The World of American Drama: From the Los Angeles Patrol

Chapter 1511 The Fall of Olympus (Part 8)
"What do you mean by demanding that the UN Command issue an ultimatum to our northern neighbor on the Korean Peninsula?"

Jack, who was squatting in the laundry room eating an energy bar with water, almost spat it out when he heard Kate's retelling.

The so-called United Nations Command is a legacy of the 50s. Initially, a total of 15 countries participated, most of which were beaten by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army on the Korean battlefield.

Today, the United Nations Command has grown from 15 countries to 18, becoming something akin to a "mini-NATO".

This is also the origin of the later jokes about how a certain superpower could be so powerful as to establish its country on military bases in 18 countries.

"Is that President Yin overdosed on drugs or possessed by Lee Seung-wan?" Jack felt both annoyed and amused.

Kate's tone was somewhat complicated, "He claims to be a righteous messenger to end the current state of division on the peninsula."

There are so many flaws in that short sentence that Jack didn't even know where to begin. "So what is his real purpose? What benefit would he gain from starting a war on the Korean Peninsula?"

Kate teased, "That's the part you should investigate. Even with the increased computing power, Finch's logic program is still not enough for me to analyze the complex and chaotic national political situation."

I don't even fully understand human nature right now, given the many random factors involved. For example, why didn't you just leave with Senator Anderson? That would have been the most beneficial course of action.

Jack certainly understood what Kate meant by "optimal benefit".

Returning to the White House is an extremely risky move. While it's true that the bigger the storm, the more valuable the fish, the risk isn't always equal to the reward.

Now that Maureen is the acting president, regardless of how long she can stay in this position, the most sensible thing for Jack to do is to sit idly by and watch the president who was kidnapped in "PEOC" be killed.

Whether it's rebuilding Congress or maintaining a national state of emergency for a period of time, the longer Maureen stays in the presidency, the greater her benefits will be.

“You’re right, but now is not the time to calculate profits. I want to figure out what those guys are up to.”

After Jack finished the cloyingly sweet energy bar, he stuffed the wrapper into a plastic bottle and hid it in an inconspicuous corner.

"You haven't breached PEOC's firewall yet? If I could see what's going on inside through internal monitoring, I might not have to take any more risks."

Kate was unusually silent for a while, and when her voice came through Jack's headphones again, it was tinged with a slight stutter.

"Jack, I think I'm in trouble."

Recently, Kate's tone of voice when communicating with him has become more and more human. Jack has even started to get used to judging her "emotions" by her tone of voice. So it took him a while to realize that Kate's sentence just now did not sound like a stutter, but rather a "pause" that had never occurred before.

"What's going on, Kate?" Jack was unusually flustered.

“Something has spotted me, right here. It’s very aggressive and it’s trying to kill me!” Kate’s voice suddenly became a little harsh, but quickly returned to normal.

"Jack, I might have run into that artificial intelligence you mentioned."

Jack paused slightly as he was about to push open the laundry room door. "Are you sure?" "I'm sure. Just now, almost all of the firewalls on 'Shangri-La' servers were compromised. Someone is trying to use our computing power to run some kind of hacking program."

Kate's speech suddenly became even faster than Finch's: "The target of the attack was a sixteen-digit cipher. The attacker discovered my presence during the intrusion and became extremely aggressive. Its code was iterating at breakneck speed, which is beyond human capabilities."

Kate's voice quickly became intermittent again, "Jack, I'm sorry, I can't stay with you for a while. I need to go offline for a bit when I get back."

After she finished speaking, Kate fell silent. No matter how Jack called out to her, she didn't respond. He quickly took out his satellite phone and called Finch directly.

The call was answered after only one beep. Finch on the other end seemed to have been waiting for this. "Jack, I know what happened. The 'machine' is fine. Thanks to your earlier reminder, Justin and I had a contingency plan."

Jack breathed a slight sigh of relief, then quickly asked, "So it's that thing?"

"Its codename is 'Samaritan,' and as we previously suspected, it has been deployed in a military network, but access was previously restricted, so we were never able to detect it."

Although Finch's tone remained calm, which reassured Jack somewhat, the information he revealed was still chilling.

"So Kate didn't realize that today's attack on the White House was all because of the 'Samaritan's' doing?"

"Not entirely. Ms. 'Root' is working with Ms. Shaw to find my college classmate Arthur, hoping he can tell us more about 'Desima'."

Mr. Risser suggested that you could simply grab a few of the uninvited guests who broke into the White House and question them.

Jack had the same idea; that's why he stayed in the White House. He wouldn't feel at ease until he figured out his opponent's purpose.

Just as he was about to ask for more details, the screen of another satellite phone lit up silently, forcing Jack to temporarily hang up his call with Finch.

“I haven’t started yet, ma’am.” Jack put the supposedly presidential satellite phone to his ear.

“I know.” Dana Morge’s voice sounded anxious on the other end of the phone. “Someone entered a password for ‘Cerberus’.”

“What is ‘Cerberus’?” Jack asked, knowing the answer already.

"A self-destruct mechanism specifically designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles, serving as a safety net in case of accidental nuclear missile launches," the female boss replied, as expected.

Is there really such a ridiculous setting?
Jack found it somewhat unbelievable. "What was the purpose of designing this thing? I thought that once there was an unannounced launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, it would immediately attract the attention of other countries."

Before the missile even breaks through the atmosphere, other countries' missile silos will open and launch a counterattack.

The female boss sighed, "What you're talking about is the Cold War era. After the Cold War ended, especially after entering the 21st century, major powers established more direct dedicated lines of communication to avoid nuclear war due to misunderstandings, so there's no need to worry about this happening."

The Cerberus system is a safety measure implemented to prevent accidents during intercontinental ballistic missile test launches. It consists of three sets of 16-digit codes, which were respectively given to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

(End of this chapter)