When the BD ended, Lucy, her face flushed, told him not to exit the game just yet before logging out of the BD herself.
Mercer counted to ten in silence. By the time he returned to reality, she had already darted into the bathroom.
And Mercer, after hesitating for less than a second, slipped into the bathroom as well, brazenly rinsing himself off amidst her embarrassed complaints.
Wearing only his pajama pants, Mercer was kicked out of the room by Lucy. He chuckled and returned to his own bedroom. Rebecca was truly carefree. Mercer had thought she might have some trouble sleeping.
But when he got back, she was already fast asleep, limbs splayed out.
Mercer carefully rinsed his pajama top and pants, tossed them into the washing machine, and then slipped into bed.
Rebecca groggily rolled over. "You're back? Who's better, me or Lucy?"
The question sent a jolt through Mercer, but when he looked closely, he saw her eyes were closed. She smacked her lips and hugged his arm, sleeping like a little piglet; the girl clearly understood everything, knew everything, yet somehow managed not to let any of it bother her.
In a way, her big heart was rather remarkable...
His mind uncharacteristically racing, unable to fall asleep immediately, Mercer was still savoring the events of the BD. Rebecca's small, warm body in his arms was the complete opposite of Lucy's, which had been cool to the touch at first.
He wondered when they might be able to... together...
For the current Mercer, moments of joy were but brief respites.
Even though such happy times were the life he had once dreamed of, immense pressure still forced him to keep moving forward.
—--
Not long after his talk with Lucy, Mercer officially began to advance his consciousness upload and analysis plan.
What Alt had said to him had indeed struck a chord; although Mercer always believed he would forever be human, there was one question he could not avoid, no matter what.
He knew better than anyone that he was not from this world.
In fact, ever since the ctOS was developed, Mercer had been collecting information about the possible existence of a "Fourth Wall."
Unfortunately, most of the information he managed to gather was stuff he already knew.
And harboring a certain fear, perhaps worried that if he figured something out, he would no longer be able to stay in this world, Mercer had always had a strong resistance to exploring the reason for his transmigration, or in other words, his past.
But Alt was right. If he didn't even know what he was, how could he promise anyone anything?
What if one day his consciousness was suddenly stripped away and returned to his body in the real world? What would everything in Night City become then? A phantom dream?
If he read a novel with that kind of ending, Mercer would curse the author's ancestors for ten generations. If that kind of bullshit happened to him, he'd probably want to die.
On the other hand, Mercer also wanted to verify if he could use the Relic, if he could escape death by preserving his consciousness code.
Dealing with Saburo was extremely risky. And besides Saburo, Mercer also had to consider potential assassinations from other megacorps, attacks from other rogue AIs, or even the sudden outbreak of a corporate war.
He didn't want to flatline without a clue, so he had to find a way to save his own skin. In a moment of crisis, even if he could only live on as a string of data, it was still better than being one hundred percent dead, wasn't it?
With a mix of complex thoughts, Mercer chose his Kindling Squad underground base as the location for the experiment.
It had a complete set of large server clusters, and if necessary, large amounts of backup data could be deleted to make room for his consciousness code. It was also absolutely safe and controllable. More importantly... Mercer felt that this place might be his lucky charm.
In any case, Mercer tried to avoid an unlucky place like the EBM Petrochem Stadium; it wasn't that he was being superstitious, but that no matter how calmly he acted, when the moment came to try and unravel the secrets about himself, Mercer couldn't help but feel uneasy.
Mercer wasn't foolish enough to test on himself first. He directly grabbed two death-row inmates. One was a Scavenger who dealt in organs, caught while trying to kidnap children from Dogtown.
The other was a murderer who had committed a bloody crime in Night City, fled to Dogtown, and then committed another murder.
Through repeated processes of uploading their consciousness and then downloading the consciousness code back while they were still linked, Mercer became completely familiar with the operational flow of the Soulkiller program.
During the multiple uploads, Mercer also confirmed one thing again; humans might indeed have souls. At least, during the multiple uploads, the consciousness source code of these two guys was unique and had not changed.
This meant that if all humans were to undergo consciousness digitization, each person's consciousness source code would be completely different, just as humans have different DNA. This might represent the differentiation of human souls.
Not only was their physical DNA different, but even their consciousness source code was completely different. This made Mercer even more certain that perhaps all his secrets were stored within his own consciousness source code.
Before uploading his consciousness code, Mercer was very cautious and initiated a cleanup operation, ensuring the safety of Dogtown with a sweep by the Skynet system, unmanned devices, and Barghest.
After setting up a secure network channel that could directly connect to all servers for emergency consciousness code migration, Mercer finally made up his mind and began to officially work on himself.
"Mercer..."
Lucy's expression was still full of worry.
But Mercer himself just calmly plugged the Neural Link into the back of his head. "Don't worry, we've tested this many times, haven't we?
As long as I don't unplug, this kind of consciousness code upload is more like a deeper level of deep dive.
Our souls are like they have an invisible anchor. As long as that connection isn't broken, we can always find our way home."
Lucy knew. After all, she had been by Mercer's side almost constantly during the experiments these past few days. Even if she didn't quite understand, she would learn and familiarize herself as much as possible.
Because if anything went wrong with Mercer's consciousness code, she would have to be the one to operate the program and safely return Mercer's consciousness to his body.
But, when he was truly ready to upload his consciousness, an inexplicable fear still coiled around her heart, impossible to ignore.
"Don't look at me so pitifully..." Seeing the slight redness in her eyes, Mercer couldn't help but smile and reach out to touch her face. "You're making it seem like I'm going off to die."
"I... I'm a little scared," Lucy said honestly. She lowered her head, took the initiative to wrap her arms around his shoulders, and rested her face against his neck. "Promise me, just a simple test, and then come back."
"Okay, I promise you. No matter what happens, I will definitely come back. I know you can't live without me, how could I bear to leave you all alone?"
Mercer held her gently, softly kissing her cheek, her lips, and then pinched her cheek. "Don't worry, I'll always be with you."
Why does it feel like the more I say, the more flags I'm raising?
Mercer quickly shook his head, breaking the atmosphere, and smiled. "Alright, let's begin. Stay calm. This is just an ordinary experiment. We've done it many times, haven't we?"
Lucy reluctantly let go, looking at his smiling face. Silently, she picked up the datapad next to the netrunner station. "Am I really pressing it?"
"Let's start."
Mercer teased, "Or should I do it myself?"
Lucy hesitated, but finally gritted her teeth. "Lie down properly."
Mercer obediently lay down. Then, Lucy took a deep breath, her expression serious as she looked at the datapad in her hand. "Consciousness code transfer in ten seconds."
"Neural fluctuation readings normal. Soulkiller program data check normal..."
"Neural Link data transmission function normal..."
"Server transmission function normal..."
"Local area network function normal..."
She went through the checklist item by item according to the procedure. As she finished, she looked at him with eyes tinged with unease and worry. "Consciousness code upload countdown. Five, four, three..."
The moment she counted to one, Mercer's consciousness froze.
He had thought he would be like the previous test subjects, his thoughts freezing the instant his consciousness was uploaded, only to awaken after his consciousness was fully uploaded to the server and became an engram.
But in fact, he woke up far, far faster than those ordinary people.
This meant that Mercer had personally witnessed the process of his own consciousness being transferred.
His consciousness only paused for a moment, and then he clearly perceived his various senses being stripped away one by one.
Hearing disappeared, smell disappeared, touch disappeared...
Then came an extremely rapid transfer of consciousness; unexpectedly, there was no pain, no distracting thoughts. It was as if he had simply performed a network IP jump from a Deep Dive state.
Mercer lost his perception of time, but in its place, another sense was dramatically enhanced.
This sense was the magical and incredible "data perception" he possessed as a human.
Previously, Mercer could just glance at data and programs and, through a strange "intuition," identify the type and content of the data.
It was by relying on this ability that he was able to breach the Soulkiller program and find the human consciousness source code.
And now, this ability was rapidly amplified, as if he had traded all his senses like hearing, touch, and smell for this unique data perception.
When a stable ocean of blue data appeared in his vision and his body could finally move again...
In less than a nanosecond, Mercer realized that his consciousness code had finished uploading.
"Lucy?"
He tried to ask. The voice echoed in the server space, less a sound and more a data stream simulating language.
Mercer could clearly see how this data stream was transmitted within the server, and could even perceive how the simple two characters for "Lucy" were converted from characters into text and then transmitted outward.
He could perceive the external device, probably the datapad in Lucy's hand? The "Lucy" he had spoken was now appearing in text form on the datapad in her hands.
Mercer waited patiently for a long time. At least in his perception, the wait was so long it nearly made him lose his patience.
[Lucy: Mercer?! Are you okay? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?]
[Mercer: I feel great. You could even say... fantastic!]
After Mercer replied, Lucy's response was slow to come. He sighed.
The flow of time was different.
His brain, or rather, Mercer was now instinctively mobilizing the server's computing power, causing his thoughts to run at a speed that an ordinary person could never comprehend.
What is the response speed, the calculation speed of a computer in one second?
A mainstream CPU (like an Intel i7) can execute hundreds of billions of basic instructions per second. The computing power Mercer now possessed was far more exaggerated than that number.
Although the processing speed of these basic instructions couldn't be simply equated to the speed of thought, it still proved one point: for the current Mercer, the time defined by humans had lost its meaning.
He no longer waited for Lucy's reply. Instead, in this state, he began an extremely serious process of thinking about and analyzing everything about himself.
He no longer needed to "recall" anything; all he needed was to "retrieve."
When he needed to remember something, he could "play back" the complete scene at nanosecond speed.
This included background deets he hadn't noticed at the time, like a tiny scratch on a poster in the corner, or someone's ignored whisper.
He could not only "see" the past, but also perform a secondary analysis on that segment of memory data.
The feeling was so intoxicating that he even had the leisure to review his past like watching a movie while pondering serious issues.
Multitasking?
No, the current Mercer could think about a hundred things, a thousand things at once. The speed and efficiency of his thoughts depended only on how much computing power he decided to allocate to the problem.
A blue virtual figure then materialized.
Morning Star's figure appeared beside Mercer.
Her eyes gleamed. In those azure eyes made of data, her gaze upon Mercer held an emotion that could be described as "infatuation."
Or rather, Mercer saw among the millions of data streams that composed her, the conspicuous data stream representing emotion.
In almost that same instant, he felt a certain empathy with Alt; compared to his current perceptual and cognitive abilities, his senses as a human were pathetically weak.
The current Mercer felt like a cosmic supercomputer from the future, while humans? They were probably abacuses.
Yes, Mercer didn't even think an ordinary person's computing power could be described as a computer. At best, it was an abacus.
Perhaps a master netrunner like Lucy could barely be considered an outdated old machine by him, but the gap between them was still obvious.
Morning Star didn't open her mouth or make a sound. In the data space, communication wasn't reliant on such things anyway. Now, in this state, she chose a more efficient and direct method of communication.
She directly initiated a transmission window for data exchange with Mercer.
"You are so beautiful," the data she sent was even attached with emotionally rich code, signifying "admiration," "adoration," and "awe."
"Am I?"
Mercer looked down at himself but didn't feel he was much different from his past self.
The only difference was that his consciousness source code, which was almost invisible during a deep dive, now orbited within his consciousness data stream, shining brilliantly from his perspective.
Vast computing power instinctively gathered around him, and Mercer's body began to involuntarily grow taller. He felt that he might be half the size of Alt now. If a netrunner were to jack in and see, they would probably only see a blue giant made of data.
"Yes, the way you exchange data, the feeling of you processing data... it's too beautiful."
Morning Star spoke words that a human would probably never understand, but Mercer understood her meaning in an instant.
As if moving his own limbs, he shrank his body, returning to his deep dive form. He looked at his hands and feet, then condensed a mirror in front of him.
Through what looked like a mirror but was actually a self-check program, Mercer patiently observed his own condition.
The data code representing emotions was a bit messy... well, his thoughts were indeed quite complex right now, especially since he was taking advantage of this astonishingly fast state of mind to allocate a bit of computing power to think about relationship problems... skip, skip.
The data representing thought was currently flowing at the speed of a waterfall.
Human thought is like a small stream, but the current Mercer was an entire roaring ocean.
Strings of rapidly flashing blue code signified the speed of Mercer's thoughts. In comparison, Morning Star, using similar computing power, was more than a notch slower in her processing speed.
Mercer looked closely. The complex consciousness code that enveloped his consciousness source code was now, as if alive, steadily and quietly condensing into a diamond-shaped body made of data amidst the turbulent waves of data.
It rotated slowly, flashing with blue light as if breathing.
He turned his head to look again. Morning Star's AI data core also seemed to have come alive, but its shape looked like... uh, a cat's head.
If Sasha saw this, she would definitely scream; an AI's data core that looks like a cat's head? That's a bit too cute.
"Do you still feel that you are human now?" Morning Star asked curiously.
"Of course," Mercer answered without hesitation.
Morning Star continued to press, "Then do you think it's better to exist in this form, or to return to a human body?"
This time, Mercer couldn't give an immediate answer.
Because rationally, he absolutely loved this feeling; this speed and efficiency of thought almost completely crushed his human self.
He felt omnipotent, and even instinctively felt a sense of disdain for his human state.
To use the simplest analogy, it was like someone who had been playing games on a 10-frame monitor suddenly switching to a 1000 Hz ultra-high-definition screen. The difference was just too direct and clear.
But Mercer was only silent for a moment before giving his answer. "I still want to go back. The feeling of becoming smarter is indeed great, it even makes me feel like an omnipotent god. But..."
He looked at his own chest. Within the raging tide of data, the consciousness and emotional data belonging to a human had not diminished with the change in processing power. But it was obvious that the faster and more efficient his thoughts became, the harder it was for him to feel any particular emotion.
It wasn't that he had no emotions, but that emotional fluctuations were just a momentary thing, and his data processing speed was too fast, so the overall emotional data would tend to be calm.
"Perhaps this is the future direction of human evolution, but at least for now, I don't want to go to the future so quickly."
Mercer finally understood the reason for Alt's theory of viewing humans as "primitive people," AIs as "modern people," and Mercer as a "future person."
"Mercer!? Are you okay? The server's computing power has been pushed to the max. Did something special happen on your end?"
At this moment, Lucy's reply finally arrived belatedly before Mercer's eyes.
Mercer carefully considered his reply. "I'm fine, don't worry. I'm the one using the computing power."
After thinking for a moment, he added another message, "I'm about to start trying to analyze my consciousness source code. I'll be using even more computing power. Don't worry, nothing will happen to me. I'll be back soon."
Mercer turned his head to look at Morning Star. "Next, I plan to analyze my own consciousness source code... I might have to try to decompress some of the data. If there isn't enough space, let me use the Busan servers too. Remind me in time, don't go too far."
"Understood, Master." Morning Star stood obediently to the side, looking at him with eyes full of worship and admiration.
After Mercer took a deep breath, the mirror in front of him suddenly enlarged; he looked at his own data and began to carefully approach the diamond-shaped data core within his body.
Just by getting close, the data seen through the self-check program gave Mercer a sense of being inexplicably shaken.
What a massive amount of data!
Just by observing this diamond-shaped data body, Mercer could feel the terrifyingly huge amount of data contained within, so vast that even he couldn't clearly perceive it.
If the file size of Morning Star's data core was 10KB, his was probably 10TB.
And even in its current compressed state, the size of this compressed file was an astonishing 10GB or so.
Just checking and observing the surface data of the compressed file on the periphery was an astonishingly large amount of work.
Fortunately, Mercer's current efficiency was frighteningly high.
Countless data streams began to flicker before his eyes. He stopped multitasking on useless problems and instead focused his computing power, beginning to analyze and decipher.
But as time passed in nanoseconds, Mercer felt as if he had been in deep thought for three days and three nights. After studying it intently for a long time, he couldn't help but furrow his brow.
Mercer, who had always been virtually invincible in the data realm and now felt omnipotent after his consciousness digitization, was stumped by his own Data Core.
He... couldn't understand it.
Yes, facing his own consciousness Data Core, Mercer, for the first time, felt what an ordinary programmer feels when faced with a jumble of unknown code.
What the hell is this crap?