Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 294 Dispatch
NCX Spaceport is surrounded by the sea on all sides.

The girl, fleeing in panic, dared not look back. Even the pale midday sun felt chilly, and her lungs ached from the extreme pressure.

Can abandoning everything truly grant us the freedom we rightfully deserve and yearn for?

Lucy thought she could disregard everything and get what she wanted as long as she left this land, but... someone had already paid the price for her freedom.

Admittedly, she didn't want to die yet.

But when the flames of the explosion were reflected in her colorful pupils, she admitted that she could no longer convince herself that it would be enough to just leave. She wanted to be selfish like Qiwei and only think about herself, but the direction of the flames was where Suzuki was!

Hatred has already taken root.

Her face was contorted with rage as she gritted her teeth and ran.

Michiko Arasaka, whose name is the same as her father's surname, became yet another reason for Lucy's hatred of the world.

If a security chief who has never mistreated me and is loyal to the mission can fight to the last moment, how can I really be willing to satisfy a father who has no affection for me and an Arasaka dog who is back with malice towards me?
No!

Lucy was nimble; she quickly scaled the wall and crouched down, gazing at the shimmering, fishy-smelling sea below.

Given enough height, even a soft sea can crush a person. The best way to prevent Michiko from succeeding is to live and hand over those secrets to her enemy forces.

There were no pursuers behind her, but Lucy knew time was running out.

what to do? !

Her eyes darted left and right, fear and hatred making her body tremble slightly. Just as she found the narrow path under the high wall and was about to jump down, the sniper rifle's crosshairs were already aimed at the girl's thin back...

call out--

Lucy heard a whooshing sound in her ears, and she witnessed herself being surrounded by bright red drops of blood. In that instant, her body felt incredibly light, as if all its burdens had been lifted...

Even the smartest mind cannot bridge the information gap; Lucy was unaware that Michiko had issued the order to use the Soul Killer.

The sniper looked up and watched the girl fall into the sea like a leaf, while a swarm of dangerous female agents and several hovercars rushed towards the sea…

at this time.

All network equipment in the control tower had crashed. Michiko's forehead was dripping with cold sweat. She ordered the remaining security forces of the dangerous girl to prevent Lin Yue's company from intervening, and also ordered a search of the nearby sea area—

Soul Killer can replicate the memories of the dead and turn them into a program.

At that moment, a phone call from Europe was connecting Michiko, with the words "404" prominently displayed on her profile picture.

A woman's voice came from the channel.

"President Michiko, please hold this place. That child has communicated with AI and has a key that we haven't been able to decipher yet—it involves the Black Wall."

Michiko's hands immediately clenched, and her breathing became rapid.

The term "black wall" not only represents a bulwark of civilization, but also the fundamental reason why internet censorship maintains its superior position. This is because of the formation and operation mechanism of the black wall, and how internet censorship obtains legal status within it, etc.

Clearly, Lucy's mother was extremely persuasive.

“Arasaka only needs these things. At least one less force will suppress us. I think this is what Takeda-san has always wanted. But time is of the essence. Takeda is a pragmatic man. He did not report to you rashly before there was a result.”

"you--"

Michiko raised her hand.

"Since things have come to this, and we've already done it, let's just grit our teeth and continue."

[404] is not a lone hacker. Lucy's mother is an important member of the team. The team is extremely powerful. When DAR noticed Michiko's actions and made a powerful intrusion, it was they who stepped in to prevent the hacker from making further intrusions.

"cold…"

The people with 404 were clearly very interested in Rin, whom Michiko feared. In their view, although the enemy's attack was full of anger, it was not very clever. It was more like a trained hacker using excellent equipment to fight a war of attrition. It had a bit of the shadow of Barthes's Guide to the Internet, but it did not have the soul of its thinking.

In other words, he's not a high-level hacker.

“If we launch several more cyber operations like this, our people can withstand them even if they have to cross districts. You can focus on finding the child.”

Suddenly, Michiko thought of her child.

She frowned, thought for a moment, and then asked softly, "Lucy...it's a beautiful name. Don't you want to say something to your child?"

A soft laugh came from the other end of the line.

"I do have something to say. I want to ask her to be obedient in the future, to do her job well, and not to let her father down. Well, of course, I personally think that my parenting has failed. Her act of betraying Arasaka is irresponsible. She doesn't love her parents, but I love Takeda, and of course I will fully support what he expects."

It seems like not many hackers are in a normal mental state.

Michiko didn't say much on the matter, but she still reminded 404, "You and your people still need to be on your guard. There's only one person involved in DAR's cyber operations, the one I mentioned, Rin. The other hackers are just covering for him."

"That woman's name is Qiwei, an ordinary hacker who abandoned Night City and struggled to even make a name for herself."

Upon hearing that the operation had been carried out by one person, 404's attitude indeed became serious.

Michiko had no reason to lie, but they expressed their incomprehension and disbelief that one person could do such a thing.

Such a massive computational load is probably beyond the capabilities of one person and a server alone. If Rin truly possesses such computational power, then her hacking skills shouldn't be so crude—they seem unaware that Rin once escaped unscathed from the clutches of Arasaka's strongest hacker by relying on the Black Wall…

Of course, Michiko wouldn't tell them these secrets.

She would occasionally glance at the gray sky outside the control tower, praying that Rin was temporarily restrained by 404's countermeasures.

Meanwhile, NCX's urging frequency increased, passengers were stranded, and a violent explosion occurred inside, causing economic losses of tens of thousands of euros every minute. The longer the delay went on, the more disadvantageous it would be for Michiko.

Faster…

……

In the hacker room of DAR in Watson District, Lin Yue slowly sat up from the hacker chair, his expression calm.

The sound of rushing water came from beside her. Qi Wei stretched out her slender arm from the mixture of ice and water. She still liked to soak her body in this liquid. The stinging sensation on her skin made her feel that life was not so numb.

Qi Wei, who was slender and had smooth skin, was covered with glistening water droplets and did not shy away from wearing a bath towel.

"There's an entire hacker team watching them. I've never seen their methods before; they don't seem to be from Night City."

"They're chasing Lucy."

Qiwei spoke these words as if she were describing a stranger.

The incident happened suddenly. If it weren't for news coming from Arasaka, they probably wouldn't have known about this incident at NCX until they heard about it from the news.

The temperature in the room is so low.

Qiwei wrapped herself tightly in a bath towel, keenly sensing that her boss was already angry.

"Where's Suzuki?" Lin Yue's hoarse voice came through.

Qiwei's eyelids twitched, her eyes drifting to the slender cigarette between her fingers, deliberately avoiding the topic of Suzuki—

Lin Yue stared at her with emotionless eyes and repeated the question he had just asked.

"While I was fighting the Polish hacker, you should have found him."

Qiwei swallowed nervously. "It exploded... I heard it was because of an attack."

“Rin, we shouldn’t get involved in this anymore. I’ve known for a long time that Lucy defected from Arasaka. Her hacking skills are exactly like Arasaka’s during her residency. If some secrets aren’t fully revealed, others will naturally come knocking…”

Lin Yue could no longer hear what Qi Wei was saying.

He didn't care at all what secrets Lucy carried about the Arasaka Polish branch; all he knew was that Qiwei hadn't found Suzuki.

His temples throbbed, and he even experienced a slight tinnitus. A moment of bewilderment and confusion made his eyes light up repeatedly as he dialed Suzuki's contact information again and again.

“We’ve already lost Lucy, and you—”

Lin Yue stood up, and Qi Wei's words came to an abrupt halt. The last time she was besieged by two major companies was still fresh in her mind. Was she going to go to the highest-ranking place in Night City to confront the national vice president of Arasaka North America head-on?
However, Rin is indeed capable of doing such a thing.

Qiwei remained silent. She just wanted to know what Lucy was carrying that could attract so much attention from the branch in Europe, even to the point of confronting Rin head-on again.

Last time, Arasaka's losses could only be described as massive. What about this time?

"I have no interest in any secrets Lucy may have. Suzuki cannot die, at least not under my orders."

However, Qiwei, who usually didn't disobey Lin Yue's decisions, stood still this time without moving. She just quietly looked at Lin Yue. "Pira is still receiving treatment, and Rebecca is with him in Westbrook. Are we going to put all of Dogtown on the line?"

However, Lin Yue simply put on his coat and said, "No, I just want Suzuki to live."

Then he said, slowly and deliberately, "Just you and me. No matter where he is, even if he's just a corpse, we must bring him back."

Lin Yue felt a pang of pain in his heart when Suzuki didn't contact him even in such a difficult situation.

This subordinate who had followed him the longest was no longer a cold, hierarchical relationship, but a true partner who had shared life and death with him. Everything in Night City was still vivid in his mind, and Suzuki's words and his powerful replies had now turned into sharp knives.

creak...

Lin Yue's hands clenched tightly, producing a terrifying mechanical friction sound.

Now that her boss had made up his mind, Qiwei had to make plans for what to do next.

How are the two of us supposed to find Suzuki?

Qiwei carefully watched the explosion footage downloaded from the NCX monitoring equipment. The amount of aviation fuel that exploded there was considerable; if anyone was inside, finding even a trace of them would be incredibly lucky…

She wasn't very optimistic about it, but she felt she had to support it.

Because she saw in Suzuki and Lin Yue what she had always wanted to pursue: trust between people.

Qiwei didn't have much contact with Suzuki, but she knew that he would faithfully carry out all of Rin's tasks, never dragging his feet, and was meticulous, highly skilled, and even able to keep the company running when Lin Yue was too busy to pay attention.

When the automatic door opened, Lin Yue stopped in his tracks. Out of his long-standing combat defensive instincts, he instinctively reached behind him, only to see that the dozen or so fully armed soldiers were simply bowing their heads in unison.

These are people trained by Suzuki.

Their purpose in being here... As Lin Yue appeared, one of them raised his head, "Lord Rin, please let us go and rescue Manager Suzuki."

I remembered.

Most of the people in the company were handpicked by Suzuki and are ambitious individuals with no ties to them. They may not be loyal to Rin, but they will absolutely obey Suzuki's orders.

Strange to say.

Unlike Qi Wei, Lin Yue did not show any fear in his eyes at first. Instead, he looked relieved. He did not care whether Suzuki's ability to gather people under his command would affect him. He only knew that there were many more people who cared about his partner.

"Lord Rin! Please let us participate in the rescue!"

Looking at the huge crowd, Lin Yue realized he couldn't bring himself to say what he wanted to say.

It wasn't a feeling of being moved, but rather a kind of despair knowing the outcome.

But right now, he has to give these people, and himself, an explanation…

"Suzuki Takeyoshi might..."

Lin Yue did not explain the result, but he had already noticed that the intense gazes around him had dimmed somewhat.

"But we have to bring him back."

Lin Yue's jaw had already clenched involuntarily, but he still tried to calm himself down. "Arasaka Michiko has to pay the price for such behavior, so I can't guarantee that we will definitely come back safely. We might even be judged as a hostile corporate force that has trespassed into NCX's operating area."

"Think it through and then follow along."

No one spoke; their gesture of affirmation was identical to Suzuki's—they all bowed their heads.

The look of retreat that Qiwei expected did not appear on these people's faces. Instead, they all made way in unison, without saying a word, and followed suit.

When this new company in Night City made its move, every established giant in Night City was watching Watson District closely, until the hovercar took off and hurtled towards the isolated island of Night City—

"President Michiko, DAR has made a move."

Michiko practically growled, ordering the guards to speed up their search of the seaside area and all security teams to be on high alert, establishing a temporary defensive line in the search area.

She would never let the Black Wall's new hope fall into that guy's hands.

It was a small company whose main business was not even clear. If it weren't for Night City, a company of this size might not even be able to withstand a single finger from Arasaka. But even so, Michiko's fear inexplicably overwhelmed her.

"high speed!"

The intelligence expert for the dangerous girl is issuing a warning!

Michiko gritted her teeth, and suddenly remembered her grandfather's words.

Fear is like the wind…

Now that we've decided to take this place back from Lai Xuan, we can't hesitate any longer!

The floating car roared down from the sky, and the woman's eyes held only pure and utter hostility...

……

……

(End of this chapter)