Well, in the cyberpunk year of 2071, even street kids making a living on the streets know that you should never connect your brain directly to the network.
Because if you choose to directly connect physically, when facing cyber attacks and viruses, you can only rely on the ICE in your personal network receiver.
Some viruses only fry a hard drive if they hack a computer, but if they accidentally get into your brain...
That's brain barbecue.
After connecting to the network, Mercer didn't do anything unnecessary. He was well aware that there was no such thing as personal privacy here; every word he spoke and every action he took could be scrutinized by someone.
So, he simply connected to the network, trying to confirm his geographic location through it. This was not difficult, and soon he knew where he was.
The outskirts near Vancouver, Canada.
In the world of cyberpunk, Canada had long been dismembered by various corporations and organizations as a 'resource colony.'
Military technology controlled Alberta as a synthetic oil production base.
Internet Supervision transformed Quebec into a 'data farm', while Vancouver became a very important enclave for Arasaka.
The entire Vancouver was completely swallowed by Arasaka as early as 2045, and even the Congress Building was turned into a research center, making Vancouver a fortress-level city facing North America, and a crucial hub for goods flowing from Asia-Pacific to North America.
Mercer opened the map and began contemplating his escape route.
First, looking at the straight-line distance, head straight south to Jade City (Old Seattle), then south to Portland, and from Portland you can directly enter Oregon, and heading further south will directly take you to Night City, about two thousand kilometers journey.
Hmm... Just evaluating the potential troubles on the road with the basic knowledge in his mind made Mercer wince a bit and rub his head.
Firstly, the radiation near Seattle is very severe.
In 2045, to counter Arasaka and prevent them from seizing Seattle, military technology executed the 'Emerald Bird' plan.
They launched three cobalt-60 dirty bombs towards the northern part of the city, creating a radiation isolation zone, with these specially made dirty bombs having a radiation period of an astonishing 30 years.
Moreover, as of now, the tug-of-war between Arasaka and military technology in Seattle is still ongoing.
It's just that now Arasaka is in the dark and Military Science is in the open; if they were to carelessly run past and their identity was discovered to be related to Arasaka, military technology is not reasonable.
Therefore, it's best not to go to Seattle. If detouring...
Mercer carefully browsed the map and finally came up with two relatively suitable escape routes.
One is simply taking the sea route, finding a way to board a ship from the Vancouver port. As long as you get past Seattle, no matter where you disembark, you can hijack a car and head straight to Night City, or simply go all the way by ship directly to Night City.
The difficulty here lies in the need to be quick. If they fail to board the ship and leave before Arasaka realizes that the project is out of control and personnel are making a run, with Arasaka's control over Vancouver, it will be difficult to escape under pursuit,
He needs to plan the timing, escape routes, and disguises in advance, and arrange or plan for the ship ahead of time.
The other is purely by land, as long as you can sneak through the border checkpoints, you can then sprint through the wilderness, only needing to deal with the Chaotic Blade Association and various Evil Land marauders active outside the cities.
Mercer didn't do much more searching or browsing of these pages, just glanced at the map and exited the network, turning instead to familiarizing himself with his hacking knowledge.
Although his brain repeatedly told him that he indeed had assimilated 'Mercer's' hacking skills, he still wasn't sure.
To validate his skills, nothing beats hands-on practice with a real operation to keep it simple.
With just a brief consideration, Mercer confirmed his target for a trial run.
He decided to write a covert Sorcery Puppet program and convert it into a fast-cracking program that could be embedded into the Co-processor of a Network Access Vault, trying to directly hack the cameras around the ward using the Network Access Vault.
This is also the most common and basic hacking technique seen in games: scanning nearby devices and using fast cracking to hack in.
Without needing to manually type on the keyboard, connecting a data cable from a tablet, he began programming purely by thought. The almost zero-latency ultra-high transmission speed in connection mode instantly filled the laptop and tablet screens with program and code frames.
Countless numbers and letters flashed rapidly on the tablet's screen, and Mercer's eyes emitted a faint golden glow.
At this moment, in his vision, it seemed as if everything in the world had turned into data composition.
Like breathing, an instinct, he needed no thought on programming languages; countless codes instinctively found their suitable positions and formed the program.
Fifteen seconds.
In just fifteen seconds, he completed the fast crack takeover program for electronic devices, embedding it into the Co-processor in just one second.
And just as he was about to try whether this program really worked, a very glaring red warning box suddenly appeared in front of him.
[It has been detected that you are currently attempting to use the fast-cracking program to take over a company device. Please note that this action violates the company employee law and the usage rights of the Mk.3 Network Access Vault. Please stop this violation immediately.]