"The situation isn't optimistic. His neural pathways are severely burned," a weary female voice spoke nearby.
"Just give me the results," a cold male voice replied with slight impatience.
"Well... the result is that even if he wakes up, there's a significant chance he'll become an idiot. If not that, then he'll very likely have memory loss.
His neural pathways have been corroded to an extremely fragile state—so fragile that even a simple network fluctuation might make it impossible for him to stand upright." The woman sighed at the end.
"Got it... Is the technical department's assessment ready? Was it an AI or the Blackwall?" The man turned to speak to someone else.
"Can't determine, but most likely an AI. If it were the Blackwall, it wouldn't have been so gentle as to only fry one person's brain," another cold female voice responded.
"When he wakes up, run tests and evaluations. If he's useless, follow protocol. I'm going to a meeting first."
"Understood."
Footsteps gradually faded away. With two clicking sounds of automatic doors opening and closing, the room became quiet again, leaving only some unknown device beeping every ten seconds or so.
Mercer tried hard to open his eyes wide, but no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't see anything before him.
He attempted to move his arms, but it felt as if his arms had disappeared—only his body kept twisting.
"Click."
The door opened again.
"Don't move." A calm female voice spoke: "Listen, you'll find that you can't see anything right now, can't move your arms, feel dizzy, nauseous, and want to vomit. This is all normal because most of your cyberware has been removed."
"As for not being able to see, it's because your optics have been forcibly shut down. We'll address that after recalibrating them in a moment."
"Next, I'll activate your optics first. Try to stay emotionally calm."
Mercer could only make a muffled sound of acknowledgment.
He heard the sound of tapping on a screen nearby. Soon after, his vision suddenly brightened.
[Arasaka Seed.3 Optics rebooting...]
[Recalibrating...]
"Just like when you first got your optics installed—breathe deeply. The blurriness will disappear soon."
Mercer did as instructed. After about ten seconds, the nearsighted-like view before him became clear again.
He looked around and saw only a woman in a white coat staring at data on several display screens nearby. The surrounding lights were bright, making it look like a clean operating room.
Well... in the cyber world, operating rooms were generally just a bed, a doctor, and a bunch of equipment.
Mercer looked down at himself—fortunately, both hands were still there. The reason he couldn't move them was probably just that the neural links had been shut off.
At this moment, he could see that the forearm positions of both arms had many interfaces connecting to cyberware components that had been cut open with surgical knives, exposing flesh and partial mechanical structures, all secured with cold restraints.
"Good, the optics matching data is stable. Looks like you're not completely useless yet."
The female doctor sounded relieved: "Now stay conscious. We need to gradually test your current cyberware capacity limit. If you feel headaches, nausea, or mental abnormalities at any point, speak up immediately."
"Okay..." Mercer could only agree. The stabbing pain in his head had become much milder, but it still came in sharp waves like cramps, making his body shudder involuntarily.
"Do you understand your current situation?"
The doctor tapped around on the screen with her finger. From Mercer's angle, he could only see her face—a typical middle-aged Asian woman's features, but very well-maintained and elegant in bearing.
"I heard a bit of it."
After speaking, Mercer couldn't help but ask: "What does 'follow protocol' mean? Termination?"
"Most likely." The doctor turned around expressionlessly, staring at his face: "If I were you, I'd think about how to report this incident to the company before worrying about termination.
This is the first time we've had a rogue AI breach our servers. All training facility operations have been suspended, and the supervisor is already being held accountable.
The severity of this accident is beyond your imagination. Worst case scenario... project termination, mass layoffs, transfers, and as the direct cause of the accident, termination might be the best outcome you can hope for."
All Mercer could do was twitch the corner of his mouth slightly—truly worthy of Arasaka, or rather, truly worthy of a corporation in the Cyberpunk world.
Using ignorant children to mine the Old Net where they could be attacked by AIs at any moment, then making these kids who knew nothing and were forced to mine take the blame when accidents happened.
After thinking for a moment, Mercer immediately recognized the severity of this situation.
No matter what, he couldn't let them pin this on him. Otherwise, having lost his utility value, he might immediately be eliminated by Arasaka operatives for damaging company interests.
"It wasn't my fault."
Mercer immediately gave his answer: "It was Tony's problem."
Tony was the young boy hacker who had been sitting next to him when he woke up, dead in his hacker chair with his brain fried.
Although he hadn't had time to carefully digest the additional 'Mercer' memories in his mind, at this moment, the original Mercer's memories were like retrievable data, completely at his disposal.
Just a thought could extract relevant knowledge and concepts.
"Tony and I were mining data in the same area when a tall, red female AI appeared. Her characteristics matched those of an extremely dangerous AI mentioned in company tutorials... Alt, Alt Cunningham."
Mercer began, and the lies that followed flowed as smoothly as water: "Tony was directly breached through his ICE (personal firewall) just from Alt's simple touch.
The moment I saw Alt, I began preparing to log off. Following company protocol, I timely returned to the other side of the Blackwall and completed logout, but Alt had already discovered me and launched an attack to penetrate the Blackwall.
Fortunately, the Blackwall functioned properly and didn't allow Alt to successfully cross over and attack me directly, but even so, the overflow data stream nearly killed me."
"Very nice explanation. If I were you, I might add that the company's firewall didn't work either. Unfortunately, I'm just a doctor, so your explanation is useless to me."
After speaking, the woman turned back to tap on the screen: "Very good, your thinking is clear, and your memory doesn't seem to have major problems... Any other special circumstances you need to tell me about?"
"...None discovered so far," Mercer said.
"Then that's it for now. Your brainwave data shows significant enhancement. Rest for a day, observe your neural condition, then we'll gradually restore your cyberware and test whether you can still function as a hacker."
After speaking, the woman looked at his body: "I'll help you reinstall your hand cyberware first to see how you're doing. If any abnormalities occur, call me immediately...
I'm sending you the contact information. If neural interface abnormalities prevent normal calling, press the red button by the bed."
An avatar popped up before Mercer's eyes—like an interface for adding friends in a chat app.
Oda Junko, the doctor's name.
After saving it to his contacts, Mercer watched as Oda Junko raised her hands. Her arms normally looked ordinary, but now they suddenly began transforming.
One finger on her right hand morphed into a syringe shape, while her left hand picked up a vial and loaded it.
"Alright, get some sleep. When you wake up, your hands will be back on."
Mercer couldn't refuse and could only watch as she injected the medication into his neck. Within just ten seconds, he lost consciousness.
When he regained consciousness, his previously numb hands had returned.
[Data linked.]
[Arasaka biological monitoring system evaluating...]
[Arasaka monomolecular wire (Corporate V2.03) connected.]
[Hand data connection circuits normal.]
Mercer blinked and looked around. The cold operating room now contained only him.
Finally able to think quietly alone, Mercer let out a long breath, then wearily managed to sit up, only to realize his entire body ached with phantom pains.
But surprisingly, the physical pain didn't feel particularly unbearable, and his throbbing brain didn't affect his rapid thinking. In fact, he felt like he'd become smarter.
This wasn't just an illusion.
Just like now—with a single thought, the memories belonging to 'Mercer' began rapidly 'flowing' through his mind.
Like watching a movie at ten times, even a hundred times normal speed!
Memories of writing his first hacker puppet virus online at age six... memories of being scolded by his adoptive mother...
When Arasaka came offering 'elite education,' the ecstatic expression on his adoptive father's face when he saw the amount written on the contract...
Memories of classes at Arasaka...
Mercer's life was being rapidly absorbed this way. Not just those memories, but also the hacking knowledge, cyberware knowledge, and social common sense that 'Mercer' had spent years learning at Arasaka—all being quickly absorbed.
It was hard to imagine that just hours ago he'd been an ordinary office worker playing games at his computer, and now, lying in bed, he'd completely digested all the knowledge and memories of a genius hacker in just over ten minutes.
Without exaggeration, the current Mercer, in terms of hacking skills alone, was even stronger than the original Mercer—much stronger!
Mercer gently rubbed his temples—his rapidly operating brain was violently taxing his currently fragile neural pathways.
After finishing his excavation of 'Mercer's' memories, he decided to temporarily think about some relatively lighter issues to relax his brain.
Such as...
The voices he'd heard before losing consciousness.
He didn't think those were hallucinations.
'Code name: FF:06:B5 operation successful.'
'Operation code name: Ragnarök.'
What were these two operation codes? Where did the voices in his head come from?
His now much more intelligent brain had already conceived some theories.
First, regarding the meaning of the FF06B5 code, Mercer temporarily had no reasonable explanation. Based on the knowledge in his mind, if interpreted using hexadecimal color codes, it would mean the special color 'magenta.'
Code name: Magenta?
What a strange code name.
Unable to figure it out for now, Mercer simply thought about the second code name.
Ragnarök.
The automatic translation software in his brain had already translated it into readable text.
Twilight of the Gods.
Ha, that code name sounded rather frightening.
Mercer sighed. The two code names and those voices that had appeared in his head were most likely related to rogue AIs in the network. With just this information, he couldn't deduce anything.
But undoubtedly, his transmigration, including his current miraculous, rapidly operating brain, were probably inseparable from rogue AIs. To learn the truth, what he needed to do would certainly involve these mysterious rogue AIs.
However, the troubling thing was—there wasn't just one or two AIs in the Old Net.
But dozens, even hundreds.
In other words, if he foolishly dove into cyberspace looking for answers, encountering those awesome AIs that sent him here might be fine, but if he met unfamiliar AIs... he'd very likely end up like poor Tony with his brain fried.
Humans facing AIs in the network world was like sending a baby to fight an adult in a tank—the opponent might not even know what they'd crushed.
So, before becoming sufficiently powerful—at least having enough self-preservation ability—even if he deep-dived into cyberspace, Mercer would never try to cross the Blackwall to the Old Net and face AIs directly.
Mercer shook his head, temporarily setting aside these questions of 'where did I come from' and 'where am I going.'
Compared to these, the bigger problem currently facing him was... staying alive.
At least, surviving the accountability for this accident and avoiding being scapegoated.
After that, he'd need to consider how to escape this Arasaka 'hacker training facility.'
Staying was impossible. This idiotic Arasaka project completely treated him and the other poor children as expendable materials, throwing them into the Old Net to mine data? Damn, even the Voodoo Boys wouldn't do something so brain-dead.
If Mercer remembered correctly, according to the memories of the female protagonist Lucy in the Cyberpunk anime Edgerunners, only one hacker from this entire batch survived in the end—Lucy herself.
The rest of the young hackers either died in rogue AI attacks while mining data or died while fleeing from Arasaka.
But this also fully demonstrated one thing—escape was entirely possible!
But before that...
"Click."
The automatic door opened.
A girl hesitantly walked in.
It wasn't Lucy as Mercer had expected, but a cute little girl with red twin ponytails.
"...Kyoko?"
Mercer's mind immediately produced the girl's name.
Nishimura Kyoko.
From Osaka, sent here two years ago—a genius hacker girl.
Currently only eleven years old, she was the youngest in the hacker training facility.
Hearing his call, the girl just nervously stared at his expression. Seeing his somewhat puzzled look, she didn't respond.
She just hesitantly stepped forward, slowly walking to his side, her eyes flickering with faint golden light—clearly scanning something.
She approached Mercer's bedside and, after a moment of silence, asked seemingly casually: "Mercer... are you okay?"
"Me? I'm still alive for now," Mercer looked at the little girl's expression thoughtfully.
"Um..." She spoke in Japanese, which Mercer could fully understand without an automatic translator, since he'd been required to learn Japanese during training—it was Arasaka Corporation's 'native language,' a mandatory subject for students like him.
In Arasaka's hacker training facility, most hackers were Japanese or of Japanese mixed heritage, with very few from other ethnicities. This was because all selected hackers were orphans.
And Arasaka's so-called orphanages were mostly established in Japan proper, so naturally, most of these young hackers came from Japan.
Mercer himself was also mixed race, though he didn't know what with. From the memories, the original Mercer was also an orphan who had already been adopted by his foster parents when he first had memories.
Unfortunately, these foster parents weren't good people. When young Mercer showed talent for network technology, Arasaka investigators came calling and bought his life for just fifty thousand euros.
Judging by his features, his primary ancestry should be Asian.
Nishimura Kyoko stared at Mercer's face, seemingly trying to see something in him, but eventually she just whispered: "If you need help, please, please be sure to contact me."
"We're... we're still friends, right?"
She said quietly.
Mercer just calmly watched her, and after a while, smiled: "Yes, we're friends."
Nishimura Kyoko seemed relieved. Then, after her eyes flickered with light again as she scanned the surroundings, she said carefully:
"When you're discharged, let's chat together. Me, and Lucy, and Daichi-kun and Leon—just us few for now... do you want to come? It's just a... um, small gathering."
"Mm." Mercer nodded, then narrowed his eyes and said meaningfully: "If I can make it back alive afterward...
With a suspected rogue AI attack on the servers, I'm not sure about my future situation. Termination? Transfer? Or something more troublesome."
He sighed, then said: "Anyway, now isn't a good time for gatherings. The company will definitely investigate strictly recently."
Nishimura Kyoko's eyes widened slightly—she hadn't even said what it was about yet!
"I understand! I'll tell them! Then, Mercer, rest well!" She immediately turned to leave, but then couldn't help turning back to look at Mercer. After a while, she suddenly said: "Mercer... I... I actually saw it."
"Any-anyway... I believe you!" She looked like she regretted saying that as soon as she finished, so she hurriedly added this sentence before fleeing like she was escaping.
Saw it?
Mercer narrowed his eyes.
Saw what?
In just a second, a bold theory popped into his mind.
Could it be... she... saw those AIs?!