Chapter 111: Undercurrents Stirring

Du Qiu calmed himself and quickly put aside these seemingly plausible yet uncertain issues.

He thought carefully and quickly about his own state, and suddenly he understood something.

Ever since Du Qiu discovered the sub-intelligence core, he had always directly invaded and then directly sensed to obtain the relevant module function information.

He had never taken an incarnation approach to utilize the sub-intelligence core’s computational power.

For him, obtaining information was all he needed, and there was no need to call upon the sub-intelligence core to complete the corresponding functions.

Now, it was obvious that the module’s functions have to be applied, and without incarnating, it was clear that the sub-intelligence core wouldn’t recognize him.

Du Qiu immediately focused his consciousness on the central location of the sub-intelligence core.

Sure enough, a message arrived as expected.

“Maintainer 8220010126 sub-unit 66 accepts the dominance of the Master’s incarnation!”

Hah, even these sub-intelligence cores of alien civilizations have numbers assigned to them; it seems like they all possess a degree of independence.

After the incarnation, Du Qiu obtained a lot of data from the consciousness uploading module.

Although these data didn’t include the relevant principles of consciousness technology, they described how this module operates.

Nevertheless, Du Qiu discovered that in order to connect externally to the maintainer’s consciousness uploading module, besides authorizing the activation of this module himself, he also needed to turn on a physical hardware switch located on the maintainer’s body.

This was somewhat reminiscent of the producers’ master switch.

Having understood this, Du Qiu immediately sprung into action; he had already spent a significant amount of time, and if he didn’t sort out this module and the dream abruptly ended, that would be quite frustrating.

Incarnating within the maintainer robot, Du Qiu easily manipulated the entire robot, extending its right hand with six agile fingers to open a cover plate on the back of the robot’s head.

Through the sensing system, Du Qiu clearly saw that there was indeed a switch there.

He promptly turned it on and then covered the plate again.

After turning on the physical switch, Du Qiu quickly set the consciousness uploading module in the program to the activated state.

Since there were no higher-level super-machines monitoring and checking the maintainer robot, Du Qiu didn’t have to worry about being discovered by high-level intelligent machines.

After sorting this out, Du Qiu felt a sense of liberation, as if an indentured peasant had finally gained freedom and could now boldly make his mark on this land.

And then, Du Qiu woke up laughing!

++++++++

While Du Qiu was making significant progress in his dream last night.

On the other side of the globe, in the United States, Imanka was being held by two tall Caucasians and placed into a sedan.

Since fleeing back from Tang Country, Imanka switched her residence immediately and didn’t meet with anyone from Natural Force.

Nesta had told her that her mission to infiltrate Natural Force had ended, so there was naturally no need to meet with them anymore.

In fact, her caution stemmed from being unable to contact Nesta upon her return.

This was the United States; how could it be possible to not contact her handler?

Shortly after, she initiated emergency communication.

In less than half an hour, she was taken from her residence to this sedan.

The car quickly took her to a house in the suburbs, where Imanka was brought by the two men into a room of the house.

Here, Imanka met a middle-aged man with a head full of brown hair.

The man had an average build and ordinary facial features, the kind easily forgotten in the throngs of the street, if not for the few small freckles on his face.

The two men who brought her left the room.

The freckled man smiled and said, “Welcome back victoriously, Thornbird!”

Hearing herself addressed by her code name, Imanka knew this person must be her colleague.

“My name is Lagia, the newly appointed director of the Tang Country affairs bureau in GIA. You are now under my command.”

Lagia quickly exchanged a series of codes with Imanka and showed her some documents.

Eventually, Imanka confirmed that the man before her had indeed become her new boss.

“What about my previous supervisor, Nesta?”

“Oh, it’s unfortunate — he was involved in a shooting three months ago and did not survive, which is why you lost contact.”

“A shooting? It wasn’t premeditated?” Imanka found this strange.

Lagia spread his hands and said, “You must have heard back home that shootings have been frequent this year. Being caught in one is just bad luck.”

At this, he paused and added, “I know what you mean. Your previous department did an investigation; it was indeed an accident.”

Imanka didn’t ask further; she didn’t have much affection for Nesta, but due to cautiousness, she probed a bit more.

“Then, why did you transfer me to your new department?”

Lagia explained, “You’ve just completed a mission in Tang Country, and you previously studied there for a year, you must have a certain understanding.

All these perfectly meet the requirements of my new department — don’t forget, the name of the new department is the Tang Country affairs bureau!”

Imanka had been a bit nervous when she first came in and had not paid attention to Lagia’s self-introduction.

As an intelligence officer, besides infiltrating Natural Force, Imanka had just carried out an exploratory mission in Tang Country.

In essence, she was rather green.

The conditions of her escape left her in a state of alertness these past few days.

Moreover, after returning home and being unable to reach Nesta, she grew even more anxious.

Now that Lagia had explained everything, Imanka finally calmed down.

“Uh, I may have been exposed in Tang Country; I might not be able to go back and carry out missions.”

Lagia frowned and asked, “How do you know you were exposed?”

“My simulative fish were discovered in the shipyard’s security perimeter; I think it would be easy for them to trace back to me, which is why I evacuated urgently.”

Lagia clapped softly and said, “Good reflex.”

However, his tone chilled as he continued, “But perhaps you overreacted. With so many ships passing through the Yangtze River Mouth, they might not have been able to pinpoint you.

But, now that you’ve run, it’s as if you exposed yourself even if you hadn’t. It’s a shame; I had hoped to have you establish a network in Tang Country to collect intelligence on some tech companies.”

Disappointment flashed across Lagia’s face; his fingers tapped lightly on the desk as he pondered how to use Imanka.

“Mr. Director, can I withdraw…”

“Withdraw? It’s a major taboo for an intelligence officer. Are you sure you want to quit?” Lagia’s eyes hardened further.

Imanka laughed softly and said, “Of course, I know that once you’re in intelligence, it’s hard to get out.

I just feel that maybe I’m not quite cut out for frontline work; perhaps I can move to intelligence analysis.”

Imanka had just been testing her new boss to see if he had learned anything from Nesta about her; it seemed he was well aware of her situation.

She felt a twinge of helplessness.

Lagia did not pick up where Imanka left off but instead said on his own, “A company in Tang Country has recently caught my attention, and because of it, I called you to the bureau. It’s a pity you were exposed in Tang Country.”

Imanka was startled, suddenly thinking of something.

Lagia nodded and continued, “That’s right; it seems you’ve guessed it—it’s your ex-boyfriend Du Qiu! His company has developed numerical control software that can replace imports.

At the recent expo in Magic City, they even introduced a top-notch numerical control machining center.

With such growth momentum, he and his company will surely become enterprises in Tang Country with core competitiveness.

Especially because with him there, Tang Country’s Industry 4.0 will possess core technologies, which is a considerable challenge to our containment policy.”

“Oh, what can I do?”

“You are beautiful and can do a lot. I originally wanted you to rekindle your old relationship with him, which might have led him to come to the United States.”

“Unlikely. If I could have brought him to the United States, we wouldn’t have broken up back then.”

“It’s not impossible. We may find ways to make him face opposition from all sides in Tang Country, unable to stay any longer. Then it will be time for you to act.”

Hearing this, Imanka felt somewhat uncomfortable and changed the subject, asking, “Do I need to hand over my previous mission of infiltrating Natural Force to anyone else?”

Lagia smiled indifferently and replied, “No need. The Natural Force bunch can’t really make waves; they only manage to stage farcical events.

If it hadn’t been for Gelder becoming the head of Natural Force, our former chief wouldn’t have insisted on someone infiltrating.

I will have someone investigate your exposure in Tang Country. For now, just do some intelligence analysis for a while.”

Imanka didn’t mention the Maya crystal cube to Lagia since he didn’t ask, and she simply closed the topic with respect, “Thank you, Director.”

++++++++

The night in Tokyo.

In a meeting room, a video had just finished playing.

On the stage in front of the meeting room, giving the presentation, was Kosuke Yasushi.

Sitting around the conference table were the leaders of the top enterprises in Japan’s numerical control machine tool industry.

“The intelligence that Kosuke has is crucial. Tang Country has really brought forth a competitor for us; we cannot show leniency!”

“Mr. Kumamoto is right. We must unite and jointly confront this Du Qiu!”

“That’s right, we at Mico Precision Instruments agree.”

“We, Japan Precision, are willing to advance and retreat with everyone here.”

“We at Saudico will also join.”

“I have sought assistance from the Prime Minister’s Intelligence and Research Room, and they will send capable personnel to Tang Country.”

…