Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

Chapter 28 Iron Fortress

The vector later became increasingly aware of one thing.

The knowledge she has access to now is already insufficient.

It wasn't that Red Spider didn't teach her enough. On the contrary, that guy was stuffing things into her brain modules at an alarming speed—parameters, structures, old and damaged compatibility, energy loops, local reconstruction logic, layer upon layer, so fast that sometimes when she lay down at night and closed her glasses, all she could see were those damn images.

It's like going back to junior high school.

The problem is that as you go further up the chain, the amount of information available outside becomes increasingly scarce.

The information on the public internet is either as superficial as a promotional brochure, or it's been completely deleted. She scrolls down using keywords, often only managing to find a small part after a long time. The truly useful parts are either locked or not even in public search results.

This annoyed her.

That day, after returning from Starscream's place, the moment I walked in the door, I didn't even bother to say "I'm home." My first words were, "Do all Cybertronians like to hide away useful things?"

Zhen Tianzun, who was resting on the sofa, glanced at her upon hearing this and asked, "What's gotten into you today?"

Yin Vector slammed his left forearm on the table, and the mobile terminal projection interface popped up, displaying a bunch of search pages that she had flipped through in a mess.

"Information." She frowned. "The more specialized the field, the less publicly available information there is. Aren't the barriers to entry in your profession a bit ridiculously high?"

Zhen Tianzun glanced at the pile of interfaces, his expression completely unfazed: "You only just realized that?"

"I never had the opportunity to discover this before," the vector replied irritably. "The problem is I'm stuck now. It's one thing for Red Spider to teach me, but when I want to fill in the gaps myself, I can't find anything complete outside of this resource."

Zhen Tianzun looked at her for two seconds, as if trying to determine whether she was simply complaining or had actually learned from her mistakes.

A few seconds later, he put the data pad on his leg aside.

"Go to the Iron Fort Archives."

The vector paused.

"...Iron Fortress?"

"If you want to check things on the system, go there," Zhen Tianzun said. "Don't expect the public network to cover for you."

The vector core stirred.

The next second, another question came to her mind.

"Do I have the necessary permissions to get in?"

Zhen Tianzun chuckled softly.

"Getting in isn't difficult," he said. "The difficulty lies in not being driven to the point of wanting to dismantle the machines by their authentication and classification system."

The vector stared at him for two seconds: "Your statement sounds like you have some machine experience."

"Nonsense." Zhen Tianzun glanced at her. "Do you think I'd make up such a troublesome excuse to scare you?"

Pointer vector: "..."

Row.

She wanted to see just how troublesome this place could be.

-

The Iron Fort Archives was even more extravagant than she had imagined.

A glance at it will make your body instinctively tighten its footsteps and the sound of its voice.

The building is relatively tall with a clean silhouette, and its layered structure creates an almost rigid sense of order. The exterior is largely composed of cool white and light silver metallic surfaces, edged with stable blue guide lights, making it appear from a distance like a single piece carved out of order itself. The entrance is sparsely decorated, featuring only a row of quietly lit authentication areas and several vertically extending data walls; even the machines moving in and out seem quieter than elsewhere.

Yin Vector stood at the door for two seconds, and the first thought that popped into his mind was not "Finally, I can find something".

Instead: ...this place doesn't seem to welcome unprepared machines.

As it turned out, her intuition was absolutely correct.

The first certification almost annoyed her.

The procedures are so numerous they're almost annoying.

Identity verification, purpose of access, public and semi-open layer search confirmation, access application instructions, liability clauses, and a whole bunch of default rules written coldly on the interface, as if afraid that you won't realize you're about to be severely tortured by the data system before you even enter.

The vector reader scrolled through the authentication terminal, page by page, until he almost laughed: "Is this supposed to prevent leaks or to prevent machines from getting in alive?"

She muttered a curse under her breath and obediently finished everything.

By the time she finally entered the public search area, her patience had been worn down by the entry process.

Then she quickly realized that the real trouble was yet to come.

The retrieval system is even more outrageous than the entry authentication.

With multiple layers and detailed classifications, the logic of the public open layer and the technical archive layer seems to be designed independently by two completely different brain modules. At first, she tried to throw in the parameter words and structural words that she had been using recently, but what popped up were either shallow public entries like an overview page, or a long string of related results that were only slightly related to what she was looking for, but were essentially useless.

She changed the set of words.

Re-examine.

Change it again.

Investigate again.

The more she investigated, the more chaotic things became. The projection windows were layered upon layered, like a bunch of specially designed metal rings wrapped around the machine, firmly trapping what she really wanted inside.

What's even more infuriating is that the technical files she wanted to access, after expanding the summaries, all had a calmly displayed message in the corner: Insufficient permissions. Please submit a request to access the files.

The vector stared at that line of text, and the entire machine remained silent for three seconds.

Then, he calmly cursed in his mind.

awesome.

There's so little information online, it's like it's being deliberately hidden.

There are many items available offline, but they are so numerous that they resemble deliberately miniature optical lenses.

She stood in front of a public search terminal for almost an hour, her screen displaying seven or eight layers of text. The more she searched, the more she felt like she wasn't looking for information.

It was a fierce battle against an ancient, sophisticated system that clearly showed no sympathy for machines that had temporarily come to fill in the gaps in their knowledge.

She took a half step back and rubbed her temples. "Who designed this...?"

She muttered to herself, "Is it to find information, or to filter out all those who still have normal emotions?"

Suddenly, someone chimed in from the side.

"There is no conflict."