Infinite, Growing Stronger from Arasaka

"Yes!"

Without asking why, only what was needed, the squad captain nodded, then turned to gather the personnel and prepare to relocate.

During the process, Vera gave the so-called Mapungubwe Palace Ruins one final look.

It was nothing more than a cluster of mud-and-stone structures resembling sheds, covered in sand and pitted all over by windblown grit.

Having gone without maintenance for so long, more than half had already collapsed. Inside were dried excrement left behind by Nomads, while the fallen walls bore bullet holes and blast marks, both old and new. There had probably been more than one firefight here.

Buzz...

Amid the engine's exhaust gusts, the convoy set off once more.

After speeding across the boundless wasteland for nearly ten minutes.

"Supervisor Russell, we have crossed South Africa's border and entered Zimbabwe. According to the ancient Bantu tribal ruins map you provided, we should reach the next tribal site in approximately thirty-five minutes."

Inside the Behemoth armored transport's cabin, Vera brushed the sand from her sleeves, stored away several mutant mushroom samples, and began calmly writing her log.

Well, at least she looked calm.

How could proper research be done without keeping a log?

2075/5/31

Mapungubwe Palace Ruins | ×

No flower specimens meeting the requirements were found.

It is presumed that half a century of natural change and environmental deterioration may have driven the special precious flower discovered by that mining and transport company extinct. Expectations should be lowered; project feasibility has decreased...

"Heighten alert!"

"Hm?" Vera looked up.

The soldiers of the security detail outside her compartment immediately rose, synchronized the in-car weapon systems, and opened the firing ports to watch both sides. Only after a while did the squad commander's voice sound in Vera's ear through the internal comm channel.

"Supervisor Russell, something's happened. It appears to be a Badlands blood feud."

Swish. Footage synchronized with the drone recorders was projected onto the removable display wall before Vera.

Behind a small hill a hundred meters from the road lay a devastated camp. Several battered little cars, modified so many times no one could tell how often, were splattered everywhere with blood and brains, along with mangled corpses that would have been censored on any official television station.

"Oh..."

Vera wore a thoughtful expression. Then the corners of her lips curled upward as she controlled the vehicle's external camera and looked toward the distant Stone Ridge Mountains.

Arasaka agents...

Back at the ruins, she had been able to roughly determine the direction of the watchers.

The watchers who had followed them all the way.

"Request another squad deployment from the Cape Town branch. Also alter the route, expand the drone reconnaissance range, remain on high alert, and continue forward." Let's make things a little harder for you.

"...Yes!"

Once she sensed the convoy accelerating, Vera put down her data pad and closed her eyes to rest.

"Almost time."

She murmured soundlessly in her heart.

After leaving South Africa, she needed to find an opportunity to bring out the Sun Stairflower in a reasonable, logical manner.

Leaving South Africa meant leaving Arasaka's primary sphere of influence. North Africa and West Africa belonged to the European Community, while Central Africa was a buffer zone without a dominant power, a world of warring African warlords.

She had to keep herself in peak condition.

Although she was certain Arasaka's rapid response squads were far beyond anything those African Nomads could compare to, and although Arasaka security agents were following and monitoring her, protecting her life was also one of their priorities—as long as she was not meeting with Militech or European Space Agency personnel to discuss changing jobs.

Still, until everything was successfully concluded, she needed to stay vigilant.

Vera knew very well that they could not be trusted.

She had no idea how Norinobu, that landmine hidden within Arasaka, Lord Saburo's most filial son, would make his move against such an Arasaka "loyal subject" as herself. Would he plant his own people among the personnel, or deliberately leak information and redirect trouble toward her?

And if Norinobu chickened out and backed down, Vera would not want that either, because she needed Norinobu's hostility to "play the victim."

If the thing fell into her hands too easily, without her suffering a little hardship, how could she demonstrate her dedication, her importance, and her "loyalty" to Arasaka and the great Lord Saburo?

Fine. There was no hardship, only bumps along the road. Nothing happened the entire way.

Vera rubbed her forehead as she left the Great Zimbabwe Ruins and headed toward the dried-up upper source of the Congo River.

Three days.

The rapid response squad she had requested from the Cape Town branch had already rushed over day and night.

For the Solaris Staircase Project, she had explored the Kami Ruins in Zimbabwe and the Matobo Hills. She kept updating and sending back her logs, raising her projected success rate one moment and lowering it the next. She had even had several bloody conflicts with local indigenous warlord forces, yet she still had not received any intervention from those outside "friendly competitor" corporations.

Fine! Even without chaos, I'll take it anyway!

Watch me update the log.

2075/6/3

Great Zimbabwe Ruins | ?

Although no flower specimens meeting the requirements were found, there has been a major discovery.

Based on the observations from the stone walls and the remaining copper carvings, wooden carvings, and mask styles at the site, it is estimated that we have reached the location where the mining and transport company recorded finding the special precious flower...

"Supervisor Russell! We are about to arrive at the Congo River Ruins."

Vera stopped updating the log. Orange-red light flickered in her pupils as her cybernetic eye implant connected to the vehicle's external cameras. The dim yellow landscape before her was the Congo River—the Congo River without water.

Its broad riverbed lay exposed. The river that had once ranked among the world's greatest in runoff now contained only ravines and cracks.

After putting on a slight performance, Vera said excitedly, "Deploy all drones. I'll operate them."

The connector emitted soft buzzing sounds.

At that moment, Vera displayed the terrifying processing power expected of a top operative from the Night City Arasaka Security Department. Taking over the controls, she compared and scrolled through the images gathered by the drones across the display wall before her.

Barren slopes, dried wells, heaps of scrap, and old towns built long ago crisscrossed the wasteland. Most had already been buried beneath the sand. There were also ancient, deserted tribal ruins that resembled crude tents...

"Ancient Bantu tribes. The Congo River basin was once their largest habitat and gathering ground." Nodding, Vera rose to her feet. "Stop the vehicle."

Screech.

Tap tap!

With the light sound of hard heels striking compacted earth, Vera jumped down from the cabin. She passed through the soldiers standing guard, surveyed her surroundings, and finally walked toward the tribal ruins.

She could feel the gazes watching her from every direction the moment she stepped onto the ground.

Tch. Of the third rapid response squad to arrive, she had confirmed that at least two were informants.

Nothing more to say. Search!

After turning the tribe upside down again, the underground storage vault and water channels brought back into daylight were simply not enough for Vera's purposes. Move on!

Vera got back into the vehicle. Following the Congo River's dry riverbed, she quickly found the next tribal ruins. Search. There was no suitable ruin garden, so they moved again.

And so, amid getting in and out of vehicles, night fell.

Visible irritation appeared on Vera's face, and the watchers' gazes had grown noticeably listless when the convoy continued onward, passing one isolated abandoned town after another.

"We'll spend the night here. Set up camp and establish sentry posts."

At a tribal ruin nestled between two barren hills, enormous weathered stone statues leaning every which way and mostly ruined wooden carvings could vaguely be seen at the entrance. Vera got out of the vehicle slowly, as though merely going through the motions, and led several soldiers inside.

Search.

Inside the tribe's largest and best-preserved stone house, dust filled the air. Dirt and shattered stones flew everywhere, forming a chaotic cloud of smoke.

Light.

A pitch-black opening.

At last, she had found a sufficiently large tribe.

Vera let out a breath of stale air.

Primitive tribes like this still existed even in modern times. Especially stone-built tribal settlements constructed on slopes between two mountain ridges resembling flat-topped Stone Ridge Mountains—when they carved out mountains to build homes, they generally made use of natural caves.

This was the place.

Putting on a protective mask and ignoring the guards behind her, Vera stepped inside.

Tap, tap.

The deeper she went, the more irregular the rock walls became. Vera also saw increasingly obvious traces where man-made excavations joined natural caves, along with severely rotten wooden frames used for support and sacrificial masks hanging from them.

There was also plenty of spoiled grain on the ground. Vera could not identify it anyway. There were even human remains and many animal bones.

Even in the twentieth century, armed clashes over water and food had been common among African tribes. This place should have been used by the tribe to store grain, though she did not know why it had eventually been abandoned.

Perhaps it had been because corporations developed Africa. The environment had worsened drastically, and people were either forcibly relocated as laborers or died in the chaos...

Drip—

After proceeding farther inside, the natural cave became extremely narrow, barely allowing two people to pass. There was a faint sound of running water. Vera followed the sound and looked over. Water?

In the corner, an extremely scarce mountain spring seeped out in a thin trickle. She had no idea whether it was poisonous, but it was incredibly rare. Human bones, animal bones, animal hide, painted shaman masks, great quantities of grain that had spoiled, clumped together, and blackened into fertilizer-like fungal soil, as well as all kinds of scattered rotten seeds...

An imperceptible smile appeared on Vera's lips.

"Don't move!!"

Swish! Swish!

The soldiers following closely behind Vera were startled. They reflexively raised their guns, their cyberware activating. "Supervisor Russell?" But Vera ignored them completely. Half-crouching in the corner, red light flickered in her pupils as she said, "Found it."

Vera's gloved hand stabbed into the heap of gray-black fungal soil in the corner and pushed it aside. In a dimension they could not see, another "her" picked up the large handful of Sun Stairflowers before her, turning illusion into reality.

Very gently, Vera made a pulling motion. A flash of color, exceptionally vivid within the cave, "broke through the soil" and entered the soldiers' vision. "What is that?"

"See? Sun Stairflowers."

Vera's voice seemed to tremble with excessive excitement. She raised the dark-red, round-cored flower high overhead, grinning brightly with teeth bared like a famous corn enthusiast.

"Go, bring my flower culture dishes! Seal off the site."

She let out a breath, shifted her excited gaze to the soldiers standing in place, and gave the order in a low voice.

Before her words had even faded, she crouched down again. Her hand repeatedly brushed aside the gray-black fungal soil, tossing the shaman masks and bones mixed within to one side. One dark-red flower after another, some wilted and some standing tall, "broke through the soil."

Thud thud!

At that moment, several soldiers in the front obeyed and hurried away. Of the two soldiers who remained, one unconsciously directed his gaze toward the Sun Stairflowers Vera had carefully placed behind her.

The camera of the high-definition recorder disguised on his body emitted a faint, ghostly glow.

At This Moment, Vera Began Her Evil Virus Research

Boom!

The shockwave from the mountain-blasting explosion instantly spread in every direction. Dust and broken stones scattered through the air, and once the smoke cleared, the seemingly solid weathered mountain wall began collapsing over a wide area. At the convoy's parking site five hundred meters away, Vera stood with her arms crossed, her fingers tapping intermittently.

"Keep searching. Long stems, single terminal blooms, dark-red cores."

Ever since the Sun Stairflowers had been "discovered" deep within a sunken natural cave that had been excavated through from the mountain-backed interior of the stone house that seemed to have belonged to the tribal chief, at the center of the large African tribal ruins, she had acted extremely excited.

After placing the dozen or so scavenged flowers—some in good condition, some poor, including damaged, wilted, and dead specimens—as well as several rotten, carbonized seeds into culture dishes, Vera ordered every soldier in the rapid response squads to begin searching.

She herself kept updating the exploration log on her data pad, displaying a powerful desire to return.

The impatience of someone eager to begin the relevant research.

Under her orders, every tribal ruin within one or two miles—mud houses, wooden houses, stone houses, grass-slope houses, dung houses—was turned upside down within two hours. They dug three feet deep, and some were simply bulldozed flat, comparable to a violent demolition operation.