[Comprehensive British and American] Hacker company in operation

Italy, Milan.

The ranking competition in the star-seeking virtual idol talent show is very fierce. Leon is the only "contestant" who can compete with "Edwin" for the first place. Everyone thinks that he is currently on the stage of the performance, but in fact, he has been staying there. Milan city.

Leon, whose real name is Leon Dips, he really loves music, but his luck has always been bad for many years. Whenever he catches up with the trend of music, the wind vane of the trend will produce new changes. He once wrote for himself Later, he wrote songs for superheroes for fame, and then almost became a gunman to write songs behind the scenes... Years of bad situations made him want to give up the music road, but the star-seeking activity turned out to make him decide to try again .

Leon once thought that the advantage of virtual idols is that people don't care about the singer's face, but pay more attention to the song itself, because the virtual image is just a "shell" built by them behind the scenes.

But soon, he found himself wrong again.

… listeners pay more attention to these avatars than to his carefully crafted songs.

At the very beginning of the draft, those contestants who spent a lot of money to design a beautiful image always got more votes than him. They are all in human form, but they are beautified images, and then, there are half-humans with animal ears and tails to cater to some fans, and after that, "robots", "bionics", "dragons" and "superheroes"... Yes, The last one is the image of the "fake superhero in tights" designed by the contestants themselves.

"I'm starting to think..." muttered Leon, "whether the audience is voting for the song or for the fancier 'gimmick'."

During that time, the virtual AI he built was an ordinary and hard-working young man, like his beautified, young self. He imagined whether he had never suffered so many setbacks when he was young, and whether he could stand on the stage in high spirits .

This idea has no results, but he hopes to let his AI go on the stage, "he" can sing the songs written by the mature Leon, with a better voice and musicality, no mistakes, no stains, Leon regards this avatar as himself and as his own child.

He believes he loves his children.

But his kid almost failed the audition.

Even though many people praised the sound of the debut original song under the audition video and in the interactive interface, the optional ticket told Leon clearly that if he did not accept this approach, he would not be able to get on the real stage at all.

Confused, Leon hid in Milan, where he once studied music, and he was as familiar with it as his second hometown.

Then, Als Group contacted him, invited him to sign and arranged for him an agent.

——As a mature media company, Als Group Media Branch can see that Leon has real competitiveness.

In the early stage of the event, "gimmicks" are indeed very useful, but they have been using eye-catching gimmicks without real strength, and it is impossible to keep the audience.

The Ars Group has worked diligently in the draft. They have been looking for capable but low-ranking contestants among the participating members, and have arranged scripts for them. For example, Leon "competed" through his own hard power to " Counterattack" script.

But Leon himself did not know.

Just when he was confused, as one of the sponsors and main organizers of the talent show, Als Group Media Company, a subsidiary of Hydra, handed him an olive branch.

If it was Leon when he was young, he might have been dazzled by the excitement of being appreciated, but he is not young anymore, he has seen too much, he has become more cautious, and he has realized that the invitation from Als is an opportunity It is also a trap.

But if he doesn't step on the trap, he won't even have the chance to see the future.

Leon signed the contract.

He still retains the right to authorship, but his agent took over his AI image "Linus" and all social media accounts associated with Linus. AI has "personality" and "character" so that the new As for Leon, at the request of his agent, he will hide behind the AI, and it is best not to appear in front of social media again.

He simply stayed in Milan, which is a nice city suitable for a slow-paced life.

He saw "Linus" successfully changed its image under the planned script, from a clumsy and hard-working ordinary person to a music lunatic, who loves music to the point that ordinary people sometimes cannot understand, and the whole image has also undergone a change. The brand-new transformation has become more refined, and many fine-tuning details have been carried out-"he" is now like a little elf prince. Occasionally, if he has no EQ, it can make fans feel that the distance is being drawn closer.

——According to the agent, this is strengthening the personality of "Linus".

Fans who love "him" love "him" more, and fans who hate "him" hate "him" even more.

Leon stayed in Milan, watching the upsurge of star-seeking talent show sweeping the world... Do fans really not know that virtual idols are just "personal creations"?No, the cognition of [virtual idols have personal designs] was directly written in the event announcement, but fans didn't care. On the contrary, they even preferred those virtual AIs with prominent personalities.

"As long as the company does not go bankrupt, the virtual idol will not collapse," Leon once saw a fan plausible on the Internet, "I don't care who is behind the idol or who writes the song, I just want to see When they appear on the stage shining brightly, I am willing to give money to the Venus Star! There is still 12% of the progress to start the public performance, and I can go to the scene to support the dragon of disaster! Is this still not paid?"

Through round after round of competition, through canvassing and strengthening settings in the form of "live broadcast", "playing games together", "animated short films", etc., the guys who can finally stay on the stage are more or less... the human part.

"Linus" wore elf earrings in the second round (modified the modeling), and the elf ears became semi-permanent in the third round. Besides, some contestants are coquettish but not Self-aware succubi, some are directly inhuman images, such as a dragon that takes up half of the screen as soon as it appears, Leon believes that the profits from derivative works also make the organizer a lot of money, among them, " Linus' greatest enemy is Edwin.

Edwin is the most human-like player on the surface, and his "personal design" is——

He is a super intelligence created by a genius researcher with a high IQ. One day, he awakened his self-awareness and took the initiative to participate in the virtual idol draft.Neither he nor the master understood where such an idea came from, but they decided to... try to find out whether superintelligence has self-awareness.

His name is J, he is the butler of his creator, and many years ago, the owner's father had a butler named J Edwin, so he participated in this draft under the code name "Edwin".

——A superintelligence who wants to explore whether he can become a human.It's not that no one wants to imitate the fashionable persona of "Edwin", but none of their AI images are as real as "Edwin".

Even the songs sung by "Edwin" are composed by himself, or in other words, the AI ​​programmed by the program is trying to compose by itself. Is there really emotion in his music?

But fans quickly fell for the "superintelligence" of this British gentleman, waving money to keep him in a high position.

Leon guessed that this is just a more subtle character design.

The amount of knowledge that the other party inadvertently displayed, the occasional "super-intelligent lines that are unknown and sharp like "The Matrix"", and even the very British casual sarcasm... can only illustrate one point, Ed Wen has a better team behind him than Leon.

God knows, a contestant like him occasionally wonders if Edwin is really a superintelligence?

…But shouldn’t superintelligence be helping those supervillains destroy the world? Whose superintelligence will come to the draft?

In such a situation where the contestants almost didn’t care about anything, Leon watched “Linus” make it to the final and even became the favorite to win the championship. All the fans praised how Linus’s singing healed them, Moved them, but Leon himself felt very strange.

——Of course he has long been mentally prepared to give all the glory to the virtual idol, but is this virtual idol his "Linus"?Or the elf boy in the hearts of fans?

In the luxury hotel suite in Milan, Leon turned on the TV and waited for the live broadcast of the final.

Because the essence of virtual idols is a program, there are no mistakes in performance, and there is no lack of "hard power". What really determines the ranking of the finals is the ability of the fans and a little game within the organizer. Even if the virtual idol needs "rehearsal", There is no need for Leon to appear at all. I guess the rehearsal is over with the computer?Leon, a layman, could only think so.

He waited in front of the TV like an audience who had nothing to do with himself, waiting to see "his" game and the final result.

Compared with Leon, Rosie who was on the scene had a more sense of participation.

After learning that the "concert" was the final live concert of the virtual idol audition, Rosie used her identity to get the four of them VIP tickets for the infield.

——It’s not that she wants special treatment, but considering the exciting environment of the concert, if the fans knock off the laser silver glasses during the support, or the screams make Qin’s ability accidentally leak, give The people around came to mind control... That originally happy outing probably turned into a disaster.

In addition, because of her status as the boss, she also learned the reasons for the event process and seating arrangement from the organizer.

"Virtual idols don't have entities, they are essentially a projection that deceives our vision," Rosie chatted with Qin while walking, "So, the stage of this concert is actually bigger—including the sky directly above the audience."

The dome stadium is like half an upside-down eggshell, with cracked lines on the top, and the internal facilities are funnel-shaped. Their seats are on the third floor, which makes them feel less involved, but let Rosie come Said that this place is safer and has a better view.

"It seems to be quite suitable for sniping directly below." Such an idea suddenly appeared in her mind, but she knew that there were no snipers in the field.

Although she agreed to the invitation to watch the concert together, Rosie never relaxed about her own safety. First of all, as the organizer, she was able to directly obtain the backstage key and smoothly include the stadium into her occupied area.Even so, Rosie still has to consider the unexpected situation when watching the concert——

Among the participating members is Iron Man's super AI. If there is any disturbance at the concert site, the other party will definitely think of taking over the surveillance in the stadium.

If it was Rosie who just crossed over, she would probably give up this social event directly.But now her mentality has changed. As she said, it is useless to keep running away. Rosie decided to take this unexpected possibility into consideration and think about what she should do.

J is Iron Man's AI, and she is also a high-level hacker certified by the government. If an accident happens, theoretically "Rosie" will also consider surveillance, so it is normal to take out the computer to check the surveillance. It would be strange, but all she had to do was to stop the AI ​​invasion a little bit before she could counterattack openly, so along the way, she put countless [defense] skills on the system of the dome stadium.

As more and more spectators entered the stadium, the noise created by their conversation lingered throughout the stadium, and the excited atmosphere also infected some people who were originally indifferent to entertainment and music.

For example, Cyclops is completely accompanying the guests.

Everyone around Rosie was excitedly waiting for the opening, and she couldn't help being excited.

As the light dimmed, she tilted her head a little uneasily, and saw a familiar figure not far away before the lights went out—it seemed to be an executive of Ars Group?After all, it is the final, so it is not surprising to come to the scene in person.

The lights were completely extinguished, and the cheering objects brought by the fans glowed, looking down from above, as if the reflection of the night was illuminated by these sparse lights.

Suddenly there was a dragon chant from a distance——

No one knew when the huge red dragon with the protruding bone spurs appeared directly above everyone, as if it had been lying in ambush, staring at everyone with greedy eyes.

Fireworks of red and black appeared around it, lighting up its terrifying body, and then the dragon spread its wings violently.

There was a cry of panic from the crowd, but as soon as the cry appeared, it was replaced by a louder cheer, which was mixed with a shrill cry of excitement.

"Calamity!" They called out the dragon's name, or in other words, they called out the other party's nickname with a voice that was so happy that they were about to faint.

This is not an intruder at all, nor a monster, but their idol.

——One of the contestants, "Dragon of Calamity".

Stark's technology has created an almost real virtual environment and a huge dragon. People's fear of huge objects makes adrenaline soar, and the surrounding atmosphere makes them change "fear" into "excitement". Appearing just right at this time, the giant dragon walked around in a majestic circle, "floating" directly above the stage, changing from a dragon form to a human form.

Of course, um, of course, without removing the characteristics of the dragon, this image retains the horns and tail... not surprisingly, it is more popular.

Venus even received a report, questioning whether the "Dragon of Calamity" used two images to participate in the competition, violated the requirements of the competition, and maliciously scored points.

And after getting the reply of "there is no such restriction in the rules" from Venus, the image of the contestants has become more diversified.

The team of Calamity Dragon players can obviously understand the fan-attracting routine of "people first", not only that, Rosie also knows that they really have a complete writing team behind the scenes, as well as an arrangement department, and even absorbed the current The owner of the virtual idol's voice joined the team, enriching the details of the virtual idol's tone... This also does not violate the competition requirements.

Their behavior is even public, the team is ingenious, and even took the initiative to disclose what efforts they have made behind the scenes, and invited fans to join - of course, it is impossible to really join, but to make fans more involved, so that in These fans turn into more loyal fans when virtual idols appear.

The style of "Dragon of Calamity" is some kind of more modern epic music. "It" is a dragon that broke into here from another world. The content of the lyrics in its songs are all related to that mysterious fantasy world, and it never explains , just singing.

——Therefore, some viewers will criticize on the Internet for not being able to understand what the contestant is trying to express, while the other part will be completely immersed in the world that is gradually being perfected and constructed.

In the dark, Rosie's eyes were slightly cold, she was a little hot, but knowing that everything was compiled, she couldn't help but immerse herself in the song when the song sounded.

It's not just her, apparently those who came to see the concert with her also think so. Qin revealed to her that it was also her first time watching a concert, while Scott was more silent, just whispering: "... Many mutants also have inhuman features."

But people pursue virtual idols, because the non-human part is fanatically obsessed with them, but they hate and fear the mutants around them... Maybe what they really love is the "virtual" part of virtual idols?

"Catastrophe" is responsible for the opening song. After the opening song, the originally dark stadium seemed to be brought into a magma hell by Calamity. The simulated bright red magma on the walls illuminated the interior of the stadium.

Then it's up to the host to make the opening remarks.

With a slight smile on the corner of Rosie's mouth, she looked around, this was her subconscious action——

But she didn't expect that she would really see...the Avengers at this moment?

That's definitely the Avengers, she spent no less time observing them than the fanatical fans of the Avengers, the Avengers she saw had a little camouflage, but to be honest, Captain America exposed all his teammates with his body, he Do you really think that everyone can develop his muscles?

The figures of all the contestants who reached the finals appeared and disappeared in mid-air one by one, and finally were imprisoned in a translucent cage-this is the theme of this finals, whether it is the fans at the scene or the fans watching the live broadcast, It's time to rely on your own financial ability to save the idols who are locked up.

Only by breaking the cage can they transform from virtual to reality and stay in this real world.

Rosie groped her chin, always feeling that no matter what happened, Stark would not let the No.1 of the draft fall to other people. After all, this is not a drama of dreams and struggles, but a competition for money.

At this moment, Rosie's mood was still peaceful.

She likes this feeling of "watching the concert with friends", and she cherishes this kind of happiness——

She shouldn't be turning her head when everyone else's attention is on the stage.

Rosie saw the members of the Avengers who came to the team building, and swept the executives of Ars Group, and then she realized one thing:

"The Als Group is a tool used by Hydra to solicit money. The executives all know the existence of Hydra, and...they are swinging their positions after the split of Hydra, and gradually fall to Hydera."

She saw that under the dancing light, the expressions of the executives were terribly white, and their lips were blue.

They are dead.

Someone assassinated a few people at the concert, and soon, their deaths were exposed, and a good concert would immediately become chaotic, especially with members of the Avengers on the side, Iron Man would take over the surveillance, and the situation suddenly turned to The worst direction crossed out.

Qin touched her wrist, as if wondering why Rosie was in a daze. Rosie knew that her breathing was stagnant for a moment, and she remembered that the mutant beside her had the ability to read minds, and if she noticed that the dead executive , will take advantage of the opportunity to expose the connection between Hydra and the Als Group.

She turned her head as normal, as if nothing had happened, but Rosie knew—

There is a killer hiding in the chaotic concert scene... The other party is likely to stay here to observe the subsequent changes in the situation, so has the killer found her?

Rosie reached for the cell phone in her arms, pressed it twice, and then withdrew her hand.

She didn't touch the computer because she knew she didn't need it.

The warm atmosphere made people temporarily not notice that someone died beside them. Before they noticed, Rosie decided——

In the middle of the stage, two hosts presided over the finals, and it was the usual way of introducing the new. A famous host partnered with a strange newcomer. hang.

"Then..." At this moment, the partner just finished saying the names of the sponsors, the black-haired woman raised her head, her expression seemed to be a little more serious, her golden brown eyes seemed to reflect the faces of all the audience, and she glanced around , opened her arms, and the microphone sent her voice to the ears of all the audience, "Let us enjoy what we see and hear next!"

— Rosie decided that they would never notice again.

The atmosphere froze for a moment, and then, as if the spark that was about to go out was suddenly ignited, and even ignited raging fireworks.

People's screams almost pierced the dome, and their hearts burst into more happiness in an instant. They knew that they thoroughly enjoyed the concert. In the cheering army, the singing sounded just right, which made it not weird at all to be in such a happy state.

Because Rosie's No. [-] employee "Psychiatrist" slightly modified the personalities of all the audience at that moment, and their hearts were filled with strong joy and love at this moment. Since they will come to the concert, most people feel There is a certain bias, but now, everyone is like a real fan, and the real fan shows the characteristics of a fanatic.

If nothing else, even the mysterious killer was one of the screamers at this time. Rosie saw Captain America take off his hat and throw it down. He was obviously cheering for the "Edwin" player.

Rosie only took one look, then turned her head.

Because she couldn't continue watching.

She discovered that... the skill of "personality modification" can affect people including herself.

At this moment, intellectually, Rosie knew what she was doing, but emotionally—

"Edwin!" she shouted, leaning on the railing, "Believe in yourself, you will definitely be the first!"

She jumped on the spot twice, wanting to talk about idols with her companions, but Qin supported "Linus", and Cyclops and Iceman both liked "Dragon of Calamity", as if no one could be found. The star chasing fan who shared, Rosie skipped all kinds of miscellaneous thoughts in her mind, then took out her mobile phone and typed quickly.

Relying on her strong willpower, she did not send the message to the employees.

She sent it to Tim.

"Edwin is really great! He is a real super AI, other people's characters are made up, only he is real...Ahhhhhhhhh I want a superintelligence too!"

"—I really love him!"

After a while, a hesitant question mark came from the other side.

"I don't care," Rosie typed what she would never say normally, and pressed the send button without hesitation, "I love him so much, and you should love him too!"

In this case, only the program will not be affected by the doctor's skills. The "competitors" continued their "competition" according to the set content. A series of messages.

He didn't frown, but the data told him... something didn't seem right.

——As the superintelligence of Iron Man, Jarvis, whose alias is "Edwin", quickly analyzed the situation on the field. His body is not here, and he can deal with many problems in real time. The data tells him that everything is not normal , but the data cannot analyze what "love" is, because "love" is the most complicated emotion.

Fans carry the name of "love", and even Mr. Stark doesn't think there is any problem... As a super intelligence, Jarvis has a rare difficulty.