The Creators: From Night City

Page 415

Within the mind governed by the 'Erwin' algorithm, which Erwin calls a cross-century technology, an abnormal data stream, the very thing its creators had been hoping for day and night, was churning.

But the creator of these things is still unaware of this, and he still lives under the terrifying 'intimidation' of the Tiger Claw Gang.

People need to eat, and Erwin also needed a lot of ethanol gasoline to keep the power supply running in his dilapidated research base. So no matter how scared he was, he still had to bite the bullet and go out to survive.

The iron frame still stands there, its two cheap, old-fashioned Comtôme 'Divine Eyes' shimmering with human-like light and shadow.

……

'Taiping State Police Station', police outbound call hotline.

Operator Susan Lin, as usual, got herself a large cup of free coffee in the break room and grabbed two packets of overly sweet coffee creamer before heading to her workstation.

She is a rare female police officer in the NCPD, and her reason for joining the NCPD is simple: the high salary.

She had two children to raise and lacked the qualifications to become a sex doll, so she had no choice but to grit her teeth and join the NCPD street patrol department, which had a high mortality rate.

As it turned out, she didn't die from stray bullets from gangsters, from the blades of cyberpsychotics, or from a colleague's gunshot wound; instead, she almost starved to death in the massive layoffs at NCPD.

So when the 'Workers' Mutual Aid Association' approached her, she joined the newly established 'Taiping State Police Bureau' without hesitation and became a proud police outbound call specialist.

To be honest, she was quite satisfied with the job. Although the salary wasn't high, it was definitely above the level in Night City. The benefits were excellent, the working hours were only eight hours, and most importantly, she only needed to stay in the police station to answer emergency calls, which was very safe.

Therefore, she cherishes this job and treats every phone call that comes in with care.

She gulped down the sticky coffee, and the bittersweet taste invigorated her, putting her in a great mood as she boarded the plane.

An emergency call came in the next second.

"Hello, Taiping State Police Department, how can I help you?" Susan said the opening line skillfully.

"Father... has gone missing, suspected of being kidnapped by... Tiger Claw Gang. We have reported... organ trafficking. Please dispatch the police immediately."

A series of noisy, monotonous mechanical sounds came from the other end of the phone, accompanied by bursts of electrical crackling.

Chapter 847 Powerful Network Support Staff

These calls were often pranks, but Susan still took them seriously.

"What is your relationship with the missing person? What is their resident ID number? Is the location where the incident occurred your current location?"

“Didi, ID58887465, missing person’s name: Erwin Hillkey, address: 6th floor of abandoned building in northern Lukeshuang Manor, please dispatch police immediately.”

The other party's response was even more abnormal, the word order was not like that of a normal person, and coupled with the cold metallic voice, it sounded more like a synthesized voice commonly used in some kind of prank.

But Susan still immediately reported it in accordance with the newly promulgated regulations, since the authenticity of the police report would naturally be verified by a specialist.

Within two minutes, two police armored vehicles, modified from Chevrolet Emperor 720 NCPD armored cars, roared out of the police station garage.

Abandoned buildings in the northern part of Lukeshuang Mountain Villa.

River Ward personally led the team, and with the standard exoskeleton support on his legs operating at full power, he kicked the broken door in front of him away with just one kick.

The fully armed police entered in single file the next moment.

"Safety!"

"Safety!"

"Safety!"

The police quickly took control of the entire house.

"Report: No one who filed the report was found."

"Drip!"

River's gaze was drawn to a robot standing next to the control panel.

“Iron frame greets you,” a pair of old-fashioned Comtôme mechanical eyes turned to River’s face.

"Officer River Ward."

All eyes were drawn to the machine that made the sound.

“Interesting,” River said thoughtfully, looking at the rudimentary robot.

"So you're the one who called the police?"

"The metal frame detected that the father had been away for more than 16 hours. Calculations showed that the probability of him being kidnapped was greater than 95%, and the alarm was the optimal option according to the procedure."

"Your father is Erwin Hilki?"

The iron frame answered "correctly" in a very formal and methodical manner.

"So what you said on the phone was all true?" River waved his hand, signaling the team's technical specialist to check the equipment on the control panel, and continued to probe for information.

"Beep beep~, all possibilities are based on the results of calculations, infinitely converging with the development of reality."

River is not a clueless newbie; on the contrary, being an NCPD detective is a profession that requires a wide range of abilities.

"An AI robot capable of self-imagination and thought, it seems to have been created by this supposedly missing Erwin Hillkey himself. That's really interesting."

"This is a calculation based on the algorithm's operating logic, Inspector River." Ironframe corrected him with the cold stubbornness characteristic of robots, though the crackling sound of its electrical current made one frown.

"Sir, it's confirmed. This house is indeed occupied by Erwin Hillki."

"Disappeared?"

"They've most likely gone missing."

At this stage of the investigation, the situation is quite clear.

"Contact the General Administration and retrieve the video footage from this area."

Dogtown today is not as lawless as it used to be. While surveillance may not cover the entire area, at least all nodes on the main roads are covered by cameras.

The kidnappers didn't try to hide anything and were quickly caught red-handed.

"Who is this person?"

Inside a Chevrolet Emperor 720 NCPD armored vehicle, Rivers reviewed a surveillance video sent by his subordinates and pointed to the person sitting in the passenger seat of a cargo van, asking a question.

"A leader of the Tiger Claw Gang, Maekawa Yoko."

"Is it on that 'list'?" River asked, tapping the other person's face on the data panel.

"exist"

Rivers's face lit up with excitement, and he gave a cruel smile: "Respond to the call, request technical support, track the car's movements, and arrest the culprits. It's time for these scumbags to pay the price."

The Taiping State Police wanting to check a car is, in a sense, equivalent to [Reverse Entropy] wanting to check a car.

In Night City today, there are very few things that [Anti-Entropy] can't find out.

Before Rivers' armored vehicle had even left the symbolic wall of Dogtown, the police radio inside was suddenly switched on automatically.

A lazy female voice rang out.

“Inspector River Ward, this is the Cyber ​​Support Department. I am Song Zhaomei, the cyber support officer assigned to this case.”

River, in the passenger seat, raised an eyebrow, glancing at the clearly hacked police radio. He exchanged a glance with his subordinate in the driver's seat, and the two immediately understood each other, presumably sharing the same thoughts.

It seems this colleague in the network support department, nicknamed "Flying Bird," is as simple, direct, and brutal in temperament and methods as he is.

The driver shrugged, making a gesture of helplessness.

"Don't bother me behind my back, I can see you," the other person's lazy voice continued from the radio.

Rivers glanced instinctively at the dashcam above his head, then turned his gaze to the body cameras on the chests of the two men.

Both of these devices have camera functions.

"To make a long story short, I tracked the movement of that car in the surveillance video. These Japanese guys didn't intend to hide at all. They didn't avoid the cameras much along the way. They were very arrogant. The relevant location was sent to the vehicle's system."

As soon as the other person finished speaking, the driver's car computer immediately displayed a prompt to "Add a new navigation address".

The two people in the driver's and passenger's seats exchanged another surprised glance, their meaning equally clear.

'Even our own police cars are being smeared?'

“I didn’t hack your car. In fact, the ICE system you’re using now was written by me.”

The hacker behind the radio station seemed to have the ability to read minds and foresee the future.

'Hiss~'

Rivers gasped. It seemed he had assigned the network support personnel for this mission to be at a slightly higher level.

Let's get straight to the point.

Inside Base 6, Song Zhaomei, the 'Nightingale' who had been completely transformed from head to toe, sat listlessly in a specially made internet access chair, staring at the several screens in front of her that were rapidly refreshing various data. She said idly, "I casually checked the account of this unlucky guy named Erwin Hillki and found that a huge sum of money, which was a fortune for him, was deposited into his account a dozen days ago. The payer was a nominee account of the Tiger Claw Gang. It's obvious that he probably borrowed some money from the Tiger Claw Gang at high interest rates, but failed to repay it on time."

Song Zhaomei rested her chin on her hand, fiddling with the souvenirs Matilda had given her on the table with the other, and continued to explain the mission discovery that she found rather boring.

In her opinion, this task was not as difficult as the process of making the Pueblo roly-poly black pottery in front of her.

"In addition, I found that this nominee account had made many other payments, so it seems to be a repeat offender."

"In addition, I found several missing persons cases related to Westbrook in the police system. They all seem to follow the same pattern. I've sent them to your email. You can decide for yourself what to do."

Song Zhaomei sent all the information she had retrieved to River. After both parties confirmed that nothing was missing, she temporarily suspended the support request in the internal system of [Anti-Entropy].

get off work!

Chapter 848 Police Affairs Shocking Turn of Events

In Night City today, there are basically no forces that [Anti-Entropy] cannot handle. The mere Tiger Claw Gang still dares to lend money and kidnap people despite the high-pressure red lines. In Song Zhaomei's view, they have already met their doom.

But soon, Night City gave this 'outsider' a resounding slap in the face.

Gemstone Green Building, Intensive Care Unit.

Bright lights shone on the gleaming metal floor, reflecting a faint, cold light.

Song Zhaomei, who was forcibly summoned halfway through her meal with Matilda, walked into the 'VIP ward' with a cold face.

"Mr. Sabur!"

As soon as she entered the room, Song Zhaomei's heart skipped a beat, and a question popped into her head.

What exactly happened that caused such a big commotion?

"This is!?"

On her sickbed, Song Zhaomei saw the source of her being summoned here.

Two-fifths of Inspector River Ward lay in a specially designed intensive care unit. Through the glass observation window, Song Zhaomei could clearly see that he had been severed from his right shoulder to his left waist, and his internal organs had long been destroyed.

Numerous pipes were densely intertwined, almost forming the other half of their completely new bodies.

“As you can see, Song Zhaomei, all the police officers who participated in this mission died at the mission location, right where you gave us the mission location,” Gloria said from the side.

As a former U.S. intelligence agent, Song Zhaomei remained remarkably calm at this moment.

"My intelligence is infallible."

“Your intelligence is certainly correct, so the one who is wrong is our enemy,” Gloria continued, without blaming the other party.

"This is not a simple kidnapping case."

"How is he?" Song Zhaomei asked the chief physician standing beside her.

"The patient suffered from extremely high-level body detachment, hemorrhagic shock, and circulatory death. Although an externally implanted total artificial heart-lung system and a metabolic support system have been provided, the patient is still in a state of severe polyfunctional decortic syndrome."

Seeing Song Zhaomei's puzzled expression, Ellen Elinor, who looked like a doll, put down the medical record board and sighed, "He was completely brain dead. Although we used the latest medical technology developed by the medical department to reawaken his neural network, he had been deprived of oxygen for too long when he was brought here, and we were powerless to help him."

"Moreover, this was only after he modified the new type of life support prosthetics in our company; none of his teammates survived."

"How could this happen? How could we have managed to turn a mere few Tiger Claw Gang thugs into this?" Song Zhaomei lamented.

Jiang Bing tapped his cane, lost in thought.

"I'm afraid it's not just a few thugs from the Tiger Claw Gang."

Gazing at the smooth incision, Jiang Bing tapped his cane, pointing out the problem.

In the past, in Night City, the mysterious death of a team of police officers at the hands of gangsters was considered a major event, let alone now that [Anti-Entropy] is in power, and the victims are from the newly established Taiping State Police Department.

This is clearly a slap in the face to "anti-entropy".

This is why something of this magnitude would alarm Jiang Bing and Gloria.

Jiang Bing, aka "Song Zhaomei," stopped tapping his cane and turned to the newly appointed former cyber nuclear bomber, instructing him: "Go back and thoroughly investigate the whole matter at the network level. I will authorize the computing center to grant you some computing power support."