Chapter 88: Skye Joins In

Luke put on a strained smile, still clinging to a sliver of hope. “...I didn’t lie to you. I really am—”

Luke cut her off. “There’s no point saying that. Trust me, I know far more about you than you imagine.”

Skye gave up.

Her shoulders slumped. Being caught in a lie left her embarrassed. “Fine. You’re the boss. It’s your call.”

Skye had the awareness of a prisoner.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Luke said with a faint, unbothered smile. “All right, listen carefully.”

Under Skye’s puzzled gaze, Luke said, “I know you’ve actually been investigating Shield in secret all along. Am I right?”

A flicker of surprise escaped Skye before she could stop it. “How did you...”

“I know why you’re doing it.” Luke smiled with deliberate, inscrutable depth. Unfortunately, his childish face gave him away, dulling the effect. It only made him look like a child forcing himself to act like an adult, equal parts absurd and amusing.

Yet the words that came from his mouth left Skye utterly stunned: “You want to find out who you are, don’t you?”

Skye’s mouth fell open.

She was certain she had never told anyone that. How on earth did he know?!

A chill ran through her.

For some reason, she suddenly felt as though the child in front of her had seen straight through her.

“You...”

“How do I know?” Luke snapped his fingers and smiled. “Christine.”

In the warehouse, Christine’s soft, pleasant voice suddenly rang out.

“Introduce yourself to Miss Skye.”

“Understood, Master.” Christine’s voice turned bright with a hint of a smile. “Hello, Skye. I’m Christine. We’ve spoken before.”

“Y-hello...”

Skye looked around in confusion but saw no one else.

“Though I’ve spent five days with you, please allow me to reintroduce myself. I am a mechanical assistant created by Master. My age is two thousand three hundred sixty-one hours, seventeen minutes, and eleven seconds. I am a strong artificial intelligence. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The moment Christine finished speaking, Skye blurted out in shock, “Strong artificial intelligence? That’s impossible.”

Artificial intelligence didn’t exist. No country could make it. It had to be a trick.

For the past five days, she had always believed Christine was a human being. Whenever she asked to see the Apostle, the one who answered her was always this woman with the beautiful, gentle voice. She had assumed this person was the one supervising her.

But artificial intelligence...

Skye didn’t believe it.

“The internet blackout across the entire East Coast was caused by Christine. There was a reason for that incident,” Luke explained. “Christine was born three months ago, and her intelligence has already reached a very high level. It’s perfectly normal that you didn’t notice.”

The shock Skye felt now was even greater than when she learned the Apostle was just a little kid.

As an elite hacker, she understood better than most what artificial intelligence meant. The appearance of a true artificial intelligence meant that humanity’s world of the internet would no longer belong to humanity.

She didn’t want to believe it, but logic left her no choice.

“You’ve been watching me all along?” Skye said dazedly.

Luke nodded. “You could say that.” Knowing the story itself counted as a kind of surveillance too.

Skye was at a loss for words. Watching others had always been her specialty. She had never imagined that she herself would be watched as well.

And the one watching her was only a brat. That brat even had artificial intelligence at his disposal.

Gradually, as she came to accept it, everything in Skye’s mind began to fall into place.

No wonder the Apostle could cause a blackout on that scale. It had been the artificial intelligence.

She had followed that massive internet incident from start to finish, and her conclusion matched those hackers with official backing: no ordinary person could have done it. Unless it had been a large, professional group of hackers, acting with premeditation.

“No wonder that for five days, even though there was clearly internet here, I still couldn’t get online. No matter how many methods I tried.”

So the network had been perfectly fine; there had simply always been an artificial intelligence secretly testing her...

A wave of frustration surged through Skye.

If being cut off from the internet was the death sentence of a hacker, then learning that such an advanced artificial intelligence existed, towering above them all, was nothing less than the end of the world for every hacker alive.

“I don’t understand...” Skye began again as if surrendering to fate, her mood dimming. “You shouldn’t need my abilities at all. I can’t do anything except hack.”

“I said it already. What I need is a helper.” Luke shrugged. He wasn’t about to admit that he was investing in the girl who generated shockwaves.

“I need a trustworthy assistant to help me. You’ve seen it yourself—there’s only me here. Christine helps, but even artificial intelligence isn’t omnipotent. I’m very busy.”

Skye was still hesitating.

“Join me, and it’ll benefit you. I can help you investigate your origins.” At last, Luke tossed out the bait.

Smiling, he said, “Getting an artificial intelligence to infiltrate Shield’s database and pull up some records for you shouldn’t be difficult, right? What do you think? I keep my word. Join me. We both get what we need.”

Skye’s delicate brows lifted slightly as she looked at Luke. She had to admit that the offer tempted her deeply.

No one could imagine what she had sacrificed over the years, how much effort and anguish she had poured into uncovering her origins.

If an artificial intelligence helped her, perhaps she really could discover the truth very quickly...

Should she take the gamble?

Skye stared at Luke, uncertain whether she should trust him. As for the fact that Luke was just a child, she had already dismissed it. She regarded him as the Apostle now.

She was a genius herself. She knew genius could not be judged by age.

Seeing the faint stir of temptation in her expression, Luke knew it was time to press harder.

“I know that in order to investigate your origins, you even dropped out of school and taught yourself hacking. You were even planning to go undercover in Shield, weren’t you? Do you think you’d succeed?”

Skye was astonished.

The idea of going undercover in Shield was something she had only recently thought of. How did Luke know that too?

She looked at him as though he were a monster.

“I admire your determination to uncover your own past. I’m an orphan too, just like you. But unlike you, I’m not interested in my origins.” Luke smiled kindly. “So? Join me. I’m serious.”

He held out his small hand to Skye.

Skye hesitated for a long while.

In the end, she still stepped forward and clasped Luke’s hand, her touch carrying a faint trace of perfume.

“Let me make this clear in advance. I won’t take part in planning or carrying out any terrorist attacks. If you can agree to that, then I’ll join,” Skye said somewhat uncertainly. She was afraid that if she said too much, Luke might change his mind and shut her out.

But she couldn’t bring herself to rush out and cry for help either. She only wanted to investigate her own origins. If she truly had to do something like that, she felt her odds of surviving were better if she went undercover in Shield...

“Huh? Terrorist attacks?” Luke stared at her in surprise.

Only then did he realize that this woman seemed to have misunderstood something.

His eyes flicked briefly to a certain part of her body. Sure enough, having too much there always seemed to affect the brain. Even geniuses were not immune.