Infinity, progress from Arasaka

As they watched the target's armored hovercraft disappear into the horizon, some security agents grumbled to vent their emotions.

"We were the real bodyguards who escorted them all the way, but those security guards got the bonus..."

They were at the grassroots level and didn't know the other purpose of monitoring Vera. They just empirically believed that it was similar to the loyalty test for high-level promotions in the past.

This Vera Adelheid was included in the promotion list for a higher level, and it happened that she was going to Central Africa, where their Arasaka forces were relatively weak, so it was natural for them to come and monitor the area.

"The target has started the return journey."

At the other surveillance point, the team leader, whose face was covered in dust and looked like a wanderer, was still staring at the dark red flower displayed on the terminal screen.

"Everything is normal. The target's behavior is normal. According to the footage taken by the undercover informant, she seems to have found the flower mentioned in her Africa trip plan..."

"Notify all teams that the mission is complete and the team is ready to withdraw."

...

Just as the security monitoring team directly led by the Arasaka headquarters in Tokyo began to gather its members and retreat, sending action reports and live records back to the headquarters, a secret channel was hidden in it and several messages were being exchanged.

[The target has found the 'Sun Stairs Flower' mentioned in the plan. ]

[The video from the recorder has been received. 9527. Our unit has dispatched troops stationed in the Congo region. Can they continue to lurk and obtain the Sun Staircase Flower? Or can they wait for an opportunity to destroy and hold back the convoy, cooperate with the insiders and the outsiders, and destroy or obtain the Sun Staircase Flower?]

[…No chance. The target immediately called in the Arasaka Emergency Task Force in Lubumbashi after discovering the Stairway to the Sun Flower, and they have now left.]

[… Continue to remain silent. After returning to South Africa, search for Vera Adelheid Russell. According to her personality analysis, she will definitely start her research work as soon as possible. We need to obtain or destroy her research results. We must destroy anything that Arasaka wants to do.]

...

time flies.

On the other side of the ocean, in Arasaka Manor, Chiyoda District, Tokyo, there is a room that belongs to Arasaka Yorinobu himself. It is locked and contains various cutting-edge communication equipment and sophisticated anti-interference and eavesdropping electronic devices.

"Baka! With such a good opportunity, why don't your people dare to take action?!"

"Are you serious? He is a sleeper agent, not a cyber-modified lunatic. No one knows Vera Adelheid's personal strength better than us at Military Technology! In Night City, how many of our elite agents and soldiers have died at her hands? Do you think the quick-reaction soldiers' submachine guns can move faster than her reaction? That would only alert the enemy. Even if she gets one by chance and has some left, she can still complete her research."

"So what do you say? She has already returned to South Africa with those damn flowers, why haven't the damn flowers gone extinct, and plunged headlong into the Arasaka laboratory in Johannesburg. Her project, a new 'rejuvenation drug' that activates human cells and organ tissues, once it has results, will it allow Arasaka Saburo to live longer?"

"Oh, my friend, don't be anxious. Regardless of the success rate of her plan, why not let her collect all the things and study them first? Determine the location, mobilize the forces, and then seize them all in one fell swoop... Whether it is seizing or destroying, we have a sensible friend like you to help us, and we will definitely have the first-mover advantage."

"I hope so. You better get ready soon."

Arasaka Yorinobu hung up the phone, took off the voice changer, and his face suddenly became gloomy.

"British and American monsters!"

How could he not hear the other party's yin and yang, the hidden suspicion and distrust?

But there was no way, Saburo's control over Arasaka was too strong.

He is truly an emperor. He is able to win over the "hawks" by promoting the slogan of reviving Arasaka. Once his subordinates know that he wants to completely oppose Saburo and end Arasaka's monopoly on interests, most of his wings will collapse in an instant.

Therefore, he had to do this kind of thing of cooperating with military technology and selling out Arasaka's interests personally.

Fortunately, the other party only guessed that he was a Japanese inside Arasaka who was dissatisfied with Saburo's long-term rule. I'm afraid no one could have guessed that he, Saburo's son, 'Prince' Yoriaki would cooperate with Arasaka's old enemy in military technology and was so deliberate in digging into Arasaka's territory.

After mumbling a few curses, he turned his attention back to the data board screen in front of him, the dark red flower, "Sun Stairs Flower... You old immortal thing, you really kept me waiting."

He paddled again, stepped off the armored hovercraft, carried a briefcase, and pushed a metal sealed box into an Arasaka building. The image of a young woman with light-hearted blond hair appeared.

"I have a bad feeling... She must be stopped."

...

Johannesburg.

Arasaka Industrial Park Biological Research Laboratory.

The incandescent room was shrouded in the strong smell of disinfectant. In the center was a reinforced glass cabin where white mice were placed. Vera, wearing a white coat and a full set of protective clothing, was staring at the inside with great interest.

"Ha-"

Under her operation, the robotic arm fixed the chirping little white mouse, and the thick and long needle was forced into place, injecting the freshly-made Progenitor virus.

After a long time, the dead white mouse moved its forelimbs again, but, bang!

The little white mouse hit the tempered glass hard, without feeling any pain, over and over again, until it was covered in blood and its fur fell off rapidly as if it were an animal that had been dead for a long time.

Vera sighed softly, leaned down and tapped lightly on the reinforced glass in front of the little white mouse.

"Hmm, Arasaka's first bio-rat..."

------

PS: There is one more chapter.

Chapter 053 The Eve

“Haw—!”

Boom!dong dong!

The collision became more and more intense, and the little white mouse was already covered in torn flesh, looking like a bloody rat. The glass cabin was splattered with blood, and through the broken skull of the biochemical mouse, Vera's excellent eyesight could even see its beating cerebellum, with its gray-black nerves and meridians infecting it.

Wow.

Withdrawing her gaze, Vera moved the swivel chair to the operating table at the edge of the room and picked up the data tablet.

Updated experiment log.

2075/6/6

[Analysis of substances extracted from Sonnentreppe]

Although most of the flowers found in the underground caves of the Central African tribal ruins have withered and degenerated due to environmental degradation, fortunately, I was able to extract a viral substance in the form of RNA from the materials of several of the best-preserved and best-growing sun ladder flowers.

The characteristics it embodies are completely new.

Just like these little white mice, all creatures that have been injected with this viral substance will show similar characteristics: flesh ulceration, loss of consciousness, extreme aggressiveness, and...super strong vitality!

Perhaps this is why the old mining and transportation company inquired and recorded from the local population that the ancient Congolese Bantu people ate it and called it a powerful medicine that could save lives and even bring people back to life, the "holy flower".

Strong medicine will naturally have side effects.

The systemic inflammation, necrosis of the skin and other outer tissues, massive fluid loss, acute sepsis and shock that occurred in the mice are highly correlated with the characteristics of an overreaction of the immune system.

And if you can overcome the sequelae, repair the body's aging cells, maintain beauty and health, strengthen the immune system, relieve cell aging, give people vigorous vitality and physical strength, and even longevity are foreseeable.

So, from a biological point of view, it is roughly speculated that its RNA virus characteristics should be able to promote the evolution of human DNA.

Strengthening may only be incidental.

How to reduce its sequelae and improve targeted cultivation of stability and gain will be the first key issue of the Sun Ladder Project in the future.

Just as I expected for this project, the Stairway to the Sun is the ladder for mankind to overcome the limitations of the human body and move towards a bright future. The first step of the ladder, Progenitor, I named it the Progenitor Virus.

beep.

Today's experiment log is completed.

With the complete research data left by Dr. James Marcus and Dr. William Birkin of Umbrella, Vera quickly reproduced the original virus of the cyberpunk world and completed the basic research work on the localization of the program.

After all, the equipment and auxiliary instruments in the Arasaka laboratory in 2075 are not comparable to the level when Umbrella was first built in the s.

"Your mission is accomplished, Rat."

Swoosh! Vera slid the swivel chair again, glanced at the mouse in the cage whose skull was smashed, and then lightly touched the destruction switch outside the glass laboratory cabin.

Zizizizi! High voltage electric shock;

Fierce! High temperature burning;

Swish, swish, swish! Special chemical liquid is flushed and stirred;

Rumble! The special waste entrance of the experimental chamber opened, washing away the last traces of the little white mouse left in the world.

As long as they are not those idealistic creatures, no normal RNA virus can withstand this disinfection treatment.

Vera, who had learned the lesson that Umbrella never properly handled experimental waste, nodded with satisfaction.

No virus can escape from my laboratory.

Well, after all, we have to fully demonstrate our rigor and reliability. It would be so embarrassing if our research on viruses turned out to be a biochemical crisis.

next.

With the slight sound of a small elevator, another little white mouse was thrown into the experimental cabin that had been cleaned to a shine.

In the world of Cyberpunk, mice are probably one of the few animals that are preserved in large numbers everywhere, and their numbers have hardly decreased compared to before the environmental degradation. Because they all live in specialized breeding rooms in experimental institutions, mice used for experiments are very cheap.

Their genes are highly similar to those of humans, about 90%, making them natural biological experimental consumables.

"Chichichi."

A pair of clear, big eyes of Caroline blinked as she looked at the tall, blonde beauty holding a data board outside the experimental cabin.

[18th dose experiment, adjustment, continue to increase the injection volume...]

Vera controls the thick and long needle and I insert it!

"Ha-"

……

【Stability, tolerance, adaptability】

After marking these three key elements, Vera put down the data tablet again and looked into the experimental cabin. A mutated zombie rat was frantically attacking and gnawing on another little white mouse.

[The interaction of body fluids and droplets caused by scratches and bites from infected bodies has a very high probability of causing infection... The virus should not be able to be transmitted through the air, and more experimental verification and observation are needed]

This is a preliminary conclusion drawn by observing that two mice were placed in the same cage but only one was infected and separated, and low-light observation equipment was used to collect and identify the composition of the air in the cabin.

Of course Vera knew it, but she needed to show that she knew it through experimental demonstration.

She checked the time.

22/49

Well, it’s getting late, let’s get off work.

No! This is her summer break, why is it like she's working...

After pressing the button and disinfecting the experimental cabin once again, Vera stood up and stretched lazily.

After writing down new ideas for the stability experiment on the data pad on the console, she took a last look at the protective window not far away.

Through cyber technology, a cutting-edge biotechnology instrument is being used to achieve a stable fusion of leech DNA and ancestral virus samples.

"What a fool-proof operation." She murmured.

She now understood the mentality of those virology fanatics a little. There was indeed a strange pleasure in the process of personally creating a super virus that could promote human evolution, making it gradually controllable from being uncontrollable and conquering it.

Although Vera was just imitating, she didn't feel deeply about it.

Question William, Understand William, Become...

Pooh!

What bad luck! Vera has no interest in injecting herself with an uncontrollable virus.

Never become him!

We should learn from his mistakes and take him as a warning.

Putting aside all distracting thoughts, she rubbed her forehead and left the laboratory.

bang.

After spray disinfection and ultraviolet light sterilization, and a set of operations that comply with safety procedures, Vera changed out of her protective clothing and walked out of the Arasaka Biological Laboratory in Johannesburg, South Africa.

"Huh?" He still hadn't given up, and had been following him for a few days...

The moment she walked out of the industrial park, Vera could feel several more eyes following her.

Much less than when she went to Central Africa.

Is it Saburo's or Lai Xuan's?