"Okay, okay...see you then."
After hanging up the phone, Lao She looked back at Liao Qi who was in the back seat of the car.
"I made an appointment with the middleman Zhu Lin to meet at the 'Dark Blue Zone' bar in two hours."
After saying that, he looked at the silent young man on the road with some anxiety, his eyes occasionally glancing down at the Scorpio that was aiming at his heart. It was as if he was afraid that after he said this, the other party would shoot him to death.
"Dark blue range?"
The other person frowned.
"The owner of the bar on the first floor of the resettlement area has some background in the interim government of the resettlement area. She acts as a guarantee, and middlemen and street mercenaries often negotiate business there, so..."
"I know where the Blue Zone Bar is."
The man narrowed his eyes after interrupting him, as if asking: "What next?"
So, the old snake quickly continued to explain:
"People who work as middlemen are very cautious. I proposed face-to-face delivery so suddenly. If we didn't make an appointment to meet in such a public place, the other party would definitely be suspicious."
"But weapons are not allowed in that bar."
The other party seemed to say casually.
But the hidden meaning behind these words shocked the old snake.
If he hadn't been sitting in the car, he would have stood up right now.
"Of course! That bar was classified as the 'law enforcement area' of the Nord provisional government. Unless you are a government law enforcement officer or a regular employee of the company, ordinary people pulling out a gun is no different than seeking death. You...I You mean, you’re not going to take action right there, are you?”
Old Snake asked with a shocked look on his face.
"of course not."
The other party said, adjusting the knob on the Scorpio in his hand back and forth, and then raised his eyes to look at the old snake.
"I was just wondering if you would play any tricks with me in a place where I can't blow your head off immediately."
Looking at the black muzzle of the gun in the opponent's hand, the old snake swallowed slowly, and then said carefully:
"How could it be possible...you were obviously listening to the whole phone call I just made with the intermediary."
In response, the other party shook his head.
"But I don't know if there are any secret codes discussed in advance between you. Maybe you have already completed the communication with the middleman on that phone call just now... Don't deny it in a hurry."
Raising the muzzle of the gun slightly, Liao Qi choked what the other party wanted to say.
"You don't need to explain or guarantee me. I'm just saying this to tell you that I don't care whether you used tricks before. Whether you did it or not doesn't make much difference to me in the end result, but For you, the difference is huge... I'm not threatening."
Hearing these words, the old snake felt his heart beating wildly.
"Please don't worry, Mr. Liao. I followed your instructions exactly and didn't play any tricks at all."
The old snake assured him.
Seeing this, Jiang Zhou said nothing more. He lay back on the car seat and looked through the rearview mirror at the big hole in Liao Qi's head.
The high-energy pulsed beam entered from a place slightly above the eyebrow of the left eye, vaporized the scalp, drilled open the hard forehead bone, then penetrated the prefrontal lobe and corpus callosum of the brain, and finally penetrated out from the occipital lobe. , drilling through the parietal bone, leaving a charred hole in the wall behind him.
In the eyes of ordinary people, Liao Qi should have died on the spot.
But not necessarily.
Because of work reasons, Jiang Zhou, who had dabbled a lot in the field of neuroscience in the past, thought to himself.
In 1848, a man named Phineas Gage suffered an accident. A long iron rod was pierced directly from the lower left cheek, passed behind the left eye, and then penetrated the skull above the forehead. (Note*). This man, who should have been dead to everyone, stood up again after falling to the ground for a few minutes, and could even walk and talk like a normal person.
After being sent for treatment, Gage's condition miraculously stabilized. In addition to losing the sight in his left eye, this terrible accident did not even cause this unlucky man to lose any other physiological functions. After that, he lived like a normal person for another twelve years; during this period, he even worked as a carriage driver for seven years; he did not die of an epileptic seizure until 1860.
Jiang Zhou once visited his skull at Harvard Medical School. In his impression, the wound that penetrated Gage's head was much more violent than the one on Liao Qi's head now. According to later generations' views on Gage, Brain research showed that 4% of his brain's gray matter and 11% of his brain's white matter were damaged, and the connection between the two brain hemispheres was also severely damaged, not to mention the possible bacterial infection that existed at the time.
Since there have been similar examples in history, it is not too bizarre that Liao Qi is still alive and kicking after being blasted with a through-hole in his head.
From this point of view, this matter is still within the scope of Jiang Zhou's understanding - if Liao Qi's entire brain was blown away, but he could still control the opponent's headless body movements, then he could only think that it was physiology. No, a hundred years later, a spiritual revival occurred in this era.
At least, physiologically speaking, Liao Qi's body was still alive at this moment. It's just that the other person's self-awareness has dissipated, and Jiang Zhou is taking over the body.
As for why his consciousness was able to take over Liao Qi's body without any delay across God knows how far away. Jiang Zhou could only guess that "Janus" might have installed some biological radio in his brain, such as something that could quantumly entangle the corpus callosum.
Of course, if someone told him that this was the same effect of magic dust that the Blue Fairy could turn Pinocchio into a real little boy, then he would be willing to accept it.
Thinking of this, Liao Qi sprayed a circle of disinfectant gel around the front and back of his head, and then put on his peaked cap to cover the wound that even looked a little leaking - he was going to the downtown area later. , and walking on the crowded street with such a big idea is somewhat avant-garde.
Only then did Jiang Zhou have time to sort out the information he had obtained from Liao Qi's memory.
Information about this era.
Adjuster...
In this day and age, it is no longer unusual to use mechanical prosthetics to replace fragile flesh and blood. Rather, installing a prosthetic body that meets the requirements has become a hard threshold for many jobs. Except for the "low-tech people" and some stubborn religious groups who still adhere to the lifestyle of the AD era, installing prosthetic bodies has become a part of modern life.
However, compared to native body organs that have been in public beta for millions of years, those mechanical prostheses that may have been a beta version a few months ago are always difficult to perfectly match the driver programs in the brain.
The installation of prosthetics is subject to human cognitive boundaries - you can replace prosthetic limbs, replace prosthetic eyes, and some special enthusiasts may also replace the so-called "big steel cannon". Some people can even equip themselves with an extremely flexible prosthetic tail - the organ that human ancestors used to assist them in moving among the tree crowns. Nowadays, there are still some nerve residues in the tail vertebrae. Many people can imagine What does it feel like to have a tail of your own.
But you can’t make your brain think that your shoulder blades should have a pair of vector jets that can flexibly adjust their directions, and you can’t make your brain think that each of your spines should be able to extend flexible mechanical tentacles—— Humans have never evolved anything like this naturally.
The brain does not have those original prosthetic driver software, so relying on acquired experience circuits will never be as good as innate things.
Even when ordinary people use drones, they need to clumsily control them through an interface similar to a game controller. They cannot be like a child holding a paper airplane, dubbing "whooshing" while dancing up and down in mid-air. .
The so-called adjusted people are new humans who have overcome the cognitive limitations of past humans and added a new level of drive to their brains.
Through the fine-tuning of the brain nerve wheel, the adjusted person broadens the cognitive boundaries of his brain and extends the scope of his body. They control the prosthetics they have installed as they control their own fingertips.
For example, when a native uses a prosthetic body, it is like driving a car; when an adjusted person uses a prosthetic body, he is transformed into a Cybertronian Autobot.
Tuning people's deep transformation is not only reflected in base reality, but also when connected to the Internet through brain-computer interfaces. The A (stand-in) program is a virtual stand-in generated based on the brain's cognition. Even if a person installs various prosthetics in reality, if his brain has not been adjusted to regard those prostheses as part of his own body. In the World Wide Web and the Abyss Dark Web, the substitute program he generated would not include those added prosthetics, but only the originally weak flesh and blood body.
Of course, by fine-tuning the brain’s billions of nerve endings, it opens up a new frontier for cognition. Even judging from the technology of this era, it is extremely incredible.
In fact, the creation of Adjusters today actually relies entirely on the great magic left behind by the super artificial intelligence named "Janus" in the past "Big Impact" era.
Yes, after looking through Liao Qi's memories, Jiang Zhou could only use the word "magic" to describe the technology left by "Janus".
Thinking of this, Jiang Zhou lowered his head and glanced at the silver memory in his hand, and then reinserted it into the memory slot on Liao Qi's neck.
Universal printer...
This thing only requires the technological blueprint salvaged from the abyss dark web, and the materials required in the blueprint. After activation, it can be like the blue fairy sprinkling magic dust, making the raw materials combine themselves into a new finished product like an elf.
Not only those high-tech equipment, but all adjustments to human brain nerve transformation are also completed through this thing.
And, this is also the reason why I am being hunted right now.
Looking at the ever-changing scenery outside the car window, Jiang Zhou thought to himself.
