Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 510 Slaughter (Part 2)

"After all this time, I thought Anata really was his lover or something..."

Sasha's holographic image on the channel grimaced, seemingly having missed an opportunity to be a hero.

However, at this moment, Qiwei, who had been silently carrying out her duties in the channel, suddenly said, "If I heard correctly in the subnet... he seemed to have said two names after he came in, Anata and Atana?"

Sasha immediately blushed deeply. After snapping the neck of the enemy in front of her, she nimbly leaped up and pinned the guy to the wall with a side kick. The attacker behind her, who hadn't even pulled the trigger yet, was covered in terrifying arcs of electricity from Sasha's swift deception...

"You're really something..."

Qiwei felt somewhat helpless.

Lucy was joking with Sasha in the channel, "A hacker? But then again... these professionally coerced information swindlers can easily come up with a few names just to survive... Even pets need to be treated. It seems like only pets are truly sincere in this world."

Lucy landed, her single-molecule filament shattering the enemy, and wiped the blood from her cheek. "Except for a few."

In the past, Lucy would never have added that last sentence.

Sasha, observing the disappearing enemy signals on the minimap, exclaimed in admiration of Lucy's tactical skills honed by Arasaka, "Wow! As expected of Arasaka's cold-blooded killer (>^ω^<)!"

However, since Qiwei mentioned the difference between the two names, Lin Yue naturally noticed it as well.

Logically speaking, there's no need to pay attention to this kind of intelligence fraudster. He's just being used as bait to let Lin Yue figure out if the organization behind him is related to 404 or Arasaka... But he's very concerned about what this guy is talking about as a virus. If such a thing really exists, why are there no malicious programs or even fake ones in the entire facility's network information logs?

With Lin Yue's eyesight combined with Ultraman's, he would never miss something like this.

“Ultraman, why do I always feel that this organization doesn’t have enough information? Could it be that the guy is just making things up...? And I couldn’t find the name Atana in the database of the prisoners and those modified piglets. Could a lizard really be able to investigate Arasaka’s secrets?”

After a moment's thought, Otto gave a reassuring answer.

"I will try again to check if the access channel is valid; that so-called 'information fraudster' cannot be allowed to leave—"

Lin Yue muttered the names "Atana" and "Anata" under his breath, his brows furrowed deeply...

Lin Yue recalled every move that guy made in the bar like a movie in his mind: the scars on the guy's body, the fact that Sasha didn't say the guy was lying when Anata was mentioned...

This means...

suddenly!

Listening to the hackers chatting and joking about eliminating their enemies in the channel, Lin Yue seemed to remember something and whispered, "Lucy, go find that guy!"

The hacker team, who had just finished clearing their respective tunnels and were meeting at the corner, suddenly froze. Lucy ran towards the guy's location without looking back.

"What... happened?"

Sasha was a little confused.

Lin Yue sighed, "Searching the offline server, that guy is a hacker... I should have figured it out sooner. The damage to his brain-computer interface is from the cutting of the network access module. I've been wondering why they removed that guy's prosthetic body..."

Everything is clear.

The piglet was telling the truth; this organization is extremely meticulous in its considerations.

Before Lin Yue could speak, Qi Wei immediately said seriously, "Boss, I'll go and clean up all the network traces in the entire facility—I have a feeling this organization might be investigating us."

After saying that, he turned and walked towards the control room without looking back.

Sasha gritted her teeth, a look of panic appearing behind her cat-like glasses. Her external, tightly packed, black, humanoid mecha shell, a stark contrast to her inner self, slammed open the massive steel door in front of her. "I'll go search right now!"

Lin Yue showed no intention of revealing himself in cyberspace at this moment, hovering like a monitor. Every piece of data was filtered by his near-supercomputing brain. As Sasha touched the database, Lin Yue's cybernetic image, which was full of surging data, began to calm down a bit...

"how could this be?"

Upon hearing Sasha's words, Lin Yue and Otto both looked at the data Sasha had submitted.

The contents were truly shocking...

The so-called piglets were not thugs or coerced lackeys at all; they were pigs and sheep waiting to be slaughtered!

The ultimate goal of this facility is to use these individuals for testing, including but not limited to, mental, prosthetic, pharmaceutical, and even brain-computer interface controlled weapons.

Anyone who has seen these things will say, "What the hell is this if not Arasaka?"

However… Lin Yue couldn’t understand how the so-called mastermind controlled this facility. There were no clues about the person Lin Yue had just exposed, either on his person or in his brain. Everything pointed to Arasaka, but there were no concrete clues.

Furthermore, this feeling made Lin Yue wonder when their group's information might be uncovered, at which point V's situation would be extremely passive.

Lin Yue quickly saw Ivanov's file, and when he saw the code name below Ivanov, Lin Yue's expression changed to one of knowing satisfaction...

Ivanov, codenamed Atana…

A once-famous big shot in District D, now lying in the Mama's Bar counting his money, a typical street urchin boss who rose to power.

He's still a veteran hacker...

"Damn it, we've been tricked!"

Qiwei, who rarely swore, was deleting messages with a cold face, while Lucy, who had also been reading the information in the channel, suddenly quickened her pace. It was only natural for someone as meticulous as Qiwei to do the work of cleaning up the records, and Lucy was also prepared to kill that guy.

Lin Yue looked at the three screens, all of which were the first-person perspectives of the team members' actions.

Feeling like he'd overlooked something, he quickly looked at Otto. "Do you think this guy's here to confirm something about one of us? It seems like Arasaka doesn't realize we're from Night City at all. They seem particularly interested in... hackers?"

“Since entering D District, I’ve heard a lot about hackers. They say that Arasaka’s control is too strong, which is why there are no hackers… But you and I both know that’s unrealistic. No company would ignore the enemy and keep focusing on what’s right under its feet.”

"Once I take control of the entire Night City network, the information in the entire network is as vast as the ocean. If I don't actively search for information and access it from the outside, I basically won't know that Night City has gained a few more hackers, right, Otto?"

As he spoke, Ultraman held a nearly transparent data thread in his hand. "Found it."

The offline server that Sasha had just processed and uploaded started up automatically. However, the other party clearly did not take into account that a super-intelligent AI of Ultra's level was acting as a firewall, and there was also a hacker of Lin Yue's level who could tamper with city network areas... So the two of them looked at the end of the thread at the same time.

now.

Lucy had already rushed to the stairwell where prisoners were still rushing out. Upon seeing someone like Lucy, they naturally assumed she was the guardian of the building and, without saying a word, used all their preferred fighting techniques to stop her.

"Damn it, don't you know who saved you?"

Lucy's eyes darkened; she increasingly felt that there was no such thing as kindness being rewarded in this world.

After she knocked out two burly men who rushed forward with a karate chop, they were visibly stunned for a moment. However, someone shouted, "This woman has all sorts of valuables on her," which quickly changed Lucy's mind about letting them go. Their choice to live or die was now entirely up to them.

Lucy drew her monomolecular ray without hesitation, the ruthlessness in her eyes making the few who rushed out realize something was wrong. However, the monomolecular ray didn't give them a chance to speak; almost no one could remain fearless after the monomolecular ray disintegrated the arms and legs of the vanguard.

"屮!"

Listening to the other person's curses.

Lucy's voice wasn't loud, but it was a very forceful shout: "Get out!"

Soon the guys in the passage scattered like birds and beasts. Lucy didn't know whether she had saved someone or killed someone—in any case, her thoughts quickly shifted to the location Qiwei had given her earlier. The guy named Ivanov who she rushed in to was long gone.

Rin also failed to spot Ivanov in the stopped camera feeds...

Lucy, after a brief moment of thought, opened the map and saw the medical section of the facility. She figured that guy probably didn't want to be a lowly piglet who could be bullied anymore, and getting his prosthetic body back might be an option.

Sure enough, when Lucy arrived at the underground research facility a few minutes later, she found that the automated prosthetic assembly line was indeed showing signs of operation.

Lucy stared wide-eyed at Ivanov as he modified the bulletproof glass, and the guy smiled smugly, as if he could accomplish everything just by taking over the brain-computer interface.

No one dared to venture into the dense array of operational devices below. He thought he had Lucy cornered, and besides, the girl's face was being compared to something in his prosthetic eye...

"I knew it was you."

"The child of that guy from Arakasaka..."

Looking at the gloomy Lucy outside the glass, Ivanov knew that after completing the prosthetic implantation, he would enter a facility that Lucy couldn't reach from her current location. He was confident he could escape from here.

"found it."

Lucy spoke calmly as Rin asked if it was difficult. Lucy's eyes were focused on the structures that were operating with high temperatures and immense torsional forces capable of crushing a person into dust. She seemed to see some fixed routes for her to take.

Rin asked, "What do you need me to do?"

Lucy thought for a moment, "There's nothing you need to do. I'll catch this guy... Besides, he's scanning me."

The person on the other end replied with "I understand" and then fell silent.

At this moment, Ivanov was still smiling sinisterly as he watched Lucy retreat little by little. He had once been a top survivor of street law, but in the end, he was turned into a prisoner by these people. Fortunately, he managed to find a piece of information that would allow him to leave this hellish place, District D, by using his previous knowledge.

The girl named Lucy is the key, or rather, she should be called Lucy Takeda.

"Disobedient kid, wait until your uncle tells your parents what kind of shady business you've been doing in District D—"

But before he could finish speaking, he seemed to get stuck.

Lucy, behind the glass, raised her gun and fired a shot at the thick glass.

Ivanov's heart tightened, but he noticed there was only a small white mark on the glass. He immediately felt relieved. That guy had a hacker under his command whose hand was covered with a special prosthetic. If she were there, she might actually be able to break this thing.

However, the calm and obsessive look in Lucy's eyes made Ivanov uneasy.

Second shot!
Lucy fired a second shot at the point where the glass was subjected to force, and clicked her tongue as if she had missed it slightly.

"Hey! No way..."

A third party has arrived unexpectedly!

Lucy seemed to have nothing but the glass blocking her path. The intervals between shots were getting closer and closer, and the bullets bounced wildly throughout the room. One of them even ruffled Lucy's hair. The girl at this moment was completely different from the child who had been hiding cautiously with droopy eyelids in Night City!
While Ivanov was dumbfounded, the continuous gnawing of bullets caused the glass to suddenly begin to blur without warning, revealing dense spiderweb-like cracks.

"What the fuck?!"

Lucy's face was indistinct; she merely gave a cold laugh.

"Don't try to threaten me, and don't try to... threaten him."

In Ivanov's pupils, a girl with silver-white hair suddenly rushed out from behind the shattered glass. He couldn't understand why that young guy could have such a reckless subordinate. Didn't this girl know that her father was the president of Arasaka Takeda?

Oh shit--

At this moment, Ivanov only thought this girl was stupid. The various coupled gears below were enough to crush a person. What was she going to do?
Sure enough, gravity pulled the girl down.

However, a scene that Ivanov never expected unfolded: after falling, the girl landed on a steel rod that moved up and down. With the force of being thrown into the air, her prosthetic hand struck a vulnerable gear with deadly precision. Ivanov, whose limbs had just been severed, hurriedly glanced at the program interface; his prosthetic limbs still had some time to spare—

"Don't!"

The moment the gear was destroyed, Ivanov froze in place, like a piece of synthetic meat in a whole food factory, offering no resistance.

Lucy moved as lightly as a butterfly, stepping onto a platform. In Ivanov's eyes, the monomolecular line had already become a deadly scythe.

"Do not kill me!"

Lucy, who descended from the sky, had an extreme madness in her eyes, and the smile on her lips was chilling. Her hair was blown by the hot wind, revealing her neat sideburns, and the colorful light in her eyes almost made Ivanov faint.

Lucy's monomolecule slashed violently at the fixed structures surrounding Ivanov, and with one foot planted on his chest, Lucy looked down at him, saying, "How could I kill you? You heartless piece of trash, you lizard..."

Lucy looked at the strange creature next to Ivanov, whose neck was spread open and surrounded by umbrella-shaped fleshy flaps due to intimidation, with a look of disgust. "Come with me, trash. If you can't explain that so-called virus and Arasaka's contact... you'll rot in a puddle with your lizard. Believe me... that guy's kindness and patience only lasts once. Pray that you'll fall into my hands, okay?"

Ivanov was so startled that he immediately fainted.

Lucy looked up as if she were looking at someone watching her from afar, and a smile appeared on her face. At this moment, Lin Yue, who was looking at Lucy, also seemed to be seeing this girl for the first time.

"This is the real you, Lucy."

Lin Yue muttered something to himself, then looked at Ultraman—

"The data lock on the other end isn't Arakawa's person; it's just another node."

Odette's head.

"Then..."

"Is the cleanup complete?"

……

……

(End of this chapter)