How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

47. Weakness

There are 21st century mystics who call the radio wave of the brain chip ‘spirit’. It is because it is similar to the soul that has been believed since BC to get out of the body and float in electrons and dwell in other people or things to synchronize.

As an implant hacker, my opinion is absurd nonsense. Sight, hearing, smell, and taste are all electronic signals from the brain, so when the sensory module is moved to the brain chip, it is just an illusion that ‘I’ have been moved.

‘but…’

Leonard looked down. The verb ‘to see’ here is strange, but there is no other word to express it, so I ‘saw’ the feet. The hometown of mankind, the home of life, the blue-white earth was positioned with a huge presence.

Leonard looked a little further. At the end of the horizon, no, the world close to the sphere, the sun shyly raised its head. An intense light cut across space and receded into the void. It was majestic, verbose, and spectacular.

‘If you know this feeling, it’s worth the sound of the soul.’

Leonard turned around. It was also an idiom. Because Leonard’s body is somewhere on Earth 36,000 km away. The electronic will welled up. In this huge sea, there was a home of a displaced person who left their hometown. It was a space colony.

It seemed like a long time had passed, but it was only two or three seconds before the will reached the colony computer network. It was a very short moment to dig up information and extract records from it. Leonard’s eyes are back to normal.

“…finished.”

“Eh? Already?”

Imagining a thrilling stealth action, Max, who was inspecting his gun, exclaimed in despair.

“If it’s going to end so soon, what did you come all the way here for?”

“I came all the way here to finish it soon. We don’t have radio towers like that in our neighborhood.”

I was able to start right away without turning off the engine. I turned the steering wheel and went back six corners. The guard looked at me strangely, but didn’t stop me. It was hard to suspect that he had hacked into the distant universe overhead.

Leonard did not go straight back to A-044 City. Not because of Max’s disappointment, but because of the oil. Before leaving the city area, I went to a gas station.

Leonard got out of the pickup truck and looked around the store. The shop owner fell asleep hugging a 32-caliber hunting rifle called a ‘good rifle’, and a cactus AI robot wearing a cowboy hat greeted him with a mechanical sound.

“Welcome to Cactus station. Our gas station is running 100% self-service to reduce costs. Please check the fee schedule and pay the credit.”

“What is cost reduction?”

Leonard transferred the credits to his cactus friend and pulled out the gas pump. It was a turn-of-the-century comedy that took longer to refuel than to and from space. The sound of the radio could be heard faintly, then washed away by the wasteland wind.

“So who is the culprit? Who, how and why stole the Ford?”

I’ve been patient with Max for a long time. Leonard took out a piece of candy and asked. Max held out his hand for one, but he ignored it. I came on a business trip and there was no candy left.

“Hackers are right.”

“You hacked space communications? Well, so you could have prepared the raid!”

“That’s not it.”

Whether it’s Big History or Big Hysteria, it was no coincidence that the bourgeois foundation under the umbrella of a corporation suffered. I explained from the beginning because there was time before the refueling was over.

“I’m a much better guy than I thought.”

They didn’t steal information, they manipulated it. To be precise, it was delayed.

A 24-hour delay was created by intercepting communications between the Big History Foundation and the Space Colony. In other words, it was 24 hours after the actual launch of the pod that the space colony announced that the pod had been launched, and the location was also not where Leonard had visited.

“Wait. I do not understand?”

“what? You made it easy.”

“Isn’t it communication when we talk face to face? How do you intercept that?”

Leonard didn’t miss the opportunity to take a pitiful look at Josu.

“Why are we here?”

“There are no big radio towers in my neighborhood… Oh! okay?”

The trick was surprisingly simple. The pod was launched from the space colony not 48 hours ago, but 72 hours ago, and when the Big History Foundation sent a recovery team, the cargo had already been stolen.

“Then why did you send Bandit?”

“With that in mind, it’s a trick. You would think of it as space magic, not time magic.”

A typical fixer would go after the bandit that attacked the recovery team. In that respect, Bandit was also a victim. Being chased as a criminal even though there is no income.

“The Big Something Foundation doesn’t think they sent it wrong from space, they think the bandits stole it. I won’t even bother checking.”

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Just thinking about it, it was great. He tricked three groups: the Space Colony, the Big History Foundation, and a band of wasteland bandits. Max whistled.

“Are you really smart?”

“Not clever. I have a lot of greed.”

“Wow… how do you catch a guy like that? Did you find out more?”

breastfeeding is over There was some credit left, but the cactus was not returned. Wasteland people were originally like that.

“Do not worry about it. Because I am smarter.”

@

Leonard and Max drove another day and a half back to A-044 City. It took a full 60 hours, but it was worth it. The old gentleman boldly showed his uncomfortable expression.

“Do I really have to do this?”

“Would you like to retrieve the cargo?”

“Yes, of course. The legacy of our ancestors has a noble value that cannot be converted into credits, so we must find it through our descendants…”

“Then cooperate.”

If he hadn’t hacked colonies off the planet from city to city like Leonard, he would have hacked into the communications network of the Big History Foundation. As a foundation sponsored by a corporation, computer security is excellent, but…

“As expected, they infiltrated this way.”

I found a wiring box that had been forcibly removed from the basement. Most of the security programs were useless when connected directly to the internal computer network. Leonard plugged the jack under his ear into an empty socket in the junction box. The old gentleman couldn’t help it.

“This is so… it shouldn’t be like this…”

It wasn’t the foundation’s rules, and it wasn’t even common sense. Did you know what to do with the computer network and let outsiders access it? However, the self-proclaimed best solver had Sangmorality. I didn’t do anything strict and just followed the hacker’s trail. The corners of his mouth rose slightly.

“Max, do you know what clever guys’ weaknesses are?”

“Well, okay? Are you weak?”

“…it’s cliché that a good brain is weak, but in this day and age, that’s not true.”

These days, it was enough to wear the latest implants. Max pondered as he pulled his lower lip. Leonard disconnected Jack and informed him.

“You know you are perfect.”

He cheated on the time of the earth and the universe, but left the time he was connected to the computer network intact. The closed-circuit video of that time also remained intact. It was arrogance to think that his tricks would go unnoticed.

Leonard reassembled the video that could identify the culprit by dividing it into dozens of photos. It became an almost perfect ID photo. The old gentleman’s brain chip and Max’s cell phone transmitted it, arrogantly shrugged.

“This is the culprit.”

The old gentleman and Max looked at each other. May this arrogant fixer be free of his ‘clever weakness’…

@

Finding people is the basic skill of a solver. Knowing his appearance, implants, and where he has been recently, it was only a matter of time.

Leonard and Max walked down 2-2 and 2-3 Avenues in Whitetown, following surveillance cameras. Aside from the annoying corporate public security, the pursuit was smooth.

“It’s surprising that I didn’t get in the car. A citizen of White Town?”

Max asked, hugging his guitar bag. Like Junk Town, I couldn’t take out my weapon and carry it around, so I inevitably hid my gun and knife in the ‘Winterfield’ case. It was for this reason that the gun case was shaped like a guitar in the first place.

“Hacking is an advanced skill. It’s not something a scavenger in Junk Town can do.”

“Hmm?”

“why?”

“A self-portrait? What is it?”

“…It must be self-praise. No, that’s not it either… It’s a simple fact that an advanced solver like me is precious.”

Leonard stopped and looked to his right. There was a building entrance visible in real time and a building entrance captured 92 hours ago by a surveillance drone. There was nothing in the former, but in the latter, a hacker wearing a cap was looking around. Max read the intaglio sign next to the doorway.

“Jacob Android Office? Is this a place where a lot of Sigma gather?”

“Advanced androids like Sigma are rare.”

Sigma was the only second-generation android that Leonard had devoted his life to. It far exceeded the performance of general office and home Android. However, there were plenty of Androids slightly lower than that. Like the Android office you are entering now.

Clap-!

Clack- clap-!

Lights came on from all sides as Leonard and Max entered. It was so blinding that it hurt.

“Is it too much to welcome guests?”

After adjusting the eye module to adjust to the light, I could see the interior scenery.

1st generation androids as plain as plaster masks, 2nd generation androids across the uncanny valley, and 3rd generation androids that resemble humans except for not expressing emotions were all around them. There were many on the 2nd and 3rd floors, so the exact number was unknown. A female third-generation android nearby greeted her politely.

“Thank you for visiting Jacob’s office. We are closed today, so please visit us next time.”

“When are you open?”

“Thank you for visiting Jacob’s office. We are closed today, so please visit us next time.”

Leonard had a look on his face.

“There are no Androids like Sigma?”

“Hey, Mr. Leonard? Is this scary? Shall we leave at once?”

It was a grotesque sight. If the goal was to incite fear and drive it away, it was half-successful. Because Max was scared. But the other half was a failure.

“The machine mass is cheeky…”

The eyeball, which had been forcibly reduced, expanded again. Unlike the first one, it was a vivid hexagon. 7 gigabytes of Android nearby! boom-! fell down with a sound.

“Ugh-! I did it!”

Max tossed his guitar bag aside and drew a gun from his hand. It was a double-barreled shotgun with a cut-off barrel and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

“Detection of hostilities. discovery of hostilities. Conducted level 2 response according to our manual…”

bang-!

Leonard didn’t listen for long. He pulled out his revolver, blew his head off, and ran. It was then that the arm of the android legion turned into a gun barrel.

“Break everything!”

Loud gunfire and muzzle flashes erupted from the streets of Whitetown. The solver with the entrepreneur on his back was very brave.