Chapter 783 - 62 Psychological Shadow (Part 2)

In the real world, Elliot said with a grin, "Buddy, I really don’t know what happened, the power just suddenly went out."

The agent glanced at Elliot without speaking, inspecting the messy room, frowning.

Wasn’t it said that this fat guy bought a helmet that can breach walls?

Elliot paused, uncomfortably stepping back a bit, accidentally kicking a tool on the floor, exposing a bit of a cable on the helmet hidden in the pile of tools...

His movements were extremely stiff because this action completely... completely revealed his most guilty secret!

The helmet he bought from a street stall!

"...How did the power outage happen?" The expression under the Network Surveillance Agent’s sunglasses didn’t change, but inside he was... puzzled.

"I..." Elliot stammered, taking a step forward, "I bought an old helmet from a street stall, thinking of bringing it back to study, and just after I plugged it in... the power went out...

Sir, I really didn’t mean to, I just... just love tinkering with technology..."

The agent didn’t say a single unnecessary word, directly picking up the helmet and connecting it to his personal link.

After a series of operations, both agents were filled with doubts:

The program used to scan AI and network crimes didn’t return any anomalies.

The results showed that the power outage was indeed triggered by a circuit anomaly when the helmet was connected, with the source of the anomaly traced back to certain capacitors and memory chips in the helmet’s connector module malfunctioning.

These short circuits caused anomalies in the civilian circuits in this fat guy’s room, with minor errors coincidentally accumulating, triggering the fuse.

However, if pressed to say it was something very unusual... it wouldn’t be, because old helmets like this frequently malfunction, the malfunctions easily causing anomalies in apartment circuits, which trip the circuit breaker, leading them to receive notifications in network supervision.

This is strange though, up above said something slipped in, the problematic coordinates are just around here...

If it’s not him, who is it?

One agent, half-crouched, holding the helmet, while the other looked around, scanning, looking extremely professional. But in the network, both expressionlessly sent messages:

[Network Surveillance Agent A: No anomalies detected, requesting Dragon Hunter real-time support.]

[Connecting to your personal prosthetics, executing data transition...]

[Dragon Hunter #0965: What’s the situation?]

[Network Surveillance Agent A: Detection programs show no anomalies, the outage and circuit errors are due to hardware malfunction in the helmet... chipset anomalies.]

[Dragon Hunter #0965: Coincidences are often AI’s facade, is that helmet for breaching walls?]

[Network Surveillance Agent A: Yes.]

The room fell into an eerie silence in reality.

In the about twenty square meter room, three people were squeezed in, but none spoke, one pretending to glance around, the other just squatting still.

Just as Elliot couldn’t bear the silence any longer and was about to speak, he suddenly noticed a stream of hot air rising in the air!

The agent squatting down suddenly had his skin tear around the back of his neck, revealing a whole section of heat fins, from which the hot air was rising!

Elliot had only seen such advanced prosthetics in company marketing ads, under the dim emergency lighting, this Network Surveillance Agent’s status in his mind soared even higher:

This is... an employee from the world’s leading network technology company, European Barrier’s security maintainer, humanity’s last wall against rogue AI...

What Elliot didn’t know was that the network monitoring in his mind was being deceived by Lille and Munemasa—

The pre-installed program made it impossible for even the newly connected Dragon Hunter to discover the real timing sequence between the helmet operation and apartment network failure, completely fooling this remote-controlled Dragon Hunter.

[Dragon Hunter #0965: ...Indeed... no anomaly, take the helmet away, the engineering department needs to know about the defective product issue.]

[Network Surveillance Agent A: Okay.]

"This helmet." The agent withdrew the personal link, holding the object up to Elliot’s face, "Illegally sourced, it’s a regulated device, where did you buy it?"

"I... just from a little road coming back from the factory, there are always some selling black market goods... uh, black market traders... just a mobile black market..."

"Illegal trade, is it?"

Elliot opened his mouth to argue, but barely a sound came out before a piercing red message box popped up:

[To Elliot Grove ID: UK-2070-01-563829]

[Device ID: #AX-1549]

[Violation:]

[You have been found illegally using unauthorized device, connecting unauthorized device to the public service network, endangering public network security.]

[Violation Article: European Community Network Security Law Chapter 17 Section 3, Unauthorized Network Access Device Use]

[Based on the consequences of your illegal actions, network supervision has imposed a penalty on your actions]

[Fine Amount: 4000]

[Payment Deadline: Within 5 business days, insufficient account fines will be covered by your employer (fines supported by European Bank, protected and recognized by the European Union.)]

[Overdue will incur a daily late fee of 15 Euros, with ongoing deductions from your credit score.]

[The violating device will be taken by investigators, please be sure to cooperate.]

[Within the next 7 days, you will be under key monitoring, if overdue the monitoring period will be extended.]

[If you disagree with the fine, please submit an appeal through the public safety terminal.]

[Countdown: 7:23:59:59]

"I... I understand, I’ll never do it again..."

"That’s for the best."

Elliot slumped into a chair, the two agents couldn’t suppress a sneer seeing him like that—

Euro is less than half a month’s salary for them as Network Surveillance Agents, but for someone like Elliot, a low-tier civilian, it’s no small matter. If they can save 200 Euro a month after necessities, they’re already thanking their lucky stars.

One of the agents, pausing, seemed to reconsider his actions, or perhaps thought of something else, and spoke quite gently:

"Work well, we are doing this for public safety’s sake.

Per the regulations, I should fine you 8000 Euro. If your little games led to serious consequences, that would be terrible, someone could die because of you, and you... would be held accountable for them.

I see you’ve attended a proper school, don’t keep dabbling in these things."

Elliot sat on the bed, dazed, and said, "Alright, man, I understand."

The speaking agent raised an eyebrow, turned, and followed his companion out.

The two Network Surveillance Agents walked down the corridor, seemingly giving prestige to this cramped and lackluster state highway.

"Tsk, fat bastard, so fucking disgusting, who’s his buddy?"

...

Network Monitoring employees, with skills, equipment, knowledge, and even appearance and style, put immense pressure on Elliot—

This pressure was incredibly complex; on one hand, he loathed these company drones with iron bowls of rice;

But on the other hand, he was deeply envious of their lives...

And he feared and dreaded them greatly.

But today, that fear and dread changed ever so slightly:

"They... they didn’t discover anything?"

The agents, symbolic of Network Surveillance, embodying European Union control, were just... deceived by him?

Their dignified demeanor suddenly appeared somewhat absurd and laughable.

"Haha... I fooled them?"

"I fooled them! Those two idiots just got fooled like stupid pigs!"

The joy of surviving a disaster and the thrill of deceiving the authorities rushed straight to his head, the fat man rolled onto the bed like a massive meatball, rolling frantically!

"Fucking awesome! As expected from Night City!"

[Lille: Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with you.]

[Lille: But for an A-grade citizen, you did pretty well.]

[Lille: Speaking of Night City, I need to check the latest news.]