Europa Tower, tall enough to pierce through the clouds, overlooks the administrative center of the European Union on the Europe Continent.
Thanks to technological development, this skyscraper can break through the height limits of the old eraâs buildings and utilize drones and floating cars to achieve logistics communication with the outside. The spacious interior allows every high-ranking official residing here to have a super comfortable office area.
In Cyberspace, this tower is equally a supermassive entity: the entire European Barrier must have interfaces connected to local administrative bodies, and all local administrative bodies must comply with submission agreements, controlled by this towerâ
If someone dares to try accessing this system and pierces through its deliberately displayed "pragmatic facade," they will see a super core encompassing the sky.
If one of this eraâs rare historical scholars were to witness the full cyber presence of the European Barrier, they would surely exclaim:
This is the ultimate diagram of authoritarianism, the ultimate embodiment of central authority. The physical limits of reality restrict it from showing its true form.
But even if someone really tapped into this tower, they still couldnât see the full picture. In Cyberspace, they would see a super crown, blocking all cyber communication links of those trying to spy onlineâ
Just like the Black Wall blocks AI from peeping into the human world, this crown obstructs the commonersâ peering into the heavens.
But bypassing the crown...
No one would bypass the crown in Cyberspace, nor could they do so.
Graham sits in his own office, lying in a capsule designed exclusively for himânot a Cyberspace access capsule, just a virtual reality access capsule, where information is encoded through programming languages into a world comprehensible to ordinary people.
[Graham: That sports star from Night City is indeed... perfect. Biotechnology believes his bodyâs technology is very advanced. They want us to create an accident to analyze this technology.]
[Consultant: Might Ken is already a part of the plan. Haphazardly changing his role would make the plan uncontrollable.]
[Consultant: No matter before, now, or after, as long as the European Union always maintains the leading and dominant position, we wonât lack research opportunities. Itâs just a matter of time.]
[Consultant: Money and power will flow from weak and poor places to those that are already strong. Victory and the future will too.]
[Graham: Haha, youâre right, but I see Medici seems to be getting close to him?]
[Consultant: This is Ms. Mediciâs personal need. According to our agreement, I have no authority to interfere.]
[Graham: Quite a perverted old woman. If it werenât for this bunch of perverts, we wouldnât have to...]
[Consultant: Mr. Graham, as your consultant, I have the right to remind you all of the benefits youâve gained from this system. If it werenât for biotechnology and Italy helping you through the famine, the Scotland Islands might have been abandoned by now.]
[Consultant: For unity and unity, everyone has made their contributions, so please donât complain casually.]
Graham fell silent, not knowing what he was thinking.
The consultantâs advice is crucial to the European Union: those mystical things can be understood but are hard to quantify, but numbers donât lie. The European Union is now the worldâs largest economy, and decades of stable development cannot be faked.
A rational extreme, yet sentimental enough to unite this group of... different people.
[Graham: Anyway, we have all the time in the world... Youâre right, if she wants to play, let her play.]
[Consultant: A member wants to send a whale to the upper space exhibition. He is very interested in this whale and hopes to have it sent to his residence so he can educate his children on empathy for the working class.]
Although Graham previously expressed disdain for Mediciâs tastes, upon hearing this, he nodded slightly:
[Graham: The education of children is indeed important; this is much better than that sort of thing.]
However, Graham clearly didnât realize, or perhaps didnât care, that this activity labeled as "educating the next generation" would consume huge amounts of manpower and resources...
The resources it consumed could empathize with several rounds of workers.
The countless threads connected to the crown shimmered in Cyberspace. Just as Graham was about to exit virtual reality and return to reality, the consultant suddenly said:
[Consultant: Elliot Grove and Sevens Strange chose the skyscraper where Harlin Ake lives and were the first to find his residence.]
[Consultant: The probability of issues has risen, please pay attention.]
[Graham: I understand.]
...
This is not Harlin Akeâs residence.
"...Leader, my name is Yon Davidson, I just moved here."
"You donât know Harlin Ake?"
Sevens sat in front of Yon, inquiring, trying to get some other answers from this fat guyâs body language. Elliot was moving around this small, windowless room, flipping here and thereâ
Every step, every magazine he picked up, and seeing tastes almost identical to his own, he would pause.
It was like a blast from the past: that day he used that helmet, rumored to connect to the old web, to "scale the wall," enthusiastically ignoring the risks to click on mysterious internet links, and eventually was invaded by roaming AI...
Eventually becoming what he is today, like that day searching for "leaders" in his house.
Behind him, the fat Yon was somewhat nervous: "I donât know him, how would I know him? But I must thank him. Itâs said he lived here before, and if he hadnât been promoted, I wouldnât have had this privilege.
The neighbors said this house has good feng shui. This building just has this one room. Harlin Ake was promoted in the past few yearsâ
I only know these things."
Elliot saw a row of discs on the messy bookshelf: "Becoming Burger King (Action Remake Version)," and naturally picked it up. The date on it was after he left Foxstone, no wonder he hadnât seen it.
While looking at the disc in his hand, he glances at the Super Dream helmet placed on Harlin Akeâs bed, he quickly grabs the helmet and the Super Dream, and connects the personal link directlyâ
[Welcome to the European Barrier Law Enforcer Hardware Code Verification System, verifying hardware...]
[Detected traces of modified hardware, hardware code verification failed, please consult the local Network Supervision and Interpol office for further information immediately.]
[Hardware code verification failed, the device has been illegally modified.]
Elliotâs eyes widened, looking at the fat guy, seeing him being questioned by Sevens in the same way, his heart filled with an inexplicable fear, as if his heart was being gripped:
Even though he didnât know what he was afraid of.
"... Did you find something?" Sevens paused for a moment, stepped forward, and took the helmet.
Fat Yon turned pale when he saw the Super Dream helmet in Elliotâs hand.
Even the way he turned pale was almost identical.