Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 672, Section 86: The Mysterious Hacker
"This is almost ten minutes less than the agreed time."

When he saw the lights in the house come back on, Carl only frowned slightly.

The mission encountered unexpected changes and the timeline was brought forward—this was not common, but it wasn't unusual either. In their line of work, it would be abnormal if they never encountered any surprises. Karl didn't pay much attention and quickly began to devise a solution.

The chip's transmission progress bar was still slowly climbing. Karl glanced at the time—the remaining safety window was only enough to complete 83% of the transmission.

not enough time.

"Karl, I see the lights are back on. Are you all done over there?"

The old captain, who was sitting in the car providing backup in the distance, had obviously noticed the house lights coming back on. His voice rang out in the temporary team channel, his tone not showing much panic: "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"No need, just wait patiently."

Carl calmly replied, "We're professionals. Since you've hired us, just sit back and watch. Although being almost ten minutes early isn't part of the contract, I can accept this small margin of error."

As Carl said this, David stared at him in surprise.

Is a ten-minute margin of error acceptable?

You know, this job was supposed to only last thirty minutes, and David already felt very nervous about that time, especially now that the target had finished his business with his mistress early, which meant that a third of the mission time was suddenly reduced. If David and Mann had encountered this situation, they would have definitely cursed. But Carl just calmly said that it was acceptable.
Before David could even ask for a solution, Carl had already taken action.

David only saw Carl raise his phone—the screen, which was originally displaying the time, suddenly flashed and switched to the surveillance footage.

'This scene is...'

"As expected."

Carl glanced at the screen and said, "On the way here, I hacked into the surrounding local area network and found that in addition to the necessary cameras inside the house," he zoomed in on a red dot on the screen, "there's also a surveillance camera hidden in the green belt. It seems our target is more cautious than we anticipated."

In the footage, the owner of the car that Carl and David were in was walking towards a room on the second floor. Accompanied by his mistress, he turned on the computer in that room and watched the surveillance footage on the computer. The footage on the computer was of a hidden camera in the bushes next to the car, pointing directly at the vehicle. Obviously, after the target finished being intimate with his mistress, he went to review the surveillance footage of the time of the intimacy and the present before leaving the house out of vigilance.

Karl saw all of this, and under his control, the replay footage that appeared in the target's view naturally showed no abnormalities.

David visibly relaxed as he watched the target on the monitor, then moved closer to his mistress and began to gently nibble at her. Just as he was about to say something, he noticed that Carl had already removed the storage chip.

"The target is expected to walk out the door in three minutes. Well, there is plenty of time."

Carl tossed the storage chip to David, then looked at his still-transferring phone, intending to chat with David a bit more, when he suddenly saw the information on his phone flash, followed by a series of data appearing in his field of vision.

This unexpected turn of events surprised Carl.

'Could there be a firewall I haven't noticed? This is too well hidden. Is it a special protection that only triggers on the second copy?' Just as Carl was wondering if he had triggered the special protection mechanism because he wanted to make an extra copy, he saw the screen on his phone flash a few times, and then a symbol appeared.

David, who was standing next to him, noticed that the screen on Carl's phone was flashing. However, because Carl's expression did not change, he did not know that something had changed. Looking at the symbol, he simply thought it was something like Carl's screensaver. But when Carl saw the symbol, his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

This symbol might be incomprehensible to a layperson, but to Carl, it appears ordinary, resembling the character "L," yet it serves as a communication signal. Its meaning within the industry is...
"Let's talk later."

Let's talk later.

"It seems the 'backdoor' in the firewall isn't a built-in feature of the system."

Like him, some people have planted "bait" in this security system—the message will automatically pop up when a specific keyword is triggered.

Cross-border online communication requires extremely high technical skills, yet the other party dared to leave such obvious traces, which can only mean one thing: that guy was certain that as long as Karl triggered the conditions, he would definitely be able to establish contact.

That would be interesting.

There are only two types of people who can insert their own agendas into the official firewall:

One type is a "thief" like him—who's after the intelligence documents;

Secondly, the firewall's creator himself.

Two sides that should have been sworn enemies have now found themselves in an absurd intersection: a programmer trusted by the authorities enough to have access to classified documents has hidden a communication channel in the system that even his superiors may not know about. His purpose is clearly to contact thieves, and judging from his intention, he wants to conduct covert communication without the knowledge of his superiors.
Carl silently put his phone away, without telling David and the old captain the contents of the message.

This wasn't about protecting David or the old captain—although a mysterious hacker was indeed a threat to them—but Carl remained silent because the message was clearly intended for someone like him who was trying to copy the file, which was beyond the scope of the mission and there was no need to say anything more.

After a minor hiccup, the rest of the mission went smoothly. After the old captain retrieved the storage chip that David had thrown from him, the three of them had a quick dinner and then called it a day.

This was the end for David and the old captain, but for Carl, the troubles this incident had brought about were just beginning.

There are two things.

First, I need to go back and talk to Oliver about it. And the second thing is…
As Carl strolled down the street, he looked at the new messages on his phone.

"Please let me find a place where I can communicate remotely, Mr. KK."

Mr. KK
Carl glanced to the side and, sure enough, there was a surveillance camera pointed at him.

He seems to be a rather skilled hacker. I just wonder where he is. If he's in Night City, he probably wouldn't need to go through all this trouble.
(End of this chapter)