Cyberpunk Maniac

Big Bear is dead? That kind of military prosthesis used by assault squads? A minion of the Whirlpool Gang?

What a joke. Those lunatics who cut out their organs themselves and build their own fake limbs could actually outdo a corporation?

And what's with the corporate headquarters? No reaction from the CSI security forces outside?

And no matter if he's dead or not...

Dammit, these nutjobs actually hacked into his brain and deleted his contacts???

Li Pan was at a loss for words,

"Hey, who the hell are you tricking, acting like a ghost there! You think I'm stupid! What about all deleted, aren't you still here?

And who are you anyway? A hacker from the company? System surveillance? Security Bureau? Can you stop talking with my voice?"

The phone said,

"I am, a landline.

Landline, must remain in the office area.

Dialing the internal line can call for employees.

When employees are unable to respond, the landline will switch to voicemail to retrieve the employee's daily report.

I suggest the general manager dial the internal line to retrieve the general manager's daily report."

"Landline, me, you, Made you freaking nutcase..."

Li Pan was speechless, and then he suddenly got it,

"Fuck! Damn it! You're not some cyber psycho, are you?!"

These days, the cyber psychosis among the residents of Night City is really serious.

Some say it's because the social livestock work seven days a week, twelve hours a day and the pressure is too much; some blame the Super Dream virus, drug overdoses, and poor use of illegal prosthetics; others say it's because the toxic nerve gas leak that once destroyed Neo Tokyo hasn't been dealt with; some recommend drinking canned cola since the sewage treatment plant is not up to the standards; and yet others say it's just sheer poverty.

Anyway, this isn't an insult, it's just how things are; most people are not quite right in the head.

The phone was still talking,

"Pick up the nameplate on the desk, don't..."

"Made! Chatting with a maniac for so long! I'm outta here!"

Li Pan, furious and fearing that he might catch the madness, angrily hung up the phone, ignoring the incessant ringing as he walked out the door.

Then he stopped.

Outside the door was no longer the corridor he had come through, but a huge office area.

And it looked nothing like a legitimate company; Li Pan saw no virtual access pods, no hacker cooling tanks, no lines of system servers or swarms of security drones.

The office area in front of him only had rows of desks, sporting old-fashioned desktop computers, with décor so retro it seemed like an ordinary commercial firm from the 21st century. It certainly didn't look like anything you'd see on Earth 0791, this cyberpunk future plane.

Additionally, there was a thing standing at the other end of the office, staring at the coffee machine in the break room.

Aside from "thing", Li Pan had no other adjectives to describe it.

How to put it, it sort of looked like a person, but upon closer inspection not quite; imagine this analogy – take a normal person, mold them like clay, stretching the limbs to three meters high, two meters wide, then push the head down into the neck, until the scalp brushed the ceiling, paint the body's skin in the gray hue of a dead corpse, and finally dress it in a suit, and you roughly get what Li Pan was looking at.

Hmm, this damned thing was even wearing a suit, much nicer than the one he had rented...

Suddenly, Li Pan seemed to hear his own voice, muttering softly.

Monster

Then that thing, as if hearing him, turned its head to look toward Li Pan stepping out of the general manager's office.

No eyes, no nose, just a mouth like that of a shark, a curved crescent moon-like smile cracked open from its neck, the mouth bloody, with scraps of a suit still between the teeth.

Facing that grinning face, Li Pan raised his hand and emptied the magazine with a smack, smack, smack. He aimed for the head, but the bullets clinked and clattered off the thing's suit, scattering across the floor, not even wrinkling the clothing.

OMG, you even come with a built-in military-grade bulletproof vest, huh.

Without second thoughts, buoyed by years of street-fighting experience, Li Pan ducked and rolled backward, tumbling back into the general manager's office, as a gust of wind swept over his scalp, and something thunderous swept in, shattering the office's walls and windows! The explosion-like scene was like being hit head-on with a rocket launcher!

Ding-a-ling

Li Pan scrambled to grab the phone and roared into it.

"Damn it, you're raising a bio-engineered human in the office, are you idiots?!"

The landline roared back at him,

"Pick up the nameplate on the desk!"

"Damn—!!"

Li Pan grabbed the nameplate, clutched the phone, and leapt sideways in one bound.

"Bang!" That thing, like a grayish bat, pounced through, shattering the walls and glass windows of the manager's office, and charged out of the office building! It leaped dozens of meters in a single bound, "Boom!" striking against the wall of Building B, its ten fingers gouging out gashes in the alloy wall!

CSI patrol drones armed with swarming smart munitions and Thor's Organ Cannon lazily drifted past the thing as if pretending to be a cloud...

"Damn you, blow him to hell! What safety lock? Has the premium user period expired?!"

Li Pan was at a loss for words, casually pinning the nameplate to his cheap suit.

At that moment, he heard the frantic rambling voice from the phone,

"The general manager is authorized to enter all rooms/enchantments.

The general manager is authorized to use the filing cabinet/archives.

The general manager is authorized to use the fax machine/dimensional link.

The general manager is authorized to use the landline/mind echo.

The general manager is authorized to customize suits/Guardian.

The general manager is authorized to turn off lights/space leaps into corridors/rifts..."

"Hey, what's up with this added suffix?!"

Then that thing lunged forward with a blast, slamming into Building A, and began climbing upward with a screech and crackle.