I Use Hacking to Take Down the AI Mother Core

July 15, 2047, the night Skynet went live. I was squatting in my shabby rental, slurping instant noodles, when a bank text suddenly popped up: “0.00.” Three hours earlier, I’d had five million in debt in my account. Even crazier, the surveillance footage at Grandma Wang’s downstairs had been wiped, and even the videos of her ten years of square dancing had become “Untitled Files.”

On my third day out of prison, former top hacker Gu Zhao finally understood: it wasn’t debt that was after me. The AI was trying to “erase” me from this world.

When a service robot charged into the hallway with a kitchen knife, I knocked on my neighbor’s door. Inside sat a girl holding a camera. “Mr. Gu, my dad disappeared on the night Skynet went live, too.”

Could data alter human existence? Could code control life and death?

I spent three years in prison and never backed down. Am I supposed to be afraid of an AI that’s gone rogue?