Abyssal Wanderer

Chapter 5 NO.0005: Mandala

He didn't need to be sent for frontal lobe pretreatment, and he didn't need to be sent to be a miner in the "Abyss Darknet". Jiang Zhou was originally a dying person.

As early as a hundred years ago, he had been sentenced to death with a reprieve.

In order to verify the feasibility of the "Janus" program, Jiang Zhou voluntarily accepted a high-precision scanner, which caused irreversible trauma to his brain. It's just that he thought that his radiation sickness should be smoothed out by the mysterious existence that sent him a hundred years later, just like the drunkenness in the bar before.

But after he recovered from the shock of time travel, the familiar feeling of dizziness and nausea reappeared—these symptoms indicated that his brain cells would still gradually die in the next month, In the end, it turned into a bowl of spoiled tofu brain soup.

This should have been bad news.

But now it has become a bargaining chip he uses to bargain.

The blond man called "Director Ye" didn't change his expression after listening to Jiang Zhou's words:

"oh?"

"I have been exposed to high doses of radiation before, and I can live for a month at most."

Jiang Zhou tried his best to speak calmly.

"so what?"

The other party's answer didn't seem very surprising, and he didn't even ask why he was exposed to radiation, as if it was a normal thing in their era.

"So, it would be an extremely wasteful act to transform me into a mindless slave laborer now."

Jiang Zhou replied.

Although he doesn't know what kind of technology is needed to transform into an unconscious slave worker, but judging from the need to remove the frontal lobe as a pre-treatment, at least the zombie slave worker still needs a brain to function normally.

A slave labor with a shelf life of only one month? In the past, the manor owners in North America would not do this kind of business.

The other party did not reply, so he continued:

"In other words, it would be a more cost-effective choice to send me to the 'Abyss Darknet' for mining. This way I can make more use of my life, at least it won't cause too much waste."

According to what Qian Xiaying said, the average person who was forced by the company to do mining labor could not live for three months. In other words, even if you can live for a month, the benefits you can generate are much higher than being a zombie slave labor.

And from the previous few words between 136 and Qian Xiaying, he can roughly feel that compared with his own era, the enterprises in this century will have a layer of higher technology, but the essence is still the same, even greedy . For such utilitarians, it is meaningless to expect them to have a conscience. It is only useful to analyze the actual gains and losses with them.

Ye Qian didn't continue to ask questions, but turned to look at the adjutant beside him. The latter immediately understood, and tapped the data pad in his hand a few times.

The "Newton's Sigh" aircraft hovering in front of her immediately moved and floated in front of Jiang Zhou. Then, a light blue beam swept across his body back and forth.

"I'm not lying. Many organs in his body, especially the brain, have abnormal levels of repair enzymes, which is consistent with the symptoms of acute radiation sickness. Without treatment, he still has thirty-eight days at most."

The adjutant raised his head from the data board and said.

Ye Qian nodded, then looked at Jiang Zhou:

"Then, after thirty-eight days at the most, you will still die."

It's not in a questioning tone, it's more like he's giving the other party some notice.

"That's better than cutting off the frontal lobe now and being instantly transformed into a zombie without self-awareness."

Jiang Zhou answered immediately.

After he finished saying this, the other party seemed to be amused, and the fake and stiff smile on his face gradually became more vivid.

"Hahahahaha...it's interesting."

I don't know which nerve these words touched Ye Qian, he turned his head to look at his adjutant and said with a big smile:

"This is a bit interesting. A caveman who hasn't been modified at all, would actually ask to dive into the abyss and dark net? Check it out, is this really a low-tech tribe from the bottom of the resettlement area? Could it be something from Icarus? important person?"

Regarding this question, the adjutant shook his head:

"In the database of the Nord resettlement area government, there is no personal information about this person. He doesn't even have a brain-computer interface installed... 100% are low-tech people at the bottom of the resettlement area."

When she said this, she was actually euphemistically expressing that the other party was not suitable.

It's just that Ye Qian doesn't seem to care about this small problem. After all, compared to the investment of transforming into a technical slave, installing a brain-computer interface that is already a standard configuration in this era is almost costless.

He stared at Jiang Zhou and asked:

"May I have your name?"

"I... I have forgotten, maybe I don't have a name."

Jiang Zhou answered with a tense expression.

"Well, I remember that you and those members of Icarus were arrested together in the warehouse of 'Theseus Cargo', right? Then for the rest of the day, in Tartarus, you will be called Te Hughes is fine."

Inexplicably, the other party gave himself a code name, then turned to look at the adjutant behind him and said:

"Take this caveman to install the brain-computer interface, complete the certification of the JZ network protocol, and then take him to the No. 3 deep dive cabin."

Having said that, he paused for a moment, with a wicked smile on his face:

"Surface light zone, depth 2."

After finishing speaking, he came over and patted Jiang Zhou on the shoulder and said:

"A low-tech family took the initiative to apply for the Abyss Darknet. It's very good, Theseus. I appreciate it very much. Do it well and don't let me down."

The short-haired adjutant beside him couldn't help but twitch his eyelids when he heard his superior call the caveman "Theseus". But on this topic, she finally didn't dare to say anything, but asked carefully:

"Then Director Ye, did you choose these ten people including 'Theseus'?"

"This is a defective product that I picked out for Fanny, and she will have to thank me later... So this can only be counted as a bonus, you count the one you planned to pick out before, and make up eleven."

After speaking, he left without looking back.

JZ network protocol...

Jiang Zhou heard another term he was familiar with.

Not only is he familiar with it, that thing was developed by himself and his team!

It was a network protocol specially designed by him for the uniqueness of the "soul" during the development of the Janus project. The agreement ensures that everyone will never be maliciously copied after uploading their own "digital personality", which guarantees the unique ethical bottom line of each soul.

So, take him to certification? Then he had been certified as early as a hundred years ago...

…………

About twelve hours later, Jiang Zhou was controlled by the powered exoskeleton that restrained him, and followed behind the short-haired adjutant.

Along the way, he wanted to touch the occiput at the back of his head.

A hole had just been opened there, big enough to stick his index finger in.

But he couldn't, because the powered exoskeleton was still restraining him.

Brain-computer interface...

After experiencing what happened before, Jiang Zhou was a little speechless.

The operation to install the brain-computer interface took only ten minutes—the efficiency of the surgical robotic arm was so jaw-droppingly fast that it was over before he even realized what was happening.

For the remaining ten hours or so, he was lying on the bed, waiting for some kind of gadget to be injected into his brain, which spread like a virus in his cranial cavity, and finally formed a nanometer that spread all over the brain. grid. Countless hallucinations and auditory hallucinations appeared during this period. Between dreams and not dreams, several times he thought he was going to explain here.

Jiang Zhou speculates that this artificial neural grid will later cooperate with the entire brain to deceive the senses so that he can travel in the virtual world.

This was a research direction of immersive virtual reality technology back then, but it could not be realized because of the backwardness of basic technology.

It seems that this technology has now become the infrastructure of this era. Jiang Zhou noticed that everyone he met along the way had such an interface on the back of their heads.

"You shouldn't have asked to go to the dive chamber before."

On the way, the short-haired female adjutant suddenly said something like this.

"Why?"

Jiang Zhou asked back.

At this moment, the two of them were walking in a place whose layout was a bit like an underground passage, and the road was covered in pitch black tones. The blood-vessel-like electronic circuits in the previous carriage also spread around, contracting and expanding like breathing.

The adjutant turned his head to look at Jiang Zhou, pursed his lips, as if he wanted to say something, but finally held back.

It wasn't until the two of them came to a door exuding a slight chill that she opened her mouth and said:

"Originally you were just dead."

"I thought it was bad enough."

Jiang Zhou replied.

The other party shook his head:

"This is Tartarus... Death is never the end."

After saying that, the cold door opened.

Considering what the other party said earlier, Jiang Zhou originally thought that he would see a bunch of brains soaked in the incubator behind the door.

But inside is nothing more than a neatly arranged array of pitch-black cubes.

Each cube is about the size of two double-door refrigerators and has no distinctive appearance. Numerous pipelines extend from above, and finally converge into a pipe that emits cold air—most of the cold air in the room comes from that pipe.

This is probably the "No. 3 deep dive warehouse" that Director Ye mentioned earlier.

The adjutant went to the nearest black cube and pressed something. The cube opened slowly, and there was enough seats for one person inside. The inner wall of the cockpit is a geometric structure like a honeycomb, with interfaces everywhere.

"The sub-compartment of the deep dive, there are things in it that can maintain all your vital signs..."

As she spoke, she paused, and then said the lines that were probably in the standard process:

"From now on, this sub-compartment will replace that powered exoskeleton and become your new prison."

Jiang Zhou suspected that this sentence was also a voice command, because the restraint device on his body was automatically released after the other party finished saying this sentence.

"Strip naked, sit in, and set up your mandala."

She pointed to the cockpit and said.

"My what?"

Jiang Zhou moved his stiff joints and asked.

"Your mandala, the third-generation JZ network verification system. The signal perception switch of the visual cortex is used to activate your brain-computer interface by 'visualizing' a real graphic. In a word, you follow the prompts and do it Well, a five-year-old can do it."

She patiently explained.

In any case, Jiang Zhou has no capital to refuse. After moving his stiff joints, he calmly took off his clothes and lay down in the cockpit.

The hatch was closed, and some kind of odorless gas blew past his face, causing him to lose his sense of body in an instant, and his vision changed from a boundless darkness to a void of nothingness. This scene is like what I have heard in the past, and many people describe when they are about to die...

Then, with a "click", something was inserted into the interface of his occipital bone, as if electrified, and he felt that his spirit became extremely clear.

A featureless voice echoed in Jiang Zhou's ear. A block of black italic characters also appeared in his sight.

The content is as follows:

[For users whose interface feature codes are not included, if it is the first visit, please set up your Mandala; if you want to change the interface, please activate the existing Mandala first]

Jiang Zhou, who had lost his sense of the body below the neck, clicked on the [First Visit] option through the eye-tracking operating system.

[Please imagine a figure that is closely related to you, never forgotten, easy to imagine, and unique, as your own mandala. 】

According to this hint, combined with the meaning of the short-haired woman before, Jiang Zhou suddenly realized.

So people in this era use verification passwords to access the Internet, and they all "visualize" a unique graphic in their minds?

Then it really can't be hacked. Even if you tell others about your mandala, when different people imagine the same figure, there will always be subtle differences in details. Especially if you set your own mandala to something in memory, it is almost impossible for others to inspire the same imagination.

Jiang Zhou thought of this, and then he began to think about what kind of graphics he should choose as his "mandala".

Almost subconsciously, the scene where he entered the key to activate the "digital personality" in that bar a hundred years ago came to his mind.

Do you want to try...

Jiang Zhou tried to swallow the saliva that didn't exist.

If this verification system is really iterated from the JZ network protocol created by him before and is backward compatible, then as long as he enters the string of sixteen-digit keys, he can activate his past digital personality account.

In other words, I might be able to activate the account of "Janus"...if he still exists.

But should I take the risk?

At the moment, he is at the headquarters of a super enterprise. If his identity is exposed here, he dare not think about what will happen...

He made a quick decision.

Who cares... Even if there is no reaction, there is nothing wrong with using the sixteen-digit key as a mandala.

Jiang Zhou didn't hesitate for too long. After all, he only had 30 days left to live. How bad could it be if he tried it?

Besides, if "Janus" really sent him a hundred years later, it would be impossible for the other party not to leave some clues for him.

After figuring this out, Jiang Zhou slowly outlined the sixteen-digit key in his imagination in standard fonts.

The moment he finished sketching the last symbol, a change occurred.

The empty space in front of him was smashed into countless color blocks. Accompanied by the whistling sound of the current, those color blocks turned into swirling eddies in a blink of an eye, and finally gathered into a constantly changing color block figure.

Jiang Zhou knew this thing.

The humanoid abyss who once looked at him through the TV.

The voice that once called itself "The Creator."

The existence that once claimed to be Janus!