Chapter 536 - 507: Multiple Killers

Blais seemed a bit lost in his office.

Ryan’s office was a huge "Secret Room".

In the Valley Region, the sales departments and office buildings of various companies were roughly evenly distributed, everyone keeping an eye on each other, and on the mayor’s office, not letting any clue slip by, hoping to gain information and judge the opponents’ movements in time.

Secondly, he had purchased Arasaka’s security services. Although it wasn’t personal defense, Arasaka’s security team was stationed around the office building, never leaving its vicinity.

Furthermore, Military Technology had a distribution point right across the building, staffed with agents 24 hours a day.

Last, Ryan was an important investor in the Network Supervision Committee’s Night City office, and with his help, the Network Supervision had nearly become the NCPD’s network support department, holding significant power in Night City, largely tied to Ryan himself.

But this most recent line of defense, the Network Supervision directly reported that they had observed no anomalies!

Colleagues kept setting up onsite analytical instruments, adjusting the data, using holographic modeling to analyze the situation.

But the results were vague, they could only determine that Ryan had tripped over in front of his computer, which was destroyed during a streaming AI burst, and then he had moved to a backup device.

The backup device still remained locked.

Blais’s colleague shook his head—

"Our mysterious mayor is really something, isn’t he? Somebody broke the door open, he left quietly without saying a word, leaving us with this mess..."

Blais understood why his colleague might think this way: though Ryan had brought in the Network Supervision and provided a lot of resources and support for the establishment of the Night City office, he still maintained many private networks.

These private networks did not connect with the Network Supervision, and were quite small, just like the one he used to send messages to Blais.

That was a purely mechanically triggered one-way communication line, sending messages to Blais’s personal terminal, even bypassing the corporate agents’ monitoring software used by the Network Supervision...

On his personal terminal, the message was just a normal report of prosthetics deviations, the kind that might occur after drinking a bit of alcohol.

The real message could only be decoded by a second person, so Blais did not know what Ryan had told Lille.

This was an important piece of information.

"I think Ryan was kidnapped."

"Who did it? It couldn’t have been Perares, could it? He was the only one here today."

During the conversation, colleagues had repaired the building’s database. The most recent thing in the access list was left by Perares, the chairman of the Night City council, who would be competing with Ryan in the next election.

Perares? No wonder Network Supervision didn’t react...

Blais was about to confirm that it was Perares who did it, but his colleague promptly reacted.

"Hmm... the camera spotted Ryan going out, driving his own car... Arasaka let him through.

Probably got scared, maybe the door was broken by his own private bodyguards? Huangban Ninja or something?"

He understood why his colleague might think that way, but he didn’t feel Network Supervision would stop their inquiry so easily—

Given the characteristics of Network Supervision, even if Ryan maintained secret networks, they should still try to thoroughly check through their position of convenience for cooperating partners!

They should have initiated an investigation!

Unless... the company no longer cared, no longer cared about the support Ryan could offer them.

Blais’s mind raced: Ryan’s emergency line was one-way and secret; he knew for sure Ryan had been kidnapped!

But the company’s attitude alerted him—Network Supervision simply didn’t care about Ryan.

And oddly, even though Ryan was just in the next office over, his Network Supervision colleagues showed no reaction whatsoever!

"What car?"

"Thrace Jefferson, his favorite one—the one you see on TV? See, I told you it was nothing. Anyway, what about your assignment? Why did you suddenly come back?"

"It fell through," Blais immediately adjusted his demeanor, "Ryan had a deal with that mercenary before, and I was thinking about using it to our advantage."

"Hehe, jack up the price, typical of mercenaries, if I were you, I would have a backup plan."

"You’re right," Blais subtly moved to Ryan’s computer desk, "I indeed should have a backup plan."

While his colleague was busy retrieving the equipment, Blais immediately started typing on the computer—

Ryan had locked the database containing secret data, but hadn’t locked the communication features.

At least for Blais, it was considered unlocked.

Just the opportunity he needed to bypass the company’s monitoring.

[Recipient: Lille]

[Blais: Ryan disappeared, the company’s attitude... something’s off.]

[Blais: All I know for now is that the most recent entry in the building’s access records was left by Perares, but that’s the only information left, everything else was destroyed.]

[Blais: Arasaka released a Jefferson 388, the one you can see on TV.]

[Blais: Damn it... must be Military Technology, but isn’t Arasaka curious about what Perares was doing here?]

...

"Ryan was kidnapped, and there’s still a chance."

Mackinaw drove slowly on the highway, but no matter how slowly the car moved, it would still attract the company’s attention.

"Why?" V asked doubtfully.

"What do you mean, ’why’?"

V raised a finger, his mind whirring frantically, before he gave up, "There are a lot of ’whys’, but let me start with a simple one. What would happen if Ryan were kidnapped or killed?"

"A new mayor would take over, and policies would drastically change."

"Change to what?"

"Good question, this is also why we’re doing this job..." Lille thought for a moment, then decided to be straightforward about the impact, "Ryan is a balancer, and a great one at that, which I won’t deny

Especially since Military Technology and Arasaka are tightly controlled by him. But from another perspective, if you were these two companies, would you think it’s good to be strung along by a mere Night City mayor, continually investing resources in a prolonged battle?

Moreover, this kind of drain benefits Night City, not the companies."

"Benefit from being turned into a dumpster?"

"At least there’s money in it." Lille, while considering potential scenarios in the car, quickly answered V’s questions, "And...think about Atlanta.

If Ryan dies, the mayor would have to be chosen between Hot and Perares, either one clearly biased towards one of the companies.

Hot is Arasaka’s lapdog, while Perares’ major sponsor is Military Technology, and...at least outwardly, he’s very supportive of fostering good relations with New America."

Hot and Perares are tools Ryan uses to communicate with the companies. Often times, he doesn’t need to speak; these two will strategize for the companies.

That’s the balance.

This is the first layer.

Jack kind of understood, but V got it.

"The more you say it...I feel like both Hot and Perares have reasons to take out Ryan?"

Lille nodded approvingly, that’s the crux.

Ryan is exactly the kind of politician companies hate—they sponsor politicians to get things done for them, not to be played and continuously dragged into attritional wars!

Even without considering other conspiracies, both Military Science and Arasaka share a common goal before their supporter ascends to power:

Ryan must be ousted.

Theoretically they have a common goal, practically they are adversaries, absolutely incapable of conspiring against Ryan’s life.

Unless an accident occurs.

If pushing him a little could lead to his death, everyone would do it.

And everyone did.

Now is the time!

"Alright..." V raised a second finger, "then why not just kill him directly? Why kidnap?"

"That’s complicated...perhaps the mastermind behind the scenes wants to extract some decisive information from Ryan to help their candidate win the election."

Jack, who hadn’t understood earlier, slapped his forehead, "There must be a lot of value in the information inside Ryan’s head!"

"That’s the idea..." Lille said, "but according to what Blais says, I guess...the mastermind behind the scenes might have another thought."

This mastermind seeks to create an illusion.

This illusion is: everyone did it, but it didn’t.

Because it can’t withstand investigation, it needs to stay low, it...is an AI.

Just a rough calculation, too many people could have taken action against Ryan.

When the murderer count is multiple, the difficulty of investigating the case multiplies exponentially, making the whole case increasingly perplexing.

Right now, all thoughts are mere speculation, Lille isn’t some sort of psychic who can instantly deduce the events, but the objective remains unchanged.

Finding a Jefferson 388 on the street is usually tough, but today is different—

The streets are nearly empty of cars, but filled with gang members.

[Father: Valentino spotted the car.]

"Hold tight..."

V grimaced, "Thinking about rescuing a piece of crap like Ryan doesn’t exactly lift my spirits."

"Let me put it another way." Lille said, "We’re going to decide the future of this city."

"That’s a bit more interesting."

Jack in the back seat didn’t say a word, feverishly began a new Chapter in his own notebook—

[Saying this might be a bit too advanced for you two.]

[But a top mercenary must once in their lifetime do something that could determine the future of a city.]

[—Jack Wells, 2076...]

[Written before doing a big job.]