How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

109. escape

Leonard was an engineer, not a scientist. I knew how to use it, but I didn’t know the principle and structure. There was no way to know how the most difficult ‘brain’ among advanced implants was made.

If I had time, I would have searched and looked up the manual, but it was not an environment to relax.

“There’s nothing special.”

Leonard pulled out a bunch of wires from the flask. It’s something you have to bring anyway, and since you don’t know what it is, it’s a reasonable decision to save time, but from the point of view of watching it, I was anxious and nervous.

“Can I just pull it out like that?”

“Am I not the one who will die anyway?”

“oh! I accepted that I was going to die!”

The color of the liquid in the flask darkened and strange bubbles formed. Even if there is no problem right now, it seems that it should not be left unattended for a long time.

“Sigma, I got the item. Contact the client.”

– Request a meeting place.

Sigma bypassed the communication in two or three layers to avoid possible wiretapping. This time, the enemy was the 21st century lord who ruled A-044 City, so it was a natural move.

“First, we need to get out of here safely, but…”

“Is there anything difficult?”

Max grabbed the flask and said ‘Hee hee!’ laughed That is, until a gun barrel popped out of the hospital room.

“be careful!”

Leonard drew his revolver and Guard pulled the trigger at the same time. Causally, the one who shot first should win, but the result was wrong.

“Eh?”

Two thin needles bounced off the tempered glass flask. Max panicked, but so did the guard who shot him. I didn’t know that the Taser gun would hit there.

“Can’t shoot live ammunition because it’s a VIP ward?”

Gad also suffered a lot. Of course, it was a grievance unrelated to Leonard. Leonard fired two live ammunition without hesitation. bang! bang!

One shot to the chest, one shot to the head, and he fell backwards. As expected of a guard hired by a company, his implants are excellent, but not enough to deflect 45-caliber armor-piercing bullets. It’s cool inside, but it wasn’t a good choice.

“Failure!”

There was a loud noise outside the hospital room. When the gun was fired from this side, the other side also prepared a gun. The numbers were quite large.

“When did you get up here?”

Perhaps it was because of the presence of VVIPs, the response speed was faster than expected. Leonard pulled back Max, who was holding the flask tightly.

“Nothing to worry about. It’s within the normal range.”

“I-don’t worry!”

Leonard leaned against the door and held out his hand. During that time, it was worth working together, so if you pretended, you pretended. He pulled out the long smoke grenade and pulled out the flash grenade safety pin with his teeth.

“Two seconds.”

Leonard hit the smoke grenade cap, broke it, and threw it outside. Fussiung-! A cloud of smoke filled the hallway with the sound of gas ejection. And exactly two seconds later, Max threw a flashbang. Kwagwawang-!

The guards, who switched sensors to infrared to avoid the smoke, screamed at the 7 million candela flash that suddenly burst out. Such a staggered attack would have been unexpected.

Leonard and Max went out of the hospital room and fired bullets at every wriggling figure. Two revolvers and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol fired non-stop. All guards were neutralized 13 seconds after the flash.

“The follow-up will be coming soon.”

“elevator? stairs?”

“both.”

Leonard called the elevator beyond the corpse or the guards imitating the corpse. I shot the camera that had been reactivated before I knew it, smashed it firmly, and pressed the first floor above the ground. And without thinking, he dragged Max, who was riding along, outside.

“There must have been a lot of public security in the lobby.”

“What? Then what?”

Leonard nodded and pointed to the side. If it wasn’t an elevator, it was the stairs.

Max was worried that he would have to jump down 40 floors, but he didn’t have to. Leonard was headed upstairs. To be precise, it was the roof of a hospital that replaced the 42nd floor.

Leonard kicked through the fire shutter and opened it with force. Even with a lightweight body, the power output was above average, so unless it was made for cyborg defense, it could be destroyed with bare hands. However, the problem was the following.

“How do I get out of the roof?”

“It is possible without aircraft.”

Ignored the air purifier and went outside, and the characteristic acrid wind of the wasteland blew up.

“A public facility like this always has at least one emergency crane.”

“Are you sure?”

“…about 80%?”

Leonard is from the Undercity and Max is from Junk Town, so he has never actually seen White Town’s disaster facilities. Still, since it was a place where rich people lived, I believed that it would have everything.

“If you believe, you will be blessed.”

“Everything is good!”

There was an emergency crane stacked in waterproof, windproof vinyl. If it was a junk town facility, it would have been a junk that would have been neglected for at least 10 years-someone would have ripped it up and sold it before that-but it was a hospital affiliated with a company, and it was a VIP ward, so it was very well maintained. Leonard took off the waterproof vinyl to prevent contamination and turned on the power. The green light flashed with the roar of motors.

“Ride.”

“Wait! Aren’t you doing test drives?”

There was no time for that. I asked knowingly.

I climbed on the outside elevator that was shaking dangerously and tried to descend. In the meantime, the elevator trick sent to the first floor was over. Armed helicopters flew around the hospital.

Do it, do it, do it—!

The propeller noise was deafening. It was exposed on all sides, so the wind could not be ignored. Leonard’s thick coat fluttered wildly. Max, who is small in stature, had to hold the flask tight and lower his stance.

‘I’m not going to shoot at the building, but…’

Once the location was revealed, it was over anyway. Leonard put his hands away and straightened his stance. The moment Leonard’s eyes met the helicopter pilot’s eyes, Leonard’s pupils dilated into hexagons. At 170 meters, the encounter was brief but intense.

-bravo. bravo. There are no exterior walls of the building. Check the location of the intruder.

– Acknowledgment. Outside Troops Current Position Gunners. Enter the indoor search tank.

The radio went through the brain chip, and the helicopter moved away from the building. Leonard released the Hexagon hacking mode and sighed. Cognitive impairment worked well.

“It was really lucky.”

If the pilot’s reaction was a little quicker, if he wasn’t the type to check, the normal report would go in. After that, it was a direct march to the detention center because troops would have been scattered on the ground.

“Sah, are you alive?”

“not yet. Once the search begins, it’ll be on the roof in no time.”

Leonard gestured to Max for a flask containing an electronic brain and a chest rig with ammunition. It weighed a bit, but was lighter than a human.

“What are you going to do?”

“I have to get it out.”

It wasn’t easy either. Enough to launch armed helicopters would have blocked hospital streets and parking lots.

“Originally, when doing this kind of work, there is a separate execution team and transport team.”

Max pointed at himself and then at Leonard. both were running. Leonard pointed his finger up. Come to think of it, there was one good carrier. Max muttered in admiration.

@

The operation was a success. Leonard and Max disarmed and drove nonchalantly out of the High Lane Hospital.

The police, who took control of the hospital entrance and the surrounding streets, made two checks, but the Walker brothers, who were legitimate citizens, were not arrested. Even though it had to be a rather rough search.

Leonard left White Town slowly and unhurriedly. To be more precise, I couldn’t be in a hurry. After entering 11-1 Street, the entrance to Junk Town, I hurriedly got out of the car.

The police carried out a thorough search using various detection devices. The vehicle’s back seat and luggage compartment, as well as the body floor and engine room, were thoroughly scanned. Even so, there was a place that was surprisingly missed. It was a cargo drone at 25 meters overhead.

“Huh? uh! Are you okay? Are you all right?”

A cargo drone descends slowly, handing over the flask and weapon. It was the latest drone from Airholes, whose loss rate was in the second decimal place, so it was an excellent transport. Max hugged the electronic brain with 18,000 credits and admired it.

“I didn’t know you could hack a cargo drone there! Also Mr. Leonard! The hairy king!”

“It’s not hair, it’s strategy.”

Leonard raised his nose in pride. It still happened today. He fucked up the company and kidnapped his son. Although it is a cloned electronic brain, its value is not less than the real one.

-Mr. Leonard, we have an appointment. Send location.

In time, the client was contacted. The news came quickly because he was an official. Leonard returned the troubled cargo drone to its original location and confirmed the promised location sent by Sigma. I had visited before, so it was okay to come back to 11-1st, but oddly, I designated 12th.

“Perhaps…”

Max looked around anxiously.

“You did a good job bringing it this far. stop dying now Bread, bread. Could it be?”

“It’s a classic movie cliché.”

“Isn’t it because it’s so common that it’s a cliché?”

“A cliché is a cliché because it’s just fun. Isn’t it fun when it’s over with the credits?”

It got weird when I was talking. When it’s just over, what’s not fun is the viewer outside the screen, not the person involved.

“Don’t be silly and let’s go. I need to eat noodles for dinner.”

@

A movie was a movie. The reality was more boring and boring than I thought.

“That’s the promised 18,000 credits.”

The reason why the client chose 12th Street as the trading place is that it is the place with the most floating population except for 20th Street. Now that the company’s board of directors and public security are focused on it, going to and from the fixer’s office won’t do anything good for each other, so we chose an outside location.

“Jane deserves a recommendation. I didn’t know it could be handled so neatly. I was looking for another fixer in case it failed, but it was futile.”

The self-proclaimed A-044 city’s best solver was uncomfortable to hear.

“What are you trying to do with this? Anyway, since the main body, Mr. Donald Bolforth, is alive, the implant brain can be remade, and the succession structure will not change and the stock will not be passed on to someone else, right?”

Maybe because I was in a bad mood or because I was excited, I asked a question I wouldn’t normally ask. The client gave the flask to the bodyguard.

“You sound interesting.”

“funny?”

“Since you’re a pro, you know the power of information, right? In there are all sorts of ugly secrets about a man named Donald Volforth. You can do more useful things than kill that idiot.”

“…aha.”

It never occurred to me that if you needed information, you could just hack it or steal a cloned brain by robbing a memory chip. Although it was a bit cumbersome, it was a much more useful task than simple hacking, as it could reveal even the secrets of deep places that were not stored in memory.

“As I said at the beginning, ‘only’ one implant was stolen. I won’t take issue with this.”

“like this?”

“Are you sure you don’t engage in corporate terrorism and contract killings?”

“I have never done this before.”

He has helped a corporate terrorist group or a murderer, but he did not disclose it. that was the correct answer The client put on a satisfied expression.

“So it doesn’t matter.”

It was something creepy. It seemed like they were saying that if they stole company information or assassinated businessmen, they would have made it a problem. Maybe it was close to the ending Max said. Leonard cleaned up the uncomfortable home and smiled professionally.

“Leonard Walker. If there is anything else, please contact me again.”