Chapter 47: Apocalypse: Red

"NCPD! Stay calm! Don't hurt the hostage!"

While his police colleagues distracted the criminals, Simon gasped for air and sprinted toward the rooftop of the high-rise building as fast as he could.

Facing the Chinese restaurant directly, this was an excellent sniper position.

Removing "Lover" from his back—the SPT32 Ice Storm sniper rifle—Simon made sniper preparations with professional speed.

This elegant, slender, and agile beast awoke from a long slumber.

With every long howl it raised its head, a vicious criminal would fall to the ground, sinking into eternal slumber.

Simon Haye, 70 years old, a sniper who enlisted in 2022, experienced the Fourth Corporate War and the Unification War, dominating the battlefield with extraordinary sniper talent; his staggering record of 542 kills remains unbroken to this day.

After the Unification War ended, he honorably retired in 2070 and served as a security consultant for Militech and Biotechnica for four years.

He resolved a total of 437 "security incidents," big and small. Of these, 44 times he acted personally, bypassing layers of obstacles to snipe armed thugs and cyber-psychos through walls.

This time was no exception.

The stakes were high: one of Biotechnica's major shareholders, the sole heir of the Betancourt Family, had been kidnapped as a hostage!

Major media outlets moved at the scent, scrambling to obtain first-hand data and the clearest live broadcast footage.

Old Simon, no longer possessing the glory of his youth, had to rush to the front-line battlefield according to Biotechnica Corporation's high command.

Fortunately, he was not fighting alone.

Old Simon turned his head, glanced at the other two snipers located in the adjacent building, and a smile curled his lips.

At 18, disregarding his parents' opposition, he resolutely enlisted; by the time he finally returned from the battlefield after retirement, he had no relatives or friends left.

He simply took on two apprentices, a boy and a girl, and imparted all his sniper skills to them without reservation.

The two apprentices did not disappoint the high hopes he had placed in them; within just a few years they grew rapidly, excellently resolving various major cases time and again.

Next month, this pair of meritorious snipers will join hands and step into the marriage hall together.

Old Simon was very gratified and often couldn't help but imagine that in the near future, he would quit his job, completely distance himself from blood and fire, and focus on helping this couple raise children, striving to cultivate another sniper genius.

This was not the first time he had joined forces with his apprentices to resolve a case.

He hoped it wouldn't be the last.

Old Simon slowly calmed his breathing, adjusted his heartbeat frequency, and through the scope stared fixedly at an armed thug standing beside Bonnie Bentancourt.

His withered fingers rubbed back and forth over the trigger, without a single tremor.

The entire world seemed to become quiet; only his own steady and powerful heartbeat could be heard drumming beat by beat.

"Three, two,..." he ordered his apprentices through the communication channel; at that moment, three roars would howl at the sky together.

"One..."

His fingers pressed tightly on the trigger, yet he could no longer pull it.

He was dead.

Unit 003's figure had appeared on the high-rise building at some unknown time, standing quietly beside the veteran.

It was the Militech "Reality Distortion" Sandevistan Model 5 prototype that allowed him to transcend the constraints of time and space and fly here.

Only actual combat could test the true quality of such high-end products.

This was one of the reasons Kang Tao Corporation had the confidence to let the three of them, according to plan, use flesh and blood to construct a stage and lure MaxTac into a direct confrontation.

Unit 003 looked down pityingly, watching the veteran's head, like a shattered watermelon, fall to the ground and bloom into a flower of blood.

This metaphor was not quite appropriate.

In Night City, carefully cultivated fresh watermelons were worth a thousand gold, far more expensive than human heads.

Unit 003 sighed; the cost of high-speed movement was difficult even for his steel body to bear.

Signals from Unit 001 and Unit 002 reached his ears.

The other two snipers had also been resolved.

Unit 003 leaned against the rooftop railing; the barrel of "Comrade's Hammer" in his hand was searing hot.

Several news drones were circling him like annoying flies.

He sighed; the hood was blown off by the howling wind on the rooftop, revealing the grotesque mechanical skull face and the Kang Tao Corporation text logo beneath.

Viewers watching the live television broadcast simultaneously let out cries of surprise.

"Kang Tao Corporation is truly awesome! Buy stock quickly and wait for takeoff!"

Someone shouted loudly, yet it produced a million-fold uproar.

Kang Tao Corporation's stock price soared, instantly surpassing multiple rival competitors.

Those who truly knew the value secretly bought a bit of Militech Corporation stock.

No one cared about the total annihilation of this NCPD squad.

The number game constantly jumping on their accounts was their lifelong pursuit.

Just like the howling wind blowing past Unit 003's ears, cold and ruthless.

He raised his head; crimson light pierced through the clouds.

Five Hunters plummeted straight down from the sky.

MaxTac had arrived.

He chuckled softly, discarded the firearm in his hand, drew the two long blades from his back, and arrogantly defied the light and wind, intending to trample the entire sky beneath his feet.

Militech "Reality Distortion" versus Kerenzikov.

In a battle between High Speeders, slow firearms were merely a burden.

They would shuttle through tunnels transcending time and space, tearing each other to death with teeth, claws, and blades, deciding life and death amidst splashing sparks and within the quarter-second a lightning bolt streaks across the sky.

Unit 003 stood hunched, his steel shell pierced front-to-back and top-to-bottom by five sharp blades.

Five heads rolled onto the ground.

He had won.

The cold steel body felt no need to fear pain.

The live news broadcast paused for only a few seconds; in the blink of an eye, victory and defeat were decided.

Even the top Hunter who dominated Night City had to kneel before him.

Unit 003 was somewhat tired.

The crimson lights flickered, ready to go out at any moment.

His willpower slackened; he finally could not hold back and took the initiative to call that girl.

"Hello? Uncle! You finally called! Let me tell you, I was kidnapped today! Three kidnappers were so terrifying; they wiped out an NCPD squad and now no one knows where they ran off to, otherwise..."

Her voice, still full of energetic excitement, rang in his ears, yet his heart was ice-cold.

"Wow! Uncle, is there a TV near you? Watch the live broadcast quickly! Those kidnappers turned out to be Kang Tao Corporation combat Robots! I **..."

Unit 003 just stared blankly at the news drone's lens; the reflected figure was ferocious, its crimson electronic eyes silent, not a shred of flesh on its steel bones.

"Oh no, oh no! Uncle, I have to go! Those two Robots are coming back!... Uncle, if I can survive... I want to say... I love you!"

The call ended.

He stood silently on the rooftop, bodies strewn everywhere beneath his feet, blood flowing like a torrent.

The steel body trembled; he raised his head and let out the most ear-piercing roar to the sky.

It was a wail so miserable that even the most vicious ghosts from the deepest depths of Hell could not produce it.

He tried to cry, only to discover he simply did not have that function.

So he squatted down; beside the old soldier's corpse, atop the body parts of five Hunters, he used his cold mechanical ten fingers to smear blood onto his own withered eye sockets.

With blood-tears flowing, he looked like a wicked ghost.

Clenching his twin blades, he activated the Thousand Substitutions "Reality Distortion" at full power.

His reinforced mechanical legs leaped into the air; he sprinted through the sky, a high-speed shadow flashing past; his body was gradually cracking, slowly turning to dust, but his sharp twin blades had already descended.

Carrying the fury of wind and lightning, he was about to slay his former comrade on the spot.

All for her.

Even until the very end, they had never truly known each other.

The crimson lights went out.

Amidst the rushing wind of the fall, it seemed someone sighed softly.

January 18, 2074, 21:00

"Unit 003 is missing; Units 001 and 002 are scrapped..." Zhang Xian'an sat in the office chair, tallying the report while on the call, "Three Robots, in exchange for a multiple-fold surge in Kang Tao Corporation's stock price; it was worth it."

"Us? Biotechnica is now completely unable to compete with us; this is the best return."

Facing the inquiry from the other end of the phone, Zhang Xian'an merely smiled faintly and tossed the final footage of Unit 003 Robot falling from the sky into the trash can at his feet.