Stars, Players and Immortals

Chapter 31: Wetware Networks and the Black Wall Project

Tharsis Plateau, the sixth base of the Covenant Army's homeland SA Aerospace Forces.

This is home to a standard-organized second-generation SA test squadron, which consists of three formal squads and one reserve squad, totaling sixteen SA units. In addition to unit debugging, tactical simulations, and close-range training, the squadron is also responsible for some new unit testing and firepower verification tasks.

Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's office was on the third floor of the gray-white command building at the very back of the military camp.

It was late at night, and the light from outside the window slanted in, dividing the documents and machine parameter reports on the table into several distinct sections of light and shadow.

The lieutenant colonel had just finished processing the last batch of test records for the day. He leaned back in his chair, but there was little relief in his eyes.

During this time, the church's patience with him was dwindling, as he was still investigating Ilya's plane crash, from training records to those tampered internal documents.

The longer the investigation went on, the stronger the reaction from above became. First, they cut the squadron's budget, then they stripped the squadron of several of its powers. A couple of days ago, even the General Affairs Department forcibly intervened in the rotation of his reserve squad.

The church leadership was warning him that things were very complicated and that he should be sensible and stop investigating. If he continued to insist on his own way, he might lose his position as commander of the experimental squadron.

But the more the church acted this way, the deeper the thorn in the colonel's heart grew.

"Ilya's death was definitely not that simple; he must have known something..."

Thinking of this, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's face darkened further. Just as he was about to reread the accident report that had been returned today, his personal terminal on the table suddenly vibrated slightly.

The next second, the interface that was working normally suddenly became covered with a layer of snowflake-like noise.

[Warning: An abnormal connection has been detected]

The outer layer of protection has been bypassed.

[Performing unknown permission verification...]

Terminal control has been interfered with!!!

The lieutenant colonel raised his eyes, a cold smile appearing on his lips.

"Interesting, they actually dared to hack into the personal terminal of a military lieutenant colonel."

Lieutenant Colonel Saviev was not worried at all about the hacker intrusion.

His total level is 27 - main profession [Master of Machines LV10] + [Master of Machines LV7]; secondary profession [Soldier LV10].

With such a configuration, for an ordinary hacker to touch his terminal is almost like sticking their head into a winch.

So he didn't even move his body much, but simply raised his hand, lightly tapped his fingertips on the table, and prepared to directly activate his Myriad Machines Technique.

—[looplock].

This was a countermeasure specifically designed to combat network intrusion and terminal hijacking, but the moment the method was activated, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's casual expression vanished.

"wrong--!"

He straightened his back, realizing that something was wrong. The resistance coming from the other side was astonishing; this was not something an ordinary hacker could do.

This feeling is the same as the feeling Ares gave him! ! ?

Only something of that level can give people this almost unreasonable sense of oppression, meaning that the other side is very likely to also possess a Type III strong artificial intelligence.

His eyes darkened, and his finger instinctively moved toward the physical disconnect button on the side of the terminal on his neck. But just a second before he was about to cut off the local network, the snow and noise on the screen suddenly stopped.

Immediately afterwards, a new line of characters quietly appeared.

SkyDrive sends you greetings!

In the center of the screen, the symbol for Chishiro slowly lit up.

The next second, another light screen unfolded.

A person wearing a knight's mask appeared on the screen, the background behind him was processed so cleanly that no specific environment could be seen. The person raised his head and looked at Lieutenant Colonel Saviev through the screen, his voice so calm that no emotion could be detected.

"Good evening, Lieutenant Colonel Lev Saveyev."

Zhang Qiming looked at the wary lieutenant colonel and said:

"On behalf of the Skywards, I salute you."

Lieutenant Colonel Saviev stared at the masked man on the screen, his gaze gradually darkening. He then smirked, his voice filled with undisguised coldness.

"The way you Skywards greet people is quite polite."

"In the dead of night, hack into the private terminal of a military lieutenant colonel, act mysteriously and covertly, and then pop out to say 'Greetings to you.'"

"What, did the Skywards learn their etiquette from the sewer rats of Terra's Hive?"

Mars is insulting Terra again.

Zhang Qiming smiled after hearing this.

"Lieutenant Colonel, you're still secretly trying to connect to Ares's link, aren't you? Save your breath, it won't be coming tonight."

Upon hearing this, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's expression subtly changed.

He had indeed been secretly trying to access Ares' emergency access channel, but he did so very discreetly. When he was exposed, he didn't feel embarrassed. He just stared at Zhang Qiming on the screen, his voice even colder.

"So, what does the Skydrive want from me?"

"What, you thought killing Makarov was good, so now you want to take care of me too?"

Zhang Qiming gently shook his head.

"Lieutenant Colonel, you're overthinking it. I'm not here to kill you tonight. I sincerely want to invite you to join the Skyward, or more precisely, to stand with us against the Holy Cardinals."

Upon hearing this, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev burst out laughing; he was amused by the Skydrive leader.

"To let a military lieutenant colonel join a terrorist organization?"

"Skyward is really a lawless madman. Do you really think you're so powerful that you can treat the Martian military like a vegetable market, picking whoever you want?"

Zhang Qiming didn't argue with him, but instead said slowly:

"I'm not trying to win you over with empty words. I just know exactly how Ilya Voronov died. And I believe that after you see the truth, Lieutenant Colonel, you will make your own choice."

The moment the words left his mouth, the slight sarcasm on Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's face vanished completely.

After two seconds, he finally spoke:

"Should I praise your Skyward Drive for your extraordinary abilities, or should I say you're just a bunch of hyenas that pounce on blood at the first sign of it?"

Zhang Qiming didn't respond to his insult or continue talking nonsense; he simply raised his hand and made a gesture.

The next second, the terminal's light screen split into three.

On the left is a reopened incident report, in the middle is a set of hidden access records and additional logs, and on the right is a fragment of abnormal data from the SA black box pulled directly from the internal database.

Lieutenant Colonel Saviev stared intently at the three reports.

These three reports can be summarized into one thing—before entering the training airspace, Ilya's SA unit was briefly taken over by a hidden command with authority above the squadron level. The command lasted for a very short time but had very high authority, and it also showed signs of a cluster attack from multiple mechanical techniques.

In other words, Ilya's death was not an accident at all!

The lieutenant colonel murmured, "These are..."

Zhang Qiming: "The truth, the truth you want about Ilya's death."

This intelligence was obtained by him after leaving the polar base, when he contacted Saint Sophia directly and had her use the authority of the Truth Investigation Committee and Ares to dig it out from the church's deep archives.

As for the intelligence that wasn't even in the Mars network, Saint Sophia used her own resources to find it through physical means.

Having connections in high places really makes things easier.

In the previous game, players had to go through many steps to obtain the prerequisite information for these [Bloodstained Items].

This time, Zhang Qiming directly utilized the power of Saint Sophia and found this intelligence in less than a day.

This also gave Saint Sophia advance notice of the Holy Cardinals' plan to develop the Wetware Network and the Black Wall against her and Ares.

Wetware Network is an information system that uses biological neural systems as core computing and communication nodes. It connects the human brain, cultured neural tissue, or semi-mechanized biological units into a network through brain-computer interfaces, replacing traditional digital logic with biological neural signals.

Unlike electronic networks that rely on standard protocols and artificial intelligence, wetware networks are typically highly non-standardized, resistant to intrusion, and have extremely high information security capabilities because their data is often transmitted in the form of perception, emotion, memory, or even thought patterns, rather than simple binary code.

The College of Cardinals of the Church is wary of Ares and Saint Sophia. As long as the main internet on Mars continues to operate within that system, they will never be truly at ease.

Therefore, they have been secretly starting from scratch, trying to bypass the existing network and AI system on Mars and rebuild a new underlying network link that belongs only to themselves.

They want to use this wetware network to build an invisible and inaccessible shadow chassis beneath the existing internet on Mars, and then build a network black wall around this chassis that belongs only to them.

Once the Black Wall is established, even if Ares controls the Martian internet, and even if Saint Sophia transforms into a cyber ghost, the Church can use the Black Wall to keep them out.

At this moment, after reviewing the previous documents, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev confirmed that they were not forged, and his eyes were filled with anger and incomprehension.

"But...why, why did the Holy Cardinals attack Ilya? Why...?"

"Because he knows things he shouldn't know." Zhang Qiming didn't give him a chance to catch his breath. He simply raised his hand and pushed over the rest of the information about the wet device network.

The new documents unfolded layer by layer on the screen. Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's pupils visibly contracted. He read faster and faster, more and more urgently, until even his breathing became erratic.

"This is...the church's sons of bitches! Do they even know what they're doing?!"

Zhang Qiming's voice rang out at this moment, following the colonel's words:

"The College of Cardinals certainly knows what they're doing. Have you just met them?"

He continued:

"A complete wet device network mainly relies on biological computing nodes, and there are three types of such nodes."

"The first type is the human brain node, which preserves consciousness as much as possible, or at least a part of it, and then connects the person to the network through a brain-computer interface. This type is closest to their earliest idea."

"Deeply cybernetically enhanced cyborgs and high-level servants can all lean towards this direction."

"The second type is semi-biological nodes, such as cultured neural tissue, biochips, and neuron arrays. These are more stable and easier to manage, but the problem is that their computing power and adaptability are still somewhat lacking."

"For some reason, these semi-biological nodes that are cultivated have extremely poor compatibility with mysterious things like machine souls... as if they were cursed by the God of Myriad Machines from birth."

"Therefore, they can be used as supplements, but they are far from enough for the church to support the entire network."

"The third type..."

The lieutenant colonel felt a chill run down his spine. Even though he already knew about this thing from the other party's information, he still felt an instinctive disgust when it was mentioned.

"The third type is the complete enslavement of the brain."

"Cut off everything unnecessary, turn the human brain into a bunch of functional neural reflexes, retain only the ability to calculate, provide feedback and make basic judgments. To put it bluntly, it's about transforming a living person's brain into a human brain CPU."

"The church has actually tried both of the first two paths and invested a lot of resources, but the results were not ideal."

"The nodes in the human brain that retain consciousness are not stable enough. They have too many problems. If we are not careful, personality contamination, mass mental breakdown, and thought infection can occur."

"Semi-biological nodes are easy to control, but their performance and adaptability are always lacking. Everything in this world has fluctuations of machine soul. A network that cannot control machine souls simply cannot meet the fundamental needs of the church."

"What truly allowed them to see results was the third path."

"They discovered that turning the human brain into a complete tool is far more effective than trying to retain any 'humanity'."

"At first, they only dared to start from the bottom of Mars, looking for so-called volunteers, or rather, using people with no background who could disappear without causing any trouble to experiment on."

"But they soon discovered that ordinary people's brains were not of sufficient quality or computing power to support the system they wanted."

The lieutenant colonel's eyes widened in disbelief. "Could it be that they want to...?"

"Yes, they have gradually turned their attention to professionals who walk the path of myriad machines, because these people have higher nerve strength and more stable brain-computer interface. After dealing with machine spirits for a long time, their brains have been trained to be different from ordinary people."

"For the church, the computing power of such people far surpasses that of the lower classes and far surpasses the results of their first two types of research."

After hearing this, the lieutenant colonel felt a surge of anger, like molten iron being forced into his bones, slowly burning away his reason. Even his breathing carried a chilling tremor that seemed to want to tear everything in front of him apart.

"grass!!!"

Zhang Qiming acted as if he hadn't seen it, and continued to peel back that bloody truth.

"At first, they were just arresting criminals. After all, if these people die, they just die. Everyone can accept that."

"The problem is that the criminals couldn't satisfy their ever-growing appetites, so eventually, their attention began to turn to the church itself."

"Those who don't listen to the College of Cardinals, those who are not of the same mind, those who are capable but go against the Church... these people have gradually become their targets. They have begun to eliminate dissidents through the wet network and the Black Wall project—the military is among them."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's expression finally changed.

Zhang Qiming looked at him and slowly uttered the last part.

"It was at this time that Ilya realized something was wrong. He first discovered that the mysterious deaths of several military personnel were suspicious. Following this lead, he later came across traces related to the transfer of wet parts during an aircraft overhaul and file review."

"At that time, he didn't know what the words 'wetware network' really meant, but he had already touched the edge of the truth."

There was no wind in the office, but Lieutenant Colonel Saveyev felt a chill creep down his back.

Zhang Qiming looked at him and told him the truth about Ilya's death.

"And the Church obviously wouldn't let him continue his investigation, so Ilya died, in an accidental near-orbit training... Moreover, the Holy Cardinals wouldn't let go of such a high-quality consumable."

"Yes, they also removed Ilya's brain."

This is the whole truth behind the [Bloodstained Parts] mission. After hearing this, Lieutenant Colonel Saviev's face turned pale.