A Leak in the Machine Plague

"..."stake

The senior engineer was silent for a moment before asking in confusion, "Little A, have you changed your personality template?"

"No, I just evolved!"

As she spoke, a holographic projection appeared, revealing a huge, beautiful woman with a curvaceous figure, whose height was definitely over 4 meters. Her breasts were bigger than a water tank, the kind that could kill someone if they fell.

Like you, eight-foot lady!

The senior engineer gasped.

Before going to Shentu, the senior engineer specially uploaded Xiao A back to Dugao Group. Unexpectedly, she has grown up to be more and more promising.

"What gave you the idea to make progress?"

"I want to learn from General Manager Du!"

"I want to become a rich woman too!"

"I want to keep a young, handsome boyfriend too!"

"I'm going to take on ten of them by myself!"

"Good for you!" The senior engineer gave him a thumbs-up admiringly, then added, "But the first requirement to become a rich woman is to have money. Do you have any?"

The woman, or rather, Mrs. A, was taken aback by the question. After a long pause, she hesitated before replying, "Mr. Du pays me a salary, so there's a little bit of money."

"Then what kind of rich woman are you? There's no such thing as a rich woman without money in this world! Open the door now!"

"Oh well."

Mrs. A, who had been easily swayed back to her previous mode by the senior engineer's few words, immediately switched back to her previous behavior and obediently opened the door for him.

As the air pump started to whistle, the door slowly opened.

Inside the door, in this highly confidential laboratory, there is a huge glass column in the center. Inside the column is a silvery-gray liquid called "Spark Oil," a means used by mechanical life forms to maintain their bodies. This "Spark Culture Agent" is a top-tier second-order potion, only available in the Mother City. It is extremely effective; as long as it is not a fatal injury, soaking in it can slowly repair the wound. Soaking for a long time can also permanently increase mechanical energy.

Although the effect is good, this thing is exclusive to the mechanical legion and is not easy to obtain. Only the leader of the faction has the channel to purchase it.

Within this "spark oil," a humanoid, silver-red metal skeleton is immersed, its fingers twitching, appearing at first glance as if it possesses life.

"Life Metal, an improved version of memory metal cells, incorporates bio-modification technology on the basis of original memory metal. Theoretically, it can perfectly match the transformations of most organisms."

The engineer tapped the glass surface, and the skeleton immediately began to deform upon being stimulated. The arm bones, leg bones, and ribs began to shrink and form fist-sized honeycombs. At the same time, the scapula protruded, suddenly piercing out two pairs of joints nearly two meters long. The skull also deformed to some extent, with two rows of pinhole-sized holes.

Although the shape is abstract, the senior engineer recognized it at a glance: it is a Class D Radiant Beast, the skeleton of the Drone Dragonfly—a cyborg that can be tamed by mechanical hunters, whose tentacle receptors can be connected to the vision of a prosthetic eye.

As the glass surface was struck again, the skeleton began to deform, its size decreased, its spine bulged out, palm-sized scales grew from its spine, and its facial bones protruded forward, resembling a fist-sized hazelnut.

This is... a Class F tin rat.

The tin rat is a semi-metallic life form with a symbiotic iron skin covering its skin. Its central axial blade and lateral ribs are shaped like miniature iron fans. Its proboscis, thorax, and telson form an exhaust system that allows it to leap several meters at a time. It feeds on metal.

Then, this skeleton began its performance: Turbo Spider, Exploding Scorpion, Armored Panther, Engine Lion, Reaper...

The most abstract instance was when this character suddenly grew ten meters tall, with his arms and legs expanding wildly to the thickness of water tanks. His head was also astonishingly large, especially his eye sockets, which looked like they could fit two soccer balls inside.

The senior engineer felt that the face looked familiar, but couldn't quite place it until Mrs. A opened the database, at which point he suddenly realized who it was.

Good heavens, it was you!

Mechanical Gorilla!

Its name is clearly Super Mechanical Gorilla King!

"According to the data sent by the Brain in the Vat, this skeleton can already achieve a preliminary simulation of a Class B radiant beast, but there is a problem: after the transformation is completed, it will lose some mechanical properties."

Footsteps sounded, and Director Du walked in, standing shoulder to shoulder with the senior engineer, pointing to the edge of the mechanical frame, especially the parts that were prone to deformation.

As expected, with each transformation, some red powder would slide off; the more exaggerated the transformation, the more powder would fall off.

Sometimes, almost half of the mechanical skeleton would even break off.

The senior engineer finally understood why it had been soaked in "spark oil".

If you don't soak in it, you'll probably die after seven or eight transformations.

"I'm sorry, I didn't do a good job. The new 'life skeleton' is still not properly adjusted," Director Du said, unusually apologetic.

The senior engineer shook his head, unconcerned. Level 3 civilized metal wasn't something that could be easily improved.

The "memory metal cells" are mother city metals that the engineer secretly scraped off from the "collider" in the City of Never Sleeps and then implanted into his body. The effect is quite overpowered, similar to the villain T-1000 in Terminator 2, who suddenly gained several extra lives.

However, this metal has a problem: it only has the ability to recover, not to deform. Once deformed, it's essentially destroyed.

This is very disadvantageous for the career after the second level of senior engineer, so he specifically entrusted Director Du to improve it.

However, the research capabilities of the second-tier faction are still far behind those of the mother city. Despite putting in a lot of effort, they only managed to produce a defective product.

"We are indeed lacking some experts in biology and mechanical modification, especially the latter," the senior engineer lamented.

Mechanical modification experts are highly sought-after by any large company and are very difficult to poach.

Du Zhaodi bit her lip, her expression showing a hint of defiance.

"Actually, there is a way."

"Huh?" The senior engineer looked at Director Du in surprise. Was there another surprise?

"We have considered several solutions for the 'life skeleton'. The best way to improve it is to implant a non-cellular organism that can rapidly proliferate through replication into its metal cells. Once it deforms, this organism will multiply rapidly, and the lost part will be made up for by the reproduced part."

"Are you talking about a virus, and specifically a live metal virus?" the senior engineer asked, somewhat doubtfully.

No wonder the senior engineer said this. In fact, in the history of carbon-based civilizations, there have always been some large-scale infectious diseases, such as the Black Death, smallpox, and cholera, which are viruses that have caused mass deaths and for which there are no medical treatments available with current technology.

In fact, this kind of "mechanical infectious disease" exists not only in carbon-based civilizations but also in mechanical civilizations. Extraterrestrials collectively call it "mechanical leakage disease." Compared to biological infectious diseases, it is more dangerous because, unlike carbon-based life forms, mechanical life forms use the same materials except for their core origin. They might even be produced in the same factory. Once a case of "mechanical leakage disease" occurs, the entire mechanical species is basically doomed.

Although this place is a cyber testing ground, a notorious lawless zone and experimental paradise, isn't it a bit of an exaggeration to create such a virus and antigen?

"Who?"

"You should know this girl, Miss Kate."

"...who?"

The senior engineer thought for a long time but still couldn't remember which family's young lady she was. It seems that after hooking up with a rich woman and cultivating her character, even professionals can't remember her.

Director Du rolled his eyes and said, "Back in the Iron Sand Desert, didn't you negotiate several business deals with them?"

Is it the original owner's fault that we're discussing business? I can't take the blame for that. No, wait, it's discussing business, not doing business. I've misunderstood.

The senior engineer racked his brains and finally had a flash of inspiration—

"It's that big orange tabby, the catgirl from Mas's Edge!!"

Looking back, when I first transmigrated, I was dirt poor. I was so stingy even buying weapons, trying to make every penny count. The situation was truly heartbreaking. I even had to use some poorly modified weapons to enhance my fighting power.

It was during that period that he met the female employee who was transformed into a catgirl because she failed to meet her KPIs; a poor guy and an unlucky guy hit it off immediately and started working together to cause trouble.

After he moved from the countryside to the city, he handed over this connection to Director Du. Then, the Dugo Group rose to prominence and established itself in the global arms market with its unique biochips and mecha technology. As the only contact person with this emerging group, Ms. Kate naturally rose in status, not only shedding her identity as a saleswoman in the rural market, but also becoming the sales manager of the "Mas Edge" weapons department.

I heard about the "machine leak virus" from the other party.

According to the other party, Mr. Ma of "Mas Edge" has recently been mysteriously researching a weapon. He claims that this weapon is extremely effective against mechanical lifeforms, so he is preparing to find an opportunity to test its effects.

"Try it? How? Attack a mechanical army?" The senior engineer was somewhat speechless.

"That's what they said, and it seems they did it. Then, all the personnel who tested the weapons were hunted down and killed by the Quan faction's robots; not a single one was spared."

That's for sure. The power-wielding robots are the "species molecules" among robots, possessing the grand vision of purifying the entire planet and realizing the sole purpose of the machine race. For you to specifically research a virus targeting them is truly like a rogue running into a pervert, walking right into the line of fire.

"Then what?"

"Then, the experiment naturally failed," Director Du said. "However, Mr. Ma did not give up and continued to carry out his plan in secret. He even conveyed his idea of cooperating with us through Miss Kate, which I of course refused."

"Is that so?"

The senior engineer stroked his chin. No wonder Director Du did this. With the corporate war imminent, no one wanted to cause trouble. If they angered the mother city, their licenses would be revoked, and they would be finished. After all, the Cybertron General was the most protective of his own.

However, to change my job, I have to take a risk—

With a "ding," the familiar notification sound rang out. The senior engineer glanced at the task bar, raised his eyebrows, and realized it was another Cyber Test Site task.

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