[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer":3,"chapter-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-863":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Cyberpunk: Cross-dimensional Science and Engineering",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},1152922,1495,"Chapter 857 - 136: An Inch of Land, an Inch of Gold","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-863",863,"\u003Cp>\"So what! I killed that damned corporate dog!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V plopped back into the front passenger seat, the car empty—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back in the car, her previous fierce expression faded, replaced by a hint of emptiness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The car was being driven by Barley; Jack had been injured in the action in Mexico City and was taken away by Adkaduo while she drew the fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although she put up a tough front, she knew she had indeed been reckless this time, nearly losing her life and causing Jack serious injury.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille was gone, and she was trying to take on everything he left behind, but she wasn’t Lille. No one could toy with a corporation and still land a knockout punch like Lille.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just... knowing that a corporate dog was still alive after that, how could she hold it in?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The car was desolate, no longer lively like before, making V even more silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A blue octopus arm appeared on V’s shoulder, affectionately caressing her hair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V smiled, \"Little Octopus, you don’t need to comfort me.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Little Octopus: Ma (っ╥╯﹏╰╥c), please don’t do this anymore.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The car continued driving, and V found herself at a loss for words, simply kneading Little Octopus’s head—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To others, she might seem to be squeezing air, but to her, the sensation was real.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, Little Octopus jumped up, startling V: \"What is it?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Little Octopus: Ma, there’s new intel!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Communicator: Song Zhaomei]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: You’re alive? That’s great... you’re so lucky!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: I just discovered intel, Miles planned to deploy an airborne fortress to unleash aerial firepower over the US-Mexico Border and blow you all sky-high!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Song Zhaomei, also known as Lark, had nowhere to go after Lille turned her in Dog Town, so she had to stay in Night City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for the AI in her head... it was far less powerful than a rogue AI. Little Octopus could easily remove most of the AI’s influence from her brain with a little trick.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the rejection reactions from prosthetics could be suppressed with a byproduct of the Lizard Serum, allowing for the gradual replacement of prosthetics with Human Lizard Cyborgs that had almost no immune response—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These resources had been steadily depleting since Lille disappeared, growing scarcer by the day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[V: This is the first time in two years anyone’s called me lucky. So where’s her badass airborne fortress now?]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: Miles suddenly withdrew the order and seems to be revising the strategy for the Intelligence Bureau—primarily the strategy against you all.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: They’ve scaled back the network device scans, as if wary of something...]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: I’ve never seen Miles so obviously wary of something. Even when facing Arasaka, he would just wave his hand and have his soldiers increase firepower both openly and covertly.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V was moved, sensing there was more to Song Zhaomei’s words.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: Except... except when facing him, after that incident, the caution of Military Technology was palpable. It’s almost as if things have returned to the state right after that incident two years ago.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[V: What... do you mean?]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: He might not be dead... maybe he really has some contingency!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V’s mind went blank, staring at the landscape outside the window, unconsciously touching her lips.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This Evil Land... still had no changes, just like it was three years ago.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the past two years, she had been roaming the Evil Land, sometimes fantasizing that this was the road from Atlanta back to Night City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[V: Help me locate the next target.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Song: Ah? But...]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[V: But what, alive or dead, I want those corporate dogs in Hell!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Lille was dead, she vowed to kill those corporate dogs, no doubt about it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Lille was alive... and he wasn’t by her side, maybe he was in trouble. Now that he reappeared on the corporation’s radar, she should, of course, cause a stir to draw the corporation’s fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V suddenly punched the air, a smile unconsciously forming on her mouth:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had learned something after all...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yeah, no doubt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Berlin, European Union Citizen Council Hall...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the ecological villa behind the street next door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The world’s most expensive real estate was here, but unlike one might assume, it didn’t belong to a major corporation...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Corporate CEOs wield immense power, yet they rise and fall with competition, and assets always belong to corporations, nominally divided among investors; usage rights are generally under CEO’s discretion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This land was genuinely, indisputably personal—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or rather, belonging to a family, but it’s largely the same.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amidst the exorbitantly priced environs, a spirited white-haired elder swung a golf club with a smack...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The golf ball traced a beautiful arc through the air, startling birds in the woods, thudding onto the lush green turf, silently rolling on the ground...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Slowly rolling into the hole.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Oh, a hole-in-one.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[EU Information: Rosalind Miles suddenly initiated external communications with us regarding her desire to capture and eliminate the Burger King crime syndicate.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[EU Information: It isn’t her usual modus operandi, something must have happened.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[EU Information: AI assesses an 87.9% likelihood of Burger King resurfacing, based on Burger King not being dead...]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[EU Information: AI previously assessed Burger King’s death probability as nearly 100%, no one could have survived that battle.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[EU Information: The parliament wants to return to America to figure this out, we should hold a meeting to review the EU strategy and actions.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Evidently, though the prefix stated \"EU Information,\" this didn’t seem to be issued by \"the EU\" or anyone representing the organization.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It appeared more as an invitation from one influential individual within the EU to another for a meeting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If this scene leaked online within the EU, it would certainly cause a great uproar:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No matter how the system functioned in practice, the EU was nominally fully democratic, with citizens electing local representatives, these representatives selecting members for the upper parliament, layer by layer entering the EU Parliament, ultimately appointing the most capable as officials...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, in theory and in publicity, EU officials were public servants, and the parliamentarians were citizens’ representatives, with each citizen having some influence and engagement in the community’s policy shifts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet here, in the exorbitant Super Skyscraper ecological villa in Berlin, events showed that some individuals’ words were infinitely more weighty than others’.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Reply: Sure, when is the meeting? I want to bring my great-grandson with me, you could also bring your great-great-granddaughter, our families...]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The elderly, yet strong and healthy man smiled kindly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside the window, numerous drone formations skimmed the sky, monitoring this building from above, along with the entire prosperous city of Berlin—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From above the clouds, monitoring the city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ecological villa concealed within the faint clouds, beneath it towered the super tall office Skyscraper; nearly all major European enterprises had offices here, as well as hosting the EU’s highest-level executive offices...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The rent here was unimaginably high, theoretically to cut costs, companies would lower employee salaries, lay off staff, even engage in improper competition and use faulty equipment, but they preferred doing all of the above rather than saving on rent by moving from this location—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because here, every inch was worth its weight in gold.\u003C\u002Fp>",1191,"2026-06-03T12:33:37.306Z","2026-06-03T12:33:42.185Z",1,"novelbin.me","6aab84f9aa9c83cc489434d77d498a46ed571a96163cd2f91f109010ece109fc","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-864","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-862",1068,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fcyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-cover.jpg"]