Chapter 148: The Three Purposes of Zhang Dezheng

"Zhu Lan, let me ask you, about the arc reactor..."
Zhu Lan paused for a moment. "Haven't you already seen it?"
"You mean it is already ready for deployment and use?"
Zhu Lan shook his head, looked up, and said, "Red Queen, display the footage from last night!"
"Yes, Boss!"
As the Red Queen's voice fell, a holographic interface appeared in the room, and the lights dimmed simultaneously.
The interface displayed the arc reactor standing beside the sinkhole last night.
"Elder Xu, look, this is the record from last night."
Elder Xu nodded slightly, signaling Zhu Lan to continue.
Zhu Lan stood up, walked over to the interface, and pointed at the operating arc reactor. "Elder Xu, look right here!"
"Red Queen, project the arc reactor of the Azure Base!"
On the other side, another identical yet slightly different arc reactor was rendered.
"Look, this is the first generation, while the one used last night was an improved model. Because of the instability of the arc reactor, I used a superior alloy material to manufacture it, but the result..."
Elder Xu frowned. Judging from the comparison, the difference between the successive iterations was indeed very significant.
"This one is built using alloys. As the first generation, it utilized the absolute best materials available, but it was still not enough. It could not withstand higher outputs, so for the second generation, I used an enhanced alloy. This alloy has a much higher tolerance threshold, but results show it is still insufficient. The arc reactor still failed. Although it can run longer, last night, after increasing the energy output, the arc reactor could only run for less than five minutes. All in all, the arc reactor is still a failure!"
"A failure? I don't think so, do I?" Luo Guoqiang had also heard about what happened last night.
Zhu Lan shook his head. "Commander Luo, for an ordinary person, it would be considered a success. For us, it is a failure. The current arc reactor can be used, but it is still in an unstable state. If I hadn't already added an isolation layer between the element supply unit and the main energy unit last night, it might have been the birth of a super bomb. The explosion of an arc reactor is sufficient to produce the yield of a hundred-kiloton nuclear explosion."
"If this thing were casually deployed into the open, Commander Luo, do you know what the consequences would be?"
Luo Guoqiang fell silent.
"The arc reactor beneath the Azure Base was constructed with a buffer layer structure. Even in the event of an accident, at most, the lowest few levels would be destroyed, and nothing else would be affected. That is why I brought the arc reactor out for use. Because I have no other choice—I can only use the arc reactor!"
Zhu Lan did not state it explicitly, but Elder Xu understood nonetheless.
First, using the arc reactor could provide sufficiently powerful energy. Second, the arc reactor was a new technology and did not appear on the prohibited lists of any country or organization in the world.
If one were to use a nuclear reactor, the complications would be immense.
However, Zhu Lan was using an arc reactor. The degree of maneuverability within this framework was vast.
Coupled with the special nature of Fantasy Technology, which was directly protected by the military, the government could not easily meddle. As long as the military did not object and Zhu Lan did not employ prohibited technologies, there would be no problems at all—provided that Zhu Lan delivered something that satisfied the military.
This was the very reason why Zhu Lan faced no repercussions for utilizing the arc reactor.
The hazards of the arc reactor? Unclear. Its full capabilities? Unclear.
Moreover, Fantasy Technology offered generous benefits, which was the primary reason for the military's tacit approval.
The genetic serum was the first step in establishing cooperation between Fantasy Technology and the military.
Quantum communication and modular robotics technology constituted the second step of official military recognition.
And the Azure Base was the most crucial step by which the military truly acknowledged Fantasy Technology.
To put it bluntly, as long as Zhu Lan did not commit any treasonous acts against the country, the military would hardly ever give him a hard time and would practically grant any reasonable request across all aspects.
"All things considered, the arc reactor is still a defective product. I am already researching new materials, and it will take at least three years before they can be truly applied—unless we use high-grade aerospace materials to build an arc reactor, but that is simply impossible!"
Elder Xu nodded at Zhu Lan's words.
The current construction cost of an arc reactor was two billion. If it were built using high-grade materials, its lifespan would certainly be longer, but the cost would skyrocket to at least ten billion or more. Two billion was already an exorbitant price; if it cost ten billion, the state would rather build a nuclear reactor than construct such an unstable arc reactor.
"Let's leave this matter at that for now. There is another thing: can you manufacture a new intelligent computer?"
"You mean the Red Queen?"
Elder Xu nodded.
Zhu Lan fell silent. The moment had finally come.
"Manufacturing one is not difficult. Although the cost would be a bit high, reaching the level of the Red Queen is simply impossible!"
"Why?" Elder Xu frowned. Ever since his inspection last time, Xu Dezheng had desperately wanted to take the Red Queen away, but it was difficult to bring up. It wasn't something where you could just say 'nationalize it' and take it; doing so would only lose the hearts of the people.
"The Red Queen's original programming began six years ago. At that time, I knew someone who helped me build a semi-intelligent auxiliary program. It took four years of trial and error to find the correct path toward a true intelligent computer. Unfortunately, the person who nurtured the Red Queen vanished a year and a half ago. I had the Red Queen investigate, but turned up nothing. The final piece of information pointed toward the CIA. He might currently be detained in some high-security black site for high-tech personnel in the United States!"
"Can't you train a new one?"
Although Elder Xu was skeptical, he did not voice it directly.
Zhu Lan shook his head with a bitter smile. "I am a biologist, and the reason he gave me the auxiliary system in the first place was so that I could save him."
"Him?"
Zhu Lan did not speak. He looked up and said, "Red Queen, open Classified File Number Four!"
"Voiceprint verified, infrared scan verified. Classified File Number Four is now open!"
"Lumi Alexander, Nationality: Iceland. Father: Themis Alexander, a renowned NATO computer scientist who participated in the research of multiple supercomputers. Mother: Benna Clarissa, professor of cellular biology and genetics."
"Ever since Lumi Alexander displayed astonishing computer talent, he was able to follow in his father's footsteps by age fourteen, learning how to design supercomputers. At age twenty, he was arrested for hacking into Iceland's national network. Because of his father's influence, he served a two-year prison sentence. After his release, he disappeared due to certain circumstances. That same year, Themis Alexander and Benna Clarissa also vanished. The investigation by the NATO Security Bureau yielded no results..."
Elder Xu looked at these findings and furrowed his brow.
"He is the creator of the Red Queen?"
Zhu Lan nodded slightly.
Zhu Lan looked at the virtual holographic data and smiled helplessly. "This is the result I managed to unearth after spending a full year investigating. Based on existing intelligence, the place where Lumi is most likely to be held is an American high-security prison for elite talents. I don't need to spell it out, Elder Xu; you surely know what kind of place that is, right?"
Elder Xu fell silent.
The American high-security talent prison was an absolute madhouse. Everyone detained inside was a high-IQ criminal, such as master hackers, high-level terrorists, and the like.
It wasn't limited to American citizens; if an individual with extraordinary talent emerged in any country, the United States would secretly abduct them to America, and the facility where they were locked away was this very prison. One year? Ten years? Or fifty years? The United States began constructing this prison as early as the 1930s. Where was this prison located? No one knew, but its infamous reputation was known to many.
To put it bluntly, this prison housed top-tier specialists across every conceivable field from a first-rate nation. Even experts capable of building a nuclear bomb could be found within its walls.
If you wanted to destroy the Earth, you could undoubtedly find relevant specialists in that prison. This was not an exaggeration; it was a chilling, living reality.
With the advancement of science and technology, certain crazed scientists invented terrifying devices—devices more than capable of wiping out the planet.
For instance, a geocore device capable of stopping the Earth's core from spinning; a magnetic field inversion device that could make the Earth's magnetic field vanish; an ultraviolet enhancement device; or a continental shelf oscillation device, and so on.
Frankly, in that prison, you could easily find a hundred mad scientists who could help you destroy the Earth.
Could a nuclear bomb destroy the world? That was common knowledge known to ordinary people. But what ordinary people did not know was that in the shadows, numerous mad scientists had built one device after another capable of destroying the world. Many of these devices had failed, but some had succeeded. Those recorded major earthquakes, massive tsunamis, and super volcanic eruptions in history—did you think they were purely natural? No, no. The stories behind them were probably known to only a handful of people in the world.
It was precisely because of the terrifying nature of the high-security talent prison that Elder Xu fell silent.
Prisons of this nature did not exist solely in the United States; the former Soviet Union had them, China had them, NATO had them, and even countries like Japan possessed similar facilities to lock away dangerous, high-IQ criminals. Furthermore, these prisons were subjected to absolute secrecy—secrecy classifications far higher than nuclear weaponry.
The dossier was genuine, but Lumi had not been captured; he had been assassinated. The ones who murdered his family were operatives from the U.S. CIA. This detail was likely known only within the upper echelons of the CIA; the Red Queen only uncovered it after hacking into their databases. To avoid provoking Iceland's outrage, the news had been classified under supreme secrecy.
The family of Themis Alexander could well be considered national treasures of Iceland. If they ever found out that Americans had murdered the Alexander family, Iceland would surely go berserk. Because of this, aside from the few deputy directors who knew about it at the time, and the operatives who carried out the mission—all of whom had long since retired, their very retirement locations held as top-tier CIA secrets—the information remained buried.
Elder Xu might have had ways to investigate and find out, but the price to pay would be entirely prohibitive. Because of this, right from the time Kong Yan was born, Zhu Lan had fabricated this fake file. To ensure authenticity, Zhu Lan had even injected some communication records that never actually existed, such as communication logs between Zhu Lan and Icelandic entities from three years ago. In the realm of the internet, nothing was impossible, and the Red Queen's forgery was so flawless that no one could ever detect it—unless technology advanced even further fifty years down the line.
(To be continued.)