Enforcer Manual
Chapter 359 - : Boss or Supervisor?_1

Chapter 359: 359 Chapter: Boss or Supervisor?_1

Just as the United Government was becoming unstable due to the anomaly in artificial intelligence, Song Lan and others also held an emergency meeting overnight.

However, the content of the meeting had nothing to do with the current situation. After the first batch of bionic people defected to them, Medea established a pharmaceutical team, which would fundamentally change the financial situation of the Law Enforcers’ department, as well as the nature of both Law Enforcers and Bug Swarm in District 17.

The artificial intelligence was very excited about this new environment, and they couldn’t wait to leave their own mark in this vast underground world.

The "Prophet" took the artificial intelligence to the living area they had allocated for new employees; the Devourers had only carved out an independent space for them. Over the next few days, they would personally design this new home of their own.

"From today on, you are the Big Boss."

Watching the departing bionic people, Song Lan commented meaningfully.

On their first day here, they had thrown themselves into the construction of the new facilities.

Lu Xiang suddenly felt a sense of unreality. Although everything was just starting, the Bug Swarm had already shown tremendous potential in the fields of military industry, biopharmaceuticals, cyber security, and others.

She remembered a saying by the Bug Swarm’s thinker and philosopher, Song Lan.

Law Enforcers can’t save District 17.

Fighting crime can never touch the root of the problem. To revitalize this border city, changes must be made in all areas.

"Time to head home, boss."

Song Lan reminded her.

The meeting had lasted nearly three hours, and it had already grown dark outside.

"I don’t like that title."

Lu Xiang snapped back to reality, furrowing her brows and speaking with a hint of dissatisfaction.

Becoming the boss was not her ideal, and since the conversation had reached this point, she brought up a question that had been on her mind for a while, "Moreover, why do you always call me ’Director,’ even at home?"

"It’s a mark of my respect."

"I don’t need that."

Lu Xiang set her face firmly, expressing her displeasure with the two titles.

"Then what should I call you?"

Song Lan did not expect Lu Xiang to suddenly bring up this topic; he was caught completely off guard.

In fact, he had thought about this issue at the beginning, but maybe because he had no talent for naming, the few titles he came up with never made it to his lips—instead, they made him cringe before he ever spoke them. Contrarily, he had become comfortable with the title "Director" after using it for a while and found it rolled off the tongue.

Lu Xiang raised an eyebrow, "You figure it out."

"...Are you sure you want me to come up with it?"

Song Lan’s innocent and sincere eyes pierced deeply into Lu Xiang’s, and his unexpected counter-question indeed made her feel a bit uneasy.

"Then I shall magnanimously give you a hint; use the first word from ’boss,’ and think of the rest yourself."

She felt she had made herself abundantly clear.

The two looked at each other, the atmosphere growing somewhat delicate.

After nearly a minute of silence, Song Lan ventured cautiously, "Old... Old Lu?"

Those two words alone were like a blackout for Lu Xiang, leaving her almost breathless, on the verge of fainting right there in the transfer station. It was like she had handed Song Lan the answers for a perfect score on a test, and yet he managed to scribble down a score of 30.

"You, I, you...!"

Lu Xiang, who didn’t usually like to lose her temper with others, now felt an urgent desire to stomp her feet in frustration. However, considering they were in the artificial intelligence transfer station, in the presence of both newly reported members and old comrades from the Bug Swarm.

With many eyes watching, as the leader of the Bug Swarm, she had to maintain a good image at all times.

"Old Lu, are you alright?"

Song Lan, with no grasp of the severity of the issue, danced dangerously on the edge of peril with his reaction.

"Let’s go home!"

Lu Xiang slammed her palm on the table, her voice suddenly rising in volume, "I’ll teach you!"

.....................

The next day, Song Lan was awakened by the urgent ring of his cellphone.

Groggy, he unlocked his phone screen, which showed it was 6:03, a full two hours before his regular wake-up time for work.

Exhausted in both body and mind, after arriving in the year 2166, he had once again experienced the terror of studying until late into the night, which made him want to call in sick and skip the entire next day of work.

But the moment he answered the call, he was instantly wide awake.

The call was from Lu Xiang, who was already in her office.

"Gao Yuan is a bionic, he’s been captured by the rescuers."

"Gao Yuan? The CEO of Tesla Tech in District 17?"

They had already suspected Gao Yuan’s identity because of the beef chunk incident, but what really caught Song Lan off guard was how easily this CEO had been nabbed by someone.

After all, replacing an identity of this level is extremely difficult, so how could he be so easily captured by a four-star rescuer whose name hadn’t even been heard?

"Comrade King," can you even manage?

"He has been taken to the rescuer department; we can’t take over this case. I’m on my way there now," she said.

This emergency had noticeably quickened Lu Xiang’s pace of speech.

Gao Yuan’s capture had completely disrupted her plans. She had intended to personally check on Song Lan’s homework this morning after he woke up, but the announcement from the rescuer department had caught her off guard.

"Gao Yuan’s identity is special; he knows quite a lot about ’King’ and artificial intelligence. Somehow, they have cracked his brain open and learned about the existence of the transfer station."

The silver lining was that Gao Yuan did not know the specific location of the transfer station; otherwise, the news that would have come this morning wouldn’t have been about Gao Yuan’s capture but about rescuers storming the transfer station to arrest all the escaped artificial intelligences.

They had only roughly determined that the transfer station was located in District 17.

"I understand," he said.

Lu Xiang speculated that the next meeting would probably be to discuss the whereabouts of the transfer station.

The call ended quickly.

Intuition told him that Gao Yuan’s identity exposure was very likely related to the "Governor" mentioned in the text message the day before.

He calmed himself slightly, returning to his usual routine.

...

Meanwhile, Lu Xiang also found Gao Yuan in the interrogation room of the rescuer department.

Through the one-way glass, she could see his head hanging low, his gaze vacant, his machine body appearing to be in a dormant state.

Gao Yuan had been brought here at three in the morning, and in this interrogation room, he had been subjected to more than two hours of grueling questioning. However, traditional interrogation methods should not have reduced a bionic to this state; they do not feel pain, nor do they experience the negative emotions humans face during interrogations.

Now, he looked more like there was an issue with his programming.

"Don’t you find it very strange?" asked a voice.

A hand landed on her shoulder.

Lu Xiang frowned slightly and quietly brushed away the hand that rested on her left shoulder.

The owner of the hand didn’t mind and continued to speak on his own, "Is this the awakening of free will or is it a virus planted by some manipulative force within their programming?"

Lu Xiang did not answer; the man before her was a four-star rescuer brought in from the core area, and he was essentially their boss.

At this moment, he was staring intently at Gao Yuan in the interrogation room.

"We found that over the years he used his authority to solve identity issues for quite a few abnormal bionics. They seem to exist as an organized and large-scale entity," he said.

Pausing, the man shifted his tone and continued, "But that answer is no longer important. As long as we start the programs in their backend, we can reset them to factory settings with a single click... Do you know why I don’t do that?"

Lu Xiang kept silent, and the man did not pursue an answer.

Instead, he shifted his gaze from Gao Yuan in the interrogation room back to Lu Xiang, "That’s because, as long as we keep him here, his companions will surely come to rescue him. Director Lu, if I remember correctly, the meeting room should be in the opposite direction, shouldn’t it?"

"There’s a quarter hour until the meeting starts."

Lu Xiang gave the man a sideways glance and said, "Don’t worry, I won’t be late."