Infinity, progressing from Arasaka

"Get out of here! Get out of the way!"

The dark mass of people, fully armed with riot shields, batons, stun guns, tear gas, and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, were the security guards from Arasaka. The colorful, dimly lit, retreating, noisy, and haphazardly littering crowd were the marchers.

From protests and marches to violent demonstrations and then to escalating conflicts, everything changed in just a few days, leaving only the injured and wailing crowds, some of whom are now unknown where they will be dragged to garbage dumps or end up in decomposition sites for kidney harvesting waste.

Along the streets, the remains of burned shops, broken bricks and rubble scattered everywhere, appearing even more desolate under the drizzling rain.

"Director Russell, thank you for your help with the suppression mission these past few days."

The head of the manufacturing department of the Arasaka Sydney branch, a burly old man, smiled kindly and handed Vera, who had arrived in Australia as a guest support force, a freshly ground Rodolphe coffee.

Although he was the executive head of security at the Sydney branch, strictly speaking, Vera's rank and power were not much less than his.

Vera works for Night City's security department, after all.

There are only three places in the entire Arasaka district that can call their office building Arasaka Tower and their ward a headquarters: Tokyo Global Headquarters, Paris European Headquarters, and Night City North American Headquarters.

Night City, in particular, is known worldwide for its appalling security situation. Apart from Tokyo, Night City's North American headquarters controls and manages the most powerful military force.

After all, it is the forefront of the confrontation with the old rival's military technology. A large number of armed forces and war supplies are scattered in various deserted military camps, bases, naval ports and blockade posts on the west coast. It also has to compete with military technology for the Latin American and South American markets.

"I believe that after this lesson, those scoundrels will quiet down for a while."

"Ah, maybe."

With a smile and a nod, Vivi accepted the other person's friendly gesture and took the coffee offered to her.

Half a year has passed since the freshman entrance ceremony at Arasaka Academy in June. As the head of the Special Assault Team of the Night City Security Department, Vera has been busy with her duties for half a year.

Now, she wields far more real power and armed force than when she first took office.

People have become more numb.

It's becoming more like a corporate dog.

'Working for you, I really can't rest for a moment.' Vera looked up at the clover on the dome.

Over the past six months, her experiences have been quite varied.

First, they retaliated against the Vortex Gang's habit of robbing company transport vehicles.

Next, the Vancouver branch in Canada discovered the secret operation by the military technology team to infiltrate the western Free State. Vera led her team to deliver a heavy blow to the military technology team, taking down a secret transport convoy equipped with armored lizard vehicles.

The Security Department is not the Counterintelligence Department or the Intelligence Department. As a high-ranking commander of the company's military, Vera cannot sit in her office in Night City all the time; fieldwork is the norm.

Vera also experienced assassination attempts.

It's common for people to have their travel routes and data scrutinized, whether by gangs, fringe individuals, middlemen, or companies.

The military technology people seemed to have taken Vera as a thorn in their side. They chatted and laughed with the military technology people at the municipal dinner, and then Vera was attacked by the cyber madman on her way back.

Cyber ​​psychosis, madness, the all-powerful explanation.

Anyway, Vera 'believed' it.

The competition between large companies is no less dangerous than the cutthroat world of those on the fringes of society.

Vera casually dealt with her part-time job in the biotechnology research and development department, making some minor improvements to the formula based on Umbrella's existing iterative products.

For routine work, three contracts were signed for maintaining city security, all in the Pacific Rim region. Vera couldn't manage other areas, so she dispatched several teams to different locations.

There were even more bodyguard-related contracts, and Vera personally went to two of them.

In Bharat, a super-rich man in the South Asian subcontinent is holding a wedding for his daughter, but his business dealings involve organized crime, he has many enemies, and there are also factors of religious conflict.

So they spent a lot of money to order security services from Arasaka. Vera happened to be at the Tokyo headquarters receiving an award at the time. Because of the generous tip, she went there as a high-end combatant and front-line commander to guard the area for a few days.

Secondly, there is Arasaka's own cultural festival, the Aratama-matsuri.

Every time such a festival is held, members of the Arasaka family will appear. In the Night City Ara Soul Festival in 2074, it was Michiko Arasaka who appeared, while Vera, as a senior security personnel, strolled around that luxurious floating palace.

Completed perfectly.

This month, Vera is focusing her attention on the Chilean branch in South America.

Chile is rich in mineral, forest, and aquatic resources, and is world-renowned for its copper production. It is an important source of raw materials for the Arasaka manufacturing sector. Recently, military technology seems to have once again reached out its 'evil hand'.

They supported some local gangs and civilian agents, secretly supplied them with weapons, and incited social discontent, seemingly preparing to give Arasaka a taste of what's what and make a big splash.

The intelligence department noticed and reported the incident. Vera informed them that after discussion with her superiors, they decided not to let the military science succeed. She then mobilized three 100-man squads of the assault force and a part of the heavy armored unit to support the Chilean branch.

Vera was parachuted in to oversee the overall situation.

By decisively eliminating the locals' threat before they could launch a major attack on Arasaka, the local power structure will not be reorganized for at least a few years, unless large corporations in military technology and other fields invest their resources.

Just as things were settling down in Chile and Vera was preparing to return to Night City to rest, trouble broke out in Australia again.

This time, no external forces intervened.

At least Arasaka's intelligence department hasn't found out yet.

When the Arasaka leadership looked around, they saw that the support forces led by Vera in the Pacific Rim had readily available signals. Based on the principle of using them to the fullest extent possible, and the idea that as long as you hold on, you'll be promoted, Vera was transferred to Australia with a single order.

Sydney.

Not every place is a city of night, nor is every place used by large corporations to fund military operations and serve as breeding grounds for testing the latest prosthetic bodies and weapons in combat. Sydney is quite peaceful.

Compared to Night City, it's practically peaceful!

There weren't so many prosthetic bodies and weapons, nor so many messy gangs. They were just spontaneously protesting against the pollution of the environment and water sources in Arasaka's plaza, and that the outsourced work in Arasaka was too poorly paid and the working hours were too long.

It is a protest with very righteous reasons.

Vera is not bloodthirsty. Unless necessary, when facing unarmed crowds, she can simply disperse them to complete her mission.

A broken skin, a fractured bone, swollen eyes... it's not enough to warrant the use of shotguns to suppress them.

The noise outside the window subsided, and Vera silently withdrew her gaze. '...This routine won't work. It's too dirty.'

We must think of a way...

I don't want to be named Arasaka; I want to improve quickly...

Or, you could apply for further studies.

Go back to school or something.

------

Chapter 021 I desperately want to improve

Sydney International Airport.

Buzz buzz buzz buzz——

A loud hissing sounded, the hatch closed, and with a slight tremor, Vera looked out the porthole at the Sydney cityscape gradually moving higher and farther away. Perhaps she had absolutely no interest in this kind of suppression mission, as she wore a blank expression throughout.

"Commander Russell, the intelligence department has already identified the ringleaders of the instigation. Are we just going to leave prematurely like this?"

With combat command lettering on his left arm and right collar wing, and a data cable and hacking terminal mounted on his chest, the Arasaka soldier security team leader stepped forward, handed over the tactical terminal, and spoke uncertainly.

"So hungry you'll eat anything?"

Vera smiled faintly, waved her hand to indicate that she was not interested, "In the end, this is a 'family matter' of the Sydney branch."

"We are the guest troops, the guest troops who came to cover the fallback. It is hateful for us to take the lead."

Australia is extremely rich in resources, a continent known as "sitting on a mining cart" or "riding on the sheep's back." In the Pacific Rim region, it is regarded by Arasaka as an important raw material base, just like Southeast Asia, and is a core interest of Arasaka's manufacturing sector.

Through the airplane window, Vera could see rows of polluted rivers and estuaries, which served as evidence.

Rivers and the sea are littered with garbage and unidentified chemicals. Dozens of kilometers outside Sydney's city center, sprawling mega-scale intelligent factories stretch to the horizon, emitting thick smoke and wastewater, creating a pervasive haze...

Industry is power, heavy industry is military power, and it is the guarantee of money and everything else.

Because of its importance, the upper echelons of Arasaka feared that the labor dispute would escalate and trigger a chain reaction in Australia, so they stationed local troops to monitor their jurisdiction, avoiding any movement to prevent disruption to production and the stock market.

The most suitable option was to transfer troops from outside the region, so Vera, who was on her way back at the time, was conveniently transferred over to use her fierce aura to suppress any dissent.

If there was any sign of it turning into a riot, the Sydney branch would use cannons and machine guns to suppress it.

Now that the storm has passed and the intelligence department has confirmed that no "friendly nations or companies" have been secretly causing trouble, the alert level has been lowered, and the Sydney incident is over.

Vera immediately applied to return to Night City.

Only she knows the real reason. On the one hand, she was indeed considering the interests of her allies. This is not America's home ground. You are a guest. The more arrogant you are, the more inferior they seem.

On the other hand, the remaining finishing work was just too messy.

Even if she were completely open to anything, she would never actively touch that thing.

Let's avoid it if we can.

Call it hypocrisy if you will, but at least she hoped her hands would be a little 'whiter' than those of the other company dogs.

After adjusting the airplane seat, Vera had no further intention of explaining. She dismissed her subordinates, stretched out her body, closed her eyes, and synchronized her thoughts with the central processing unit, bringing up the virtual grid email bar.

-application-

From: Vera Adelheid Russell [Night City]

Recipient: Arakasaka Tokyo Global Headquarters

[Scholarship and internal recommendation for admission to the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo (Arasaka Campus)]

The mind data interface, reflecting the user's face, had a thoughtful orange-red light flickering in Vera's eyes.

My current promotion has reached its limit.

As an outsider, it's rare for her to rise to such a high position at only twenty-one years old, given the numerous advantages she's associated with: "the orphan of a loyal official," "a second-generation direct descendant of a company boss," and "the offspring of an official." Even with all the conventional merits she's accumulated, she'd still need to accumulate several more years of experience before being reassigned.

If she doesn't move up one or two levels, it won't be convenient for her to reveal Umbrella's true virology knowledge and technology!

Vera could clearly feel that her attraction to the spacetime isotope who was the Black Umbrella Director at Umbrella was growing stronger.

Above the illusory and abstract knowledge lies the tangible reality...

If her rank wasn't high enough, she wouldn't be able to get those 'discoveries' to the highest levels of government, and then personally meet with Saburo Arasaka to explain the long-term prospects of immortality for the T and G viruses, thus preventing her from maximizing her own interests.