"I never really planned on hiding it from you all... Don't worry, if I really decide to start my research on digitizing my consciousness, I'll definitely have you all by my side, just in case."
Mercer laughed, glanced at Hansen whose body was filled with all sorts of garbled codes, shook his head, and reached out his hand: "Alright, don't look anymore, let's log off."
Lucy didn't say anything, her figure just faded and she exited the deep dive.
After Mercer once again glanced at Hansen's consciousness data and instructed Venus to continue monitoring, he also exited the state of deep diving.
As soon as consciousness returned, Mercer realized a soft body had appeared in front of him. Unfortunately, after undergoing extensive modification, his upper body was mechanized, and the number of sensory nerves had been significantly reduced.
But holding Lucy at this moment, he could still feel warmth and the faint fragrance emanating from her.
Lucy said nothing, she just held him in silence, with her head lowered.
Mercer also said nothing, gently caressing her back. After a while, he smiled: "Stop sulking. Since there's no cure, we should send Colonel Hansen on his way...
How about you do it? You can personally delete his consciousness data, give him a swift end, and you would have personally dealt with Dog Town's former boss. That's quite an achievement, cheer up."
"Don't think I don't know, you just want to deep dive to observe what happens when his consciousness data is deleted..." Lucy's voice was somewhat muffled, but afterward, she just raised her face to look at him and sighed softly.
Mercer's earlier words, though they all seemed to agree with her, also made his stance clear—he would eventually try consciousness digitization himself, even if he needed everyone's consent first.
Lucy could vaguely guess why he wanted to do this, but precisely because she could guess, she was even more reluctant to let him do it.
If he digitizes and suddenly finds that being a data form feels better than being human... aren't all those wandering AIs like that?
Ultraman, Spider Murphy, Bartmos — didn't they stop considering becoming human again after digitizing their consciousness?
Furthermore, Mercer has his own secret... a secret even Kyoko could roughly perceive.
The extremely sudden change that occurred to Mercer at the Arasaka Base, where he seemed like a different person... coupled with the fact that everyone was deep diving into the old net every day and Mercer's inexplicable familiarity with wandering AIs like Ultraman...
The closer Mercer gets to that step of consciousness digitization, the more uneasy Lucy feels. To be honest, she's a little scared—she fears that the familiar Mercer in front of her will vanish, just like how he suddenly appeared back then.
"Lucy... Lucy?"
Mercer's voice snapped Lucy back to reality. She looked at him, but Mercer just smiled and winked at her while organizing the neural interface cables: "Don't be silly, I'm right here."
"You're the one being silly..." Lucy wasn't surprised that he could see through her thoughts. She pursed her lips and turned to look at Hansen lying motionless beside them: "Are you sure... you want me to delete his consciousness data?"
"Yes, once I get in, you start deleting his consciousness data from outside, and monitor his vital signs."
Mercer advised: "Once I finish recording the deletion process, bring the Relic Chip over. We'll use his backup consciousness data to try giving him another life again...
I want to try keeping Hansen in a deep dive state, observing the process of consciousness transfer and the changes of the data body during resurrection from Cyberspace."
"...Got it, go ahead." Lucy nodded in agreement.
Watching him close his eyes and enter Cyberspace without hesitation once more, Lucy had no choice but to turn around, open the computer beside her, and manipulated the Soulkiller Program.
Meanwhile, Mercer, who had returned to Cyberspace, quietly observed Hansen's death.
A consciousness data body is a massive dataset—this is why Arasaka needs to build a specialized Divine Chariot to store consciousness data.
And deleting this kind of data is by no means something that can be completed in an instant.
The deletion process in Mercer's eyes, from the very start, exuded an inexplicable, oppressive, deathly still emptiness.
The first thing Mercer saw was Hansen, who had been in a state of mental collapse in the Cyber World, suddenly entering a lagging state.
And then, disintegration.
The consciousness data body formed into a human shape, like a balloon bursting, shattered into fine fragments. Lines of code quietly burst apart, transforming into meaningless blue data signals which vanished into the air.
Mercer could perceive some of the data belonged to Hansen's memories, some to his emotions, and others were the crucial core consciousness data within him.
But regardless of what they were, these data quickly dissipated. When the last piece of data disappeared into thin air before Mercer, only a void remained within the Cyber World.
The consciousness code representing Hansen's soul silently disintegrated before Mercer, but his thoughts had already drifted away from this heart-sinking execution ceremony.
Suppose that a human's consciousness, soul, is this segment of code being erased from existence.
Then what does the shell of Hansen, which probably still retains liveliness in the external world, matter?
If it's necessary to simultaneously destroy both to truly kill a person, then preserving his shell and replacing it with an identical consciousness data—has he really died, or not?
Mercer's contemplation did not affect Lucy's outside workflow. She fetched the Relic Chip loaded with Hansen's backup consciousness data and sent a message to Mercer.
[Lucy: The deletion program has finished, should I start transferring the consciousness data?]
[Mercer: Yes, plug in the chip and start the transfer.]
Mercer quietly waited. Soon, in the cyberspace, streams of blue data codes began to emerge, slowly initiating the transfer process.
Unlike directly transferring consciousness data—this form of resurrection via the Relic Chip essentially involves directing a complete consciousness dataset into the target's brain through a neural conversion technique, thereby achieving data upload.
The original consciousness data would remain on the chip, which you could even understand as the chip in your head controlling your body as the essence of this resurrection.
Until the slow transformation is complete, and your brain becomes indistinguishable from the consciousness data on the chip, the chip's task is considered complete.
Since the current Relic Chip technology is not fully developed, this transformation process could lead to an over-reliance on the chip, meaning the inability to remove it even after transformation.
Because the Relic Chip is seen by your brain as a part of itself, losing a part of your brain will directly impact your body.
In the game, V is an extreme example—she was shot in the head but revived by the Relic Chip.
In this process, the Relic Chip actively took over the damaged part of her brain, ultimately making it impossible for her to remove the chip and stop the transfer of Silver Hand's consciousness data, forcing her to seek surgical treatment.
But in reality, the ideal state of a Relic Chip is to fully upload the consciousness data into your brain via neural transformation, and reverse transmission so that there shouldn't be any residual data within the Relic Chip after the transmission ends.
Because in this world, the human brain can be considered a biological computer. Once the data is transferred, there's no need for an external drive to function.
If both the brain and the chip retain data, it indicates that this is not an actual consciousness transfer but rather a consciousness duplication and transformation.
At present, what Mercer observed wasn't merely a simple data transfer—more accurately, he was examining the encoding process of consciousness data uploading into the human brain as a biological computer during Relic Chip brain transformation.
The data would first etch into Hansen's brain and then, through his neural interface cables at the back of his head, manifest in the Cyberspace via deep dive.
Thus, Mercer could observe the Relic Chip data transfer order and process in the form of data codes.
After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, Mercer finally focused his gaze.
Before him, streams of blue data, under the influence of an unexpected code, suddenly coalesced into the virtual silhouette of a human form.
And Mercer, without hesitation, immediately activated Brain-Machine Overclocking—rows of code were captured by his sight, every detail of the process vividly clear.
"Found it!"
He couldn't believe it as he murmured to himself.
"The human's... core consciousness code!"
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