Sitting in the suite of the Gem Cyan Hotel, Hansen emotionlessly opened his laptop and began dealing with work emails.
[Hua Tiao: If Director Mercer plans to give up managing the network in Taiping Prefecture and Dog Town, then our Voodoo Gang could take over, but you know, Director Mercer has always valued his network authority in Taiping Prefecture. My relationship with him isn't bad...]
Just glancing at Hua Tiao's reply, Hansen smirked disdainfully and chose to ignore it—a real fence-sitter.
Afterward, Hansen looked at the reply from Europe.
[Emmerick: The crack program is ready. You can try it yourself.]
[Hansen: Good, if everything goes smoothly, the money will be transferred to your account on time. Also, if we actually get the rogue AI, can it really solve the neural load of the armor?]
[Emmerick: This idea should work. The consciousness data conversion system he designed is sophisticated, converting human consciousness data into standard program data. Theoretically, an AI as an intermediary can indeed significantly reduce human mental load.]
[Hansen: Great, when this is over, you can come to Dog Town. The price and conditions are as I mentioned before.]
[Emmerick: Okay.]
Ending the emails, a hint of relief crossed Hansen's face. He downloaded the crack program from the emails and immediately sent it to a Netherworld Dog hacker at the stadium.
The hacking skills of these European hackers are quite good; the things that the useless hackers around him couldn't handle were done by them in just a few days.
What he now had in hand was a dedicated crack hacking program for Mercer's Single Soldier Armor operating system—in Hansen's view, Mercer's biggest threat wasn't even in network technology but rather in the custom-made armor on V and Rebecca.
As long as they had no armor, those people would be mere flesh and blood, and he wouldn't have to worry about some backdoor program written into the armor.
By then, his men would wear the armor while the Spark Team's members would find their armor become their own coffins due to the crack program—once he got a pro to take over the Netherworld Dog's server permissions, Mercer would become a toothless tiger.
Completely at his mercy.
While Hansen was happily contemplating the future.
Ten seconds passed, but no one replied to his email, causing Hansen's brow to slightly furrow as a sense of foreboding rose within him. Without hesitation, Hansen immediately dialed Bennett's number.
After a few rings, there was no answer.
Something had happened!
Without another word, Hansen abruptly stood up and called the Netherworld Dog in charge of Gem Cyan's security: "Gather people, prepare for enemy engagement! Mercer and those Spark Team people might have defected!"
"What?" A voice on the other end was stunned, then quickly responded nervously, "Yes!"
Hansen wanted to leave, but then he was shocked to find—the door was locked.
This was a joke of the year; he was locked inside his own hotel room?!
Hansen immediately realized the situation was probably far more troublesome than he had imagined.
"Damned bastards!" Hansen cursed angrily, then forcefully pulled out the short knife strapped to his gear, prying the door open through brute strength.
Walking into the corridor, the Netherworld Dog guards on duty were looking at him cluelessly: "Colonel Hansen! What's going on?"
"Quickly! Notify everyone to be on alert! Restart the server! Mercer and the Spark Team have defected!"
Hansen's first reaction was just that—and the facts proved his response was correct.
At this moment, V was in the elevator of the Gem Cyan Hotel, looking idly at the slowly rising elevator. The floor it was headed to was exactly where Hansen's luxury suite was located.
The Netherworld Dog in charge of security on the first floor received a fake email and notification from Mercer pretending to be Hansen, and without a second thought, allowed V to pass. Little did they imagine that the armored, solo V was there to deal with Hansen!
Meanwhile, the call Hansen made was intercepted by Mercer right from the start.
The entire Netherworld Dog network was under Mercer's control. He refrained from hacking his private emails, worried about alerting the quarry, but on the Netherworld Dog's side, he never held back.
Although Hansen could still make normal calls and send emails, the Netherworld Dogs couldn't receive them.
The person who received Hansen's call wasn't the Netherworld Dog's security chief but an AI-simulated voice from Venus replying instead.
His act of calling to warn the security chief was, without a doubt, immediately notified to V by Mercer.
[Mercer: V, Hansen has noticed, be careful.]
[V: No problem, I've already got on the elevator smoothly, Hansen can't escape now. Are you sure things are all good on your end?]
[Mercer: I'm currently deep diving in the stadium's server room with Venus, monitoring the hotel's network for you, don't worry.
Once you get upstairs, I'll cut off all support channels. If anything goes wrong, break through the window and fly away, and we'll switch to the aggressive plan.]
[V: No problem!]
Since Mercer couldn't be certain there were no other, undiscovered early warning devices within the Netherworld Dog, his action plan was synchronized.
He would handle the Netherworld Dogs at the stadium and use the stadium's servers to block all networks and communications in Dog Town, deep diving to assist other team members in their actions.