180: Chapter 180 A Person Who Doesn't Exist!

Lin Zhou did not pay much attention to the uproar on the internet.

After the design plan was finalized, all his attention was focused on that mysterious contact information. He used a physically isolated laptop to input the ID into an internal communication platform via an encrypted channel.

Lin Zhou did not beat around the bush and directly entered a line of text.

"We need to meet."

After he sent it, he hardly had to wait.

The other party responded quickly, with three extremely simple words.

"See you tomorrow."

No time, no location. Lin Zhou looked at these three words, his brow slightly furrowed, but he felt settled in his heart. This style of operating instead proved the other party's confidence and ability.

The next day, Lin Zhou was processing the planning documents for "Oasis City" in his office. He did not deliberately wait, because he knew the other party would find him on their own.

In the afternoon, Lin Zhou was lost in thought while reading, when he suddenly felt a hint of abnormality. Although he was clearly the only person in the office, it felt as if there was an extra gaze watching him.

He looked up.

Immediately, his eyes narrowed slightly.

Unbeknownst to him, there was now another person sitting across from his desk. A young man in an electric wheelchair was watching him quietly.

The office doors and windows were all closed, with no signs of being opened.

Lin Zhou's heart tightened; he instinctively pressed the emergency communication button under the desk and asked in a low voice, "Security Center, did anyone just enter my office?"

"Report, Mr. Lin. No one was detected entering. Your office perimeter surveillance is completely normal." The security personnel's confused voice came through the receiver.

"Is this guy a ghost?" Lin Zhou cut off the communication calmly. He looked at the uninvited guest before him and knew the main person had arrived. Where did Director Zhou find such a monster?

The person who appeared was a young man sitting in an electric wheelchair.

He looked to be only about thirty years old, yet he had prematurely gray hair and a sickly pale complexion. He wore a faded old jacket, and his left sleeve was empty, swaying gently as the wheelchair moved. His left leg was also gone, replaced by a prosthetic limb fixed with a metal brace.

The newcomer had deep facial features with distinct characteristics different from the Han Chinese. There was no ripple of emotion on his face.

A one-armed, one-legged young man.

He had appeared silently, as if he had seeped out of the walls.

"Mr. Lin?" His voice was somewhat raspy, but his Chinese pronunciation was exceptionally standard.

Lin Zhou looked at him, observing the dead silence and exhaustion on him—the kind that only comes after crawling out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood—and he already had his answer in his heart.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Jack," the young man replied calmly, then added, "A Tajik who has already 'died' in the files."

Lin Zhou fell silent. The person Director Zhou introduced was truly extraordinary.

"Please, have a seat," Lin Zhou gestured, even though the other party was already "seated." He immediately added in his heart, "With your ability to appear and disappear like a ghost, what difference does it make whether you sit or not?"

"Director Zhou... has he told you everything?"

"He didn't say anything," Jack shook his head. "He just gave me a choice. He said there was someone who might be able to turn the things in my head into reality."

"The things in your head?" Lin Zhou became interested.

"A brand new concept for intelligence operations." For the first time, a ripple appeared in Jack's single eye.

"Let's hear it."

"Before talking about the concept, we must first recognize the reality," Jack maneuvered his wheelchair closer.

"Mr. Lin, our country is small and lacks resources. Establishing a complete intelligence agency like the CIA or MI6 is neither necessary nor realistic. Even with sufficient funds, we don't have that many people available."

Lin Zhou nodded; this was the plain truth. Trying to assemble a massive intelligence team in a place like Bir Tawil was nothing short of a fantasy.

"Therefore, my suggestion is to first establish an intelligence line focused on defense," Jack held up a finger. "That is, a 'Shield.' An absolutely reliable internal security and counter-intelligence network, with your current core team and settlement as the core, to ensure that you and your secrets will not face a second Vikram Singh."

"Then what about offense? What about the 'Eyes' and the 'Blade'?" Lin Zhou pressed.

Jack did not answer directly but countered, "Mr. Lin, where do you think high-value intelligence comes from? The tropes in movies about infiltrating an embassy to steal a safe or placing a bug by a pillow only account for a tiny percentage in reality."

"There is a consensus in the modern intelligence community: eighty percent or even more of critical intelligence is actually hidden in public newspapers, official news, social networks, and various academic reports. The real secrets are hidden in the logical connections between massive amounts of facts."

Jack paused, his gaze darkening. "But the problem is, human energy and reading speed are limited. Therefore, the 'offense' in my concept is to use artificial intelligence to completely replace manual labor to undertake this vast sea of analytical work. This is currently the simplest, most direct, and most efficient way for us to overtake on a bend."

As Jack spoke, he took a document from the bag on the side of his wheelchair and placed it gently on the table.

Lin Zhou looked down, and his expression changed slightly. The document was the resume he had submitted back when he was still an employee.

"This..."

"Mr. Lin, I know you are already a top expert in AI research," Jack looked at him calmly. "The product from your former company, although not completed because it was acquired, had a core concept and architecture that is very close to what I want."

Lin Zhou was shocked. The other party had not only investigated his background but even knew his most core technical secrets like the back of his hand.

Jack continued, "My suggestion is to buy the source code of that semi-finished product. With your ability, you can completely modify it into an AI dedicated to us, an omnipresent 'Eye'."

"Using AI to collect and analyze intelligence from all public channels," Lin Zhou's eyes lit up instantly; he immediately understood Jack's intention.

"Social media, news reports, commercial financial reports, satellite imagery, shipping data... by using AI to deeply mine and correlate these massive fragments of public information, we can piece together the truth we want!"

"Exactly," a hint of approval appeared in Jack's single eye. "We don't need to send people to steal; we just need to sit at home and piece together the opponent's puzzle ourselves."

"This dedicated AI," Jack said finally, "can just happen to be the first experimental product for the data center you are about to complete, and also the 'brain' and 'eyes' of our entire future intelligence system."