Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 482 The Loss Plan
Lin Yue, who came from the city with the goal of self-testing, arrived at Watson.

Looking down at the suddenly lower industrial park buildings, Lin Yue nimbly jumped down from one of the buildings. Although the Otto in cyberspace said that he had not been detected by the NCPD, the company, or other information gathering equipment in the city—

But he still wanted to complain: why can't people fly?

Honestly...

In an anime Lin Yue had seen in his previous life, the Maneuver Gear seemed to be able to continuously leap across densely built-up areas like Night City…

Of course, that's just wishful thinking.

Putting aside whether that thing could have such explosive force to quickly penetrate the tightly structured concrete, even if the instantaneous pulling impact could be achieved, it would instantly put enormous pressure on the spine and internal organs…

As Lin Yue turned from the complex buildings of the Watson Industrial Park onto the main road, he saw V leaning against the car.

That black suit, more effective than a gun, made the chances of the Watson District Vortex Gang causing trouble extremely slim. Watching the woman leisurely smoking with one elbow raised in one hand—the scene was simply too beautiful to bear.

"Well, here?"

V stepped aside and opened the car door.

And then this guy joined in…

Lin Yue's mind went blank for a moment before he realized that perhaps in V's mind, meeting someone meant expressing affection through a kiss.

"Hmm, you don't have any smells that I dislike."

V's hair brushed against Lin Yue's face, making this bulletproof face, weathered by the storms of Night City, seem much younger.

Lin Yue looked at the barely suppressed joy on V's face and asked, "Is the work going so smoothly?"

V nodded, "Yes...it went incredibly smoothly. Lai Xuan's activities left those old guys who keep causing trouble in Europe speechless. The action plan, security plan, march route, and so on were all finalized."

"I thought I was going to have to work overtime all night."

Lin Yue detected a hint of relief in her tone.

Speaking of clinginess... V is no less so. She has been spending almost every day with Lin Yue these past few days, and she is happy to go anywhere with him.

A sweet burden?

V's grumpy face syndrome is just too severe; she rarely smiles—but when you see that captivating face...

never mind…

Isn’t that impossible?
"That's good. If you're still in the mood, we can go out for a meal or a drink or something."

V slowly shook his head.

She stared at herself and swallowed, a barely perceptible movement that Lin Yue noticed. This wasn't hard to understand... After all, office workers with high workloads and pressures often have a vengeful craving in this regard.

"How about...we'll have a drink?"

Lin Yue's awareness was excellent, after all, V had helped him find some things... You know, everyone has concerns, and Lin Yue didn't want to ask V for the relevant information she found right away, so he had to take care of V's feelings first.

After all, it's about being in love!
V crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, displaying a rather roguish air, but the kind of roguish woman who would make people willingly submit.

"So cooperative today? Don't you dislike drinking?"

V's smile was sly.

Lin Yue pursed his lips, looking honest and unassuming, "The director is in a good mood, so of course we should have a drink."

V patted his shoulder and chuckled softly, "You're such a hypocrite. You always drink the wine that's spilled on me—"

Lin Yue wasn't the bold type often seen in Westerners, so he instinctively reached out and covered the woman's mouth.

V's eyes widened, her curled eyelashes fluttered, and after a moment of surprise, she immediately realized that the guy was shy. Watching him slip into the car door under her arm, V felt a little relieved...

Who would have thought that this was the famous Night City Rin, the King of the City K?

He was still completely subdued by his girlfriend!

"Here, since you're so cooperative, here's the stuff..."

After getting on the bus, V gave the things to Lin Yue. She wasn't doing anything malicious; since Lin Yue had taken her feelings into consideration, she was naturally happy to reciprocate.

Just as Lin Yue was about to examine the chip, V's tone became slightly serious.

"Of course, the counterintelligence department hasn't yet connected the video content with Mann's experience with the Terrorist SWAT team, so you need to stay calm. The Terrorist SWAT team is the most powerful force in the city... It's not that I'm worried you won't win, but I'm worried that if too much of your ability is exposed—"

Lin Yue nodded and gave V a reassuring smile.

"Dorio has been waiting for Mann's matter for three years, which sounds strange... but I have indeed taken good care of the guys in Mann's team. It's just that after I met that woman, I started to think about whether I could get involved in solving this problem myself."

"With a light heart, we can begin our operations in Europe..."

V smiled. She had no problem with Lin Yue's kindness in considering others; she just expressed her concern.

"Since you know what's good for you, watch and I'll tell you the source of this information and technology as you watch."

Various program boxes began to materialize in Lin Yue's prosthetic eye. Lin Yue was stunned for a moment when he saw the logos on the software boxes.

It's military science again...

When we were investigating the clues about Mann, the experimental version of the spinal prosthetic body Sianweistein from the Military Science Institute was frequently seen. At that time, major companies and the Terrorist Mobile Unit signed an agreement for prosthetic body testing—in other words, any prosthetic body that might cause serious consequences would be used on these lunatics first in order to achieve the purpose of data collection.

Of course, if the prosthetic body can be successfully used, then the Terrorist Mobile Unit will naturally purchase the first batch of versions.

This is also the ultimate reason why the Terrorist Mobile Unit not only has a large number of personnel, but can also easily capture even the most dangerous cyber lunatics...

"A technical cooperation agreement has been signed between the military science unit, the Terrorist Mobile Unit, and major prison facilities in various federal states under the jurisdiction of the new United States..."

Lin Yue's perspective was focused on the project's code name: [Loneliness].

Judging from the parts of speech, code names are usually nouns, so Lin Yue couldn't imagine why an adjective would be used to refer to this plan.

"In 2020, facing an ever-increasing crime rate, starting with Night City, prisons and detention facilities were frequently at full capacity."

A set of data begins to emerge; it's a line chart.

Lin Yue could see with his naked eye that the red line representing the crime rate was flying upwards at the speed of a rocket, taking huge leaps every year!
"Starting in Night City, the city is plagued by crime after gang wars, and it is showing signs of expanding throughout North America."

"This is undoubtedly a heavy pressure and burden on the treasury."

Lin Yue looked at it and pondered.

V looked directly at Lin Yue, "Space, food, management difficulty... In Night City after the most severe Fourth Corporate War, this pressure is unprecedented."

"So the new U.S. Congress, together with businesses across the country, launched a bidding process to analyze the situation and seek solutions."

"At that time, military technology began to focus on research aimed at alleviating the increasingly heavy tax burden—"

"The Loneliness Project".

Lin Yue's gaze darkened.

Before me is a holographic three-dimensional human figure composed of data particles.

"The key to this technology is to force the 'subject' into a pseudo-vegetative state by putting the brain into a state of forced sleep, and to continuously input instructions into the brain using editable memory technology to create the experience of the prisoner being self-aware and under the jurisdiction of the prison."

"This technology evolved from the SuperDream chip technology, so it showed excellent technical performance in its early stages."

"In short, the sentence can be reduced to as short as 24 hours, but the consciousness can be in a state of imprisonment simulation for up to 300 years... which means that hundreds of years of sentences in many states can be easily achieved."

This is too toxic...

Although he was also the head of the company, the person who developed this thing had maximized the profits.

Lin Yue nodded. Although he had already understood the principle behind it, V definitely had more information, so he listened attentively, holding his breath...

"The equipment is inexpensive and can be reused."

"Prisons that used to hold only a few hundred people can now hold up to a thousand prisoners..."

Lin Yue shook his head.

He had never heard of this technology appearing in Night City Prison. Otherwise, it would be almost impossible for those street kids who had practically made prison their home after years of living there to not behave themselves after they got out.

V nodded, seemingly sensing a hint of doubt in Lin Yue's expression.

"This thing once caught the attention of decision-makers."

"But in the end, he was still sidelined."

"The reason for this was that the details of the experiment were captured and leaked by a corporate spy from a small company that was lurking within military technology—that is, a competitor in the bidding process."

"Heavily influenced by Europe, and arguably an organization that monitors North America—the Human Rights Council of the new America—has determined that military-grade isolation technology has a significant negative impact on human rights..."

"Body functions atrophy, consciousness becomes confused, the sentence is only two days in the real world, but the prisoner has to spend twenty long years in consciousness. Many victims will choose to end their own lives on the second day, which is self-destruction at the level of consciousness."

Lin Yue frowned upon hearing this.

How painful must it be to kill yourself in your own mind to choose such an extreme method?

"The technology was eventually abolished."

V sighed, "But when we were cleaning up the network area for you, Arasaka, we discovered the data fortress that the Terrorist Mobile Unit had damaged... It's unbelievable that these people took the most extreme measures to avoid this network crash."

Upon hearing V's words, Lin Yue's first reaction wasn't to care about the Terrorist Mobile Squad's solution, but rather to wonder if this thing had been used on Mann...

"Mann won't be..."

V shook his head.

"That's why I told you not to assume that the technology was used by the Terrorist Mobile Unit beforehand. We also haven't found any evidence in the Data Fortress that the Loneliness Technology can stabilize Cyber ​​Mentality."

"The stress of prosthetic bodies is not only psychological, but also causes physical problems."

"Could imprisonment technology cure the nerve damage caused by prosthetics...?"

Lin Yue pondered for a long time.

"Hard to say."

He thought of a member of a terrorist squad in this world, Melissa.

Those memories flashed through my mind; Melissa had said she would make the cyber madman obediently serve the Terrorist Mobile Squad…

V was somewhat annoyed.

There are some things that need to be said, but judging from Lin Yue's expression... he's probably even more worried.

Lin Yue quickly composed himself. "I checked the data. There's no indication that the test subject list is corrupted—it might not have been used on Mann. You also said that the method the Violent Terrorist Mobile Team uses to cure Cyber ​​Mental Illness is still unknown."

Sometimes, going in both directions is a wonderful thing.

Lin Yue tried his best to alleviate V's guilt and self-blame.

"I'm curious about one thing, V: how did the Terrorist SWAT team manage to protect itself from AI intrusion and network collapse?"

Speaking of this, V quickly pushed his emotions to the back of his mind with his professional knowledge: "The network administrator operation of the Terrorist Mobile Team is not normal human thinking... Ignoring the stability of equipment and disconnection, they threw out the underlying code of the Night City network in an attempt to create a small network."

"He... has succeeded in part. As of now, Arasaka has not yet found specific death data for the Violent Terrorist Mobile Unit."

"However, they are still able to receive emergency calls normally."

Lin Yue rubbed his chin.

The line between madness and genius is very thin.

The cyber hackers of the Terrorist SWAT team are a bunch of lunatics, so it's not surprising that they would do something so audacious.

"It seems we really need to find a way to address this 'Loneliness Project'—V, our difficulty isn't Mann himself, but rather why Mann seems like a completely different person, and whether he can ever return to his former state..."

"Therefore, I am not in a hurry, and I will not take any big actions rashly under these circumstances."

V visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Give me time, and I can investigate further."

Lin Yue smiled and shook his head, "How do we investigate? Go deep into the Terrorist Mobile Unit? Only I can do this... but not now. The network access point will be repaired soon, and I'm not entirely at ease with the parade in Arasaka."

As he spoke, he pointed to the sky.

"Don't forget that a bunch of scum are still drifting around in space!"

V couldn't help but chuckle.

Lin Yue smiled and reached out to fasten V's seatbelt. "Let's go. Don't let anything interfere with having a drink. It's not like I'm going to Europe and never coming back. With this news from you, I roughly know what to do."

V raised both hands and watched as the bright-eyed man in front of her fastened her seatbelt.

So she closed her eyes slightly and touched his hair with her chin.

"All right."

Noticing V's subtle movements, Lin Yue gestured for V to look ahead, saying, "I'm a legendary figure now, don't bump into me!"

V rolled his eyes at this arrogant guy.

How could the First Lone Wolf be so unserious... but she likes it.

As the car started, Lin Yue looked out the window, a place name popping into his mind: Los-padres Prison.

In Dogtown, the Lark, whose mind was unstable and whose strength was failing, was eventually captured by the Terrorist SWAT team and was headed to this prison...

So Lin Yue silently organized the clues in his mind and calculated his recent free time to conduct an in-depth investigation, suppressing his emotions.

"cold?"

Lin Yue heard V calling his name.

He looked at the paper that the woman handed him with one hand, which resembled an invitation and had a holographic, dynamic picture on its surface.

"Lai Xuan said that the float parade was to commemorate Saburo and to keep Saburo's 'loyal subjects' in Europe quiet for the time being."

"This invitation is anonymous. Just come find me when the time comes; there's a seat on the float... Is that alright?"

If I'm busy...

Speaking of the parade, Lin Yue thought of one person: Zhucun.

In the original storyline, Takemura, who was kicked out by Arasaka, did something big at the parade: he kidnapped Hanako Arasaka.

"V, how much do you know about Takemura, Saburo Arasaka's personal bodyguard?"

Lin Yue asked tentatively.

V thought for a moment, "Lai Xuan asked me to look for this person, but the back door of the prosthetic body was locked up, and there was no news for several years. In addition, the warship fired a shot at Ganbi... We don't even know if he is dead or alive."

"Even if you survive, that prosthetic body is like doing weight training every day, it won't be easy."

"In addition, the people in space are open to anyone. Anyone who is currently involved in corruption, damage to interests, or theft of assets will choose to go to the spaceport. They know that Hanako will take them in."

Lin Yue smiled helplessly.

"So, maybe Takemura really did become a space soldier?"

V shrugged. "Who knows?"

"All I know is that we're going to the Dark Matter Club, Rin. Shall we still talk about work?"

Lin Yue scratched his head, turned his head and glanced at the side of the woman's textile skirt, his ears instantly turning red.

……

……

(End of this chapter)