Chapter 548 - 519 Educated Criminals and Uneducated Police Officers

The members of the Terrorist Mobile Team on the Scorpion-tailed Lion Floating Car felt victory was within their grasp.

The car was indeed nimble, despite its size, but there was more than one Scorpion-tailed Lion here.

They could force the car in one direction and annihilate it at the right spot.

Just... the company being so scared that they completely retracted was really funny.

The operator laughed nervously, but it didn’t affect his work.

The machine gun was on standby.

Come on...

?!

As their vision just crossed the blind spot at the intersection, that damn armored pickup reappeared in a completely unexpected spot!

Before this, everyone, including the Terrorist Mobile Team’s commander and tech analysts from various companies, believed the Mackinaw was merely running on its last legs, hoping to leverage the Custer Kai Hovercar’s vector engines for acceleration.

But now, they knew they were wrong!

The car could really fly!

The Scorpion-tailed Lion’s flying height wasn’t very high, but it was still at least 5 meters up.

And that armored pickup, its chassis was already over four meters off the ground... and it was still climbing!

Bam——

As the car soared through the air, all the Terrorist Mobile Team members on the Scorpion-tailed Lion realized that the machine gun could no longer hit the armored pickup.

What they didn’t anticipate was after a series of sudden and powerfully resonant metallic clanks, the car’s height soared again...

A cliff-like leap!

Bam!

The Mackinaw’s front bumper slammed into the left front engine of the Scorpion-tailed Lion Floating Car!

In that moment of collision, all the Terrorist Mobile Team members instinctively stabilized themselves, preparing to counter-attack in "extreme conditions" for the next second. However, these maniacs hadn’t finished their assault!

A Mantis Blade protruded from the car window—accurately speaking, it was a woman, the only woman from the wanted poster, who burst out of the armored pickup, stabbing two Mantis Blades into the machine gun...

The machine gun’s internal circuitry was directly connected to the Scorpion-tailed Lion!

But who would perform such a suicidal strike?!

In one second of "hand-to-hand combat," the electric current from the Mantis Blades, carrying malicious programs from Little Octopus and Munemasa, overloaded the machine gun, detonating the ammunition inside it!

Suicidal strike?

V lost her balance fully in mid-air, but from this angle, the Terrorist Mobile Team saw an Octopus Arm gripping her from behind.

Bang!

To outsiders, it seemed as if the Mackinaw "lightly" crashed into the left front engine of the Scorpion-tailed Lion.

The impact didn’t look strong; anyone could see that the Mackinaw was already pushing its limits flying this high. Judging from the trajectories, it seemed like...

At most, the left front engine of the Scorpion-tailed Lion would be severely damaged, but it wouldn’t bring down the million-dollar beast completely.

But the reality was, the armored pickup lightly brushed the Scorpion-tailed Lion’s engine, and the engine immediately malfunctioned, losing power on the spot.

Even more exaggerated, the machine gun on the Scorpion-tailed Lion’s chassis suddenly exploded, the whole car emitted a dull roar and black smoke, and then crashed to the roadside!

The contact time was limited, and the electric power was too small to let two AIs penetrate the Scorpion-tailed Lion’s ICE through the machine gun circuitry to hack the car and its occupants.

But the machine gun was different; it was hacked directly, and Munemasa immediately detonated the ammunition inside it—

The ammunition chain inside caused a chain reaction, crippling the toy’s system from within!

Bang!

V, gripped by the Octopus Arm, grinned like a cyber psycho watching the Scorpion-tailed Lion crash—

"Ha ha! I blew up the Scorpion-tailed Lion with one stab!"

"Stop being so damn smug... Shit!"

Lille’s voice abruptly stopped—

The chassis’ superconducting system instability Munemasa had mentioned surfaced completely after the impact; losing its magnetic levitation power, the car began to fall!

"Jack—!!"

Lille’s voice became sharp: if they crashed from this height, the car could forget about flying again—

Don’t forget, the three vector engines on this car were all temporarily fitted!

Bang!

Jack’s head buzzed; he felt like he had become an unfeeling hammer, his head a bit airheaded. When Lille shouted, he pounded the reactor.

With that hit, Lille originally aimed to increase reactor power, boost the four vector engines’ output, and slightly enhance the chassis’ magnetic field.

Unexpectedly, this hammer fixed the magnetic levitation chassis!

The car’s altitude skyrocketed, slanting out of the road barrier...

Directly onto the river!

This height was too high.

V, held by the Octopus Arm, felt completely detached from the lifting sensation, floating in mid-air, suddenly feeling like she was flying.

The first time she experienced this flying impact was during a raid on the Biotechnology Building, the second time...

Was now.

Behind her, three more Scorpion-tailed Lions rushed from all directions, with one coming from the side.

Company Square, the company’s own floating armored vehicles also gathered, scattering in all directions.

They didn’t care if a nuclear bomb exploded in Night City unless it hit their own buildings and assets.

In their view, chasing the elusive Mackinaw had become unprofitable:

Better to guard their assets, as long as they weren’t unlucky, it was a big profit.

Watching the chaos-ridden, darkened Night City, the distorted billboards, broken cables, escaping electricity, crashed Scorpion-tailed Lions, frantically evacuating Terrorist Mobile Team members, and the frantic cries of the NCPD, along with those fearful, reverent, alert gazes...

No one was indifferent; on this chaotic night, everyone was watching them.

V suddenly felt uplifted—

Reputation and fame...

Is there anything more famous than this?!

"Woohoo... uh!"

The Octopus Arm nearly yanked V into unconsciousness, of course, it had a lot to do with her untimely desire to express her emotions with cheer.

Unlike V’s sudden excitement, Lille felt trouble brewing—

The good news was, the car narrowly avoided crashing to the ground, but in the end, it didn’t crash, and while the height fluctuated, its horizontal speed never slowed down.

The Scorpion-tailed Lions were professional floating cars, fast; but Da Mai’s weight was significantly light after shedding substantial equipment, Chroni Titanium’s density was far lower than any high-strength steel!

Consequently, the Scorpion-tailed Lions and Mackinaw’s distance was narrowing, but to truly catch up...

It would take some time!

The Mackinaw had already reached the main road; now they just needed to sprint...

Out of Night City, into Taiping State!

Bang!

"Jack! Eat!"

Another hammer strike, Lille keenly noticed the pressure from Jack’s pounding had diminished, so he immediately took the last few high-energy food bars from his toolbox and stuffed them into Jack’s mouth—

Jack wanted to ask for water, but tonight, after intense combat, prolonged use of the Lizard Rampage component, the effects of the Lizard Serum had severely affected his upper body and throat, causing him to instinctively swallow the packaging too!

Bang!

"Charge!"

High above Night City, the Scorpion-tailed Lions and Mackinaw zoomed by at high speeds; the machine gun fire, engine noises, mingled with the intense hammering sounds, nearly shattered residents’ eardrums.

People watched the reckless fugitives being chased down by the Scorpion-tailed Lions’ bullets inching closer, hitting the few Chroni Titanium Armor Plates on the Mackinaw, then hitting its shell, puncturing the shell, causing small-scale explosions.

No one knew if the three inside the car had been shot, but most believed their luck was unbelievably good.

The car swayed and wobbled as it raced to the end of the main road, beyond which lay the rivers that divided Night City.

Night City was a seaside city, naturally segmented into multiple districts by rivers over the decades of rising sea levels.

Only then did people realize:

Where were they going?

This was the other bad news Lille had sensed: they didn’t have many options for escaping.

Removing all unrealistic thoughts, there was only one big move left.

The companies had thought these lunatics would go for a suicidal nuclear bomb attack like the mercenaries fifty years ago, hence the emergency retreat.

But as the floating car passed through the Watson District, Westbrook, the Valley Region of Haywood, the factory district of Saint Domingo, and every corner where they could turn into these areas without slowing down, they realized...

These bastards were just faking them out to pin them down!

With Mackinaw losing the chance for a suicidal strike, the companies did breathe a sigh of relief, but the Terrorist Mobile Team...

For the first time, the Terrorist Mobile Team felt the helplessness and urgency of being dominated by physics: car A and car B moving in the same direction, car A pursuing car B at 420 km/h, while car B...

Car B was wobbling at a speed between 390~410 km/h, they couldn’t hit it or catch up...

Finally, the car had nowhere to go!

Further ahead... try advancing if you dare!

Turning would be futile; no matter how agile this ragged illegal modification car was on the ground, it couldn’t be more agile in the air compared to a professional floating car!

Whoosh—

The Mackinaw shot off the road!

Some were surprised, some were not, like Inspector Rory, who was right on their tail—

She only had one thought in mind now: damn it, finally out of the blast zone.

The distance between the Scorpion-tailed Lion and Mackinaw was only about 1,000 meters.

She had an anti-vehicle tracking missile on her shoulder...

Although she couldn’t enjoy close combat and carnage, she didn’t want to be sent to the Disciplinary Institute.

"Damn... stupid big shots of Burger King... dumb name."

Click.

Rory pulled the trigger.

Click.

The Mackinaw fully opened the armored panel of its rear cargo bay.

The Octopus Arm held the reactor, while Jack, with both fists, pounded it like playing volleyball—

Chroni Titanium had low density, graphene had low density, both typical high-strength, low-density, incredibly excellent materials, easy to throw, and...

Easy to hurl.

Rory looked bewildered, she didn’t understand nuclear physics; not her, nor the hackers among the Terrorist Mobile Team were literate in these specialized fields.

She only thought the madness of the three ahead was beyond imagination.

Throwing away the car’s power source in a desperate situation?

She was puzzled, the missile was not.

Tracking missiles either used laser guidance or infrared and heat source guidance, even AI visual lock-on could be disrupted by intense nuclear radiation and light interference, causing misfire.

Thus, the missile didn’t lock onto the Mackinaw, but headed towards this... nuclear battery, as all observers previously interpreted by technical experts.

At the moment of impact, the intelligent experts suddenly had an epiphany, coming up with a guess:

The clanking sound earlier... was this group of manual experts pressuring the reactor!

No wonder the car transformed from a bouncy car to an unsteady floating car! The power was increasing!

As they realized, the illiterate Terrorist Mobile Team were still expressing their thoughts:

It had been a long time since they had such a thrilling and tight pursuit.

The moment of release from all this frustration was immensely satisfying.

Then, their prosthetic eyes were all burned out by the intense light.

Above the river, the blazing flash illuminated the dark Night City.