Cyberpunk: Nirvana of Shoko Toyokawa

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Sha Ling looked at him, then glanced at the electronic clock in her brain.

She gently exhaled the air from her lungs.

"Maybe we shouldn't have said that it contained a virus before negotiating with Toyokawa," said Saaya.

"..."

Why can you be so calm?

Sha Ling's calm attitude made the silver-faced man become a little bit anxious.

"It can be seen that your original plan was to hold our staff hostage." Sha Ling said, "She was a general invited performer. She did not access the internal channel of CiRCLE."

"Toyokawa knows about your virus. The number of participants' channels is enough for it to spread within the local area network." said the silver-faced man.

"…Do you want to confirm it again?"

Sha Ling said.

Sha Ling's attitude made the silver-faced man even more uneasy. He began to confirm the hacked brain-computer gateway of Deng.

Then, he discovered something.

No.

There is no CiRCLE performer channel connected to the lamp's brain-computer gateway.

There is not even a public network in the City of Joy.

In the brain-computer gateway of the lamp, there is only one link connected to something unknown - it may be a prosthetic peripheral.

"—"

How can it be?

All performers who enter CiRCLE must be subject to control... and will be connected to the performer channel after admission!

"It's time to activate security measures at Poppin'Party." said Saaya.

"After I cut off contact for a period of time, Rimi shut down the server on the fourth floor underground," she said. "The signal was also blocked at the same time... We were also very careful to prevent virus leaks."

"—"

"That looks like it's about to break." Sa Ling pointed to the liquid USB flash drive in the silver-faced man's hand and said, "You have to be careful. Even if it just touches the skin, the virus can enter through the subcutaneous co-processor and enter the brain. The hands are especially dangerous."

She took a step forward.

"It's almost time to give it back to me." Sha Ling said as she observed the silver-faced man's face.

The silver-faced man did not reply.

Sa Ling also observed the face of the held Deng.

Deng's face didn't look good.

Of course.

Saya's words were undoubtedly an announcement: Even if the light was infected with a virus, it would have no effect on Poppin'Party and CiRCLE.

In other words, Sha Ling has no intention of keeping the light on.

"(The band member that Kasumi likes.)"

It's a pity though.

However, important things have a priority.

There is no doubt that security at Poppin'Party is of the highest order.

Chapter 41: Everything about the Light ( rewards plus more)

The air was filled with the smell of blood and gunpowder.

A cool touch came from the brain-computer interface at the base of my neck.

Someone was pressing my shoulder with great force, the tips of their fingers dug into my skin.

"do not move!"

After hearing this, Deng realized:

I was kidnapped.

……

It took the lights a moment to figure out the situation.

Because the incident happened so suddenly.

Ten minutes ago, she was still being scanned by CiRCLE staff through a data link.

The flashing red barcode recognition scanned Deng's body, making her feel very uncomfortable - the refraction patterns they showed on her clothes reminded Deng of the distribution state of catalase in three-dimensional graphics.

After that, the two staff members became interested in the face armor in Deng's hand.

Deng just didn't find a chance to put it down. However, the two men obviously paid more attention to the face armor than Deng. They took the face armor apart, and used the sensor components in their hands to touch, analyze, and confirm it continuously, even more carefully than when they confirmed Deng himself.

Then, there was an explosion in the distance.

The staff around them panicked and started packing up their things - wanting to leave.

And then……

Then, the man crashed into the end of the passage outside the door.

He fell in front of the lamp. Everything became like a broken CT scan, with the same white powder splashing around.

Deng saw the man stand up like a ghost struggling out of the CT scan.

His face was silver, with a radiating wound on the back of his head, his collar was wrinkled, he wore a Greenwich watch, and his leather shoes were a little gray.

He rushed over and grabbed the lamp.

Deng was a little confused at first why he chose to arrest her instead of the staff next to her, but soon she found that the staff had run away.

She was always a little slow to notice this, because she didn't like to have too many retinal projections in her eye sockets, so she rarely noticed things outside her visual area.

Immediately afterwards, another person appeared at the entrance of the corridor.

It was a woman. Her hair was the color of Indian tea. Her hair was tied high up in a ponytail at the back of her head, making her look mature and steady.

The lamp remembered her.

That's Poppin'Party's drummer, Saya Yamabuki.

"Don't get close!"

The man spoke loudly to Sha Ling.

As he spoke, the light smelled faintly of motor oil.

He might be injured, she thought.

"Let me go. The Toyokawa family will have the final say on everything. I've called for the Toyokawa family's vehicle..."

said the man.

The incandescent bulb flickered on the lamp head.

This lamp is very old.

Just like the situation now.

Deng often saw hijacking cases in Lezhicheng on TV news, but those hijackings mostly involved kidnapping and locking people up, using remote hacking technology to lock the other party's room, or commanding a drone carrying napalm to fly into the other party's window sill.

This type of hostage-taking by directly grabbing people is rare nowadays.

I have only seen this kind of scene in movies from the last century.

She began to think of the name of the movie she had seen.

It could be "Sky Rescue" or "The Hijacker"...

"If you go one step further, I will insert this virus into this girl's brain."

The man said from behind the lamp.

"The virus will enter CiRCLE's main server through the internal channel of the venue where she is connected to CiRCLE."

Lights looking down.

She saw the man shaking a small glass tube in his hand.

There was a crack on the top of the small glass tube, and inside, it was filled with fluorescent green colloid.

Threatening actions.

The lights waited for this to be over.

She gradually felt herself being separated from this environment.

I should be nervous.

Light thought.

This feeling is not unfamiliar to Deng.

Rather, she had been like this for the thirteen years before she entered the third year of junior high school.

Most of the time, Deng felt out of place. Her emotions were alienated, and she was unable to have the same proper emotions as normal people in the proper situations.

But then——

Especially in the past few months, she rarely felt this way.

"...Toyokawa knows about your virus. The number of participants' channels is enough for it to spread within the local area network..."

Up ahead, the two were still negotiating.

The lights probably listened.

It was as if this man was holding a virus that would spread and explode along the channel once it entered the network.

That sounds kind of bad.

"…Do you want to confirm it again?"

On the other side, Miss Yamabuki said this.

Deng suddenly heard a "beep" sound coming from inside his brain computer.

The sound was very slight, like the sound made when bubble wrap is popped.

Then, Deng saw that his brain-computer gateway was turned on without his permission.