Chapter 46 Deep Dive into AI Research

"Are you sure? You've been running around all day... How about we leave it for tomorrow morning?"

Standing beside the brand-new cyberdeck chair, Lucy looked at Mercer with a hint of concern.

At this moment, Mercer had already changed into a brand-new netrunner suit, excitedly using his new laptop to check the programs on the cyberdeck chair.

"Lucy, don't you even want to deep dive and take a look at Night City's net?"

The expression on Mercer's face was as pure as a child who had just received a new toy.

Lucy opened her mouth as if to say something, but stopped herself. In the end, she simply said, "Well then, I'm sleeping in your room tonight to keep an eye on you. You're probably going to be stuck in that chair all night anyway."

Deep diving was a dangerous business. Once fully deep-sived, a netrunner would almost entirely lose perception of the real world.

Furthermore, if danger arose, someone needed to be there to pull the plug for them. Otherwise, if they didn't log out in time, their brain would likely get fried right there in the chair before they could escape.

An emergency disconnect still carried risks, but deep diving was different from uploading one's consciousness into the cyber world; as long as the connection to the cyberdeck chair was severed, at worst, only the chair itself would get fried.

Many netrunners often didn't actually die inside cyberspace.

Instead, after being attacked in cyberspace, their brains suffered an impact and fell into a coma. Even though the cyberdeck chair had automatically disconnected for protection, because no one noticed anything was wrong and no one could give them first aid, they could only wait for brain death to claim them.

"Uh... alright, then."

Mercer thought about it and didn't refuse. The cyberdeck chair was quite comfortable to lie in anyway—definitely much better than that crappy mattress the Aldecaldos had set up in the tent.

He ran through the programs one last time, clearing out the backdoor programs left behind by Ziggurat.

"These mega-corps really never change their spots. It's one thing for computers to have backdoors, but the cyberdeck chairs have them too, and they even secretly hid backdoors in the netrunner suits and cooling systems..."

Mercer complained, sharing the programs he had dug up with Lucy:

"Look at this—network IP tracking, information logging, and they even brazenly write in the user agreement that they collect customer data, and you can't use it if you don't agree.

Once you scrub the backdoors, even the warranty is void. Absolute parasites, always trying to find ten thousand ways to crawl inside your brain."

Lucy just smiled, half-leaning against the mattress as she watched him fiddle with everything: "Yet they still can't escape your eyes."

"Obviously. No matter how fierce their programmers are, they ain't fiercer than yours truly."

Mercer said with a smile, then looked at her apologetically: "However, your new netrunner gear will have to wait a little while. This stuff is way more expensive than I thought."

"It's fine, I don't feel like deep diving anytime soon anyway... Don't you have any psychological trauma from this?"

Lucy sighed. To be honest, she still shuddered just looking at a cyberdeck chair: "I think just buying me a deep dive tub would be fine, the kind filled with ice cubes... Maybe that would make me feel better."

Mercer just looked at her with a smile: "Then you'd have to strip naked to get in—don't forget we'll still be living together afterwards."

"...You don't seriously think I'd care about something like that, do you?" Lucy looked extremely calm, though the tips of her ears were slightly red.

She genuinely hadn't thought that far ahead.

"Those cheap tubs filled with ice cubes are utterly useless except for being cheap. If a cyberdeck chair won't do, there are still high-end immersion pods. Even though they look like oversized refrigerators, they're still better than lying in ice water."

Mercer spoke, but didn't push the matter, merely saying: "It's fine, Lucy. Until you're ready, I won't agree to you deep diving, even if you want to.

Today's cyberspace is a stage belonging solely to geniuses. Not to mention organizations like NetWatch monitoring Night City's network 24 hours a day, every major corporation has people watching the net as well.

And then there are idiots like the Voodoo Boys, who love waiting in Night City's net for newcomers to show up and run cyber-extortion scams.

Oh, and even New America. Trust me, even though the FIA officially pulled out of Night City, someone is definitely keeping an eye on Night City's net."

At the mention of this, Mercer thought of a woman.

Songbird.

The favorite underling of New America's new President Myers, an exceptionally gifted genius netrunner, and also a pathetic bird trapped in a cage.

Right now, she was probably still in the early stages of being converted into a cyber-nuclear weapon, and he wondered if the person in charge of monitoring Night City's network for the FIA would happen to be her.

A sudden flash of excitement crossed Mercer's eyes—if it was her... he was genuinely curious whether he or the top netrunner under the current President of New America was stronger.

Having tidied up the cyberdeck chair and checked all the hardware and software, Mercer hurriedly lay down on it.

"Lucy, plug me in."

Lucy could only sigh, picking up the cooling lines first to plug them in, connecting the cyberdeck chair and the netrunner suit, and then plugging the data cable from the back of the cyberdeck chair directly into the port at the back of his head.

Mercer immediately took a comfortable, deep breath: "Feels so good to have processing power supporting me again... Feels like my brain is finally relaxed."

"You're the type who's a textbook internet addict..." Lucy said, exasperated: "Don't go turning into one of those freaks who get so addicted they lie in the chair 24 hours a day."

"You don't understand the feeling of a genius like me... It's like taking off a heavy winter coat from your brain. Right now, my mind feels active to the extreme, like swimming in a sea of network data."

Mercer looked intoxicated.

Lucy's attitude remained indifferent: "Oh, really? Your body temperature went up by a whole degree the second you plugged in... Be careful not to fry your brain again; there's no telling if that Relic chip is even reliable."

"Right, remember to recover all those chips from Da Di and the others, and those two Relic chips containing the Soulkiller program must be kept hidden on you at all times.

The potential of this chip is huge. Once I figure it out later, there might be other brilliant uses for it... Exposing this thing would carry huge risks."

Mercer said, pausing for a moment before continuing: "I plan to take back Da Di and Leon's chips and give them to the new recruits joining the team later.

The Relic chip isn't just for hardware repair; the hardware itself has massive memory, and it even comes with a very advanced micro-CPU to keep the programs inside running.

If I modify it just a bit, it'll be a top-tier ICE plug-in, and it won't fry their brains either.

Plus, the biggest advantage of this chip is data sharing... Through the networking chip, I can use your eyes to look at the world and feel everything you feel.

Of course, it's mainly to provide assistance. I can establish a network connection with you through the Relic chip; this is way more stable than an ordinary network connection, and the Relic chip can also..."

Seeing Mercer start rambling about chips again, Lucy sighed: "Too complicated, don't want to hear it. So, are you deep diving or not?"

"Diving." Mercer curled his lip. "Suit yourself, I wouldn't normally tell just anyone these secrets anyway."

Lucy twitched the corner of her mouth, watching him close his eyes before the indicator light on the cyberdeck chair lit up.

She gently patted Mercer's arm: "Mercer? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah... but once I get busy, that might change. You'd better communicate with me online."

Mercer spoke vaguely, sounding entirely like someone talking in his sleep.

Lucy set her mind at ease; it seemed the deep dive was going smoothly.

She stopped talking to Mercer and instead lay quietly on the bed, holding her own laptop and browsing web pages.

The room was left with only the humming sound of the cooling fan, but Lucy didn't find it noisy; she simply enjoyed the quietness of the moment, only glancing occasionally at the cyberdeck chair's operation panel.

Meanwhile, Mercer was already excitedly roaming wild in Night City's network.

...

This was a metropolis made entirely of blue data.

At this moment, Mercer had changed into an outfit similar to Alex Mercer, the protagonist of Prototype, and was wearing the 'Legion' smiling mask from the game *Dead by Daylight*, strolling leisurely among this metropolis composed of data.

Every single data-constructed building was essentially a server network of varying sizes; some looked like towering skyscrapers, while others resembled clusters of square data blocks.

Mercer walked freely among them, while 'Wish of Death', which he hadn't let out for a long time, still maintained the appearance of a hairless cat, sitting obediently on his shoulder.

Because the Wish of Death program required massive computing power to run, even just keeping it active was a burden on Mercer's brain processing power, so he usually defaulted to keeping the program closed.

Only when connected to the cyberdeck chair did he have sufficient extra computing power to spare for the AI—and he actually preferred it that way.

To let an AI program he didn't fully understand run on his own brain's computing power—to be honest, he lacked a sense of security.

"Let me see...

This is Biotechnica's server, and this one with the New American flag is... yep, Militech's for sure.

This one's Ziggurat? Oh, wow, Kang Tao's server exterior is quite distinctive, guarded by a pair of stone lions at the entrance... Ha."

Mercer strolled through the network data all carefree and casual, critiquing one dazzling, massive data entity after another.

These seemingly massive data entities often weren't even the true appearance of the other party's servers, but rather a disguise; the core data of the real servers was buried deep within this complex web of data.

Some of this data was generated when employees connected to the internet, some were decoys deployed by ICE programs, and some symbolized a corporation's external network data.

Things like official website data—these intricate pieces of data were all combined into an abstract form.

Mercer didn't want to approach them rashly either; he was simply analyzing the other party's structure and server ICE architecture from a data perspective.

And usually, only the data entities of mega-corps had beautiful exteriors—meaning netrunners had deliberately tweaked them to showcase the corporation's power in cyberspace.

Other miscellaneous data entities, such as the servers of certain bars or hotels, as long as they were connected to the public network, generally looked like rough shapes pieced together from cubes of various data.

Mercer took a stroll around and even spotted a few netrunners active in cyberspace.

These netrunners were generally extremely cautious; the moment they saw Mercer's unfamiliar face, they immediately jumped IPs and fled instead of choosing to make contact.

The reason was simple: Mercer's appearance looked far too 'anthropomorphic'.

In cyberspace, the more details you displayed, the more it proved your abundant processing power and the more data your brain could manipulate.

And Mercer not only wore clearly detailed clothing and a somewhat terrifying smiling mask, but he also carried a cat on his shoulder that looked extremely 'smart'...

Compared to that bunch of netrunners who sometimes only appeared as mosaic humanoids made of data clusters, Mercer's entire outfit was practically shouting to everyone in broad daylight: This guy is strong.

Mercer wasn't in a hurry to deal with these small-fry either. While 'sightseeing' in the cyber world, he was also running his brain at high speed, attempting to analyze the composition of this data.

When he had had enough fun, he jumped to a server node and hacked straight into it—only after getting inside did he realize this was the server of a black-market doll shop.

Mercer didn't mind, though; he was just borrowing the server's computing power to test his program, and incidentally using this computer as his "bot," a staging springboard.

When anyone traced his data source, they would only find this server's IP first, and that was enough.

Mercer began borrowing the doll shop's server to study Wish of Death.

Testing and observing the data changes of Wish of Death during an attack, the operation of its core code, and observing the AI's operational methods, and so on.

The more Mercer studied it, the more he felt that the Wish of Death program possessed terrifying strength.

Bartmoss was truly a genius.

Despite the program's tiny footprint, Wish of Death's codebase contained the core code of dozens of different types of programs. Rather than calling it a single program, it was more like an arsenal built from core code.

And the AI within it was the core that wielded these weapons—the AI would assess the opponent's form and then freely and instantly construct a corresponding counter-program using specific core code.

Then, in a timeframe measured in milliseconds, it would continuously generate new programs from the core code based on the enemy's weaknesses, using these 'customized weapons' to ruthlessly tear apart all of the opponent's defenses.

It was no wonder Bartmoss said this cat would be his best teacher. These core codes of varied uses completely encompassed every method a netrunner could possibly need.

Including how to infiltrate server-level ICE without being detected, how to silently tamper with data inside the opponent's server, how to find program vulnerabilities...

Every piece of core code actually represented a solution provided by Bartmoss.

Even Mercer couldn't help but feel the pressure.

With so many weapons, even if he wanted to fully comprehend them all, the time required would probably have to be calculated in years.

Because this wasn't just learning the program; it was also about learning Bartmoss's mindset and his compilation methods.

How did he create such exquisite core code? Why could this piece of core code be shaped to be both so minimalist yet powerful? What was his programming mindset?

Or rather, what was his compilation method and programming language?

Bartmoss had his own unique way of programming. Within those bizarre and beautiful data entities, the compilation methods of countless codes had never even appeared in textbooks, practically amounting to an independently invented programming language.

This made the programs he wrote extremely difficult for ordinary netrunners even just to understand what the code was, and even for Mercer, reading it was intensely arduous and extremely difficult to learn.

Mercer was like someone who had been handed a blade; he could only see the blade's external shape and barely comprehend some of its composition.

Yet he still had a very long way of diligent study ahead of him before he could forge blades himself, let alone craft an even stronger new weapon using different materials.

As for the AI...

The more Mercer pondered the AI code of Wish of Death, the more he felt—was this thing... really something a human could write?