Volume 10: Ancient Battleship Chapter 527: Underlying Architecture and “Black Box”
Although this G3A3 is not equipped with any sights, for Ke Lan, the most basic machine aiming is enough to make this gun a powerful weapon for harvesting heads within a range of 200 meters.
What's more, after entering the game, he still had a trump card that he had never used.
That is "time stop".
As a VR game, Battle of Mogadishu does not allow players to pause the game except at save points. This is to prevent players from pausing the game when facing the enemy and then using the gun-shaped handle that can be freely moved in the real world to preview.
Thinking of this, Ke Lan couldn't help but want to do a test - he slowly aimed the crosshairs at a ranger two hundred meters away who had just fired a round of M72 rocket launcher and retreated behind the barricade, and then turned on the "time stop"!
An unexpected scene happened to Ke Lan: in the time-stop state, not only did the game screen turn black and white, but the character models also had obvious bugs - many NPC joints and bones penetrated the skin, muscles and internal organs, the blood that was about to splash out was frozen in place, and the flame gas splashed out by the explosion of the bullet primer directly drilled out from the wall of the gun barrel, and the bullets flying all over the battlefield pulled out countless ballistic trajectories.
But what surprised Ke Lan the most was not these, but the massive amount of characters that appeared in every corner of this virtual space... These characters were not computer programs written by humans, but the text of the Alpha civilization!
As a human hacker who can understand Alpha characters, Ke Lan only took a few glances to understand the meaning of these Alpha characters - they are the underlying architecture of this virtual world. This "total immersion system" was not independently developed by humans. The most important core technologies all came from the Alpha civilization!
Ke Lan's eyes kept moving across these character fragments. The more he looked, the more confused he became - this underlying architecture should, in theory, belong to the black technology of the Alpha civilization. For the technicians who wrote this fully immersive system, this architecture is equivalent to a "black box": they can embed this black box where it is needed, but they cannot interfere with the structure and operation of the black box.
However, in this underlying architecture, Ke Lan saw a lot of programming logic unique to humans.
He didn't think it was a coincidence.
Could it be that besides myself and the prophet, there is a third... or even more people who can understand the Alpha language?
However, if such a person exists and has a close cooperative relationship with the Institute, then why have the Institute's technical difficulties that have been stuck for more than ten years or even decades due to language barriers not been overcome yet? Are those important projects not as good as a fully immersive system for virtual training and battle situation deduction?
This is no longer a question of how many doubts there are, but rather that it simply does not conform to the normal logic of human behavior.
This is like when humans in the old era made outstanding technological breakthroughs in a certain field, but did not apply this new technology to the military or civilian fields, but instead used it to make entertainment products that were not particularly compatible with the technology itself. If the world was really like this, let alone building an ark, humans would probably have been destroyed along with the solar system a thousand years ago.
The time stop ended, and all the NPCs on the street exploded into bloody mists, with their torn limbs scattered all over the ground. The guns that were roaring and pouring firepower just a second ago, burst one after another, and hot metal fragments flew everywhere.
Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, then immediately quit the game.
When he sat up from the immersion cabin, he found that the technician responsible for monitoring the status of the equipment was staring blankly at the screen without saying a word. On the screen was the last scene before the end of the game: the purgatory-like Mogadishu.
The "Purgatory" here is not an exaggerated adjective, but a real purgatory: flames and flesh and blood are everywhere, twisted and broken bones can be seen everywhere, death falls on every "person" like a curse, and an incredible force directly crushes and crushes them...
Even those buildings seemed to have experienced a magnitude 10 earthquake...
“How could this happen… How could this happen…” the technician muttered to himself.
"What happened?" Ke Lan took off his hood, looked at him and asked.
"Just now... just one second before you exited the game, the entire program suddenly froze for a moment. When the lag was resolved, the entire virtual world crashed... No, it can't be said to have crashed... After the lag ended, all the subroutines were still running normally. All the virtual rules and physical laws we set were not violated. Look, the blood on the ground is still flowing to the ground instead of floating into the air. The wood roasted by the flames is gradually carbonizing instead of disappearing directly... But, but it shouldn't turn out like this..."
"There's a bug in the program, a serious one." Ke Lan said calmly, "All data and records must be sealed and no backups are allowed. No one present is allowed to spread the news. I will report this matter directly to the highest level organization."
"Research Institute?" the technician asked subconsciously.
"No, it is a higher level existence than the institute." Ke Lan said, "I hope you can understand that the seriousness of this matter has exceeded the capabilities of the institute. If you don't want to be permanently silenced by the people above using 'physical means', it's best to forget everything you just saw."
"This is beyond the capabilities of the research institute. This is impossible..." The technician seemed to want to argue, but was immediately interrupted by Ke Lan.
"I can tell you one thing. The underlying architecture of this fully immersive system, that is, the 'black box' that you cannot interfere with, actually uses the technology of the Alpha Civilization. The bug that appeared this time is located in this 'black box'. Now you know why I want you to keep it secret."
"What?! It's Alpha..." The other party was stunned for a moment. As a technician, he naturally knew the existence of this "black box", but he didn't think so much about it at first. He thought that the research institute had sealed the program inside the black box for confidentiality. But now after hearing what Ke Lan said, the technician suddenly got the idea - no wonder the first point of attention in the training process was that it was strictly forbidden to crack the "black box", it turned out that this thing was not "man-made"!
His expression suddenly became serious and nervous, and he nodded hurriedly: "I understand!"
In addition to this technician, the people present included Cheng Dong from the Security Bureau and two medical staff on the "New Dawn". Although they did not understand what Ke Lan meant by the "black box", since it involved the "Alpha Civilization", it was definitely not a trivial matter.
"Do you need me to apply to the headquarters to mobilize more manpower?" Cheng Dong asked Ke Lan, "We can control the entire New Dawn and ensure that no information will be leaked..."
"There are only five of us who know about this. The more people there are, the easier it is for mistakes to occur... Don't forget, there have been traitors in your security bureau." Ke Lan shook her head. "Just the temporary transfer of personnel is enough to attract the attention of those with ulterior motives."
"What about them? Otherwise..." Cheng Dong said, his hand involuntarily resting on the holster at his waist.
Ke Lan naturally knew that the special agent team leader was referring to "silencing". In the eyes of this group of people, compared with the interests and safety of the Ark, personal life is something that can be discarded at will - whether it is their own life or the lives of others.
"No, no, no, it's not necessary." Ke Lan waved her hand quickly and said, "Team Leader Cheng Dong, you are responsible for keeping an eye on them here. Make sure they don't run around and don't come into contact with other people - including yourself."
"Should we handcuff him or tie him up?"
"Uh... probably not." Ke Lan glanced at the technicians who were still in a state of shock and the two medical staff who looked depressed as if they were implicated. These three people were just civilian staff. They had not undergone body modification and were not enhanced people. Although the two medical staff had military status, the combat effectiveness of the medical staff on the battleship was still far behind those medical soldiers in the army who needed to follow the troops into battle.
Even if these three people attack together, they probably won't be enough for Cheng Dong to defeat with just one hand.
Unless there is a heretic who can use the "Holy Word" hidden among them - the possibility is almost zero, and even if there is such a hidden player, it would be useless to send a whole team of fully armed agents to keep an eye on him.
"I think I have to go back to the Ark." Ke Lan said, "Before I come back, you will have to stay in this room."
"Do you need me to send someone to escort you?" Cheng Dong asked again.
"No, I will ask the captain of Fleet Zero for escort personnel." Ke Lan rejected the proposal. "I say again, before the decision is made above, the sixth person must not know about this."
"Yeah." Cheng Dong nodded solemnly.
After explaining these things, Ke Lan transferred all the records to a hard drive, then cleared all the cached data in the device and formatted all the storage devices.
Then, he used his special authority to lock the infirmary - as for the four people locked up inside, there was a toilet in the infirmary anyway, and the emergency food stored in the safe was enough for the four of them to consume for half a month.
Not only that, Ke Lan also cut off all network connections in the infirmary, and set a label at the door that read "Special operations in progress, no one allowed to approach"... In this way, the infirmary truly became an "isolated island" inside the battleship.
He originally wanted to put these four people in the detention room for a while, but the walls of the detention room on the battleship were made of one-way glass. People inside could not see outside, but people outside could see the detention room clearly. If the fact that four people including the head of the Security Bureau agent were sent to the detention room spread in the fleet, it would be difficult to explain.
Furthermore, they couldn't just leave the entire set of "virtual immersion equipment" in the infirmary. The four of them staying here could not only prevent leaks but also serve as a guard.
After closing the corridor where the infirmary was located, Ke Lan went to the bridge of the New Dawn and made up an excuse to ask the commander of Fleet Zero for a transport plane.
This commander is a close confidant directly appointed by the Undead Crew. Ke Lan doesn't need to say it explicitly. As long as he hints that it is something related to "the higher-ups", he will give Ke Lan the greatest support.
However, once on the transport plane, Ke Lan was in trouble.
Although he and Cheng Dong and others said that they would return to the Ark to report the matter to their superiors, the problem was that he had not yet completely confronted the undead crew. If he told them about this, wouldn't that be tantamount to confessing himself?
He didn't think that he could deceive this group of people by fiddling with the data files that served as evidence... Rather than making up a lie that could be exposed at any time, it was better not to say a word.
Or, just be honest with them.
Ke Lan thought about it over and over again, and waited until the transport plane flew into the suspended airport, but in the end he still couldn't make a decision.
This is a crucial move. Once it is made, he will never have the chance to regret it.
Ke Lan, who was worried, walked down the gangway. Before his feet stepped onto the tarmac, he heard someone calling his name in the distance.
The two girls who came to pick him up were from the hunting group - "trainee" Qin Zhao and "chief pilot of the hunting group" Valentina.
Hound and others are busy with the joint exploration of "Yaguna Kotor". The only ones who are free in the entire team are Qin Zhao, who has just joined, and Valentina, who doesn't usually care about these things.
When Ke Lan contacted the hunting group before, he used the communication line of Fleet Zero, so he couldn't explain the matter clearly on the phone. He only said that he had to "come back to do something", but as for what the specific matter was, he didn't reveal a word.
"Captain, here you go." Qin Zhao, dressed in a neat training uniform , came up and handed Ke Lan a bottle of pure water. Her hair was still very short, just growing to the same length as her chin - although she had her long hair cut in her dream when she was in the bottomless cenote, her body, which was completely synchronized with the dream, also completed the action in reality.
Afterwards, Hound even mentioned this incident specifically - fortunately, the positioning of the folding knife was quite accurate, if it was slightly off, it might have wiped the neck instead of the hair...
"What about the hounds? Are they still busy?" Ke Lan took the bottle and asked with a smile.
"Uncle Hound and his team went to the Ye Corporation today. Only Senior Valentina and I stayed at the headquarters." Qin Zhao replied, "Oh, by the way, someone just came to the headquarters. He should be waiting in the reception room now. Do you want to meet him later, Captain?"
"Who is it?"
"I don't know him...but judging from the information on the business card, he is from the Morgan Consortium."
