Chapter 131 Air Conditioning Riot
It was already afternoon when he came out of the bank. Since he was absent from work anyway and had to fish with pay, Li Pan continued to prepare for the Holy Grail, and took a look at the shuttle used for running away.
His original budget was three million, and the remaining funds in Panlong Construction's account were just enough.
Unexpectedly, because in the past few days, the company's dreadnoughts had just jumped in the face, Prince Ye was assassinated, the stock market in 0791 plummeted, and Sky People and space people were leaving, causing the price of shuttles to rise.
The model that Li Pan was originally interested in, the Solarbus Shuttle, has risen to 3.5 million, and it is still rising, and the inventory is almost sold out.
It's no wonder that this ship is really cost-effective. Sun Express is originally a civilian ship manufacturer specializing in transportation within the solar system, and specializes in bidding for cargo and passenger ships for public transportation systems. Most of the automatic ships and accelerating orbital highways in the planetary ring are produced by this company.
Therefore, the SS shuttle can also reduce costs through the production line and can automatically connect to the transportation system of Sun Rapid Transit without purchasing additional paid software services. This ship has a load of 8 people, WARP5, can be driven manually or take an automatic route. In the extended range mode, the range can support a direct jump from Earth orbit to Ganymede.
You want the cruiser class to be at least 100 million smaller, and the escort class to be less than 10 million, but a shuttle can achieve interstellar travel with 3 million, so what kind of bicycle is needed?
In addition, continuing the MRT Corporation's consistent multi-purpose transportation needs, this shuttle also maximizes the capacity of independent containers, so it is not a problem to load dozens of cubic meters of stolen money. It has become the best choice for escaping with the whole family...
Fuck, I just refreshed the page and it went up to 360...
After thinking about what he did last night, Li Pan gritted his teeth and bought one.
"Thank you for purchasing Solarbus Shuttle. Your shuttle will be delivered to your designated hangar within one working day..." "
Dear exclusive gold customer, Mr. Li Pan, thank you for using CAMARILLA CREDIT micro loan service. You The consumption amount is 622
,
, now Panlong Construction account funds are negative. In just a few days, the cash in the account was wiped out from more than 85 million.
Ah, bankrupt again. My wallet is so empty, the sun is so dazzling...
I can't help it anymore, I have to bleed from the mouth.
Li Pan took a taxi to the factory to see the goods brought out by Chengzi and the others, intending to cash in the Fabius family's assets as soon as possible. Otherwise, there won’t even be enough funds for the mission.
Orange Ayako is not here, and there is one less truck in the rental truck. They should be looking for new goods. The second container that Cheng Zi fished out was placed in the factory, and it was filled with high-end furniture from the Fabius family. Some are made of solid wood, and some are made of precious metals. In short, they are all precious antiques used for showing off.
Fortunately, someone also collected these goods. Li Pan communicated with Saito Keiko and asked her to take a look at these things. Sure enough, the customers at Saito House were still interested. Among them are some local-style antiques, which were probably originally extorted by the Fabius family from the Takamagahara chaebol.
So Li Pan and Keiko discussed it and agreed to take this box of things to Saito House to sell on behalf of Keiko and give Keiko a commission. By the way, Keiko also revealed the recent situation of Gao Tianyuan.
In short, this time Monster Inc. is angry, the Hashiba family is frightened, and for the time being they really don't dare to extend their tentacles into the territory of the Night City to take over Tokugawa's old headquarters. He just continued to maintain control of the shares of Tokugawa's subsidiaries in the name of Gao Tianyuan.
And because the direct line of Tokugawa and the personal guards of the Four Heavenly Kings were all beaten to death by the dreadnought ship. Now there are only two chaebols, the Okubo family who was the CFO of the Tokugawa Group and the Honda family who were the COO, and they continue to manage Takamagahara's assets on their behalf. In short, it's another trick of infighting and balancing between the two factions.
But after all, they are just civil servants of the internal affairs faction, and they cannot command the martial arts faction and ninjas. They cannot confront Yushiba like Tokugawa, nor can they threaten the rule of the vampires. Therefore, in the Night City, Takamagahara's strength has indeed become great. It's not as good as before, it's not what it used to be.
As for small and medium-sized enterprises like Saitoya and Akiyama Dojo, they basically operate independently and are responsible for their own profits and losses. They can find backers if they can, build relationships with those who can, solicit sponsorships, and ask for loans. If they really can't handle it, they can only go bankrupt. Free market, survival of the fittest.
Saito House is naturally in a difficult situation now. There was no income in the first place, and wars have been going on for a while, and things have been quiet for a while. The last time we came, we didn't even pay a single division. Fortunately, Okubo and Hashiba both invested in Li Pan because of her reputation, and laid off a large number of people, so they could barely maintain the status quo.
This time, Li Pan gave a lot of furniture, which moved Keiko Saito very much. She warmly thanked Manager Li for his strong support and said that you can come and relax at any time and the lady boss will personally provide you with one-stop service.
Li Pan said that he had passed it and accepted it with kindness, but if I were to come to a whole team, your body would probably not be able to serve him.
In short, a logistics company was called to consign the goods to Saito House. Li Pan drove a truck to pull the container, went to K's garage, and transferred Li Xuehong's coffin.
Li Xuehong is a bit scary now.
After all, pill formation is not something that can be done in one go, just like a hen laying eggs.
For immortal cultivators, building foundations and condensing pills is an important process of laying the foundation. It is impossible for a tall building to rise from the ground, not to mention that the skills of the Blood Sect are also very unique.
Although my practice is indeed very fast in normal times, this kind of waiting for me to master the magic skill will kill you all! 'Arrived' I have finally accomplished my magic! 'The process of breaking through the barrier is relatively slow. Sometimes it takes a long time to retreat, and it's not necessarily that the enemy will be dead of old age when he comes out...
But according to Li Pan's estimation, Li Xuehong's progress is actually quite fast, and there is no problem in achieving the magic skill tonight.
When I arrived at the garage, I saw that the coffin was probably at the juncture of quantitative change and qualitative change. The coffin looked like nuclear radiation, with dazzling red light and heat waves spraying out from the cracks in the coffin, illuminating the garage with red light. Blooming, radiating blood.
Li Pan just took a closer look and felt his eyes sting, his eyes shed tears, and his capillaries burst. The whole body was melted and dissolved by the light of blood.
You have to use Nine Yin True Qi to protect your body before you can barely get close. And just by gritting his teeth and moving the coffin into the container, he was consumed by the spilled blood and lost a lot of energy, which was greater than the loss of dual cultivation with the kunoichi.
Yes, this is the apostle who is on the verge of losing control. Maybe if you take it to the company, you can earn a key.
At the moment, Li Pan had no place to hide the coffin, so he had to temporarily put Li Xuehong's coffin in a container and bring it back to the factory, where it was piled together with tons of bombs in the basement.
Then Li Pan found that he was quite lucky, because as soon as he finished handling these personal matters, riots began in the Night City.
Yes, riots.
The dog-eat-dog battle in your company is over, right? Now it's the cockroaches' turn.
Li Pan didn't know what the cause of this time was. Anyway, various shootings, group fights, and bloodshed occurred every night in the Night City. As long as no 'citizens' died, it wouldn't be a big deal, not even the news scrolling subtitles. superior. In other words, there was a red tengu planning an attack, and he only mentioned it when heavy weapons were used.
Generally, these group incidents are suppressed by gangs in various communities. If the local gang association cannot suppress it, the gang will call the police. If the NCPA cannot suppress it, then it will rely on mercenaries, security companies, and contract construction contractors from various companies. According to The contract handles itself.
If that doesn't work, report it to the Security Bureau.
Once approved by the Security Bureau, the dog will be closed and let out.
Release the three-headed dog.
What? What if the three-headed dog can't suppress it? There is really no situation where the three-headed dog can't suppress it. After all, a riot of 100,000 people is nothing. A few rounds of thermobaric bombs have wiped out half of the city's living people. It is guaranteed to be burned cleanly and not even an ID chip can be found.
Of course, three-headed dogs will rarely appear in corporate wars. After all, this unit is the company's watchdog, a professional pest cleaning unit. He is never lenient when it comes to fighting cockroaches, but he will never get involved in the fight between his 'owners'.
A dog that bites won't survive.
In short, with such a mature and complete suppression system, the pests will naturally not be able to make big waves. But I also know that relying solely on violent suppression without fundamentally solving the problem will only intensify the conflict and explode again every now and then.
According to the rules that Li Pan has learned from living in the Night City for many years, there will be a big one every once in a while, usually in the summer. So the locals of Night City generally call it.
Air conditioning riot!
The simple truth is that it’s just that there are no air conditioners in the slums in the summer. In order to allow the rich and processing factories to use air conditioners, private power companies will also increase the price of electricity significantly. The outrageous amount of electricity per kilowatt hour can be increased by more than a hundred times.
This resulted in intermittent power cuts and power outages in the slums. As a result, there was no online entertainment during the steaming heat wave, and even the most homebound people could not lie down in those furnace-like shacks.
In addition, due to drastic reductions in aid funds and theft and robbery, most of the freezers in the aid stations were resold and stolen by gangsters. Free food provided to the poor often became moldy and spoiled, causing resentment and anger among the people and resulting in conflicts.
In addition, objectively speaking, summer is only extremely hot, with no sandstorms, no acid rain, and no hail, which will not cause unbearable direct damage to the physiology. So when the temperature drops a little at night, everyone will go outside and do some activities.
Then some people may say, well, if you turn on the air conditioner for the poor, it will be over. After all, just spend some money to buy electricity from a private company, turn on the air conditioner, and the mob will come home.
Well, that's the truth. Give him something to eat when he's hungry, turn on the heater when he's cold, turn on the air conditioner when he's hot, and take some medicine when he's anxious. Physically, psychologically, what problems are there that cannot be solved these days?
The question is, who pays?
In fact, the Safety Committee has dedicated funds. The Safety Bureau is also very aware of this pattern, so it will allocate special summer air-conditioning subsidies.
The question is, to whom?
This subsidy is distributed to each local NCPA branch, and then nothing happens.
Do you still want to take out the money that has fallen into the pockets of NCPA directors? Stop dreaming. Anyway, I can still suffer from the cockroaches. If something goes wrong, the Red Tengu will take care of me. My cruise ship, my son’s sports car and my wife’s bags are all saved in this way.
So this type of air-conditioned riots will happen again and again year after year.
And in the violent suppression mode, there won't be any big waves. If the continuous high temperature becomes too fierce, and three-headed vicious dogs are released to kill hundreds of people, just to scare them, no one will dare to continue to seek death.
However, later today, the directors and corporate dogs of Night City suddenly discovered that there seemed to be a slight problem with this system of you venting and me suppressing.
First of all, the gangsters who were supposed to play a certain buffering role, because the Dongcheng Guild was wiped out, and now they are in the midst of the underworld Warring States period, the big gangs took the opportunity to merge, and the smaller gangs simply rolled up their sleeves and joined in the vandalism, smashing, and looting!
Then the NCPA auxiliary police couldn't stand it anymore. Just kidding, five thousand a month, why are you fighting for your life? Besides, didn’t you see the leader of the Uzumaki Gang driving a tank and crashing into it?
Moreover, this year’s mercenary quotations are extremely high. The cyberpunk and freelance mercenary teams that are marketable but priceless have all signed short- and medium-term employment contracts with the Ye family. The rest have been recruited by private companies and chaebols to guard homes and nursing homes. . There aren’t even serious bounty hunters on the streets!
And the most important thing is that the three-headed vicious dog did not move.
As a result, the riots in the suburbs broke out like a spring that had lost its restraint, spreading like a wildfire, burning towards the center of the city and rushing towards air-conditioned places.
Li Pan was also surprised when he saw the overwhelming scenes of riots on the news.
What happened suddenly? Did the Red Tengu start to take action? Because the cash from Amakusa Shiro's side has arrived?
Or it was just that the weather was too hot...
Li Pan was hesitating to ask Uncle Chen what they were doing. Cheng Zi contacted him and said,
"Li, we are stuck outside the city. There was an explosion at the highway intersection and we can't enter the city."
Li Pan saw the coordinates and video she sent. Chengzi and Caizi were in the truck, and the long convoy was blocked on the beltway.
"Oh, do you need support? The shuttle I just bought has been put into storage. I'm going to pick you up?" "
It's no big deal, I'm just going to have to be stuck in traffic for a few hours... Hmm? What else did you buy?"
Li Pan put the Solarbus Shuttle The driving permissions and the driving simulation software sent by the 4S store customer service were transferred to Chengzi,
"There might be a big operation on the Red Tengu side. If there is danger, just take the shuttle and escape. It doesn't matter what the goods are. I'll have a big ticket in my hand." Once you finish this, you won't be short of money anymore."
Then Li Pan immediately contacted Shiba,
"Stop speculating in stocks. How is the situation in the city now? Is there any chance of Plan A?"
Shiba also knew the importance and reported the news to Shenzhen Net The video turned over,
"Are we going to take action now? But so far, we haven't heard of any attacks on Ye's facilities. The rioters only smashed some shopping malls and luxury stores... Oh, it seems that Ye's has taken action!"
Eighteen directly called in the video taken by the spy satellite.
The Night Knights were dispatched, the heavy troops guarding the Tower of Night remained unmoved, and some of the elites from Cornelius Castle and various agencies were mobilized.
But Li Pan could tell by looking at the satellite photos that the Night Walkers were not there to suppress the mob.
Except for a small number of mercenary troops who were arranged to guard intersections and checkpoints in the central area, the rest of the troops split up, gathered individually, and went into the sewers of New Tokyo.
It was K who took action. This was obviously to hide the whereabouts of the troops and take advantage of the chaos to kill the wolves and destroy the nest.
Then maybe tonight is really an opportunity. Do you want to try rushing in, grabbing the cup and running away...
No, I'm not ready yet. Li Xuehong hasn't accomplished his magic yet. Be cautious and wait and see what happens...
So Li Pan I went to get a beer from the refrigerator, turned on the air conditioner, and went to the sofa in the factory director's office. I continued to watch the satellite live broadcast and the Internet to observe the development of the situation.
At this time, the first batch of armed police units sent by the NCPA to suppress the situation had been quickly defeated. They were originally riot control units, and they brought rubber bullets, tear gas, and high-pressure water cannons.
As a result, the convoy was ambushed at the intersection, and was suddenly ambushed by the Whirlpool Gang who rushed out from all directions. They were blown up one after another under a hail of bullets and intense crossfire. Screams calling for backup came one after another on the public frequency, but it was of no use. The screams were quickly drowned out by the baboon-like howls of the mob.
Of course, the instigator of the incident, the local director and the Ninth Generation police officers, had already retreated to the NCPA headquarters. Under the heavy protection of the heavily armed police robot force, he was unscathed, strategizing, sitting firmly in the tent, and remotely micro-managing the auxiliary police to suppress the rebellion.
Well, of course NCPA also has a police robot unit, but those things are too expensive, costing five million apiece, and they need regular maintenance. Wouldn't it be nice if you use the rest of the money to hire two auxiliary police officers and pay the rest for free? So it's just a decoration for the headquarters. If anything happens, you still have to go to the auxiliary police.
However, the auxiliary police officers are not all pure idiots.
Are you kidding, even the armed police can't handle it? Their smart firearms are all non-lethal, right? I bought the insert body armor myself, and I have to declare every bullet fired. I have to pay for the bullets that cannot be reimbursed. Usually they beat people with batons, especially to beat up and bully small traders and homeless people. When you are outnumbered, who will sacrifice your life for you?
So when the mob team arrived, the auxiliary police immediately turned off their chips and took off their clothes. If they couldn't beat them, they joined in.
As a result, NCPA's defense lines quickly fell, and suburban NCPA branches, transportation hubs, and commercial centers were captured one after another. The mob broke through roadblocks, overturned police cars, stormed police stations, and rushed into the inner ring of the Night City.
The NCPA is also anxious. The bounty hunter system has raised a mob's offer of five yuan to fifteen yuan, which is a three hundred percent increase! The small loudspeaker was also played repeatedly on the public channel, calling on citizens to take up arms, take the initiative, and guard sacred private property from infringement, and opened immunity for killing.
But the mercenaries were all hired by the Ye Group, so the riot quickly spread to the wealthy neighborhoods. The crowd followed the Whirlpool Gang who led the charge, launched a sea of charges, and entered the art gardens of the wealthy villa areas from all corners. , golf courses and ski resorts competed for the property of wealthy people, even the dog kennels were torn down and taken away.
At this time, the property companies in wealthy communities are the most unlucky. After all, they have high salaries, and the owners have bought insurance for their assets, so they cannot just run away like the auxiliary police, but have to resist desperately.
Although these security guards are mercenaries with professional military training, they are generally small-scale units at the squad and platoon level. Moreover, it is impossible for community security guards to be equipped with heavy weapons. It would be good to have two "garden-trimming" gardening mechas.
But there are too many mobs today. Battalions after battalions, regiments after regiments have to charge into the community. There are also professional personnel like the Uzumaki Gang's Akatengu who are among the masses to command the attack and provide arms. How can they stop them?
After several hours of hard fighting relying on the defensive fort at the gate, the property owners soon complained that the noise was too loud, the car was scratched, or the security guard was asked to rescue the family dog first. High-end residential areas were also attacked one after another...
Even NCHK's news broadcast was blocked. The live broadcast team seemed to want to interview the Whirlpool Gang, but they were hit by an RPG head-on, and the signal was cut off...
But fortunately, the company's spy satellites were still working Can use.
Moreover, several small anchors on Shenzhen Internet chat platforms that Li Pan follows are also live broadcasting goods in luxury stores and selling stolen goods on the spot.
In other words, until now, neither the security bureau nor the gateway has cut off QVN communication.
I just simply watched this farce without taking action.
That's just an appetizer for now, I'm afraid there will be more big ones coming later.
Anyway, the City of Night is burning again...
(End of this chapter)