Chapter 42: The Cyberpunk Squad Strikes
Sato slowly opened his eyes, still half-dazed, and stared blankly around him, as if his mind hadn’t yet caught up with reality.
After a moment, he finally made out his surroundings. His expression shifted instantly. He patted himself down and, finding only his cash missing while everything else was intact, let out a breath of relief.
He’d been terrified he’d run into a crew of Scavengers. Luckily, his habit of carrying cash had saved him—online money was almost impossible for robbers to access, so cash was what you carried to buy your life.
But the sudden situation made him reach instinctively for his card slots. Finding them completely empty, his face stiffened. Panic surged through him as he scanned the area, even using the Scan function of his Kiroshi Optics.
Still nothing. His face turned pale. His trembling hand reached for his phone, but he stopped halfway.
After taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down and ran through everyone he had bumped into along the way.
The answer was Tina, the person he’d just crossed paths with. His expression darkened. He couldn’t tell whether that woman had set him up, but then he remembered the other person he had collided with—someone who had seemed even more suspicious.
But that person hadn’t revealed a single identifiable feature.
He tried recalling Tina’s face again, but in his memory she was wearing dark sunglasses and heavy makeup. That made him even more uneasy.
It meant whoever pulled this off were repeat offenders. Still, that brought him a bit of relief—if they were that type of thief, they likely weren’t after anything else. Otherwise…
Thinking of Kuroda’s usual methods, Sato’s expression shifted again. But a faint hope surfaced: maybe the thief only wanted the money on the chip and not the data inside.
His work chip didn’t contain much—mostly job-related files, not many classified documents. The only important information was Kuroda’s schedule, home address, and contact details.
Which meant that as long as the thieves weren’t targeting Kuroda himself, losing the work chip wasn’t catastrophic. He just needed to get a new one and fill in the missing information well enough that no one would notice.
But if Kuroda found out… someone who knew that much about him wouldn’t just get fired.
His end would be becoming another statistic in the company’s HR cleanup. So Sato decided to hide everything. He didn’t want to lose such a high-paying job, and he definitely didn’t want to be cleaned up by Kuroda.
And if something really did happen to Kuroda… Sato hoped the man would die. Then he could simply move on to a new boss. As long as he fixed the work chip properly, he’d be fine.
With that thought, Sato flagged down a taxi and headed home. He needed to finish reconstructing the data right away. It looked like he wouldn’t be getting any rest tonight.
...
Meanwhile, Kuroda was lying comfortably in bed, enjoying the service of a sex doll, completely unaware that a crisis was quietly closing in on him—or that someone had already leaked all of his information.
“All done, boss. The chip’s security is cracked. Gotta hand it to him though—it was pretty tight.”
Rich let out a sly laugh and displayed the contents on his screen.
“Nice. Even his home address? That solves a lot of problems.”
White glanced over the data, nodded in satisfaction, then looked at the others.
“Get in touch with Golor. Tell him to hack into Kuroda’s residence through the chip and keep eyes on him.”
“Alright, on it.”
Rich nodded and turned to contact Golor.
“And tell him to hurry. That Sato guy has probably realized the chip’s gone and warned Kuroda already. If he’s late and the target escapes, I swear I’ll kick his ass!”
Rich instantly clenched up at that, then relayed White’s words word-for-word to Golor.
“Shit, I’m going! But wait—since when did the boss have that kind of kink?!”
“Get lost, I was describing a situation!!”
White snapped at Golor’s panicked voice, then urged him again to move faster.
“Okay, okay, I get it! I’ll protect my ass!!!”
“…Get the hell out!!!”
Tina and Vilet exchanged a look and shrugged.
“Boss, is it really okay leaving it to him alone?”
Tina asked, clearly worried.
White rested his chin on his hand, thought for a moment, then nodded. “I trust the kid, but this job is too big to take risks. We’re heading over too.”
He shot Rich a look. Rich nodded immediately and started the car.
...
“Huh? Why are the boss and the others here…?”
Golor, watching Kuroda’s home through binoculars from a distance, froze when he saw White and the others arriving below. He quickly dialed.
“Boss, what are you doing here?”
“We weren’t fully confident in your situation, so we came to check. Just making sure nothing unexpected happens. How’s it looking?”
“Oh, nothing. Kuroda hasn’t left all day. He’s still inside. Even had his bodyguard bring him a sex doll. Tsk tsk.”
“Hm? That doesn’t make sense. His secretary should’ve woken up by now… Did that kid not warn him?”
“…My guess? He’s scared Kuroda will come after him, so he’s gambling everything. And honestly, what we did really does look like the work of those money-only gangs.”
Vilet leaned one hand on the car window as she spoke.
“Well, that’s corporate for you… Alright, that makes things easier. Golor, where are you now? We’re heading over. Just need to prep before we move.”
“Got it, I’m at—”
“Stay put. We’ll be there soon.”
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