16: Chapter 16 Old Clouds

After stepping out of the clinic, the sunset outside, like a melting copper coin, slowly sank beneath the cold horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

The afterglow struggled to pierce through the ever-present clouds of pollution above Night City, dyeing this abandoned dockside area on the edge of Watson in a sickly orange-red halo.

The elevated rail bridge cast shadows like the ribs of a giant, cutting across the oil-stained ground.

The air was thick with the sharp scent of rust, the briny smell of seawater, and the persistent, cloying stench of some chemical waste.

The black "galena" GTS sat silently in the shadow of a rusted container that was practically falling apart, like a dormant mechanical beast.

The hood still radiated the scorching heat from long hours of operation, with a few faint heat waves flickering in the dim, yellow sunlight.

Inside the car, Lin Yi pulled the data cable from a rusted public access port that had nearly merged with the surrounding debris.

The investigation commission he had just taken was unremarkable—helping a cautious fixer investigate the internal schedules of a rival shipping company.

In the underground world of Night City, this kind of job was as common as buying a can of synthetic coffee from a vending machine, even a bit boring.

[Command complete. Data packet downloaded to secure storage unit. Clearing all access traces... Complete. Overwriting underlying logic gates... Complete.]

The cold and efficient feedback from "Baize" flowed through his consciousness, steady and without a ripple.

The brief sense of relaxation after completing the mission wrapped around him like a stream of lukewarm water.

He habitually kept [Insight] in its lowest power standby mode, with basic data streams of the surrounding environment flowing at the edge of his vision—the heat signatures of a few mutant rats feeding on industrial waste, the frequency of the lighthouse's rhythmic blinking in the distance, the signal strength of the aging access point itself...

Just as his consciousness was about to fully withdraw from the sea of data, and his fingers were within the last millimeter of leaving the port—

An extremely subtle, almost imperceptible sense of resistance appeared abruptly.

That feeling was like suddenly touching a tiny, cold, sharp grain of sand moving against the current in a smooth-as-mirror electronic torrent.

It wasn't an attack, but more like the first faint click of a mechanism from a precision trap that had been laid long ago and accidentally triggered—barely audible.

"Baize's" ultra-high data sensitivity instantly amplified, captured, and parsed it.

[Warning: Abnormal fluctuation in underlying data stream detected. Fluctuation pattern match: Non-natural disturbance. Suspected trigger of hidden protocol response.]

[Source deep analysis: Protocol identifier match—'Kang Tao Internal Security (CT-InSec)' · Tracking sub-protocol 7B. Signature: Verified. Threat level: Extremely high.]

Kang Tao.

These two words were like an ice pick at minus two hundred degrees, wrapped in the scent of absolute fear and death, instantly piercing Lin Yi's skull and driving deep into the core of his brain.

All his relaxation, all his calm, were shattered into pieces in a ten-thousandth of a second.

Adrenaline surged into his veins like a breached flood. Pure survival instinct overwhelmed all thought.

His consciousness roared at his nerve endings, issuing the sharpest command to "Baize," which was almost fused with him—

"Baize! Highest emergency priority! Overwrite all background processes! Force physical disconnection! Execute Level-4 deep self-check! Clear all temporary data, cached memory, and operation logs! Overwrite with triple random meaningless garble! Execute physical-level fragmented erasure! Now! Immediately!"

The "red core" of "Baize" at the back of his neck instantly activated.

[Command confirmed. Executing emergency physical disconnection... Complete. Executing Level-4 memory cleaning and overwriting... Complete. Trace amounts of tracking data detected (<0.001%), forced isolation and physical-level shredding executed. Current system cleanliness: 100%. Security status restored.]

The cold electronic voice reported the results meticulously.

But Lin Yi felt like he had just been fished out of icy water. Cold sweat had completely soaked his undergarments, sticking stickily to his back.

The familiar smell of leather and motor oil in the car now smelled entirely of terror.

The newly implanted "sub-heart" in his chest was beating powerfully and heavily at an unprecedented rate, struggling to stabilize his heart rate, which had almost collapsed from extreme panic and the adrenaline surge—every beat was like a war drum, pounding fiercely against his ribs.

He slumped weakly in the driver's seat, gasping for breath as if he had collapsed from exhaustion. The air he inhaled felt like it carried needles, stinging his lungs.

The knuckles of his hands gripping the steering wheel were white from excessive force, trembling slightly, unable to let go for a long time.

That moment just now felt almost like a sudden hallucination. But the core record in "Baize's" independent security log, locked with the highest permission encryption and impossible to clear through conventional means, was now like a red-hot branding iron, searing the cold and cruel reality onto his retinas—

Core Alert Log:

Timestamp: [Data]

Event: Active tracking protocol detected targeting specific user identifier.

User Identifier: 'Lin Wei' (Employee ID: CT-RD-114514). Associated Project: CT-SBS-Proto-01 ('Baize').

Protocol Source: Kang Tao Internal Security Committee (CT-InSec). Protocol Type: Tracking Subroutine 7B ('Persistent Maggot').

Command Status: Recover/Eliminate. Highest priority.

Protocol Response Status: Issued (Signal strength 23%, not fully received). Local countermeasures have been automatically executed at highest priority.

Risk Assessment: Extremely dangerous. Recommendation to executor: High vigilance, immediate evasion, complete concealment.

I'm screwed.

Whatever you fear most always happens. His previous worries had truly turned into a heavy funeral bell, crazily crashing and echoing in his blank mind, each vibration hammering down suffocating despair and coldness.

It turned out he had always been a smart-aleck fool. Always an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Carefully hiding his tracks on the filthy streets of Night City, feeling smug about being able to take down a few Maelstrom thugs, snatching back some things from the Tyger Claws, earning a paltry bounty and a ridiculous "Ghost" title—

Yet he had completely ignored that most fundamental, most fatal, most obvious loophole.

In this digital age where everything can be quantified, recorded, and tracked, in this world where mega-corporations control all the rules—every electronic footprint he left, every careless chip payment, every act of connecting to the network, even the facial features or cyberware signals passively scanned by the ubiquitous smart surveillance cameras on the streets—the final destination of all this information, in the vast and ruthless data abyss of Kang Tao, clearly linked back to that target long ago marked as a "traitor," whom they were sworn to recover or eliminate.

Former Kang Tao engineer, "Lin Wei."

He wasn't some damn "Ghost." On the cold surveillance screens of Kang Tao's security department, he was always that fugitive engineer who had stolen the "Baize" prototype. A prey marked with unique biological and information scents, temporarily lucky to be hiding in the sewer, waiting for the most elite, most ruthless corporate "cleaners" to track him down.

Those previous small-time scuffles might not have been enough to truly attract the attention of Kang Tao's headquarters security committee. But the recent rapid rise in "Ghost's" fame, the increasingly high-level interests involved in the commissions he handled, the increasingly frequent and deep network activities and hacking methods... This was fucking like not only lighting a campfire in a dark forest, but also setting off fireworks, and even shouting with a loudspeaker.

That wolf howl, representing absolute order, cold programs, and the end in death, had finally pierced through the forest's fog and landed precisely in his ears.

"Screw this!"

He snapped awake from the extreme fear and a trace of anger, growled lowly, and almost violently turned the key. The "galena's" engine let out an irrepressible, angry, and terrified roar—like a steel beast with its tail stepped on, it bolted out of the container's shadow. The tires brutally crushed over broken glass and metal debris on the ground, made a sharp turn, and merged into the bustling, numb traffic in the lane.

He had to find Jackie and the others immediately to ask around. He had to find an absolutely safe dead zone with no network connection, one that could even shield all electromagnetic signals. Or, at any cost, find a way to completely resolve this curse of an identity named "Lin Wei," which was enough to drag him, Jackie, and everyone related to him into the abyss.

Otherwise, the next thing that would come with the tracking protocol would definitely not be an incomplete signal.

It would be the cold, ruthless gun barrels of a Kang Tao "cleaner" squad, and an electronic warfare storm powerful enough to fry the brain of anyone who possessed "Baize" at his current stage.