By the time Lucy brought over the drone, quite a while had already passed, but Brother Ni and the others still hadn’t seen that tall dark figure come out from the entrance.
The optical drone soared into the sky, its specially designed material minimizing rotor resonance, making the lift-off noise difficult to notice even in a busy urban area.
However, the troublesome part was that the Voodoo Gang seemed to have set their base at the center of the building, making it unobservable from the outside.
Lucy dared not let the drone hack into the Voodoo Gang’s network.
The Voodoo Gang had built their own Sea God subnet, spending seventy to eighty percent of their earnings on it, and hacking in alone would be akin to walking into a trap.
They could only keep adjusting the drone’s position, using infrared vision and sound waves to probe and locate the Voodoo Gang.
Before long, a faint audio signal suddenly caught Lucy’s attention.
"I told you, those demons are not to be trusted. They are just like the corporations, full of lies, deceiving us to serve them."
"This time is different... Placid, we have news that Huang Ban’s Ralink2.0 seems to have been successfully tested. We must obtain it."
"It holds Johnny Silverhand’s imprint. As long as we get the imprint, we can find Outkanning..."
"Yes, that infamous demon in the deep web..."
"Huang Ban’s headquarters are in Japan. Are you suggesting we smuggle ourselves there? We can’t find a second Morgan Blackhand, and that’s the headquarters of Huang Ban. Even if Morgan Blackhand were still alive, it would be impossible!"
"Brigitte! Can’t you see the people on the streets? So many can’t afford to eat, yet we keep pouring money into this damn old net! Those monsters can’t save us."
"Enough, Placid. This is the only path we’ve clung to until now. The collapse of the Black Wall is only a matter of time. When that day comes, everyone will perish. Relying on the gods is the only correct decision."
"As long as we become one of them, we will no longer worry about hunger, sickness, or any worldly troubles; they will all be relieved."
The content of the two’s conversation was clear to the ear.
Of course, this was due to the glass vibrating from sound waves, with frequencies converted by coded AI speech.
This technique was the early method used by the KGB to eavesdrop on the United States’ Embassy in the Soviet Union, only revealed after the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
But with the disappearance of the cyber world’s KGB, this technology vanished; whether anyone still knows it now is unknown.
Placid... Brigitte...
These are two names, the equipment can’t distinguish gender, and its relation to that stout black man is also unknown.
But from the content of their argument, it seems there is some ideological dissent between them, and they are high-ranking members of the Voodoo Gang.
Moreover, they mentioned some explosive content.
is a type of artificial chip sold by Huang Ban on the market, capable of extracting deceased individuals’ information, compressing it into a chip.
Once you connect with the chip, you can see the deceased’s image, and they will interact with you in their pre-death speech habits. Other than not existing in reality, it’s no different from being alive.
But it’s extremely expensive, costing over a hundred thousand.
Why is there no news about it on the market?
And what does this have to do with the Voodoo Gang?
Or with Johnny Silverhand?
The more I know, the more questions fill my head.
As for the Black Wall’s collapse and AI invasion, Lucy isn’t that worried.
That’s just the apocalyptic faction’s crazy indulgence. If it were really on the verge of collapse, how could the Voodoo Gang be the first to know?
However, one thing is certain: the Voodoo Gang is indeed trying to contact wandering AIs on the old net, which is absolutely an unacceptable matter.
"Everyone retreat for now and prepare for the next phase of the plan." ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NoveI★Fire.net
She decided to go back and discuss tactics with Lin Miao before deciding whether to act against the Voodoo Gang.
The bar was bustling, with people packed together, like a group of anxious chicks, finding solace only when squeezed in a crowd.
The difference between this place and the agency bar was quite stark. If not for shutting off the sense of smell, one could detect the unbearable mix of perfume and sweat.
Dino’s Electro Climax Bar was an utter mess.
According to Mann’s drunken babble, they came here intending to look for the supposed big boss of the New America’s Intelligence Agency’s lost agents and Potato was scouting around.
Hoping to spot the trail of that purported ace agent among the crowd.
But even up to now, they still had issues discerning foreigners, especially in this dim-light venue, and with many black people, one standing in a corner was practically invisible.
So, to identify a suspicious target, they followed Mann’s advice, walking up to security guards that looked the part, staring into their faces.
Trying to find any trait that seemed agent-like in these people’s faces.
The security, made rather uncomfortable by their staring, was just about to react aggressively when one of the guys shook his head.
"Too dumb, doesn’t look like it."
Damn, where did this lunatic come from?
After questioning a dozen or so, the two eventually found nothing and retreated to the bar entrance.
Big Head: "It’s no good. None of them seem like an agent."
Potato: "I think our method is wrong. Real agents must look ordinary, the kind you can’t spot in a crowd."
Big Head: "You’re right. After all, not everyone can be as elegant, handsome, and effortlessly standing out as I am, like a firefly in the night, so radiant."