A Rainy Day (2)
A Rainy Day (2)
The streets outside were quiet, filled with the sound of rain pattering down.
Occasionally, a vehicle cut through the rain.
A few people walked with umbrellas blinking with LED lights, but
even at a glance, foot traffic on the street was sparse.
It was an absurd sight, considering this was right near Center Plaza, the central business district of Neon City.
And yet, in a way, it made sense.
Just as I hated going outside, the people of this city also refrained from going out when it rained.
Many believed that getting caught in the rain for too long would cause your hair or skin to peel off.
I had no idea if that was actually true.
But considering that the street vagrants in the Lower Layer often had peeling skin implants, the possibility seemed plausible enough.
Through the pouring rain, the navigation route Eve had marked for me appeared.
It was something that happened through my vision interface, so only I could see it.
The remaining distance... about 50 meters.
My neighborhood, North Houston, and my destination, Center Plaza, were very close—just as Eve had said, a reasonable walking distance.
I kept moving toward the destination.
Soon enough, a large store came into view.
【Cyberware AND Implant Specialty Store】
Above the signboard, holograms of Koozaka Corporation's 'Pit Mac' and Monolith Corporation's corporate emblem rotated at a constant speed.
[Destination reached. Navigation complete.]
After confirming Eve's voice, I trudged toward the store.
I passed through the automatic doors.
Unlike the Lower Layer, there were no armed guards in sight.
Instead, multiple turrets were stationed there, ready to turn any intruder into a beehive at the press of a button.
Maybe it was because my masked appearance looked suspicious. The employee's eyes sharpened as they looked me over.
Unlike me, who wore a mask purely out of concern for my health,
in Neon City, far more people wore masks for other reasons.
So of course, being wary was the right call.
Having folded my umbrella, I pulled my hands out of my pockets.
I moved so that the employee could see my hands were empty.
Sir, I am harmless.
Even if the clothes I wore were bulletproof, getting shot with my bare body would hurt like hell.
In fact, getting shot when I hadn't done anything would hurt my feelings even more.
I slowly headed toward the counter where the employee was.
"Excuse me."
"...Welcome, how can I help you?"
That's terrifying. Could you please dial back the murderous glare?
If it was going to be like this, I should've taken my mask off briefly before coming inside.
I couldn't understand why they were so wary of a mask in a world where you could change your entire face anyway.
"What kind of high-capacity data modules do you have?"
[According to my search results in Net Space, the products currently inside this branch are—.]
"What price range were you looking at, sir?"
[.......]
Eve fell silent.
The employee's attitude suddenly flipped.
A deeply artificial smile settled on their lips.
"Well, I searched the net, and I heard this place was cheaper than other stores."
"Oh, come on, you can't just go around trusting everything on the net. Still, I'll set you up with a good price."
"......."
This time, I was the one who fell silent.
The information on the net can't be trusted....
As the price shifted in real time the moment a customer walked into the store, I thought to myself:
A city where every citizen is steeped in capitalism.
This is cyberpunk.
It was a familiar experience, having lived in this city.
6. The Day It Rains (2)
A headache surged thanks to the employee's relentless high-ball offers, but in the end, I managed to negotiate a reasonable price and buy what I wanted.
Of course, it was a slightly higher price than what Eve had told me.
But it couldn't be helped.
Regrettably, I had a fatal weakness: I wasn't much good at haggling.
[I question why you purchased it at an above-average price.]
"......I came all the way out here, I can't go home empty-handed."
That was why.
As an I-type, I had to prioritize maximum profit whenever I went out.
I'd made the arduous journey (a 10-minute walk) all the way here.
The options of going around to other stores on foot or going home empty-handed did not exist for me.
It definitely wasn't because I had Eve's streaming (unearned income) coming in like an auto-hunt and just bought it roughly.
Anyway, it wasn't.
It's really been a long time since I played a virtual reality game.
I wonder how many new games I've missed.
I felt my heart flutter with excitement.
I thought about searching Net Space while I walked, but using a smartphone while walking is the most dangerous thing of all.
Even if you can project a hologram in the air.
I decided to just look it up at home.
I walked out of the store with lighter steps than before.
I bought the product I wanted, and the employee sold the product at the price they wanted.
You could say it was a win-win for everyone.
Just as I resolved to go home, I felt a commotion from somewhere.
Some people seemed to be running away after dropping their umbrellas, while others, like me, were looking around unable to figure out the situation.
What the hell was going on?
There were no screams, but something had clearly happened.
Had someone showed up and started pissing in the street?
There was quite a distance between me and the center of the commotion.
Without having undergone vision-related implant surgery, like Monovision cyberware, it was hard for me to figure out what was happening.
I was standing there blankly holding my bag.
Eve's voice came through.
[Attempting to hack the camera. ......Complete.]
"You're not going to ask about that protection protocol thing anymore?"
[I inform you that a voice data record, previously approved by the human 'Lee Si-woon', is stored.]
Ah, back then.
I did give permission at the restaurant where I met Julia.
So a single approval lasts a lifetime, huh.
This was why you had to verify things thoroughly before signing or approving something, I thought.
[Synchronizing with vision interface data, ......Complete.]
The moment Eve said complete,
a small screen appeared in front of my field of vision.
Judging by the quality and the angle, it looked like a feed from a surveillance camera.
On the screen stood a large man whose entire body was armed with black cyberware.
I couldn't tell if he was human or an orc.
With his whole body slathered in cyberware to that extent, it was hard to distinguish his race.
A few pieces of the cyberware the man was equipped with flashed past my eyes.
Thinking back on it,
they were military-grade products.
Rare items in Neon City, a free city that had escaped from state control.
The kind of stuff you'd only ever see on requests involving mega-corps at minimum.
I had no idea why someone like that was just standing blankly in the street right now.
"Looks like he's muttering something."
[Confirmed. ......Capturing sound signal. Amplifying lens and audio.]
The screen zoomed in enough to show the man's entire face. His complete lack of a jaw was striking.
Then, the man's low-quality muttering voice came through faintly.
From what I could roughly hear, it was some kind of Chinese.
Since even the translation module installed on my neural computer chip couldn't interpret it, I couldn't understand what he was muttering.
[Information, confirmed from NCPD database. I inform you that the subject is over 90% similar to a criminal currently incarcerated in 'Pelicanus,' the Neon City penitentiary.]
"......Why is a guy like that here? Didn't someone just copy his face with an implant?"
[Cross-referencing worn cyberware information and biosignals. ......Correcting: Matches database information, 99% probability of being the person himself.]
"Huh."
Just stepping out near my house and running into an escaped convict—no matter how rainy the day was, the probability was incredibly low.
So why was that bastard here?
[Currently checking NCB24 news. Providing: 《Currently reporting that numerous criminals incarcerated in Pelicanus prison have escaped. Citizens are urged to refrain from going out and─.》]
The timing is absolutely insane.
As far as I knew, Pelicanus was the place where only the most serious criminals in Neon City got sent.
"But if they went to the trouble of escaping, shouldn't they be fleeing outside the city? Why are they here?"
[Name, 'Black Net (黑網)'. Mercenary affiliated with the Heishukwai (黑輸會). Explaining: Confirmed 8 counts on record including murder of Upper Layer citizens, classified as a Chrome Psycho.]
No matter how much the rain makes your joints ache,
even after breaking out of prison, crawling back into the city felt a bit over the line.
The man, the Chrome Psycho who had been muttering, suddenly raised his heavy hand.
The tips of his fingers aimed at a fleeing child.
There was no one nearby who could protect the child.
Then the Chrome Psycho's palm transformed.
Inside the mechanical design's opening, a red hot-wire glow grew larger.
It wasn't an automated shooting device.
It looked like a compact grenade launcher.
Lucky for the child.
The moment I confirmed the grenade was launched at the child, I moved.
I circulated my mana and fired it out.
The intense gust that extended from my hand seized the entire space along a straight line.
That type of grenade launcher had to simultaneously hold the ammunition to fire inside the body and the cyberware device to trigger it.
Because of that, making it lightweight and minimizing its volume was the norm.
Which meant, if I could just predict the direction it was fired,
it was also possible to alter the grenade's trajectory with a strong wind.
If I'd had just a little more time to spare, I could've sent the grenade right back at him.
A shame.
The grenade launched at the child cut an unnatural curve through the air as it flew off.
And the following explosion.
- Kwaaaaang!
The grenade also looked to be military-grade.
Its explosive force was no joke.
If I'd made even a slight mistake, I wouldn't have blocked it.
[Detonation sound confirmed. Estimated time until NCPD arrival—.]
"NCPD guys won't be able to handle that bastard when they get here anyway. At least the special unit, Chrome Force, needs to show up."
[Confirmed. Hacking internal police department data, ......Complete. Predicting Chrome Force arrival time: approximately 600 seconds from now.]
Ten minutes.
That meant I had to either hold out for that time or take him down before then.
Damn it, I hated getting rained on though.
But I couldn't very well ignore the grenade that had been launched at the kid either.
Since it had already happened, there was no choice.
Soon, the Chrome Psycho's red eye-glow shifted toward me.
But at that moment,
the very next thing that happened after I recognized that fact was that the Chrome Psycho man was split in half.
"Huh?"
What the hell was this situation?
Immediately after, goosebumps broke out all over my body.
"There you are. I've been looking for you."
A voice I'd heard in my dreams yesterday followed.
Ah.
Didn't the NCB24 news report earlier say that multiple people had escaped?
.......
I prepared for battle.
Before me stood the most fearsome person out of all the Chrome Psychos I knew, a woman who had once tried to kill me.
I seriously thought I needed to find a real cyber-shaman and get an exorcism.