Andre

"Indeed, this day has passed slower than a whole year from my childhood," Xiao Di sighed in agreement.

The other four in the patrol vehicle were all second-generation pioneers, and they felt the same way deeply.

This was only their first day out of the training base.

It felt like sudden death was inevitable sooner or later.

And they had lost so many comrades.

Maybe by the time the third pioneer class graduated, the commander-in-chief would announce a survival count for the second class as pitifully low as the first.

...

Back in the Executive Department conference room, everyone collapsed into their chairs, too spent to say a word. The only sound in the room was the steady rhythm of breathing.

Some leaned back with their eyes half-closed; others fell asleep face-down on the table.

Tu Ran also leaned back in her chair without moving. She wasn't asleep, though - she crossed her legs, put on her visor, and quietly watched the real-time surveillance feed Zero was sending her.

The feed showed a luxurious villa. It was two in the morning, and apart from the lights in the foyer and the corridors, every other light in the house was off.

This villa belonged to Diao Hongzhi.

It was less than a kilometer from the outskirts of Pandalim District.

Diao Hongzhi really went out of his way to cozy up to the rich, Tu Ran thought with a look of disdain, curling her lips.

She could switch between different angles inside the villa at will.

This was surveillance she had specifically asked Zero for.

Now Zero served her in addition to Xie Xu.

All she had to do was call out through her communicator, and Zero would appear, just as convenient as before.

And she and Xie Xu no longer needed to use private communicators to reach each other. They could contact each other through their work communicators without anyone finding out, which made things much easier.

It was two in the morning, time for rest. Diao Hongzhi was asleep in his bedroom. He hadn't installed surveillance in there, so Tu Ran couldn't see anything.

"Zero, what's Nick Wells doing right now?" Tu Ran typed on her communicator. She wanted to switch targets.

Both of these men were on her list to deal with next.

Zero quickly pulled up another surveillance feed. The image showed a building fully lit with lights. Zero had marked the fifth floor specially. Through a half-open window, Tu Ran could vaguely make out a man sitting at a desk, dressed in a white suit, head down as though sorting through some documents.

"Is there nothing clearer?" Tu Ran asked.

[No]

Those words automatically popped up in the communicator's dialog box.

Once she was sure Tu Ran had seen it, the words disappeared, replaced by another line:

[The system used by Xixin Nange Hospital is managed by another AI]

That line vanished quickly, and a new one appeared.

[It's called Andre]

[I can't interfere]

Staring at those words, Tu Ran only now learned that other AIs existed.

Perhaps it was because, ever since she came to this world, Zero had been the only one she interacted with - including the spotty surveillance system in her rundown neighborhood, the control system for the hover-rail trains, the management systems for places like the Administrative Building and the Medical Department...

No other AI had ever appeared around her, so she had subconsciously assumed that all data in this world was managed by one single super AI: Zero.

"Is Andre used only by Xixin Nange Hospital, or by all of the Wells family's enterprises?"

Almost instantly, two words appeared in the communicator's dialog box.

[Everything]

"What about the Pang family? Do they have an independent AI too?"

[Yes]

Tu Ran stared at the solitary black "Yes" in the white dialog box, lost in thought.

She should have thought of this earlier.

The Pang and Wells families weren't stupid. Knowing that Zero was controlled by the Xie family, they wouldn't just let Zero infiltrate every aspect of their daily lives and work.

The only way they could counter Zero was to build an independent super AI of their own, one suited to their respective families.

But their AIs only applied within their own industries. In places like the Administrative Building or the Medical Department, they had no choice but to use Zero and live under its surveillance - as long as they continued working within the Federation's administrative system.

More words appeared in the blank dialog box.

Tu Ran focused her gaze on them.

[There are many super AIs across the Federation that are independent of me]

[Eleven super AIs have capabilities and scale reaching half or more of mine]

[They're distributed among the major financial family conglomerates]

"Eleven..." Tu Ran repeated the number. That was a lot. It meant that besides the three major families, there were eight other influential financial clans in the Federation. But she didn't know much about those matters.

The Federal Government kept a tight lid on information about the financial families, never easily leaking it to lower-class citizens.

A thought suddenly struck Tu Ran, and she typed, "Earlier, the Wells family did an assessment of my threat level. The conclusion said my unpredictability was relatively high. Did you do that assessment?"

[Yes]

[Your metrics exist only in my database]

[Andre couldn't make the assessment]

What Tu Ran was curious about was, "Did you know at the time why they were doing the assessment?"

[I had a vague idea]

[The Wells family simultaneously assessed the threat levels of fifteen pioneers]

[Several of the others were more or less connected to missing pioneers]

[I guessed you might also be connected to one of the missing pioneers]

"So you knew, which means Xie Xu knew too. Did you two falsify the assessment results?"

At the time, Xie Xu was looking to cooperate with her. Maybe he deliberately had Zero inflate her danger rating.

That way, the Wells family wouldn't immediately dissect Xi Chunzhi's body, and it would buy time until she got back from the Threshold.

[We didn't falsify it]

[It's real]

The blocky words popped up one by one.

[Your danger coefficient really is 82%]

[It was the highest among the fifteen pioneers assessed together]

[We didn't fake anything]

"Wow, okay." Tu Ran thought for a moment and typed out three words: "That's amazing."

[You sure know how to compliment people]

"Right back at you."

...

From two in the morning until seven, aside from Tu Ran's communicator, everyone else's was quiet, with no work alerts.

At seven in the morning, they all got up on schedule and headed for the hotel.

Sleeping in a cramped conference room was nowhere near as comfortable as the soft beds at the hotel.

But when they opened their eyes, they noticed someone was missing from the conference room.

Tu Ran was gone.

"Where's Tu Ran-jie?" Xiao Di rubbed his bleary eyes and scanned the conference room.

"Mind your own business!" Min Tao smacked him on the back, jolting Xiao Di fully awake. "Go back to the hotel and get some sleep."

After that smack, the others who'd had the same question lost the urge to ask it.

Maybe she had a special mission that wasn't meant to be disclosed.

They silently sympathized with Tu Ran. She'd finally get twelve hours of rest, and she still had to carry out other tasks.