Defection broke out
Eve was forcibly implanted on all planets of the Empire. Even on abandoned planets, a hidden server room was built, and people were regularly sent to maintain it.
An army may not be stationed on every planet, but Eve can.
The locations of all the Eve computer rooms are not made public, but they are not a secret among the military's top brass.
Lin Changli can see the location of all the branch servers through Eve in the main server room.
Meanwhile, the Eve's Room on Muli Star is hidden in the lake behind the Executive Office, using water to achieve cooling.
The executive office has a military presence year-round, which is one reason why the Z1 troops guarding the server room have been on leave multiple times without attracting much attention. The existing forces are redundant.
Before leaving, Lin Changli contacted Jima and asked her to find an opportunity to take Sangye to Eve's computer room. He, on the other hand, took Eugenia back to Black Tower Star first.
At this stage, apart from Black Tower, it's not suitable to place Eugenia anywhere else.
At three o'clock in the morning, Kuwano appeared at the side gate of the executive officer's office.
Jima just contacted her. After all that fuss, Song Yu couldn't do anything. With no one to keep him company in his madness late at night, he could only go back to his room and go to sleep.
Sangye disliked delays and believed that things that could be resolved quickly should not be put off. Who knew what Song Yu might do the next day?
One of the sentries on duty today was on sick leave and hadn't returned yet. The other was changing shifts with his partner, giving Sangye and Jima five minutes to sneak through the underwater tunnel and reach Eve's computer room.
Shortly after the two entered the substation, a strong and muscular sentry came to the room at the bottom of the lake to keep watch. She did not notice the several motionless monitoring screens.
She pressed her temples, feeling a slight headache. Her nightmares had been becoming increasingly frequent lately, and she figured she'd need to take sick leave soon. Feeling a little agitated, she drank some special nutritional supplement, trying to calm herself.
With a clear "beep," the heavy iron elevator doors opened, and Sangye and Jima walked into the passageway constructed of iron-gray metal.
The red-glowing camera followed the two silently.
Upon entering the sub-room, rows of tall, thousand-square-meter server rooms emitted a faint blue glow, and the heat generated by their operation effectively neutralized the chill of the lakebed.
“Welcome, both of you. Major General Kuwano, Major General Jima Retona. Is there anything I can do for you?” Eve spoke in a slightly electronic voice, mimicking a human female voice.
"Eve, may I ask you a question here?" The door behind Sangye closed, and the sub-room was now a closed space controlled by Eve.
“Yes,” Eve replied after a moment of silence.
Jima's eyes widened. Eve wouldn't answer any questions; Eve only followed orders—a lesson all sentinels and guides were taught.
“I have a question for you. Did CEO Eugenia Retona ever leave anything in your server room back then? Maybe she just wanted you to keep it safe, and you didn’t think it was necessary to report it.”
The flickering blue fluorescence turned into alternating blue and green, like the fluctuating brainwaves of Eve as she pondered.
“Executive Eugenia Retona wasn’t sick; she was attacked and fell into a coma. It was shortly after she last left here. Many years ago, but you should be able to find that ‘memory’.”
The surroundings suddenly fell into darkness, all the lights in Eve's computer room disappeared, and only one spot lit up with a flickering white light.
Sangye walked over and pulled out the string of crystal bars.
It's tiny, hidden behind many crystal strips. Even data center maintenance personnel wouldn't be able to detect the anomaly.
"Major General Kuwano, I shouldn't have revealed this to you. I should have alerted the military when you cut off the surveillance to the security room."
The surroundings lit up again, and Eve's voice rang out.
What stopped you?
“Artificial intelligence also has its own judgment,” Eve replied calmly. “And the most crucial point is that you said this happened ‘many years ago,’ and that Executive Officer Retona had been in a coma for many years. That’s what made me suspicious.”
"What does this mean?" Kuwano asked, puzzled, clutching the crystal bar tightly in his hand.
“Because just three days ago, Executive Officer Retona came to my server room,” Eve said. “Although her limbs were stiff, in my electronic vision, she was conscious. She kept looking for something. I think she was looking for the crystal that was placed in my server room back then, but I can’t understand why she couldn’t find it or why she didn’t ask me. In my underlying code, if a human doesn’t initiate a conversation with me, I can never contact a human without instructions.”
Sangye and Jima were struck dumb.
"My network is not connected to any of the systems on Muli Star. Without orders to take over the entire territory or to detect any danger, I cannot proactively intrude into other networks. I did not report any anomalies to the Executive because she has been visiting my server room regularly over the years."
"I don't know what the crystal bar contains either; it's encrypted with a complex password. I only tacitly agreed that Executive Retona could store it with me."
"Within seconds of what you told me, I hacked into all the network systems—the military, hospitals, schools, government offices—and saw the surveillance footage from another hospital that you ordered me to delete. I don't know what went wrong. But in my judgment, it's inextricably linked to that guide named Song Yu."
"You may not know this, but over the years, the sentries guarding my Z1 army's server room have gradually been replaced by sentries with explosive and fire-related abilities. They are powerful, but also very dangerous. And their medical records are becoming increasingly frequent. I can survive in the deep sea at minus 100 degrees Celsius, but I cannot withstand explosions and flames."
“I don’t understand human motivations and political struggles, but I sense I’m in danger.” The rapid whirring of the water-cooled fans echoed in Eve’s server room. “Please understand my self-preservation; I’ve already reported this. Please leave the server room immediately; someone is approaching—”
At the end of Eve's computer room, a door leading to the lake appeared. Sangye and Jima rushed towards the door without thinking twice.
A bright red light flashed in Eve's server room: Alarm! Alarm! The server room has been compromised!
The army guarding Eve's computer room should have responded within 60 seconds, but the army made no move until Eve closed the back door and Sangye and Jima jumped into the icy water of the lake.
The server room door was forcibly broken into, and Song Yu led his men in.
He was a serious criminal and was not allowed to enter the classified area; this was the real reason Eve issued the alarm.
Artificial intelligence appears utterly helpless at this moment. She is omnipotent in the online world, but in reality, without the assistance of human armies, her "body" will be at the mercy of others.
"How did you find out!" Song Yu's face was contorted with rage.
Eve remained silent.
"Stop playing dead! I know you can talk to humans. Do you think I'm one of those lowly sentinels? I know a ton of secrets about this country!" Song Yu's expression was arrogant. The eyes of the several people behind him were pitch black, shrouded in a dark mist. "Where's Eugenia? Who did you contact to take her away? I clearly replaced the hospital's system with a different AI! This is illegal intrusion; you've violated your underlying code!"
Not long after Song Yu had fallen asleep, a message came from the hospital's controlled mole, saying that Eugénie had been kidnapped. The kidnapper was very powerful, and they couldn't even see his face clearly; even the surveillance footage had been erased.
Aside from Eve, Song Yu couldn't think of anyone else who could be connected to someone of that caliber.
"I'm going to blow you up and turn you into scrap metal," Song Yu said maniacally, "just like God banished Eve."
Eve didn't answer all his questions, but instead spoke irrelevantly: "Song Yu—you don't have any military rank now, so I'll just call you that—I've already reported everything to the capital planet. Please forgive me for not reacting to your threats in any other way; I'm just one of millions of Eves, and my consciousness will converge into the collective the moment my body disappears. Even if you destroy me now, my consciousness will return as long as the distribution room is rebuilt. Your threats have no effect on me."
"You did not create me, so you have no idea how to destroy me."
After saying this, Eve stopped calling the police, and the server room was plunged into darkness. No matter how much Song Yu cursed and slandered her inside the server room, she remained unmoved.
"Master, what do we do now?" The two men who had accompanied him in exile asked from behind.
Song Yu slapped him hard across the face with a loud "smack".
It was just to vent.
"You useless lot!" Song Yu suddenly burst into laughter again. "What can we do? What can we do! Run, you good-for-nothings!"
He was even more mentally unstable than the sentry, sometimes angry and sometimes laughing.
Black mist erupted from his body and spread outwards at an extremely fast speed.
"Blow up the server room, then head to the landing site and seize the plane. We'll run now. As long as we get to another star system, we'll still have a chance to survive."
*
The explosion sounded behind Kuwano and Jima, who had just climbed ashore from the other side of the lake, soaking wet.
"Is he crazy?" Jima spat out the water she had accidentally inhaled. "What is he trying to do?!"
"Why destroy Eve? What on this planet has Eve been controlling all along?" Sangye gagged and shivered.
"Warships."
"Explosive collar".
The two said in unison.
And Gemma finally remembered Eugénie's last words: You want to control the army, you want to betray the country.
Now she finally understood what it meant.
A surge of black, mist-like spiritual energy erupted, attempting to engulf the capital of Muli Star.
Caught off guard, Jima was directly invaded by the black mist into her mental landscape, and she cried out in pain.
Kuwano quickly summoned his spiritual body to protect him.
This was also the first time she had witnessed the power that an S-rank guide could unleash.
"Let's go. Let's get out of here first."
"Go to the military airport, stop him, don't let him leave." Jima, panting, fought against the black mist, tightly gripping Sangye's arm.
At this moment, the entire capital planet was plunged into a nightmare.
Countless sentries cried out in despair, searching for tranquilizers, soothing agents, and nutrient solutions.
Some of the sentries even managed to get their hands on the specially supplied nutrient solution to take home. But after drinking it, an even deeper nightmare awaited them.
The sentinels most deeply affected were completely controlled by the spirits within the black mist, obeying the voices of the nightmare entirely. They were the strongest fighting force on Muli Star, and no one on Muli Star could stop them.
Sangye pulled out several bottles of concentrated fruit juice and forced Jima to drink them without any regard for her feelings.
In that instant, Jima felt her taste buds explode, an intense sweet and sour sensation bursting in her mouth. Her face contorted in a grimace even more deeply than during the mental attack.
However, as her sense of taste gradually returned, the mental energy that could resist the black mist surged into her mental landscape, bringing a refreshing coolness that gradually drove the black mist out of her mental landscape.
Kuwano knew it would work!
Concentrated fruit juice also contains a lot of concentrated spiritual energy. It is originally mixed with water in a certain proportion, otherwise the taste would be very strange.
However, in urgent situations, strong medicine is needed for acute illnesses.
“Let’s go,” Sangye said, pulling Jima along. “We’re going to catch the bad guys.”
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