Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 55, Section 54: The Painted Skin (Part 4)

"I didn't see any cameras."

"See the lock on room 824? It's connected to the apartment's security system. Once you access the security system, you can find the cameras in the room."

Shen Ke was used to Su Ge's lack of common sense, but her tone was still somewhat strange. For any digital life, a Level 1 information security firewall is almost like a "Construction Ahead" warning sign.

Suger could easily control Larson and access the Security Bureau's defense system, but he didn't know how to control the cameras in the room.

Inside the missile silo, Su Ge watched the images sent by Chiba Ryoko. In the dimly lit corridor, Jiang Ning's door was tightly shut. He tried to connect with the door lock through his imagination, but to no avail.

He has used his abilities multiple times so far. Each time, he must first see the connected electronic device before he can hack into it using his abilities.

His ability resembles a super brain-computer interface, but his body remains primitive. He can only locate objects in the real world using visual information from his eyes, and then issue commands through his thoughts to activate his ability. At this moment, however, his ability fails to work on the door lock in Chiba Ryoko's electronic eye's view.

"Is it not okay?" Shen Ke asked when Su Ge didn't react.

“Send me all of Chiba Ryoko’s information,” Su Ge said.

To avoid the confusion and disorientation caused by additional neural data affecting thinking and judgment, Su Ge had specifically asked Shen Ke to transmit the images when Chiba Ryoko was being printed, but now he has changed his mind.

Shen Ke, sitting on the shock absorber in the launch silo, glanced at him.

"You decide."

A flood of sensory information overwhelmed his consciousness, causing Sog to feel dizzy and lightheaded, as if he were motion sickness, and he couldn't help but gag a few times.

In that instant, he felt as if he had been split in two, simultaneously in two different places.

The ground was cold, damp, and dusty, with a musty smell. His/her hydrogel skin felt icy cold underfoot on the terrazzo, which had a hardness of 8 and was patchwork of red, white, and blue...

Ryoko Chiba's perspective is also different from that of humans; the world seems like a loom, with magnetic induction lines as dense as silk.

To her, electromagnetic waves of all frequencies, from radio waves to ultraviolet radiation, are visible light; the ground, walls, and ceiling appear as if they have been dyed in a vat, displaying a vibrant array of colors.

This information, which the human brain had never processed before, nearly crashed Suger's brain, which then began to overheat.

"Are you ok?"

Shen Ke's voice brought Su Ge back to his senses. He endured the discomfort and made a dazed "hmm" sound. He stopped paying attention to Chiba Ryoko's feelings and focused all his attention on the door lock in front of her.

At this moment, that invincible ability, through Shen Ke's position, connected to her backup, and then, through the channel through which she controlled Chiba Ryoko, descended into Chiba Ryoko's body, broke through the door lock, and entered the apartment's system.

In the 632 rooms, men, women, and children walked, sat, and lay down. The massive amount of images and sounds made Su Ge's mind go blank.

【824】

He focused his attention on a small part of it.

The tide of information has receded, leaving only a few seashells on the fine sand.

Suger saw the surveillance footage in the room. The furnishings were similar to Suger's residence in Luyingting, extremely simple and cramped—few people in modern times would pursue a realistic living environment, but there were still some 21st-century photos on the walls.

Jiang Ning was sleeping in bed, an orange fleece quilt covering her body from the waist down. She was lying on her right side, her chest rising and falling evenly with the rhythm of her breathing.

Judging from the surveillance footage alone, Jiang Ning seemed fine, but Su Ge got goosebumps.

If the person on the bed isn't Jiang Ning, then who could it be?
At the same time, he saw another surveillance video from 824.

It was the same room, the same furnishings, but Jiang Ning wasn't on the bed at all!
"There are two images..."

When Suger said this, Chiba Ryoko also spoke up, which made him feel a sense of confusion.

At the same time, he tensed up, worried that his intentions might have been conveyed to the room's surveillance camera. If the camera also picked up a message, all his efforts would be wasted.

Fortunately, the surveillance camera showed no activity, but Su Ge had already become wary and temporarily disconnected from the camera.

“It faked the surveillance footage.” Shen Ke also received the surveillance footage through Chiba Ryoko. “That sleeping figure is fake.”

The surveillance footage from the other empty room is the real one.

"There's no one in the room."

"Nobody's here." Shen Ke said thoughtfully, "I think I know what it is."

"What is it?"

"Go and have a look first."

“The surveillance cameras will capture me too, right?” Su Ge said, then realized with a daze that he had used the first person when speaking to Chiba Ryoko. “You should be able to fake surveillance footage too?”

"Hmm." Shen Ke's lips curled into a smile. "It's all taken care of."

Ryoko Chiba moved, her fair feet stepping across the corridor and stopping at the door of room 824.

The door slid open.

Neon lights from outside the window streamed into the room. Beside the window was an empty bed. In the holographic aquarium next to the window, the projection of Egyptian fish swam among the spider webs in a wild South American-style landscape, making it look particularly desolate.

Ryoko Chiba entered the room, the door closing behind her. She looked around, went into the bathroom, scanned the toilet, and made a discovery.

“We’ve found a loophole,” she said. “The waste data records here are all fake. Your hibernating friend never lived here. ‘It’s’ fabricated evidence that he was still active in the real world. Well, it didn’t notice we came in, otherwise the data wouldn’t be so poorly faked. It could only fool the apartment’s personal health management system.”

"Have you confirmed what 'it' is?"

"A 'demons and monsters' that impersonate others and operate in the spirit realm. The identity of a hibernator is very useful; they have almost no interpersonal relationships, which can save a lot of trouble in this regard."

Shen Ke's tone was subtle when she said those four words.

“His identity was stolen, creating the illusion that he is still living a normal life…” Su Ge said in a low voice, “His identity was stolen, but where is he himself?”

“You’ll have to ask it,” Shen Ke said. “You should know more than I do. For example, does it have any enemies?”

Socrates remained silent.

The image of the general appeared in his mind.

Jiang Ning may have met with misfortune. The one impersonating Jiang Ning may be in cahoots with the general.

"How long have these excrement data been falsified?" he asked.

“Seventy-two days,” Shen Ke said.

This means that something had already happened in Jiangning at least 72 days ago.

Su Ge was somewhat puzzled. According to Yang Guan, the mortality rate of hibernators was very high. If this imposter Jiang Ning was on the same side as the general, why not just have Jiang Ning "commit suicide" as well?

What do they need this identity for?
A thought flashed through his mind: it might be using this identity to contact other hibernators.

"Someone's here," Shen Ke suddenly whispered. "They've entered the corridor."

I finished writing 2,000 words at 11:59 again.
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(End of this chapter)