Chapter 9: After work,
it’s finally time to get off work.
Yes, even in the cyberpunk chaebol universe, there is a definition of "off duty".
After all, the compulsory work system of five days of paid vacation per year, seven days of work per week, and twelve hours of work per day is already pushing the physiological limits of laborers.
Although there are some corporate factories that work two shifts, one during the day and one at night. Of course, this is mainly for the continuous production of equipment without downtime, but there is no overtime pay.
And if everyone lives in the company, who will the house be sold to? Are you still in the real estate business? And if you live in a company, do you pay rent? get off work! Get off work for me! Who cares how many hours you commute, get out of get off work!
So Li Pan's first day on the job ended in such a mess.
Crowded on the subway with a group of social animals, Li Pan, like everyone else, stared blankly at the shadow reflected in the car window.
Of course, the pupils of other people's prosthetic eyes are full of colors, and they are addicted to watching short videos and playing games on the QVN network. And Li Pan was really staring in the mirror in a daze.
For a moment, he even doubted whether he had traveled through time or not.
I was a salaryman before time travel, and I am still a salaryman after time travel. What if I die in this life and I will still be a salaryman in the next life? Could this be some kind of endless overtime hell... Damn, I felt so scared all of a sudden...
Li Pan didn't dare to think about it anymore, so he quickly capped the Internet connection and used electronic heroin to numb himself.
However, there are too many ways to indulge in virtual networks these days. With the advancement of technology, you can really travel on the Internet. The virtual world has been constructed so that it is almost indistinguishable from the real world.
And virtual anchors, gamers, online artists, and various professions can work online.
And as long as you have money, build an eco-cabin, or live directly in a hotel-style Internet cafe, soak your body in nutrient solution, and someone will take care of your body. In a literal sense, you will become a 'permanent' living in the electronic ocean. Electronic ghost.
In fact, Li Pan was a gamer in his previous life, but in this life he had no parents to control him, so he almost fell into the state of being a bit of an electronic ghost.
But QVN is not safe.
Although there is a public security system on the public Internet that monitors everything, there are always people who build illegal deep web servers, and the security system cannot stop you from committing suicide.
Maybe if you make one wrong step and fall into a trap, you will lose everything. Even bankruptcy is a minor matter, and you may directly turn into an electronic zombie controlled by others.
And Li Pan was fooled. When he first traveled to this world, he once wanted to be a game anchor and a professional player after school. It went well at first, and he made a small fortune. But it was later hacked by professional hackers. If he hadn't been on the military academy's intranet at that time, the other party wouldn't have dared to go too far, fearing that his life would be lost.
But the game account he was passionate about was stolen, and when he was attacked by a hacker's golem, he was not only disconnected from the public network in an instant, but even directly lost control of his body. He could not see, hear, or touch, as if he was imprisoned. The helplessness and despair of falling infinitely in a sealed elevator really frightened him.
From then on, Li Pan also had a psychological shadow on those large-scale virtual online games, or in other words, on the entire QVN deep network area. So now basically, I only watch public network and shallow TV programs.
Every time he stared at the countless link codes, he felt that behind the bustling colorful lights and shadows, there were malicious hackers hiding, and countless pairs of eyes were staring at him.
The endless virtual network is like a huge abyss of nothingness. Once you fall into nothingness, you will never be able to climb out.
Sometimes even Li Pan doesn't know whether the electronic abyss is more terrifying or the real hell is more despairing.
He could only escape to the other side when he could no longer hold on one side, and repeatedly jumped on both sides of the cliff.
But these days, ordinary people are in the same situation as him. There is a fine line between madness.
"Ahhhh——!" "Squeak——!"
The sharp sound of brakes suddenly woke up Li Pan from a small movie. He activated the Xingtian battle mode and linked to the security network to prevent hacker attacks and pay attention to the surroundings. situation.
It turned out that someone on the platform in front committed suicide by lying on the track. Blood foam gradually came from the cracks in the doors and windows of the subway car, splashing a group of people pink.
Alas, this is an unlucky subway. On the suburban loop line, there are a bunch of drug addicts taking drugs and shit, and on the urban inner line, there are all kinds of suicides by jumping off the rails. The ground is always brown, either blood or shit.
As a result, the subway was temporarily suspended, waiting for maintenance robots to clean out the minced human bones and internal organs.
Li Pan had no choice but to follow the crowd and wait, then found a place to squat down and wipe the blood on his leather shoes.
At this time, a warning from the public safety network popped up in front of his eyes.
'Regional safety deviation value increased'
Li Pan immediately became alert and reached out to press the safety of the pistol at his waist.
Safety deviation value, although he hated this troublesome setting, he had to admit that sometimes it could save his life.
The security deviation value, as the name suggests, is a security algorithm reference based on the public safety network. The security network is based on the reference comparison of the entire night city, no, the entire public security network monitoring environment of the heavens. Various violent crimes and risk factors are entered and set. Baseline specification values for each region.
For example, in urban areas, the safety threshold is very high, in suburban garbage dump industrial areas, the safety threshold is very low, but in the long run it is generally flat.
Once there are external security risks within the region, or the original forces leave, resulting in changes in the regional balance, the coefficient will increase significantly. That is, compared with daily data, the deviation will increase greatly.
To put it simply, there is danger.
Then Li Pan saw that among the dense crowd at the subway station, there were four particularly strong and conspicuous men, almost 1.9 to 2 meters tall, who got off the subway train one after another with their heads lowered.
Then Li Pan turned his head and saw more than a dozen guys wearing black windbreakers, sunglasses and electronic glasses, looking like corporate dogs, coming out of various entrances of the subway station, the washroom, and the emergency exit.
It's an ambush.
At the same moment, the black man who was the leader of the group of strong men sniffed his nose and roared!
"Nightwalker!!"
Then Li Pan saw him pull out two submachine guns from under his leather jacket. Damn it, those are not smart weapons!
"Da da da da da da da!" "Pap, tap, tap,
tap!"
"Ah. Ah!"
After a few blows, he started beating again, it was really endless, this is the daily life in the Night City...
Li Pan quickly risked his waist and ducked behind a metal trash can to hide. It's banging outside! Two groups of people had to shoot at each other, and sonic bombs, flash bombs, and smoke grenades were thrown indiscriminately.
The unlucky office workers screamed and fled in all directions. In a short while, they were swept down by stray bullets. There was a large area lying on the ground. No one knew how many people were dead.
Alas, it's tragic. Although those corporate dogs came to set up an ambush, they at least used hacking equipment and smart weapons. Although ordinary people were inevitably affected by the explosion, the smart bullets had eyes. They will try their best to avoid you.
But those big guys used illegally modified firearms, and the bullets were so powerful that they smashed the subway station into pieces, almost like a forced demolition. It looks like tonight’s Dead Man Lotto is going to be super doubled again.
Thinking of this, Li Pan quickly added a bet. After all, if you want to achieve wealth freedom and class promotion these days, buying lottery tickets is probably the only reliable way.
After spending five yuan to buy a lottery ticket and a dream, Li Pan hid behind the trash can and waited for the two groups to finish playing.
Don't look forward to the NCPA. The big guy just called "Night Walkers". This is the security force directly under the Ye Group. They are gangsters and agents per capita. Otherwise, who can openly attack at the subway station in the center of the night city? The police would probably have to wait until the beating was over before they came in to clean the floor.
And those strong men are quite outrageous, they are still resisting. If they were ordinary people, they would have been captured by the company's hackers long ago. But Li Pan took a look and found that these people were covered in blood after being beaten with smart bullets, but they were still standing. Those smart bullets were even connected to their bones. They continued to fight, but instead aroused the opponent's murderous intent. They howled and raised their guns to fight back and fired indiscriminately. They even formed a tactical team to shoot in all directions to suppress the firepower of the ambushers, trying to retreat to the subway and escape through the underground railway.
Even if they were beaten to death by such random shots, they could still fight their way out. Li Pan couldn't help but wonder which family of these people were purely biochemically modified people, but they probably weren't the Akainu. After all, if they were Akainu, the three-headed dog would have already taken Wen. The pressure bomb was thrown in.
Just when those strong men suppressed the firepower of the Night Walkers and were about to take the opportunity to retreat as a group, a black shadow suddenly jumped out from the smoke.
Under Xing Tian's combat dynamic vision, Li Pan could barely see clearly that this was a female... nightwalker wearing a black leather trench coat, short black hair, and holding two guns.
And unsurprisingly, from the other party's exquisite appearance, blue-gleaming pupils, and the extreme acceleration that seems to be as if the central nervous system has been strengthened, almost as fast as flying across the ground, as well as the name and dress of this night walker, it all shows that An indisputable fact.
These are the specialty of the Ye Group, fighting vampires.
Of course, the people of the Ye clan prefer to call themselves vampires. It is said that on their earth, due to a plague, the indigenous population mutated, so the Ye clan developed a special vampire serum and vampire bones, which became the group's specialty products.
These vampires basically have significant special features in the legend, such as immortality, eternal youth, stunning beauty, taller, faster and stronger, blood-sucking healing, and so on. Ye's even provides low-end and cheap products, adding the characteristics of being afraid of sunlight to maintain the character, and at the same time save costs.
So in general, these night crawlers are products of roughly level five or level six technology, and their performance is worthy of the reputation of night warriors.
At this moment, in front of Li Pan's eyes, the female nightwalker jumped back and forth, like a butterfly dancing, dodging the cross fire of several strong men, getting close all the way, and rushed straight into the crowd. She jumped up and locked her neck with her legs, locking her neck. He hit the head and eyeballs with both guns in his hands, beating the two strong men into gourds of blood. At the same time, he shuttled through the crowd like black snakes, pulled out the long needle-like dagger from his waist, and stabbed another one to death. After three kills by himself, the remaining strong man found an opportunity, shot him, kicked him, flew over Li Pan's head, smashed the wall bricks, and landed in front of Li Pan.
The two looked at each other and ducked behind the trash can.
The next moment, the remaining strong man's eyes were bloodshot, "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" He started shooting, causing the trash can to jingle and sparks to dance.
"What the hell! What the hell are you doing!"
Li Pan was just about to draw his gun and fight back, but the female vampire grabbed his hand, snatched away his ancestral heirloom all night long, and bit the back of his hand to suck blood like crazy!
"Nah!"
If it weren't for stray bullets flying above his head, and the woman throwing her into her arms and locking her waist with her thighs, unable to move, Li Pan would have really wanted to hit her with Big Eared Melon Seed.
But Li Pan also opened his eyes. The vampire's shoulder was shot with a big hole, but during the process of sucking blood, the bullet actually popped out by itself, and the flesh was healed visibly to the naked eye!
As expected of Ye's company's top scientist...
"Hey, are you done yet? You've fixed it enough! If you suck me again, I'll fall out!" "
Hmm~~~"
In the end, the female vampire's mouth wasn't enough, and she still took another mouthful. He took one sip after another, and became addicted to it, just like being high. He couldn't help but open his eyes slightly, his bright blue eyes rolled up in absentmindedness, and his eyelashes trembled slightly.
Li Pan tried hard to pull his hand twice but couldn't pull it away. He even sucked the back of her hand and licked it twice more. What a big loss!
"Ouch!"
At this time, the strong man on the other end had run out of bullets and was beaten with blood by other night walkers. He roared and tore his leather jacket and his own skin apart violently! Transform into a giant beast! Rush into the subway, break the windows and escape onto the tracks!
That thing! It's the monster that died at the door of the secret passage!
Li Pan turned his head and looked, unable to pursue him, so he had to arch his waist and nudge the female nightwalker in his arms twice.
"Hey! All your prey has escaped!"
Only then did the female nightwalker react, glared at Li Pan fiercely, and then let go. She didn't even bother to wipe the blood on her lips, and flew out as fast as As fast as he flew, he jumped into the subway and disappeared after chasing the escaping monster.
"Fuck! My gun!"
When Li Pan turned his head, a group of night walkers had already disappeared into the dark underground railway like shadows in the dark wind.
Alas... I have a small ancestral pistol...
Looking at the injured and dead bodies groaning on the ground, he was only bitten once and handed over the gun, which is pretty good.
But after such an episode, the subway was no longer available, and Li Pan couldn't afford to take a taxi, so he had to look at the map and walk two more stops, making a long detour before finally returning to the apartment building on the outskirts of the outer ring road.
While the elevator was still slowly descending, Li Pan went to the late-night snack stall at the door, transferred twenty yuan to the boss, made a bowl of wonton noodles and ate it while standing.
On the left is a snoring drunk, on the right is a little yellow guy wearing virtual glasses playing video games, and there is an explosive ball game on the TV.
Li Pan just ate wontons and watched the game.
Oh, maybe you don’t know what explosive ball is. Simply put, it is a sport similar to rugby. The rules change a lot, but basically it can be played by more than two people. Everyone grabs a ball, and there are no other rules. In addition, the ball is a bomb that will explode when the countdown is up. The player who is not killed or killed and holds the ball the longest wins the game.
Li Pan often played this game with the young people in the building. Of course, they only played electric balls, and at most they would be shocked once, and they didn't gamble any money.
However, in the official game, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of cash are transferred directly to the player's account every second while holding the explosive ball, and in the end only the winner can actually get the money. Because according to the regulations of the Security Bureau, large-amount liquidity transfers of a non-salary nature will be recovered if they are suspected of money laundering, but the tax bureau will give priority to deducting non-salary income tax. In other words, others will not only get nothing, but also have to make up for it. The tax will start at about 30%, so most players will be reluctant to let go until they die.
Then they were killed.
Ding, the elevator is here.
Li Pan devoured all the wontons and went home to sleep.
(End of chapter)