Lucy stared into his eyes, seeing that he was serious, she knew he wasn't just saying things to be nice.
"...Alright, it's a promise." She extended her hand, Mercer hesitated for a moment before smiling and extending his hand to hook pinkies with hers.
"Whoever lies has to swallow a thousand needles."
Lucy said the terrifying words with an adorable face.
"Uh... okay, but you have to understand, trying to make it big in Night City means you can't avoid taking risks."
Mercer spoke, and Lucy just looked at him, wiping her tears: "Does that mean facing Internet Supervision is a risk we must take? Don't tell me you can't leave safely."
"...Alright, alright, I just want to really test my skills against the pros." Mercer admitted.
He sighed and said, "The hackers I've met recently all feel like small fry, not to mention going up against me. Even the Internet Supervision, who rely on the servers, are basically rubbish I can take down in ten seconds.
Either their programs are a pile of crap, and I can spot the vulnerabilities instantly, or they're just trying to overpower me with sheer computing power. True experts, uh, I mean the living ones, I've never actually encountered one.
I just want a fair fight, to see how real geniuses handle network offense and defense, rather than...
Using these useless adversaries, I can't even test whether my programs are good."
Mercer simply sat down on the mattress on the floor, next to Lucy, turning to look at her: "Do you understand? I want to see what level I'm really at right now, and how far I can go.
I just took a stroll through Night City's network and felt like it was my playground. You might think I'm exaggerating.
But aside from some of the big company's servers, I can't even find any targets worth honing my skills on.
I've been pretty restrained. Earlier, I thought about checking out Arasaka Server and had to hold myself back from trying to hack in."
"...Mercer." Lucy showed a disapproving look.
Mercer shook his head helplessly: "I know it's hard for you to understand, but I also want you to know, I'm really quite strong, strong to the point where I don't even know my limits. I need practical experience to test my skills and improve them.
My skills are hard to learn just from book knowledge.
Because the path I'm taking now is one nobody else has taken—my programming style and the way I view data is my unique talent.
If I write programs isolated in my own network, I can only be an excellent programmer, but I want to be a top hacker, and being a hacker inherently requires targets and hands-on experience.
The instantaneous network defense and offense, capturing the opponent's vulnerabilities in milliseconds, targeted program application, even impromptu targeted programming...
I truly enjoy these thrilling moments, and they spark my creativity."
Lucy pursed her lips as Mercer turned his head, earnestly saying: "I'll do my best to ensure safety, but you also have to get used to it, Lucy. I know where my limits are, I'm not going to leave you alone and unattended.
As for Internet Supervision, don't worry because as a rookie hacker, once I make a name for myself in Night City, I'll definitely be watched by them, it's just inevitable.
In Night City, their capability isn't that great, don't be afraid."
Lucy saw that he seemed to only retreat this far and reluctantly turned her face away: "Anyway, you pinky promised with me."
"I got it."
Mercer said, relaxed, as he lay on the mattress: "For the next while, I won't cause trouble, won't wander aimlessly, I'll just honestly write programs, alright?
At most, take on some commissions to boost our reputation and earn some money.
I just really want to research AI, so during this time I'll focus on program studies."
Lucy suddenly felt... he'd be better off going online.
Mercer patted her on the head, getting back up: "Alright, don't worry about this and that, I'm the boss, you just leave things to me."
"...I only hope that the boss can be reliable," Lucy muttered, tiredly rubbing her face: "Not going online?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to sleep too. You rest early, I'll let my AI program run some data first, relax, not causing trouble, using my computer and hacker chair's network and CPU to run."
Mercer said, then laying back in his chair and plugging in: "Don't worry, I'm just planning a learning scope for the AI program, I'll sleep in a while... go ahead and rest."
Lucy pursed her lips, not really believing he would honestly sleep, but still stuffed herself back in the covers, watching him for a while. When she saw he really did unplug after not too long and covered himself with a blanket to sleep, she finally relaxed and closed her eyes.
And Mercer didn't pull any tricks, he sent a message to V and Qiwei to let them know he was safe, before yawning and directly sleeping.
Before sleeping, he planned a learning material for his 'Venus' AI, manually screened the content, and fed it to the AI in batches. It'll take some time to nurture an AI with basic knowledge and intelligence.
He was mainly worried it would learn poorly, so he'd rather go slow than let it autonomously learn during its developmental stage.
Feels like raising a child...
No, it should be cloning the core from Desire for Death... so does this count as his own offspring?
He mused about it for a long time before his active brain neurons finally settled down and he fell asleep.
...
When he opened his eyes the next day, it was a brand new day full of energy.