Chapter 238
"Huh?"
As Vera twirled her teacup, a smile gradually spread across her lips. "Is that so?"
233
Chapter 233 Aftermath: A Corner of Night City
Beep beep—beep beep—
A small room.
There are built-in wardrobes, three beds spaced apart, and the bedside tables are covered with magazines, folders with the Arasaka logo, Separate Chip storage boxes. In the central, sunken small sitting area, there are empty beer cans, an ashtray filled with stubbed-out cigarette butts, and pizza boxes on the coffee table...
The vibration comes from an electronic clock that displays a silent image of Saburo Arasaka.
Automatic lights embedded in the ceiling and walls quietly turn on.
In the middle is a bed labeled "Kushinada Lucina".
"Call..."
Lucy opened her eyes and saw only a clean, soap-gray ceiling and walls.
It wasn't a rented apartment, a team base, or a safe house in the Badlands; it was the office dormitory in Arasaka.
Lucy, her eyes focusing instantly on a bright but not glaring light, realized her surroundings, threw off the blanket, and sat up.
She looked left and right immediately.
Left, Kiwi, who had also stood up, put on her pink iron mask and waved to indicate.
Right, uh... the person lying on the bed is wrapped tightly in a blanket, breathing heavily.
Looking at the bright green hair peeking out from under the blanket, the most vibrant and lively in the dormitory, Lucy felt a little more at ease.
Another day passed peacefully.
The further they went, the safer they and Maine became.
The golden 72 hours for criminal investigation have long passed, and she has been here for almost six days.
Arasaka is very efficient.
On the day the staffing was finalized, she and her "accompanying maid" Kiwi Rebecca were taken away by Arasaka and placed in the Arasaka General Office in the Heywood Scenic Area for closed training. Sometimes they went to the Arasaka Academy to take adult classes.
Based on her experience during this period, Lucy couldn't tell whether it was genuine training or a deliberate attempt to imprison her.
Or perhaps both.
In any case, Vera herself never showed up again to talk to her. Arasaka pointed the finger at Washington and Militech in the robbery and murder case, and the tension in North America escalated again. The public opinion confrontation between the two sides, with Mei Kai revealing each other's dirty secrets, made the audience applaud and praise her. This also made Lucy feel relieved and light-hearted.
She knew that the team had weathered the storm...
The ashes of Abernathy, the victim of the 'Night City New Year Robbery and Murder Case 2077', have been buried in the Night City Arasaka Cemetery by Arasaka Fuka after all relevant evidence and information have been collected.
Lucy watched the entire live stream from this room. She also saw Abernathy's epitaph in close-up. "Loyalty to the company, until death."
Whether it was just her imagination or not, Lucy, as someone who experienced the incident firsthand and went through a rollercoaster of emotions afterward, felt that the higher-ups at Arasaka knew something and were tacitly approving something.
Even if the robbery and murder had ended smoothly without the Federal Intelligence Agency, Arasaka would have used it as an excuse to provoke Washington.
After all, Maine's status as a former NUSA special forces soldier was undeniable, and with the power of Major Corporations, it would be easy to find out with a simple investigation.
From this perspective, Maine's 'old friend,' the guy named Solomon Reed, wanted to use them as scapegoats, a classic case of the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind, but unexpectedly, he ended up taking the fall for them instead.
With more concrete grounds for attack from Federal Intelligence Agency, Arasaka naturally no longer needed to dig deeper and might instead target Maine, a former New America soldier whose case was less supported by evidence.
Fortune and misfortune are truly intertwined; life is unpredictable...
Thus, after openly discussing the past, and concluding that Maine and the others would likely survive if they escaped and weren't caught on the spot, Lucy, Kiwi, and Rebecca calmed down and settled into separate quarters in the Corporate Dog- infested den.
My daily routine consists of three things: training and Catch up on studies classes.
In Rebecca's words, she had never had such a regular schedule in her entire life!
"Lucy, don't just stand there."
The tall female hacker, dressed in a tacky but stylish black strapless top and panties, revealing a spider web tattoo on her bare body and a hexagonal prosthetic indentation on her collarbone, walked toward Rebecca's bed. "The training in Arasaka is not as carefree as that of mercenaries. Don't be late again."
Upon hearing this, Lucy, regaining her senses, nodded and got up to walk towards the bathroom.
Her current status is that of a trainee employee under Arasaka training. Kiwi and Rebecca, on the other hand, are contract workers outside the formal staffing system, with the possibility of becoming permanent employees if they perform well. It depends on how Lucy, this employee with 'connections,' manages them and whether they have a future.
"Rebecca, get up."
Kiwi acted like a mother hen, patiently pulling Rebecca out of the blanket.
"Ha~"
Rebecca, who had been woken up, yawned sleepily, tears welling up in her eyes. She rubbed her temples and looked miserable. "When will this ever end? I want to go find my older brother."
"Not for now. Don't overthink it, Maine and the others will be fine. Although there's nothing we can do if something happens to them."
After patting Rebecca on the shoulder, Kiwi opened the wardrobe and began to get dressed.
"Whispering sound!"
Rebecca sneered, "Old woman, is that how you comfort people?"
"As long as it works."
Kiwi glanced at the green-haired legal loli.
It should be said that Rebecca is the most sentimental of the three, the one who cares most about her brother's situation, and the one whose emotions are most direct. Why does she appear to be sleepy and carefree? Because when she first moved in, she couldn't sleep and was restless, causing her to be late for class. Now she takes strong sleeping pills every night before bed.
To put it bluntly, right now she needs to be carefree and not overthink things.
Rustle.
After getting dressed and washing up, the three of them started on their own.
Because of her painful past experiences, Kiwi had no mouth, so she quickly tidied herself up, put on a dark coat that matched Arasaka's style, and waited for the two of them.
Arasaka's bedroom was furnished much more meticulously than when he was a mercenary. The blankets were folded and smoothed out, and all the clothes were neatly arranged in the wardrobe. This included his black coat and bright red spider-patterned overcoat.
"Damn it, Arasaka is treating me like you, the runaway heiress's lackey!"
After tying her hair into pigtails, Rebecca followed Lucy out. "Even though it's all your money, don't worry, I'll pay it back."
Needless to say, the clothes that Rebecca liked to wear, which were revealing and showed off a lot of skin and tattoos, were all sealed off. The clothes that Arasaka provided were all the same color, and while the skin could be shown, most of them were covered up completely.
"Etiquette training, room service, household management, clothing organization, cooking skills... What the heck is this?!"
Recalling today's lessons, Rebecca immediately burst into a tirade, saying that these were things professional maids would learn.
"I'll learn it then. In any case, it's a way to make some money."
With her hands in her pockets, Kiwi displayed her thirst for knowledge.
She was the most enthusiastic and serious about receiving training from Arasaka here.
As a self-taught hacker who learned through unconventional means, she was acutely aware of the value of advanced knowledge. Unlike before the Fourth Corporate War, when the internet still existed and open-source gurus like Bartmoss, Ott, and Murphy were active, local area networks were now almost static. Major Corporations and organizations were extremely protective of their resources, and anything that leaked out was outdated.
Therefore, she cherished this opportunity all the more.
Fortunately, Lucy was a cyber hacker, and the courses Arasaka designed were geared towards Lucy, allowing her to learn from them. She was learning all sorts of miscellaneous knowledge, and she was especially eager to absorb advanced knowledge about hacking.
From Lucy's mentor to her maid, a maid is a maid, Kiwi never cared about empty titles; she only cared about practical benefits. Staying in Arasaka under Lucy's identity didn't seem so bad. As for the Corporate War, who knew what the future held?
"It's nothing, we're a team, aren't we?"
After putting on her uniform, Lucy walked over. She didn't care about Rebecca's request for repayment. She clapped her hands, signaling to set off, "Let's go."
Since we're here, let's make the best of it.
Life is unfair; not everyone has the luxury of choice. She had never understood this statement so deeply. In the past, she seemed to have truly wasted too much.
Squeak. The door slammed shut.
The current time is 7:15.
After being scanned, the sentry left the dormitory, and the three of them walked out of the Arasaka office in the Lijing area together.
In the corridor, a fully armed heavily armed police officer Arasaka had been waiting for some time.
"Lucy ... cough cough, Miss Kushinada Lucina. Please come with me, I will escort you to the Arasaka Academy."
He said.
"David, just call me Lucy. No need for Miss, my father... let's not talk about him."
Lucy just smiled, looking at her honest and reliable savior, the communication cursor in her eyes lighting up: [Don't you have any questions? Like, why was I in the Badlands that day, that car—]
David: No way!
David shook his head, interrupting, "Don't talk nonsense. I don't know anything and I don't want to know. Everything is based on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' word. Lucy... let's go to class. When we come back tonight, I'll take you and your... uh, your classmate to the security dispatch and command center in the Lijiang area for an internship."
Having said that, David turned to the side and gestured for him to enter.
A heavily armored Arasaka -type Villefort [Curtis-V6000 Overlord] was parked on the side of the road.
After opening and closing the car door and letting the three people into the car, David sat in the passenger seat.
The Curtis-V6000 Overlord a lot of space, and there's plenty of room for three people to sit in the back.
"Hey, David, I didn't expect you to know this rebellious rich girl?"
The driver, Kawakami Xiao Fu, wearing a helmet but no face shield, was leaning on the steering wheel and asked with great interest, "Did it spark?"
He winked and made faces.
Stop being sarcastic.
Fasten your seatbelt, David points ahead and says, "Drive."
"Okay."
Vroom! I started the engine, stepped on the gas, and the vehicle drove onto the road.
The energetic car music switched to the routine announcements from Arasaka Police Radio and the sharing of surrounding case information after accessing the NCPD database. The tablet in the back seat and the control panel in the passenger seat played news from 54 stations, WNS, Night City Inquirer.
"Any accusations pointing to the New America or Militech, especially those originating from Arasaka, are baseless slanders. We have reason to doubt Ms. Vera Adelheid Arasaka Russell's motives. It is well known that Ms. Russell's parents died..."
"I always think I'm right and wrong, always making others look for my own reasons, blaming everything on temporary workers and former employees. Ms. Miles always brushes it off with 'tragic incidents that occurred during the routine rotation of the intelligence and security system.' This behavior is not only irresponsible but also very unethical."
The back-and-forth exchanges have made the public opinion battlefield exceptionally lively lately.
They've stopped using specific individuals or events and are now directly naming names and launching attacks.
It's as if the situation from late 2075 to the first quarter of 2076, when the conflict caused by the independence of the western Free State, has been repeated.
"Call!"
David let out a long sigh, removed his mask, and absentmindedly stroked the gun with his fingers, a thoughtful expression on his face. He wasn't stupid; he naturally had doubts about what Lucy had said. Why was the other party in Badlands? And that modified truck with its hidden secrets...
Why didn't Arasaka investigate this line of investigation further? It could even be said that he skipped it entirely.
I can't think about it too much, because once SAT-6 arrived, it reduced everything to ashes with its furious firepower. Did Director Vera do this on purpose? For Lucy? To deal with Nusa?
"Are we going to sign a third Arvin Accord?"
After thinking for a while, David decided to give up. That level of competition was beyond his reach.
After finishing this task, I'll try to get promoted and transferred to SAT-6. It just so happens that the Director's guards are being rotated, and those who have served a year will soon be promoted and transferred elsewhere. Director Vera's guards, besides the bodyguards from the security department and the Cyber Ninja group directly under the Arasaka Family, are the heavily armed warriors of SAT-6!
David glanced at the rearview mirror out of the corner of his eye and thought to himself. He felt he could apply. The board remembered him and had an impression of him; that was his biggest advantage.
Let's do it!
234
Chapter 234 V: Subordinates defying their superiors is a way to save themselves!
"Hello, friends of Night City! In today's program, we will continue to delve into the recent high-profile assassination of the director. Will it really trigger a hot war Arasaka and Militech, leading to the Fifth Corporate War? To this end, we are honored to have invited a sociologist from Night City University..."
"Professor, do you think war will break out?"