Chapter 1137: Chapter 370: Antarctic Icefield in Cyberspace (2)
"Stop grumbling and get to the point. I heard you’ve got a beef with Huang Ban, right?"
Johnny was just guessing. They snatched him back from Huang Ban, so there must have been some conflict.
"Of course. We’ve fought with Huang Ban in Night City multiple times."
Ecstasy couldn’t care less about it anymore.
"Besides that Watson District fire I didn’t take part in, we fought four or five times, and in the last one, we even took down Adam’s Hammer."
"Pfft—cough cough cough!!"
Johnny couldn’t stop coughing. He didn’t even know how his body could still choke on alcohol, but what they said really shocked him.
"Who did you say died?"
"Adam’s Hammer, that badass lone wolf, got beaten to death by dozens of old players."
Ecstasy suddenly slapped his forehead.
"Oh! Right, I remember now. You’re Johnny Silverhand, the singer killed by Adam’s Hammer."
"...I’d prefer you didn’t remember."
Adam’s Hammer is dead...
That’s impossible.
Could that monster really die?
Does that mean these folks avenged me?
Although it seemed like in his memory, he fought Adam’s Hammer for three hundred rounds and finally died on Huang Ban Sanlang’s order.
But it just didn’t add up.
Was I really that badass?
Johnny Silverhand was arrogant, reckless, not thinking things through, but not stupid, and certainly not a deranged egomaniac.
As for whether these people were lying, Johnny didn’t think so, given that they hadn’t even recognized him before.
"Tell me in detail how you took him down. His body, did you manage to keep it?"
For complete cyborgs like Shai Yitunai and Adam’s Hammer, it’s difficult to truly die as long as the central nervous system isn’t destroyed.
Being able to boast and show off, even if it’s just a game NPC, can thrill the players a bit.
"You dismantled the Tiger Claw Gang? Took apart Yunding? What a waste, what a waste!"
"Cleaners? Good riddance, I remember many people suffered at their hands."
"You even fought the Sixth Street Gang? I bet the faces at Military Technology turned green."
"Night Wanderer, Chaotic Blade Association, things outside Night City weren’t always this bad..."
"Voodoo Gang... never heard of them, but I know the Animal Gang, all pointy-headed idiots."
"You crashed a plane into Huang Ban’s Ganbi Mansion? Damn, that’s badass."
Now Johnny kind of understood how Heavy Hammer died.
A madman can be the king among normal folks, but in the end, he’s just a person.
The sophisticated prosthetics from Huang Ban gave him powers far beyond ordinary flesh in Night City, making Adam’s Hammer almost invincible without heavy firepower, even Morgan Black Hand could only barely hold him off.
Until he met another bunch of blockheaded lunatics.
And these lunatics weren’t like the Vortex Gang, recklessly cramming prosthetics onto themselves.
They pursued the beauty of numbers, all modifications solely aiming for power, battle maniacs almost indistinguishable from Adam’s Hammer.
Compared to them, the only edge Adam’s Hammer had was Huang Ban’s cutting-edge technology.
But even the most advanced tech has its limits. A 5090ti might crush a 5050, but when faced with ten such cards, it would be overwhelmed.
Let alone thirty, forty, fifty cards.
Players already had strong individual capabilities, some even rivaling top mercenaries in Night City, combined with the MT-3 and tons of outlaw-level prosthetics and Tutu’s crazy combat style
Adam’s Hammer couldn’t retreat from getting beaten, his death was inevitable.
"Damn, you guys are really something else."
Thinking they were just a bunch of corporate morons, but turns out they might be the craziest bunch of cyberpsychos Johnny’s ever encountered.
"Seems like Night City’s been pretty lively even without me these years. But it’s a pity you didn’t keep Adam’s Hammer’s head, chances are he’s not really dead."
"This lot shall return again."
To players, a boss killed once poses no intimidation at all, critters that just won’t die often end up becoming comic relief in games or anime.
"Next time, we have a plan to smack him in the face with a fake dildo."
"Hahaha, good idea, be sure to record it for me."
Johnny imagined the scene and felt as if all the resentment from his decades-long slumber dissipated.
Boom—
A sudden jolt rocked the ship.
The Rome AI, Nero, popped his head out next to them in the virtual void.
"Master, we’ve arrived at the Antarctic Research Station’s data fortress."
"How many heads have you collected just now?"
"Heh, seventeen traitors are about to kneel and repent in my theater, singing the greatness of Rome."
"Excellent! We’re one step closer to rebuilding the Holy Roman Empire!"
"Aw, Rome!"
Johnny facepalmed.
"Damn, they really are nuts."
————
The Antarctic Research Station was initially established by various countries in the polar regions for research on ecology, address, atmosphere, and ocean changes among other issues.
It was always a project with no profit potential.
With increased ecological pollution and corporations struggling for social power, national budgets fell short; from the early 21st century, more and more nations started withdrawing from polar research.
New America, Norway, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union....
Governments gave up, but the researchers working in the polar regions didn’t.
Faced with funds gradually drying up and increasingly scarce supplies,
The remaining polar research organizations chose to set aside nationality, race, and language differences, pooling their limited resources and equipment, working in teams where one group stayed on duty while the others took corporate jobs to fund the Antarctic project.
They held out till the very end.
Johnny followed Ecstasy and the others onto the deck, taking in the vast expanse before him.
The cold wind like blades, the earth like a cutting board, all beings mere fish and meat.
Flying snow blanketing all, the sky akin to a furnace, melting everything into silver.
This vast icy mountain and sea of snow before the Endless was the legacy they left, a data fortress built with information from global national research stations.
With shock and awe, he exclaimed,
"So this is the Antarctic Research Station’s data fortress? It’s truly massive, much bigger than the Walker Base we saw last time. Just how many servers and hard drives are in this thing storing all the data?"
The only mechanic among the three, Tears, explained,
"Outdated already. Based on settings, last century’s hard drives were TB-level in reading speed, way outpacing us, not worth much really."
Ecstasy rolled his eyes.
"Look at you being all impressive."
Suddenly, Anger called out loudly,
"Look, there’s something moving over there."
The direction he pointed at indeed had a cluster of black dots slowly moving across the ice and snow.
It couldn’t be people in Cyberspace, so.... that was...
"It’s Tencent! Look, a whole bunch of Tencent!"
Wheelchair Sprint saw clearly what they were.
A group of chubby penguins, waddling with their big bellies, migrating across the snowfield.
"Are they here to charge us in Q-coins? Hahaha."
"Quite possibly, better watch out for a cease and desist letter inviting you to take a seat at Nanshan Senior Home."
Jokes aside, the players didn’t let their guard down due to the penguins’ endearing appearance.
In Cyberspace, any chunk of data could potentially be the code of some cyber life form.
They lurk like predators beneath the sands, pouncing at once when you trigger a trap.
"Cyber space... Antarctica... Ote never told me it was this intense."
Everyone knew hackers had a blast, always glued online and refusing to come out, but besides hackers, no one knew just how far the enjoyment reached.
Watching the migrating penguins, feeling the bone-chilling wind, everything made Johnny feel as though he were in the Antarctica depicted in news stories, the massive five-kilometer long warship docked on this vast ice field, puny like an ant.
Until today, Johnny had never been to Antarctica.
Now he understood why those hackers would rather go without sleep, risking death just to stay in Cyberspace.
"What did you come here for? Steal technology, hunt AI?"
"Don’t say it so harshly."
Johnny’s wording irked Ecstasy.
"These data are the heritage left by predecessors as per the settings. They recorded it for people to see, isn’t it a waste to leave it here?"
"Heh, there are things I’d rather let rot in the ground than let corporate assholes profit from them."
Johnny had no ill feelings towards this group, but as for corporations, it was a different story. Staying neutral was the best he could manage.
