247: Chapter 247 Su Xiaowan's Discovery: Anomalies in the Data Stream
Inside the safe house, there was a deathly silence.
Only the ticking of medical equipment and Long Zhantian's breathing, so faint it was nearly inaudible, slowly drifted through the air.
Su Xiaowan had been standing by Lin Mo's bedside, motionless for over two hours.
Her hand still gripped the energy pistol. Her eyes still scanned every corner. Her nerves remained taut to the limit.
But nothing happened.
Those invisible "Nano Ghosts" seemed to have vanished completely. They didn't reappear, there were no anomalies, and no traces were left behind.
It was as if they had never existed.
But Long Zhantian's warning still echoed in her ears: "Danger... leave quickly... Lin Mo..."
That iron-willed man, on the brink of death, had used his last ounce of strength to convey that message; it couldn't possibly be a hallucination.
The danger was definitely still there.
She just couldn't see it.
Su Xiaowan took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
Seeing with eyes revealed nothing. Listening with ears revealed nothing. Sensing with intuition revealed nothing.
Then what should she use?
She looked up at the tiny, almost invisible sensor probe on the ceiling.
That was one of the access points for the "Kunlun" network. Throughout the entire Ark city, there were tens of thousands of such probes, constantly collecting massive amounts of data—air composition, temperature changes, electromagnetic fluctuations, quantum fluctuations... all quantifiable information would be processed, analyzed, and stored in real-time by the system and "Nuwa."
If those "Nano Ghosts" were truly still there, would they leave behind some kind of trace that could be captured by data?
Su Xiaowan's eyes suddenly lit up.
She walked quickly to the wall and pressed a hidden control button behind a decorative panel. A holographic screen silently unfolded in the air.
Her fingers danced rapidly across the virtual keyboard.
"Nuwa," her voice was low and urgent, "retrieve all raw sensor data for the safe house and surrounding area from the past six hours. Full spectrum—from extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves to high-frequency quantum fluctuations, don't miss a single one."
【Command received. Data volume 21 bits. Loading...】 Nuwa's electronic voice sounded calmly.
On the holographic screen, various waveforms, spectrums, and data streams began to refresh frantically. Those dense clusters of curves and numbers would make an ordinary person dizzy at a glance, but in Su Xiaowan's eyes, they were pictures that could be "read."
She was one of the GDA's top information technology experts. Her eyes had undergone the most rigorous training, allowing her to capture the tiniest anomalies within a sea of data.
She began to "read."
One minute.
Two minutes.
Five minutes.
Her brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
All data appeared normal. Electromagnetic fluctuations were within permissible ranges, quantum fluctuations followed a random distribution, and temperature changes perfectly adhered to physical laws—there were no anomalies.
Those "Nano Ghosts" seemed to not exist in any physical dimension at all.
Su Xiaowan's fingers paused for a moment.
No.
She suddenly remembered something Lin Mo had once said: "Some things don't not exist in the physical dimension; they exist in the 'information dimension'."
The information dimension.
If those "Nano Ghosts" were truly projected from the Scavenger's core processor, then they must carry some kind of "signature" at the information level. This signature might not be captured by conventional physical sensors, but it would definitely be recorded by the information network itself.
Because the "Kunlun" network was itself an ocean of information woven from countless data streams. Anything entering this ocean, no matter how small or hidden, would leave a "ripple."
Su Xiaowan took a deep breath and changed her search strategy.
She stopped retrieving physical sensor data and instead cut directly into the core data stream of the "Kunlun" network—the torrent of information generated in real-time by countless users, devices, and programs.
Her fingers began to dance rapidly again.
This time, she wasn't looking at waveforms or spectrums. She was "tracking"—tracking those extremely tiny, almost imperceptible "anomaly ripples" within the data torrent.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
She found it.
It was an incredibly tiny data packet, almost indistinguishable from background noise. Its size was only one-thousandth of a normal packet. Its duration was only 0.0003 seconds. Its transmission path was disguised as a routine signal from the "Kunlun" network's daily maintenance program.
But Su Xiaowan's eyes were fixed deathly upon it.
Because the destination address of that data packet was an identification code she knew all too well—
Lin Mo's brainwave interface.
That interface was the only channel connecting Lin Mo to the "Kunlun" network during his consciousness upload. Currently, it was in a dormant state, but it was still online and could still be "touched" by the data stream.
And that string of tiny, almost non-existent data packets was continuously sending some kind of unparseable signal to that interface at an extremely low frequency.
Su Xiaowan's hand trembled slightly.
She magnified the data packet, attempting to parse its content.
Failure. The encryption method was completely unknown.
She traced its source.
Failure. The path was disguised by multiple layers of proxy jumps; the origin could not be locked.
She tracked every node it passed through.
Success.
That string of data packets passed through seventeen relay nodes before entering Lin Mo's brainwave interface. Three were located on Earth; five were in lunar orbit; nine were near Jupiter's orbit.
Jupiter's orbit.
That was precisely where those three Scavenger combat units were located.
Su Xiaowan's heart tightened suddenly.
Those "Nano Ghosts" hadn't infiltrated from the physical level at all.
They were being "downloaded" from the information level.
That string of data packets was their "seed." Each successful transmission would "download" a new batch of "Nano Ghosts" into the target area to infiltrate, attack, and devour.
And their target had only ever been one thing—
Lin Mo's brainwave interface.
As long as that interface remained, they could "download" infinitely and attack infinitely.
Until Lin Mo's consciousness was completely devoured.
Su Xiaowan's face turned deathly pale in an instant.
She spun around abruptly, looking at the bed, at the person still sleeping there.
His brainwave interface, that tiny, almost invisible implant, was currently sitting quietly at the back of his neck, flickering with a faint, eerie blue light.
In Su Xiaowan's eyes, that light now looked like a lethal lighthouse, broadcasting a signal to the entire universe:
"I am here."
"Come and kill me."
Su Xiaowan's hands clenched into tight fists.
She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
There was only one way to stop those data packets from continuing to transmit—
Disconnect Lin Mo's brainwave interface.
But what did disconnecting that interface mean?
It meant Lin Mo's consciousness would never be able to return to his body.
Because that interface was his only channel to the "Kunlun" network. It was his only bridge to return from high-dimensional void to low-dimensional reality.
Cutting it was equivalent to cutting off his path home.
Su Xiaowan's hand hovered over the console, trembling.
Her tears fell silently.
She didn't know what to do.
If she cut it, Lin Mo might never come back.
If she didn't, those "Nano Ghosts" would attack again and again until his consciousness was completely devoured.
She looked up at that sleeping face, at those tightly closed eyes, at the person she was willing to give everything to protect.
"Lin Mo..." her voice was as raspy as broken glass, "tell me, what should I do..."
No one answered.
Only the ticking of the medical equipment echoed heartlessly in the silent safe house.
And that tiny, almost non-existent, lethal signal continued to transmit silently and incessantly to Lin Mo's brainwave interface—
Waiting for the opportunity for the next "download."