Players Invade Cyberpunk-Chapter 647 - 208: What Is Aberration? Your Only Value Is Your Hands, Nothing Else

Inside were all sorts of logic traps and ICE; making one wrong move could get your brain fried.

Jackal: "You guys didn't trigger the program alarm, did you, meow?"

The last dying Er Zhuzi finally had a chance to shout in the channel.

"Damn it, there's an identity scan at the entrance. We didn't have the access code and forced our way in, triggering the firewall mechanism. I can't handle it alone."

Previously, when they entered the Sea God Network and the Chaotic Blade Association's local area network, it was through physical connections, with Lucy's help in disguising and cracking. No need for them to mess with access codes.

It's like breaking through the front door of a company building and getting justly arrested by the security guards.

Everyone looked at the hacker players in the crowd.

"What do we do? We can't even get past the instance entrance, can we?"

"There are three options."

Pandora said expressionlessly.

"One, find the identity chip of one of their former employees, fake the identity code, and blend in. Two, find the company's server and hack in. Three, look for firewall loopholes and bugs, then sneak in."

"Looks like we only have the third option, meow."

Fifty-year-old company, where are we going to find any identity chips and servers?

They didn't have the skills of top hackers to come and go freely; they could only be practical.

"Let's try first. Get other hacker players to join in. We don't want to trigger the firewall and get people killed looking for vulnerabilities, wasting time, meow."

————

Miles… New America… Military Technology… Little Beidou Experiment… Dog Town…

To survive, Song Zhaomei practically spilled everything she knew, speaking with unreserved honesty.

The information was vast, and Lin Miao needed time to digest it.

However, he roughly understood why Song Zhaomei, far away in Washington, could hear the players' voices.

Her experimental data came from the so-called Little Beidou Experiment fifty years ago, and according to Song Zhaomei, the Little Beidou Laboratory was right under Dog Town.

Moreover, it happened to be a channel connected to the old network, and there was even rumored to be an AI tamed by military technology inside.

There was no need to doubt the truth of what the other party said.

When Lin Miao took out the employee contract, Song Zhaomei almost didn't hesitate to sign her name.

In her words, with military technology and New America, she would eventually be used as a guinea pig until death, so she might as well take a gamble.

Lin Miao's technology developed against the Black Wall was far superior to New America's, and both of them were clearly successful cases, at least more successful than Song Zhaomei herself.

There were no emotions, no ideals, purely a search for a backer in order to survive.

It was a purely simple motive.

"Mr. Lin."

A voice interrupted Lin Miao's thoughts.

He was meeting with a scheduled client before connecting with Lucy.

"I wonder what Mr. Lin thinks? Our Zeta Technology's industrial prosthetics and behavior chips are top-tier in the industry. Compared to high-cost AI full automation, not only is it more efficient, but also more cost-effective. Cooperation with us assures a bright future for your company."

The visitor was Zeta Technology's sales manager.

Lin Miao lowered his head, looking at the demonstration video the other person pushed over. The workers equipped with Zeta Technology's prosthetics and behavior chips stood like machines on both sides of the assembly line, their hands moving so fast they seemed to create afterimages, connecting complex prosthetic joints in less than a second.

The production speed was 20% higher than the mechanized assembly line jointly designed by Lin Miao and Kangtao.

"Hmm… it does look very good, but wouldn't it be a bit wasteful to just place people on the assembly line?"

"Why do you think so, Mr. Lin? This is their only value now."

The sales manager persuaded sincerely, trying to convince Lin Miao to agree to let prosthetic workers replace the automated assembly line.

Because not only would this mean a large order from which he could profit, but it also suppressed the AI automation industry, reducing industry competition.

"You see, AI maintenance is a significant expenditure for every company, whether it's setting up servers or having internet supervision checks. The larger the AI system, the more its costs grow geometrically, and one small mistake could cause a spectacle like Delaman's car service dismissing all the directors. If you want to keep expanding, choosing prosthetic workers over this immature, unsafe, and expensive industry is clearly the wise decision."

"After all, even internet supervisions can't guarantee those computer monsters won't turn into machine monsters one day and eat us all, right?"

"And those workers, if I may say so, their only value is equipping industrial prosthetics and working at the assembly line edges."

"No need for training, no need for medical care; you don't even need to pay for maintenance. You can have as many of these workers as you want."

"A fully automated line costs at least a million Orokin to start, and that's without considering the hefty annual review fees paid to internet supervision."

"But you only need twenty workers equipped with our latest prosthetics. Based on the average market labor, the annual labor cost is only 360k Orokin."

"And you don't have to worry about their logistics. If an employee gets sick, just fire them. If they can't pay back the loan, take off the prosthetic and replace it with another worker. As many as you want in Night City."

"More efficiency, lower cost, simpler logistics…"