When Buckle Murphy had passed numerous checks and walked out of the laboratory, on the tarmac outside, a small helicopter had been ordered to wait for a long time.
Buckle Murphy stepped onto the helicopter. The helicopter started up quickly and flew out of the forest along a narrow winding path.
After flying for a distance, the winding roads under his feet had completely disappeared and there was only a dense endless jungle in front of him. They even had to cross over dozens of mountains. The helicopter traveled for half an hour before it left the forest, coming to the end of the trees.
Here, a large-scale military base popped into Buckle Murphy’s field of vision.
It was not until the helicopter landed that Buckle Murphy jumped out of the vehicle with the help of a few soldiers. At the same time, four or five people in the barracks before him came up to him.
“Father.”
A middle-aged man with a ponytail walked to the forefront. When he saw Murphy, he immediately looked attentive. “I brought you something. I believe you’ll be shocked after seeing it.”
“Stop hyping it up.”
Buckle Murphy waved his hand and walked toward the barracks in the squall of the helicopter. As he walked, he said, “As a ‘shield bearer’, my time is very limited and this week I’m also the chairman of the Quantum Deity Conference. So, if you have something, just hurry and show it to me.”
“Yes.”
The middle-aged man walked into the barracks, took out a document, and handed it to Buckle Murphy.
“What’s this?”
Buckle Murphy took the document, gently turned to the first page, and raised his eyebrows suddenly. “James Watson’s hospital records?”
“Please keep reading, Father.”
The middle-aged man somberly said, “This case isn’t simple. You should’ve heard that James Watson was assassinated two months ago. He should’ve died, but Blackwatch Corporation developed a new type of technology and healed him when he was on the brink of death.”
“Oh?”
Murphy’s expression turned completely serious when he heard these words. He walked to the table in a few steps, sat on the chair, and pored through the document carefully.
After he did so, the surprise in his eyes could no longer be concealed and he even gradually frowned.
Time turned from afternoon to night. The shining stars slowly rose from the end of the forest. The starry sky was extremely bright. This was a magnificent star-studded sky that could only be seen in Yellowstone Park.
It was only when the ground outside the barracks was lit up by starlight that Murphy rubbed his dry eyes and put down the case sheet in his hand.
“Father?”
The middle-aged man immediately walked up from one side.
“Heh heh heh…”
Murphy laughed softly. “An AI chip and nano-scale electrodes that can replace the brain, along with NSR implants… They can even repair brain injury?”
“Father, do you think this is fake?”
The middle-aged man was surprised. “We’re not sure either. If this technology shows up in any research institution, I’d assert that it’s fake, but if it’s Blackwatch…”
“Whether the records are real, I don’t know. I only want to know — what are these patterns?”
However, Murphy just shook his head, picked up one of the papers, and stood in front of his son. “I noticed earlier that there are these patterns on every page and they aren’t fully identical, for there are three types of patterns.”
“It’s probably a watermark.”
The middle-aged man was a little uncertain. “It may also be an anti-counterfeit mark that Blackwatch uses. Plus, it doesn’t get in the way of reading.”
“Is it really just a watermark?”
Murphy frowned, then put the three patterns together and kept comparing them. “This pattern has no symmetrical structure. It cannot be a logo or a watermark. In my opinion, it’s more like a password or a code word…”
“What?”
The middle-aged man was startled. “Do you think there’s other information hidden in these patterns?”
“I’m just guessing. When you head back, ask a few professional linguists to analyze these watermarks and see what they mean.”
“Yes.”
The middle-aged man could only assent.
“If these records are forged, we can forget the whole thing. But if the contents of this case are true, then we’ll speed up our destruction of Blackwatch.”
Murphy grew sterner. “This kind of technology has the potential to control human thoughts. The brain is the forbidden area of the human body. Once our enemies master this technology, the consequences will be unimaginable. Therefore, this kind of technology must never be allowed to appear in the hands of forces other than ourselves!”
“That said, this company is truly something else.”
The middle-aged man suddenly realized. “It’s no wonder that the spies we sent not only didn’t get much news but were killed in the Eco Science City. We don’t even know how they died…”
Murphy did not answer but gave the middle-aged man a few more orders, then walked out of the barracks, and returned to the helicopter.
Even as the helicopter lifted off again, Murphy still maintained a solemn expression. He did not know why but after reading the document, he had the feeling he was being spied on.
This feeling was very subtle and indistinct, somewhere between something and nothing.
“My mind is playing tricks? Or am I being watched?”
Murphy murmured. At this moment, he again recalled what happened five years ago.
On that day five years ago, when he was elected as a “shield bearer” and became a representative of North America, he was monitored by “Adam”.
“Adam” was a quantum computer. No one knew its origin. According to the earliest group of people, it was as if this quantum computer had emerged from the earth itself. At the beginning of the Federation’s founding, the quantum computer “Adam” had appeared naturally and spontaneously.
The program of the quantum computer had also been set up. It was running at all times. From that moment to ten years later, all possibilities were calculated. Once any disaster that endangered human civilization was discovered, a crisis alert would be issued.
How great was the computing speed of “Adam”?
One could measure this by the Summit supercomputer, which had the fastest computing speed in the Earth Federation. The floating-point computing speed of Summit was 200 PFLOPS, which was 200 thousand trillion operations per second. In that case, “Adam” had 300 billion times the computing speed of Summit.
In other words, the calculations “Adam” performed in 1 second would take the Summit 10,000 years…
It was due to this kind of perverse computing speed that “Adam” could bear the responsibility of receiving input from all the variables of the entire planet, thereby predicting all the crises of the Earth Federation one month or even ten years into the future.
Therefore, the quantum computer Adam was also called the “Holy Shield” and Murphy’s current position was the “shield bearer.”
Although the “shield bearers” had little power, they represented the interests of the various continents in the Federation. Every six-year cycle, each continent would choose three members to act as the “shield bearers” of its own continent.
On the day he became a shield bearer, the quantum computer detected everything about him, including his birth and death. The quantum computer “Adam” thus reconstructed his past and predicted his future.
At that time, Murphy felt as if he was being watched…
Murphy’s expression darkened. He knew that this feeling could not have come from “Adam”. Although “Adam” could calculate extremely swiftly, its resources were still extremely precious. It was said that only about three hours of calculation time could be squeezed out per year. The remaining time must be used to forecast the crises of the Earth Federation.
In this way, the accuracy of Adam’s calculations was still barely enough. The forecast spanning ten years could only provide them with a general trend. If they wanted to get a more accurate forecast, they must perform calculations on a monthly basis.
So, if it were not Adam, there were only two possibilities — one was that all of this was just a trick of the mind and the other was that a quantum computer similar to Adam was evaluating Murphy.
At this instant, Murphy thought of Blackwatch Corporation.
Since he started targeting this company two years ago, he had only watched the company grow bigger and bigger. Moreover, the dozens of spies he sent, as well as the resistance organization White Embers he had indirectly established, were all wiped out. Even those members of the plutocratic families whom he had roped in were beginning to experience various mishaps.
Many of these spies who had encountered unexpected fates were all well concealed and the only channel by which they might be exposed was the Internet.
As a result, Murphy gradually came up with a bold conjecture that Blackwatch Corporation was likely to have a quantum computer similar to that of the Earth Federation. It was only by relying on that computer’s monitoring of the Internet that this company could keep growing stronger and uncovering all of its hidden enemies so accurately.
Therefore, he simply set up a bureau and ordered an agent to bring a USB flash drive containing Adam’s quantum virus to the Eco Science City. The agent was to insert the USB flash drive into their opponent’s intranet.
This quantum virus could be regarded as a major achievement of the Earth Federation’s many-year research into “Adam”. Its function was also very simple. Namely, it would copy all the data in the other party’s computer and without requiring any connection, those data would be copied to Adam’s side.
In that way, the existence of another quantum computer would inevitably be detected by the Earth Federation.
Even if the agent failed, the quantum USB drive would still fall into the hands of Blackwatch Corporation, which would still have the opportunity to insert the USB drive, causing the same result.
It was just that nothing happened in the end.
The agent was indeed exposed but the USB flash drive belonging to North America had vanished without a trace. It was like throwing a meat bun to hit the dog. The dog was fine but the meat bun had been swallowed by the dog.
Therefore, even now he did not know whether his conjecture was right or wrong.
After learning this, the North American officials finally became anxious. Since they could not do anything about the other party even after a secret attack, they had to tear off their masks and lay out a plan to arrest the head of the Blackwatch Corporation.
Still, this was all done in secret. The Earth Federation headquarters and the officials of other continents did not know about all this. Otherwise, it would become another conflict of interest between all parties.
All these thoughts flashed through Murphy’s mind. This sensation of being spied on caused Murphy to ponder extensively.
“Could it be that they’ve discovered my existence?”
Murphy felt a chill for no reason, but then he realized how absurd this sounded. As the shield bearer of the Earth Federation, would he be afraid of a private company?
Still, he had to admit that the company was indeed a bit too mysterious. It had an endless stream of biotechnology, which just so happened to solve the crisis of life and death. Once this happened too many times, people would naturally become somewhat apprehensive…
Thus, was this all just his mind playing tricks?
Murphy had no idea and there was nothing he could do now. He could only wait for the genius named Chen Chen to leave the Eco Science City in December and arrest him when he attended the Nobel Prize ceremony.
These thoughts echoed back and forth in Murphy’s mind. About an hour later, he returned to the Quantum Deity Laboratory in the depths of the forest and returned to his post.
What Murphy did not know was that the moment he saw those watermarks, he became watched by a pair of eyes, tens of thousands of kilometers away…
At this time, all the thoughts that emerged in Murphy’s mind, as well as his experience from childhood to adulthood, also appeared in their entirety in the Prophet System of Little X.
“To reconstruct just one person’s experience takes up so much power…”
At this time, Chen Chen looked at the terrifying number of consumed electricity and could not help frowning slightly. “It seems that it’s time for the third inertial fusion reactor to be on the agenda.”
“But the Spire Experimental Base is already full and our use of the base’s space is as high as 95%. It’s impossible to squeeze out any extra space to build a third reactor.”
Little X reminded.
“In that case, let’s expand it.”
Chen Chen did not hesitate to make a decision. “In the first place, the Spire Experimental Base is an underground space formed by limestone due to karst formation. As long as the structure isn’t altered on a large scale, it’ll not result in structural hazards.”
“Very well.”
Little X nodded and then chuckled. “Then now we’re left with this ‘Buckle Murphy’. I didn’t expect that the person who had been setting traps for us was hidden behind the quantum computer. We had to use non-physical means to locate him before we could deduce everything about him.”
“Strictly speaking, he’s only a representative, representing the most major force that opposes us, but by no means the final one.”
Chen Chen calmly said, “But now that we’ve found the source individual, we have to find a way to obtain the X-ray structure of his body.”
With that said, Chen Chen turned around and looked behind him.
Behind him was a set of strangely shaped devices.
This set of devices consisted of several large components. One of them was a transparent container the size of a coffin. Inside the container was a device similar to a 3D printer. The largest, most eye-catching one was a machine about five meters high and three meters wide, upon which were three rows of huge pipes.
This set of equipment cost all the electricity that Chen Chen had accumulated since he owned the two nuclear fusion reactors, and their origin was derived from a movie called Spectral.
Although he had completely emptied his reserves overnight, Chen Chen’s face showed no sign of distress. Instead, a cold smile curled up at the corner of his mouth.
“Sir Godfather, what’s your plan? If we’re only dealing with Buckle Murphy, there’s no need to use this device, right?”
Little X was still very puzzled and was unable to turn on The Prophet System to make predictions, so she could only ask, “Is your plan not aimed at that quantum computer?”
Hearing this, Chen Chen just raised a finger and shook his head at the same time, revealing a secretive look.
“As Buddha says, it can’t be spoken…”