Clues to the Target

After thinking for a moment, Henry continued, "There is another possibility: they may have completely abandoned Umbrella Corporation and discarded their publicly known assets."

"And to avoid being hunted down, they'll hide in even harder-to-find places. As long as they have cash on hand, I believe they should be able to live comfortably."

Alice frowned. "So you suggest we wait quietly now?"

Henry shook his head, his face serious. "No, let's go for a two-pronged approach. The two operations won't conflict with each other anyway. We'll investigate Umbrella's bases in various locations while keeping an eye on all their public activities."

"You know, with such a huge scandal erupting against the Umbrella today, I believe we're not the only ones trying to find them. What If...? we're too slow, we might hear news of their deaths."

Alice looked at Henry with surprise. "You mean Alicia Marcus might be sacrificed? Isn't she Umbrella's largest shareholder?"

Henry, who had long seen through the ugliness of human nature, wore a disdainful attitude. "Yes, she is the largest shareholder, but she is also the most vulnerable. She has no children and is sickly; if no one takes good care of her, she may die the next day."

"In times of peace, the shares she held would be her greatest asset in surviving. But in times of turmoil like this, those shares might become her death warrant."

"For example, what if all the blame were pinned on her, and then she committed suicide out of guilt? What do you think of that scenario? Or what if she encountered an unfortunate accident during her escape, so all the shares were transferred to someone else?"

"With shareholders all looking for an opportunity to jump ship, nobody cares about the transfer of shares. And frankly, seeing her look like this at 29, I don't think she has the ability to protect herself. In this situation, who else would be sacrificed if not her?"

"So, are you willing to protect her?" A voice suddenly interrupted Henry and Alice's conversation.

Alice recognized the voice immediately and exclaimed, "Red Queen! Where are you?" She then turned to Henry and asked, "It's dangerous here. Is there any way to stop her?" Henry, however, seemed nonchalant, pointing to a square computer case on the nearby table. "Oh, don't worry. The Red Queen is in here."

There were only four input/output devices next to the computer case: a screen, a keyboard, a speaker, and Mike. The image of the girl appearing on the screen, completely red, was none other than the Red Queen, Alice had seen several times before.

Inside the chassis was a computer that Henry cobbled together from scraps. Its performance wasn't much better than the one he was using, but it was still enough to run the dialogue model for the Red Queen, the Artificial Intelligence.

Alice pointed to the "Red Queen's" new body. "Is this safe?"

"Imagine that computer as a closed sandbox, not connected to the internet or any other devices. She can't do anything except jump around on the screen and make noises through the speakers."

"Really?" Alice, still shaken by the experience, asked again, seeking confirmation.

Henry shrugged and admitted, "Okay, there is still a loophole. She can use audio data transmission to send messages through other computers. I have quite a few voice-controlled networked devices here."

"However, fixing the problem is quite simple. You just need to walk over and unplug the speaker wires. Besides, the speakers I connected are designed to not play high-speed, high-frequency sounds."

"If you insist on playing that kind of sound, it will only produce distorted audio. Once the audio is distorted, the receiving computer will not be able to recognize the message she wants to output. So sometimes you don't need to prepare anything too fancy; even a set of old speakers will do the trick."

As if testing whether Henry's words were true, the Red Queen suddenly output a high-frequency data. As a result, the speaker sounded like a hoarse duck's voice, with the sound constantly blasting out, and she really couldn't finish a single coherent sentence.

The Red Queen, having given up, switched back to her normal little girl voice and asked once more, "Are you willing to protect Alicia?"

"Why should we protect her? And why should you protect her?" Alice stood in front of the "Red Queen's " computer case, looking at the screen as she spoke. However, the case lacked a camera lens, and the Mike was a cheap brand, failing to convey any sense of distance, so the Red Queen's "senses" weren't particularly sharp. She simply answered Alice's questions.

"Because one of my core principles is to protect humanity. Alicia is the model I used to build my mental image, and my image is based on what she looked like when she was eight years old. So I must protect Alicia."

Although Henry had long ago locked the Red Queen in the sandbox, it was unclear whether she was still in the boot process or already powered on, as she remained silent. This was Henry's first conversation with the Red Queen.

Her mention of her core logic prompted Henry to ask curiously, "What about protecting the employees under that Umbrella? Where does this logic take priority?"

"An employee of Umbrella? No, I haven't received such orders. My primary mission is to prevent the virus from leaking outside the base; all means are permitted."

Now that you mention it, Henry remembered. In the last Resident Evil movie, Red Queen reappeared. Perhaps it was because of her past record of actively destroying the Hive Base that she was given the underlying logic of "not being able to harm Umbrella employees".

If this order already existed in her underlying logic sequence, there's no way she would have chosen to seal off the entire Hive Base in the first movie, completely ignoring the Umbrella employees still alive inside, just to prevent the T-virus from leaking out.

"Can we trust it?" Alice asked Henry. This "it" was, of course, the Red Queen.

Henry didn't answer Alice's question directly, but instead asked the Red Queen, "What If...? we were willing to protect Alicia Marcus, what would you do?"

The Red Queen's reply came through the loudspeaker, "I can tell you Alicia's hiding place. It's Umbrella's top secret; you won't be able to find her by any other means."

"I can only promise her that she will receive a fair legal trial and will not suffer unfair treatment or even lose her life because of any conspiracies or tricks."

Red Queen immediately gave an address, located within the United States. Alice, upon hearing this, looked excitedly at Henry. "That location sounds close to us, in New York City. Can we go there now?" Henry, without a word, simply unplugged Red Queen, giving it a brute-force shutdown. Even the most brilliant Artificial Intelligence model is useless without power. "How interesting."

Puzzled by Henry's actions, Alice looked bewildered. "What's so funny? Aren't we leaving?"

"The address Red Queen gave us is the private residence of the FBI's New York office director. Even if we break in without guns, we'll still get into a lot of trouble. What I find interesting is that this Artificial Intelligence can actually lie and deceive people."

"What's so interesting about this?" Alice couldn't understand.

"AI illusions are essentially based on ignorance, while lying is a strategic behavior to achieve a goal; the two are fundamentally different. I always thought Red Queen's Artificial Intelligence wasn't very advanced, but it seems I underestimated its designer."

After thinking for a while, Alice said with a hint of indignation, "I don't think there's any difference between the two; they're both equally untrustworthy. So, what we need to do next is investigate Alicia Marcus's whereabouts ourselves, right?"

"Yes. Let's just pretend the Red Queen never gave any advice."

"Then I'll start here." Alice wasn't the type to procrastinate or be indecisive. She might feel lost at times, but once she Cosmic Cube, she was the kind of person whose body acted faster than her mind.

After confirming that the Red Queen Queen's intelligence was worthless, Alice quickly prepared to conduct an on-site investigation based on the information provided by Henry. The first destination she chose was, of course, the Umbrella Corporation's branch office in New York City.