As an employee of the company, Xu Yang's heart thumped wildly for defying the contract and running away—such audacity! Had it been any other company person, they likely would have accepted their fate and awaited death, but Xu Yang refused to admit defeat.
Around him, other company employees remained at their workstations like wooden blocks, staring blankly at the smart screens in front of them, indifferent to anything unrelated to work, which made it easy for Xu Yang to avoid them.
Recorders and timers were everywhere, relaying every employee's every move back to the supervisory backend, but Xu Yang had covertly blocked the monitoring backend, leaving no trace of his actions.
This also meant that he had no way out and had to act quickly.
This series of actions was still unsafe. Once the Corporate Alliance's "Heavenly" AI resumed operation, it would be able to locate Xu Yang in an instant.
Xu Yang ran back to his dormitory, stuffed his backpack with valuables that were light and portable, slung it over his shoulders, and left.
The taxi stand on the central platform of the building offered a slim chance of escape.
He knew it was poorly supervised. Due to insufficient traffic, it posed a low risk and had not been reported, inadvertently leaving him a lifeline. Xu Yang's "Digital Mind" was capable of network defense and hacking, which should allow him to hack a taxi and make his getaway.
On the parking platform, he could see the bustling city outside through glass windows and many unmanned taxis that traversed the hovering lanes.
Xu Yang quickly turned off the parking platform's cameras, altered the patrol routes of the security robots, and carefully approached one of the taxis, preparing to hack in.
Meanwhile, an unmanned taxi arrived from afar.
A "Battle Witch" clad in heavy armor alighted from the taxi.
Xu Yang paused for a moment.
She was tall and gorgeous, wearing sunglasses with her long black hair tied back. Her prominent chest was encased in metal armor, her streamlined, sturdy armor protecting vital areas. There were no visible signs of enhancements or implants; her dangerously alluring skin was exposed, dissuading unwelcome thoughts. With the "Witch's" power, she could decimate a street in an instant.
Witches were born with unique and powerful abilities that even the most advanced technology couldn't match. The Corporate Alliance extensively bred, captured, recruited, and trained witches for their own benefit.
The person before him was a "Witch" used for military and security operations by "Kyushu High Pavilion," named Pan Ruiyi! Her witch ability was exceptionally formidable for close combat, and she was also a member of the Mobile Riot Squad, tasked with routine field patrols across major regions of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The moment he recognized her, Xu Yang's scalp tingled.
Now was not the time to show any weakness.
He swiftly approached an unmanned taxi, posed as if he was leaving on a business trip, remotely connected his "Digital Mind" to the vehicle, and cracked its civilian-grade encryption key, intending to gain control of it. The sooner he could leave, the better.
"Hmm, thinking of running away?" A faint voice echoed in his ear.
Xu Yang turned around, startled to find the Witch already by his side, sneering with a contemptuous look, as if the eyes behind her sunglasses were about to devour him right there and then.
Xu Yang's heart raced.
"No..."
"Don't worry." Pan Ruiyi chuckled lightly. "I'm off duty today, not working."
"..."
"How could I take action against someone as weak as you, a pitiful soul who can't handle the pressure? The company needs the strong, not the useless."
"..."
"You're so incompetent as an employee, let alone as a person?" Pan Ruiyi turned her head to gaze at the towering corporate buildings. "You think you could survive being so weak? Fool, without the company, you're nothing. Now scram and run as far as you can!"
In an instant, Pan Ruiyi vanished like a swiftly fleeting shadow, without a trace.
Xu Yang stood speechless, just used his "Digital Mind" to hack the car, climbed in, and let the taxi whisk him away from the company as fast as possible.
In this era, there existed a deep layer of anonymous networks specializing in illegal activities, and Xu Yang had originally not wanted to deal with their members. But now that he was a corporate fugitive himself, he had no choice but to contact a smuggler among them and sell off everything valuable he had taken from the company, finally exchanging it for 120,000, which he stored on a cash card.
Xu Yang bought a cigarette, took a deep drag, then tossed it away and stamped it out on the ground, swearing never to smoke again, never to go back to working for any corporation. He also vowed never to let himself suffer such humiliation again.
He would earn back everything that had been damaged and trampled upon.
The company men who leave the corporation have nothing.
10 days later, Xu Yang found refuge on the territory of Kyoto Infinity—a colossal enterprise renowned for its high-tech, entertainment, leisure, and anime industries.
Anjiu City was a major city under Kyoto Infinity, but Anjiu City was also somewhere Xu Yang couldn't afford to live. He had to look for one of its underground cities—Aizu City.
Xu Yang rented a small room in the underground Aizu City and registered on the deep layer anonymous network that the company couldn't reach.
He had worked in the cybersecurity department and had a rather comprehensive grasp of developing and utilizing Digital Mind, which allowed him to crack and hack into electronics, vehicles, and equipment, etc. So, he claimed to be a freelance neural hacker with advanced cracking skills.
As soon as he boarded the flight to escape, Xu Yang started looking for work to earn some funds. But a full 10 days passed without him receiving a single job contract.
During these 10 days, he had thwarted tens of thousands of attempts to trace his steps. Kyushu High Pavilion was extremely annoyed by his escape and immediately declared that he had violated the corporate person contract and must be captured and brought to justice.
The trial for escapees was extremely harsh; their brains would be removed, made into personality matrices, erasing their free will and emotions, becoming truly selfless corporate persons.
The security department went crazy searching for him all over the Eastern Hemisphere, waiting to bring his head back as a chip for their continuous promotion.
This was the price of escape, and Xu Yang feared that his whereabouts had already been exposed. The only time window was due to the difficulty of law enforcement crossing major corporate territories. The department over there could only start by searching in a roundabout way, waiting for approval for a large-scale search.
To stay in the company meant death; to be outside was also death. Xu Yang felt a bitter taste in his heart, sensing the countdown to death approaching. Was his fate really about to be sealed?
With no work coming and the manhunt about to begin, the little money he had now couldn't afford decent security services for self-protection. Being caught and killed was just a matter of time, given the weight of the chase from Kyushu High Pavilion.
He checked the status of his network address being tracked and heard the rough swearing from the dark corridor outside, his heart in his mouth, fearful that assassins might find him at any moment.
These days, he couldn't sleep a wink all night.
Would he have to go back and reconcile with the company, just as the warm tips in the employee handbook suggested?
Beep beep—
The lower right corner of the screen lit up with a new conversation notification. Xu Yang's eyes widened as he sat up quickly and clicked on the message.
"Can you handle security systems?"
Seeing the sender, Xu Yang was startled. The ID was hidden, but the profile showed a very high credibility rating. In the deep layer anonymous network, mercenaries, hackers, and assassins gave high ratings to qualified employers, which, in a sense, represented trustworthiness.
"Yes." Xu Yang quickly sent back the message, "I'm still very confident in information attack and defense."
"Even against a complete set of corporate stuff?"
"No problem." Xu Yang's Digital Mind was of excellent quality, with high access and technical capabilities, handling other companies' products with ease.
"This job is extremely risky. You'll be going against the Corporate Alliance and might even anger other gigantic corporations. You don't mind that, right?"
"Of course not. How much is the pay, roughly?"
"100 million."
Xu Yang naturally didn't believe it but felt it was necessary to give it a try. At this point, he couldn't afford to be choosy.
"Okay." He replied.