Infinity, progress from Arasaka

"Gui'an."

"Gui'an."

Young masters and young ladies greeted each other in a frivolous, non-mainstream or well-behaved manner. If Johnny, the 'rock boy' who blew up the Arasaka Tower in Night City, saw this pretentious manner, he would probably angrily spray hundreds of obscene words without repeating them.

A completely different look from Night City.

People in Night City, even those from Arasaka School, other companies, and top public schools, are inevitably assimilated in the garbage dump of Night City. When they meet, they say Fuck, and all they talk about is hunting down other people's parents and family trees.

"Vera, your course learning progress...is so efficient."

"I didn't get into school through normal exams like you did. I was admitted to Arasaka to study quickly. Efficiency is my top priority. I have subordinates and departments in charge in Night City. After completing my studies in one year at the latest, I will return to Night City to continue my duties."

"No wonder you don't want to play house with them. Is this a true genius?"

"Hey, Vera, is Night City really as dangerous as the rumors say? You can encounter gang fights just walking on the streets, and the TV stations use the number of accidental deaths every day as a lottery?"

"Pretty much. There's gang violence all day and all night. The place is full of military-grade contraband. As for the dead man's lottery, I won it once."

"what?!"

Walking on the cobblestone path, passing through the neat and historic campus, Vera chatted with her fake girlfriends. No matter whether they were acting or real, or they approached her for other purposes, okay, I'll play with you.

Arriving at the school gate to say goodbye.

"Vera, your elective subject is biotechnology... er, virology? Are you planning to apply for a summer school trip to Africa? What is there to do and see there?"

"I'm not going there for fun. I just have some ideas in mind."

...

respectively.

Vera waved goodbye to her classmates and boarded the standard 'Holy Sword' hovercraft parked on the tarmac. It was assigned to her by the Tokyo headquarters.

hum...bum...

The hovercraft headed towards Arasaka City Square where the Arasaka Tower was located.

On the ground, in a corner of the campus, a close friend who had just finished talking with Vera withdrew her gaze. In the shadows, her artificial eye glowed orange.

"The target has returned. There is nothing unusual today. He is majoring in law and minoring in biology."

"Her goal is very clear. She wants to finish her studies and return to Night City to climb to a higher position. She is an ambitious girl. She is extremely dismissive of campus romance. Although she seems gentle and elegant in her conversation and manners, and is very particular about etiquette, her faint smile actually implies a deep and subtle indifference. It is easy to greet her, but it is difficult to have a deep conversation with her."

"Her evaluation... Me? That's a genius. I don't know if she noticed me. Even with the help of the information cable board, I have never seen someone with such a high learning efficiency... She may be able to break the fastest graduation record of our internal students in Arasaka."

Admission through internal quotas of large companies is different from admission through normal examinations.

The former are often geniuses who have fought through countless competitions within large companies. They have strong learning and action abilities, and are experienced. The time they spend studying after entering school is shorter than that of normal students, and the amount of study is not reduced. According to the company's requirements, the difficulty is higher and stricter, and those who fail to pass will be eliminated;

The latter can proceed step by step and have more room for maneuver, through regular exams, extensions, make-up exams, parents spending money, and using connections.

The former is often more valuable and more difficult than the latter.

"Today, she revealed a piece of news. She has decided to go on a study tour to Africa. It seems that she has an idea for her personal biology project. It should be related to the cooperation business with Michiko-sama's 'Dangerous Girl' company."

"Keep paying attention? Yes, I understand."

...

Arasaka Corporate Community, Tokyo.

Vera's temporary residence.

bang.

The automatic sensor light came on, and Vera walked into the outer porch of a standard Japanese-style single-family apartment with her handbag across her shoulders. On the long table outside, there was a box of long cubes wrapped in industrial-grade synthetic plastic.

Putting her handbag down, she checked the mail.

From: Arasaka Purchasing Department

Recipient: Vera Adelheid Russell

After looking at the product receipt carefully, Vera suddenly smiled. Under the slightly dim light of the night atmosphere lamp on the long table, her face was hidden in the darkness.

"Oh, the leeches are here."

------

PS: One more chapter.

Chapter 047: The Hoe Swinger and the Lone Brave Man

thump.

After moving the plastic box containing the leech container into the room and taking off her coat, Vera put away the bag containing her law school homework, stepped forward to snap the lock, opened the plastic lid, and saw a metal box with the round Arasaka clover logo.

“It’s really strict.”

They are just a dozen leeches with normal characteristics. From a normal worldview, no one would consider them precious.

She reached out and tapped the touch screen. The biometric information reader on the surface of the touch screen compared Vera's DI information with the recipient information in the chip, beep.

The comparison passed, and with a "hiss" sound, the metal box opened and cold air slowly floated out.

The inner wall of the simulated sand and stone environment and the dark brown leeches that are narrow at the top and bottom and thick in the middle are exposed.

They are quite big, about one centimeter in size. Vera counted about 15 of them. She didn't know what kind of T virus these leeches, which survived the contamination of the Cyber ​​Corporation in the war, could produce after combining with the Progenitor virus.

It’s expensive. It’s really expensive.

Although these leeches are very resilient and can survive in a variety of complex environments such as freshwater, seawater, and amphibious environments, and unlike birds and animals that have high requirements for a fixed environment and overlap with the human living environment, and they are easy to feed and have a much smaller risk of extinction, the pollution in the cyberpunk world is too serious.

Places like the South China Sea and the Southeast Asian islands, which were devastated by the Second Corporate War, are extremely polluted. It's like the place was experiencing a mass extinction event; not even tardigrades can survive there.

There are so few animals and plants surviving in the wild that thanks to the large number of seed banks, animal banks and genetic map engineering banks built during the Cold War in the last century, breeding and cultivating various animals has become the mainstream.

With this as their main business, many companies have been able to make profits and even go public.

Watching animals in nature in person has become exclusive to the rich.

Leeches are already one of the cheapest visible and salable animals on the market.

But even if there is only one, the price is too high for ordinary people to bear.

Ask the natives of Night City, and I’m afraid many of them have barely seen real green plants and animals.

If it wasn't for the purpose of leaving a record so that the people above could see the logic, Vera would be crazy to buy leeches from the cyberpunk world for experiments. Would it be better to just take them directly from Umbrella?

This time, when placing the order through Arasaka Purchasing Department, Vera marked the reason as experimental consumables.

It's not about keeping pets for a perverted aesthetic.

To be honest, since she can always see green plants and animals from another perspective, Vera doesn't have that feeling yet, and she hasn't developed the habit of the rich people in this world who like to buy strange animals to show off.

Click.

"Let's extract the leech DNA first."

Looking at the internal view that appeared on the display screen on the box after closing the lid, Vera did what she said, picked up the metal box and went to the small laboratory in the temporary residence.

Although small, it has everything.

This was a request specifically made by Vera, and based on her rank, Tokyo Arasaka Tower naturally met it.

It's not too much. A little inquiry will reveal that Vera's personal interest in biology has a long history.

Vera grabbed a leech from the metal box and put it into a sealed glass container. She placed it in the sealed glass cabinet in the laboratory, accurately put it into the card slot, started the instrument, and the gene reader and extractor started working.

At one side, Vera leaned against the cabinet, with orange light flashing in her pupils. The artificial eye plug-in was connected to the instrument data panel, and various index parameters flowed on the virtual screen grid built into the artificial eye.

Highlight one word, fool-proof operation, convenient!

In fact, the biotechnology and genetic programming technology in the cyberpunk world are not weak at all.

Compatible prostheses, genetic programming that allows the human body to overcome rejection; biosynthesis technology to create a variety of new drugs and new foods; nano-therapy technology to treat a variety of diseases; "rejuvenation" drugs that extend human life...

It can even create new life forms such as bionic technology and other cyborg advanced biological transformation technology; and sixty years ago in 2014, the Japanese Seimei Craft United Company team successfully completed the fourth stage of human cloning with neural development and activity...

What they lack is a super virus like the Protovirus and the T-virus, which can allow the infected tissue cells to proliferate out of thin air, breaking away from the law of conservation of mass, as if they were drawing mass from the subspace to transform and proliferate.

Vera's collaboration with the Dangerous Girl company in the rehabilitation and convalescent care business is mostly an improvement on Umbrella's experience in researching super virus byproducts.

And this is based on the fact that the cyberpunk world has experienced a major technological setback.

In terms of the normal technology tree, Umbrella is far inferior to the Cyberpunk world. They are just lucky to have discovered and possessed the Progenitor virus and various super viruses derived from it, which are a "treasure trove" that ignores the norm.

By finding a new way and overtaking others, we have achieved the goal of matching or even surpassing the technology in some areas of the cyberpunk world.

beep.

After a complex process and reaction, the purified leech DNA was injected into a special container. Swish! Taking out the container, Vera looked at the translucent white liquid inside for a while, and then put it in the refrigerator.

According to the memory of the T virus cultivation process of Dr. James Marcus and Dr. William Birkin of Umbrella, based on stability, the Progenitor virus should be first injected into leeches with strong tolerance and adaptability to the environment, and the T virus was extracted after cultivation.

But Vera considered the technological reserves of the cyberpunk world.

How about I try to synthesize leech DNA and the Progenitor virus first?

Well, the small laboratory at home always feels not enough. She will borrow the laboratory there when she arrives in Africa. After all, she still works part-time as a biotechnology researcher for Arasaka.

Then extract a few leech DNA purification reagents.

After finishing her law course tomorrow, she will go to the medical department of the University of Tokyo to borrow a laboratory to compare the differences between these leech DNA and the special leech DNA cultivated by Umbrella...

...

"Lord Lai Xuan..."

"Private words, don't bother me? (Didn't I say, don't bother me)"

In Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, there is a luxurious manor close to the Imperial Palace, which covers an area just as large as the Imperial Palace and seems very presumptuous.

dong dong.

The retainer wearing the exclusive emblem of the Arasaka family came to a Japanese sliding door, knelt on the luxurious and low-key dark yellow tatami, and reported with his head down.

After hearing an impatient voice of a middle-aged man from inside the door, he lowered his head even lower.

"Master Rai Xuan... We have already found out that it was the senior security officer of Night City that Master Hanako summoned after he left the family compound last time. Our people monitored the surveillance reports of Takayama Shintaro's men. Master Hanako took it very seriously..."

wow-

"Who?"

The door was pushed open, and a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, wearing a blue striped shirt and a black jacket, with facial features that looked haggard and sickly due to overwork, crossed his arms across his chest and asked condescendingly.

Arasaka Yorinobu.

The heir to the huge Arasaka Group is the youngest and only surviving son of the group's leader, Saburo Arasaka. In the eyes of most people, he is the prince who will inherit Arasaka after Saburo's death.

"Vera Adelheid Russell, Night City Security Department Security Headquarters..."

"Send me the information." Arasaka Yorinobu interrupted his retainer's tedious narration, "I don't want anyone to disturb me at this time, do you understand?" Turning around, he looked back at the other person.

"Yes!"

Wow.

The door closed again, and walking on the wooden floor that reflected the soft light, Arasaka Yorinobu came to the desk with a data tablet and a mobile phone with a gloomy face. He picked up the data tablet and began to check this rising star of Night City Arasaka's North American headquarters.

That old guy, Shintaro Takayama, owes his life to Saburo, an absolutely loyal old dog. There must be a reason why he is spying on Vera.

Personally screen and select the Arasaka juniors who can be entrusted with important tasks? Check whether they are loyal enough to meet with Saburo?

Arasaka Yorinobu doesn't see it that way.

That old guy is so arrogant.

Ding.