The Special Nature of 103

103: Special Nature

"Neural Matrix. This really was quite a peculiar thing."

Hearing Carl mutter, Reid looked over at her—Carl was using Monomolecular Wire to connect to the AI storage device captured from beyond the Blackwall. Watching her movements, Reid's expression grew somewhat conflicted.

What troubled him was not the decision they had made. For someone like Reid, while all his former convictions naturally looked different once viewed from another angle, lingering in silence and hesitation for too long would not be like him at all.

What troubled him now was this.

This thing clearly required calibration and specialized operating procedures, didn't it? Even if they had an access code, was it really safe for Carl, someone who had never handled it before, to just dive right in?

A device capable of storing an AI captured from beyond the Blackwall was naturally no simple piece of equipment. It had been developed by corporations in the past, representing the cutting edge of old-world technology.

And everyone knew that the older something was, the more powerful it tended to be. To a certain extent, the world after the DataKrash really was inferior to the old world in some areas of technology. Otherwise, so many corporations would not be secretly exploring the Blackwall.

What Carl was doing right now was no different from an amateur dismantling a bomb barehanded—or rather, for Carl and Reid, this was far more terrifying than a bomb.

If a bomb went off, they could always run. But if something went wrong with this AI, there would be nowhere to run. If the AI inside the container invaded Carl's consciousness through the connection, it would all be over.

An AI valued by the old corporations and captured from beyond the Blackwall was no ordinary entity. Its danger was obvious