But Mercer said bluntly, "They may not attack the Gem Cyan Hotel, but they are very likely to attack my base."
"I'll arrange for more men to watch over—do you have anything else?" Hansen looked somewhat impatient as he finished, but suddenly seemed thoughtful.
He squinted, staring sharply at Mercer, "Or is there something between you and Arasaka that I'm not aware of?"
"I am a fugitive of Arasaka."
Mercer stated bluntly, "In the past, I was held in a secret base in Canada by Arasaka, forced to work for a bullshit project. I killed the guards there, looted their stuff, and ran to Night City."
Looking at Hansen, he said with an extremely serious expression, "Now, they're here."
"What did you take from them?" Hansen looked at Mercer with a serious expression, feeling annoyed and agitated, but he still tried to maintain his composure.
Mercer said expressionlessly, "A set of cybernetic implants, and a batch of advanced chips from Arasaka, involving a core project of Arasaka."
"A set of implants, a batch of chips."
Hansen scoffed, then just looked at Mercer coldly, "Listen, I don't care what you've been doing behind my back with Arasaka, but tonight, you must be at the party on time, understand?"
Mercer also wore a stern face, and after a moment, said bluntly, "Help me deal with them, and we'll talk afterwards."
"I'll deploy Netherworld Dog..." Before Hansen could finish, Mercer emphasized, "Not enough. I need Bull Dog, armored vehicles, drones, at least fifty elite Netherworld Dog warriors. My base cannot be compromised.
There are servers worth tens of millions of Euros, and millions worth of R&D equipment. Without these, Dog Town's network security is just an illusion."
"..." Hansen was momentarily silent, just looking at Mercer coldly, and after a while, said, "I need an explanation."
"After this is over, I'll talk to you alone." Mercer appeared helpless, sighing, "At worst, I'll just sell these items. They aren't worth much in my hands anyway."
"Fine, I'll send the Netherworld Dog to watch over it, but after this, you understand." Hansen's expression was somewhat ugly, "You better ensure there are no more problems."
"I guarantee they're here for these items. They don't want these items leaking to other companies, but they underestimated me. I'd rather sell them or destroy them all than bow to them."
After Mercer finished, Hansen nodded, coldly glaring at him, "Your people are to perform their tasks at the Gem Cyan Hotel as usual. Compared to your base, holding the party smoothly is the more important matter, understand?"
"Understood." After Mercer finished, he said gravely, "Arasaka seems to be serious this time. We must be cautious."
"Don't need you to tell me." Hansen rudely hung up the phone.
This made Hansen furious. He could never have imagined suddenly being at odds with Arasaka.
Mercer thought wryly—looks like deciding to side with the Netherworld Dogs wasn't wrong. At least at times like this, due to position and image issues, Hansen couldn't sell him out directly, only choose to face the storm with him.
But Mercer wasn't foolish enough to rely solely on Hansen.
He immediately got up and began moving the Relic Chip.
Since keeping it at the base was unsafe, he had another plan. To ensure the Relic Chip wouldn't be compromised, the simplest solution was to plug it directly into his head.
Then Mercer planned to gather everyone together.
Mercer even prepared explosives, storing them in the base—tonight, he would only leave Kyoko, Qiwei, Sasha, and Pira at the base.
The diving suits and oxygen tanks prepared in advance were also brought out for safety checks. If there was any risk of the base being overrun, those remaining would trigger the explosives without hesitation, sending all the troublesome Agent Arasakas flying, taking a dirt plane ride!
Then Sasha, Qiwei, Pira, and Kyoko would don diving suits and escape through the sewers directly to Taiping Prefecture, where Polaris would send a vehicle to pick them up for a safe retreat to Adcardo, disappearing without a trace.
And by the time everything was ready, it was already afternoon.
At the same time, Mercer initiated his retaliation against Ye Corporation.
He didn't know if they were intentionally cooperating with Arasaka's operation, but clearly, they broke the online agreement—you're blocking my ctOS system from collecting intel?
Then Mercer wouldn't let anyone exploit the city system.
He ordered Venus to launch a massive attack across the entire Night City network, targeting security equipment in City Hall and any network targets related to Ye Corporation.
Even those that simply had cooperation with Ye Corporation were within Mercer's attack range.
To ensure Venus's safety, Mercer even deployed his long-cherished Desire for Death.
Bartmos's "Desire for Death" program, with Mercer's greatly advanced technology and knowledge, could be regarded as the strongest and most terrifying attack AI in human network history up to now.
Its level of danger surpasses even the Black Wall.
This AI, whose entire core code was designed for hacking and cyber warfare, was created with the purpose of executing killing missions in the Cyber World from the outset.