From Arasaka to Infinite Progress

"Supervisor Russell, we've finished checking. No red flowers were found in the buildings on the eastern side of the ruins."

"None on the southern side either."

"Signs of Nomads living there were found on the western side, including campfires and abandoned trash. Some buildings contained remnants of old food with black spots from oxidation, but it appears they were searched through before. They had also been exposed to high-temperature wind and sand for too long."

"Report: after using controlled demolition to excavate the mountain, we found caves that appear to have been used for food storage. However, these newly discovered caves are too small in scale... Should we move to another ruin and expand the search area..."

"You decide."

Rubbing her forehead, Vera waved them away with apparent regret, then lightly thumped the hood of the vehicle herself.

"Right, such precious medicinal herbs would definitely have been hoarded by tribal chiefs. How could they possibly have leaked them out for others to share? Clinging to their worthless possessions—what backward, superstitious culture... I was too greedy." It was impossible to tell who she was cursing, but she muttered it openly enough for quite a few soldiers to hear.

"Forget it... This is enough. A blessing amid misfortune—I found a few of them after all..."

The rapid-response soldiers standing nearby remained silent as they listened to Supervisor Russell complain.

Unnoticed by anyone, several people edged toward the Behemoth armored transport behind Vera, where the Sun Stairflowers were stored. Before they could slip closer, however, a faint sound came from beyond the horizon.

It was the roar of hovercar engines.

Blue Vector Engine exhaust flickered through the night sky as a Heavy Octant Drone and two armored hovercars marked with the Arasaka Clover logo tore through the air.

On the ground, the Arasaka rapid-response soldiers who were blasting open mountains and digging through the earth froze for a moment. Then an announcement came through their comm earpieces from the commanders of each squad: "Internal identification confirmed. They're ours—the emergency task force dispatched from Lubumbashi."

Once they learned they were friendlies, some maintained routine vigilance while the others continued with their work.

"They're here?" Vera looked up.

She had called for the armored hovercars.

Although the Congo and other parts of Central Africa were buffer zones between Arasaka and the European Community, without the sort of regional headquarters towers found elsewhere, major economic and political entities such as Arasaka and the European Community would never simply let such a prize go.

They still maintained basic offices and factories here. After all, this region was rich in nonferrous and rare metal deposits. Leaving it all to the impoverished Black Warlords would have been a waste.

Tragically, this was one of the rare points on which all the corporations agreed.

As the hovercars descended, the airflow generated by their Vector Engines began forming visible whirlwinds on the ground, lifting dust and gravel into the air.

Thud! Thud!

Several heavily armed figures jumped straight down from the open belly platforms of the hovercars and crashed onto the ground.

"Supervisor Russell!"

"That's me."

Without exchanging pleasantries, Vera nodded and displayed the forceful, efficient manner expected of a senior Night City Arasaka Security executive. "Maintain the perimeter and wait for me. It seems the travel portion is over. I need to take the greatest gain from this African study trip."

Before boarding the Behemoth armored transport again, Vera summoned the three commanders of the Arasaka rapid-response teams.

"From this moment on, your escort mission is over. Thank you for protecting me during this trip. Trust me, once you return to your Cape Town base, you'll receive a generous bonus sponsored by Dangerous Girl. Clean up all traces here, then return to South Africa."

"Yes!" ×3

After speaking, Vera returned to the cabin. Not long afterward, she emerged carrying bags and packages, hugging several cases containing flower culture dishes as she jumped down from the transport.

By then, the hovercars had landed. Several heavily armored soldiers who had arrived with them immediately stepped forward to help Vera transfer the cases aboard, while another armored hovercar hovered overhead with its machine guns ready, patrolling the skies.

Seated on a simple folding stool on the belly platform, Vera slowly rose into the air under the watchful eyes of the rapid-response soldiers. At last, a hidden smile curled at the corner of her lips as she gazed toward the distant mountain ranges. Under the desolate night sky, the air was tinged with a faint gray haze, and the wind and sand had rare moments of calm.

Tch, why were they hiding so far away...

Vera lit a cigarette.

There were informants, yet they hadn't made a move while I was "discovering" them. Were they not planning to act after all? Or were they holding back for something big?

"Fuck!"

Several Arasaka Agents crawled out of their concealed pit, cursing under their breath, covered in dust and dirt.

Above them, an Octant Drone roared past at low altitude, its blue-white Vector Engine exhaust blazing as two armored hovercars climbed higher behind it.

"The target displayed no abnormalities throughout the entire operation. No contact with suspicious individuals was detected, and no additional communication frequencies were found nearby... So these loyalty-assessment surveillance missions really have no profit in them at all. We're Arasaka too, so why are we sneaking around like thieves?"

Watching the armored hovercar carrying the target vanish over the horizon, one security agent vented aloud.

"We were the real bodyguards who escorted her the whole way, yet those security guards got bonuses instead..."

They were low-ranking personnel and did not know the other purpose behind monitoring Vera. Based on experience, they merely assumed it was similar to the usual loyalty tests for high-level promotions.

This Vera Adelheid Russell had entered the shortlist for promotion to higher ranks. Since she happened to be traveling to Central Africa, where Arasaka's influence was relatively weak, it was only natural to have them monitor her for a while.

"The target has begun her return journey."

At another surveillance point, the team leader—his face covered in dust, looking every bit like a Nomad—continued staring down at the dark-red flower displayed on the terminal screen.

"Everything is normal. The target's behavior was abnormal in no way. Based on footage taken by embedded informants, she appears to have found the kind of flower mentioned in her African expedition proposal..."

"Notify all teams. Mission complete. Withdraw."

Just as the security surveillance team directly commanded by Arasaka's Tokyo headquarters began gathering its members and retreating, sending operational reports and live records back to headquarters, several messages were being exchanged through a hidden encrypted channel concealed among them.

The target has found the "Sun Stairflower" mentioned in the proposal.

Recorder footage received. Unit 9527, our division has mobilized forces stationed in the Congo region. Can you remain undercover and obtain the Sun Stairflower, or find an opportunity to sabotage the convoy and delay it? We can coordinate from within and without to destroy or obtain the Sun Stairflower.

...No opportunity. The target summoned Arasaka's emergency task force from Lubumbashi the moment she discovered the Sun Stairflower. She has already left.

...Maintain silence. Once she returns to South Africa, investigate Vera Adelheid Russell's whereabouts. Based on her personality profile, she will certainly begin research immediately. We need to obtain or destroy her research results. Anything Arasaka wants to accomplish, we must sabotage.

Time passed.

Across the ocean, in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, inside a room in the Arasaka estate that belonged to Sano Arasaka himself—a locked room hidden away with advanced communication equipment and sophisticated anti-interference, anti-eavesdropping electronic devices.

"Baka! Such a perfect opportunity, and why didn't your people dare to make a move?!"

"Are you serious? He's an undercover operative, not some cybernetically enhanced lunatic. No one knows Vera Adelheid's personal combat ability better than us at Militech! Haven't enough elite agents and soldiers died by her hand in Night City? Do you think the small submachine guns carried by rapid-response soldiers can move faster than her reactions? That would only alert the enemy. Even if they were lucky enough to seize one flower, there would still be more. She could finish her research regardless."

"Then tell me, what should we do? She has already brought those damned flowers—those damned flowers that should have gone extinct—back to South Africa and buried herself in Arasaka's Johannesburg laboratory. Her project is a new 'rejuvenation drug' that revitalizes human cells and organ tissue. What if she succeeds and extends Saburo Arasaka's life again?"

"Oh, my friend, don't be so anxious. Setting aside the success rate of her project, wouldn't it be better to let her gather everything and conduct the research first? Once we confirm the location, we can concentrate our forces and catch them all in one sweep... Whether we seize or destroy it, with a sensible friend such as yourself helping us, we will certainly hold the initiative."

"I hope so. You'd better prepare quickly."

Sano Arasaka hung up, removed his voice changer, and his expression immediately darkened.

"Damn Anglo-American bastards!"

How could he fail to hear the mockery, suspicion, and distrust hidden in their tone?

But there was nothing he could do. Saburo's control over Arasaka was too strong.

He was truly an emperor. He had gathered the Hawks under the banner of reviving Arasaka. Once his subordinates learned that he intended to oppose Saburo completely and end Arasaka's monopoly on benefits, most of his supporters would collapse in an instant.

Thus, he had to personally handle matters such as cooperating with Militech and selling out Arasaka's interests.

Fortunately, the other side only guessed that he was a Japanese person within Arasaka dissatisfied with Saburo's long reign. No one would likely guess that he, Saburo's son—the Crown Prince Norinobu—would cooperate with Arasaka's old enemy Militech and scheme so carefully to undermine Arasaka from within.

After cursing a few more times, he shifted his gaze back to the data slate screen before him. The dark-red flower—"Sun Stairflower... You old bastard, you really lived long enough to see it."

With another swipe, an image appeared: a young woman with light golden hair and a cheerful expression stepping down from an armored hovercar, carrying a suitcase and pushing a metal sealed case into an Arasaka building.

"A bad feeling... She must be stopped."

Johannesburg.

Arasaka Industrial Park Biological Research Laboratory.

The brilliant white room was saturated with the pungent smell of disinfectant. At the center stood a reinforced glass chamber containing laboratory mice. Vera, wearing a white lab coat and full protective gear, watched them with great interest.

"Squeak—"

Under her operation, mechanical arms restrained the squeaking mouse as a thick needle forcibly pierced its body and injected freshly produced Progenitor Virus.

After a long while, the mouse lying motionless began moving its forelimbs again. But then—Thud!

The mouse slammed itself violently against the reinforced glass. As if it could feel no pain, it struck again and again with tremendous force, until it was mangled and bloody, its fur rapidly falling away as though it had been dead for a long time.

Vera let out a soft breath and bent down to tap on the reinforced glass in front of the mouse.

"Mm-hmm, Arasaka's first little bioweapon mouse..."

The Eve of the Storm

"Squeak—!"

Thud! Thud thud!

It rammed itself even more frantically. The mouse had already split its skin and torn its flesh, becoming a blood-soaked creature. The glass chamber was splattered with gore, and through the cracked skull of the bioweapon mouse, Vera's excellent eyesight could even make out its pulsing cerebellum, streaked with gray-black neural veins.

Rustle.

Withdrawing her gaze, Vera rolled her chair to the operating table at the edge of the room and picked up the data slate.

Updating experiment log.

2075/6/6

Sun Stairflower (Sonnentreppe) Extract Analysis

Although most of the flowers found in the underground caves beneath the Central African tribal ruins had withered and degraded due to environmental deterioration, fortunately, I still extracted an RNA-form viral substance from several of the best-preserved and healthiest Sun Stairflowers.

The properties it displayed were entirely new.

Just like these laboratory mice, every organism injected with this viral substance exhibited similar characteristics: rotting flesh, loss of consciousness, extreme aggression, and... extraordinary vitality!

Perhaps this was why the mining and transportation company of old had learned from and recorded the local population's accounts: that the ancient Congolese Bantu people consumed it and called it a powerful medicine capable of saving lives, even bringing the dead back to life—the "Holy Flower."

A powerful medicine naturally carried side effects.

The systemic inflammation, necrosis of skin and other outer tissues, severe fluid loss, acute sepsis, and shock observed in the laboratory mice were highly related to the symptoms caused by an overreaction from the immune system.

But if the side effects could be endured, then repairing aged human cells, improving beauty and health, strengthening the immune system, slowing cellular aging, granting vigorous life force and stamina, and even extending lifespan were all foreseeable outcomes.

Therefore, from a biological perspective, a rough estimate suggests that the properties of its RNA virus may promote the evolution of human DNA.

Enhancement might merely be a secondary effect.

How to reduce its side effects and improve its stability through targeted cultivation for beneficial effects would be the first major challenge of the Solaris Staircase Project going forward.

Just as I expected from this project, Solaris Staircase is humanity's stairway toward a bright future, overcoming the limits of the human body. The first step of that staircase: Progenitor. I shall name it the Progenitor Virus.

Today's experiment log complete.

With the complete research materials left behind by Dr. James Marcus and Dr. William Birkin of Umbrella serving as a foundation, Vera quickly reproduced the Progenitor Virus from the Cyberpunk world and completed the foundational localized research work.

After all, the equipment and auxiliary instruments in an Arasaka laboratory in 2075 were not comparable to Umbrella's level when it had first been established in the 1970s.

"Your mission is complete, little mouse."

Rustle! Rolling her chair again, Vera glanced at the laboratory mouse in the cage, which had smashed even its skull apart, then lightly pressed the destruction switch outside the glass experiment chamber.

Bzzzt! High-voltage electrocution;

Whoosh! High-temperature incineration;

Hiss! Specialized chemical liquid flushing and agitation;

Rumble! The chamber's special waste inlet opened, washing away even the last traces the mouse had left in this world.

As long as it was not some supernatural nonsense, no ordinary RNA virus could survive this entire sterilization process.

Having learned Umbrella's lesson of never properly handling experimental waste, Vera nodded in satisfaction.

No virus could escape from my laboratory.