Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 707, Section 121: Familiar People
After confirming that the mission's protected target, Rosalind Miles, was safe, everything was easy.

V didn't intend to save the target and then casually rescue the other personnel still fighting the Ghost Hounds. Normally, he wouldn't mind doing a quick rescue as a way to get a good review, but in this situation, with an important target in sight, spending time rescuing people who were already prepared to die would just be wasting the important target's chance of survival.

“Stay close to me, President Miles.”

After officially entering the protection process, V became more polite in addressing Rosalind Miles, a stark contrast to the previous menacing manner with a knife to her neck. Now, V's demeanor was so impeccable that he could easily be a greeter at a bar.

'By doing more work, I've learned a lot, and the results seem to be quite good.'

With that thought in mind, V led Rosalind Miles slowly through the firefight, finding blind spots in the line of sight.

They were like two pauses in a symphony of gunfire, advancing precisely at the intervals between each explosion.

As another rocket exploded two hundred meters away, V, taking advantage of the shockwave, suddenly spoke:
"President Miles, do you have any emergency response teams available?" He deliberately used more formal language. "Twenty-four-hour close protection is not a problem for us, but if you want to attend tomorrow's negotiations with dignity," he paused subtly amidst another burst of machine gun fire, "I'm afraid we'll need more reliable backup forces."

"With your squad's strength, you can't even break through Dogtown's blockade?" Rosalind Miles' voice carried a hint of probing.

"No, that's a different matter. Our job is simply to protect you 24 hours a day. If we don't have your personnel, then protecting you will definitely be our top priority. Things like taking you out of Dogtown at risk, which might involve your 'life safety,' are not within the scope of our job."

V made his words very clear, emphasizing the issue of Rosalind Miles's safety, so that Rosalind Miles would understand that their commission was to protect her 24 hours a day, which did not mean that they would handle everything else.

If they do something for free and get good reviews, they're at most considered excellent mercenaries. But if they take on a commission and then work for free, they're called scumbags.

V used to be a shrewd jerk, but after two years in the city, he's become shrewd. Now, if anyone tries to get him to work just because they're famous, he'll definitely show them how fast and ruthless his blade is.

Of course, there are exceptions to the kind of interesting or fun activities that V is interested in. KK is the one who does the most of the purely interest-based activities in the team, while V basically only does those activities if the pay and the fun are good together.

After understanding from V's words what they had decided on, or rather, what they only intended to do, Rosalind Miles carefully considered her words before saying, "Then I can add to it."

"We still need to find a place to properly discuss our current mission compensation, President Miles."

V interrupted Rosalind Miles, knowing what she wanted to say—in short, to increase their pay and get them to work more—but V had other ideas on the matter.

“Protection and breaking out are two different concepts. We took on the task of protecting you and temporarily clashed with the Ghost Hounds. This does not mean that we really intend to go to war with Hansen. Although it is not that we cannot do it, being able to do it and wanting to do it are two different things. If we want to do something like that, we will have to have a second team vote. Forgive me for speaking frankly, President Miles, but the probability of this vote passing is not high.”

'You only intend to protect them, and don't plan to do anything more that would involve the conflict between New America and the Ghost Dogs, or even the traitors in Washington and the Arasaka personnel tomorrow.'

Rosalind Miles thought to herself, but said aloud, "Democratic voting, I didn't expect your team to be so particular about this." "It's probably much more transparent and democratic than elections in New America. Of course, Carl has a personal veto in this regard, after all, he's the captain and knows a lot about things, we all trust him, but he's never done it."

While speaking, V did not forget the current situation: "Oliver and Jack have completed their diversionary operation outside, creating an opening for us to escape. So, President Miles, the question remains: do you have any trustworthy personnel available to mobilize right now?"

"In this situation, it's hard to say who can be trusted, but there are some."

Rosalind Miles recalled the information her people had gathered about the KK team: "That guy is quite familiar with you guys. He assigned me tasks to KK before, and he also assigned quite a few tasks to your team before."

Upon hearing Rosalind Miles's words, V raised an eyebrow. He seemed to already know who Rosalind Miles was referring to.

There were many people assigning jobs to their team, and middlemen from all over the place were familiar with them, but it seemed that only one person had the ability to get Rosalind Miles's job for them.

Carl did that job all by himself back then.

"Blanca."

V said the name.

Actually, V was the last person in the team to meet Blanca.

In the team, Carl, Oliver, and Jack were the first to take on Blanca's job. According to them, that was the first job they received after forming the team. Later, Blanca even introduced Carl and the others to their first middleman.

Although Faraday, the middleman, was quite an idiot according to Oliver, Blanca did indeed recommend him from a military technology perspective, which he considered useful. There was nothing wrong with that. In addition, as Blanca gradually became more familiar with them, no one paid too much attention to this point.

Not to mention, the team always felt that Blanca had some feelings for Karl, and she often revealed internal military technology information. Apart from Karl, the other members of the team could more or less regard her as someone they knew and could call a friend, and they also knew a lot about her.

It was precisely because of this familiarity that the team knew that Blanca had now joined the faction within military technology that was loyal to the president. And when the president said that the team was very familiar with the person he was assigning the job to, then after all things considered, it could only be Blanca.

"It seems you two have a good relationship. What a pity. If I had known this accident would happen, I should have asked her to entrust you with protecting me on my behalf, instead of having the lark hastily make the entrustment after the accident."

Rosalind Miles spoke, a thoughtful look flashing in her eyes.

Clearly, she had come up with some ideas.

(End of this chapter)