2077: V really knows how awesome he is

After finishing her work for the day, Song Zhaomei dragged her exhausted body to her dormitory.

The empty corridor was lit by cold lights. Song Zhaomei felt utterly alone, but what was more terrifying than loneliness was death. With each passage through the black wall, the wall left severe wounds on her body. Data turbulence constantly ravaged her highly prosthetic body, and redundant fragments of information would cause the system to crash and restart every now and then.

Song Zhaomei was acutely aware that she was about to die. She had gained the ability to travel to the old era's network by connecting with the Black Wall, but at the same time, she was being devoured by the power of the Black Wall and her life was nearing its end.

She wanted to live, she wanted to live no matter what.

She could easily hack into the networks of giant corporations to obtain any top-secret information, and fill in satisfactory numbers in her bank accounts, yet she was powerless to "survive."

What should I do?

Song Zhaomei walked to the end of the corridor, where her dormitory was located. A light bulb nearby was broken, and the area was pitch black, like an abyss.

Suddenly, Song Zhaomei let out a muffled groan.

Her body began to tremble uncontrollably, her fingers twitched incessantly, and a strong urge to vomit surged up, causing her to arch her back, but she couldn't vomit anything.

"Ugh... Ah... Help..."

Song Zhaomei collapsed to the ground in agony, desperately pleading for help, but she knew no one could save her.

She crawled with difficulty, sat up against the wall, and tried to calm her breathing and stabilize her heart rate, but it didn't help much. Another sharp pain shot straight to her brain, causing her to scream and clutch her head tightly, her eyes bloodshot as if they could drip blood.

Song Zhaomei initially thought this was a backlash from the Black Wall, but now she realized something was different.

The pain brought by the black wall was cold and twisted, and all she felt now was... as if someone was twisting her head with pliers.

Suddenly, a system notification popped up on the prosthetic eye.

[WARNING! System intrusion detected!]

Song Zhaomei was incredulous. She endured the pain and immediately activated her personal ICE, but the other party acted as if it were strolling in its own backyard. The personal ICE did not react to the intruder at all, and welcomed the intruder in with a smile, just like a community security guard welcoming a resident.

"damn it!"

Song Zhaomei cursed under her breath, realizing that a backdoor had been installed on her, but it was too late.

A second system prompt popped up.

【同步中。96%……97%……98%……99%……100%】

The pain lessened somewhat, but my body would still twitch from time to time, and the prosthetic eye would constantly flash with incessant light spots.

A woman squatted down in front of Song Zhaomei, her face recognizable to everyone in the world.

"V!"

Song Zhaomei uttered the name.

V smiled elegantly: "Don't worry, Song Zhaomei, you'll be fine. Take a deep breath, count to ten, or recite a scripture."

"This... will work?"

"My honest experience." V gave a thumbs up: "Completely useless!"

"Fuck, are you kidding me?!"

“I’m just doing to you what others have done to me.” V crossed his arms and leaned against the wall in the hallway. “Your nervous system is overwhelmed, so your heart is racing and you’re sweating… Just bear with it, it’ll be over soon.”

"Someone did the same thing to you?" Song Zhaomei said veiledly, "That person is a real bastard!"

V laughed: "Good for you, I love it. Say a few more."

"Tch!" Song Zhaomei wasn't a child and had no interest in verbal sparring: "What exactly do you want? To kill me?"

"No, I'm here to save you." V raised an eyebrow: "You have a time bomb in your head, don't you?"

Song Zhaomei was stunned for a moment, then turned pale with shock: "What are you doing? Damn it, don't touch my buffer zone, it's full of..."

“It’s all damaged data clusters caused by the backlash from the Black Wall.” V continued, “I deleted everything I could, and also put in a simplified version of Poseidon ICE. This thing was created by those idiots in the Voodoo Gang based on the Black Wall. The two are roughly from the same source, so it should be able to alleviate the impact of the Black Wall to the greatest extent and make you feel better.”

Song Zhaomei did feel much better physically, and the heaviness and coldness she used to feel were much less.

She checked the buffer and asked incredulously, "You calculated the core units of these corrupted data clusters? Where did you get such computing power? Are you connected to Night City's super server?"

"I wish I could, but unfortunately our connection method has too little bandwidth and doesn't support large-scale data exchange, so I can only rely on my own computing power."

"You mean you're using your own brain? That's impossible!" Song Zhaomei initially denied it, but seeing V's calm expression, which didn't seem like he was lying to her at all, she was deeply shocked for the third time: "Damn, you're not some wandering AI, are you?"

“If I were a wandering AI, the black wall connected to you would have already alerted the police,” V said. “I came here with sincerity, so please stop testing me.”

"Sincerity?" Song Zhaomei waved at V with a cold smile, but her hand passed right through V's body: "Leaving a backdoor in me, hacking my system, interfering with my brain directly as a consciousness, and appearing on my retina, is this what you call sincerity? Why don't you come and talk to me in person?"

“Then tell me your address,” V said with a smile. “I guarantee to provide door-to-door service.”

Song Zhaomei paused, knowing full well that V had threatened to kill Miles, as she was Miles's confidante, and therefore dared not reveal the address of the secret laboratory.

She had no doubt that the moment she revealed the location, V would show up at her door and smash Miles's head in front of her.

Just imagining that scene... Song Zhaomei suddenly felt a little excited.

But she quickly shook her head to dispel the thought. Miles couldn't die. Miles possessed the most advanced technological power in the new America. She could definitely heal herself, if she wanted to.

"Fine, I admit defeat." Song Zhaomei was also a FBI agent, so her communication skills were naturally excellent. Sensing that things were going against her, she immediately changed the subject: "So, what exactly do you want?"

"I need you to be my inside man to take out Miles."

"Impossible!" Song Zhaomei immediately and firmly refused.

V remained calm and said indifferently, "The reward is to cure you."

"Do you believe me?"

“You saw me delete the corrupted data clusters for you just now. It’s not that it can’t be cleared, but it requires extremely powerful computing power. Do you know where humanity’s largest computing center is?” V pointed upwards with one finger: “On the moon, at the Cloud Sea Base. It was once humanity’s stepping stone to conquer space, and it has the world’s largest computing servers. Coincidentally, Arasaka 2077 is a member of the Cloud Sea Project, and I am Arasaka 2077’s boss. Others don’t have the right to use these servers, but I can. If you’re willing to be my inside man, I’ll take you to the moon for medical treatment after it’s done.”

Song Zhaomei's heart skipped a beat.

To be honest, she was tempted.

She had considered contacting the Yunhai Computing Center, but that place was far too far away for a lowly agent. Even after she managed to contact them through the efforts of an ordinary company employee, they were dismissive, hanging up on her with the words, "Trade a roving AI for the right to use the computing server."

Honestly, where did she get a roving AI from?

There are many behind the black wall, but the problem is she doesn't have the ability to catch them.

The Little Big Dipper Project below Dogtown did manage to capture a roving AI, but even that old hag Miles couldn't get her, let alone this lark.

V's words rekindled Song Zhaomei's hope. She hesitated for a moment, then cautiously asked, "How can you prove you're not lying to me?"

“I can’t prove it,” V laughed. “You can only gamble.”

After a long silence, Song Zhaomei finally gritted her teeth and said, "The Federal Emergency Management Agency's 7th Underground Research Center is located at 200 Pennsylvania Avenue, Basement Level B7. There is a secret subway branch line connecting to the Washington Metro system here. The specific location is the second accessible restroom on the left at Union Station. The unlock code is 5848. This line is for internal use only. You can take it directly here."

V was taken aback: "You really sold Miles out completely."

Song Zhaomei said firmly, "I can betray anyone to survive!"

V firmly believes this.

In her past life, she was sold by Song Zhaomei, although she also sold Song Zhaomei.

So, since we're all just lowly laborers, we should unite and tear apart the people above us. Why are we hurting each other?

V sighed inwardly for a second before refocusing his energy on the important matter at hand.

"Thank you for the information. I will keep it as a backup plan."

Song Zhaomei was taken aback: "You're not planning to just come and kill us? That's so simple."

"It's simple, but I'm not a terrorist. Although I'm recognized as the world's number one lone wolf, I'm not a lone wolf. I have a responsibility to Night City."

"If you're not the world's number one lone wolf, then what are you?"

"The world's number one lone wolf is, of course, the world's number one if you remove the word 'lone wolf' from it."

Song Zhaomei was speechless: "Has anyone ever said you're arrogant?"

"No." V shook his head: "Everyone just knows how awesome I am."

Song Zhaomei's lips twitched. Although she wasn't used to V's domineering manner, as a teammate, this domineering attitude was really reassuring.

"What do you want me to do?"

"It's simple. Give this to Miles and say that you hacked it. Anyway, you've been attacking Night City's network these days, and if you haven't made any progress, Miles might dock your pay."

"My lack of results is all thanks to that amazing hacker in Night City. If it weren't for her, I would have already... Wait a minute! Could that person be you?" Song Zhaomei suddenly remembered that V was also a super hacker.

But V shook his head: "It wasn't me."

Song Zhaomei breathed a sigh of relief, after all, it was too outrageous for one person to possess both extremely strong individual combat skills and superb hacking skills.

V then continued, "The one who stopped you was one of my cybernetic clones, probably with about 70% of my computing power. You know I'm pretty busy, with all sorts of meetings every day, so I really can't be online all the time waiting to meet you."

Song Zhaomei's lips twitched.

V quickly comforted him, "You're already very good at fighting back against my clone, really."

Song Zhaomei was so angry she gritted her teeth: "You really don't know how to please a girl at all!"

"Who said that? I have a girlfriend." V retorted, then asked, "Do you?"

Song Zhaomei's face turned pale with anger.

After failing in love, she decided to focus on her career.

She glanced at the received information and exclaimed in surprise, "The Little Beidou Project?"

"The passwords and electronic authorizations are there, but the real results are buried underground in Taiping Prefecture."

"You're going to lure Miles to Night City?"

“That’s right, she will encounter an accident there, and Night City deeply regrets it.”

"Dirty political tactics!"

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—that's what I learned from Miles. You were behind that cyberpsychotic last time, weren't you? So this time I'll create another cyberpsychotic and send two missiles flying at Miles too!"

Song Zhaomei once again felt how terrifying V was.

It comes from V's power on one hand and V's attitude on the other.

V is incredibly ruthless towards her enemies; if she wants to kill someone, she'll go all out to kill them.

“Miles is very cautious. With you as a threat, she certainly won’t take the risk herself.”

V was confident: "I was prepared for this."

"What preparation?"

"You don't need to know too much, you just need to mention Li De at the right time."

"Li De?!"

Song Zhaomei's pupils contracted sharply. Solomon Reed was her teacher, and in some ways even took the place of her father. But eight years ago, she had betrayed him herself because Miles told her that she would be set free if she betrayed Reed.

Therefore, Song So-mi is truly capable of betraying anyone in order to survive.

So Miles really is a liar who never tells the truth.

"How is Li De now?" Song Zhaomei couldn't help but ask.

"He was arrested and is in jail."

Song Zhaomei breathed a sigh of relief: "It's good that he's in jail, it's good that he's in jail, this is the best ending for Li Dezhen."

I wonder what kind of pain and heartache he must have gone through to say such a thing.

"That's settled then, I'll contact you again later."

V's consciousness disappeared.

Song Zhaomei reviewed the information about the Little Beidou Project again before confirming that what she had just seen was not a hallucination.

"Tch, either you're fooling me, or it's a miracle!"

Even so, Song Zhaomei did as V instructed.

After her next invasion of Night City, she handed over the information V had given her, and Miles was overjoyed, even softening his voice considerably.

"Zhaomei, you've worked so hard. Don't worry, I will gather all the resources of New America to heal you!"

In the past, Song Zhaomei would have been extremely grateful, but now, she felt no emotion whatsoever.

She had stopped believing Miles a long, long time ago.

"We must obtain the results of the Little Beidou Project. As long as we get hold of that captured stray AI, V will be no match for us!" Miles was completely immersed in excitement. Song Zhaomei was also an excellent agent. She accurately grasped this emotional fluctuation and knew that the time had come.