Chapter 1017 - 60: The Sun (Part 2)

The lights of Nevada shone brightly, floating cars glided through the skies of the city, and fashionable people strolled along the streets enjoying the vibrant nightlife.

V blended into the crowd, recalling the days of struggling in Atlanta:

The states under the rule of New America took cues from the European Union, implementing a powerful surveillance and control system to eradicate crime. However, this was no justice-driven eradication—

The outskirts of brightly lit Las Vegas were deathly silent. In theory, it was also part of the city, yet electricity didn’t reach there.

Years ago, this place declared independence from the United States, aiming to escape the corruption of the Four Great Clans, the pervasive high taxes of the Federal Government, and official financial fraud, to build their own city. Yet, after gaining freedom, the public utilities and infrastructure groups established by the state government became even more excessive:

Companies monopolizing essential resources, along with the government, used equipment upgrades as an excuse to drastically raise electricity prices annually, cause intermittent power outages, control the supply of beverages and drinking water, and regulate food imports...

It’s important to note that the city’s largest export resource was damn batteries and energy!

That’s when people realized that the state government was another group of greedy parasites. But what followed was a large wave of "free trade" policies, with companies starting to invest in building factories, monopolizing factories and roads...

Before independence, the state government promised that everyone would be relocated anew and that every bit of hard work would be rewarded. However, within just a year after independence, every inch of land belonged to the companies—

The only state-owned infrastructure group also limited output, exporting goods even when their own people were on the brink of freezing to death.

When New America invaded Las Vegas, not a single citizen stood up, but this time it was because they predicted what would follow:

The Old America, the Nevada state government, New America... they were all the same. As expected, nothing improved; it just got worse. In fact, because of the new policies learned by New America from the European Union, in some sense, the oppression intensified.

The former poverty transformed into violent crime, and now the poverty mostly left people with the choice of dying quietly, much like the peripheries of the Dead City in Las Vegas, deteriorating day by day.

The city’s center was resplendent, while the outskirts were covered by endless sands.

Currently, the City Council continues to implement the policies of President Miles of New America: The unity and prosperity of New America require vast amounts of resources, substantial funds...

Any losses will ultimately be extracted from ordinary people.

V crossed the dead city outskirts like an ordinary street youth. Unlike Jack, she didn’t want to deal with these people, merely dispersing weapons in the powerless dead city—

As she walked through the cold, dark streets, past abandoned cars, over rubbish and dilapidated buildings, wanderers armed themselves with weapons and stepped out from the ruins, following her in the shadows...

They followed V back to the lit areas, where the cold lights gradually gave way to neon lights, becoming dazzling. Huge billboards cast colorful lights and shadows, bars and casinos bustled with noise. Occasionally, someone would be thrown out of a casino, while others would laugh maniacally as they boarded a floating car and flew away, with the scent of money and desire permeating the air.

The wanderers gathered in the shadows perfectly concealed themselves within, while today’s social order surveillance network appeared blind, unable to see the gathering of those who had lost everything, their danger index rising—

Until they crossed a certain street, the people gathered in the shadows collectively halted, grasping weapons but hiding them tightly under the only piece of rag on their bodies, behind the bodies of their companions...

Watching as V nonchalantly entered the government center under the noses of drones and patrols, and ultimately entered the government building.

Meanwhile, the huge screen on the building still broadcasted photos of President Miles, state government officials, and a group of corporate representatives.

[Jack: Whew, feeling a bit tense, I’m familiar with the feeling of putting my life on the line, but not fighting.]

V’s lips curled into a smile:

[V: Jack, looks like you’re not as badass as you thought, even getting nervous now.]

[Lille: It’s time to get in position, don’t blame me if I ridicule you mercilessly if you drop the ball.]

...

Texas.

This state was by far the most important among the first batch of independent states and faced resistance far beyond what Nevada and Iowa encountered—

The reason lies only in the fact that the headquarters of Peizhuo Petrochemical Company is here.

In Lille’s plan, this time the Free State’s independence had nothing to do with the company and state government, which meant he was not only declaring war on New America,

This state no longer had a single piece of intact land, ravaged by war and unrestrained exploitation, the land was barren, riddled with fissures, even with flames erupting from them.

Across the deserted oil towns, not a single person inside—

Peizhuo Petrochemical had established numerous ethanol wheat greenhouse cultivation bases here, with one cultivation tower after another ruling over this land, people living in crevices, moving through chemical plants in heavy protective gear, with heavy air permeating the entire region.

Compared to the Peizhuo Petrochemical Building in Night City, Peizhuo Petrochemical’s headquarters here did not feature such a distinctive enormous office building.

Because there was no need to build such structures: the entire Texas state was company property, with plenty of land to spare.

Compared to Nevada and Iowa, the "citizens" here were almost entirely Peizhuo Petrochemical employees, alongside various wanderers struggling to survive on this man-made hellish terrain.

There weren’t as many wanderers with grievances here, instead, there were more workers mentally and physically exhausted, devoting themselves to cheap entertainment after work...

Therefore, to take control of this place required a vast number of scattered wanderers, and to show them hope for resistance would require a much grander display.

Standing by the window of the tallest office building, looking at the busy convey convoys below, Lille turned around—

In front of him was the management of Peizhuo Petrochemical Company, with all company personnel, including the CEO, gathered there.

"...Money makes people obedient, information technology makes management efficient. Issuing orders from here, having everything run smoothly feels indeed satisfying..."

All seventeen management personnel maintained expressionless faces, but inside, they were swept by a tidal wave of shock:

A man who seemed more abominable than a cyber monster like Adam Hammer, more exaggerated than a fully equipped ACPA, just infiltrated here like that?!

"No need to be too surprised. The message to convene the meeting was sent by me. If you’d withdrawn from Night City earlier, hacking into your network system wouldn’t have been so easy, but why are you all... just like those below?"

The answer was glaringly obvious:

Lille had effortlessly hacked into Peizhuo Petrochemical’s network during these days and parsed the signal codes from the terminal in Night City, hacking layer by layer from the Texas outskirts all the way to here...

This was a horrendous answer at any time:

As one of the top global giant companies, their network was not only precise but also powerful. To break into Peizhuo Petrochemical’s entire network would require another company of the same scale betting all its computing power to launch a cyber war on the internet to possibly achieve! It’s simply impossible to do so silently!

It’s as if the technology itself was opposing them! The technology they thought they had control over completely betrayed them, allowing all this to happen without their knowledge!

The fact was indeed such: Lille’s roaming AI, including the technical breadth under his command, encompassed areas such as network offense and defense, hardware design, computational science, social engineering, advanced bioscience, human-computer interaction... virtually all fields. If a single company could catch up to him in a certain domain, a single company could never match his skills!

Someone blurted out—

"Roaming AI... you’re simply not human..."

Bam bam.

Trenton Parker, the second-largest shareholder of Peizhuo Petrochemical and the current CEO, knocked on the table, calming the visibly unsettled colleagues—

But in reality, his own heart wasn’t calm:

If he were facing a human, he wouldn’t feel any panic. But was this guy in front of him really still a human!

"Mr. Burger King... or should I call you Mr. Lille, after all, this is a formal meeting: what do you want?"

Whoosh—

The pitch-black night sky, several fierce plumes of fire erupted from the cracks in the ground, followed by terrifying explosions!

The explosion sound was isolated by the skyscraper’s thick tempered glass, but the rising fireballs seemed to drum in their hearts!

Flying metal fragments and building debris signaled a terrifying doom, from a high vantage point, a fierce tide of destruction seemed to sweep across Texas, with flames burning everything belonging to Peizhuo Petrochemical!

Bzz—

The image from the prosthetic eye flickered bizarrely and went black, and Lille’s figure instantly disappeared from the window, causing uproarious fear and dread in the entire management’s hearts:

The high-tech devices on them had been hacked from the start... they had been confronting a Phantom all along without realizing!

Bam!

The glass was hit by flying large debris, with a loud bang, every management member felt their whole body was burning...

Not only was the world before their eyes burning, but also the prosthetics on their bodies emitted abnormal high heat!

"I want you to burn."