Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 104 Controlling the Sea God
Apart from Agent Brest, who was completely baffled, no one else knew that Mercer had decided to take action.

He didn't intend to seek any support, nor did he need anyone to offer him advice. In his view, the entire operation to wipe out the Voodoo Gang was merely a test plan to put his weapons and equipment to practical use.

It wasn't that Mercer was arrogant—but rather that the overall strength of the Fire Seed Squad had indeed brought them almost an overwhelming advantage over ordinary gangs.

The Voodoo Gang's ordinary thugs usually consist of only 2-3 ruthless individuals equipped with operating systems; the vast majority of the rest are armed with street junk.

As for the core strength of the Voodoo Gang, namely the group of hackers, they posed no threat to Mercer.

As long as the plan wasn't leaked beforehand and the Voodoo Gang didn't set up an ambush, Mercer had no idea how the Voodoo Gang would survive his surprise attack.

He planned to take action directly at the time, and then notify the Sliding People from Dogtown to bring their men over. The main purpose was to have them take over the scene, and Mercer also needed them to move the Voodoo Gang's Poseidon server to Dogtown.

So Mercer selected one of the many action plans he had prepared that very night, and after a brief meeting to discuss and ensure that everyone understood the details of the mission, he left Dogtown at 3:30 a.m.

Their objective was clear: to take advantage of the darkness and the time of 4 a.m. to discreetly infiltrate the location of the Voodoo Gang and carry out a covert massacre.

When a modified Emperor armored vehicle and a van painted entirely in black drove into the Voodoo Gang's neighborhood, it was only 3:50 a.m.

Inside the van parked by the roadside, V and Rebecca, clad in their armor, watched Mercer examine his octopus arm, and hesitated to speak.

"If you ask me, you don't need to come in person. It's too dangerous. With Lucy, Qiwei, and Sasha, we don't need you to come to the scene."

V spoke with a frown.

Mercer sighed, looked up, and said, "For the past six months, I've been staying home every day, and you've been nagging me to get some exercise. Now that I'm out, you're nagging me about how dangerous it is."

"I told you to exercise! Don't try to twist my words," V said irritably.

Rebecca stretched out her enormous metal hand and confidently pounded her chest, making a loud clanging sound on the armor: "Just have Mercer hide behind me then."

"Uh, does that mean I have to squat like this the whole time?"

Mercer's words made Rebecca put on her helmet with a displeased expression. The shoulder cannon popped out and drew a circle around his lower body: "If I break your calves, you shouldn't have to squat anymore, right?"

"Anyway!" V clapped his hands together, "Just stay in the back and provide technical support. Don't bother us. We've all developed a good working relationship lately, and you might just cause trouble if you come in."

Mercer chuckled and tapped her helmet with his octopus arm: "I'm the boss!"

“That won’t work either.” V’s firm stance left Mercer with no choice but to back down, saying, “Fine, then I’ll follow you guys and do the hacking work, is that alright?”

“You and Sasha can stay together. We’re a professional team now, and we’ll follow the procedures.” After saying that, V excitedly slung his katana behind his back, holstered his pistol in his thigh holster, and then picked up his submachine gun.

She placed the magazines and grenades on the straps of her armor, and V stretched her body, the V-shaped visor on her helmet lighting up red.

"Ready? Let's get started!" she said impatiently.

Rebecca also activated her helmet—she really loves colorful designs. At this moment, her originally pure black armor had been painted in pink and green 'Rebecca colors,' and she even drew a cartoonish face on her shoulder cannon.

Mercer picked up his Zoro shotgun, took off his jacket to reveal the heat dissipation part of his prosthetic body, and then put on a black helmet.

The helmet's design resembles an alien head, with only cold black metal visible from the front and several small camera holes, while a section protrudes diagonally upwards from the back of the head.

(Attached image; it can only be viewed on a mobile phone, but the structure is similar.)
This helmet is the electronically enhanced helmet that Mercer personally designed for himself.

The helmet's built-in signal booster allows it to more accurately capture weak electronic signals, as well as enhance signal and data transmission capabilities.

In theory, once worn, this helmet can greatly enhance Mercer's ability to detect electronic signals, automatically connect to his network access bay, strengthen his ICE's anti-interference capabilities, and reduce electronic signal interference.

Furthermore, multiple cameras provide him with a 360-degree field of view, integrating thermal imaging, night vision, and a built-in professional electronic countermeasures unit, and are also anti-flash and shockproof.

The nano-metal coating also provides excellent cushioning and bulletproof properties.

It can be said that this small helmet cost a staggering 27 euros to make – and this helmet was originally developed for Mercer's personal armor.

However, because Mercer has very high requirements for his armor and has new ideas and creative concepts every day that lead to constant rework, the armor has been delayed and has not yet been built. So he can only build a helmet first to test various functions.

Rebecca and V had mixed opinions about Mercer's new look.

"Cool~ But why didn't you add some LED strips? It's all dark, it's not quite right." That was Rebecca's comment.

"Uh, to be honest, with that helmet on and those weird octopus arms, doesn't it look a bit too cyborg? Like a weird robot." That was V's comment.

Mercer merely snorted, put on his bulletproof vest, and after confirming that his magazines, grenades, and other equipment were properly in place, he stood up and said, "Just be jealous. When my complete form comes out, don't drool with envy!"

V disdainfully raised his submachine gun, pushed open the van door without a word, and jumped out.

By this time, Mann, Jack, and the others, fully armed, had been waiting by the car for quite some time.

Qiwei's cigarette glowed in the still-dark night: "The situation has been checked. The lookouts outside have been taken care of, and Sasha is opening the door."

"Let's go!" V excitedly stretched his body and got out of the car.

Mercer and his companions were not heading to the building occupied by the Voodoo Gang, but to a seemingly ordinary church.

The church is located on the side of a street in Taiping, with its doors closed, graffiti from the Voodoo Gang on the walls, and a red neon cross on the top of the building.

There weren't many people on the streets at four in the morning, but there were still a few poor people who had been left on the streets, staring in disbelief at the actions of this professional team.

As V and Rebecca got out of the car one after the other, Mercer followed suit.

Inside the van, an unmanned dog and an unmanned spider that looked similar to the 'flat-top' creature from the game followed Mercer out of the van.

In addition, Mercer also casually used his octopus arm to carry a large black briefcase—which contained many of his strange little inventions.

Pila didn't go inside. Instead, she opened the van window and gave Mercer and the others a thumbs-up: "Let's get this over with quickly. I found a Chinese restaurant online that offers a limited number of xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) before 8:30 every morning."

Lucy simply nodded to Mercer from the passenger seat, then put on a pair of goggles and connected to her laptop—she wouldn't go inside; she would stay in the car and remotely control the unmanned equipment via the laptop.

Mercer gave her and Pila a thumbs up: "No problem. Be careful too. If the Voodoo Gang comes, you should leave first and wait for us to come out and meet you."

For this mission, Mercer did not intend for everyone to go in; instead, he planned to leave at least half of his men outside in case of reinforcements from the Voodoo Gang.

Qiwei nodded and stayed outside with Mann and Dorio, and Pila and Lucy.

Mercer, along with Jack, V, and Rebecca, walked together to the tightly closed doors of the church.

At this moment, Sasha was leaning against the door with a relaxed expression, blowing bubble gum: "The door is open. These guys don't even have an electronic lock on the church door. Fortunately, the lock pick that Pila developed works well."

But I'm not sure if there are any other smart security measures inside, so I'll leave the task of opening the door to you.

"Leave it to me." As Mercer finished speaking, a faint red light appeared on the visor of his helmet, revealing the network signal through the wall.

The heat sink behind him hummed for a second, then he nodded and said, "Safe, open the door."

Without saying a word, V pushed open the door, revealing a relatively clean interior.

At this moment, the church was quiet, with only the red cross on the wall and a few lights shining. In the far distance, there was a large cross illuminated by warm yellow light. Apart from that, there were only a few rows of benches for prayer.

"This is the Voodoo Gang's secret base?" V looked around, a disdainful expression on his face. "It doesn't look like much. There isn't even a security guard."

"That's because the real defenses are inside. This place is just a prayer room, a Haitian church."

Mercer said this, and then led the team directly into the building, closing the door to block the view from the outside.

He wasn't sure if the homeless people outside had any Voodoo Gang informants, but he wasn't one to kill indiscriminately, so to avoid trouble, he had to finish quickly.

Jack looked around and exclaimed in amazement, "Compared to the church in the Haywood district, this place is quite clean and spacious."

Rebecca, clutching her new shotgun 'Peacekeeper,' looked around anxiously: "If we burn this place down, won't those Haitians come after us and fight us to the death?"

“Don’t worry, we still have a long way to go to get to the Voodoo Gang’s hideout,” Mercer said as he walked to the side door next to the church pulpit.

When he reached the side, he stretched out his hand, signaling everyone to quiet down.

Mercer's helmet visor flashed, and then he made a tactical hand signal.

[Mercer: Switching to silent mode now. There's someone inside, but they seem to be sleeping and haven't heard a thing.]

[Rebecca: I'll do it!]

Rebecca raised her shotgun, ready to make a dramatic entrance.

[Mercer: Send V. She's quick. Be quiet and don't make a scene. The Poseidon server is located here. What if they go all out and burn it down? And don't spout nonsense later, especially don't damage my server.]

Rebecca could only scoff – Is that your server?
V: Then leave it to me!

V walked to the door, winked at Rebecca, and Rebecca reached out and grabbed the handle of the double door.

All everyone heard was a 'whoosh' sound coming from Rebecca's mecha arms. With tremendous force, she actually managed to tear the wooden door off!
Then, blue flames shot out from behind V. Everyone could only see a wisp of blue light flash by. The next moment, several crisp cracking sounds came from inside.

Mercer peeked out and clicked his tongue twice—the two voodoo gang members who had been sleeping soundly in the chairs behind the door had their heads gone, leaving only splattered flesh and bone fragments.

V shook his fist and rubbed it against the relatively clean wall in disgust.

Everyone turned their heads and saw a downward passage.

The deep staircase was illuminated by candles, while the Voodoo Gang symbol on the wall, glowing with blue light, also provided some illumination.

The dimly lit corridor looked like it led to some medieval dungeon.

[V: Suddenly I realize that the art style of our underground base is actually quite heartwarming.]

Mercer: Lucy, go check with my little spider.

[Lucy: Okay, release it now.]

Mercer lowered the briefcase with his octopus arm and took out a palm-sized, unmanned spider.

After he placed the pure black unmanned robotic spider on the ground and turned it on, a row of red indicator lights lit up on its back. When the indicator lights turned green, it returned to its dark state.

Then, it moved nimbly and quickly climbed up the wall to the ceiling, and then climbed down the stairs.

V couldn't help but marvel.

[V: What kind of cutting-edge technology is this?]

Mercer: The reconnaissance spider robot I developed may be small, but it can scan enemies with thermal imaging and detect electronic signals.

Furthermore, it allows for shared field of view. In the AI's view, targets are highlighted. I've put the footage into the software; you can directly access the footage captured by the spider robot through the AI's view.

The group waited patiently in the corridor after entering through the side door, watching the live drone footage shared by Lucy.

In the footage, the spider robot walks down the corridor and soon discovers several cameras.

After marking it, the spider robot crawled past it from its blind spot.

A few seconds later, Lucy sent a message.

[Lucy: Shall we do it, or shall we?]

Mercer: Come on.

After the conversation ended, the large spider robot with a buzz cut that looked like a crew cut, which was next to Mercer's feet, took a step and climbed inside.

[V: What's this? The previous one was for reconnaissance, what about this one?]

Mercer: This thing has more functions and can be regarded as a reconnaissance robot with hacking capabilities. It is stronger and can move obstacles on its own. Furthermore, its eight mechanical legs are equipped with a variety of tools, and it can even pry open door locks and ventilation ducts on its own.

Most importantly, it can directly capture network signals and establish network connections, helping hackers remotely infiltrate local area network targets. It can also automatically connect to servers or network devices, bypassing ICE (Internet Security) and directly transmit viruses.

[V: That sounds pretty impressive.]

[Mercer: That's true. In Dogtown, similar robots from the military retail for 50 euros, but they don't have scanning or hacking capabilities, and they can't be controlled in real time.]

[V: Uh, so how much is it?]

[Mercer: Forget about it. Anyone who sells this thing before we apply for an algorithm patent is a fool.]

[V: So why not apply for a patent?]

[Mercer: You think patent law protects your profits through legal means? No, it protects them through your legal team and your legal force; both are indispensable.]

As Mercer explained things to V, the two spider robots, one large and one small, continued to climb inside.

The small robot scans for various traps and electronic devices as it walks, while the larger spider robot establishes a signal connection with those electronic devices as it gets closer.

Lucy quickly hacked the ICE software on those devices from her laptop, gained access, and then sent a message to Mercer.

[Lucy: You can go in now, but don't walk faster than the robots.]

At this moment, the small spider robot had passed through a retractable electronic lock iron gate, and a hole suddenly appeared in the wall behind the gate.

Discarded stones were piled up haphazardly on both sides, and behind the wall that had been dug through, there was another corridor extending in the opposite direction.

[Lucy: Laser alarms, smart mines, cameras—they're all old news, but I recommend you use a robot dog to clear the way, just in case. After all, who knows how reliable your little spider's scanning function is?]

Mercer: Must be reliable.

He waved to the others, and Rebecca took the lead and went to be the first one—she had the thickest armor, so she wouldn't be afraid even if a landmine exploded in front of her.

Mercer followed behind her, his helmet visor constantly scanning the surroundings.

The spider robot he developed was indeed very reliable, and it didn't miss anything.

With the spider robots leading the way, the group didn't need to be nervous; they just needed to stay quiet and maintain their formation as they moved forward with peace of mind.

Lucy didn't send a message until the spider robot walked out of the passage into a bright and open area.

[Lucy: Is this the abandoned intercontinental maglev high-speed rail? There are a lot of people, and the environment is complicated. Be careful.]

This voodoo gang turned the subway station into their base. Quite ingenious.

[Mercer: You're in charge of highlighting the target. Prioritize confirming the server location and the number of personnel.]

[Lucy: Okay. Release a few more spiders. I'll have Qiwei and I watch them together.]

Mercer: Understood.

Mercer opened the briefcase and released the remaining scout spiders. The spiders' built-in algorithm could automatically mark targets, but since this was their first time using them in a real-world test, Lucy cautiously called on Qiwei to help with visual observation.

Soon, V saw a string of red dots and a very bright yellow dot on the real-time minimap displayed inside his helmet.

[Lucy: The red target is a regular Voodoo gang member, the yellow one is Bridget, the Voodoo gang's hacker leader, and Neptune, their second-in-command hacker, is also there, which I marked in blue.]

I've highlighted the server in light yellow; you can consider taking action now. Their devices are all connected to Poseidon, so you can't directly hack into those electronic devices with your spider robot—it will be detected.

[Mercer: Received. You can go home now. Keep an eye on the surroundings and tell Slider to get ready to move things and clean up the mess.]

Lucy: Understood.

Then Mercer spread his hands: "Did you hear everything?"

When V heard him speak, she knew it was time for her to show off her skills. She grinned and said, "Aren't you going to test your other things?"

"We just need to test the robot dog's combat capabilities, but the robot dog makes quite a racket when it fights, so we need to prioritize server security."

After Mercer finished speaking, he and Sasha shrank behind the others: "Go in. Sasha and I will hack the electronic devices around you. You just need to take care of the people."

"What about Bridget?" V asked.

After a moment's thought, Mercer laughed and said, "We can spare her life and see if we can squeeze some money out of her. Just knock her out first."

“Okay.” After V finished speaking, he patted Rebecca on the shoulder, smiled and drew his katana: “Use this thing, so he doesn’t smash up the Poseidon server he’s been longing for.”

"Damn, you'd better leave me some room to exert my strength." Rebecca muttered, inserting the shotgun into the holster on her back, taking out the metal bar from her shoulder, and then taking out the axe blade that served as a shield from her left arm, screwing it in with a click.

A huge axe appeared in his hand.

The two exchanged a glance, then immediately quickened their pace and jogged toward the end of the passage.

Jack sighed, clutching his gun as he followed behind: "I guess I'm going to have nothing to do again this time."

Sasha blew a pink bubble with a grin: "Isn't this great? Mercer helped with the hacking this time, so I can take it easy."

Mercer shrugged: "To be honest, I'm starting to miss the old days. Working here now isn't exciting at all."

The three of them ran behind V and Rebecca, chatting and laughing, while Rebecca and V ahead had already begun their own killing contest.

The first to suffer were the three voodoo gang members who were standing guard next to the abandoned maglev train at the exit of the corridor.

The three of them only heard heavy thumping footsteps coming from afar, and the next moment, a white light spewing blue flames flashed by.

They didn't even have time to react—all they could see was a terrifying mech, less than 1.7 meters tall, carrying a giant axe, still on its way at the far end of the corridor, its head already flying off.

Only when their heads spun and hit the ground did they see, through their remaining death perspective, a blurry afterimage of a white mech, appearing and disappearing in their retinas.

V is already at his peak.

She had already pushed the S'anweistein within her to its limit, but the mech she wore could provide her with even greater speed and power at that limit.

At this moment, she could no longer hear what Rebecca was saying. Everything in the world slowed down dramatically, and the full-coverage helmet even had to activate its ventilation function to provide her with enough oxygen and expel the carbon dioxide she exhaled.

In the slightly chilly underground, her breath even left trails of white steam behind her helmet.

This is because her breathing rate and heart rate are already several times faster than normal, and her body temperature is even rising at a very rapid rate.

Her muscles, enhanced by the built-in nanosuit, swelled up, revealing very defined muscle lines. All of this allowed her to reach the pinnacle of her speed to date.

It was too fast—so fast that Mercer didn't even have time to hack into the electronic devices around her.

She stepped on a smart landmine, but after the landmine exploded, her figure had already passed through the blast radius!
In her desperation to avoid a crushing defeat, Rebecca activated the compression propulsion device on her back, charging across the ground like a rhinoceros and smashing right through the obstructing maglev train.

When she rushed to the maglev train, she saw V wreaking havoc in the Voodoo Gang's workshop. The group of weak hackers didn't even realize what was happening.

Then Rebecca suddenly raised her axe, strode forward, and swung it down at a Voodoo gang member who was now completely stunned.

The axe blurred through the air, cleaving the voodoo gang in two.

"Enemy!!" One of the hackers, realizing what was happening, didn't even have time to utter the complete word "enemy attack" before being smashed to pieces by Rebecca, who swept past like the wind.

Yes, smashed—Rebecca simply bumped him with her shoulder as she passed by, and half of his body was instantly shattered, as if he had been hit by a speeding train, flying into the air before landing like a broken doll.

"Whoa!!" Rebecca shouted excitedly.

But when she came to her senses, she saw V sitting in an empty hacker chair, humming a tune and wiping his katana.

At this moment, only the folding turrets that had just triggered the intelligent warning and belatedly peeked out from the ceiling could barely be considered opponents.

But the folding turret had only just peeked out and hadn't even locked on when it froze in mid-air as if it were stuck. A second later, it obediently folded back in.

Mercer, arriving late, stared speechlessly at the bloodied and mangled mess of the Voodoo Gang's server room. Panting, he couldn't help but say, "Slow down!"

V simply chuckled and twirled his sword: "Isn't that slow enough?"

Rebecca, enraged, slammed her axe into the ground: "I told you to leave me two to try!"

“Didn’t we leave two? And you still let them shout out—Mercer said it’s best not to give them a chance to send out a distress signal. If they get blocked later, it’ll be your fault.”

V's eloquent words infuriated Rebecca. If he said to keep two, would he really only keep two?

She turned to look at Mercer and said in a more emphasizing tone, "No way! I want to install Sianwistan too! The Berserk System is only half the speed of Sianwistan, it's far too much of a difference!"

“I’ll upgrade it for you later.” Mercer had barely finished speaking when Rebecca shook her head and said in a spoiled manner, “No! I want Sianwistan! I want Sianwistan!”

Mercer simply extended his octopus arm and tapped her on the forehead, making her helmet clang: "No cheating, cheating won't work."

Rebecca, looking aggrieved, hugged the axe and compromised, "I'll upgrade, but you have to promise that after the upgrade, I won't be this much slower than her anymore!"

"I can only guarantee that I will maximize your physical potential according to your nerve strength and tolerance. At that time, everyone will be using the same operating system. Who is stronger or weaker will depend on your own abilities."

After Mercer finished speaking, Rebecca regained her composure: "That works too! If we all use the same system, I definitely won't be that much worse than her!"

V shook her head smugly: "You'll only know your sister V's true strength once you switch to the same operating system."

"Alright, stop being so smug. Where's Bridget?" Mercer looked around and finally found Bridget on the ground, who had been knocked unconscious by V's punch and was now fast asleep. He then inserted a chip into her head.

Then, Mercer ignored her for the time being, turned around and walked to a group of computer screens against the wall, and looked up at them.

These guys even built a huge server room specifically for the Poseidon server.

Mercer excitedly opened the computer room door, went inside, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"We've hit the jackpot! These guys are using the best stuff. A server room this size would cost at least five million euros if you bought it!"

He excitedly moved between the servers and directly inserted a hacking chip into one of them, thus saving him the trouble of hacking into ICE.

His virus program is something that the built-in protection program can't handle.

Back in the lobby, Mercer shoved aside a hacker who had died in the hacker chair and sat down in it:
"Keep an eye on things for me. I need to get all the important data from the server and transfer it to our base to avoid any accidents during transport."

V waved his hand confidently: "Go ahead and do it."

Sasha then pushed a dead voodoo hacker from the computer desk to the ground, sat down in the chair, and plugged the brain-computer interface into the computer's port: "I'll keep an eye on things for you."

“Okay.” Mercer’s octopus arm grabbed the connection cable from the hacker chair, wiped the port with some disgust, and then directly plugged it into the connection port at the back of his head.

After a flash of vision, I was immediately plunged into cyberspace.

Mercer first obtained server access, then directly enabled the server's network function, connected the local area network to the public network, and then directly called Qimingxing.

In the cyber world, the Morning Star is no longer just an ordinary cat.

She transformed herself into an elegant and beautiful Ragdoll cat, with beautiful blue eyes that were almost identical to Mercer's eyes in cyberspace.

Mercer reached out his hand, and she transformed into a stream of data light, appearing in his arms.

"Hmm, the data code here is so messy." Qi Mingxing's first reaction was to express some dissatisfaction with the server's code.

Then, she shook her head, saying with some disdain, "There's a low-level AI in there. Can I eat it? It's getting in the way."

"Eat up, and while you're at it, help me transfer all the important data. Then let's see what the internet police are trying to get from the Voodoo Gang's Poseidon server."

As Mercer spoke, his eyes, almost shining with blue light along with the morning star in his arms, began searching for data.

The human and the AI ​​work together very well, without needing to communicate in words or language. Their communication is so efficient that they can understand each other perfectly with just a simple piece of data code.

At this moment, Sasha, who was outside observing Mercer, couldn't help but frown, revealing a somewhat helpless expression, and muttered, "What a monster."

She had said she'd keep an eye on things for Mercer and help out, but the data she could see was already running faster than her reaction time, so how could she possibly help?
Ten minutes passed, and just as Rebecca was starting to worry that something might have happened to Mercer, Mercer finally opened his eyes.

"nailed it."

Sasha asked him curiously, "Why did it take so long?"

"These guys dug up a lot of interesting data from the old web, much of it highly encrypted. Even the Voodoo Gang themselves don't understand what some of it is for."

Mercer smiled. "I followed their route and took a look at the old network."

"You went to the old website?!" Sasha's eyes widened slightly. "What were you doing on the old website?"

"Let me see what these guys usually do behind the old network. These guys are pretty crazy, searching for AI all over the old network, drawing road signs for the roaming AI, but other than that, there's nothing else."

Mercer chuckled: "The wandering AI didn't even bother with them. They were probably lucky. Besides, these guys didn't dare to dig up the critical data from the old network. They only dared to mess around with low-risk stuff."

There was a huge pile of messy data; it took me several minutes just to look through it all.

But then he changed the subject, saying, "However, this group of voodoo gang members isn't entirely useless. At least they have a lot of research and understanding of the vulnerabilities of the Black Wall. The fact that they can create a hole in Night City to access the Old Web shows that their technical skills are not bad."

This voodoo gang even has a record of hunting roving AIs; they once killed one and obtained some interesting data.

"Wait, isn't their goal to find wandering AIs to surrender? Why would they be hunting wandering AIs?" V couldn't help but ask.

"Because not every roving AI has the intelligence to communicate, after Bartmos corrupted the old network, some roving AIs became like madmen, simply killing machines, especially some AIs that companies originally used to protect system security."

Those AIs are like crazed watchdogs, usually hiding in the old company data. If you accidentally come into contact with the data, those roving AIs will jump out and bite you relentlessly.

After Mercer finished speaking, he glanced disdainfully at Bridget, who was still unconscious: "What these guys are looking for is a powerful, intelligent AI like Ott Cunningham, capable of influencing the real world and bowing down to them."

However, they weren't entirely without access to powerful, mobile AI. I found some interesting data in the database, and it was precisely this data that wasted my time.

Mercer's expression turned serious: "I suspect that a highly intelligent, mobile AI has already used the Voodoo Gang to do something."

"What do you mean?" Sasha's expression also turned serious. "You mean, some roving AIs have already entered Night City using the Voodoo Gang's network?"

"No, my judgment is that some roving AI used them as a springboard to briefly enter Night City's network and then left, but still retained the springboard in the Voodoo Gang's server."

These data codes formed a program, and after Qimingxing and I cracked it, we can basically confirm that the function of this program is to act as a springboard for some roving AI and a window for it to observe the real world.

After Mercer finished speaking, Sasha frowned: "But you can't be sure if it really left, or rather, you can't be sure if that wandering AI left anything behind in Night City."

Mercer nodded: "Yes."

He sensed something unusual.

He didn't know if these were left by his old acquaintances, but in any case, the traces left by a wandering AI in Night City were worth Mercer's investigation and vigilance.

Sasha sighed, chewing her bubble gum and muttering, "These idiots are always thinking about meeting the roving AI, but they don't even know that the AI ​​uses their servers as a springboard to enter the Night City's network?"

Mercer's gaze fell on Bridget lying on the ground: "We'll have to ask them themselves. Wake her up."

V picked up Bridget, shook her, and seeing that she didn't wake up, looked around, found a cold cup of coffee, and poured it directly on her face.

Bridget opened her eyes somewhat dazedly, but the splitting headache made her gag instinctively—she had a concussion.

"Holy shit." Her first reaction was to curse. After she came to her senses and noticed the people next to her, she covered her head and asked in a panic, "Who are you!?"

"Torch Squad, I guess you know very well who we are."

After Mercer finished speaking, Bridget revealed a somewhat fierce expression, staring intently at him: "You're A? You bastard, whatever you want from sparing my life, you're dreaming!"

"Watch your mouth!" Rebecca punched her in the stomach without hesitation, causing Bridget to gag and bend over.

Mercer simply asked quietly, "I found traces of a wandering AI on your server. Have you met with that AI?"

“What?” Bridget was taken aback, then sneered, “I don’t know.”

“Wrong answer.” Mercer shook his head, then slowly explained, “The chip in your brain has a sensitivity adjustment function, which means I can increase your perception of pain.”

"Kill me! You bastard!" Before Bridget could finish her sentence, Rebecca snapped off one of her fingers without any hesitation.

Even someone as strong-willed as her couldn't help but let out a shrill scream at this moment.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!!" Bridget was covered in sweat from the pain in an instant.

“It’s 130% pain right now. The maximum is 200%.” Mercer said casually, “Why bother? If you answer honestly, I might spare your life.”

"Spare my life?" Bridget sneered through gritted teeth. "You think I'm a child? Fool, kill me or torture me, it's up to you!"

"But for a person, the most painful thing is not death, but wanting to die but not being able to die, and wanting to live but not being able to live."

Bridget scoffed at Mercer's cold words: "Then come on!"

She looked at the scene of corpses scattered around her, and the pain in her heart was far greater than that in her body: "Bastard, now you can try to torture me!"

Rebecca gave Mercer an inquiring look.

Mercer simply stared into her eyes, and after a long while, he sneered, "Fine, then I won't torture you anymore. I'll give you a quick death."

He stood up and gestured for Rebecca to bring Bridget over.

Mercer picked up the data cable from the hacker chair and said calmly, "You and I are both hackers, so I don't need to explain to you beforehand what I'm about to do: the 'Soul Killer Program.' Have you heard of it?"

(End of this chapter)