Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 281 Assassination of the King (Part 2) [6.9K]

"Xiao Song, have you reviewed the documents?"

Li De held the steering wheel with one hand, looking relaxed, but this was the standard state of a veteran agent before a mission: serious but not tense.

With his slightly squinted eyes and muscular physique, he looked like a blue-collar worker from NID after get off work. However, the aura of someone carrying the weight of human lives was still evident no matter how much he tried to conceal it.

Li De's intuition told him that after he gave Song Zhaomei the information about the target, she became noticeably silent.

"What... didn't Miles give you a heads-up?"

After a long while, Song Zhaomei finally replied in the voice channel, "Li De, I want to know what Miles told you?"

Question to question.

Li De knew he didn't yet have the authority to access Joint Logistics Command intelligence at any time, but since he'd gotten involved in this mess, Miles wouldn't lie.

"Getting someone out of Night City is too easy."

"Before that, I wanted to ask about a failed operation to plant spies in Night City. All the outposts were wiped out by Arasaka. I heard about it and even contacted an acquaintance to try and find out what was going on in Watson District, but I couldn't get in touch with him after we met once... He was a good soldier."

"I am serious."

Song Zhaomei suddenly realized, "It's that guy from Maine you were talking about, isn't it?"

Li De nodded, easily turned the steering wheel, and drove slowly, following the flow of traffic for the evening commuters.

"Then Miles told me about a top-secret operation involving the company. There's a facility underground in Dogtown, and not many people know about the prototype technology inside. But someone defected to Arasaka before, and that's probably where the Black Wall prototype on that guy came from."

Li De was clearly not one to waste words, and he quickly got to the point.

Song Zhaomei gave a few vague replies, then sighed and said, "Li De, I'm glad you're back at the Joint Logistics Command, but our mission is to find the company team that lost contact—"

Li De, who usually doesn't like to interrupt others, surprisingly didn't let the lark finish speaking.

"I'm asking you, does Arakawa really possess all of our technology? In other words, the guy who could defeat you is now an important member of Arakawa."

Song Zhaomei: "Li De..."

Li De stubbornly continued, "This is the current predicament. Do you think you can avoid it by shrinking back and ignoring it? Fortunately, you're alright. Military technology and the technology of the new America are all relying on you."

Song Zhaomei never expected that the long-awaited meeting would not only be hurtful, but also leave behind lingering grudges.

The young hacker's feelings of guilt eventually turned into a deadly sword.

"You want to ask me how I didn't die at that guy's hands, how I managed to serve the new America while hanging on by a thread?"

Li De hadn't expected the topic to turn out this way.

What he wanted to see was for Xiao Song to tell him, based on their current situation, that without his care, his apprentice had actually not fared well—sometimes resolving misunderstandings wasn't as difficult as it seemed; Li De had raised her like a father within the Joint Logistics Command facilities—

These are topics he doesn't want to face either.

Li De has always been like this: harsh on himself, but excessively generous to his own people.

What was that saying about the lark again...? A selfless personality.

"Xiao Song, you and I both know that what happened a few years ago is not your fault."

Li De agreed to join the Joint Logistics Command not because of this pitiful emotional connection, but because Miles knew how to manipulate him.

"OK... let's not talk about this."

Li De waved his hand, indicating that the topic should end here.

The lark's voice suddenly sounded sickly, "Li De, I'm so afraid that one day I'll forget you, and I'm also afraid that one day I'll still remember you."

Li De pursed his lips. The usually composed veteran agent of the Joint Logistics Department was suddenly overwhelmed by those unpleasant memories from the unification war because of these words.

The burly man, frowning, asked, "Little Song, has your memory loss gotten worse?"

"Do not…"

Song Zhaomei, lying on the hacker chair, had a blank look in her eyes. Li De couldn't see this, but if there were outsiders present, it would be difficult to tell what the "so-called" hacker chair looked like.

First, it's like a giant cage, but instead of being made of highly resistant metal, it's filled with cooling devices as thick as an arm. While Song Zhaomei's upper body retains the faint outline of her New American Black Wall prosthetic body, her lower body is entirely covered in a dense network of pipes, all leading to only one destination—

brain.

Inside the 1,000-square-meter factory, it's hard to tell from the doorway that the machine has a human head in the middle.

“I’m not myself anymore. Sometimes—Li De, I have a dream where I’m sitting on the rooftop of Dogtown, swinging my legs and feeling the breeze. My own hands are warm, and my body is soft… Why has everything changed like this?”

Noticing that Song Zhaomei's tone was becoming increasingly strange, Li De asked in a deep voice, "What's wrong, Xiao Song?!"

Song Zhaomei remained silent for a long time. Suppressing her sobs, she said in a trembling voice, "Li De, I have no body anymore. I'm lying in these dense lines, and I can't even see the stars through the gaps. I don't want to hate anyone, and he wants to live too. I just lost."

"But I miss you so much, really."

Li De gripped the steering wheel tightly, and after a long while, he gritted his teeth and whispered, "Miles has repeatedly assured you that your body, the geniuses in Washington, can maintain it... but at the cost of your memory."

However, Song Zhaomei's answer was unexpected.

“No, Li De, it was I who betrayed the country first. Miles sparing my life is already... a form of forgiveness.”

Looking at the city, Li De suddenly understood what the bird's most important thing was and what it pursued throughout its life.

free.

The lark on the other end suddenly sniffed, "Alright, Li De, you should have arrived in Santo Domingo by now, right?"

Li De suppressed his thoughts for the time being.

He needed to take this opportunity to leave and find a way to go to Washington to see Xiao Song—he didn't understand technology and couldn't help much, but Miles could definitely do something; she was always good at mobilizing resources.

“Okok… let’s all calm down; I didn’t expect you to be able to see me, through what?”

Li De waved his hand slightly, indicating that emotions were of paramount importance at this critical juncture.

He peeked at the security cameras on the city's public facilities along the street and guessed that the Lark had already entered Night City's public network.

The lark, having brought the conversation to a close, quickly resumed the previous topic.

"First of all, no matter what Miles tells you, I only have two objectives: find the team and get that high-ranking officer who defected from Arasaka; the military says that this young man is a smart guy and was the only agent who escaped from the Arasaka cleanup during Night City's 'Face Change Project'."

"I found two signals in Santo Domingo and Watson, uploaded to the network by anonymous users. It looks like a child in a household used an adult's computer to upload two banging sounds."

Voiceprint waves appeared in Li De's prosthetic eye.

Two sounds, almost identical, resembling friction and gentle tapping, rang in my ears one after another.

"I think this is a signal from the military science team."

Li De never doubted the Nightingale's professional competence, but he needed to know why.

"These two voiceprints are inconspicuous in the traffic of the public domain. The key lies in the user's strange behavior - have you ever used social media?"

Li De shook his head.

Social media… He only knew that the Joint Logistics Command liked to arrest hackers who threatened the security of the new U.S. in some encrypted BBS addresses. Does that count as social media?
The lark seemed to be in a much better mood when talking about her expertise.

"I guess so. Anyway, these two mysterious users upload this voiceprint every 30 minutes. The address changes irregularly between Watson and Santo Domingo. What's interesting is that this is a miniature implantable communicator that was phased out by military technology 30 years ago. It seems to have been modified so that it can be connected to a PC or brain-computer interface to complete real-time uploads."

It was complicated and technical, but Li De only got a general idea of ​​what it was about.

"What about the content?"

Seizing key information nodes is a basic skill for intelligence agents.

The lark chuckled softly, "Speaking of which, let's look at these addresses first. I've categorized all the information representing these addresses..."

Li De nodded.

"uh-huh…"

Lark: "Then I got two of these things."

Looking at the dense array of square combinations of numbers and letters in front of him, Li De frowned. "A number matrix, still the basic logic of internet surveillance."

"Not bad, Li De, looks like you've been reminiscing quite a bit, huh?"

"Stop talking nonsense."

The lark deciphered these two sets of data very quickly; they were two strings of still chaotic and disordered numbers, but just pure numbers.

"Next up is cryptography, an old course from the Joint Logistics Command."

"It's as outdated as using a cipher chip with a card slot when AI is roaming in cyberspace."

Two sentences appeared in Li De's righteous eyes.

The king presented him with a crown at the Buddha statue in Watson, causing him to stop in his carriage.

The King is reborn amidst the lightning of Santo Domingo.

Keywords, powerful information retrieval, even the Great Firewall can achieve this.

"Hmm... I searched for Watson, Buddha statue, crown, carriage..."

The lark found the Buddha statue, which seemed to have been erected by the monks from Night City.

Looking at the 360-degree panoramic photos, Li De was at a loss for where to begin. Where was the crown? Where was the carriage?

The lark then said, "The area around the Buddha statue is too spacious, and most of the properties are registered as company properties. Arasaka has a strong presence in this area, so I'm more inclined to—"

“Look! The power plant in Santo Domingo.”

"There are gangs all around the power plant, and the company is unmanaged, so it's still possible to hide someone."

Li De nodded repeatedly.

"Lark, you've already figured these things out? Next time, you can simplify the process."

The lark laughed and said, "I was afraid you'd be bored on the way."

Li De shook his head helplessly. Just then, the power plant, shrouded in night, appeared outside the windshield—like a giant beast lurking in the corner of the city. This facility faces tens of millions of cyberattacks every year—Santo Domingo's power supply is also the most unstable among the major urban areas.

Suddenly snapping out of his daze, Li De slowed down, turned off the headlights, and asked, "Are the messages still being sent?"

The lark replied, "It's being sent... uh, wait!"

Li De shuddered. A pistol was already pressed against his side. It was a weapon modified by New America's technical experts. Li De had never named it; instead, on the day he was betrayed by the Lark, he had engraved a string of words on it:
[Abandoned pawn].

The lark's tone suddenly turned serious, "Watson District has stopped sending messages, oh my god... oh my god, did we bet right? Damn!"

Li De had experienced this feeling of being surrounded by enemies many times. "Hey, calm down, Xiao Song."

"The most urgent task now is to contact these people."

Upon hearing Li De's suggestion, the lark quickly replied, "Yes, yes, yes..."

In the cyber network, addresses extending from the Black Wall infiltrate Night City's public domain as invisible traffic. The powerful brain-computer interface of the Nightingale, combined with a giant external server, allows it to quickly retrieve the information initially extracted from Night City within five minutes.

Li De got out of the car, a gun tucked into his pocket, and dodged the Sixth Street Gang soldiers smoking in the distance. Although he had old acquaintances in this gang, but…

He still intended to carry out the operation alone, even if it was a clandestine mission.

Moreover, Li De was constantly on guard against any unforeseen events that might occur on the Lark's side.

"OK... Let's try a slightly risky approach and use a backup address to divert the data. As long as we don't get caught, we'll end the battle in 60 seconds!"

Li De wanted to stop him—

"The lark!"

However, the lark had already completed the operation.

Since things had come to this, Li De could only count to sixty with his heart pounding, not uttering a sound, his eyes fixed on the power plant across the street.

However, the things we fear most don't always happen. The chief intelligence officer of New America, a veteran agent on the ground, is unlikely to be discovered by Arasaka or ordinary hackers from other companies. Even internet censors with the authority to review netizens would probably find it difficult.

"Li De, don't scare yourself."

The lark handed over the analyzed data to Li De. Whether it was lucky or unlucky, the person Watson was supposed to protect was actually an imposter, and was actually at the power plant in Santo Domingo.

Furthermore, the Nightingale also obtained a way to contact them, and Li De only needed to operate offline to bring the person out of Night City.

The lark thoroughly cleaned up the address, traces, and other evidence it had left behind several times before finally withdrawing from the public domain.

Within the chaotic data fortress of cyberspace, a pair of indifferent eyes watched everything unfold. Her external features indicated she was a woman, and a woman with a beautiful figure at that.

"Rin, I see. You can do what you want to do now."

"The internet police may come at any time. Goodbye."

A data chain rushed forward swiftly in the direction indicated by the entity, locking onto the lark!

……

At that moment, outside an abandoned maintenance room in the power plant, lay a drug addict writhing on the ground in agony. Without hesitation, Li De kicked him unconscious, letting him get a good night's sleep, and then knocked on the door with a strange rhythm.

As the door opened, a tired and terrified face was revealed.

He actually stepped aside without verifying Li De's identity!

This made Li De, who was always on high alert, frown deeply... Are people in the Military Science Department like this now?
"I've had enough, man."

The security guard sat alone on a bench, clutching his head. In the distance, a chubby man, his face unrecognizable from being beaten, leaned against a small bed, emitting faint breaths. "We can't get anything out of him. Taking him away is worse than death."

Lark sighed in the channel, "Looks like he knows about Watson's decoy team too. He's going crazy after all this time without any news."

Li De thought for a moment, pressed his hand against the muzzle of the gun, and patted him on the shoulder.

"I'll take you away."

"It's almost over. The Arakawa side didn't react in time. We were quick enough."

The security guard's eyes immediately lit up—

A violent cough came from the bedside. Li De took out a can of strong medicine from his coat pocket and, without caring whether it was effective or not, pressed it directly into the guy's mouth.

"It should be fine."

The man, whose eyes were blocked by his swollen face, finally saw the face of the man muttering to himself. Suddenly, he revealed a gum with several missing teeth, which looked strangely eerie.

"New America? Military Science?"

"Cough... There's no escaping it, it's a monster, it... it wants to kill me, and everyone who knows about this."

this matter?
The security guard in the distance clearly lost patience and stood up, cursing, "Damn it, don't listen to his rambling—he just won't say what it is, he deserves to get beaten up."

Li De turned around and patted Xintian's face—

"What is it?"

Nitta kept letting out strange laughter, but just kept shaking his head.

Just as Li De was about to get up and grab Nitta's arm to lead him away, Nitta suddenly said, "When the king's son gets the crown, family ties will cease to exist. To kill one's father for the throne—good, good."

Security personnel were in a panic.

"Holy crap! Dude, you're actually going to believe that?"

Li De ignored the security guards' anxiety, saying, "Tell us in advance what happened inside Arasaka. The company and we will assess your value, which is very beneficial."

Nitta Kazuya stopped talking.

Having given enough time, Li De grabbed Xin Tian's arm and, without a word, slowly passed by the security guard. The security guard tried to follow, but Li De suddenly stopped. "Hey, friend, could you please check if my pistol is by the bedside?"

The security guard, who didn't want to stay there for even a second longer, nodded repeatedly and turned his back to Li De without thinking.

A gun slowly rose, and Nitta's swollen eyes glanced slightly at the dark-skinned man beside him...

"boom!"

Gunshots rang out and people fell.

Strangely, the lark in the channel didn't say anything; only Nitta let out a sneer.

"There aren't many places to leave the city. If the squad is wiped out, just take the target 'King' to the border."

The lark said helplessly, "Li De... I'm not a newbie, you don't need to explain."

Li De's habits.

Providing a reasoned explanation for every action is a habit cultivated by the Joint Logistics Command in its operational summaries.

However, Li De turned his head away.

It wasn't that he wanted to see a wronged ghost, but rather that he wanted to know why Nitta was laughing.

In the quiet room, Nitta's murmurs continued incessantly—

"He's come looking for us..."

Li De shrugged, and the lark on the other end seemed to realize what was happening.

She said anxiously, "Don't, Li De! You're in danger!"

……

Watson District.

With blood dripping from her hands and two or three blood-soaked wounds on her fair face, V casually wiped the blood off her hands with the enemy's suit, lit a cigarette, cursed Rin for corrupting her, and then dialed that bastard's number.

"He's a stubborn mule; you won't get anything out of him."

Rin's expression seemed to indicate that he had expected this.

“He doesn’t need to say anything. The real ‘king’ will only move when he dies. It’s just coercion. I’ve already caught up to the approximate location because of their impatience. It’s in Santo Domingo.”

V nodded.

"Do you need help?"

Rin paused for a moment, then said, "Yes."

V frowned, and had already taken a step forward when the bastard said, "I'd like to invite you to dinner sometime."

The woman pulled a slender cigarette from beneath her dark lipstick, flicking the ash from her fingertips. "You weren't this polite even before we went to bed together—"

The silence on the other end lasted even longer.

V stubbed out the cigarette.

“I agreed, but I didn’t like that woman teaching me how to ask her to repair the relationship, and I don’t want that to happen again next time.”

at this time.

Lin Yue's expression was strange as he listened to the dial tone after the phone call ended.

"That's so clever..."

However, the fact that my girlfriend didn't beat around the bush is quite good; she's been very considerate...

Lin Yue shook his head. The brand-new sniper rifle in his hand was a cat-shaped one, which had already been repaired. As the hovercar slowly descended, Lin Yue disconnected the brain-computer interface from the back of his neck. He had just caught up with the power plant in Santo Domingo and was now on the only road that the 'King's Carriage' could take.

He held the gun in his hands and slowly knelt on the ground.

The fluorescent blue in his field of vision was a distinctive feature of the hungry ghost. Coupled with the fact that it had been gutted, this gun had an extremely long effective range. However, Lin Yue wasn't there to show off his skills; he just wanted to take it out accurately within 500 meters.

Although…

Dogs like Nitta should have died a much more gruesome death.

But Lin Yue knew that avoiding risks to defeat the enemy was what everyone needed most right now, as the country was exhausted and everything needed to be rebuilt. He had to take care of himself.

At least…

Don't make V worry anymore.

On the winding highway, the lack of public lighting made the whole road look like rotten ribs gnawed by hungry wolves. The vehicles destroyed by the gang were still burning, and the NCPD sirens sounded faintly...

He took a deep breath—

hum!
With the faint sound of an engine in his ears, accompanied by the light from his sniper scope, Lin Yue saw through his high-precision sniper scope that the driver's seat of a Night City pickup truck on the highway was empty.

Hackers...

Isn't that obvious?
Lark, your driving skills are pretty good.

Lin Yue patiently maneuvered the car around; his target spot was the moment the back seats swayed sideways at the corner…

One second…

Two seconds…

Lin Yue's hand was pressed tightly against the trigger.

The moment the car turned around, Lin Yue saw the person in the back seat. Although he was far away and the guy looked extremely disheveled, his unusually overweight figure could only belong to Nitta.

Just as the gun was about to send him on his way, a car suddenly rushed from the side. Lin Yue subconsciously turned the sniper scope and his eyes widened instantly.

In the driver's seat of the other car, surprisingly...

Is it Kazuya Nitta? !

Which one to kill?

If you kill the wrong person, can you still catch the other one?

Lin Yue, who was gritting his teeth and wanting to take a gamble, suddenly released the trigger.

Oh shit!

Lin Yue, with a grim expression, grabbed his gun and boarded the hovercar without saying a word.

……

"Li De!"

The lark said rather discontentedly in the channel, "Aren't you afraid that you two will both perish here?"

At this moment, one of the fake Nittas said, "Little Song, you're right. Our mission is to send the target out first, as for..."

"As for me, I believe they haven't reacted yet. We're short-handed, and many lines in Night City have been cut off, so this is the only option."

Song Zhaomei thought for a long time but couldn't refute Li De, so she gave up in a fit of pique.

Both cars were on full throttle, heading towards Taipingzhou. Once they passed through the dense network of elevated highways, they would enter Badlands, where they would be met by people from the New America at the border.

Time seemed to pass very slowly.

The journey of escape felt more like torture.

As the cars drove side by side, Li De glanced at Shinichi Masahiro, who was not moving in the car opposite him, and frowned, still pondering the meaning of what he had said.

Could it be some secret of Arasaka?

"Xiao Song... my intuition tells me that this defector from Arasaka knows some information that can't be found."

Song Zhaomei said irritably, "Yes, yes, yes... so you put your head under the enemy's gun barrel! Who knows if there are snipers watching us!"

Li De shook his head.

"If it's the style of that Black Wall Receptor, we'll be besieged."

"I feel like it's Arakawa who made the move; it's too much like their style."

Just then, Li De suddenly noticed that Xin Tian was tapping on the car window across the street. He was puzzled, but since there was no communication established, he could only ask Bai Ling Niao to inquire.

a minute ago.

Lying in the back seat, Nitta closed his eyes and looked at the increasingly sparse buildings. A glimmer of hope rose in his despairing heart.

Is it...

Is it really possible?

Looking at the decoy disguised as a new American agent beside him, Nitta clenched his fist, his rebellious thoughts becoming even more resolute.

Seemingly remembering something, he quickly reached out to try and send a message through the car's radio, and a call message appeared in his eye.

Nitta's heart skipped a beat. The phone call felt like a death knell, making him afraid to do anything.

Finally, as if possessed, he answered the phone.

On the holographic screen, the young man watched him quietly.

"you…"

Nitta couldn't say anything because his throat felt like it was blocked. Fear made him slide off the back seat, kneel down, and his body began to tremble wildly.

"Got you."

That guy was whispering—

Li De immediately sensed something was wrong. Just as he was about to roll down the car window, before he could even wait for the lark, he heard the sound of wind outside the car and the whooshing of a floating car.

He subconsciously looked up and saw a figure standing with a gun raised next to the open hatch of the airship.

"The lark!"

Li De roared.

However, a bright blue arc quickly appeared on the muzzle of the gun. Xintian, who was pressed against the car window trying to shout, had his head and the hood of the car dented as if they had been smashed down!
Li De was stunned for a moment.

He saw the young man's condescending gaze, and then slowly raised his gun—

"Get out of the way!"

"Li De!"

The lark's cry echoed in my ears...

……

……

(End of this chapter)