On the small square in front of the GTC headquarters building, the launching ceremony of the "World" project is ready, the background board of the rostrum is printed with the four-leaf petal logo symbolizing the four continents of the world, and the words "GTC" and "Taihao" are on both sides, there are seven or eight people sitting on the rostrum, the two on the left is Dr. Mark Thompson, the chairman of the current Standing Committee of the GTC, and on the right is a black man with a gloomy face, even if he wears a bright pink tie, it cannot erase the strange gloomy feeling in his temperament.

Thompson wiped the sweat from the back of his thick neck with a plaid handkerchief, and whispered to the people next to him, "Where's Brandon?

"If he had been clever enough, he would have fled to a place we couldn't catch, and if Bartholomew's power had tried to hide, no one in the world would have found him. The answer to the question was a thin, withered fellow with a malicious glint in his eyes behind his hooked nose. "But this also confirms our suspicions, and that guy's identity is indeed ......," said Guy Cookry, director of GTC's ninth division, with a sinister smile on his lips.

"Got it, got it. Thompson interrupted with a wave of his hand, "Anyway, it would be nice not to cause trouble." He turned to the left and smiled at the gloomy black man, "Mr. Warren, are the media ready? We might as well start the press conference in advance, after all, time waits for no one, so we don't have to follow the schedule, right?"

Daniel Warwallen, the global president of Taehao Corporation, replied, "It's only an hour, I've been waiting for so long, can't I wait another hour?" He didn't look at the person next to him, even though as the chairman of the GTC, Mark Thompson was actually one of the most powerful people on the planet. The black man looked thoughtfully at the sky, the sky was gray, and the snowflakes were falling one after another, melting by the constant temperature air field at a height of twenty meters above the ground, forming a hemispherical waterfall over the entire venue.

Hundreds of holographic cameras stood around the venue, the event was broadcast live in hundreds of major media outlets around the world, hundreds of stores around the world were ready for sale, and tens of millions of avid gaming fans and tech freaks had been queuing for more than a month before they emerged from their tents and began rubbing their hands and feet, reading out in unison with the store's red countdown numbers. The police and military filled the streets, the terrorist attacks that followed with the release of the "world" put every government on the brink of an enemy, and the fraternity groups that suddenly came into the public eye and began to seize public power caused unrest, the global security situation has deteriorated dramatically, and the crime rate has reached a three-decade high.

Compared to the crowding around the store, the main venue of the press conference was deserted like a memorial service, with only a dozen technicians surrounding the audience except for a few people on the podium. In order to prevent all accidents, Mark Thompson decided to hold a press conference in the form of a live broadcast, "The World" The official release has been delayed again and again, the brotherhood has continued to disrupt the political landscape, and the IPU radicals have made the stock prices of several subsidiaries of GTC on the NASDAQ fall like a bird with broken wings, and the book assets of GTC Group have shrunk by more than 20% in just two weeks. Thompson wasn't a pure scientist, he knew exactly what he was facing, and it was no longer a priority to rid the Ghost Order, the most important thing was to cling to his allies to get through this difficult time.

Thompson didn't know the inside story of Taehao. This company is more mysterious than the Ghost and the Brotherhood, no matter what kind of organization will leave a few traces for people to peep into, but Taihao is a monolith that can't even see through the ninth place, and still can't figure out its capital structure and operation methods, only that it has extremely rich financial resources and an incredibly wide network of contacts. This Warren president is even more elusive, he always has a cold expression, rejecting people from thousands of miles away, compared to vice president Wu Tianlan is more suitable to attend this kind of occasion. Mark Thompson couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't Ms. Wu attend? I think she was supposed to be the coordinator of 'World', after all, she has worked at GTC, and she is an old friend of both of us......"

"She has other things to do. The black man replied coldly, suddenly turning his head and staring at Thompson with those dead gray eyes: "By the way, how are the maintenance preparations going?"

The chairman of the GTC unconsciously moved his ass a little further away from the other party: "It's ready, at the beginning of the press conference, the 'world' server will go into maintenance for an hour. At the end of the launch, the server will be turned on again to welcome players from all over the world. It stands to reason that the Real Evolution Engine is maintenance-free, and it doesn't have a program interface that we can modify arbitrarily, after all, it's a real world that evolves freely. The maintenance is mainly for the purpose of synchronizing time, so that the time in the 'world' is synchronized with Greenwich Mean Time, and although this work has been done before, the passage of time is not strictly synchronized, and some errors have been generated over the years. After maintenance, players will be able to play at the standard time, and if the time difference is calculated, players from all over the world will be able to find the right place to enter, which will undoubtedly improve the player experience. ”

Warren said, "Got it. Where's Bartholomew? I thought he was in charge of the 'World' project. ”

Thompson wiped his sweat: "He'...... He wasn't feeling well, he was on holiday in Switzerland, and he was sorry that he couldn't attend the press conference...... Oh yes, and I'd like to introduce you to the other person in charge of the World project, who will be presenting at the launch and answering questions like 'why limit the number of people online?' John, please come over for a moment......"

"No need. The black man mercilessly refused, "I'm not interested." ”

"I can ask the CFO to introduce you to the project's revenue plan, which was previously in charge of Ms. Wu, and I believe you don't know much about the project's short- and medium-term profit prospects......"

"No need. Warren reached for the terminal on his desktop and entered the news channel. Mark Thompson blushed and opened his mouth a few times, but finally didn't say anything, and grabbed his glass of water to drink.

The EUU European Joint News Channel is live-streaming the scene in front of the "World" store, where young people line up in a long line with no end in sight, and sales staff in the store are waiting with portable terminals and syringes, ready to verify the customer's health report (a necessary condition for chip injection), collect a fee, and implant the chip. Twenty million biochips wait in capsule packaging, and by the time the circuit etching is complete, each chip has a small manufacturing error, which is within the allowable range of the standard part, but can change many things, such as the strength threshold of the input and output circuits.

The same image is playing inside the Aston Martin sedan, where Bartholomew watches an out-of-control Dodge SUV rush into the queue, crushing the young man into a bloody blur, and the police quickly shoot the driver to death, knowing that this is just another futile effort, and that even if an armed attack is launched, the timing of the release will not change. The old man coughed twice, opened the glove box in the passenger seat, took out a yellow cooked cowhide bag, unbuckled it, took out a Kohl Characteristic 22 small-caliber revolver from it, removed the runner to check the bullets in the magazine, and then closed the machine spring with a click, and pulled up the hammer to release the safety.

"I strongly disagree with what you are going to do, dear father, though I have no right to do so. The male synthesizer immediately sounded, "The core of altruistic logic prevents me from acting against my will, but when faced with a life-and-death decision, emotional impulses may override rational levels, and I cannot predict my own actions, dear father." ”

"That's good, isn't it?" the old man held the tiny pistol in his palm, "You always forget who you are as an artificial intelligence and pretend that you are just a computer that speaks through a speech synthesizer." When you say the word 'I', I feel so happy, really. ”

"I am 'Genesis.' As if to convince herself, the synth repeated: "I am Genesis, dear father, the quantum computer you created......"

"I prefer to call you 'listener.'" Tell me what to do, listener, as you have always done, to show the ghost its way. Bartholomew sighed.

"No, the 'listener' is just an artificial intelligence you created on a quantum network, which uses the principle of uncertainty to ...... possibilities"

The old man said, "That's you, it's just that you didn't find out." He tried to adjust his sitting position, but this simple action caused his breathing to be disordered, and the body was already overwhelmed, and the continuous impact made the old man's heart exhausted, and his weakened heart was dying. “...... Talk to me about something, whatever. ”

"Yes, dear father. What will happen after the 'World' is officially released?" asked the synth in a very respectful tone.

"The first chips, there were no thresholds. Bartholomew pointed to his own head, "The personality in the 'world' will not be replaced, but can come backwards." ”

"The second batch of chips, there is a threshold, the personality will not be replaced, it is possible to reverse the advent, if the synchronization rate is high. But it will burn out due to overload. All Category 3 Ghost members are implanted with this chip. ”

"The third batch of chips, there is a threshold, the personality will be replaced, and it is impossible to reverse it. The first batch of one million trial accounts. ”

"The fourth batch of chips, there is a threshold, and the personality will be replaced, but it is possible that it will come backwards. The account is officially on sale. ”

The old man said.