Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 670, Section 84: Clearing Obstacles
As the lights inside the house went out and the faint rustling of clothes could be heard, the decoder between Carl's fingers lit up with its last green light, and the car door lock made a soft 'click' sound, which was chillingly clear in the night.

“Seven seconds.” David exclaimed in a low voice. “I didn’t expect you to be so knowledgeable in this area, Carl. I did a similar task last time, and it took us much longer to crack the system and we even triggered an alarm.”

Carl had already slid into the driver's seat, pulled out the monomolecule data cable, and moonlight streamed through the sunroof onto the steering wheel, reflecting his smile: "You guys were too slow, and don't make me sound like a professional car thief." Before he finished speaking, a glaring red warning box suddenly popped up on the car's screen.

Jun Mizutani's original anti-theft system was indeed ineffective, but the encryption module installed below the center console was flashing wildly. Three special firewalls unfolded like thorns in the virtual interface, one of which even carried some scrambled data streams, directly attacking Karl's monomolecular wire connection, trying to invade Karl's body from there.

“Interesting.” Karl straightened his back and pressed his knuckles against his lower lip.

The modifier clearly understands the art of security—a defensive strategy of loose exterior and tight interior. The vehicle body uses standard commercial parts to reduce its visibility, while the core equipment adopts a military-grade architecture. When his hacking program reached the third layer of protection, the dashboard even started trying to play songs automatically.

"What a twisted sense of humor!" David realized something was wrong and frantically tried to turn off the stereo, only to hear Carl chuckle: "Found it."

Carl gently twisted the data cable, and the silent encore stopped at the intro. The central control screen displayed a screen full of numbers, and Carl finally pulled out an inconspicuous subroutine from it. That subroutine was continuously uploading coordinate data in the background, with an update frequency accurate to the millisecond level.

The virtual keyboard popped up on the central control screen, and Karl's fingertips flew across the keyboard. The blue light from the holographic projection reflected in his slightly narrowed eyes, like fireflies in the deep sea.

"It's more advanced than expected, and this firewall," he said with a slight smile, his tone tinged with a hint of a joke, "if it were an ordinary person, they probably wouldn't even get to the first layer before being locked out. The old captain really hit the jackpot by inviting us this time."

Before he could finish speaking, the vehicle's system suddenly changed. An encryption protocol, like a venomous snake, lunged at the intruding data stream. Calm remained calm and, with a flick of his finger, deflected the attack as easily as parting a piece of duckweed. Immediately afterward, the second and third layers of protection activated in succession, but before they could fully deploy, they were precisely intercepted by his cracking algorithm, like waves crashing against rocks, ultimately forced to retreat helplessly.

"I've learned from the best hackers in Night City, so don't try to pull off these little tricks in front of me."

David could tell from Carl's slightly proud words that he was referring to T-BUG.

Carl always seemed very proud of his teammates. Even when his friends weren't around, his words were always filled with pride for them, as if they were always there for him.

Sometimes, I really envy Oliver and his friends.

Carl breathed a sigh of relief at David's sudden thought.

"Done." He tapped the last virtual key lightly, and the alarm symbols on the screen vanished like bubbles, revealing the system to him completely.

David, watching intently, couldn't help but whisper, "Karl, your technique is like taming a wild beast."

Karl smiled and put away the monomolecular wire: "It's not about taming, but about letting it understand—who the real master is."

After the monomolecular line was retracted, characters began to appear on the screen. At the last moment before Karl retracted the monomolecular line, he gave the central control a command to search for the word 'White Noisy Eagle'. To prevent possible language errors, he also used multiple languages ​​to extract keywords.

Then, with a search, a series of related characters popped up in front of him. Carl stared at the waterfall of data pouring down on the screen, his brow furrowing slightly: "Much more than I expected."

David deftly inserted the storage chip into the central control slot, the metal contacts making a soft 'click' sound: "Transfer has started," he glanced at the time, "estimated to be completed in 12 minutes."

“Wait a minute.” Carl pressed his wrist, signaling David to wait a moment. “This amount of data is too huge. The old captain gave us a thirty-minute time limit, and the transmission alone will take up nearly half of it.” His fingers slid quickly across the virtual keyboard, bringing up the filtering program. “We need to do a round of simplification first.”

On the screen, the three blue keywords "White Noisy Eagle" flashed among countless files. Karl squinted—there were thousands of related results, ranging from encrypted communications to weapon blueprints, and even a few unrelated restaurant invoices. This was clearly a carefully designed interference strategy, using a massive amount of junk information to build the last line of defense.

“Not bad,” Carl said with a smile, his fingertip tracing a pale blue path on the screen. “Let’s see who’s playing hide-and-seek.” He brought up the deep analysis module, and the data stream unfolded before him like an onion, layer by layer.

Karl's fingers traced a final arc across the holographic keyboard, and the torrent of data abruptly contracted into a dozen or so scarlet entries. When the first piece of information popped up, his pupils contracted slightly—

[Operation Order: White Noisy Eagle]

Operation codename: Badlands Purification

Execution unit: White Noisy Eagle Third Squad

Mission Summary: Cooperate with the White Hawk team to complete the Badlands Invasion, enter the Santo Domingo region to carry out armed purification, clear obstacles for the subsequent entry of company resources, prioritize the elimination of Nottingham Unlio (a pro-New America representative) of the Sixth Street Gang, create a power vacuum in the gang, and ensure that New America does not receive assistance from the Sixth Street Gang during the mission.

Additional intelligence reveals Nottingham's itinerary: he will attend the Pacifico arms trade fair in three days, accompanied by no more than eight bodyguards.

Nottingham-Wenrio?!

Oliver's father—this document actually involves him.

What caught Carl's attention most was the familiar symbol at the end of the document—a symbol of military technology.

"Damn it. Maybe I should thank the old captain for getting this job." Carl unconsciously bit his lower lip. The old-school soldiers of the Sixth Street Gang, led by Nottingham-Wenrio, were still as stubborn as ever, but they were indeed one of the few forces that could be considered to maintain order in Santo Domingo and not be completely subservient to the company. And now this intelligence indicated that even they were going to be eliminated.
David noticed Carl's suddenly tense shoulders: "What's wrong? Did you find out some intelligence—"

As he was talking, he also saw what was displayed on the screen.

"This is!"

(End of this chapter)