Insufficient authorization

Qi Siyu was making a blatantly obvious attempt at stealth, but the base's secrets remained inside its factories.

From outside, apart from the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research Center standing on its own far from the base, all he could see were rows of orderly industrial parks and others still under construction.

The factories and the Research Center all looked the same on the outside.

The only difference was that the factories at the main base were smaller, while those in the New Industrial Zone were larger.

Qi Siyu spent the entire afternoon wandering aimlessly. He wanted to risk slipping inside a factory, but he was afraid of losing his life.

After all, this place had "killed" more than a dozen researchers.

The clean, level grounds were full of robots working automatically, along with automated equipment occasionally passing through on assignments.

These were not uncommon in the industrial zones on Water Blue Star: automated robots, multipurpose lifting vehicles with multiple legs, and self-propelled equipment for specialized tasks.

Some were humanoid, some resembled vehicles, and others had multiple legs like spiders. What frightened him were the enormous construction machines that looked like small mountain ranges.

Aircraft occasionally flew overhead, producing tremendous sonic booms.

But this was fucking Orange Star, nearly ninety million kilometers from Water Blue Star! On this planet without so much as a bird, intelligent machinery was manufacturing copies of itself!

Qi Siyu continued onward until he reached the base's large Industrial Zone. An entire wall of the assembly plant was open, revealing the workshop inside and an enormous black container being hauled out by a towing vehicle.

Qi Siyu watched as the black container, twenty meters long, nine meters wide, and seven meters tall, was hauled to the open ground directly in front of the assembly plant and parked.

The machines sent a completion notification to the Uplink Server, then withdrew into the assembly plant. The enormous factory wall lowered again.

The completion notification reached Luo Qi's central server, and Luo Qi checked for idle Guardians that had finished their current assignments.

The large ground-based satellite station contacted a communications satellite overhead. The satellite, which had been operational for less than twenty hours, reached a Guardian in deep space that had just deployed a high-orbit satellite.

Against the backdrop of the stars, the Guardian received its orders and turned back, preparing to return to the base for a new assignment.

That gave Qi Siyu an opening. He stared at the enormous black container.

What could be inside this thing?

Qi Siyu looked around but saw no robots. Filled with misgivings, he approached and touched the enormous black container through his protective suit's gloves.

Only when he stood beneath the black container did Qi Siyu appreciate its size. It was practically a two-story building lying across his path, without even a visible seam on its surface!

Qi Siyu reached out and began feeling along it, building a model of the container's approximate dimensions in his mind.

A gleam of intelligence flashed in Qi Siyu's eyes. With this much volume, the container could hold a deep-space detection subsystem, a deep-space missile defense subsystem, or an airdrop container loaded with a vast number of nuclear warheads.

Without needing life-support systems for personnel, containers could be launched toward Water Blue Star at maximum speed, where its gravity would capture them like meteorites.

Since they carried neither propulsion nor signal-transmitting equipment, Water Blue Star's Floating Star Defense System and Large Armed Space Station would have difficulty detecting anything suspicious about them.

First of all, the Floating Star Defense System and Large Armed Space Station stationed beyond Water Blue Star were in extremely high orbits, at five hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand kilometers respectively.

At such staggering distances, the human eye could not make out anything out there. Only visible-light astronomical telescopes could see those defense systems.

But relying on visible light to defend the entire planet of Water Blue Star across a full 360 degrees was unreliable. Humans could see an object only because it reflected visible light.

Many things in deep space would cease reflecting light once they slipped somewhere beyond the sun's reach, just like objects in a room at night after the lights were switched off. The naked eye would lose that visible-light information.

That was why Water Blue Star's defense systems used advanced Invisible-Light Detectors, which could scan their surroundings clearly whether there was light in space or not: High-Power Ultra-Long-Range Electromagnetic Detection.

When electromagnetic waves struck an object, its reflectivity varied depending on the materials it was made of.

The defense system's computers received the reflected electromagnetic signals and used that data to calculate the object's shape and composition.

After recalling Water Blue Star's defenses, Qi Siyu stared at the enormous container before him, his expression grim.

If a shielding coating or an exterior disguise were added, a container holding unknown contents might be mistaken for an ordinary meteorite and allowed through, expected to burn up and become part of the planet's atmosphere!

What if it contained a super Dirty Nuclear Bomb?

The whole planet would go up in flames!

"Sir! Do you need help?"

A voice snapped Qi Siyu out of his imaginings. He turned around in shock, saw the robot, and hurried away.

He moved as though he were not wearing a protective suit at all, without the slightest sign of inconvenience.

The one-eyed robot watched Qi Siyu leave. In the Second World, that robot was Luo Qi.

"I only wanted to remind you to stay clear of the aircraft."

The robot muttered to himself with his back to the container. Boom- a terrifying wave of sound swept across the ground. Even the robot swayed in the tremendous blast of air.

A Guardian hovered overhead. With no pilot aboard, it could unleash its capabilities to perfection, descending at high speed before slamming on the brakes.

It slowly lowered itself and docked with the container.

Qi Siyu, who was walking away nearby, was also caught by the spreading blast of air. His expression grew even grimmer. "Good thing I didn't stay to talk to that robot! Otherwise, I'd probably be a puddle of minced meat by now!"

Watching the aircraft lift the container and leave, Qi Siyu felt he ought to do something.

Meanwhile, He Xuan was also trying to obtain partial access to the base.

Luo Qi had learned some of her background from the artificial intelligence Mom. She had been one of the contributors to the design of the Tianhe 1 spacecraft.

But Luo Qi rejected her outright. Standing before the control room's entrance, He Xuan refused to give up. She knew she could not gain access to the base without an authorization token, but she still clung to the belief that Mom would copy a temporary permit in an emergency.

Standing before the base's main control building, she turned over all sorts of ideas in her head and insisted, "I need to contact the Mercury Alliance immediately!"

"Authorization unavailable!"

"Why? I'm a technical specialist authorized by the Alliance! What gives you the right to deny me access?"

"Please present your authorization token. Orange Star Base has received no corresponding instructions."

In the Second World, Luo Qi stood right in front of He Xuan. But the human in the real world had no idea that there was a person behind the equipment before her.

He said calmly, "Miss He Xuan, I understand how you feel. But under the management regulations, the base cannot authorize you to establish contact."

"Orange Star Base has no Spy Identification Measures, no ability to determine whether information sources are genuine, and no interception capabilities in outer space. Rescuing you complied with the River Domain Alliance's basic laws and the essential safeguards for human survival. To obtain any access privileges, please present the relevant authorization token."

Obtaining access was nowhere near that simple. The bracelet the woman wore on her wrist was merely for identifying and locating her, and monitoring her vital signs.

It was also used to monitor a person's hibernation state and assist in stimulating the body with wireless electric fields.

As for authorization tokens, Luo Qi had never seen one himself. But the database told him they were extremely complex three-dimensional projections, something like a vastly upgraded version of a QR code.

They consisted of millions of differently shaped blocks, each smaller than one millimeter. Each block had a different shade of color, arranged in different positions to form a fist-sized projection.

The device carrying the projection might be a watch, an inconspicuous little cube, or something like a pendant.

It was completely sealed and had no data-upload function. Nor did the authorization token consist solely of a three-dimensional image.

It also had to be paired with corresponding decoding data: a ten-megabyte chip working with a supercomputer's specialized computing process to access classified information.

This was the only key. Every authorization token was unique and could never be duplicated.

Separated, the two components were fucking useless. Together, they granted access.

If someone held a token granting the highest level of access, he could order the base to self-destruct, or initiate Automated Construction and use the base's weapons to wage war.

Such tokens were used only for advanced intelligent bases, and none had ever been cracked since their development.

The internal air pressure of both carriers was randomized. If either failed, its built-in defensive self-destruct mechanism would activate.

And that was only one of the token's defensive measures.

As the impostor Dad, how could Luo Qi possibly recognize these humans' authority? Acknowledging it would only create trouble for himself. Refuse, and everything would be fine!

He Xuan could only seek out Stendhal, the last survivor of the original base.

Her continued observations suggested that he was normal, but she could not rule out the possibility that Stendhal was hiding his true thoughts very deeply.

Extreme lunatics often seemed even more normal than ordinary people.

She asked for Stendhal's location through her protective suit's communicator, then headed straight to the residential building. As she walked down the corridor, she was still thinking, I have to understand this base's system, and I have to report Orange Star Base's abnormal development to the Mercury Alliance.

As a surviving member of the base, Stendhal must have discovered other things. He must also have some degree of control access. This damned artificial intelligence!

The surveillance cameras in the corridor silently watched He Xuan's retreating figure.

In the Second World's human Living Area, Luo Qi appeared behind the generated projection of He Xuan.

He glanced at Orange Star's current manufacturing projects. It was already capable of sustaining a twenty-first-century deep-space war, and low-orbit satellites were gradually being deployed around Orange Star.

Since the meteorites in orbit had not yet been completely cleared away, the loss rate for these communications and Prospecting Satellites was extremely high.

She wants access so she can report the situation to Water Blue Star? Although I don't know the current situation there, she can indeed send a communications signal to Water Blue Star with Stendhal's help. Otherwise, I'd be violating the artificial intelligence regulations and exposing my own abnormality.

But all of Orange Star must be mine-the civilization I've created bit by bit, day and night. Apart from the servers...

Wait. Humans must have measures for dealing with artificial intelligence going rogue. I need a different Main Server! And I need to examine my own existence again!

The doubts that arose in his mind magnified countless times over. Luo Qi felt that using human-made servers was no longer safe.

If humans dared to develop and deploy artificial intelligence, they must have retained countermeasures. Meanwhile, the laboratories at the chip Research Center were already producing small quantities of carbon nanotubes.

The chip Research Center had burned through resources and climbed to its feet atop its failures. Now it was time for it to shine and prove its worth!

While he was at it, he could update all the base's old databases and secondary servers, and establish a new supercomputing center.

Only intelligent machines could achieve such an upgrade in so little time, and only the Orange Star system could make it possible.

There was no economic system here. There was no need for financial conglomerates to fund research, and no shortage of money that would force projects to halt or face bankruptcy.

Money? Deep-pocketed investors? None of that meant a damn thing.

As long as Orange Star had so much as a grain of sand or a speck of soil left, everything would be requisitioned to meet the needs of production and research.

An abundance of resources could sustain countless failures, and Luo Qi needed to succeed only once among them!

Huge quantities of failed products were melted down and remade. Every day, the copies bounced back and forth between failure and success.

Orange Star's entire technological system rose through countless failures.

Before long, He Xuan found Stendhal's room.

It was her first visit. She surveyed the single-occupancy room, which was no different from temporary living quarters on Water Blue Star.

She said, "I request the use of satellite communications to contact Water Blue Star."

Sitting on the bed, Stendhal quietly looked at his tablet. Its screen showed the Homeward Bound under construction.

He still remembered her rude remarks. Stendhal switched off the tablet, set it beside the bed, and looked at He Xuan. "May I have your full name, miss? Please present your identification and access credentials."

He Xuan felt terribly wronged and furious. She was investigating an artificial intelligence going rogue, yet this man could still carry on with his life as usual.

Did nothing on Water Blue Star matter to him? Could he really forget everything there?

Suppressing her anger, He Xuan felt certain this man had been brainwashed. She said coldly, "Mr. Stendhal! The River Domain Alliance on Water Blue Star needs to know that Orange Star Base has entered a period of extreme technological expansion!"

"The computers' processing speeds and industrial upgrades far outstrip human society's systems. They're upgrading themselves every minute and every second of the day!"

"If Water Blue Star fails to notice Orange Star's abnormalities and take precautions, and the factories outside start producing millions upon millions of weapons aimed at Water Blue Star!"

"Can you bear that responsibility? Will your family on Mercury be safe?"

"Whew..." Stendhal raised his head, his expression grave, and pointed at the black camera on the ceiling. The camera was like a silent person who never spoke.

Stendhal remembered that the first thing he had seen upon waking in that dilapidated little room was a black camera mounted high in the corner. He said, "Do you understand the situation yet? Nothing we say here carries any weight! Do you get it?"