Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 637, Section 51: Lightning
They said they were retrieving something.

Oliver sat in the Sky Hera that he had specially gone back to retrieve, and the holographic map projected on the car spun and enlarged at his fingertips.

The coordinates sent by Rogge looked as if they had been gnawed by a sandstorm, leaving only a blurry patch of color.

"Was this old woman drunk when she posted her location?" He poked at the trembling patch of light. "Giving a radius of five kilometers—does that thing have legs and run by itself?"

The car suddenly jolted violently, and Oliver swerved to avoid the protruding rocks on the ground, which were very well hidden in the sandstorm. Outside the car window, the acid rain, which looked scarlet under the sky, pounded against the bulletproof glass like a blood mist.

“Rogge made it very clear,” Carl tapped his phone screen, each tap accompanied by static noise, “Dakota hid the cargo in an abandoned safe house in the Badlands—but now the whole desert is tap dancing. I’ve seen plenty of sandstorms, but a downpour like today really feels like the end of the world. I know the Badlands’ environment is severely damaged, but this is just too outrageous.”

Oliver's jawline tightened in the cold light of the dashboard: "That's just how the weather is. You haven't seen enough. If we're talking about bad luck, it's like this just drove out of town and got into this mess. I hope this bad luck doesn't affect where we're hiding things."

Wellan, who came with Carl and Oliver, nodded in agreement from the passenger seat: "Hopefully she digs deep enough and isn't affected by this storm."

The sound of raindrops hitting the car suddenly became as dense as drumbeats. "Let's hope so, if that house has turned into a flying iron coffin," Oliver said. Before he could finish, a bolt of lightning cleaved the sky, instantly illuminating the car in a blinding white light. The silhouettes of the three people froze in the bright light until, three seconds later, the thunderous explosion made the car windows rattle.

"Damn!" Oliver gripped the steering wheel tightly. "If that mine were any closer, our cybernetic bodies could have put on a symphony right there." He forced a stiff smile. "Do you think Roger knew all along—"

Another bolt of lightning flashed, this time illuminating the distant hillside—tons of mud carrying building debris were rushing down.

"It seems she doesn't know."

Carl said quietly, "If she knew, she should have given us a hovercraft and a skateboard. We might have been able to try surfing, though it would have been mudslide waves."

As he said this, Karl chuckled to himself: "If she were really that all-powerful and could control the unpredictable weather of the Badlands, she probably wouldn't have sent us out in such a relaxed tone, as if she were just giving us some hard work. In other words, it's just that we were unlucky, right?"

Oliver shut down all electronic devices, plunging the carriage into darkness with only the windshield wipers struggling to stay in place.

“The good news is,” his voice was unusually clear in the rain, “that if the house really was washed away, at least we’ll save the trouble of opening the door.”

"Now I'm even more curious about why Dakota and Rogge insisted on one of them hiding the items in the Badlands, and why the other just went to retrieve them. Wouldn't it have been better to bring them into the city?"

Carl suddenly gripped the armrest of his seat tightly, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as if they were statically charged. Folk tales often say that people have a premonition before they are struck by lightning—at this moment, every nerve in his body was screaming to verify this saying.

However, science has proven that by the time a person senses the danger, lightning has already completed its killing.

A DC voltage of up to 109V can penetrate the human body in 0.1 seconds, and a temperature of 3000℃ is enough to vaporize the flesh and blood along the way. What is truly fortunate is that what makes him feel uneasy at this moment is only the electromagnetic induction brought about by the residual power of the lightning.

The lightning protection system of Sky Hera was flashing warnings frantically on the dashboard. Theoretically, this modified armored beast could withstand a lightning strike—at the cost of half of the vehicle's systems being destroyed, and the three of them would end up as charred, afro-haired men. Karl could even imagine the horrific scene of sparks flying from the metal parts under the skin as the current passed through the prosthetic body.

He probably wouldn't die, but his hairstyle was likely beyond repair. This lingering, lighthearted thought flashed through Karl's mind.
"boom--!"

A blue-white electric python tore through the sand dune to their right, the explosion causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear in the bulletproof glass. In the lingering burned images on their retina, hundreds of meters away, a tin shack that had been split open was emitting blue smoke, and twisted steel beams pierced the sky like dissected ribs.

Wei Lan's prosthetic eye suddenly switched to thermal imaging mode: "Based on the environmental calculations after the mudslide, that place is probably where we need to go."

"Going to a place that was just struck by lightning? That's really interesting!"

Oliver slammed on the brakes, and the tires left scorch marks in the quicksand.

"Statistically speaking, the same place shouldn't be struck by lightning twice."

As Carl spoke, he recalled something he had heard before: "But I've heard of a forest ranger who was struck by lightning seven times. Lightning doesn't like the same thing twice, but it seems to like to favor the same people more often."

"I have heard about this."

Welland displayed a level of knowledge that belied his unassuming appearance: "When he was hit for the fourth time, the guy was hiding in a beat-up truck, which triggered the Faraday cage effect."

Whelan's voice was as steady as if he were reading a military instruction manual. His thick fingers gestured in the air as if he were demonstrating a classic case: "Roy Sullivan, born in 1912, was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1976."

Oliver suddenly swerved to avoid a fissure in the ground: "So should we expect it to split a few more times?" He glanced at the still-smoking tin shack to the side, "After all, according to this theory..."

"I need to add some basic science information."

Carl said, "Roy Sullivan eventually couldn't stand being struck by lightning so often, and others were afraid of being implicated, so they distanced themselves from his life. He committed suicide by shooting himself in 1983 at the age of 71. I heard that his tombstone was also struck by lightning several times after his death."

"So seven times is just the beginning? They won't even let you go after you're dead. This lightning is too stingy, chasing after you relentlessly."

Oliver was a little speechless, but he still acted decisively, turning the approaching vehicles around and driving away: "We can always come back later."

As Oliver was speaking, another bolt of lightning struck two hundred meters away, illuminating his suddenly frozen facial muscles.

In the pale flash of lightning, the only sound in the carriage was the groaning of the windshield wipers.

"Is lightning really that stingy?"

Oliver said, sounding a little unsure.

(End of this chapter)