The sound of incessant "tap tap tap tap" filled the control room of the Himalayas.
AA's face was lit up with surprise as her mechanical arms, connected to her hands, rapidly typed away at the console, so fast that afterimages appeared.
Beyond that, her hair was threaded with neural slots which, along with the auxiliary neural sockets, were filled with a variety of chips. Some deep spinal interfaces were even connected to various data cables, and at this moment her nervous system and brain were working at high speed together.
And there were more than a dozen AAs like her in the entire control room.
The difference was that they had different tasks. Some AAs had even torn open the casings beside them to half-bury their upper bodies inside, busily tinkering with something.
As the logistics minister for Utopia Security, and having gone through everything with Sun Jack, it was naturally her responsibility to take charge of the control and maintenance inspection of the mechanical city of the Himalayas.
She couldn't wait to understand this city and start her own transformation of it.
As for the previously operated Spacecraft Carrier Happy Castle, she entrusted it to her subordinate Black Panther, that black man who used to spin around like a big bird.
Sometimes AA would marvel at how, in just a few years, the three people who had once looked for jobs together had undergone such earth-shattering changes.
"GG, have you finished over there? Have you fully controlled the Himalayas yet?" asked Tapai's voice in AA's ear. She shook her head slightly. "Not yet. This big guy is too huge, many times larger than the entire Spacecraft Carrier. It's going to take time to thoroughly understand it."
"Tsk, little ABCDJGH is just weaker~ We're so much faster on the network side," Tapai teased.
Hearing her own technology being questioned, AA immediately got angry, "That's not a fair comparison. You transfer and modify data so quickly, but we have to check every circuit board, one by one!"
"Hmmph! And the Himalayas is from the Old Era, you're from the Old Era too. You should be more familiar with this place than I am, shouldn't you?"
While the AAs were complaining to Tapai, another AA bent down to enter the door wearing an exoskeleton and carrying a bag of things. "Everyone! It's mealtime!"
AA immediately rubbed her arms, disconnected all the data cables behind her, and ended her morning's work.
Today's food was pizza with flavors like avocado and phoenix tail fish, cheese and chestnuts, tomato blueberry ham, and several different toppings, all laid out on the ground. Accompanied by carbonated drinks and fruit, it was their lunch.
With their entrance into the Himalayas, the previously tight food supply had largely eased up, and basically, everyone could choose whatever they wanted to eat.
A group of AAs sat in a circle, munching on pizza, while thinking and talking about work.
"The Himalayas are too big, every node needs a person, we need to clone more AAs."
"Right, more AAs! This is definitely for the sake of work!"
"Afraid not, this time many bosses died, the Breeding Factory's production line is all about producing bosses, there's no room to produce us."
"If it really won't work, then logistics will just have to hire someone else, but I still prefer it when everyone is one of our own, it makes communication so much easier," he said.
"Right, right, did you see? There's a lot of interesting stuff in the weapon systems on the Himalayas! I heard that the Gravity System of the first Spacecraft Carrier was reverse-engineered from there."
Upon hearing this, all the AAs immediately quickened their swallowing pace, their eyes shining with eagerness, very impatient to take advantage of their rest time to see what kind of new and unseen goodies were in the weapon systems.
Although she no longer had to pick up trash, she still had a fondness for all kinds of novel machinery.
The AAs took a Hover Car down from the artificial Sun and flew towards the weapon module, just barely grazing the head of a furry woman with dog ears.
Axie looked down and patted her own head, then looked down at the puddles left by the melted snow. Within the puddle, she saw the heavy smoky makeup on her face, along with the earrings, nose ring, and lip ring.
Looking at her reflection, an extremely despairing emotion surged up, making her wonder how long she would have to endure such days.
Working 18 hours a day, and having to ensure a focus level above 4, living here felt no different from being dead.
Feeling her emotions fluctuate slightly more than usual, Axie took out an inhaler, put it to her mouth, and inhaled deeply. After a strong dizziness, there was a numbing pleasure.
In a high-pressure environment, only with the help of drugs could he get a chance to breathe, and he knew this was bad.
Whether it was due to the drugs or because her stomach and brain had been augmented, her mental state was not good, often experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations, but she had no way to stop.
While he split his mouth into a foolish smile, he saw his reflection in the water step out and stab viciously towards himself with a knife.
Feeling the knife plunge into her body, Axie felt a sense of relief wash over her; at last, it was over, she could finally die.
But the next second, a piercing alarm sounded in her ear, pulling her back from the hallucination.
"Ms. Axie, hello, the company's automatic patrol software detected that at 4:33 AM yesterday, during your work hours, you engaged in behavior unrelated to work: having a 13-minute and 12-second conversation with non-work related personnel, causing the company a loss of 312 #currency, therefore the following penalty is issued: a fine of 3412 #currency. Considering you have no assets left for the company to enforce upon, if you cannot pay this fine within 15 days, the company will forcibly repossess your registered property, 23% shares of Jesse (daughter) (organ mortgage repossession)."
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!" Axie shouted hysterically, her forehead veins popping out from the excessive engorgement of blood vessels.
But after venting, she could only rush towards the subway entrance. There was no time now for drugs or to deal with her unstable mental state.
For the next few days, she had to work overtime 24 hours a day to repay the money as soon as possible. Moreover, she had already mortgaged all her organs to buy company shares, and the high-interest loan's due date was also fast approaching.
Arriving on the subway and seeing the grimy homeless man curled up in the corner, she felt a slight sense of relief. It was good, at least she had a job, which was better than these folks, and her despair eased a little.
Just as he got off the subway and walked towards the company building, with a trembling sound, the entire metal building slowly rose, flying towards the exit before his astonished eyes.
"What the fuck? My company flew away?"