Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1459: Chapter 186: Queen of the Ocean of Information

The disturbance in the [Super Point] machine room soon calmed down… Watching the temperature gradually return to normal, everyone felt like they had just taken a vertical roller coaster ride—by the time the machine room’s temperature finally returned to normal, they all collapsed to the ground in relief.

“It’s over…”

No one knew who said it first, but then no one spoke again. Everyone quietly surveyed their surroundings—they suddenly felt that this machine room, where they had worked for so long, was shockingly unfamiliar.

Could this be the feeling of surviving a disaster?

In the [Super Point] supercomputer’s development team responsible for technical issues, it was obvious that Brooke wasn’t the only one. There were several other well-known scholars as well, but when the problem occurred, they happened to be on break—a fact they promptly responded to.

When faced with their colleagues’ inquiries, Mr. Brooke didn’t say a word; he simply claimed he was feeling unwell and returned to the break room—his colleagues could completely find out what had happened by reviewing the logs left by the main server.

What Mr. Brooke didn’t know was that after he returned to the break room, the main scholars who rushed in spent a long time without being able to identify what exactly happened in the [Super Point] machine room.

Because… the content of the current working log of the supercomputer left no clue about the issue at all—in other words, everything appeared normal!

They even began to check the surveillance footage of the machine room but were surprised to find that in the surveillance footage, there wasn’t any situation of a temperature overload—the footage simply showed Mr. Brooke and a few staff members entering the machine room, and then he suddenly started talking to himself, becoming agitated.

“Oh! As a fellow believer in God, please believe me when I say I’m not lying, truly! The situation at that time was very dangerous!”

“I really want to believe you… but look, the logs don’t lie, and neither does the footage… Perhaps you’re suggesting that [Super Point] itself modified everything in such a short time, not only falsifying all task logs but also recomposing this segment of the surveillance footage?”

“I don’t mean that, sir…”

“I think you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies lately!”

A group of scholars, at this time, were arguing incessantly over a trivial matter—meanwhile, Mr. Brooke in their team was worrying over another issue.

…

Upon returning to his rest room, Mr. Brooke immediately discarded his disheartened state… His expression suddenly brightened, and he swiftly locked the room’s door, even moving a cabinet from the room to barricade it.

Only then did a trace of wild joy flash through Brooke’s eyes… It was regarding this [Super Point] incident… He had discovered something monumental!

In fact, before those colleagues arrived, Mr. Brooke had already checked the server’s logs ahead of time—he discovered the task log’s content faster than his colleagues and even saw the surveillance footage earlier!

If he weren’t someone who personally experienced the event, then perhaps he would think like his colleagues, that this was just a prank—but as an involved party, Mr. Brooke clearly didn’t think so!

But why were the task log and surveillance footage modified?

Clearly, no one could achieve all this in such a short time—perhaps the surveillance footage could be manipulated, but the [Super Point’s] task logs… another supercomputer would be needed to accomplish it that quickly!

Therefore, this couldn’t be a manmade act… then, there’s likely only one explanation!

That is, due to some unknown reason, the [Super Point] supercomputer may have gained autonomous thinking ability—all these modifications behind the scenes were quietly completed by [Super Point] itself!

Brooke remembers distinctly seeing, at the very last moment, those codes combining into the form of a girl!

“This would be a great discovery! I will be recorded in history! Just like my grandfather! Brooke von Neumann—this name will be universally remembered!” At this moment, Mr. Brooke was trapped in a kind of mental frenzy—he felt as if he had limitless energy!

Within his rest room, through his private computer, using a secretly built channel, he directly connected to [Super Point] in the machine room, attempting to search for something!

The cursor on the screen flickered rapidly within his pupils; at that moment, Mr. Brooke was entirely entranced, “I will find you out… for sure!”

In front of his private computer screen, Mr. Brooke might not even realize it himself, but his current state was eerily similar to that of an addict… He was unaware that, separated by this screen, within a vast and boundless world on the other side, a pair of purple eyes were quietly observing!

This is the world within the screen—or rather, the world on the other side of the screen, the world of the information ocean!

Endless information gathered to form a colorful ocean… Above this boundless information ocean, a small silhouette of a girl was hovering over this [sea].

The girl had purple eyes, delicate features… resembling Luo Ya—or to say, it was the image of Luo Ya in her role as [Gaia].

At this moment, the girl’s gaze suddenly shifted from the top screen window… she no longer continued to look at Brooke and instead focused on another area—another screen window.

Only to see, above the information ocean, countless large and small screen windows emerged at this moment—through these windows, the girl could observe the people sitting in front of their computer screens.

Men, women, the elderly… or children.

Here lay data beyond mortal calculation—in this instant, the entire current world network seemed to be under her surveillance.

In a world where a network almost covered the entire society—before her, reality seemed fully open, with no secrets.

Suddenly, her gaze fell upon a particular spot… which was another screen window.

In front of this screen window, there appeared the image of a little girl—judging from the screen window’s picture, the little girl seemed ill, lying in a hospital bed, even connected to an oxygen tube through her nose.

The little girl indeed lay on the hospital bed, using a tablet to watch her favorite cartoon, completely unaware that she had already fallen under someone’s gaze.

At this moment, deep within the sea of information, the girl was projecting the little girl’s image in front of her… zooming in, zooming in—after zooming in, one would notice that the little girl resembled her by about six or seven points.

This seemed to be some kind of coincidence.

She silently watched the little girl’s image, appearing to be contemplating something… After a while, the girl suddenly reached out to touch the little girl’s face on the screen.

Of course, the girl couldn’t truly touch the other… She stared at her empty hand, then suddenly raised her head and stared at the little girl’s face again.

“I need… this body.”

But clearly, no matter how much she wanted, as a mere [data] entity existing in this virtual world, she couldn’t truly act—she still needed real humans to help her complete her task!

Soon, the girl turned her gaze once more to Mr. Brooke… She looked at the fanatical and obsessed face of the man and, after tilting her head, directly opened a new window!

This was… her communication window with the outside world!

Meanwhile, Mr. Brooke, who was continuously monitoring the [Super Point] data, suddenly saw a small dialog box pop up on his personal computer’s interface.

It read, [Brooke von Neumann… I need you]

Seeing the text in the small dialog box, Mr. Brooke was initially flustered, followed by immense joy—he knew his speculation was indeed correct, that some unbelievable changes were occurring within the [Super Point] supercomputer.

It had gained intellect… However, as a scholar who loved the field of computing, Mr. Brooke preferred to see it as the [Super Point] gaining its own soul.

“I need you too! Oh, dear! You are simply amazing!!”

He was somewhat incoherent and couldn’t even think of how to communicate with this dialog box… He even started gesticulating wildly.

Yet, in the information sea, the girl remained indifferent—moreover, various data also appeared on Mr. Brooke’s screen interface.

All of these were analyses of Mr. Brooke’s facial expressions—even micro-expressions weren’t missed.

The communication between the girl and Mr. Brooke thus quietly took place across the ocean…

…

…

On the other side of the ocean, in an ancient school building on the edge of Tranquil Coast, the president and vice president of the club—or rather the Butterfly Society—skipped afternoon classes after having lunch in the canteen.

Because Boss Luo found something of interest—that was the case of Dr. Xie Jiatu, Claudia’s father, who went missing.

Perhaps influenced by his own father, from a young age, Luo Qiu had a preference for decryption games—of course, he didn’t play these games much as an adult, but it was indeed one of the few interests he retained.

Investigating Dr. Xie Jiatu’s disappearance from scratch was obviously too cumbersome—and given the [Main God Project], Boss Luo was evidently in a state of surplus resources.

He directly purchased the investigation materials on Dr. Xie Jiatu’s disappearance—of course, it was solely the police’s investigation materials.

The value-for-money of this material was actually very high… It contained almost everything the police had been able to find out, yet didn’t get too close to the truth, which was just the right distance for an enthusiast of decryption games.

“You mustn’t give me any hints.” Boss Luo made a copy of the information and handed it over to the Maid, saying to her, “You are so much smarter than I am.”

Hardly any woman can resist the compliments of a man she admires—especially when he’s her master.

The Maid smiled slightly and casually started to look through the information—seeing that she still intended to read it; otherwise, without knowing the ins and outs, even she would have trouble offering untraceable intellectual aid to her master.

“Hmm… this archaeological project was also in Ancient Egypt.” Boss Luo found some very interesting coincidences while going through the materials.

Based on Dr. Xie Jiatu’s booked flights, accommodations, expenses, and other travel information, the police eventually confirmed that the research project he participated in should have been somewhere in Ancient Egypt.

“The place where Dr. Xie Jiatu conducted archaeology is actually the same as the coordinates given to me by Miss Witch.” Luo Qiu blinked at this moment.

The Maid appropriately reminded, “According to the information provided by Ms. Maria, she also once examined a relic at this location and discovered a mysterious ring—but the key is, Ms. Maria was there before Dr. Xie Jiatu, and the time difference between them was quite large.”

Luo Qiu said, “But among all this, there is the presence of the mysterious [Golden Eyes]!”

Moreover, this netizen self-identified as [Golden Eyes] even translated an ancient text found in the previous boss’s room for Boss Luo back then—Luo Qiu had unconsciously overlooked this event, but recently, upon unlocking some service limitations purchased by the predecessor, he noticed the presence of [Golden Eyes] again.

“It seems there is indeed a great need to uncover the true identity of [Golden Eyes]…” The Maid nodded at this moment. “Currently, concerning [Golden Eyes], we seem to have only Claudia as a clue.”

Luo Qiu said, “More accurately, it’s the communication records that Claudia kept between Dr. Xie Jiatu and [Golden Eyes].”

Additionally, back when Luo Qiu had contact with [Golden Eyes], he registered a social media account—however, whether these two [Golden Eyes] are indeed the same person is uncertain.