Chapter 223
[Accepted the invitation]
[Already joined]
Enter the internal encrypted channel.
Panam immediately noticed today's updates.
Falco [The Secretive Motel]: Sigh, we haven't found Arasaka's main target yet, but we did unexpectedly discover the whereabouts of a high-ranking Militech executive who came here to meet his secret lover and relieve his loneliness.
Rebecca [Japan Street - Genting]: Damn it! Why do I have to be stuck in this godforsaken place? Will that old woman from Arasaka really come? She's so rich, she'll probably send sex dolls all over the city.
Pilar [Westbrook]: I followed a male puppet named 'Angel'. He did go to the Westbrook corporate community. He must have been targeted by some Corporate Dog. The security inside was too tight, so I didn't dare to go in. I could only look around from a high point outside with binoculars. If the information Jackie provided is correct, it is the community where the Abernathy mansion is located.
Dorio [Corporate Plaza]: Nothing unusual here. Abernathy didn't see her Kang Tao lover today. Her husband, who works at Zeta Technologies, has been separated from her for many years; they basically live separate lives, a legal marriage in name only. I don't think it's necessary to investigate.
Abernathy...
For any Free Mercenaries in the underground market, remembering the powerful department heads of Major Corporations who are not to be trifled with is the most basic thing to do.
"The target is Arasaka's Director of Special Operations?"
Taking a deep breath, Panam looked at Jackie and murmured, "This is really a big deal that could turn things around."
With his eyes flashing with orange-red data streams, Jackie, seemingly full of confidence, encouraged, "It's not entirely hopeless. We have connections."
In response, a file was quietly sent from an account with a double-encrypted identity on the encrypted channel.
[***: This is a document just issued by the Management Council. It is Director Vera's "Jurassic Park Project" and an announcement that meritorious employees of Arasaka can choose a dinosaur pet as a reward (including - Attachment 1).]
As the head of intelligence, Abernathy won't stand idly by. Whatever type of assassination preparations you're undertaking, be prepared for a Badlands ambush. This project involves the Channel Islands surrounding Los Angeles. My department will try to entice Abernathy to take this job and get her to leave Night City.
217
Chapter 217 Vera's Gift: Pet Dinosaur.
As the power struggle between Arthur Jenkins and Susan Abernathy intensifies, and Jenkins' confidant V is reportedly colluding with outsiders such as Free Mercenaries Jackie Welles, Maine, and Panam to commission a collaboration on a plot to overthrow Arasaka, and is rapidly preparing for the assassination, Vera, who is observing all the subtle movements, remains indifferent as usual.
During this period, she had been shuttling back and forth between three locations: Arasaka Tower, Westbrook, and Arasaka Waterfront, working like a corporate slave from dawn till dusk. Her attention to these minor conflicts that other Corporate Dog might see as Arasaka's unique "internal circulation" was enough to surprise the intelligence agency responsible for monitoring her.
With Vera unmoved and Michiko indifferent, the North American faction, led by Executive Vice President James Thomas, was naturally happy to stand by and watch, and even collectively fueled the flames.
It was under these delicate circumstances that Vera's leisure activities during the refinement of the [Armor] system—a sub-project of the "Jurassic Park Project": the first batch of pet dinosaur eggs successfully produced and hatched.
The Russell family mansion after several expansions.
The basement, which could be considered Underground Shelter, contains a constant-temperature incubation room in addition to the CNC workshop and the P3-level biological protection laboratory.
"Roar!"
"Roar?"
"Roar~"
The tender cries of young animals emanated from a semi-enclosed, round, table-shaped container completely bathed in infrared light.
Dinosaur eggs and newborn dinosaurs were sorted and placed in these cylindrical containers filled with hay and rags, much like incubators for premature babies in hospital nurseries.
Hanging scanners and motion sensors are monitoring the entire room.
The outline of the dinosaur egg was faintly visible in the hissing mist that enveloped the incubation chamber.
Reptile eggs contain a large amount of yolk, but no water. The embryo must draw water from its surroundings, which is why there is this misty substance.
Some well-developed dinosaur eggs are gently swaying.
"It's about to hatch."
Holding the PDA tablet, Vera's indigo eyes reflected the code of this nest of eggs: Velociraptor, with a shimmering Crystal Blue Halo belonging to the Geass Velociraptor.
She sensed the emotional responses that emerged from those dinosaur eggs.
Although it was vague, it was also simple. She could roughly understand the instinctive emotion of these ignorant little lives—hunger.
As she released her Geass field, Vera leaned down and stared at the egg in the nest that was showing the strongest emotional reaction.
Creak—
With a faint cracking sound, a dent appeared on the rough textured and bumpy eggshell.
A tiny head struggled to break through the shell.
Its head resembles that of a lizard, with a long snout. Inside its open mouth are small, closely spaced, nail-like teeth. Its grayish-white, pinkish skin is covered with a sticky, dried, brownish-red yolk. Its tiny forelimbs, with only three fingers, push aside the fragments of eggshell and wave slowly.
After letting out a cry, it tilted its head to one side, its large, dark yellow eyes with black vertical pupils on the irises gazing at the first creature it had seen since birth.
"Roar~"
Then it cried out twice more and began to struggle even more vigorously in an attempt to hatch completely.
A pair of eyes glanced at Vera, who was looking down at it from above, as if to say, "Help me!"
This reminded Vera of a saying: An egg, broken from the outside, is food; broken from the inside, it is life.
Like all oviparous animals, dinosaurs remembered and trusted the first animal they encountered at birth.
But really?
In any case, Vera is cautious about this 'imprinting phenomenon' in biological behavior and believes it should not be taken too seriously.
As you may have noticed, in Jurassic Park + World, from John Hammond's International Gene Technology (Jurassic Park) to Simon Maslani's Masrani Global (Jurassic World), there have been numerous cases of breeders being attacked or even eaten alive by the dinosaurs they raised.
Over there, as the developer of the Jurassic Park project for Masrani Global and a hybrid dinosaur DNA programmer, she inevitably came into close contact with various dinosaurs.
Even though she was confident in her abilities, Vera wouldn't get too close to the dinosaurs she was in charge of.
On the contrary, she always speculated about the dinosaurs' behavior with the most malicious intentions during work meetings. She believed that simply implanting a GPS positioning chip was not enough, and that it would be better to implant an electric shock chip with the activity to kill brain cells into the skull of a carnivorous dinosaur. She repeatedly pointed out the safety hazards of the Jurassic World theme park and the company's inadequate ability to suppress dinosaur out-of-control incidents.
For this, she attracted a lot of criticism, having ideological conflicts with Owen, the security guard and trainer, and Claire (the male and female protagonists of Jurassic World), the operations manager, and was criticized for not treating dinosaurs as living beings and being cold-blooded.
Sigh, in a world where history unfolds normally, there are just too many trivial and petty things.
Before infecting these naturally fierce predators with her own Geass stance, Vera would never, like the pet owners in those pet-related accidents, rub herself against the predator's predatory organs to show trust and closeness.
Of course, you can pet and handle this tiny baby dragon as you please.
Moreover, isn't this a successful assimilation infection?
Handing the PDA tablet to the weak AI robotic arm that was caring for the dinosaur egg incubation, Vera stretched out her nitrile-gloved hand, removed the eggshell fragments from the top of the baby dragon's head, gently wiped away the dried yolk wrapped around its mouth and nose, and then removed it entirely from the shell.
Very obediently, the young dragon did not struggle at all.
Buzz, buzz.
A humanoid assistant robot carrying an incubator then walked over and stood next to Vera.
The little Velociraptor seemed to realize something, touching Vera's fingertips with its nose and then rubbing its head against Vera's palm.
A kind of attachment...
Thinking of this, Vera couldn't help but laugh. She scratched the little Velociraptor's neck and played with it gently for a while before placing the Velociraptor, which was raising its head and giggling, into the assistant robot's incubator.
It will be transferred to a specially designed temperature-controlled greenhouse to nurture baby dragons during their most vulnerable early life.
"Nice little gadget."
Vera took a quick-drying disinfectant wipe from another assistant robot and wiped the dried egg yolk stains off her hands.
She then picked up her PDA tablet and began updating the logs.
A robotic arm suspended above the container continues its care work, periodically turning the dinosaur eggs and measuring their temperature with temperature sensors. It also screens and selects undeveloped, dead eggs.
Didi.
... Record, 2077-1-7, a total of 121 animals survived, and the survival rate of the first batch of embryos was about 0.4%.
The primary species are herbivorous dinosaurs that have been selectively bred to be miniaturized. The first batch of carnivorous dinosaurs consists only of Compsognathus and Velociraptor.
Although the variety is limited, the pilot breeding of "Jurassic Project" has undoubtedly been a success.
Through various insects found in amber—including blood-sucking insects that feed on the blood of large animals—I obtained the DNA of extinct prehistoric animals.
Note that the addition of resurrected dinosaur categories is currently limited by DNA extraction conditions, and it will take time to collect amber samples containing the blood of other dinosaurs.
Proposals to resurrect animals such as saber-toothed tigers and mammoths are not technically feasible at the moment.
In fact, extracting dinosaur DNA using the Loewe antibody extraction technology mastered by the International Gene Technology company is slightly easier than extracting mammalian DNA, because mammalian red blood cells do not have a cell nucleus, and therefore their red blood cells do not contain DNA.
Dinosaurs had nucleated red blood cells, just like modern birds.
To reiterate, although they are called Jurassic, they are not real dinosaurs because we cannot obtain the DNA of real dinosaurs. We only borrowed some of the genetic information of dinosaurs and pieced it together.
Strictly speaking, they are a new species with the appearance of dinosaurs.
[Encrypted]
While subconsciously marking each of the live dinosaur eggs that were beginning to show emotional responses with Geass marks, Vera completed her daily trial breeding log.
To resurrect a true pure-blooded dinosaur, perhaps only God could do it.
Well, with current technology.
Who can predict the future?
"It's a bit small."
After finishing everything, Vera put down her PDA tablet, looked around at the incubation room, the cultivation room, the dutiful local intelligent control assistant robot, and the standing gene embryo refrigerator behind the one-way partition glass, and suddenly murmured this sentence.
As far as dinosaur breeding is concerned, even for small dinosaurs bred through targeted breeding, the workshop area in the basement of her mansion is far too small.
Once the initial research is completed here, it should be moved out.
Vera thought to herself.
Anyway, the Jurassic Project is just so-so. You can say it's important, but it doesn't seem that important. You can say it's profitable, but it's turned out to be profitable.
But it certainly can't be compared to the military projects Vera is currently working on; it's more like icing on the cake.
The supporting environmental governance technology can only be fully realized after Arasaka defeats Niimi and Militech; otherwise, it would be aiding the enemy.
It's possible to do it, but not on a large scale.
Currently, this project is more about misleading the public, while also showcasing Arasaka's future PPT vision and high employee benefits, contrasting it with the despicable focus on Militech research and development of military weapons, waging a propaganda war, and occupying the moral high ground—look, Militech only knows how to fight and bomb, while our Arasaka has lofty ambitions, searching for new partners for humanity and repairing Mother Earth, listen to how pleasing it sounds.
The subsequent cultivation work can be handed over to others, such as the researchers she transferred from Tokyo. Some of the related projects can also be allocated to Tokyo for Saburo or Wako to manage, just to relieve their boredom.
After all, if Jurassic Park is to be built, North America has one, and Tokyo certainly wants one too. It's a matter of attitude, so it's better to give it up.
As for these first batch of pet dinosaurs born in the Cyberpunk world, they were artificially matured and certainly wouldn't be suitable as weapons, but they're enough to be fashionable pets for showing off and gaining face. Let's just distribute them as prizes to reward outstanding employees.
Originally, out of a desire to protect the orphan of a fallen comrade, and also because Vera wisely entrusted him with managing her family's wealth and stocks, Uncle Thomas felt obligated to give her one, as it was a way of protecting her through the most difficult period of her development.
Mr. Yano, my mentor, also wants to give one.
There's also Old Man Ram, who voluntarily retired and recommended her to take over as head of the Special Rapid Response Unit.
They must not forget their trusted subordinate, Jimmy.
Those old leaders who remained from the former Kei Arasaka faction and firmly supported her after she chose her ruler also needed to send one to the past as a token of their loyalty.
Finally, there were the department leaders of Night City Arasaka Tower, and the Arasaka Meritorious Employees who were honored in 2076.
Let's allocate it like this for now.
"Order the administrative department to draft and issue a public notice."
As Vera walked out of the incubation room, she instructed her AI assistant to issue the order.
[Assistant AI: Yes.]
The Jurassic Park Project is temporarily closed.
Send Michiko an email about her custom-made Tyrannosaurus Rex. Don't rush her; it's a custom order, so let's wait a bit.
The leisure and entertainment activities are over; it's just a matter of replicating Masrani Global's technology. What's next is the hard work of the tough battle: the integrated research and development of the [Battle Armor] system.
"The problem of miniaturizing energy shields... Ha, you really have the expertise. The one who tied the knot must untie it. I thought of pulling 'Count Pudding,' the original developer, away from Suzaku Kururugi and making him work on it at the same pace. That's definitely much faster. The reason? To prevent a vicious assassination attempt like the one in District 11?"
With a faint smile, Vera silently muttered to herself as she left the incubation room. After disinfecting and changing clothes, she walked through the long, isolated corridor toward the mechanical workshop at the other end.
And so, amidst the busy work of various parties with their own differing goals, half a month passed in the blink of an eye.