Zzzâ
The Netherworld Dog Mechaâs indicator light flickered faintly, and the mecha trembled imperceptibly.
The signal anomaly lasted less than a millisecond, and the machine continued to operate as if nothing had happened.
A completely invisible quadruped robot quietly climbed down from the mechaâs interface, its metallic feet clashing with the armor, muffled by the sound of the mechaâs operation.
The operational network had been hacked, the biometrics of all 12 soldiers stationed in the parking lot had been pulled, and plastered onto the sensors of the two unmanned mechas and four drones.
And once they were invisible in the network, Lilleâs three men confidently stood up from behind their cover and casually crossed the parking lot.
The quadruped robot was the Little Flat Head combat robot that had just been delivered, a specialized robot designed for espionage with military technology lab-level optical invisibility and electromagnetic shielding capabilities, fooling the mass-produced war mechas was right up its alley.
Once plugged into the physical interface, hacking became simple and efficient.
"High-tech is always best,"
V remarked with admiration, approaching the halfway opened warehouse door and hoisting it a bit higher with Jack.
The noise they made caused the guards to be mildly suspicious, but by the time they looked, the trio had already entered the EBM Sports Stadium.
This was a maintenance corridor, surrounded by iron scaffolding, the red warning lights still glowing, a clear sign that Netherworld Dog didnât care to straighten out Dog Townâs infrastructure lines.
The three had to walk single file, Lille in the middle, V in front, and Jack bringing up the rearâ
Because Jack was the largest, the corridor felt a bit narrow for him.
"If you ask me, only if you get deliveries is it really good," Jack said with a different kind of admiration, "Lille, looking at the way Six Street Gang operates, did you have plans for them to take over Taiping State?"
"To be honest, the nuclear bomb was a spur-of-the-moment thing, so everything that followed had to be improvised.
Hot was ousted by us, and Arasaka might be dissatisfied with the new policy, the Ye Group took a big slap in the face, and the value of Night Cityâs politics plummeted...
So the city needed to find a new pivot."
In truth, Six Street Gang wasnât the only one moving into Taiping State, but they were the biggest.
Six Street Gang didnât have a high degree of prosthetic enhancement, and their equipment was just average, but they had one advantage: large numbers and basic military training, which made them highly organized and suitable for fundamental security services.
They were armed to the teeth: every member had a gun, every member wore a bulletproof vest, yet unlike the companyâs mechanized security personnel, they carried a whiff of the local streets, making them more suitable for dealing with Taiping Stateâs issues without inciting strong resistance from the locals.
The locals were mostly destitute paupers and vagrants who couldnât make ends meet, the Six Street Gang could deal with them; if they needed a bit of "faith" and charitable measures like the Voodoo Gang, there was the Valentino Gang to do the job.
If there were transhumans with extraordinary combat abilities who liked to stand out, Vortex Gang would handle it; for those who liked to nest in buildings and operate illegal industry chains, Tiger Claw Gang would take care of it...
And even those with no place to sell their bodies found a place with the Mox Gang.
This development team was definitely local enough, and strictly speaking, Taiping State didnât completely belong to the Ye Groupâit could counterbalance the economic loss due to the Ye Groupâs decline once it was developed.
With money, there would be more options, and Night City wouldnât be crushed by military technologyâ
But to truly stand firm, it was impossible to rely purely on hiring external security forces for peace.
In such a small area, relying on external military groups for security, the locals would never have a future, so Lilleâs mission to Dog Town this time was to find a solution, even if it was just a temporary fix.
V, walking ahead, laughed, "When you talk like that, you make me feel like you should be the mayor of Night Cityâif you were the mayor, what would that make us?"
Jack chuckled, "Iâd definitely be an enforcer, I feel..."
"Laugh it off," Lille interrupted Jack, "Youâre the head boss, now thatâs a respectable person, weâre here to save a city."
"Pssh," V scoffed disdainfully, "All I wanted was to have Night City under my feet, and now Iâve become the most wanted in the entire city."
"Well, to step on it, it has to exist."
Saving a city wasnât so simple, especially a city as special as Night City.
The trio continued forward, reaching the end of the maintenance hallâ
Beyond the lengthy corridor, they arrived in the midst of the maintenance channels.
Behind the dark steel mesh wall was no longer a cramped space, but an automated workshop.
Beneath the workshop was a lift for three-dimensionally moving vehicles, the industrial metal platform covered with cables, and through the mesh-like industry floor, the bundled cables could be seen below, each with a diameter more than three meters, indicative of the high power supply specifications.
Clearly, the workshop could support drones for engineering operations, with plenty of space.
"Finally not so cramped... Damn!"
Jack emerged from the channel, his ragged clothes snagging and ultimately falling apart into tatters.
"This is actually not bad," Lille said with a smile at the sight of Jack, "Weâve got the Animal Gang as our crew, so you might as well act as the boss of the Animal Gang, huh?"
"No way," Jack shook his head.
Bang!
The red warning light turned white, indicating power had been restored.
As the trio moved forward, Lille was constantly controlling the Little Flat Head robot through the pipes, searching for a usable backup power supplyânow Little Flat Head had found it.
"Wow." V walked to the wire mesh wall and gazed at the vast workshop, "Isnât this a stadium? How come thereâs such a huge workshop here?"
"The EBM stadium has a very avant-garde design, with an underground automated parking garage large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of vehicles. This is the entrance."
"Tens of thousands?"
Jack and V said in unison.
Forget tens of thousands of vehicles; even a few thousand people standing in front would be an overwhelming crowd, too numerous to count.
"Yes, tens of thousands."
"Then how do we get through?"
V couldnât imagine how big an automated parking garage that could hold tens of thousands of cars would be, but it must have a very complex internal structure.
"By hacking into the stadium, of course."
In the original work, the hacker who helped V enter Dog Town had many tools at hand, capable of tapping into military satellites with military technology to hack into Dog Townâs public network, and then from the unmanaged public network into the EBM stadiumâs network to gain full access, making it operational again.
Lille didnât have military satellites, but his bodyguards had already entered Dog Town, so finding a base node to hack into would be a piece of cake.
Clickâ
As Lille finished speaking, the door to the EBM maintenance room opened, the vehicle lift resumed power, stopped at the door, waiting for the three to get on.
Lille gestured to V by the door to get onâ
"Tsk, just an old lift." V curled his lips, "Donât forget my Da Mai, by the way, where did its AI go?"
"Weâll find a way to bring it in together."
The three stepped onto the lift used to move vehicles, and as the antiquated contraption began to move, they started their real tour.
The underground automated parking garage that could hold tens of thousands of vehiclesâlooming below them as they stood atop the liftâwas a seemingly endless abyssâ
The robust parking spots were even wide enough for two cars to drive side-by-side with room to spare. To call this a parking garage...
"This is practically an underground city..." V leaned over to look down, exclaiming, "You know? Iâve always heard about an underground metropolis in Night City, a subterranean kingdom only accessible to veteran mercenaries and wanted criminals."
Immediately, Jack retorted, "Isnât that the afterlife?"
"The afterlife is basically a morgue, right? Iâm talking about... a real underground city, like this placeâ
Think about it, this wide space, each level can fit cars, means you can set up stalls, build houses, live... Damn, even the cables are laid out!
No, that Kurt Hansen, why doesnât he control this place?"
"Good question." Lille stood still on the lift platform, "The Netherworld Dog force doesnât even have tens of thousands of personnel; this place is too spacious for them.
The electricity for the stadium was siphoned from other places; sure, Netherworld Dog is a special forces unit, but the internal structure of the stadium is too complicated for them."
V pulled back from peering into the abyss, "Feels like youâre quietly praising yourself. Are you saying you alone are more skilled than the Netherworld Dog technicians?
And why are you standing still? Turned into an idiot again?"
"First question: Thatâs a fact," Lille said, pausing afterward.
He wasnât moving because he was processing the electrical grid information for the EBM stadium together with Munemasa.
This building was indeed complex; perhaps any licensed technical expert could handle each node individually without finding anything special about its design, hardware, or softwareâ
However, this was a massive underground space comparable to an underground city, where a quantitative change leads to a qualitative change. Moreover, although the Netherworld Dogs couldnât exert full control after occupying it, they installed many additional modules, further complicating the wiring.
Because Lilleâs current scouting target was the core of the Netherworld Dogâs additional modulesâ
"Second question, the EBM stadium is huge, also itâs one of the hearts of Dog Townâs black market. Netherworld Dog cut off most of the original circuits but also added new ones.
The core of the new circuits... is the power source of a crashed airship, located in the center of the stadium. I am currently pinpointing these circuits."
And the core of this airship was nuclear-powered.
V shook her head after hearing all this, and just then, the lift reached their "transfer point" with a jolt.
She grabbed Lille, who was swaying, "Donât understand... but donât get yourself killed."
Lille snapped back to realityâto find he was halfway out of the lift. Had V not grabbed him, he might have really fallen.
Swallowing his saliva, Lille said nonchalantly, "Thatâs hackers for you, sometimes they get dizzy. Letâs keep going."
V gave Lille a suspicious look, "With you staggering like that, I think you canât even walk without Little Octopus..."
"Bullshit."
Lille stomped on the floor, making sure there were no pits, and then stepped over the gap.
"Pff."
Then he heard Vâs laughter behind him.
"Sure you donât need your big sis to carry you for a bit?"
"Piss off!"