a man, because it was hard to tell the gender in a stylish red puff jacket and polarizing goggles.I took pictures with the tour imager as I wandered around. In Jonny's second German beer, I put a dissolving tracking pellet, and now it's finally coming in handy.The UV-sensitive spores are now floating in the air, and I can follow the trail of his breath almost exactly.However, on a gray wall, I found a bright yellow handprint (of course, this bright yellow can only be seen with my special see-through lens, it is invisible under the ultraviolet spectrum), and I sucked it along the market stalls. Clothes full of tracer began to track along the blurred marks left on the stone wall. Johnny was eating at a Cantonese restaurant two blocks from the Terminal Plaza.The aroma of fried food was mouth-watering, but I resisted the urge to go in—I wandered the bookstores in the alleys, haggling in the free market, and stayed there for almost an hour until he finished eating and returned to the square, The transmission leaves.This time he produced a code chip for a private portal, apparently destined for a private residence—so I tried my luck a second time and used a mackerel card to track him.The reason why I say the second luck is because this card is completely illegal. If it is exposed, I will even have my detective license revoked. Of course, this possibility is not very big. As long as I use the forest daddy at the same time, it will be expensive. But also a super-perfect shapeshifting chip; two that I'd probably be teleported directly into Johnny's living room...both of which can be too embarrassing to say.Good thing it wasn't his living room.Before I saw the street sign, the familiar feeling of supergravity hit, the dim light of the copper and palladium watch, the smell of motor oil and ozone in the air, all said with certainty: I have returned to Luthers. The destination of Johnny's transmission is a medium-security private residential tower located in the Bergson hive area.Perhaps this also explains why he chose my firm - we are almost neighbors, less than 600 kilometers apart. My cyber client has disappeared from view.I try to put on a purposeful look so as not to trigger the security cameras that monitor people loitering.There is no resident register, and there is no house number or name at the door of the apartment, and no directory can be found in the communication log—there are about 20,000 identical resident huts in the eastern area of ​​Bergson's Hive. As the fog of spores dissipated, the trail faded, but I had just checked the two star-shaped corridors when I found another trace.Johnny lives on a lawn flanking a methane lake, a handprint glowing on his palm lock.I recorded the lock information with the snitch tool and sent it home. All in all, I've watched this client go to a Chinese restaurant and watch him come home in the evening.That's enough progress for a day's time.