Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 47 Qiwei
The complexity of its core code is such that even he couldn't see it clearly at a glance, or rather, he couldn't understand it.

This was the first time Mercer had encountered data that even he couldn't understand.

He didn't know if it was because his knowledge was insufficient, or if this thing was just like that. AI has a core part of its code that is completely different from existing programming languages ​​and data structures.

This only fueled Mercer's fighting spirit. He kept running the Death Wish program in the sex doll shop, observing its AI growth in the process.

Meanwhile, DeathWish's AI, with the help of computing power, is rapidly iterating and increasing the composition of its data as it runs.

As large chunks of data flashed by rapidly, the core code data of the AI ​​also began to increase rapidly. Assuming that the original AI core of DeathWish was only 10MB in size, it grew at least ten times after running at full speed for just ten minutes.

However, once the core code formed a complete data structure, the cat suddenly started accumulating a lot of 'useless' junk data.

These blue data volumes began to grow around its core, iterating, upgrading, and optimizing on their own, running for an unknown period of time before finally stopping.

Mercer looked at the cat in front of him, which seemed to have changed little, and narrowed his eyes: "Hello, Death Wish."

A massive amount of data flashed in the cat's eyes. After a long while, it stammered, "You, okay, master, please, whip me."

Mercer slapped his face hard: "Delete it, reset it!"

Death Wish let out a somewhat seductive meow: "Ah~ Exciting~ Meow~"

Then it crashed and rebuilt.

Mercer stared at it silently, but after observing its self-growth process, Mercer finally understood how to shape an AI's personality and cognition.

Although he is still unable to parse and compile the core data that symbolizes the soul of AI, that core data is just a piece of raw code responsible for giving AI its soul.

Mercer named it 'Soul Source Code', and he could understand about 60-70% of the code other than the source code.

For example, which codes constitute its appearance, which codes constitute its knowledge base, and which codes constitute its cognition.

But besides that, there are some extremely special core data that grow on their own. Mercer can see them, but like the source code of the soul, they have a special structure that he cannot write out at the moment.

At the same time, Mercer discovered that the data with those special structures was very similar to some of the data on his body.

Mercer believes that this may be the key to AI anthropomorphism and the crucial data for influencing human cognition through network technology.

Perhaps if he could master the methods of compiling and modifying this data, he would also gain the power to alter human thought?
Mercer began to ponder how to give AI a controllable intelligence. After much thought, he finally came up with the answer.

First of all, we must never attack the AI ​​within the DeathWish program; that thing is a complete cyber nuclear bomb.

If the AI ​​of Death Wish is allowed to grow, it could very well become a super AI comparable to the Black Wall if it gets out of control.

Like the rabies virus released by the old network Bartmouth, it will most likely become an extremely terrifying roaming killing machine, completely destroying the current new network.

Therefore, Mercer decided to use the Death Wish as a dangerous weapon, and to create the AI ​​he wanted to create using the 'Soul Source Code' it carried.

Although Mercer doesn't yet understand what the Soul Source Code is, that doesn't stop him from copying it from the data level and then pasting it to create a completely new program.

After much deliberation, he finally decided to define the AI ​​program as a 'life assistant,' similar to Jarvis from Iron Man.

The AI's programming and function is to help Mercer with research and development, and to drive other programs when necessary. The core code is stored in the memory of Mercer's network receiver.

Although the existence of this AI will consume Mercer's brain computing power, the portion of computing power consumed is actually more efficient than his usual usage. AI is a natural expert in utilizing computing power.

Mercer then limited its size and added several core logics to restrict its thinking direction.

Finally, Mercer created a completely new, pristine, low-level AI from scratch.

He named it 'Morning Star', hoping that it would, like its name, illuminate a bright future for Mercer.

Mercer canceled its self-learning function and decided to manually select suitable data to send to the Morning Star for enlightenment. Once its basic 'personality' and 'values' are stable, it will be given a certain degree of learning freedom.

However, just as Mercer was concentrating on harnessing the computing power of the Sex Shop's server and tinkering with the new AI, an unusual data fluctuation instantly alerted him.

As the data fluctuated, a data entity that resembled a drone appeared on the server.

He immediately stopped what he was doing, observed carefully for a moment, and discovered that it was a network security check program running.

Mercer couldn't help but chuckle. It seemed he had overutilized the server's computing power, and the people at the sex doll shop had noticed the anomaly.

However, Mercer soon discovered that this was not the case, because after the detection program finished running, a personal network signal suddenly connected to the server's network.

The other party did not dive deep; instead, after checking the network security, they exploited a vulnerability in the server to gain network access.

Let me see what you're doing online.
Mercer's eyes flashed with massive data fluctuations. Before the other party could even notice, he had already begun monitoring their network using the high privileges he had hacked into the server.

Is this unknown internet user searching for hacking tutorials online?

That's interesting. Which sex partner decided to change careers?
Mercer could tell that the other party was quite capable; the search content had already surpassed the level of a novice hacker, and the current search content involved a lot of knowledge from professional hackers.

He observed for a while, and then began to open the box for the other party with great interest, following the signals—he wanted to see which sex doll was secretly taking advantage of his own store and working hard to improve itself.

The results he found, however, made him raise an eyebrow.

"Qiwei?"

Mercer immediately turned his head and began filtering keywords from the server data. Soon, he found information about a woman named Qiwei in the sex shop's files.

Name: Qi Wei

【Age: 22】

[Term of Service: 2 years]

Mercer frowned slightly and searched for a long time before piecing together Qiwei's origins from some outdated server data.

She was a factory worker who was sold to the factory by its management. The black factory paid her 45,000 euros.

Aside from that, there were only some work evaluations, such as her work attitude being average.

The store's servers mostly store customer information, with very few records about employees.

Even so, Mercer was able to confirm from the photo that the woman was none other than Kiwi, the hacker from "The Edge Walker".

Has she still not escaped the sex shop?

Qiwei.
Mercer's feelings toward her were somewhat complicated.

In the anime, Qiwei is not a positive character.

She was the kind of person who had climbed up from the bottom of Night City, a woman with a tragic past.

She was sold to a factory by her parents when she was young. At first, the factory leaders treated her with great care and concern. However, as she grew older, they began to show their true colors and began to lust after her.

After being rejected by Qiwei multiple times, the factory leader, in a fit of anger, sold Qiwei to a black puppet shop.

It was in the black sex doll shop that Qiwei began to teach herself hacking and endured the difficult days by creating a sex doll program that shielded her from perception.

However, even so, she was eventually ripped off by a customer with a gorilla arm because he complained about her poor service.

Qiwei never had her chin repaired again; she simply wore a mask to cover her broken chin.

Ultimately, she used her self-taught hacking skills to kill everyone in the black puppet shop and factory, and only after completing her revenge did she finally regain her freedom.

It was precisely because of this life experience that Qiwei became an absolute egoist, and her life motto was: Don't trust anyone.

It was precisely because of this life philosophy that, at the end of the anime, she chose to betray the main characters for the sake of company immunity, money, and status. And when Faraday was trying to silence her, she didn't hesitate to hand over the tracking signal of the hovercar that had imprisoned Lucy to the main characters, helping them rescue Lucy and betraying Faraday.

In the end, a pitiful woman with a tragic fate died tragically by a garbage can in a deserted alley, and from then on, no one cared that she had ever existed in this world.

After a moment's thought, Mercer finally sighed and took the initiative to connect to the other party's signal. He demonstrated his strength by hacking in aggressively and sent her a message.

[A: Do you want freedom?]

[Qiwei: Who are you?!]

A: I can help you.

[Qiwei: What do you want?]

A: I just feel sorry for you.

[Qiwei: Everyone here is pitiful—please tell the truth, or I'm cutting off your internet.]

[A: You can believe me or not. I just happened to find you by using this server to run some programs.]

Not every pitiful person deserves to be saved, but I think you can still be saved.

[Qiwei: Why!?]

[A: Because you still have the idea of ​​change. Even in this environment, you are still trying to learn hacking knowledge and trying to pull yourself out of the quagmire.]

Those who help themselves will be saved by Heaven; those who help themselves will be helped by Heaven; those who abandon themselves will be abandoned by Heaven.

[Qiwei: Heh. Alright, Mr. A, who calls himself 'the sky,' what are you going to do?]

[A: I will do nothing unless you are absolutely certain you will trust me and sincerely beg for my help.]

Qiwei: You want me to beg you for help? Okay, please, mysterious Mr. A, help me, I've really had enough!

What do you want in return? Do you want me to spend a few nights with you? Or money, or do you want me to do something dangerous?

[A: I want to hear you say "thank you," Brother A, from the bottom of your heart.]

[Qiwei: After you rescue me, I'll come to your door to express my gratitude and kowtow to you, okay?]

Qiwei was too lazy to chat with this mysterious Mr. A anymore—kind? What an idiot!
In this city of night?

Is it just a fleeting act of kindness towards someone like her?
Are you kidding me! What kind of living Buddha is this?

Qiwei thought A was talking nonsense and decided to disconnect from the network without hesitation.

But then, Qiwei discovered something that terrified her.

She...can't break free.

[A: It's normal to be treated like a fool when you're trying to be kind. If I were in your shoes, I would also find it unreliable.]

Here's my contact information. Contact me only after you've really thought it through whether you want to ask me for help. If you think the reason of kindness isn't reliable, then give me 50,000 euros. Consider it your ransom.

That should be more in line with your values, right?

But I bet you're thinking I'm an idiot, so I've decided to beat you up through the internet and show you that in the online world, your Brother A will always be Brother A.

Then, Qiwei discovered that her brain-computer interface was filled with a lot of data, and an angry-looking penguin appeared on her retina, giving her a middle finger emoji.

Then Qiwei felt a sudden dizziness, followed by a sharp pain. However, the pain came and went quickly, disappearing without a trace after she instinctively cried out in pain.

The data that was used to bombard her brain also began to disappear rapidly, leaving only a pixelated penguin that looked angry standing in the lower right corner of her retina.

Qi Wei almost blurted out a curse, but she pulled herself back from the brink, remembering that the program the other party had left in her brain might have a listening function, and quickly held it in.

She frantically tried to manually disconnect the internet, first disconnecting the network access device she had secretly bought, and then disconnecting the brain-computer interface. Even so, the penguin was still visible in the corner of her retina.

The penguin just looked much more listless.

In a panic, Qiwei quickly plugged her data cable into the computer next to her and used the computer's self-test program to extract the program from the brain-computer interface.

Surprisingly, the virus wasn't a stubborn one, and the transfer process was very easy.

Qiwei instinctively wanted to delete the program, but after hesitating for a moment, she decided to check its code first.

Communication software?

Qiwei first determined the purpose of the software—it was indeed just a seemingly ordinary encrypted communication software.

Then she began to analyze the code and saw a comment that had been deliberately left after the first line of code in the Penguin program.

In this world where kindness is seen as hypocrisy and only self-interest is eternal, I still believe that justice will ultimately prevail over evil, and the spark will eventually ignite a prairie fire.

Do you still have the courage to believe that kindness, justice, and hope still exist in this world?

Call my name with all your heart, and I will prove to you that hope still exists—A.

They're incredibly arrogant!
Qiwei's breathing became heavy, partly because she felt that this A was really high and mighty, righteous and kind. Ha, in this city, you can only see these two words in children's fairy tales.

Who did he think he was, a cyber god who could change the fate of humanity?
on the other hand
She hesitated, unable to make up her mind to delete the program.

Qiwei unplugged the cable and paced back and forth in her cramped lounge, unable to make up her mind for a long time, until a somewhat gruff male voice rang out from outside her room.

"Qiwei! Come out and entertain customers. Let me tell you, your reviews last month were terrible. If they're just as bad this month, you won't get a single penny!"

Qiwei suddenly stopped. She was silent for a moment, then gritted her teeth, returned to the computer, connected to the internet, and restarted the Penguin program.

Qiwei: I don't know who you are, and I don't know how much of what you said is true.

I agreed to 50,000 euros, but I don't have that much money on hand. If you can get me out of here, I promise to pay you in installments over six months!
I implore you with all my heart—this time I truly mean it!
I beg you, please, get me out of here! The sooner the better! A!

"You bitch, when are you going to stop dawdling? The customers are waiting for you!"

The rough knocking at the door made Qiwei grit her teeth, but she didn't see any reply in the communication app that looked like a penguin.

Qi Wei was stunned for a moment, then gave a self-deprecating laugh.

She picked up the network access module again, inserted it behind her head, took a deep breath, held the sex doll chip she had made—which severed her memory and perception—in her hand, and pushed open the door.

At the door, the menacing-looking bodyguard was glaring at her with wide eyes.

"Qiwei, you really need to be taught a lesson."

The bodyguard's words suddenly stopped.

His eyes widened slightly, and then his whole body began to convulse violently. Qi Wei subconsciously took two steps back, and then, sparks suddenly began to crackle from the burly bodyguard's head.

Within Qiwei's time limit, the little penguin transformed into the blurry head of a hooded man.

A steady male voice, seemingly somewhat immature, reached her ears.

“I heard your prayer, so I came.”

You just said the sooner the better, right?

(End of this chapter)