Mercer had a rough three days.
No TV, no computer, no phone; being confined to bed wasn't easy.
Dr. Oda only came by once a day to perform a thorough checkup before hurrying off, insisting he wasn't allowed to get out of bed casually.
The formal review he had expected to come quickly never arrived, which only made him more anxious. A hanging threat was always the most frightening.
To be honest, he was starting to regret it a little. If he had known, he wouldn't have made a choice, wouldn't have crossed over, or maybe he should've just picked option one and become a drifter.
But these regrets didn't last long.
It wasn't that Mercer was particularly resilient; he just realized his ability to perceive emotions had dulled.
His brain was processing thoughts faster and faster, yet his emotions were growing colder. This inexplicably frightened him; if he lost all emotion and was left with nothing but cold rationality, what difference was there between him and an AI?
Fortunately, when he cautiously asked Dr. Oda about it, the response was somewhat reassuring.
After his neural damage, losing some emotional perception wasn't necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it might be a self-preservation mechanism of the brain. As his neural pathways gradually healed, his emotions would likely return.
Probably.
Dr. Oda even suggested that if they didn't return, it might be for the best. In this world, the ability to maintain calm, clear thinking at all times was a remarkable talent.
For now, Mercer could only set aside his fears and use this clarity to figure out how to survive.
Luckily, on the fourth day, Dr. Oda brought him some good news.
"Your cyberdeck has been reinstalled. Over the next few days, you'll have free access to the network. If the monitoring data meets the criteria, you'll be reassigned to resume netrunning activities. Beyond that, I don't know much."
As Dr. Oda finished and turned to leave, Mercer quickly spoke up, "Dr. Oda, about the accident..."
"...From what I know, after Director Aoki reported the specifics, headquarters didn't shut down the project. Instead, they arranged a new experimental initiative. As for the impact of the accident...
Well, it's not the first time someone's died. The real issue is the servers needing repairs, the firewall needing resetting, and the network IP relocation. In short, the excavation operation was forced to pause for a few days, but it'll resume soon."
After saying this, Dr. Oda glanced at Mercer and added calmly, "You're lucky. Although the neural damage was severe, it wasn't fatal. Not everyone has the potential to recover from such injuries.
That in itself is a talent; it might mean your potential as a netrunner is far greater than initially assessed.
Of course, for you, greater potential might not necessarily be a good thing."
Though Dr. Oda seemed detached, Mercer could keenly sense a hint of humanity lingering between her words.
While most corporate employees were ruthless climbers, it didn't mean everyone was capable of being completely cold-blooded in exploiting others. Dr. Oda seemed to be that kind of person, someone with a shred of conscience, though it didn't appear to be very much.
"Are you suggesting the new project might be related to me?" Mercer's words took Dr. Oda by surprise. She glanced at him but said nothing, simply turning to leave.
Mercer frowned, deep in thought. The new project.
After a while, he sighed and gave up pondering, activating the newly installed cyberdeck in his mind.
The cyberdeck is the core cyberware that allows netrunners to influence the real world. It not only enables them to directly manipulate networked devices via their brains but also connects wirelessly to nearby networks through signals.
At the same time, different models or corporate-branded cyberdecks come with unique specialized functions.
For example, the NetWatch model includes a contagion module, allowing a netrunner's quickhack to spread virally, automatically infecting other networked devices near the target.
Arasaka's cyberdecks, on the other hand, lean more toward stealth and targeted disruption or infiltration.
Of course, none of that mattered much to Mercer at the moment. All he really needed was a simple network connection.
He'd been bored out of his mind these past few days.
[Arasaka Mk3 Cyberdeck Initializing]
[Biometric Verification Passed]
[Permission Review: Approved]
[Mercer Vale access authenticated]
[Current Neural Latency: 2.7ms]
[Current Data Bandwidth: 780GB/S]
[Personal ICE: Obsidian V.2 successfully initialized]
[Coprocessor: "Hannya" quickhack module operational. No quickhack loaded (usage subject to Arasaka Employee Agreement)]
A stream of text flickered before his eyes. With a mere thought, Mercer dismissed the data display.
He turned sideways and, with some effort, reached for an Arasaka tablet Dr. Oda had left nearby, placing it on his lap. Then, he pulled a data cable directly from his wrist and plugged it into the tablet's port.
Truthfully, with a cyberdeck, he didn't need such devices to access the network wirelessly, browsing sites or streaming videos directly. But in the cyberpunk era of today...
Mercer glanced at the date on the tablet.
October 12, 2071.
Yeah, in the cyberpunk year of 2071, even street kids scraping by knew better than to connect their brains directly to the net.
If you chose to go in raw, any attacks or viruses online would have to be tanked solely by the ICE in your personal receiver.
Some viruses might just fry a hard drive if they hit a computer, but if they got into your brain by accident?
That'd be scrambled brains.
Once connected, Mercer didn't do anything unnecessary. He was well aware that there was no such thing as privacy here; every word he spoke, every move he made, could be under someone's scrutiny.
So, he simply connected to the network to confirm his geographical location. It wasn't difficult; soon enough, he found out where he was.
The outskirts of Vancouver, Canada. In the cyberpunk world, Canada has long been carved up by major corporations and organizations into a "resource colony."
Militech controls Alberta as a synthetic petroleum production base.
NetWatch has taken over Quebec, transforming it into a "data farm," while Vancouver serves as a crucial enclave for Arasaka.
As early as 2045, Vancouver was completely annexed by Arasaka, with even the Parliament Building repurposed into a research and development center. It has become Arasaka's fortress city in North America and a vital hub for Asia-Pacific goods flowing into the continent.
Mercer opened the map and began contemplating escape routes.
First, in terms of straight-line distance, heading directly south to Emerald City (formerly Seattle), then further south to Portland, would allow direct entry into Oregon. From there, continuing south would lead straight to Night City, covering a distance of roughly two thousand kilometers.
Hmm... Just by assessing the potential troubles along the way based on basic knowledge, Mercer couldn't help but rub his temples in frustration.
First, the radiation around Seattle is extremely severe.
In 2045, to counter Arasaka and prevent them from seizing Seattle, Militech executed the "Emerald Bird" plan.
They launched three cobalt-60 dirty bombs north of the city, creating a radiation exclusion zone. These specially designed dirty bombs have an astonishingly long radiation half-life of 30 years.
Moreover, as of now, the tug-of-war between Arasaka and Militech in Seattle is still ongoing.
The difference is that Arasaka now operates in the shadows while Militech is out in the open. If they were to recklessly pass through and their connection to Arasaka were discovered, Militech is not known for being reasonable.
So, it's best to avoid Seattle altogether. If detouring...
Mercer carefully scanned the map and eventually devised two suitable escape routes.
One was to take the water route: find a way to board a ship from the Port of Vancouver. As long as they bypassed Seattle, they could disembark anywhere, hijack a vehicle, and head straight to Night City. Alternatively, they could go all the way by ship directly to Night City.
The challenge here was speed. If they failed to set sail before Arasaka detected the project's failure and their escape, given Arasaka's control over Vancouver, it would be difficult to evade pursuit.
He needed to plan the timing, escape route, and disguise in advance, as well as arrange or secure a vessel beforehand.
The other option was to travel entirely by land. As long as they could slip past the border checkpoints, they could then speed across the wilderness, only needing to deal with the Raffen Shiv and various hostile nomad gangs active outside the cities.
Mercer didn't spend too much time searching or browsing these pages; he just glanced at the map briefly before logging off. Instead, he began familiarizing himself with his netrunning skills.
Although his brain repeatedly assured him that he had indeed assimilated "Mercer's" netrunning techniques, he still felt uncertain.
To verify his abilities, there was no simpler way than to personally carry out a practical operation.
After a brief consideration, Mercer decided on his test target.
He would write a covert virus and convert it into a quickhack that could be loaded into the cyberdeck's coprocessor, attempting to directly use the cyberdeck to hack into the cameras around the ward. This was the most common and fundamental netrunning technique in the game: scanning nearby devices and using quickhacks to breach them.
Without needing to type on a keyboard, the data cable connected to the tablet began programming through his thoughts alone. In wired mode, the near-zero latency and ultra-high transmission speed caused the laptop tablet to instantly fill with program and coding windows.
Countless numbers and letters flashed rapidly across the tablet's screen as Mercer's cybereyes emitted a faint golden glow.
In his vision at that moment, it seemed as though everything in the world had transformed into data.
Like an instinct as natural as breathing, he didn't need to consciously think about programming languages, countless lines of code automatically found their appropriate positions and assembled into programs.
Fifteen seconds.
In just fifteen seconds, he completed a quickhack takeover program targeting electronic devices, then spent one second embedding it into the coprocessor.
Just as he was about to test whether the program would work, a glaring red alert suddenly popped up before his eyes.
[Detected attempt to use quickhack to take over corporate device. Note: This action violates Corporate Employee Regulations and Mk.3 Cyberdeck usage permissions. Please cease this violation immediately.]
Hmm.
Mercer clicked his tongue, but the golden glow in his eyes persisted. He didn't unplug the data cable connected to the tablet, nor did he stop his actions.
The tablet's temperature began to rise rapidly, and simultaneously, more and more program windows kept appearing on the screen.
Until the program windows before his eyes suddenly vanished.
[Arasaka Mk.3 Cyberdeck rebooting...]
[Arasaka Mk.3 Cyberdeck reboot complete. Detected missing activity logs. Restore and report?]
[Cancelled. Program corrupted. Warning.]
[Self-diagnosis in progress...]
[Rebooting...]
Ten minutes later, Mercer finally stopped. Expressionless, he unplugged the data cable, then clutched his head and rolled around on the bed.
Ow, damn it, that hurts.
He couldn't help but curse twice, then panted heavily, feeling the slightly scorching interface behind his ear. Despite the pain, he couldn't suppress a bright smile.
It worked!
Not only had he successfully written a virus, but he'd also compressed it into a quickhack program and added it to the coprocessor.
From now on, just like in the game, he could simply scan a device with his cybereye, send a virus over, and seize control of the target device, covertly, at that.
Most importantly! He had successfully "optimized" Arasaka's network receiver!
The specific functions he optimized included employee usage permission monitoring, automatic activity log recording and reporting, network browsing history logs, quickhack usage protocols, backdoors planted by Arasaka, and several virus monitoring programs hidden within the ICE.
He also took the opportunity to delete the usage records on the tablet in his hand and forged a set of ordinary usage logs.
And all of this took just thirty minutes!
It was unbelievable!
If it were the original Mercer, writing the former might have taken over half an hour, and the latter... the original Mercer probably wouldn't have even dared to try! Because if the device had triggered an alarm, Arasaka agents might have shown up! The security programs within Arasaka's equipment are the result of countless programmers grinding away for over 14 hours a day, thinking you can crack them in fifteen minutes? Pure fantasy!
Yet Mercer achieved far more than that. Not only did he intercept the device's signal transmission before it could trigger an alarm, breach its built-in ICE system, but he also successfully rewrote the program code, optimizing, or more accurately, disabling, the non-essential junk functions.
Disabling is harder than optimizing. Optimization just requires deletion; disabling demands locating the core code within that mountain of spaghetti, rewriting it, reintegrating it into the original codebase, and camouflaging the changes.
The purpose, naturally, was to pass inspection.
Moreover, Mercer repurposed the code used in this breach to write a new virus.
He named it "Freelance Assassin V0.1".
The sole function of this program, or virus, is to erase monitoring programs and backdoors on cyberware. It first destroys the existing code, then uses the virus to rewrite and mimic normal operation.
Though the current version is still rudimentary, likely only effective against the MK.3 cyberdeck he just breached, Mercer is confident that with at most two more hours, he could develop a universal cracking program capable of auto-targeting, auto-erasing, and auto-camouflaging for all types of cyberware.
And this program wouldn't just eliminate simple surveillance, it would completely neutralize the insurance Arasaka installs on employee cyberware.
Arasaka Corporation equips all its employees with a stringent monitoring system. This system ensures that the moment the company decides to terminate an employee, it can instantly lock down all cyberware permissions, rendering the individual's implants useless in a flash.
Arasaka agents are also equipped with specialized quickhack takeover programs designed specifically to target their own personnel. These agents can effortlessly lock down cyberware capabilities with such quickhacks, even most compromised implants can be re-secured by these tailored countermeasures.
But Mercer's Freelance Assassin can completely eliminate these backdoors while maintaining camouflage, overwriting the original programs with new code and entirely insulating them from the threat of targeted quickhack takeovers!
Mercer clutched his head, a smile spreading across his face, yet he couldn't help but ponder:
Was this something he was capable of?
To be precise, this level of programming skill was far beyond that of an ordinary genius netrunner!
In his previous life, though everyone joked that Lucy from the anime was weak, utterly outclassed by game characters like V and Songbird, who existed in a different league, there was no doubt that in the real world, a netrunner of Lucy's caliber was already considered advanced among ordinary netrunners.
The reason she couldn't be called top-tier was that after fleeing Arasaka, she had been constantly on the run, living hand-to-mouth, with little opportunity to advance her skills or upgrade her equipment.
Even so, in the anime, David marveled at her, saying it was unbelievable for someone her age to possess such netrunning prowess. Although David wasn't exactly a man of the world, he was, after all, a top student at Arasaka Academy facility. Even if he hadn't seen much, he still possessed basic judgment.
As for Mercer.
He could draw a conclusion based on common sense stored in his mind.
Even if Lucy started cramming day and night from today onward, by the time she turned thirty, she might still not reach his current level of skill.
What limited Mercer's technical prowess now was never his netrunning talent, but simply the accumulation of theoretical and practical knowledge, along with the computing power provided by the human brain as "wetware."
Everything he did while coding... it was practically instinctual!
Like the moment the network receiver alarm triggered, his mind had already conjured a solution to the vulnerability; this instinct didn't even allow a hint of tension or fear, completely forgetting the possibility that failure to crack it would set off the alarm.
Because, in his view at that moment...
Silencing the program's alarm was as easy as snuffing out a cigarette butt. The subsequent cracking was just a matter of course, he thought of it, did it, and actually succeeded!
Being a netrunner is pretty simple after all.
Mercer let out a long sigh, basking in the joy and satisfaction welling up from within, and lay back on the hospital bed, pushing the scorching-hot tablet far away.
The throbbing pain in his head reminded him that now was not the time to code a "freelance assassin"; he needed rest.
However, he hadn't managed to close his eyes for long.
Click.
The door opened.
A man with an indifferent expression, dressed in a suit, entered, followed by an equally expressionless woman.
"Mercer Vale."
Mercer opened his eyes.
"Corporate review."
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From now on, the chapter will be released at around 22:00 UTC.