Zero's Secret

"Not necessarily," Tu Ran said, lounging comfortably in her seat. "Eliminating Zero at least means no more eyes watching me for a while."

She would use the window while Zero was down to settle all the loose ends. By the time the next AI took over, she'd be a model Pioneer again, with nothing for anyone to hold over her.

"No need," Xie Xu said on the other end. "Do you remember the person who first guided you into the Ansa Black Market?"

"The one with the mechanical head?" Tu Ran asked.

Xie Xu, on the other end of the earpiece, was taken aback by her highly condensed nickname.

"...Yes."

Remember him? She could hardly forget—she'd always wondered whether he was human or machine.

Now that she didn't have to be as cautious with Xie Xu as before, Tu Ran asked outright, "Is he still human?"

"You could say he is, and you could say he isn't."

Tu Ran: "...Can you not be so ambiguous? Be clearer."

Sure enough, once she had backing, her attitude hardened.

Xie Xu explained, "He was once human. Because of a severe head injury, Xiao Jiu replaced his skull with a mechanical one. Not long after, his body rejected it—the skull that worked for nearly everyone else was fiercely attacked by his immune cells, and his organs began failing rapidly."

"In an emergency, at his request, I digitized his brain and uploaded his consciousness into a computer, achieving a form of digital immortality beyond human physiology. Later, along with others, I built him a human-like body and transferred his consciousness into it, allowing him to live in human society as he always had."

Tu Ran was stunned speechless. Digital immortality had been proposed in the First World, but with hundreds of billions of neurons and trillions of interfaces in the human brain, true consciousness digitization was deemed impossible for decades. Yet here in the Second World, the technology actually existed?!

It took her nearly a minute to recover her voice. "So... why are you bringing him up all of a sudden?"

Xie Xu paused for a moment. "He has a name. It's Zero."

Zero?!

Tu Ran forced out, "This Zero... isn't the same as that Zero, right?"

"They're the same Zero," Xie Xu confirmed. "By chance, I uploaded his consciousness into Zero's mainframe. He consumed the original Zero. Now he is Zero."

Tu Ran silently gave him a thumbs-up. "You're something else."

There was no response from Xie Xu.

"You two seem pretty close."

"We are," Xie Xu answered.

"So the reason you don't want me going after Zero is because Zero answers to you—you control it, and it's no threat to you."

"Correct," Xie Xu replied honestly.

This time, it was Tu Ran's turn to fall silent.

She didn't know what to say. She'd just gotten a bombshell of information.

Zero was the mechanical head, the mechanical head was Zero, and Xie Xu and Zero—i.e., the mechanical head—were close, seemingly as boss and subordinate. The problem that had been plaguing her for so long was solved by Xie Xu in a few sentences.

She no longer had to sneak into some Xie Family estate to destroy Zero's mainframe.

But now an even bigger question weighed on her.

"You've got Zero under your control. Can't you just do whatever you want? You could walk all over the Federation. Why bother cooperating with me?"

"Zero is only useful to me in this world. In other worlds, he's no match for you."

"Other worlds?" Tu Ran frowned. "The Threshold?"

"Including the Threshold, but not limited to it."

Tu Ran wondered if she'd misunderstood. "Are you saying there are other worlds besides the Threshold? Like mine and Li Wenchuan's home?"

"For now, this topic isn't something we have to discuss," Xie Xu said, not intending to reveal more about the other worlds. "Let's talk about our cooperation."

"That was a clumsy subject change," Tu Ran commented.

Xie Xu neither confirmed nor denied it.

"At the underground level of the Songwu Experimental Base, I said I wanted to solidify our cooperation," Xie Xu said calmly. "I've shown you my sincerity. No one else knows about Zero's absorption—I've told only you. I've shared a secret that could topple the entire Federation. My actions demonstrate my good faith. Now I want to hear your thoughts."

Tu Ran thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. "As long as it doesn't threaten my life, our cooperation comes first."

Her own safety would always be her top priority.

If it weren't for the original body's ties to Xie Xu, she wouldn't have been threatened by him the moment she arrived in this world, entangled ever since. Now she knew a huge secret of his—even bigger than his private research institute.

As the saying goes, it's easy to get on a pirate ship but hard to get off. Having come this far in a daze, she'd rather go along with him than carry this secret and be hunted by him.

She knew how formidable Zero was. When Zero had been on the opposite side, she'd called it "the Federation's dog," gnashing her teeth, wishing she could destroy it.

Now that Zero was on her side, it was a rare treasure. With Zero on her side—to put it dramatically—she was a tiger with wings. No one in the Federation could threaten her anymore.

She didn't have grand ambitions. As long as she could strut for a while, that was enough.

"Good, then I'll consider our cooperation solid—not unbreakable, but not easily shattered either," Xie Xu said.

Tu Ran smiled. "You can think of it that way."

"Tu Ran-senpai, you're smiling so brightly—did something good happen?"

Tu Ran's smile was so radiant that she didn't notice Le Qin beside her.

Her smile didn't falter. "I was just thinking that we're almost off work. That makes me happy."

Le Qin hadn't expected that answer, and was a bit surprised. But then she thought about it—it was just like Tu Ran's style.

She glanced at the time. "It's 9:30 Federation Time. We still have nine and a half hours before we're off."

Tu Ran's cheerful smile instantly turned into a wry grimace.

Nine and a half hours?

Are you kidding me?

So much had happened in a single day—she'd been on her feet from morning till now—and she still had nine and a half hours to go before the full twenty-four? How long was a Federation day, anyway?

"Tu Ran-jie, if you can't smile, then don't. The look on your face is creeping me out," Xiao Di said from the passenger seat, catching a glimpse of her expression in the rearview mirror and dramatically rubbing his arms.

Tu Ran wiped the smile off her face, leaned back in her seat, and let out a sigh. "The office grind is exhausting..."

In the First World, she was tired from not finding a job. In the Second World, she found one, and it was even more tiring.

The neon lights in a riot of colors outside the window cast shifting patterns across her face as they sped by, changing endlessly.