Improved Kerenzikov

3. Improved Kerenzikov

"You mean that, in an ordinary Arasaka Secret Base out in the Badlands—practically the suburbs—they once stored nuclear weapons?"

Even as he listened to Carl recount what had happened in the Badlands, Oliver sat on the sofa in a daze. He immediately looked at Johnny. "This nuke... it's the same kind of thing Johnny used, right?"

At Oliver's words, Johnny Silverhand's projected face visibly glitched with data distortion, as though his expression had darkened.

Carl, however, nodded and shook her head. "Calling it a nuke isn't wrong. Its yield just wasn't that high."

She explained, "According to the records I checked, its blast radius could only cover about one city block. It was a tactical, low-yield nuclear weapon, mainly used against operational and tactical targets. Judging by how long it had been stored there, it was deployed around the time of the Unification War as a precaution against an invasion by New America. It was moved long ago."

"During the Unification War..."

Jack ground his teeth. "So if New America had really dared to invade Night City back then, they would've brought that thing out. It might've turned into a nuclear war."

"If another Corporation War really broke out, that wouldn't be anything unusual."

V, meanwhile, did not find it strange at all. Nuclear weapons had never been rare in the Corporation Wars. Who knew how many more dangerous weapons had been used? Nukes practically counted as conventional weapons by then.

Just think of the anti-radiation gear nearly every soldier had been issued during the Central American wars, or the people whose bodies mutated from radiation after being given shoddy protective clothing. It was clear that nuclear weapons had already become routine back when Johnny was still serving.

"This really isn't something pleasant to talk about."

Oliver