Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 748, page 162: It's KK!

"I've always been quite curious about something."

Carl stood on the edge of the abandoned high-rise in Dogtown, the night wind swirling dust through the rusted steel bars. He bit the end of a chocolate bar, the sweet taste spreading in his mouth, while maintaining his conversation with Kenichi Shiro and Slide on the communicator.

“After deciding to make my move, I spent some time carefully studying Aguilar’s ​​movements and murder record.” Karl bit into the last piece of chocolate and casually stuffed the plastic wrapper into his pocket.

“I discovered at least twelve incidents recorded as Aguilar with subtle contradictions, and these details seem very strange when viewed together.”

“A subtle oddity?” Kenichi Shiro’s voice came through the communicator. In the background, you could hear the faint static of the monitor screen switching. He was checking the movements of the Akechi Squad members. Everyone was resting in their designated areas as ordered. No one was approaching the monitoring room where he and Slide were.

Carl tapped the cracked concrete with the tip of his boot: "The most obvious issue is the time difference. There are three cases that occurred on the East Coast and the West Coast, less than two hours apart, but the straight-line distance between the two places is more than four thousand kilometers. If these cases were indeed committed by the same person..."

Karl paused for a moment: "Either Aguilar can teleport like Superman, or we're facing more than one Aguilar."

“Superman?” Kenichi Shiro’s voice carried a rare hint of mockery. “A superhero from old American comics? It’s rare that you can name something I know.” The blue light from the monitor screen illuminated his face, highlighting the slight upturn of his lips. He gestured for the slider to bring up the database, and his fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard.

“Indeed,” Kenichi Shiro continued, his eyes quickly scanning the case records that popped up on the screen. “If we exclude the absurd possibility that Aguilar can fly, these cases officially certified by the Cuban Group simply don’t match up on the timeline.”

He paused, then turned to the slider, "Show the three cases on the East Coast and the two on the West Coast side by side."

The slider silently operated the system, projecting several case details onto the screen of the device it had moved into the room. Kenichi Shiro crossed his arms, his brow furrowed: "The problem is, all of these cases have been officially confirmed by the Cuban group as being committed by Aguilar, so the point of doubt now is—"

He turned to the communicator: "Do you think this is a fabrication by the Cuban cartel, attributing the credit for other assassins to Aguilar to mythologize his name? Or..."

Kenichi Shiro pondered, "The Cuban group has actually trained an entire 'Aguilar' force. Only those who successfully complete their missions are qualified to be publicly recognized as the real Aguilars?"

“I think both possibilities exist.” Carl picked up another bag of chocolate bars and ate them, his voice slightly muffled. “Some assassins operate under Aguilar’s ​​name. As long as they do a good job and it brings fame to the group, the Cuban crime syndicate readily accepts the name. At the same time, they do have more than one ‘real’ Aguilar working for them—otherwise, how do you explain that Aguilar has never actually died in so many high-risk missions?”

He recalled what he saw: "Look at these records, there were several cases where they claimed to have found Aguilar's body, but soon after, a lively Aguilar would appear and continue to carry out the mission. The most outrageous one was in New Orleans in 2071, where the body of the 'Aguilar' confirmed dead by the coroner was barely cold when a new 'Aguilar' appeared as an execution target just three blocks away."

Kenichi Shiro quickly scanned the information that Karl had memorized after reading it once: "So you think this is a double-edged sword? Allowing imposters to use the name while secretly cultivating multiple legitimate assassins?"

“That’s right.” Karl took a big bite of the chocolate bar. “The Cuban cartel is playing a psychological game, making ‘Aguilar’ an unkillable ghost. Just that name alone is enough to keep the target up at night. We kill one today, and they can bring out another one tomorrow—legends always outlive the killers.”

Carl pulled out his sidearm, the KK, with one hand and inspected it. "Of course," Carl didn't rule it out, clicking the magazine that had slid out of his sleeve and pushing it back into the gun. "Maybe the real Aguilar is a monster-level killer. I've calculated the time windows for those missions—Morgan Blackhand could definitely have completed them easily." He twitched his fingers slightly, wiping the gun with his sleeve, and chuckled. "It's just that I really can't understand how a Cuban crime syndicate could cultivate someone of Morgan Blackhand's caliber." The gun made a reassuring mechanical click as the inspection was completed. "You know, if Morgan Blackhand and Adam Hammer were really that easy to cultivate, there wouldn't have been so few of them over the years."

The slider then gave Kenichi Shiro a signal, which Kenichi Shiro understood. He activated the pre-prepared channel and displayed Aguilar's movement trajectory on the monitor screen:

"If there really were assassins of this caliber, then Cuban criminal groups could have already changed their ways and started legitimate security businesses. If they could easily create a Morgan Black Hand, then even Arasaka, whose main business is security, wouldn't be able to compete with them."

“That’s the most interesting part.” Carl put his pistol back in its holster, finished a bag of chocolate bars, clapped his hands, and brushed the crumbs off his fingers. “We’ll soon find out whether they have the ability but don’t, or they lack the ability but still make a name for themselves.”

"Route confirmed, KK. He has arrived at the location, communication is secured, and we have successfully lured him in. Next, we will cut off all his external communication channels."

The slider's voice rang in Carl's ears, and Carl smiled slightly: "Thanks, slider. You really are reliable. You deserve to be called a professional hacker."

reliable?

When suddenly praised like this, especially by KK, the slider inexplicably had a strange feeling.

KK's way of speaking is really quite polite and makes people feel comfortable.

At the same time as communicating with the slider, Carl took a step forward, his body naturally leaning forward. Without hesitation or a running start, he moved as calmly as if he were simply stepping over a threshold. Then, he spread his arms and fell from the high-rise building.

The building where Carl was located had twelve floors and a height of thirty-six meters. Carl fell from the rooftop, and it took him about three seconds to hit the ground.

The wind howled in his ears, billowing his clothes like a flag. The feeling of weightlessness made his blood boil in his veins. The world magnified rapidly before his eyes. As his body was dragged downward by gravity, Karl could already see the cars passing by below the tall building he was waiting for.

It was a black sedan—Aguilar, looking at the view on the roof through the vehicle's onboard system behind the bulletproof glass, was filled with astonishment.

With just one glance, Aguilar recognized who the figure appearing high in the sky was.

It's KK!

(End of this chapter)