The hospital where Hot stayed was located in the North Oak District of Westbrook and was a regressed version of the Japanese dical company that had collapsed after Arasaka landed.
Using various ans, Arasaka had crushed the vast majority of enterprises in the Watson District, including the Japanese dical company that once had a presence in the Geisha District. The company’s assets and employees were restructured in the North Oak District, and it was considerably smaller in scale.
As a Japanese enterprise, Arasaka would not support a fellow Japanese company for the sake of "national justice"; on the contrary, it would use any possible ans to strike at them and achieve a genuine local monopoly—
However, as of now, their monopoly had not yet reached its zenith.
Honestly speaking, Hot’s injuries from being hit by grenade shrapnel at Huangshan Seaside were actually not severe.
Emperor Ragnar’s armored vehicle, especially the version supplied to companies, had exceptional blast protection—one or two stray grenade impacts were not enough to penetrate it.
At most, Hot had so minor scrapes and bruises. His hospital stay was more due to shock than injury, and he started working again soon after being admitted.
Nonetheless, this decision almost cost him his life.
The scene was even more dramatic than Bill had thought: unlike the grenade and heavy artillery bombardnt, Hot’s residence had been hit by a proper bomb.
The Automatic Grenade Launcher used by Wuli seed to have simply grazed the buildings in a wide area, a terrifying sight to behold, but to use an analogy, it was more like scratching the surface.
Moreover, the apartnt he targeted was entirely civilian housing, of average quality, with most of the destruction affecting non-load-bearing structures.
Hot’s situation was different. From the exterior, although the blast area was not as extensive as the one Wuli’s grenades created, the destruction was thorough—Hot’s entire room had vanished, and the building looked like it was missing a chunk.
Especially conspicuous were so obviously load-bearing beams and columns that were now exposing high-strength steel bars. These bundled high-strength steel bars had even neatly fractured, causing so deformation around the blast site.
The power of the explosion was outrageous, the cost of repairs would be substantial, and it was uncertain how much of the building’s structural integrity could be restored afterward.
The NCPD was collecting evidence, and it’s worth noting that their hauler robots were also dragging a damaged Centaur cha, complete with the limbs of the pilot inside.
By this ti, Lille had already followed Blais to the exterior of the hospital.
The scene was hectic, and with the cyber monitoring and the NCPD also having law enforcent authority, no one noticed the three red danger individuals beside Blais.
The NCPD’s 3D reconstruction and analysis of the cri scene quickly made its way to Blais...
"Tsk... a phase change bomb, another new trinket."
A phase change bomb, using special phase change materials as "gunpowder," can rapidly transition from one phase to another upon activation, releasing trendous energy in the process.
Unlike ordinary explosives, this type of bomb produces mostly shockwaves, essentially chanical energy rather than thermal energy, without causing a fire.
With the right blasting technique and control device, the directed shockwave can even be stronger than that of an equivalent traditional explosive. Accordingly, the requirents for the blaster and the device are higher, and the price is substantially more.
Mature phase change explosives have one advantage over traditional explosives that cannot be ignored:
Good-quality phase change explosives may be solid before activation, don’t contain volatile components, are easy to transport, have many potential main components to choose from, are hard to detect, and security asures are unlikely to discover them beforehand.
They are very suitable for espionage activities.
This outco was within reason, and Lille nodded slightly, "If it was cheap material used by rcenaries, it probably would have been detected by Arasaka’s agents hundreds of ters outside the hospital."
"If Arasaka can’t prevent this kind of bomb, everyone in Night City would have to worry about being blown to bits by a shockwave in their sleep."
"Where’s Hot?"
"Arasaka has moved him, and according to current intelligence, the likelihood that he survived is very slim..." Blais seed to feel his statent was sowhat inaccurate, and pointing to his own head, he added, "I an, the likelihood that his brain is functioning normally is not very high."
"Isn’t this convenient for Arasaka?"
"Hard to say... Politicians aren’t dia stars, and although Hot has a bad reputation, he is still the deputy mayor after all."
Blais appeared to be very troubled.
They still didn’t know how the phase change bomb got in, but this thing directly blasted the deputy mayor of Night City into Arasaka’s ICU.
These high-profile individuals’ information security level was already quite high, and as a cyber monitoring agent, he struggled to access it; often, he could only assess so situations through direct contact.
Now, Hot had gone offline and hidden in Arasaka’s hospital, sinking the deputy mayor-related information into complete obscurity.
Unlike dia stars, politicians have many relationships that subtly influence all aspects of society.
As for whether Arasaka would take the opportunity to control Hot...
One could only say that Hot was already largely under control, and there was no need to use such a thod for an uncertain outco.
By comparison, the bombing of the deputy mayor seed to signal more serious trouble.
"Listen," Blais’s eyes flickered with blue data light, indicating he was quite busy at the mont, "The phase change bomb is unlikely to have co from soone within Night City.
At Night City’s last eting, the City Council and City Hall had reached a basic agreent to lift import and export restrictions on several giant corporations, including Arasaka and Military Technology.
Hot was primarily responsible for the Asian market rchandise. We checked the goods he had just cleared, and there weren’t significant issues. Companies with the capacity to supply equipnt have no reason to do this."
"Can I see what the rchandise was?"
Blais looked at Lille, hesitated briefly, and then said, "That’s unlikely, but I can send you so technical paraters of Arasaka’s latest ACPA armor. You can refer to that."
"ACPA only?"
"There are also so combat robots."
"What about Kantao’s?"
"...You’ll see for yourself when the ti cos, follow ."
After saying that, Blais led Lille towards the back—
The nearby junctions had already gone into complete lockdown, but after turning and walking a few steps, Lille noticed that, at so point, a black extended Thrace 388 had appeared parked in the alley.
The Thrace 388 is a typical vehicle that looks elegant but is actually fully armored to be blast-proof.
Such a big car, appearing so unexpectedly, obviously ant that another important person was sitting inside.
A few ters away from the car, Blais cocked his head toward it, "To be honest, your gold-plated reputation is really useful, the ones giving you assignnts are all big shots.
The person inside the car will explain the details to you—
Maybe after this European affair is over, we will be colleagues."
Lille imdiately knew who was inside the car.
It was Jefferson Perares, whom he hadn’t seen for a long ti.
Bang.
The car door closed, and the seated Jefferson revealed a kind smile:
"Long ti no see."
"It has been a while..." Lille looked at the smile on Jefferson’s face and felt that he was in much better spirits than before.
So much so, it gave off the effect of uncanny cheerfulness.
In Lille’s mind, this mayoral candidate and current councilor should be suffering from constant headaches.
"You already know what happened, so I’ll get straight to the point: I want to know how Hot was attacked, why, and all the related details.
The NCPD announced to the public that the explosion was caused by a gas leak, but we both know, that’s unlikely the real reason."
"Hmm, where do you think I should start looking?"
"I know you’re investigating the weapons supply channels of those foreign rcenaries. Only a high-level spy robot or a very experienced rcenary could have executed a covert explosion inside a dical center.
Just like you guys—But Night City doesn’t need this kind of firepower upgrade."
Jefferson lit a cigarette, "Night City itself already has a huge public security problem. Last year alone, there were 600 to 1,500 preditated murders, 15,000 thefts, and over 25,000 robberies, and that’s just the recorded cris.
The total economic losses are estimated to be between 31 and 40 billion Euros.
But just last week, a major power outage in Santo Domingo caused direct economic losses of over 1 billion Euros. If you include the indirect losses and the cost to restore infrastructure, this number could very well exceed 20 billion Euros in the future...
These foreigners, and the weapons they use, are too dangerous.
In these few days, there have been several cases in places you don’t know about...
The people of Night City can’t withstand more attacks like this; chaos would turn this city to ashes."
Lille felt sothing unusual:
In the ga, it was Ryan who died, and Jefferson was the one to go investigate the incident. Now, it was him investigating the circumstances of Hot’s attack.
Except he was much more stable than the character in the plot.
"You’ve been doing quite well so far, but not well enough. I will provide all the support you need. I just want you guys to deal with these rcenaries.
As for the compensation, Lille, you can’t be rcenaries forever. If you can pull this off, I will secure a position for you as a special security consultant at City Hall.
A month from now, there will be a gathering in Dog Town, and the global corporate giants will be there to exchange information and equipnt. You will represent Night City at that event.
I know you have so health issues, maybe you could find answers in Dog Town’s black market."
Jefferson waved the cigarette in his hand.
This was an official offer.
[Sender: Blais]
[Blais: The talk should be about done, right? Rember the special support from Night City I ntioned before?]
[Blais: If you can capture Munemasa, Mayor Ryan will set up a departnt just for you, where you can work on security at City Hall, bypass the NCPD, and connect directly with NetWatch.]
[Blais: You’d be ranked the sa as the NCPD Chief, but in reality, you’d be higher, equivalent to a second Terrorist Mobile Team except with more administrative power.]
[Blais: Once you get there, you can use the powers bestowed to you by Night City to find ways to solve your health issues, you don’t need to teach you that, right?]
[Blais: I guess Congressman Jefferson will offer you similar terms, a fortunate dilemma to have.]
[Blais: But either way, once you get the job done, we will officially be colleagues. In fact, in Night City, you’ll rank quite a bit higher than .]
Jefferson looked at Lille with a friendly smile and extended his hand:
"You have great capabilities; we can build Night City into a city of ideals and freedom."
Reviews
All reviews (0)