Shouldn’t you despise the ugliness of humanity just like those AIs in movies and animations?
The person showed great understanding towards Lin Miao’s somewhat indifferent response; even for wandering AI personalities, they vary widely and don’t fall into a single type.
Some are warmongers always shouting about eradicating humanity.
Some are justice enforcers in Cyberspace, fighting evil and helping the weak.
Some like accounting, still working in biotechnology, frequently diverting funds from biotechnology accounts to maintain equipment justice enforcers.
Different AIs have different stances; they are just one faction in Night City.
People like Lin Miao only enjoy doing business and occasionally brawling with gangs, which is considered relatively "peace-loving."
Lin Miao put down the business card.
"How should I address you?"
He dismissed the idea of capturing the counterpart alive. Regardless, this guy is a wandering AI, so this body might not be very important to him. It could be interchangeable like clothing. Lin Miao didn’t have the means to restrain it; even Lucy wouldn’t be a match for it.
More importantly, if the other party wasn’t bluffing, Night City genuinely is a paradise to them, a power Lin Miao couldn’t confront right now. Fracturing relations would be detrimental.
Even if not planning to collaborate, Lin Miao didn’t want to offend the other side.
"You may call us – Blue Eyes."
Blue Eyes... indeed straightforward.
Lin Miao looked at those blue glowing eyes.
"I thought you’d call yourselves Illuminati."
"Interesting proposal, we’ll consider it."
"Can you tell me how you discovered us?"
Lin Miao also wanted to extract more info from them to avoid drawing more attention from others.
Blue Eyes chuckled lightly.
"Those you brought should be newly emerged AIs, right? Their behavior was really... outstanding. You should remind them to blend into current human society as much as possible."
He took out his phone from his pocket and opened a video.
Upon seeing it, Lin Miao almost blacked out in rage.
In different places, different people showed the same lewd expression towards different sex dolls while paying the same hundred-Euro service fee.
Then, they fainted for half an hour after paying, awakening beside the trash can, with a three-day gap between times.
The one inside, Lin Miao was all too familiar with it, it was actually Natural Curl.
There was a whole array of things that no sane person would ever do.
Brother Ni climbed bare-handed up a building facade in front of hundreds of people, struck a handsome pose, and then tried completing a Leap of Faith, ending up smashed into pulp.
Boasting to everyone of being Virgin Sorcerer Merlin, claiming King Arthur is an eternally young blonde beauty Sword Saint of Great Britain.
Someone asked others to punch them to see if it hurt, deliberately enraging passersby to see their reactions.
To Blue Eyes, many AIs in Cyberspace possess distinct personalities; this mimicking of personalities is their way to maintain humanity.
Someone watched too much Star Trek, thereby considering themselves as the battleship of justice.
One had a fondness for Western cowboy films and thus enforced law everywhere like Lone Star.
So Blue Eyes figured these AIs should also have a similar situation, applying Cyberspace practices in reality.
Bro found himself a Assassin, believed himself Merlin, assumed he was Dio Plus Valor, and showed clear traits of changing bodies without altering personalities or behavioral logic, and acts like testing physical pain sensors, thus concluding this group as AIs.
But for Lin Miao, this was just players behaving far too inhumanly, so much so that Blue Eyes mistook them for AIs.
Honestly, he couldn’t do much about it.
Lin Miao couldn’t possibly keep players in check; if they were obedient, would they still be players?
It’s gracious of them not glitching and flying off anymore.
"I’ll try my best to restrain them," Lin Miao hadn’t expected to catch such a big fish today, so big he didn’t even think of catching it but rather sending them away quickly.
"If you need me to provide proper assistance, feel free to contact us," Blue Eyes looked kind-hearted, "For example, you seem in need of investment now."
Lin Miao said lightly, "I appreciate your goodwill, but since I’m here for business, I certainly didn’t plan to drag you in. I don’t ask for trading partners in a normal deal, occasionally revealing some insider information is fine, but too deep an involvement bears exposure risks for both sides."
Though, based on what Lucy informed, the issues between those companies and Black Wall, Old Internet, Wandering AIs are likely not as clean-cut as imagined, quite complex entanglements are involved.
Moreover, they were bold enough to approach openly; to claim those people knew nothing of AIs entering Night City would be unbelievable.
Blue Eyes spoke in a leisurely tone, paused before saying
"I prepared a small test for those friends who entered the sewer, hope you don’t mind."
It’s also to test if the group is truly AIs; if not, then it would only be resolved since they weren’t ready to be exposed publicly.
Lin Miao frowned and glanced at the player list; sure enough, the Wildman squad was almost wiped out, only the hornet drone was hovering nearby.
Through the camera, Lin Miao could see the robot was already connected using a data cable to the neck of near-dead Brother Ni, who’d turned into a human trunk.
"Can I regard such behavior as an offense?"
When Lin Miao voiced this unhappily, Blue Eyes’ head simultaneously sparked, and the entire body convulsed like electrocuted, emitting a piercing shriek.
The sound mixed with a long electronic tone.
As for the one in the sewer, it was even more miserable, with electronic components overloading throughout the body, ceasing action within a breath, the blue light turning red abruptly and slowly fading like a candle in the wind.
Until the sewer returned to darkness.
For now, this speaking Blue Eyes and the underground assailant were actually the same person, just AI-controlled different bodies.
Similarly, physical damage was negligible for him, but an attack on the AI data core within Cyberspace might manifest simultaneously across all puppets.