Cyberpunk: Starting in 2071

Chapter 32 The Down-on-His-Luck V
Q: How can I get V's contact information?

A: There's absolutely no need to do that.

ha.
This idiot who dares to use sunglasses and insert any kind of chip directly into his head in the game has absolutely no intention of protecting his personal information.

Mercer simply used keywords to automatically search a few websites and saw a striking message.

[I am V, an elite mercenary in the Heywood district. I have excellent marksmanship and am quick on my feet. Those interested can contact me by phone. Mission assignments depend on difficulty.]

Mercer hacked into the forum's crappy server and gained access to the backend. He then obtained even the IP address and personal registration information of the girl when she sent messages.

Judging from the photos in his personal profile, with his classic shaved head hairstyle and rebellious face, that's right, this V is the protagonist V in the game!

This female character is actually based on his own street-style female character creation data, and even her hair color is white, which is a direct attack on this old anime fan.

Damn, that face is really something!
No wonder I spent so much time painstakingly creating my account based on online data.

But because of this, this idiot gave away his personal information for free!

Anyone can get her contact information.

Mercer even knew where she lived now, and had even glanced at her rent price.
Well, Ms. V is really down on her luck these days!
North District Apartment – ​​which is the cheapest apartment in the game.

Strictly speaking, this isn't an apartment at all; it's a motel that can be rented long-term!

Mercer casually used a fool who was watching porn online to hack into the hotel's server via the internet. After obtaining the guests' information, he couldn't help but sigh.

Miss V is so pitiful that she's even a week behind on her motel rent.

No wonder in the game, V ultimately decided to head to Atlanta a few years later, but ended up not surviving there and coming back.
V is visibly immature right now.

But it's good, to experience the V-Shaking Heaven training again in real life, hey, that's not bad either!
Mercer shook his head and dialed V's number. Just a few breaths later, a somewhat irritated female voice came from the other end of the line.

"Hello? Which idiot is calling me again? I don't want to buy insurance or goods!"

"You must be the famous V. I have a job for you, want to take it?"

Mercer lowered his voice, suppressing a laugh.

The voice on the other end of the phone immediately became refined and approachable: "Oh, you're the client, right? Take it! What kind of job is it?"

By stating your situation first and then asking further questions, anyone can tell that you are truly impoverished.

No wonder a few thousand euros could trick you into doing something so difficult. But it's okay, with my good buddies around, no one will be able to fool you into doing things with just a few thousand euros!
Look how thirsty my V is!
"See you at the Next Life Bar tomorrow night at 8:30, V."

After Mercer finished speaking, even the breathing on the other end of the phone became heavy: "The next life? You mean..."

"What? Want to find a place that suits your style? Ritz Bar? Wild Wolf Bar?"

Mercer couldn't help but tease her a bit—"Girl, you better pull yourself together! You're my favorite V-Shock! Don't embarrass yourself!"

"Well, then in the next life, but, well..."

V's voice suddenly sounded a little hesitant:
Are you sure you're looking for me?

Uh, I mean, what kind of job is it exactly?

Let me make this clear first, I don't do any shady stuff, I only do what mercenaries are supposed to do!

Mercer sighed and finally said simply, "Don't overthink it. We'll talk about it when we meet. I won't ask you to do anything beyond your capabilities."

"Okay, what's your name?" V asked cautiously, seemingly afraid that the deal would fall through.

“A, it sounds a lot like your name. When you get there, just say you work for A, and the security guards will let you in.”

Mercer had already figured out how to fool her.

Well, after being tormented by Panan's "little brat" comment, he doesn't plan to show his real face to people casually anytime soon.

First impressions are very important. If you leave a strong impression of someone as A at the first meeting, people won't underestimate you when they meet in person.

But if the first thing you see is this handsome young boy he is now...
It will be difficult to turn things around.

"Okay! See you tomorrow, A!"

Anyone could hear the excitement in her voice.

Mercer and V hung up the phone and couldn't help but shake their heads. Sigh, putting everything else aside, it seems we need to find her some work to do first, at least so she can pay her rent.
Perhaps we should give the commission that was originally intended for Rogge to V instead?

Thinking about it carefully, her price is definitely much cheaper than Roger's, and it's good that there's no middleman taking a cut.

At this point, several of the emails sent out had received replies.

These middlemen are quite efficient, though it could also be because not many people dare to send them messages like that. [Wakako Okada:]

I'm not used to doing business with strangers, especially those who come to me without my knowledge—my office is right behind a pachinko parlor in the Kabuki district.

If you're willing to have someone come and talk to you in person, I could try assigning you some work.

[Old Captain:]
Hmm, sounds like someone with some skill. I do need a new car infotainment hijacking software.

My requirements are fast unlocking, quick vehicle system authentication, and preferably some mobile hijacking functionality.

What I mean is, the kind of system that can be hijacked on the road, and the driver can be forced out and driven away.

If I can handle it, I'll pay based on your skill level. Send me the item via email, and I'll have a professional take a look and give me a quote.

[Hanz: Oh? I do have some customers who need hackers.]
But I never work with people I don't understand, Mr. A. I'll find you; we can discuss the work then.

As for the remaining few, they didn't reply to Mercer at all, probably thinking they were some ignorant young people offering their services without any sense of propriety. They didn't need any more people, so they were too lazy to bother with them.

The issues with the first two people are easy to resolve. Once V is settled, we'll arrange for her to meet Wakako, and then write a program for the old captain, and that'll be it.

But this Hanz...
He's backed by a Cuban criminal organization, the kind of person who dares to compete with Colonel Hansen for a piece of the pie.

Without a word, he actually tried to open Mercer's box—he was being pretentious, but Mercer really wanted to see what he was capable of.

So he immediately replied to each of them.

[A: Ms. Wakako, I will send someone to meet with you as soon as possible.]

【A: Send me all the car infotainment systems you need to crack, the original versions are fine.】

Universal unlocking software (excluding updates) costs 10,000 euros, while vehicle system certification costs 50,000 euros.

This part does not include updates, but I can guarantee that the car infotainment software within the system version you provide can be quickly cracked without triggering alarms.

Remote hijacking software worth 100,000 euros (user-friendly version) ignores brute-force attacks on the system.

The vulnerability will remain in effect indefinitely unless the company can fix it and implement targeted measures.

Delivery will be made within three days of receiving the materials.

[A: Mr. Hanz, who has Cuban backing, to be honest, if I wanted to, you would never find me in your entire life.]

Whether you go looking for the sliders in Dogtown or the experts in Cuba, the result will be the same.

I never intended to leave Night City, and sooner or later this city will know my name.

So if you want to cooperate, you can skip all this nonsense. Just state your goal, I'll do the work, and you'll get paid once it's done. It's that simple.

If I were to get in touch with Colonel Hansen, I think it would be a bad idea for Mr. Hanz.

Incidentally, I've seriously considered using Dogtown as my base of operations. If Mr. Hanz is interested, we could make a good start.

Mercer stopped replying after sending the message—he had been busy all afternoon, and to be honest, he was a little annoyed that he had only managed to get so many things done on his computer.

If a hacker had a refrigerator or a hacker chair that could be used for deep-sea diving, he could do this in less than half an hour in cyberspace.

Using a computer or a brain-computer interface to connect to the internet requires converting brainwaves into data and uploading it, then converting the data back from the network to complete the reception. This back-and-forth process results in high latency and is not very intuitive.

If it's a target that's very close at hand, then it's relatively easier to talk about.

However, if you need to do things across the entire Night City network, which involves connecting to the internet via computers, the latency will be even higher, and the computing power requirements will be even greater.

If one were to dive deep, one's own consciousness would be both network data and what one would see would be various models composed of very intuitive data.

No matter how strange and abstract it may seem to laymen, everything in cyberspace is a very intuitive data structure to hackers.

Furthermore, deep-sea diving can accelerate thought processes, allowing for close-up viewing and hacking of data entities through movement within the cyber world, with zero latency.

Not to mention the accompanying cooling equipment and computing power enhancements, which further liberate the hacker's mental capabilities.

"Looks like we need to increase the priority of the hacker pod or the chair."

Mercer made a decision.

He used to surf the internet freely using the Arasaka server, but lately he feels like he's running a weighted marathon online, which is really exhausting.

The lack of server computing power is quite annoying; the CPU in this laptop feels like it's about to smoke from being overloaded.

But if the CPU doesn't smoke, then it's his head that's smoking. Sigh, the early stages of a startup are always troublesome.

(End of this chapter)