Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 17 Forgive me, Auntie, this is the last time.

There was no sound of gunfire.

Some were just agents and staff members clutching their heads and wailing in pain.

Their prosthetic eyes gleamed with a blue light, washed over by data.

Their access warehouse caught fire.

They strained to open their eyes, but could not see their companions.

Their screams could not reach their ears, which were already reverberating.
Because the largest number of security personnel, Agent Arasaka, were gathered in the first floor of the entire base.

So Mercer simply compiled a copy of the virus package from his stored quick crack and sent it out.

This includes multiple puppet viruses such as prosthetic malfunction, prosthetic overheating, synapse melting, sonic shock, and prosthetic eye malfunction.

Thanks to the server's powerful computing capabilities, and also because these unfortunate souls were all connected to the subnet provided by the server.

After their ICE was wiped out by 'Death Wish' at a speed almost imperceptible to humans, the virus package was silently placed directly into their brains.

They were caught off guard, they were helpless, their will was overwhelmed and destroyed by the data, and then the sparks that ignited on their heads turned the contents of their brains into cooked brain matter.

Even the Arasaka Special Agent Captain, who was equipped with military-grade ICE equipment, only lasted for a second before his entire body twisted into a pretzel, screamed, and died in the flames while touching his burning head.

The reason he twisted into a pretzel shape was because, before he died, he tried to activate the Sinwidman to slow down time and find a way to survive.

However, due to a malfunction in the prosthetic body, the incorrectly activated prosthetic body began to move in different directions at different speeds, resulting in the user looking like a twisted rope.

Fortunately, the resilient S.A.W.S. prosthetic body was still intact, preventing him from directly breaking his spine.

The terrifying, hellish scene made even the children, who were no more than fourteen years old, swallow hard and momentarily forget to step out of the elevator.

But then, Mercer appeared beside them.

"Get moving. According to the signal, the airship will arrive in about ten minutes. It seems there is still plenty of time. I will continue to fake a normal signal."

After they land, you wait for my robot to deal with the driver and agents in the vehicle before you go in and take over the floating vehicle.

Hmm. I can still go and talk to our director now to see if she has anything else she'd like to give me.

By the way, you guys can just take off that agent's S.A.W.S. body later. You won't need the other prosthetics, so don't worry about damaging them.

I figured that part of it was already broken, so I took it to do some research and see if I could fix it.
I didn't expect the attack, powered by computing power, to be so strong. Perhaps it's because I included too many puppet programs? I should have included fewer of those when creating the virus package.

Mercer remained calm and composed, his expression as he gazed at the corpses as serene as if he were admiring a campfire.

"Are you alright now that you know, Mercer?" Lucy tried hard not to vomit. The air was filled with a foul stench, a strange smell of burnt smoke mixed with the aroma of meat.

"Hmm? Oh, don't worry, it didn't take much effort. They're all connected to the same subnet. Sending them a virus via a server is as easy as pulling the trigger of a fully automatic weapon. Just press the button, and they're all dead."

Mercer commented, and then said:
"I'm not chatting anymore, see you later. I'm currently busy watching the monitoring and sending out software, trying to find a way to chat with our director, and also trying to extract useful data from Arasaka's server."
These idiots are storing all the data we mine on their servers. I'm trying to figure out how to save it all, package it up, and then see if there's anything interesting.

Besides that, there's a lot of useful information that I need to find a way to take with me. These guys also stored a lot of random stuff on the server.

Lucy could tell that he was now speaking to them entirely instinctively, or rather, through a stream of consciousness, because his brain was too busy to engage in a proper conversation with them.

Multitasking. How exactly does his brain work? Is he really a wandering AI, or was he turned into some kind of strange data consciousness because of that accident?
This kind of thing should only be possible for legendary hacker geniuses like Barthes and Ultraman! Is Mercer a genius on the same level as them?

Lucy followed his instructions while lost in her own thoughts.

Then he discovered that Mercer had thoughtfully marked the route in his prosthetic eye, and even blurred some of the faces of certain agents whose deaths were particularly gruesome.

He really is
Lucy didn't know what to say, but just seeing those mosaics made her feel much more at ease.

In any case, someone who can still take the time to blur out their companion's face at a time like this is someone she can absolutely trust right now.

Mercer was indeed extremely busy at the moment, continuing to confirm that no signals were being transmitted from inside the base while simultaneously accessing the equipment in Ena Tano's top-floor office.

Mercer quickly scanned and located the hidden turrets, automatic alarms, and emergency rescue buttons installed in her room.

Unexpectedly, Ena Tano's office network did not choose to connect directly to the server, but instead connected to another subnet.

Only the surveillance cameras were directly connected, presumably to facilitate protection for her by personnel inside the base.

Furthermore, there were no cameras in Ena Tano's room; only some network signal fluctuations could be detected. This suggests that there were other network-connected devices in her room, possibly as security measures.

Mercer guessed that this subnet belonged to a dedicated security server of Arasaka Corporation in Vancouver, and might also be responsible for communication channels used exclusively by some senior executives.

This prompted Mercer to briefly reflect, and he quickly clarified his course of action.

First, Mercer began programming using a server.

Countless lines of code were flowing rapidly, and the special software he needed was being woven at an extremely fast pace.

First, there's the signal isolation; he must immediately block Ena Tano's ability to transmit messages to the outside world after hacking in.

Then comes signal takeover, where he must immediately take over the communication software in the other party's brain-computer interface after hacking in.

Finally, there is the issue of prosthetic paralysis, which should not cause significant damage to the prosthetic body, and should avoid the inclusion of automatic alarm systems in certain prosthetic bodies.

Hmm, I still need to write a life signal deception program.

This was written for the prosthetic body that detects life signs on her body, to prevent trauma teams from emerging or the program from having an automatic alarm function if problems arise with her vital signs.

He must ensure that he does not trigger any alarm devices connected to this subnet, nor is he allowed to be detected by the AI ​​that may exist on the subnet's servers.

Otherwise, once exposed, his time to escape safely will be reduced.

As Mercer wrote the code, he pondered whether it was worth doing this just for some potential intelligence and resources. But then he thought that even if he did nothing, Ena Tano could wake up at any time.

Since we're installing a prosthetic body on him today, and she might even wake up to sign for it when the airship arrives, she can't possibly not know the exact time the airship will arrive.

And most importantly
You motherfucker, are you trying to scam me?
Although we don't know what kind of trouble she's caused with the prosthetic body, it's impossible for Arasaka to get such a good deal as a free top-tier prosthetic body.

She couldn't possibly be so kind as to transform herself into a hacker version of Adam Hammer for free; she just wanted to do someone a favor.

So, it's time to settle old scores and new grudges!

Once the procedures were complete, Mercer immediately began to act.

The first step was to use computing power to immediately crack the other party's subnet signal using a hacking program.

After connecting, he immediately used Death Wish to pierce through the ICE of the combat robot hidden in the office.

He then used equipment to take over, turning the Arasaka robot into his substitute.

The second step was that Mercer took over all the devices that could be scanned in the house and used the robot's vision to find Ena Tano's bedroom.

As soon as the robot approached the combination lock on the bedroom door, Mercer used the robot's built-in network receiver to hack into the lock at close range and begin cracking it.

In just one second, the automatic door swung open, and inside the huge bedroom, Ena Tano suddenly opened her eyes, only to see a guard robot with red glowing eyes.

"What?" Before she could finish speaking, she was suddenly horrified to find that bright red warning words had appeared in her prosthetic eye.

【ICE】

[ICE outage detected.]

You are currently...

【police】

The text that was almost flooding the screen on the prosthetic eye turned into gibberish before it could even be fully displayed. The entire series of text went from appearing to becoming gibberish in less than a second!
Hacking! It was an extremely powerful hacking attack!
Ena Tano almost instinctively activated the alarm function built into her prosthetic body, and then quickly reached out and slapped the vase on her bedside table.

She slapped the vase away cleanly, sending it flying and shattering it on the ground, but it was all useless. The vase was connected to the base's emergency alarm system; moving the vase would trigger the optical sensor underneath.

But now at the Arasaka base, Mercer is in charge. Her alarm signal enters the monitoring room and then disappears without a trace, because all alarms have been turned off and must be manually restarted in the monitoring room.

Regarding the alarm function in prosthetics
"Oh dear, that was really dangerous. You were just a hair's breadth away from letting the message out."

Mercer's half-body image appeared in her psychic vision, as if he were making a voice call to her. Just seeing Mercer lying in the hacker chair in the image, Ena Tano desperately realized the current situation.

'Impossible, how did you crack the server's AI?'

Then, Ena Tano was horrified to discover that she could no longer even open her mouth to speak. Her whole body was stiff like a vegetable. With her prosthetic body completely locked, it was as if even her brain nerves were being controlled.

"Don't be nervous. The reason you can't speak is because after I took over the brain-computer interface, your biological signals were also interfered with, so you can't precisely control your body."
But it's okay, I can hear your voice—from your head.

Mercer said in a relaxed tone:

"It's amazing that the signals emitted by human consciousness and the brain can be transformed into data."

As a hacker, under deep dives, I was able to take over your brain-computer interface, observe, analyze, and interfere with these brainwaves.
How does your network access silo-like killer protocol directly capture and kill human data in the real world?
Perhaps it involves drilling into your brain-computer interface, forcibly digitizing your consciousness in some form, and then annihilating and plundering it?

Wow, what an amazing program, incredibly ingenious.

Oh, so it seems that similar brainwashing actually utilizes this principle: condensing certain data into invisible signal waves, and then using these signal waves to infiltrate the human brain through a brain-computer interface.
"I'm such a genius! I actually cracked the secret of brainwashing just like that. Hmm, all done!"

Ena Tano could only watch in terror as Mercer logged into the subnet she was connected to using her own identity—the internal network of Arasaka's executives.

Then she immediately began reading the text messages in her email and work log at a speed of three or four pages per second.

Seeing this, she screamed desperately in her mind: 'You are not human! You are a stray AI!'

"Bullshit, I'm a standard human being, the kind of healthy human who can't resist watching a beautiful girl like Mewtwo because of her energetic body!" Mercer has always been very sensitive to this issue.

'Nonsense! No human being can do what you're doing right now. How much time has actually slowed down in your cyberspace?'
50%? 70%? Or 500% or 700%?

This is the difference between humans and AI! No human brain can process and receive so much information in an instant like an AI brain!

"Oh, now that you mention it, I realize why you all seemed a bit slow, taking so long to reply. It seems you were processing too much information at the same time, causing you to lose your sense of time."
Holy crap, I'm awesome.

So it seems I have a high affinity for Sinwidman and synaptic accelerator prosthetics. How long do you think I can overclock the prosthetic system you gave me?

Ena Tano was almost speechless—but it was precisely because of this that she was finally certain that Mercer was indeed a human being. No matter how ridiculous an AI was, it wouldn't feel proud of this; only a human would.

But this only made her more terrified, because she had only ever heard of such a powerful hacker in legends.

Could it be that he was altered by the consciousness of some legendary hacker? Resurrected?

As for the idea that Mercer himself is a genius hacker.
If you have this ability, why didn't you do it earlier?

The hackers assigned here are all typical ordinary geniuses, but Mercer is a genius among geniuses. Such a person cannot be hidden at all during the training in Arasaka!
No, no, no, could he really be a super genius like Barthemos who connected to the internet at the age of four?
That's why he forged the evaluation system and deliberately concealed his identity when he entered the Arasaka training program, all in order to find a suitable time to escape Arasaka.

Damn it, these hackers are all insane. What's wrong with Arasaka? Why can't they just work a regular job and be a superior person?
She couldn’t tell the difference, she really couldn’t tell the difference!
Please, don't kill me! I'll do anything you want!
Since things have come to this, killing one more person won't make any difference. I can help you—no, I can cover your escape to a faraway place!

I'll attribute the losses here to the roving AI, and the blame for the roving AI will fall on the former director.
I can help you install and debug that prosthetic body. I was in charge of overseeing its design and construction. Please, I'm really useful!
The former director was the one who forced you to your deaths. Haven't I always been good to you? I was even trying to help you get into the company.
With such skills, why do this? After you complete the cybernetic modification, you can become Arasaka's most powerful hacker, a hacker version of Adam Hammer!

You know his salary and benefits.

"Noisy!"

Mercer's voice was turned up five times, causing Ena Tano to scream in pain in her mind.

"You idiot, you think I only installed this little bit of software? Do you remember the lie detector chip? Do you remember the thing you stuck in my brain when we first met?"

When you first came in, I cracked the program inside. Guess if you still have that program in your head now?
After saying all that, the only thing I actually said, "Don't kill me," was true. You old woman, you're something else.

Ena Tano fell silent. Then, she watched as Mercer used her privileges to retrieve data from the server. After that, her eyes lit up slightly.

Are you interested in these design drawings?

Where are you from? Military Academy? New America? An independent state? Or internet censorship?
How about this, let's cooperate. As long as I can survive, I'm willing to be a spy. Spare my life, and I'm willing to leave you with enough evidence to kill me.

What information do you need after that? I'll help you, okay?
Just give me a way out afterward!
Look at my resume. In terms of cybernetic body development skills in the hacking field, I can definitely rank in the top three of Arasaka!

You can find out by checking with the military science department, or anywhere else you're from!
What use is a dead person?!
Please, you installed a lie detector on me, so you should know that what I'm saying is true, right?
I can shift the blame to a roving AI, and it can even fake your death.

Mercer was actually quite tempted; to plant a spy in Arasaka, especially one who was a master hacker and prosthetic development expert.
But then I thought, forget it, this woman just wants to live now, even if this was all done by the roving AI, she will definitely be held accountable.

The destruction of the base was no big deal, and losing one set of cybernetic implants was acceptable, but losing a total of seven Relic chips carrying the Soul Killer program was a different story.
She was doomed to die.

However, she did provide Mercer with a valuable idea.

I'll let you be the spy.

Hmm... which one should I choose?

Mercer pondered for a while and then had an idea.

Why can't we let them both share the blame?

So Mercer immediately began searching her contacts for anyone who might be associated with the military or New America. When she couldn't find anyone, she simply decided to blame it on her secretary.

He first found the secretary's room using the same method, and then took over all his procedures using the same approach.

Amid his terrified yet helpless expression, right in front of him, she began to play a game of double-dealing with the two of them on their chat software, forging chat logs.

[Secretary Inoue: Where are you? Something's happened! Our server has been hacked! Those little hackers are taking advantage of the chaos to escape!]

[Tanno Ena: What?! Are you kidding me?! They think they can hack our servers?! Send someone to handle this immediately!]

[Secretary Inoue: No, no, we need to meet first. I suspect someone has already come up. Where are you?]

[Tanno Ena: Useless! I'm in my room, hurry up! Damn it, I have to send this right away.]

Mercer pretended that the network connection had been interrupted, then controlled the security robot in his room to find the gun in Secretary Inoue's room, and took Secretary Inoue upstairs with him.

Ena Tano and Secretary Inoue had already realized what was happening, and at this moment, they were desperately pleading in their brainwaves, but Mercer was completely oblivious to it.

Their consciousness had already been filtered out as garbage data by him. When Secretary Inoue entered the office, Mercer used a robot to personally hold Inoue's hand and aim a pistol at Ena Tano.

"Alright, the data transfer from the subnet is done. There's quite a bit of useful information here. Damn, I need to figure out how to take it all with me."

After Mercer finished speaking, he began to clean up the traces.

Tano Ena suddenly rolled her eyes, and then collapsed weakly onto the bed.

This wasn't even a quick crack; it was simply that Mercer took too much data from her brain-computer interface, overwhelming her.

Mercer was deliberately slowing down the process because he was afraid of damaging her brain and causing the brain-computer interface to malfunction.

After all the data was temporarily uploaded to the server, Mercer breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Ena Tano lying on the bed in her pajamas, looking pitiful from the robot's perspective, and shook his head.

Forgive me, Auntie, this is the last time I'll take advantage of you.

With a thought, Secretary Inoue could only watch helplessly as the robot gripped his hand and pulled the trigger of the pistol, firing again and again.

Mercer felt he had been kind enough to be shot while unconscious; he probably wouldn't feel any pain.

However, watching her corpse convulsing as Secretary Inoue pulled the trigger again and again...
Mercer, anyway, felt that she shouldn't be in pain.

Mercer was kind-hearted and couldn't stand seeing this kind of scene.

So he decisively switched to the main perspective, sending a large amount of junk data directly into Secretary Inoue's head to stun him before having the robot carry him away, while keeping an eye on Lucy and the others' progress.

(End of this chapter)