Chapter 672 - 643 Total Lockdown

[Drip——]

[This is a city alert, Night City has now entered level one alert, all city public facilities have ceased operation, please proceed to the nearest shelter or stay at home...]

[Please remain calm, stay away from conflict areas, and avoid interfering with public officials enforcing the law...]

[This is a city alert——]

Sigh——

With a massive activation of drones and floating cars, the airflow changed noticeably, and the sky was filled with the noise of flying vehicles.

Metal reflected the cold glint of light, colorful billboards all shut down, and the streets were in utter chaos:

Even the homeless, as long as they were sober, knew to find a crevice in a trash can to hide.

The fear among the masses was brought to its peak by the overwhelming armored forces, especially upon seeing the leader:

He was a pure cyborg, at first glance, even his face was only vaguely human, his entire body of prosthetics seeming more like bio-mechanical warfare equipment designed to carry heavy firepower...

And his pupils—he had no pupils, what he had was a pair of tactical scanners, emitting a blinding red light, like the eyes of the Death God, nobody wanted to be seen!

"That’s... Adam Hammer!"

"Shit, this is no joke, start running!"

"Help me! My prosthetics are malfunctioning!"

"I told you not to fucking buy counterfeit prosthetics, look where it got you, fuck off——"

"Mommy——"

Puff!

Flesh was as fragile as tofu before steel, even if that tofu was mixed with a bit of prosthetic, it was still tofu, at most leaving some dregs when crushed.

The corporation didn’t care about the small lives of the common folk; their objectives, their missions, were far more important than these insignificant beings.

The city was immersed in a bizarre atmosphere: with the corporation deploying in full force, occupying the sky and streets, people ran in panic, chaos and fear breaking down the crowd’s mental defenses. Soon enough, some lost their nerve, revealing their ugliest side.

They also lost their balance, theoretically Night City didn’t have a high population density, but the places where people gathered could easily reach a density like sardines in a can.

One person falling onto another set off a chain reaction of trampling accidents in the crowd, resembling surging waves, and some unlucky ones broke their legs while crossing the road, only to watch helplessly as armored vehicles rolled over them...

One might think it was Night City’s citizens blocking armored vehicles with their flesh and blood in an outbreak of riots.

Electronic devices mounted on drones and armored vehicles, military-grade cyber warfare equipment completely took over the communication capabilities of the area:

High-energy equipment would emit broad-spectrum electromagnetic interference signals, covering nearly all usable communication frequencies, using dynamic spectrum management and switching, a method that civilian devices could not keep up with, to establish a dynamic communication channel amidst these noisy interference signals.

This crude method would completely paralyze Night City’s civilian network and impact some poor quality, defective, or malfunctioning prosthetics, which in severe cases could cause life-threatening acute problems.

But these were not concerns for the corporation: they could even brazenly roll right over people.

[Corporate Joint Apprehension Channel: City network deployment complete.]

[Network Surveillance: Hansen has lost control, requesting deployment of the Black Wall, the interface is now open...]

The two largest military contracting companies of Night City, Arasaka stationed at Seaside, Military Technology by the border, and at this moment, the network blockade of the city was almost entirely handled by Arasaka Company.

The company employee leading the team immediately instructed the hacker to open the interface upon receiving orders from above:

Integrating the Black Wall into their information equipment network.

It sounds like installing antivirus software, and in fact, there seemed to be little change—

The world’s top-circulating AI filtering software today, which is also AI, registered a momentary increase in data flow when Arasaka connected to the Black Wall. In the long run, the hardware usage of Black Wall is almost negligible.

But once it detected a circulating AI, the Black Wall would overload and pursue all traces of the circulating AI in the network indiscriminately, destroying it completely.

In terms of lethality, the Black Wall in Cyberspace is the undisputed nuclear weapon, but humans needn’t be afraid because it is really intelligent, just like having antivirus software installed.

Generally, the Black Wall would cover human activity areas with higher frequency and wider coverage through satellites or stationary large radar arrays, but it clearly wasn’t as effective as being directly loaded onto on-site equipment.

If Lille truly was an AI, he couldn’t possibly escape Night City as a circulating AI—

And if he chose to operate as a human, physically escaping from here...

That would be even less likely.

Arasaka would blockade the city and the seas, and the military technology forces were also being mobilized from the border wall, ready to blockade the land routes and Evil Land. Eventually, these two company forces would lock down the entirety of Taiping State—

Just right. Wasn’t Night City planning to redevelop Taiping State? They could certainly develop it after resolving the current trouble, and the company would support their efforts.

Aboard the Kujira aircraft carrier, Arasaka Saburo was not presiding over the situation from Arasaka Tower during the execution of this task.

For him, Arasaka Tower was theoretically the safest place in Night City, but that was only when the aircraft carrier wasn’t docked shore-side.

An aircraft carrier was much safer than a tower, especially under the current circumstances—

Just moments ago, network surveillance contacted him: Burger King had evaded the Black Wall’s first encounter; just as expected, it had no effect on the Black Wall.

As planned...

He was to collaborate with network surveillance: using the fragmentary digital soul of Burger King imprinted by the Soul Killer to allow the Black Wall to specifically target and eliminate Burger King.

This was a very sensitive cooperation; after all, to a large extent the Black Wall was not under the control of network surveillance and, in reality, lacked the ability to target specifically. Now things were different; with the Soul Killer, they could eliminate whomever they wanted.

Such cooperation was tantamount to bargaining with a tiger, for it would surely provoke the network surveillance to target Arasaka more frenziedly.

But conversely, it also allowed him to verify a lot of intelligence.

As for the rest... this aircraft carrier would ensure that Arasaka didn’t end up at a loss:

Should the need arise, he would have the Kujira strike at Night City directly—if the situation turned in an unwanted direction.

This ultimate insurance measure put Arasaka at a disadvantage in the ostensible allocation of interests, yet other corporations would accordingly have to exhibit some restraint.

"...Bring back that man’s digital soul."

The shadowy ninja silently bowed and exited the room.

...

In the Indigo Mansion, Arasaka Saburo’s son, Arasaka Yorinobu, looked like a dejected beggar, hair messy and clothes askew.

The floor was littered with broken wine glasses and spilled wine, but these were not remnants of an intimate encounter with some high-class stepdaughter, merely his own self-venting:

That sliver of composure and hope ignited by Burger King, along with his own bodyguard being called away, dissipated like smoke as the entire Arasaka force was mobilized.

His reaction was a bit extreme, but it reflected, to a certain extent, the mindset of the entire populace of Night City:

Burger King was finished.

"It’s over..."

Yorinobu staggered over to the table, where a fancy pistol and a beautiful samurai sword lay.