Chapter 866 - 145: Acquaintance

"A cyberpsychosis incident occurred in Bruges."

"Recently, there has been a frequent occurrence of cyberpsychosis incidents, and the European Union has established a special committee to address such incidents, aiming to maintain the stability and sustainable development of the European Union."

"A commissioner arrived in Bruges a day prior and held gathering activities in cooperation with the local police, encouraging local residents to actively report such incidents."

"During the gathering and parade that day, a public relations officer from ADL Corporation lost control and used illegal violence against the gathering, and was apprehended by the Bruges police on the spot."

"The European Union is always a servant of the public, and the temporary office of the special committee is located at..., any citizen with relevant information can contact the person in charge."

"Do not fear any illegal violence, the European Union will always be your support."

CINO Company Headquarters.

As a corporation with a scale no less than mega multinational companies like Arasaka Company or Military Technology, CINO’s industries are also unimaginably vast.

And as an instigator of the Fourth Corporate War, they reaped substantial benefits: the IHAG company, which had served as a spark, was once called the "Orbital Aviation Company on the ground", and after reaching an agreement with OTEC, CINO also gained the ability to conduct near-Earth orbit business.

At this moment, within CINO’s proprietary communications satellite in near-Earth orbit, the board is using it to carry out discussions—

CINO is a French enterprise, but the most important meetings are absolutely conducted online.

Because if someone observed from Cyberspace, they would find that only by setting meetings on a near-Earth satellite could they escape the giant walls covering the European Union.

[Board Member #001: I heard the company sponsored this event.]

[CEO: Sponsorship might not be entirely accurate, they actively sought out Foxstone’s farm.]

[CEO: The International Partner Network Company had shut down most business routes, so they thought of riding whales.]

[Board Member #002: But I recall our BW project’s efficiency is not that high, the latest reports show that even the best performance struggles to ignore storms for forced marches.]

[CEO: The report you saw is somewhat outdated, recent research already allows BW to advance in a storm.]

[CEO: However, maintaining such efficiency is indeed impossible, and the farm in Bruges exhibited more strange phenomena.]

The meeting began playing footage of the whale docking that day—

The footage starts from the moment a humpback whale entered the periphery of the farming area: as a special industry, the whale farm is a privately owned and heavily guarded area by the enterprise, though submarines and warships were not suited to appear in near-shore areas, and their operational costs are high.

So there are unique guards here: dolphins equipped with sentry chips, and region-blocking biological weapons—the latter being sharks genetically engineered to attack submarines if needed.

These sentinel dolphins are equipped with various detection devices, with low-frequency antennas even as long as their bodies, allowing them to clearly detect creatures in the area and calculate their movement status.

And in the information sent back by the sentinel dolphins, this humpback whale reached a terrifying sprint speed of 110 km/h!

The dolphins in the footage reacted extremely quickly, avoiding a collision with the humpback whale, but those region-blocking biological weapons weren’t so lucky:

The programs in their chips would attack if they detected any target illegally entering the region...

But attacking a humpback whale like this could result in something worse than attacking a submarine: after all, submarines don’t need to twist and turn to move, such a large creature moving at such speed, each swing of its tail fin exerted unimaginable force, not to mention some sharks getting struck head-on...

The result of a head-on collision was only one: a body smashed to smithereens, internal gases and water exploding outward with the fragments, forming a red blossom in the water.

Awe filled the minds of the board members.

With such impact force, never mind a submarine, even large ships would have a hard time withstanding such a blow.

Even though occupying the orbit and outer space is the real advantage now, the ocean still remains a rich resource field, and who wouldn’t want to drive away those AIs if they could return to the ocean?

However, the CEO’s follow-up report left them somewhat undecided.

[CEO: A civilian transport humpback whale shouldn’t have such mobility capabilities, the endurance and explosive figures of this whale have surpassed the group’s best whale pod—OTEC can’t achieve such excellence.]

[Board Member #003: What about the test report?]

[CEO: The whale’s recorded chip suffered extensive damage, supposedly caused by the storm damaging the cabin.]

[CEO: This whale did not slow down after approaching the coast, but collided with the harbor, the bioweapon harbor in Bruges thus almost collapsed.]

[Board Member #001: What about the fish?]

[CEO: Not dead, critically injured, genetic testing revealed no anomalies, but... current test results simply do not support its performance in the ocean.]

[Board Member #002: Hmm... it’s impossible that it’s a "worker whale" with a dream in its heart, right?]

[CEO: The current opinion from the R&D department is: this whale no longer holds research value, I suggest we keep it alive, as an asset for the PR department to use in civilian venues.]

The board members fell silent collectively for a while, the CEO felt a significant increase in pressure.

[Board Member #003: Alright... you never run out of little tricks, it’s approved, you may go offline now.]

The CEO’s image faded from the conference room, leaving only the three board members.

[Board Member #001: An incredible feat, it seems the pressure might exceed the threshold, we should start preparing as well.]

[Board Member #002: I see CINO here being quite savvy, which means there will be less to worry about on this side.]

[Board Member #003: That’s good, the Cabinet Council seems to support this worker activity, we should engage more with this "special committee."]

...

Ping!

As glasses clinked, Elliot lifted a high glass for the first time, feeling himself suddenly rise in status.

Although Sevens was a civil servant, he seemed adept at making money, at the moment a group of them were drinking... pure water at the Bruges office.

"Riding whales is a brilliant idea!"

Elliot laughed: "That wasn’t what you said before, you said we were asking for trouble!"

"I take it back—I must take it back!" Sevens patted Elliot on the shoulder, his face flushed red from drinking lots of alcohol.

From now on, they had truly arrived at the main battlefield!

Bruges would be their starting point towards a grand goal! From here, they would travel all the way to Berlin and achieve unimaginable feats!

Bang bang.

The door was knocked, and with a wave of their hands, the two signaled the people outside to enter—

The newcomers were the ones who had helped the workers flee the city that day, a man and a woman, in a big pickup...

They were clearly media.

Seeing them, Lille was quite surprised:

For these were familiar faces.

[Munemasa: I didn’t expect to feel comforted seeing familiar faces from Night City in Europe...]

[Munemasa: A fascinating connection.]