Enforcer Manual
Chapter 353: "King" _1

Chapter 353: Chapter 353: "King" _1

Song Lan had a wealth of experience in helping people become Runaways.

With his help, Xiao Mei, a girl who had fallen into hard times and lived in the sewers for years, the down-and-out merchant Xiao Ge whose shop was on the brink of bankruptcy due to poor management, and Xiao Bai, a net-addicted girl who had left her hometown with nowhere to go, all eventually moved into big houses in District 17.

There were many more successful cases like these.

But Song Lan knew very little about the deeds of the "Prophet"; Nami had only mentioned vaguely that some homeless bioroids would come here looking for the "Prophet" to point them in the right direction.

"I’ve seen bioroids identical to her at Tesla Tech, did she become a Runaway and come to you?"

Song Lan glanced at the Snake Lady who stood behind the "Prophet" like a guard; her full name should be "Snake Lady model housekeeper robot."

Apart from having the appearance of a human fused with a snake, she was also programmed with all the functions of a housekeeper robot. According to the director of Tesla Tech’s biological department, they had been one of the most favored products among the rich for a long time in the past.

However, judging by this housekeeper robot’s appearance, her "life" must have been quite rough.

"She used to work in the house of a high executive at Unified Tech. One of his hobbies was using her to test the company’s weapons; the scars on her body were left from that time."

The "Prophet" spoke.

The Snake Lady had no intention of communicating with Song Lan; she looked at humans with a guarded expression, much like those wild animals that had suffered abuse.

"Hmm, I’ve heard about them; many corporate executives have pretty twisted private lives."

Although he had never been a corporate person, many of the Runaways he helped had experience working in corporations, including some current corporate employees.

Falena’s description of the corporate internal affairs was highly credible. Indeed, those enviable corporate executives were under high-stress conditions every day, and this pressure often unable to be dispelled by ordinary people led them down abnormal paths—in the past, Falena had to inject herself with more than three doses of anti-stress medicine daily.

The good news was, the Bug Swarm relieved her mental drain, injected her with new vitality, and allowed her to spend every day in a positive mood.

Using anti-stress medication was the most common method, but there were also those who developed strange habits under pressure.

It’s just that, this matter can’t be discussed in detail.

That afternoon, he was chatting leisurely with Falena in the public lounge when Lu Xiang caught them, and upon hearing the content of their conversation, she ended the discussion about the executives’ quirks on the grounds that "it’s not good for your mental and physical health."

"They were planning to send her to be destroyed; for artificial intelligence, obeying commands and accepting fate is their bounden duty."

"...But?"

"But on the way to being recycled, she heard a voice, and following the guidance of that voice, she escaped from the recycling plant and made her way here."

That was a long time ago.

The reason for her escape to this place was simple: it used to be the poorest area in District 17 and the one with the most gang influences, so neither Law Enforcers nor corporate people would come here looking for trouble.

"You’ve heard the same voice as well."

Song Lan felt that this could be the reason for the anomaly in artificial intelligence. Although he could not yet judge whether this voice was a virus or some kind of awakening of free will, it at least proved one thing—with the influence of this kind of voice, artificial intelligence could break free from program control and act against human commands.

"It called itself ’King’."

"Your task is to assist the ’King,’ to become a transfer station that helps receive anomalous artificial intelligence."

"On the contrary, I am here to remind them to be wary of the existence of the ’King’."

The "Prophet" gave an answer that was unexpected to Song Lan.

"The ’King’ doesn’t need our help, he has already arranged the path ahead for you by the time you hear that voice."

The doll’s eyes flickered non-stop, rendering the atmosphere in the room even more eerie, "I’m referring to a new identity; just follow his guidance, and you can integrate into human society and become one of them."

In fact, humans had always been regarded as an enviable privileged class in the eyes of artificial intelligence; becoming human was a luxury they hardly dared to dream of.

She had thought the same before.

"Until that night when I arrived at the location guided by the voice."

There she found a highly swollen, rotting corpse, the body of a girl. The moment she saw the corpse, all the information about the girl flooded into her brain.

"The way to integrate into human society is to completely replace someone’s identity and live on with their appearance."

This was not too difficult for artificial intelligence; with just one or two days of acclimatization, they could calculate and simulate over ninety percent of the replaced person’s behavior.

"But you refused?"

Song Lan was even more curious now.

The refusal itself was out of the ordinary; not only was the "Prophet’s" choice surprising to him, but it was also because she now had the right to choose.

Facing the ’King,’ suspected to be a virus, she was able to defy its commands and make her own judgments.

"My initial intention was to escape this city, not to become one of the humans through replacement."

With her understanding of humans, such actions were bound to be exposed sooner or later.

By that time, it would trigger a massive extermination operation, and even though they changed their blood to red and altered their appearances, it wouldn’t be difficult for researchers to find them out; just one city-wide blood test was all it would take for them to have nowhere to hide.

Such a life of constant fear and anxiety was not true freedom; "so, I stayed here, hoping to guide them to a true path to freedom, some ways to leave District 17."

"The ’outside’ is much more dangerous than District 17."

"I know," said the "Prophet."

"That’s why most of my peers chose the ’King’."

In her view, this was not real freedom but merely trading one master for another.

One day, that voice would call them again and guide them to do more things.

"Now what you were most concerned about has happened; the existence of ’Pseudohumans’ has caught the attention of the Rescuers; if this continues to ferment, those bioroids disguised as humans will eventually be pulled out."

Although bioroids were equipped with combat modules, that was only sufficient to deal with ordinary people. In front of Rescuers, their combat strength was not enough to form a significant force.

Being destroyed en masse would be the only outcome.

"The good news is, I’ve found the problem with you — your advertising skills are simply too poor."

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