The Creators: From Night City

Page 288

"You've seen the surveillance footage. There were only three people at the scene. There were no Asians with canes."

“She’s lying, without a doubt, Matthew.”

“But the surveillance footage shows that the gunman did fire two shots, Luca.” Matthew’s face was thin, but his prosthetic eyes looked exceptionally bright.

"The Onyx complex bullet we found in Agent Smith's head was enough to give those border security guys a headache, and the missing second bullet will make us even worse off, Luca."

"You think it was someone inside who did this?"

"Not necessarily, but the murderer is definitely a member of the High Knights, without a doubt. After all, only they would be so extravagant as to develop such composite special bullets just to evade border security checks and bring weapons in."

"These interstellar mobs, not content with occupying the moon and O'Neill space station, are now thinking about infiltrating the Crystal Palace."

“Complaining is useless, Luca.” Matthew carefully observed Matilda, who was hesitant and uneasy in the room, through the one-way glass. So far, her behavior had been normal, and there were no flaws in her panic or motives.

“The High Knights’ agents wouldn’t tell such an obvious and naive lie,” Matthew concluded.

Chapter 569 Escaping from the Tiger's Mouth

“But no second bullet was found at the scene. No bullet marks, no debris, nothing. It can’t be that the bullet went through the wall and into space, can it? That doesn’t make sense, Matthew,” his partner argued.

"Perhaps the bullet hit the person she was talking about, and then she was taken away by that person," Matthew speculated aimlessly.

“But you saw the surveillance video too, there was no fourth person,” Luca retorted.

“The surveillance video may have been tampered with.”

"You're crazy. My colleagues in the cybersecurity department have already ruled out this possibility. You know the technical capabilities of those people. Even if Barthemos came back to life, you can't fool them."

Matthew was well aware of what his partner had said.

His agonizing over this was because these inconsistencies and doubts could only lead to one consequence.

"Then it seems we have no choice but to send her to Lab Seven." A hint of reluctance flickered in Matthew's eyes.

As his longtime partner, Luca naturally understood his old friend's temperament, so he spoke up to advise him: "This matter is too big. Matthew, Agent Smith just passed on top-secret intelligence that the High Knights' agents were preparing to carry out the 'Coloring Project' on Crystal Palace, and then he was shot dead on the spot in that passage while carrying the stolen intelligence. She was the only witness at the scene."

Luca pointed at Matilda, who was completely unaware that she was about to step into the abyss, and continued, "Whether she is lying or not, just to be on the safe side, the people above will have those madmen in Laboratory Seven pry open her head and list out all her memories inch by inch to verify them. Matthew, this matter involves too many aspects, and no one dares to gamble with the safety of the entire Crystal Palace."

"Moreover, the classified data in Smith's 'black box' is indeed missing, right? She was the only one present when he died, which is an indisputable fact."

“I understand,” Matthew sighed.

“What’s more, she’s a lunar person, a ‘new human’ born in a lunar colony. It’s hard to imagine that she’s not connected to the High Knights, Matthew.” His companion continued to add to the stakes.

"Report it and have Lab Seven come to pick them up." Although Matthew still had some pity, as a special agent, he was absolutely ruthless enough to make decisive decisions.

A person's life was thus sentenced to death.

The camera quietly turned back to its original angle.

Inside the interrogation room, Matilda remained anxiously seated in her chair. Although she was not physically restrained, the secular power of the European Space Agency acted as an invisible shackle, binding her firmly to this place.

She anxiously awaited the news that the two agents, who were destined never to return, would deliver the good news of her acquittal.

But all that awaited her was silence.

Her heart sank deeper and deeper, beating faster and faster, until her body temperature gradually rose, and her vision in front of her inexplicably darkened.

Just as she was about to stand up and call out to the guards outside the door, unable to contain her anxiety, her beautiful "Rose Spot II" type prosthetic eyes suddenly started showing a lot of static.

These noises filled her entire field of vision for a moment, then disappeared just as quickly.

Just as she was filled with curiosity, a blood-red message suddenly appeared on her inspection panel.

"Matilda Portman, do you know you're about to die?"

The bloody words and horrifying content made her heart almost stop beating for a moment, but she quickly realized what was going on.

Without his knowledge, he was hacked and implanted with a prosthetic body!

She immediately stood up, intending to call for the guards outside, but the words in front of her suddenly changed, freezing her in place.

"The person who died in front of you was an ESA agent, while the one who fired the shot was a High Knight agent, and you are the one who survived. What do you think they will think about this?"

Matilda may be young, but she's not stupid.

"Who are you?" she asked.

“It doesn’t matter, at least not now.” The mysterious hacker continued to explain what she knew, in order to completely shatter Matilda’s last hope.

"The agents who interrogated you do not believe you. They do not believe your honesty or your words. They are prepared to send you to the European Space Agency's special 'interrogation facility' to read your memories, drain every inch of your neural synapses, and violently crack every piece of data in your brain."

"You need to understand that you can lie, but your brain can't."

"Why should I believe you?" Matilda's chest heaved with fear as she listened to the horrific scene the other person had described.

A video was sent over, showing the conversation between the two agents outside the door.

“This could be a fake video you created specifically to deceive me.” Matilda remained vigilant.

Believe it or not, it's up to you.

Hackers are emboldened.

"What do you want?" Although Matilda didn't know anything about this mysterious hacker, she knew about Crystal Palace, where she had lived for two years, and the way the European Space Agency operated. So she remained silent for a moment, and her tone softened.

"I'll make a deal with you."

"trade?"

“I will get you out of here before the people from ‘Lab Seven’ arrive, but you will need to help me afterward.”

Matilda Portman clenched her fists.

"Help you? How can I help you?"

"This requires further consideration. Right now, the most urgent thing is to get you out of here."

"Will you accept this deal or not?" the hacker sent an ultimatum.

Matilda gritted her teeth; she didn't want to believe it, but she knew that what the other person said was indeed true.

Strange interrogators, an excessive number of guards, kinetic weapons that are strictly prohibited, and strange hackers—all of this indicates that she has been drawn into a huge vortex.

"What should I do?" she asked in a deep voice.

"very good"

The hacker's blood-red text gradually faded to normal white.

"Be prepared"

"Prepare what?" Matilda asked, puzzled.

"run"

As the message popped up, a black and red arc of mist and electricity suddenly flashed in Matilda's eyes, and the closed lock opened with a click.

Two guards who were on high alert at the door rushed in immediately, cocking their guns and aiming them at Matilda without hesitation. But before she could fire, the hacker used the overhead camera to disable their brains without hesitation.

"Now! Run!"

Having come this far, Matilda had no other choice but to comply. She rushed out of the guardhouse in a frenzy and blind rush to the CPD's office area.

"Turn left"

An arrow flashed before Matilda's eyes, and she followed it without hesitation.

Unbeknownst to her, all the cameras in the CPD office area of ​​Zone A4 had been hijacked by hackers the moment she stepped out of the room. By cutting off the CPD's most crucial line of sight, hackers then used these cameras to guide Matilda to safety.

Chapter 570 The Three Witch Sisters

"Turn left and go straight, take cover in the second cabin first."

As the hacker's latest information popped up, the second cabin door, which had been locked in the passageway, opened automatically as she passed by. Matilda slipped inside without hesitation, pressing her body tightly against the closed metal door, listening to the dense footsteps rushing past in the passageway.

"Above, the air vent."

The hackers seemed to have planned this all along; the ventilation openings in the room, which should have been locked, opened automatically without their permission.

Ignoring the dust and heat, Matilda squeezed into the pipes and, following the arrows that kept appearing in front of her, continued to move forward through the intricate network of pipes.

"Damn it, there are ventilation fans here." She climbed out of the third-level ventilation duct, only to find two large metal ventilation fans spinning rapidly in front of her.

“Give me some time. The hackers at Crystal Palace are sticking to you. I need to lure them away first so they don’t find you.”

After sending that message, the mysterious hacker disappeared without a trace, leaving Matilda alone, curled up in the cramped, stuffy ventilation duct.

As darkness and time passed, panic escalated into terror, and just as Matilda was on the verge of collapse, the fan in front of her suddenly stopped spinning.

"Walk"

The abrupt words seemed somewhat endearing to her at that moment.

Guided by the mysterious hacker, Matilda crawled through the pipes for nearly half an hour before finally seeing the light of day again.

However, when she emerged from the complex ventilation duct, she found that the store's decor in the distance looked very familiar to her.

That was actually the 'Golden Crystal' that she had been working for all along.

"What the hell?!" The girl, who had experienced a major setback in her life in a short period of time, was somewhat distraught.

"You need to go to work as usual." Matilda nearly collapsed when she saw this. She was just short of letting out a hysterical wail of defeat.

"I'm on the run right now, please, why would I go to work? Plus, there's a charity gambling dinner going on inside today, and the security checks are a million times stricter than usual. If I dare to show my face, I'll be walking into a trap, okay?"

"You have to go back to work." A clear female voice rang in her ears, and countless lines of code intertwined like a waterfall, forming a girl wearing a light gray, simple leather jacket.

"Holy crap, what the hell is this? You're that hacker, how did you suddenly appear?" No matter how mature Matilda's mind was, she was still just a girl, and a commoner who had always been at the bottom of society. Naturally, she didn't know how high the level of hacking skills required for this virtual imaging system was.

“You have to go back to work, because only with you, as an employee, acting as my liaison, can I have a chance to escape from this ‘cage’.”

"Escaped?" Matilda repeated the other person's words.

"Do you know that I'm wanted by the entire Crystal Palace? If my face appears on the monitor at the door for even a second, within two minutes, dozens of cops will surround this place."

“Leave the disguise to me. You just need to go in quietly. Since it happened so suddenly, apart from the internal database, your colleagues don’t know you’re in trouble yet. This gives us a chance to fish in troubled waters.”

"No, no, no, that's too risky." Matilda shook her head vigorously, and involuntarily began to back away.

"Have you forgotten our deal? Do you know how much risk I took to help you escape, and now you want to back out?"

"It's better to back out than to go and die!" Matilda turned around and tried to hide in the secondary passage next to her.

But as soon as she turned around, the other person's image flashed in front of her as if by teleportation, and her limbs and bones burst out with black and red mist that only she could see, instantly locking her entire prosthetic body in place, and a sharp pain simultaneously entered her mind.

The pain, which felt like childbirth, lasted only two or three seconds, but it left her completely exhausted and collapsed to the ground.

"Have you forgotten who I am?" the other party said coldly.

“If you don’t honor our deal, I guarantee your head will be burned to a crisp in seconds.” The other woman’s expression was as cold as ice, making Matilda feel that this woman was not human at the moment, but rather like a cold machine, emanating coldness from her very bones.

"Fine, I'll go, okay? What the hell is going on?" Under the threat of death, she finally gave in.

“Very good. As long as we follow my plan, I guarantee that neither of us will be in any danger.” Seeing Matilda give in, the other party finally smiled with satisfaction.

"By the way, I'm Song Zhaomei, you can also call me Nightingale. It's a pleasure to meet you, Matilda Portman," the hacker introduced herself before disappearing.

………………

Sunshine, beaches, parasols, beach chairs—these elements always go well with big-breasted bikini-clad blondes, surfboards, cocktails, sunbathing, more bikini-clad beauties, beach shorts-clad hunks, and plenty of hormones.

Clara, Clag, and Clara lay in a row on the pristine white sand beach, which had been transported from Earth at great expense, lazily basking in the artificial sun.

The three women were wearing relatively conservative bikinis, the colorful fabrics stretched taut by their very voluptuous figures, creating a stunning sight from every angle.

A handsome, fit man with a dashing appearance walked over with a warm smile and stood in front of Kragg in what he thought was his most dashing pose.

"Miss, do you need me to apply some sunscreen for you? You know, the artificial sunlight here is extremely harsh on natural skin."

As this successful man spoke, he consciously or unconsciously tensed his abdomen to show off his well-developed, sculpted eight-pack abs, and unintentionally revealed the vintage diving watch on his wrist.

It's important to understand that in this day and age, such "antique" watches are pure luxury items, and very few people would rely on them to tell time.

Instead, people use it to determine wealth and status.

But all his flirtatious glances were essentially directed at a blind man.

"Get out of my way, you're blocking my sunbathing." Krag said ruthlessly, his cold voice carrying an undeniable forcefulness.

This executive from a well-known company could only slink away in defeat, leaving in embarrassment just like the eight men before him.

He returned to his old friends, where a 'melancholy wanderer' with blond, wavy hair placed a glass of strong liquor in front of him.