Chloe O'Brien leaned closer, looking at the target image analyzed on the screen—
A face composed of green pixels.
"In the Quarian Fleet, if any trainee technician wrote code this riddled with bugs, they'd be thrown out of the airlock immediately."
"Since it's a ghost without a physical form, that makes things easier. I think this old man is very lonely; he's been at the bottom of the sea for so long, he must need some... entertainment."
Tali suddenly stopped what she was doing, turned to look at Chloe, and the glowing bar on her mask turned an excited bright purple.
Chloe, what do you think of pop-up ads?
"What?" Chloe, who was usually calm, was stunned.
"It's that kind of little window that you can't turn off no matter what you do, and it plays loud, cheap music while asking you 'Do you need to clear your memory?'"
Tali tilted her head, her tone innocent and naive.
"I often see this on Earth's internet. Although it's very basic, for a purely data-driven life form, it must be like... someone stuffing ten thousand screaming groundhogs into his brain."
Chloe was silent for two seconds.
"Sir, are you a devil?"
"I'm Quarians," Tali corrected, "And I hold grudges. He just tried to sabotage my server."
Mid -Atlantic Ocean.
This is a little-known underwater fault line.
The water pressure is enough to flatten steel into a thin pancake, but in this abyss stands a massive base.
This is one of Hydra's last strongholds—" The Eye of the Abyss ".
The core computer room of the base.
The old server is running.
Anim Zola on the screen was wearing a smug expression.
"Foolish Vought International..."
Dr. Zola's electrical hum echoed in the empty server room.
"You think you can stop me with a few firewalls? I am immortal! I am the god of data!"
Although the team that had just physically infiltrated the area had lost contact, Zola considered it a necessary sacrifice.
If the decoy virus is successfully implanted, he can turn Vought's mainframe into Hydra's backyard.
At that time, both the arrogant Homelander and those so-called superheroes will become his puppets.
"Data transmission in progress... Parsing begins..."
Dr. Zola watched as the "bait file" was being unpacked.
That was the data packet that Vought sent back in response.
Zola was very cautious; he used seventy-two layers of antivirus software to scan the system. The results showed:
It's virus-free, malware-free, and just a simple encrypted document.
"Hmph, arrogant big company. Do they think I can't crack their formula just because they've encrypted it?"
Zola prepares to brute-force the password.
The document opened quickly.
Only one line of text:
May the soul find its home.
Zola was taken aback.
Before he could react, the green screen suddenly turned a glaring pink.
That kind of pink wasn't ordinary pink; it was a "deathly Barbie pink" with extremely high saturation, the kind that would burn your retina at first glance.
"What is this?! Warning! System anomaly! Intrusion detected!"
Zola screamed in terror as he tried to disconnect from the network, restart the core, and activate the defenses.
But no matter what he did, the pink background remained completely still.
Immediately afterwards, a cartoon purple octopus icon with big eyes and an extremely silly-looking appearance popped up.
It was wearing a funny party hat and holding a megaphone.
"Hey! Looks like you're trying to destroy the world!"
The octopus spoke in a high-pitched, shrill cartoon voice, "I'm your system optimization assistant, ' Little Tali '! I've detected 'evil plans' and 'outdated code' on your hard drive, taking up too much memory! Let me help you clean it up!"
"Get out of my way! I'm Zola! I'm from Hydra..."
"We've detected that you're emotionally agitated, and we're playing soothing music for you."
"Beep--"
A cheerful, catchy, and loud children's song melody instantly exploded throughout the entire base and even in all the Hydra terminals connected to the Zola Network.
"Baby Shark, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo~"
Zola has gone mad.
This melody was incorporated into his underlying logical loop.
Whenever he engages in any thought process or data calculation, this melody will be forcibly inserted, disrupting his logical flow.
"No!! Stop! Stop now!!"
Zola's data core is overheating; the server is starting to smoke.
"Oh dear, the user doesn't like this song."
The purple octopus on the screen blinked and revealed a sly smile, "Let's change modes then. Activate the 'Forced Gratitude' protocol."
Before Zola could react...
All of his output ports were taken over.
On the screen, Zola's originally imposing and sinister pixelated face was forcibly photoshopped with two red circles and a pink bow on her head.
He opened his mouth and made a sound uncontrollably:
"Hello everyone~ I'm Zola-chan! I'm a bad guy, but I love peace too! Hail Hydra ~ Chu~"
Vought Tower, Data Department.
"Puff--"
Chloe, who was drinking water, sprayed it all over the screen.
She stared in disbelief at the holographic projection of Dr. Zola, who was acting adorably to the tune of a children's song.
Now he looks... like an idiot.
"It seems to be working well."
Tali nodded in satisfaction.
"I added a circular Logic Lock to that ' Little Tali ' assistant. Unless he formats himself or increases his computing power a hundredfold, this octopus will stay with him forever."
"This is worse than killing him." (Ke)
Roy wiped the coffee stains from his mouth and looked at his boss with a complicated expression. "Sir, remind me, whatever you do, don't owe me money."
"Of course."
Tali sat up straight again and typed the last command on the keyboard.
"Alright, that's enough fooling around. While he was busy arguing with my octopus, I got what we wanted."
The pink image on the screen disappeared, revealing a detailed encrypted map.
That was something Tali stole from Zola's chaotic logical defenses.
"What is that...?"
Chloe leaned closer for a look.
The map is covered with red dots, most of which are located on the seabed or deep underground.
" Hydra's asset inventory."
Tali's voice regained its composure.
"Furthermore, I discovered an interesting anomaly in the data stream. Just now, when Zola collapsed, a command wasn't sent to Hydra agents, but rather to... Washington."
Tali zoomed in on a corner of the map.
That's the Triskelion, the headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D..
" S.H.I.E.L.D.." Chloe frowned. " Zola is sending a distress signal to S.H.I.E.L.D..? How is that possible? Wasn't Nick Fury already eliminating Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D.."