"Night City, Night City, try the brand new product from Whole Foods now: the brand new dumbass flavor from Burger King!"
"If youâre hungry, donât call mom, order a Burger King from Whole Foods delivered to your home. Order now and enjoy crazy Thursday special offers, quickly click the website link below!"
Bang!
Lille opened his eyes, sighed, and blasted the vending machine with his gun.
"Damage will be charged to... to the property account, we apologize for any inconvenience caused."
The vending machineâs speech was cut off mid-sentence as Lille altered its data, promptly changing its response.
Damn capitalism, putting vending machines in rented apartments and they even autoplay advertisements.
No one could do anything about it, it seemed.
Of course, prior to this, it was possible to choose to block the Super Skyscraperâs advertisements at specific times, but unfortunately, Lille had blown the circuitry earlier. It might have been some rookie electrician who mixed up the wires, causing the system to forget the user settings.
Lille got up from bed and started checking his external devices.
In the Marvel World, Bloom Company already had a new office location, and Lille, in accordance with Cyber Monitoringâs data architecture experience, had redesigned the server cluster units.
Excluding the computational power used to maintain the regular operations of ctOS, each server cluster unit could offer 1 CCU of computational power.
The total computational power was 7000 CCU, with the external devices being able to use two-tenths of this power for cross-dimensional scheduling, although one-tenth had to be used for data synchronization of cross-dimensional industrial and security protocols.
This meant that Lilleâs personal readily available computational power was now basically stable at 700 CCU, which already crossed the threshold for a minor conflict.
Generally speaking, the entry-level technical standard for stay-at-home hackers was around 400-500 CCUâ
However, the same computational power could achieve different levels of performance in different hands, also depending on factors such as CPU core, hackerâs own intelligence, among other factors.
Simply put, in cyber battles, the one with the initiative greatly dominates, and Lille, with his special connectivity to Cyberspace via Si Anweisitan, had a 99.9% capacity that most hackers lacked, giving him an advantage when necessary.
Moreover, the size of the server would continue to expand. If Lille could take over New York and deploy ctOS across the city, the serverâs power could reach 15000 CCU.
After spending several foggy days in Cyberpunk, Lille opened his inbox.
[Sender: Panâan]
[Panâan: The machines are up and running! The first batch of plasma has arrived, and the clan is overjoyed!]
[Panâan: When will you come by again? Weâll treat you to a drink then!]
[Sender: Regina]
[Regina: Remember that big shot Jefferson Perares? He really wants to meet you, asked me to check with you again.]
[Regina: Kantao also wants to set up a meeting with you, they donât like communicating online.]
[Sender: Cheson]
[Cheson: Bro, want me to move the smart ammo production line over to your place?]
[Sender: Old Captain]
[Old Captain: Hey, Daddy, your car is fixed. Thunder Company also sent a rep who wants to talk to you, when would you like to set a time?]
[Sender...]
Facing an inbox full of unread messages, Lille rubbed his templesâthere was a lot to deal with here, too.
[Sender: V]
[V: Shut-in, what the hell are you doing cooped up in your room all day?]
[V: Wanna go out for a spin?]
[V: You dead or what?]
[V: If you donât answer, Iâm breaking the door down!]
[V: Forget it, Iâm heading out with Jack to Wolfâs. Mrs. Wales said something about an awesome Thursday. I bet it was Jackâs idea, free food and drinks.]
[V: You canât say I didnât warn you.]
[V: Iâm off.]
[V: Iâm really off now, you sure youâre not coming?]
[V: Mute, are you?]
Lille glanced at the time, and it indeed was Thursday; V must have gone off to drink already.
He might as well head to the Wandererâs outpost himself to make sure the production line was running smoothly and bring his car back.
With two repaired mechanical arms grabbing the supply box and tucking it under his hacker jacket, Lille checked his weapons and gear, prepared to step outside.
In Night City, you had to be armed at all times.
Clickâ
The door opened, and Lille had just taken a few steps out when he came to an abrupt haltâ
To his surprise, V was right there in the hallway outside his door, a face-to-face encounter.
They looked at each other, a silent tension in the air.
Lille broke into a run back the way he came!
Bang!
V grabbed the door with one hand, yanking Lille back out!
V turned with a sinister smile, cracking her knuckles with a snap and cackle, "Ignoring messages, sneaking out? What were you planning?!"
Planted on his rear, Lille shouted desperately, "Spare me, heroine!!"
"Spare you, huh!"
V grabbed Lille by the throat and dragged him back into the house, while her other hand started rummaging through his head!
The screams drew startled glances from onlookers; people going up and down the stairs even changed color and hid in their homesâ
If this was a Cyberspace mental breakdown, it would be bad news!
Some of the more timid even called the NCPD:
"Hello, NCPD? Iâm hearing some gruesome screams here... yes, very gruesome..."
...
Two hours later, Lille and V appeared on the streets of Saint Domingo.
"So for just this, why all the sneaking around, and not even responding to my messages!"
V crossed her arms, puffing up with irritation as she looked at Lille.
Lilleâs head was swelled with a big lump, his face bruised and battered.
"...Didnât you say you were off to Wolfpack for some fancy âThumping Thursdayâ? Itâs not a job, so why would I need to bring you along?"
V gave him a doubtful look: Itâs exactly because itâs not a job that I need to keep an eye on you!
"No need to bring me along, then why run away?"
Lille fell silent; after all, he couldnât just say the atmosphere at the time seemed right for making a break, could he?
Yeah, why did he run away!
Thinking this, Lille straightened his back a bit, "I donât know! You scared me!"
V thought about it and figured she might have made a mountain out of a molehill; she was just annoyed that Lille wasnât replying to her messages.
"Alright then, how about we drive back to Wolfpack later?"
"Might not be possible, I need to check if everythingâs stable at the Wanderer base."
"Oh, so itâs the Wanderer base youâre going to. Iâll come too."
"Alright then."
Out of the blue, Lille asked, "Are you just going to stand Jack up like that?"
V shrugged her shoulders, "I used to enjoy bars because they were good for picking up jobs and catching up on rumors, bragging a bit tooâit was for business.
Now, itâs not necessary. When thereâs work, just give me a shout, right?"
"So youâre just going to stand Jack up?"
"..." V glanced at Lille, "Our relationship is solid; he totally understands if I duck out once. What, you donât want me to come with you? Doing jobs behind your brotherâs back?"
"How could that be! Without the famous V covering me, I wouldnât dare take any jobs recklessly."
"Thatâs well said."
Approaching Old Captainâs car mod shop, Lille could see Old Captain from a distance, waving at them eagerly.
Mackinaw was quietly sitting in the garage, showing no signs of having taken any serious damage.
You have to admit that even if car companies arenât that impressive, the mechanics are professionals.
Standing next to Old Captain was a guy dressed in... quite a flamboyant style, sporting big shorts and a flowered shirt with an utterly crap color scheme, all sorts of gaudy pink, green, and purple.
He wore sunglasses and an expensive watch...
This fellow was so excited he might surpass... no, actually outdo Old Captain.
A second ago, he had been standing quietly to the side, arms folded like a docile corporate drone.
The next, as soon as Old Captain waved, he jumped up excited, following Old Captainâs lead and apparently even shouting âDaddyâ judging by his lips.
"Whoâs that guy?" V asked curiously.
"...Er, Iâm seeing him for the first time too," Lille said slowly, "But I guess... heâs probably a representative from Thunder Company."
"Ohâ," V drawled, "turns out heâs our other âsonâ, huh."
They walked toward the shop, and Lilleâs mechanical arm emerged from beneath him, its optical sensors looking back and forth between them and the figure in the distance.
It seemed to be confirming that Lilleâs visual processing wasnât malfunctioning.