Players Invade Cyberpunk-Chapter 870 - 281: Humans, Foolish_3

Money, status, fame, emotions, she had almost gained everything she coveted.

But...

Is this right?

Song Zhaomei stood in front of the bathroom mirror, quietly gazing at her reflection.

It was a robot, transformed beyond recognition, its body hollowed out completely by machinery. Even its face was left with only bionic alloy and carbon fiber muscles, the pale red prosthetic eyes rotating in empty metal sockets, cables extending from the back of its head into the shadows, resembling a marionette controlled by someone.

Yet on this side of the mirror, her body barely showed signs of modification, the warm blood flowing through her veins, her heartbeat so powerful.

If she chose to stay here forever, she would not have to consider those corporate conflicts or engage in battles of interest, but simply enjoy an almost perfect life.

But....

Is this right?

The cyborg in the mirror disappeared.

Replaced by an empty square, where Song Zhaomei sat alone on a bench, writing programs she might use later.

The vast square, with only one person present, felt incredibly desolate and lonely.

Until a group appeared, bringing their simple program puppets they had coded, which though crude in Song Zhaomei's eyes, riddled with bugs, even with sensory data, still lacked excellence. Yet their "Happy New Year" and smiling faces left an impression on her to this day.

"Is this good?"

Unnoticed, Pandora appeared behind Song Zhaomei.

She wasn't even as tall as Song Zhaomei's chest, with a rather ordinary physique.

"Just hiding here to escape, what good would that do?"

Pandora's icy voice carried a rare hint of emotion, prompting Song Zhaomei to turn around and look down at her.

"When I was 12, I suffered a severe illness, and from that day, my body stopped growing. The doctors said I would never grow taller, leaving me to cry at home alone for three years, fearing ridicule from classmates and discrimination from others... The only place that made me feel equal was the internet, where no one knew what others looked like."

"But eventually, with encouragement from online friends, I stepped out of the house and returned to school."

"No one laughed at me, no one rejected me, everyone was still just as enthusiastic."

"You're overly concerned about the past and too worried about the future, but people can't live in the past forever, why not try to live well today?"

Pandora extended her hand to Song Zhaomei.

"Everyone is waiting for you to come out and help."

"Ha....."

Song Zhaomei closed her eyes, lowered her head, and chuckled lightly, while the mirror behind her shattered into fragments. She didn't take Pandora's hand.

Instead, she placed her hand on Pandora's head and ruffled her hair.

"Let's go together, little one, and see tomorrow."

——————

The surface and underground were ablaze with turmoil; cyberspace was also teeming with hackers and AI battling each other, a complete mess everywhere, shaking the entire ground.

Walking in a narrow corridor, Kasper was afraid the ceiling might suddenly collapse, the flickering light bulbs providing him no sense of security.

This entity, living in cyberspace for fifty years, was experiencing fire fights up close for the first time, making even him hesitant.

"I was only kidding back then, is it still not too late to turn back now?"

Clang!

A long, white blade rested on his neck.

"It's a Super Earth Government order, you can't afford the consequences of failure."

A2's voice, nearly at negative thirty degrees, sent a shiver down Kasper's spine, making him believe that, if he dared to run, the other party wouldn't hesitate to chop off his head and deliver it to Lin Miao. Thus, he could only admit defeat and perform a French salute.

"Alright, alright, since I'm the most educated among you, intellectuals naturally have heavier burdens than those without education, quickly move that damn knife away from my neck, I waxed myself just this morning, in this damp place, staying without a wax layer will cause rust."

Leading from the front, B2 said

"According to the map, ahead is the control center of the nuclear reactor, we've arrived."

Miles could never have imagined, as she ordered people to find the structure diagram of Little Beidou Laboratory from a vast sea of documents, it would soon be delivered to Lin Miao by Song Zhaomei.

Using this map, A2 and B2 avoided all battle zones, taking Kasper straight to the deepest part of the Little Beidou Laboratory, even deeper than the server area, the base level power supply reactor.

By unfortunate coincidence, Little Beidou Laboratory began construction in 1993, when third-generation reactor technology was just maturing, so thorium salt reactor technology was naturally unused.

EPR pressurized water reactor, uranium-235 fuel rods.

Nuclear sewage and waste were directly discharged into the depths of the Pacific Ocean via pipeline.

Kasper once boasted to Lin Miao that third-generation reactor technology was worthless in his eyes, having personally participated in the construction of six reactor projects; neither AP1000 nor EPR posed a challenge.

Lin Miao now tasked him with deactivating Little Beidou Laboratory's nuclear reactor, causing a brief release of nuclear radiation sufficient to trigger satellite and detection equipment alarms of major companies.

Kasper assured it would be a breeze; after using the reactor for fifty years, the accumulated radioactive waste like uranium-238 and plutonium-239 was bound to be plentiful. A small release into the near shore would convey that something's wrong with the reactor here.

Then all major global companies would learn that an experimental military tech lab beneath Night City Taiping Continent suffered a severe nuclear leak.

Whether they wanted to admit it or not, Taiping Continent's investment endeavors would become a worthless scam, even turning all of Night City into worthless wasteland.

This wasn't a military tech nuclear bomb dropped at Huangban Tower; pollutants from nuclear waste could last hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years, depending solely on the waste's half-life duration.

Then the land price in Taiping Continent would plummet instantly; every investor would be shocked to find that Lin Miao's asset buyback website for Taiping Continent was still operational, backed by a substantial technical asset and cash flow at the bank.

No matter what they thought before, now, just to reclaim even a fraction of their funds and prevent the land from becoming a liability, they would do everything to hastily find Lin Miao and sign buyback contracts.

Lin Miao didn't really have to blow up the nuclear power plant.

Because capitalists refuse to bear the risk of loss.

And for Lin Miao, he could straightforwardly blame Hansen, who's now deceased, claiming he was driven to desperation.

Unexpectedly, an AI assisting in taking the blame even emerged, making Lin Miao quite delighted.

More interestingly, as the leader of Little Beidou Laboratory, military tech would undoubtedly try its best to cover up this blemish, after all, if something they built really blew up Night City, military tech couldn't clean up this mess even by jumping into Taiping Continent.