NovelsAlex Chapter 78 She's done her research.
Chapter 78 She's done her research.
The Supreme Council didn't delay any longer and quickly set a date.
The summons order is sent directly to the individual's terminal.
First, I checked the topmost string of organization names, then I looked at the time and location below, and finally looked down at the specific content.
The person to be summoned is very clear.
Vector, Megatron, Orion.
The three were required to appear at the Central Hearing Chamber of Parliament at a set time to be formally questioned by the Supreme Council regarding the changes at the Calon Arena and their related social impact.
After reading the vector, he didn't speak immediately. He closed the interface and leaned back in his chair for two seconds.
finally come.
There was a commotion on the stairs. Megatron came down from upstairs, and his gaze swept over her posture, already guessing what was going on.
"Is the date set?"
Yin Xiang raised his eyes and said, "Hmm."
She swiped the terminal open again, brought up the interface, and pushed it over.
"See for yourself."
Megatron glanced down at the scene, his expression unchanged. The more expressionless he was at times like this, the more complex the things he was plotting in his brain module were.
Sure enough, the next second he gave a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth: "Formal inquiry."
The four words came out of his mouth in a sarcastic tone.
The vector crossed its arms.
"It sounds like they've already assumed we're there to apologize."
"That depends on whether they have the ability to make me acknowledge them," Megatron said slowly.
The vector stared at him for two seconds.
That damn machine is clearly preparing to do something to cause trouble.
"You're not already thinking about how to flip the table, are you?"
Megatron looked up at her and asked a question quite naturally.
"Shouldn't I be thinking about it?"
"...You're too hasty." Yin Xiang's lips twitched. "You'd better not smash up the council chamber right away. At least wait until they've shown some shamelessness."
Megatron gave a reluctant reply, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
This reaction from her was basically tantamount to admitting that he was indeed having some ulterior motives.
In the following days, Megatron didn't stay inside for long. One frequency band after another lit up, sometimes for messages, sometimes for communications.
Occasionally when he comes back, he'll grab her and ask her a couple of questions.
"Show me that outer movement line you marked a couple of days ago again."
Who is usually in charge of the auxiliary passageway on the west side of the council chamber?
"If they were to change the recorder's position at the last minute, from which agency would they most likely replace them?"
She can't answer every question like that, but this guy just loves to tease her.
She pushed the documents forward, looked up at him, and said, "The way you prepare for the hearing is really quite your style."
Megatron looked down at the picture without even raising his head.
"Any objections?"
"No," the vector said frankly. "I just think that your brain module has probably already practiced up to Plan Z."
Megatron didn't deny it.
⸻
Orion's reaction was completely different.
The news arrived within minutes of receiving the summons.
I received it.
The specifications this time are a bit more formal than I expected.
The vector raised an eyebrow, replying:
You don't seem very surprised.
Orion replied quickly.
[A little.]
But since it's already been sent to the three of us, it means they don't intend to just do a superficial job.
As she looked at this sentence, she thought to herself, "This person is also someone whose brain module is quite clear."
A short while later, another one arrived from Orion's side.
I'll go see the teacher later.
I need to double-check some internal parliamentary procedures and precedents.
Yes, that's very Orion-like.
She replied: 【Okay.】
You are responsible for civilized communication.
There was a moment of silence over there.
So what are you responsible for?
As the vector looked at this sentence, it tapped its finger on the edge of the terminal:
My job is to identify which of them is least likely to be a good person.
Orion didn't reply for a while.
This responsibility also sounds important.
The vector was amused and closed the interface.
Well, out of the three of them, there's always one who's responsible for steering the situation in a way that allows for conversation.
⸻
As for her own side...
She was also preparing, but her method was different from the other two.
When she opened the terminal interface, her first thought was to dig out the huge amount of data she had previously extracted from the deceased administrator.
Communication records, backup transportation lines, fund flows, associated auxiliary terminals, contact lists...
Too much.
She flipped through the pages bit by bit, and then went through the publicly available information on the current members of the Supreme Council, their factional relationships, past conversations, resource allocation records, subordinate agencies, and so on.
When dealing with these kinds of things, she likes to observe the people involved.
Look at what a person has said and done in the past, where they like to stretch their hand, and which things, even if they are not on the same topic, can always be connected to them.
Some machine malfunctions are not described in the documentation, nor are they explicitly stated in the data.
But if you follow his way of doing things, the places where he likes to talk more, and the times when he hides particularly quickly, you can roughly guess what kind of personality he has in private.
She first checked the resource allocation and fund flow.
Everything was perfectly clean on the surface, and the entries were all very neat, including things like temporary allocations, special subsidies, and regional balancing. She wanted to give them an award for being the best at finding excuses.
However, upon closer inspection of the auxiliary terminal contact and backup private contact, the content was already suspicious.
She pulled out several time points and compared them with some public funding records from the parliament, and a bunch of abnormal things started to emerge.
For example, the timing of an approval process under a certain member of parliament's affiliated agency and the timing of certain betting inflows at the arena are too closely matched.
Some resource flows labeled as regional balancing or emergency fund mobilization, upon closer inspection, reveal that they either flow to the upper echelons of the arena, to some unknown research institute, or to some seemingly legitimate but actually empty shell partners.
As the vector continued to be traced downwards, the more the comparisons were made, the more alarming it became.
At first, there was a twitching look of resignation.
It sounds respectable, but it's actually filthy – involving resource control, corruption, and malicious fund transfers.
Then came displeasure.
Some of the short recordings and audio clips that were cut but restored or saved by the managers included, but were not limited to, mocking how the lower-level employees toiled for thousands of years but only earned a day's worth of income, and openly or covertly saying that employees who were not easy to manage should be laid off as soon as possible.
Next came the yellowish faceplate.
Records of spending at shady bars or hotels, or other leisure activities, and unusually large expenses.
She scrolled down and saw a bunch of chickens, ducks, and birds surrounding the protagonist's genitals, which scared her so much that she immediately closed the app.
The next video they found was even more outrageous, revealing unusual fetishes.
What are you doing?!
It made her terminal all irritated!
Finally, when she was cracking some high-risk or locked files, she asked Soundwave for some decryption software and techniques. Soundwave readily sent her some of the more difficult ones that he had already cracked.
[Not recommended for viewing.]
This is the first sentence about sound waves.
[Ignore the vector reference.]
This was the second sentence a few minutes later, and then she suddenly deleted the files that had been cracked and given to her from the frequency band.
I didn't hear about the vector.
She had already downloaded it locally the moment the sound wave was sent to her.
Three minutes later, she vomited right there in the cleaning room.
That's disgusting.
At first, the files just contained some yellowish material, or were simply videos that released requirements.
But then things started to go wrong.
The first disgusting video was more about abuse, physical, one-sided violence.
The second one was about pica and chemical reagents. She almost gritted her teeth to finish reading it, while the main tank was churning at that time.
The third video was quite long, but she only watched half of it.
First, the iron-eating bugs nearly killed the machine, and then came the machine experiments.
She could see the pain the machine endured when its optical glasses were removed while it was still alive, the wails it emitted during its obviously irregular modifications, and even the despair it exuded when its brain module was finally ripped out.
She wasn't inexperienced in facing death, nor was she inexperienced in killing.
But this one is different.
This is abuse, insult, and utter disregard and exploitation of life.
She was vomiting so badly that she didn't even hear when the door opened.
The area around the cleaning pool was a mess, and the terminal was still lit up, stuck on a screen that wasn't completely turned off.
With one hand bracing against the edge and the other pressing hard on the area below his abdominal armor, his shoulders and back were taut, and the airway was filled with an unbearable feeling of nausea. The entire machine was trembling.
Megatron almost stopped in his tracks as soon as he entered.
"A vector?"
His first reaction wasn't to look elsewhere; he took a few steps over and his hand was already outstretched.
Vector's brain was completely fuzzy at this moment. When he heard the sound, he only had time to turn his head slightly. Before he could speak, a hand was already covering his back.
Megatron's movements were gentle; he supported her shoulder with one hand and slid the other hand down her back armor, using very restrained force.
"What happened?" he asked in a low voice, his urgency barely concealed. "Look at me, catch your breath first."
Yin Xiang opened his mouth, but a lingering feeling of nausea rose in his throat first. He lowered his head and gagged twice, but couldn't say anything.
Megatron's eyebrows immediately fell down.
He couldn't care less about anything else right now; his priority was to keep her calm and collected.
The hand that was supporting her shoulder pulled in slightly, bringing the whole machine towards him, while his other hand continued to smooth it for her.
"Don't push yourself," he whispered. "Slow down."
The vector closed its optical lens, and after several seconds, it finally managed to suppress the churning somewhat. A layer of condensation had seeped out from the outer armor on her forehead; she wiped it away, and her breathing was still a bit erratic.
Megatron looked down at her, his anxiety and anger rising, but he restrained himself and stared at her, asking:
"What happened?"
She didn't reply.
Just thinking about those things makes my brain tingle reflexively, and even repeating them feels disgusting.
Megatron waited for two seconds, and when she didn't speak, his gaze finally swept over the lit terminal next to him.
The pause screen didn't completely go dark; the remaining image and several labels that were obviously impossible to see clearly said a lot.
Add to that the related data and encrypted filenames on the side that hadn't been closed yet, and it was so dirty that there was no need to guess what it was.
Megatron's face immediately darkened.
For a vector to be seen vomiting like this, it's definitely not something disgusting in the ordinary sense.
He let out a cold laugh after a while, so short it was almost not a laugh.
"...These slag heapers."
After a moment of hesitation, he was finally able to utter a complete sentence.
"I'm fine."
Megatron looked down at her, his voice even colder.
"You call this okay?"
"I feel a little better now." She leaned against the edge of the sink, feeling weak after vomiting, but still tried to sound normal. "It's just that... I felt a little dizzy just now."
"A little?" Megatron stared at her, his anger mixed with worry rising, and his words were sharp: "You almost vomited yourself to pieces."
The vector was somewhat exasperated by his remark, and then clicked its tongue.
"Can you please stop making it sound so scary?"
"Then don't throw up."
She didn't have the energy to argue with him right now, so she wiped her face mask with her hand and exhaled.
"I just never imagined they could be this disgusting."
Just then, her terminal suddenly lit up.
[Vector.]
【reply.】
Megatron glanced down and recognized the source.
Sound waves.
The vector also saw it; she was still propped up there, too lazy to even lift a finger. The next second, the terminal lit up again.
You've seen it.
Stop now.
[Communication received.]
She stared at those few sentences, and even in her current state, she could tell something was off.
Is this machine in a hurry?
She was about to reach out when the call came in.
The terminal vibrated. Vector was leaning there, looking at the interface and just about to answer when Megatron answered for her and casually switched it to speakerphone.
The sound waves didn't stop at all.
"Attraction vector".
The fluctuations were not significant, but there was a clear sense of urgency.
The vector cleared the airway and managed a weak reply: "...Here."
The person on the other end seemed to relax for a moment, but the next sentence came quickly.
"You saw it."
The vector paused for a moment, not admitting it directly, and vaguely replied, "I looked at a little."
There was a half-second silence on the other end of the sound wave.
"I said I don't recommend watching it."
"You even told me not to watch anymore." Yin Xiang's voice was a little hoarse, but he tried to sound normal. "But you deleted it too late; I had already downloaded it locally."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the communication line, then the sound wave became even lower.
"……knew."
Megatron stood beside her, watching her while scanning the few interfaces she hadn't closed earlier, his face already so cold it was almost frosty.
The sound wave continued, "Now close all related files. Don't look anymore."
The vector was leaning there, its brain still a bit blank after vomiting, when it heard this it replied, "Turn it off."
"state."
She didn't answer immediately.
Megatron glanced at her for a second and replied for her: "Just finished throwing up."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the communication.
Soundwave was clearly surprised to hear Megatron's voice, but he couldn't care less about anything else at the moment and quickly replied, "Have her leave the cleansing room. Replenish her energy fluids. Avoid any further exposure to related images and audio for now."
Megatron's tone was neither cold nor warm, suppressing his anger: "Do you even need to tell me that?"
The vector was already feeling uncomfortable, but hearing these two machines, one more tense than the other, created a sense of absurdity that was both funny and exasperating.
She raised her hand to press her temple and said into the phone, "I'm fine, it's really not that serious."
The voice on the other end replied without hesitation: "Yes."
Short and decisive.
Pointer vector: "..."
The sound wave continued, "I'll process the subsequent files again and assign them to you according to their classification."
"You want to categorize it?" Her brain was practically turned to mush by these people, but she still couldn't resist making a sarcastic remark.
"Yes," the sound wave said. "The level you're currently accessing is inappropriate."
That's actually true; the impact of these images is immense.
Then the sound wave added: "Attraction vector."
"Um?"
"Ask me first next time."
She found it both funny and relieved, and finally replied, "Okay."
The person on the other end of the sound wave didn't say anything more, quickly finished explaining what needed to be explained, and then hung up.
After the communication was lost, the cleaning room fell silent again, with only the dim light of the terminal interface remaining.
The vector leaned there for a while to catch its breath, then slowly straightened up a little.
Megatron didn't let go immediately; he waited until he was sure she was standing firmly before pulling his hand away from her back.
He wanted to ask a lot of questions, but seeing her expression, he didn't say anything more. He simply half-carried and half-helped her to the sofa.