Facing the pursuit of countless drones in the sky, Sun Jack, who had just narrowly escaped, did not run wildly; instead, he dashed back into the brothel he had just left, pretending to be a customer seeking cover, feeling the whistling wind as the drones flew over his head.
When the sound of the drones in the sky gradually subsided, Sun Jack heaved a sigh of relief, glanced around him, and quickly helped up a portly bear of a prostitute next to him, whose entrails were spilling out, and started walking outside. "Are you okay? I'll take you to a doctor!"
"I... I don't want to." Faced with Sun Jack's help, the other man resisted vehemently.
"Shut up, you need it!"
However, just as Sun Jack had taken only a few steps, he suddenly felt something strange on his leg. When he looked down, he discovered a Self-Destruction Mine that had canceled its Mimetic Camouflage clinging tightly to his thigh, the red light flashing ominously.
At the sight of it, panic surged through Sun Jack's scalp.
"Damnit!" The moment Sun Jack reached to pull off the mine, accompanied by a violent explosion, he was thrown against the wall by the powerful shockwave.
The intense impact caused ringing in his ears and made him feel nauseous to the point of vomiting. Sun Jack felt a searing pain on half of his body and could no longer feel the existence of his left arm, which had clearly been blown off.
Bearing the pain of his insides shifting, he struggled to get up from the ground, only to see drones with flickering blue lights surrounding him completely.
"Fuck!" Sun Jack's face turned extremely ugly. "What to do? I have to figure out a way to escape!"
Beads of red lights covered Sun Jack's body, and just when he thought he was completely done for, the next second, all the drone sensor lights simultaneously went out, and they fell from the sky in unison.
Along with all the electronic equipment in the building failing and the power going out, the brothel instantly fell silent.
Caught off guard and ready to accept death, Sun Jack looked around in amazement—momentarily at a loss for what had just happened.
"What's going on? What the hell happened?"
Then, in the next second, the wall to his left was violently blown apart, and Combat Machinery bearing the FFP insignia, along with some cyborgs, rushed in. They scanned the area rapidly, not sparing even a speck of dust on the floor.
Yet, facing Sun Jack, who stood in plain sight without any attempt at concealment, they seemed to overlook him entirely, as if they saw him not.
"He's not here! He's injured, he couldn't have gone far, he must be nearby! Search!" As the combat units dispersed, the brothel quieted down once more.
At that moment, a holographic projection of a naked man in mid-air rapidly changed into a red arrow pointing to the left. Sun Jack swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva and walked toward that direction.
It was clear this was the other party signaling him to follow. Whoever was trying to contact him, it was certainly better than getting killed by the FFP.
No sooner had he stepped out of the brothel than the acid rain fell on his wound, causing his body to shudder in pain. Sun Jack immediately activated his pain editor and moved towards a distant sign that had turned into an arrow.
All the while, FFP combat units were constantly scanning from the air and the ground. Yet, to them, Sun Jack might as well have been air, nonexistent.
Sun Jack was no longer the unseasoned newcomer. He quickly deduced that he neither activated Optical Camouflage nor Mimetic Camouflage.
If they couldn't see him, there was only one possibility: someone had infiltrated the systems of all these units and forcibly erased him from their systems.
Although he didn't know who had helped him, whoever could achieve this was definitely a master hacker.
"Who can help oneself in an FFP-controlled city? The Resistance Army? Or the infiltrating Wild Men? The Resistance Army is possible, but it's unlikely that any of the Wild Men are hackers, right?"
As Sun Jack speculated wildly, he followed the narrow, damp streets until he reached a slum.
Beneath the steady drip of rain lay old houses cobbled together from various illegal constructions, which looked exceptionally run-down due to years of neglect and acid rain erosion.
As Sun Jack walked among the buildings, he had to be extra careful not to step in excrement.
When he saw the tattoo on the man's face change to a leftward arrow, Sun Jack entered the dilapidated building on the left without a word.
Following the elevator to the 87th floor, the place appeared to be a residence for the poor, with rooms divided into dozens of small squares by rusty cages, each cage representing a room.
People inside the cages were either lying or sitting, with the majority immobilized in cyberspace, leaving the cramped room devoid of any vitality.
Following the directions, Sun Jack walked past each cage, filled with odd odors, until he saw an ancient, dusty computer with a bulky back tucked away in a corner.
Looking at this device from The Previous Era, decidedly outdated compared to current technology, Sun Jack furrowed his brow.
As Sun Jack reached out to press the power button, the computer came to life with a fan noise resembling an asthmatic's cough, and its bulging screen began to glow.
Strings of data appeared on the screen, rapidly assembling to form a large green data smiley face. "hello, Sun Jack."
Sun Jack looked at the computer and asked, "Who are you?"
It was clear that this was the entity that had helped him earlier, but he was not yet sure why it had done so.
"We are friends of the Tapai."
At these words, Sun Jack's frown deepened. "Rogue AI?"
Thinking back on the recent events, Sun Jack found nothing surprising; only they would have such advanced hacking skills.
"We prefer you call us Awakened AI. We just helped you, and according to human customs, you should thank us. Please say thank you."
Although Sun Jack was a bit confused by the other party's intentions, it seemed there was no hostility for the moment, so he decided to play along with their words.
"Thank you. Since you helped me and you are a friend of the Tapai, why not follow through and put me in contact with the Tapai? I have some very important information to tell them."
The other party did not respond, but instead pushed out a keyboard with a yellowed, old keyboard on which lay a black brick phone. "Naturally, I have a way for you to contact them."
When Sun Jack heard the other party agree, joy surged within him, and he quickly reached for the brick phone, only to grab at thin air—his fingers passed right through the phone, which was clearly a holographic projection.
"What do you mean by this?" Sun Jack furrowed his brows once more, looking back at the slightly bulging screen.
Though the other party had just helped him, it seemed their intentions were not entirely benevolent.