Infinity, progress from Arasaka

...

Well, there were no hardships, just bumps, nothing happened along the way.

Vera rubs her forehead as she leaves the Great Zimbabwe ancient cultural site and heads to the source of the dried-up upper reaches of the Congo River.

It's been three days.

The quick response team she requested the Cape Town branch to send has arrived overnight.

In the Stairway to the Sun project, the Kami ruins in Zimbabwe and the Matobo Mountains were explored. She kept updating and sending back logs, sometimes raising and sometimes lowering expectations. She had several bloody conflicts with local indigenous warlords, but in the end she still did not wait for the intervention of external "friendly" companies.

OK! No confusion, I'll take it anyway!

See my update log.

2075/6/3

Great Zimbabwe Ruins |?

Although no flower strains meeting the requirements were found, some significant discoveries were made.

According to what we have seen on the stone wall and the styles of bronze sculptures, wood carvings and masks left in the local ruins, we have arrived at the location where the mining and transportation company found special and precious flowers in the original records...

"Director Russell! About to arrive at the Congo River site."

Vera stopped updating the log, her pupils flashing orange, and the prosthetic eye plug-in connected to the vehicle's external camera. The dim color was the Congo River, the Congo River without water.

The wide riverbed is exposed, and the river that once ranked among the top in the world in terms of runoff is now left with only gullies and cracks.

After a brief pause, Vera said excitedly, "Release all the drones. I'll operate them."

The connector makes a slight 'buzzing' sound.

At this moment, Vera demonstrated her terrifying computing power as a powerful figure in Night City's Arasaka Security Department. She took over the authority, and on the display wall in front of her, the images captured by the drones were constantly compared and slid.

Bare hillsides, dry wells, piles of waste, small towns built in the past crisscrossing the wasteland, most of which have been buried by sand, oh, and the remains of uninhabited tribes that look like ancient earthen tents...

"Ancient Bantu tribes. The Congo River basin was once their largest habitat." Vera nodded and stood up. "Stop the car."

stab.

Ta-da!

With the light sound of her hard heels hitting the hard soil, Vera jumped out of the carriage. She walked through the guarded soldiers, looked around, and finally walked towards the tribal ruins.

She could feel the gazes coming at her from all directions as she landed.

Tsk, among the third quick response team that arrived, she was sure that at least two of them were spies.

Not much to say, 'search'!

After turning the tribe upside down, the underground storage facilities and canals that were uncovered were no longer enough for Vera to operate, so she changed them!

Vera got in the car and quickly found the next tribal site along the Congo River bed. She "searched" and found no suitable ruins or gardens, so she changed.

As we got on and off the bus, night fell.

There was a visibly irritated look on Vera's face, and the gazes of those peeping eyes also dimmed a lot. The convoy continued to move forward, passing through one isolated abandoned town after another.

"Let's stay here tonight. Set up camp and set up guard posts."

A tribal site located between two barren hills. Huge, wind-eroded stone sculptures leaning to one side and mostly damaged wood sculptures could be vaguely seen at the entrance. Vera got out of the car slowly as if to go and look for them perfunctorily, and led several soldiers inside.

search.

boom!

Inside the tribe's best-preserved and largest stone house, dust was everywhere, and dirt and gravel were flying everywhere, forming a chaotic smoke.

bang.

illumination.

The dark hole.

Finally found a tribe big enough.

Vera let out a breath of foul air.

This kind of primitive tribe still exists today, especially the stone-building tribes built on the hillside between two flat-topped stone ridges. Generally speaking, they must have used natural caves to build their settlements.

That's it.

Wearing a protective mask and ignoring the guards behind her, Vera walked in.

Da da.

The further in you go, the more irregular the rock formations become. Vera also sees more and more traces of artificial excavations and natural caves on the surrounding stone walls, as well as badly decayed wooden frames used for support and sacrificial masks hanging on them?

There were a lot of rotten food on the ground, which Vera couldn't recognize at all. There were even human corpses and many animal bones.

Even in the 20th century, conflicts over water and food were very common in African tribes. This place should have been used by the tribe to store food, but I don't know why it was abandoned in the end.

Perhaps it is because of the company's development in Africa, the environment has deteriorated drastically, and people are either forcibly relocated to work as laborers or die in the chaotic situation...

tick-

After walking a distance further inside, the natural cave had become extremely narrow, only enough for two people to pass through. There was a slight sound of flowing water. Vera looked in the direction of the sound. Water?

In the corners, there were very few, and there were extremely rare mountain springs that were not sure if they were poisonous or not, and there were also human and animal bones, animal leather, shaman painted masks, a large amount of grain that had accumulated and rotted and turned black to form fertilizer-like fungus soil, and various scattered corrupt seeds...

A barely perceptible smile appeared at the corner of Vera's mouth.

"do not move!!"

Swish!Swish!

Several soldiers who followed Vera closely were startled and raised their guns reflexively. Their prosthetic bodies activated, "Director Russell?" Vera ignored them. She half-crouched in the corner, her eyes flashing red, and said, "Found it."

boom!

Vera's gloved hand pierced into the gray-black fungus soil piled up in the corner and dug it apart. In a dimension they couldn't see, another 'her' picked up a handful of Sun Stairs flowers in front of her, and the illusion turned into reality.

Vera pulled gently, and a bright color that appeared extremely bright in the cave broke through the ground and caught the eyes of the soldiers. "What is this?"

"Look, the sun-stair flower."

Vera's voice seemed to tremble with excessive excitement. She held up the dark red round-stamen flower and grinned with her teeth showing like a famous corn lover.

"Go, get my flower petri dish! Seal off the scene."

She let out a sigh, excitedly turned her gaze to the soldiers standing there, and gave orders in a deep voice.

Before she finished speaking, she squatted down again, and used her palms to dig through the gray-black fungal soil again and again, throwing aside the shaman masks and bones mixed on it. One after another, dark red flowers, some withered and some upright, 'broke out of the soil'.

Dengdeng!

At this moment, several soldiers in the front row received the order and left quickly. One of the two soldiers who stayed behind unconsciously fixed his eyes on the Sun Stairs flowers that Vera had carefully placed behind him.

The high-precision recorder camera disguised on his body was emitting a faint light.

------

Chapter 052 At this moment, Vera began her evil virus research

Boom!

The shock wave generated by the mountain blasting instantly spread in all directions, dust and debris flew everywhere. When the smoke cleared, the seemingly solid wind-eroded mountain wall began to collapse on a large scale. At a safe distance of 500 meters away, at the parking lot of the Arasaka convoy, Vera folded her arms across her chest, tapping her fingers intermittently.

"Keep looking. Long stems, single-topped flowers, dark red stamens."

She has been very excited ever since she 'discovered' the Stairway to the Sun flower deep in a natural cave that was dug through in the center of the large African tribal ruins, at the inner back of a stone house that seemed to be where the tribal chief lived.

After placing the dozen or so flowers obtained after the search, some of good and some of bad quality, including broken, wilted, dead flowers and some rotten and carbonized seeds, in petri dishes, Vera ordered all the soldiers of the quick response team to start searching.

She herself was holding a data pad and constantly updating the exploration log, showing a strong desire to return.

The kind of urgency to conduct relevant research.

Under her orders, all the tribal ruins within a mile or two, including mud houses, wooden houses, stone houses, thatched houses, and dung houses, were turned upside down and dug up three feet underground within two hours. Some were even directly bulldozed, which was comparable to violent demolition.

"Director Russell, we have checked and found no red flowers in the buildings on the east side of the site."

“Nothing was found on the south side.”

"There are traces of vagrants living on the west side, as well as remnants of campfires and abandoned garbage. Some buildings have remnants of black spots from the oxidation of old grains, but it is speculated that they have been rummaged through and have been directly exposed to high temperature and sand for too long."

"Report, although we have discovered caves similar to those used to store grain during targeted blasting and excavation of the mountain, the size of these newly discovered caves is too small... Should we move the site to another location and expand the search area..."

boom.

"It's up to you."

Holding her forehead, Vera waved her hand with some regret to signal them to get off, and then she lightly knocked on the hood of the car.

"That's right. This precious herb will definitely be treasured by the tribal chief. How could it be leaked or shared? It's such a backward and superstitious culture to treasure something for oneself... I'm too greedy." No one knew who she was scolding. Anyway, she kept muttering like this without trying to hide it, and many soldiers heard it.

"Forget it... That's enough. Fortunately, I found these few plants..."

Listening to Supervisor Russell's complaints, the quick reaction soldiers standing around were all silent.

In a place where no one noticed, a few people were approaching the Behemoth armored transport vehicle behind Vera that stored the Sun Staircase Flowers, but before they could get in, a faint sound came from the sky.

hum…

That was the roar of the hovercraft's engine.

The blue vector thruster tail flame flickered in the night sky, and a heavy Octant drone and two floating armored vehicles with the Arasaka Clover logo broke through the air.

On the ground, the Arasaka quick-reaction soldiers who were blasting and digging were startled at first, and then the announcement of the commander of each team sounded in the communication headset: "Internal identification has passed, it's our people, the emergency task force represented by Lubumbashi (a city in southern Congo).

After learning that they were one of their own, some people took routine precautions, while others continued to do what they were doing.

"Are you here?" Vera looked up.

The armored hovercraft was what she ordered.

Although Congo and other Central African countries are a buffer zone between Arasaka and the European Community and do not have branch buildings, how could the major economic and political entities including Arasaka and the European Community let go of this piece of cake?

There are still basic offices and factories. After all, there are rich non-ferrous and rare metal deposits here. It would be a pity to give them to the local poor black warlords.

Sadly, this is something that few companies can agree on.

As the hovercraft lowered in altitude, the airflow generated by the vector engine began to form a noticeable whirlwind on the ground, blowing the surrounding dust and gravel gently into the air.

Boom!Boom!

Several fully armed figures jumped directly from the belly platform of the hovercraft and fell to the ground.

"Director Russell!"

"it's me."

Without exchanging pleasantries, Vera nodded, showing the strong and capable style that a senior security official of Arasaka Night City should have, and said, "Stand by here, wait for me for a moment, the travel part seems to be over, and I need to take away the biggest gain of this study trip in Africa."

Before getting back on the Behemoth armored transport vehicle, Vera summoned three commanders of the Arasaka Quick Reaction Team.

"From now on, the escort mission is over. Thank you for your escort. Believe me, you will receive a generous bonus sponsored by Dangerous Girl when you return to Cape Town. After cleaning up the traces here, you can return to South Africa."

"Yes!"×3

After saying that, Vera returned to the carriage. Not long after, he jumped out of the carriage carrying bags and boxes containing flower petri dishes.

At this time, the hovercraft had already landed. Several heavily armed soldiers who came with the hovercraft immediately stepped forward to help Vera transfer the box onto the hovercraft. Another armored hovercraft mounted a machine gun and patrolled in the air.

hum…

Sitting on a simple folding stool on the belly platform, Vera slowly climbed up under the gaze of a group of quick reaction soldiers. Finally, a hidden smile appeared on the corner of her mouth, and she looked into the distance at the mountains. In the desolate night, the atmosphere was filled with a faint gray color, and the wind and sand rarely calmed down.

Tsk, why are you hiding so far away...

Vera lit a cigarette.

The informant didn't act secretly when I 'found out'. Was he not going to act? Or was he planning to hold back a big one for me?

......

"Fuck it!"

Several Arasaka agents came out of the hiding pit covered in dust and dirt, cursing softly.

In the sky, a roaring Octant flew low, with blue and white vector thruster tail flames spurting out, followed by two armored hovercrafts that were rising and falling.

"The target was normal throughout the entire process. No contact with suspicious persons was detected, and no additional communication frequencies were found in the surrounding area... So, this kind of loyalty inspection and surveillance mission is not profitable at all. We are Arasaka, why are we acting like thieves?"