Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 296 58. Sewer

After walking more than ten meters in the alley, Carl stopped. What appeared in front of him was the street scene at the other end of the alley.

"Not here."

Carl turned his head and said to his companion who was walking behind him: "The camera on the opposite side did not capture the figure of James Reddington."

"So, it is in this alley?"

V looked at the three-story buildings on both sides of the alley, walked back and forth a few steps, and together with Oliver, used his artificial eyes to scan the wall in the dark and shook his head: "There is no convenient point to climb over, and there is no damage to the wall, and there are no marks on it."

“The last place where the footprints stopped was here.”

After checking the surroundings, Oliver stopped in front of a manhole cover in the alley.

“It really is like going down the sewer.”

Jack squatted in front of the manhole cover, looked at it, reached out his hand and applied a little force, using the already damaged concrete floor around the manhole cover to lift the manhole cover a little.

"How's it down there?"

Oliver curiously leaned over and saw a red light in the darkness.

"Trigger mine."

Jack said calmly, "The induction wire is in the middle of the manhole cover. I didn't lift it up completely, so it hasn't been triggered yet."

"Do you want me to fix it?"

Carl pulled out the single-molecule wire, which he could insert through the gap to eliminate the trigger mine.

"No, this trigger mine has no access port. It's the old-fashioned type. It's not connected to the user. Even if it's triggered, the user won't notice it."

Jack said this, took a breath, stretched out his hand, and then the hormones controlled by the synaptic accelerator changed.

It was just a blink of an eye, and when Oliver saw Jack's hand stretched out again, there was only a pile of parts in his hand.

"This old-fashioned landmine has a sensor connected to a trigger. When it senses something, it will trigger the fuse and cause the explosive inside to burn and explode. We just need to remove the thing in this regard."

"Remove the detonator and stop the chain reaction to defuse the bomb?"

V, who knew more about technology, stared at the disassembled detonator in Jack's hand and nodded: "It looks like they only used newer electronic leads on the induction wires. The interior is indeed old-fashioned."

"It's done. I'll go down and help you guys check it out." Jack said this, then lifted the manhole cover and took a look below. After making sure there were no more induction mines in the darkness, he slowly went down the ladder under the manhole cover. A few seconds later, while Oliver, who had sharp ears, heard the sound of footsteps on the ground, Jack's voice came from below:
"Come down. This place has been renovated. The liquid that falls from the manhole cover above will flow into the underground sewer through the drainage pipe halfway. The road beside the sewer is still passable. It seems that the cautious Tiger Claw Gang has already renovated this place."

After hearing their companion's confirmation, the remaining people above also went down one after another. When it was finally Carl's turn to go down, he closed the manhole cover to prevent passers-by from falling down when they couldn't see the road clearly in the dark alley.

Going down the ladder, there was indeed a rough drainage pipe made of iron sheets blocking the ladder at the last part. Carl had to jump to the side in the last two meters and landed on a concrete walkway next to the sewer that was wide enough for people to pass.

When he was up there, he could smell the odor of chemicals mixed with filth coming from the sewer, but it was still bearable. But when he got down there and faced the impact of the odor head-on, Carl felt it was extremely sour and had an indescribable feeling of nausea.

"I should have brought a chip that can control my sense of smell."

"You're not surprised by anything you've seen before. We got used to the smell when we dealt with the scavenger strongholds. You'll get used to this smell if you take a few more breaths."

Oliver didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Compared to the stench of corpses mixed with blood, urine and body fluids in the scavenger base, the smell of the sewer was just a little choking and not enough to make people feel nauseous.

“I’d rather not adapt.”

Carl complained in a low voice, watching Jack walking forward in the corridor that could only accommodate one person. He began to keep quiet and only asked in the communication: "Did you find any trace, Jack?"

Jack turned around. In the darkness of the waterway, his face was reflected by the fluorescent chemical liquid in the waterway next to him, which made him look creepy. But he could see that face moving slowly along with his neck:

"Someone in this aisle must have accidentally touched something flowing in the waterway next to it. There are dots of fluorescent light every few meters along the way, and they are quite clear."

“Is there any fluorescence?”

In the aisle for one person, Carl couldn't see the scenery on Jack's side clearly because of Jack's body blocking his view. After Jack turned around and walked a few steps and his eyes gradually adapted to the darkness, he found that in this sewer aisle, there were indeed some chemical fluorescent lights flashing in the aisle, which were not very noticeable under the chemical fluorescence of the waterway next to it, but were still very clear.

Walking behind Jack, looking at the fluorescent spots every few steps, Carl thought that it was more likely that:
"I feel like this is more like some kind of deliberate guide mark. I visually estimated that the distance of each chemical fluorescent spot is between 2.8 and 3 meters, which is the normal walking distance for a normal adult after taking four steps. The difference of 20 centimeters is also within the error range of dropping chemical fluorescent liquid. Judging from the shoe prints left by the light next to the liquid, the person who dropped the liquid should be about 1.8 meters tall."

"I can understand the first part, but how did you figure out the second part, Karl?"

V was very surprised at Carl's judgment, and Carl honestly stated the reason for his inference:
"It's mostly speculation, actually. This is what I learned from the detective Mewtwo that I downloaded from the relevant website while posing as the bodyguard of Danger Girl. It says that the height of an average person in Night City is about 6.75 times the length of their foot. I saw that this person's shoe print is about 270 millimeters, or 27 centimeters, and 27 times 6.75 is 182.25 centimeters. There may be some data deviation, so he is about meters tall."

“That’s awesome.”

V sighed, "Your part-time job at the detective agency was not in vain. Please lend me your Mewtwo later. I'm interested too. I'm really curious about what kind of person can shoot such a detailed Mewtwo movie."

"I remember one was named John Doyle and the other was named Arthur Baker. I don't know why, but I feel their names are familiar. If you come to me later, I'll put them on the Mewtwo shelf in the room and give them to you then."

While chatting on the commuter, several people walked in the sewer that was lit with green fluorescence, slowly approaching the hidden pharmaceutical factory built by the Tiger Claw Gang in the sewer.

(End of this chapter)