Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Serena POV.
I smiled as I watched Rebecca kill Smasher, pulled out my phone, and checked the mission; it now appeared completed, along with half of its secondary objectives: accomplishing it before Rebecca, ensuring the Maine tribulation remained alive, and preventing David from losing his mother and becoming an Edgerunner. All of these were complete.
That gave me 50 credits for Smasher, 20 for preventing Rebecca from dying, and 20 for preventing Gloria from dying. Now I had to choose between the free capture of Sasha Yakovleva or 20 more credits. Still, obviously, if it were the capture of Sasha at Rebecca's request, I would release her immediately and return her to the tribulation of Maine.
Now, only two objectives remained: to kill Saburo Arasaka and to inflict serious damage on Arasaka. Both were only a matter of time; I could see the reward for damaging Arasaka slowly increasing the more damage I dealt. At that moment, it stood at 137 credits thanks to the destruction caused by the DataKrash we had unleashed on his net, and it continued to climb.
Public opinion was beginning to shift, to waver. The new global network we had installed had received an enormous influx of users—hundreds of millions of people. Fortunately, it was something the network was more than capable of handling.
Something that MINERVA was monitoring and controlling. MINERVA had been designed to build enormous communication networks capable of transmitting the Faro Plague deactivation signal worldwide and also to communicate with the robots and the large-scale terraforming system. GLaDOS modified that network to add a global internet network.
Hundreds of Spires emerged from the ground just minutes ago—enormous, triangular, polyhedral structures resembling massive black pillars, over 100 meters tall, scattered around the globe. Each one was capable of transmitting and receiving vast amounts of information, and their signal capacity and range were enormous enough to cover the entire planet. GLaDOS had carefully calculated the precise placement of each Spire to achieve this.
In addition, along with the newly released Tallnecks around the world, the enormous giant giraffe-like robots with a wide, disc-like head that served as repeaters, the signal was strong and fast worldwide.
All of that, connected to powerful servers, created a new, extremely powerful global network, so there was no problem with millions of people connecting immediately and starting to review all the available information.
Following the flow of people, a large number immediately accessed information on Aperture Science and the terraforming system; another part immediately grabbed all the information within APOLLO and began copying it, as if making a backup themselves; and the third part concentrated on the Arasaka information we had made public.
So yes, all of Arasaka's murky secrets were laid bare. From using children to make deep dives into the pre- DataKrash Network, where they ended up dead, like Lucy and her group, to Soulkiller and the prison that was Mikoshi for engrams, where they could be interrogated, modified, or even fragmented, and even experimented on, Arasaka had practically invented post-death digital torture; death didn't save anyone who angered Arasaka.
And since we had access to Mikoshi, we had access to all the names within that damned digital prison, which we also filtered. Important people like Johnny Silverhand were placed and highlighted, but there was also a people search function; after all, there were tens of thousands of engrams within Mikoshi.
And we had also put everything in place to deactivate Arasaka's AI in the ocean and remove the floating mines, paving the way for maritime trade to be restored. That was something that drove the corporations crazy.
With some networks compromised, it was easy to see that they were giving orders to test and assess how real the possibility of reinstating maritime trade was; they were preparing drones, ships, platforms, and anything that floated on the water.
I could also see how everyone was waiting for the signal to start buying cargo ships at the slightest hope, although some corporations with enough money had already bought dozens of them.
The ships and cargo ships were relatively cheap. Without an ocean to sail, many had been moored for decades in shipyards and docks, so their price dropped with each passing year. They were practically scrap metal for most, so their price was low compared to their face value. It was more profitable to sell them for scrap than as cargo ships, although the labor required to dismantle ships of that size wasn't worth anyone's money.
So yes, there were hundreds of ships at very low prices that the Corps, which had enough money for a small loss, began to buy, just hoping they would be of some use.
And along with that, the entire attack was also broadcast. Everyone was starting to broadcast what they were beginning to call 'the fifth corporate war'; in part, they weren't wrong, but people always liked to be dramatic.
All media outlets were urgently broadcasting everything that was happening, and I didn't lag; I simply allowed most of the cameras we were using to be seen by the public of the new global network.
So yes, with all of that combined, everyone was going crazy, and those people were quickly making noise, which was calling more people to look at all the information and everything that was happening with Arasaka.
Unfortunately, things couldn't go so smoothly. Rebecca and Smasher's fight didn't last long, so we still had to wait out the grace period we'd given Arasaka. It was clear that they weren't using it wisely to escape.
GLaDOS, Lucy, and I were in cyberspace when a small alarm near GLaDOS began to sound. She simply waved her hand to reveal several cameras—thousands of cameras. It was obvious Arasaka wasn't going to sit back and wait; they decided to counterattack immediately.
Every Aperture Science construction, from the Spires, the terraforming robots, drones that carried crates to newly purchased buildings, and much more, is being attacked by Arasaka's forces.
And not only Arasaka, but also affiliated corporations, and some not so affiliated, or even people who had nothing to do with it, corporations testing the waters, or simply nomads or bandits—all began attacking Aperture Science. Then GLaDOS smiled sadistically as she activated HADES.
A copy of HADES that was completely modified and released, instead of destroying the biosphere, would be in charge of protecting the entire Project Zero Dawn and all Aperture Science facilities in general, especially if they were attacked.
HADES took control of hundreds of thousands of Dragoon frames, Arasaka cyber skeletons, Militech Chimeras, and the terraforming machines themselves to defend and counterattack.
When were they created? At the same time as the Cauldrons. The original Zero Dawn project in the Horizon world created a little over 400 cauldrons worldwide. I had created at least five times that amount.
But even so, it wouldn't be enough to create all the machinery needed for both terraforming and defending against attackers. So, using GLaDOS's blueprints, I created hundreds of thousands of robots with alchemy, which were stored in the Cauldrons until their release, which has now arrived.
Following the initial release, the rest of the Project, being completely autonomous, should be able to keep the boilers up to date to stabilize and revitalize the biosphere.
MINERVA also joined the fray, having placed Netrunning protocols and procedures, and was taking charge of defending Aperture Science by hacking anyone categorized as an enemy or anyone who had attacked Aperture Science.
The three of us monitored both artificial intelligences as they rapidly began suppressing all of Arasaka's resistance, which was considerable resistance. It seemed that Saburo Arasaka himself had given an order through various networks.
All the Main Headquarters had entered alert and counterattack mode. All military and civilian forces were prepared to attack, and although it might not have seemed like it, there were a great many Main Headquarters.
The main Arasaka towers can be found in Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Bangkok, Baghdad, Sydney, London, Hamburg, Paris, Madrid, Bratislava, Rome, Geneva, Stockholm, Helsinki, The Hague, Dubai, Kinshasa, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Montreal, Night City, Nairobi, and Moscow.
And those were just the main ones; there were smaller headquarters and offices around the world, so yes, Arasaka was practically everywhere. But even so, HADES had been designed to wipe out the entire Earth's biosphere, eradicating tens of thousands of people. It was easy for the artificial intelligence; we just had to make sure none of the AIs went astray. They had many security measures to prevent corruption, but it never hurt to double-check.
I kept looking at the screens—I paused for a few seconds before zooming in on several of them, and I sighed heavily before looking dryly at GLaDOS.
"Seriously? You armed them with neurotoxins? When did you do that?" I asked dryly. GLaDOS turned around with a huge smile on her face.
"It's a very effective weapon! The T-23 iteration is a total success!" GLaDOS said with sadistic glee.
"They are writhing on the floor of suffering." Point to the screens.
"A very well-executed fear tactic," GLaDOS said without the slightest remorse. "That way they'll think twice before attacking Aperture Science," she added maniacally.
I sighed wearily. Why was I surrounded by such crazy people?
"How's it going, chooms?" Rebecca asked cheerfully as she practically bounced closer with joy, her hand dragging Smasher's corpse, in the other, she had her hammer completely covered in dripping blood.
"Shouldn't you be killing Arasaka agents who try to get here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That's what I did," Rebecca said, shrugging. She looked through her memories, and yes, she had massacred with ease, using her hammer and shield to strike or ram people. In fact, it seemed far more gruesome than simply shooting everyone as she had done before.
Putting that aside, I moved the cameras again, this time those inside the Arasaka Tower where we were, and I could see dozens and hundreds of military personnel, police officers, and Arasaka agents entering, fully armed.
"I'll go take care of them," Rebecca said, huffing as she turned around, almost excitedly.
"I'm already taking care of it." GLaDOS said while laughing diabolically. I could see several invisible drones approaching the army before they began releasing neurotoxin from the nozzles that were all over their bodies.
95% of them collapsed instantly, writhing in pain while screaming before dying from intense agony. The few who survived were people with enough implants and cyberware to prevent the neurotoxin from entering their systems.
Although they couldn't do much either when they collapsed, when all their cyberware started overheating to the point of frying their brains, I looked at Lucy, who just gave a thumbs-up. I sighed as Rebecca clicked her tongue.
"Of course, take away my fun." Rebecca grumbled, and I rolled my eyes.
"You can always prepare yourself; there's... half an hour left until your next part of the mission," I said curtly. Rebecca's eyes flashed brightly. She dropped Smasher and her weapons before pulling the BFG-9000 from her inventory.
"I can't wait to bomb every building in Arasaka with this beauty!" Rebecca exclaimed joyfully, hugging the BFG. I snorted in amusement. The idea was for the drones to place hundreds of explosives on each building, or force the Arc reactors to explode at various points to cause a collapse in every building in Arasaka.
But Rebecca complained that it was boring, mainly because after the main skirmish, her work would already be finished. So I simply let her use her BFG to destroy the Arasaka Towers and offices.
Near each building in Arasaka, a massive fake turret would be erected, from which Rebecca would fire her BFG to destroy the buildings completely. Plasma weapons weren't entirely unheard of in this world. There were several versions of plasma weapons, but nothing on the level of the BFG, obviously.
But even so, it wasn't something we could show off as a portable weapon capable of constant firing; the idea was to instill fear in the other corps, but not enough to make them feel cornered and immediately lash out.
Therefore, giant turrets that would be destroyed and melted after the first shot, demonstrating their single-use nature. Rebecca could calculate and increase the BFG's power output at will.
Normally, the BFG uses ionized Argent energy, a combination of Sentinel Energy and Hellish Essence, which was impossible to obtain outside of the Doom universe. Still, the BFG had been modified to be able to use any energy, so Rebecca could use both The Light and demonic power to power it.
Rebecca prepared herself as time slowly passed; most of the attacks had already been thwarted, or they had simply given up upon realizing it was impossible, so all parties were moving away and leaving Aperture Science in peace, except for Arasaka.
They had started bombarding all the locations, like tactical bombing, with huge missiles aimed at our facilities. Most of them were intercepted or simply disabled and rendered useless in the air; only a few hit their targets, but nothing of real significance.
All the Spires had remained completely intact, and they also didn't know the locations of the Cauldrons to attack them, so Arasaka had only been destroying empty infrastructure and machines that we could replace.
Arasaka began to deploy everything at his disposal: tanks, warplanes, drones, and war machines—an entire army, tens of thousands of them, people and machinery attacking us.
But it was still completely useless. Their deployed numbers were far lower than the actual numbers an hour ago; anything connected to the Arasaka Network had been destroyed by the Daemons within it, leaving a large portion of military assets missing and unusable.
And for his remaining forces, between the three of us and MINERVA, it was extremely easy to hack anything Arasaka threw at us, no matter what kind of ICE or defenses he had, or how many netrunners tried to stop us, we could easily break through any defense and disable them all so easily it was almost laughable.
Finally, the grace period we had given them ended. We went from being on the defensive to a full-scale offensive. GLaDOS led HADES and Minerva, and all the machines, to their targets, and more began to emerge from the Cauldrons. All the machines began attacking the towers and buildings of Arasaka, which had fortified themselves and prepared for such a situation.
But they didn't hold out long enough. It almost looked like a damn science-fiction movie as I watched thousands of robots attack buildings around the world. I could see people panicking everywhere, holding their breath.
Quickly, the buildings of Arasaka fell one after another; no building could call for help from another branch because they were themselves bogged down with their own army of killer robots, so the forces of Arasaka were thoroughly scattered, making each Arasaka facility easy to suppress and destroy.
Especially since the Dragoon body and the prototype cyber skeleton were on another level, it was as if an entire army of Adam Smasher and David Martinez were attacking simultaneously. Not many Arasaka facilities had the raw power to take on those kinds of machines, especially not hundreds of them.
One tower after another, they began to fall. Once their forces had been completely suppressed and we had pushed the non-combatants out of the building, Rebecca teleported around the world, gleefully firing her BFG, destroying buildings to rubble completely.
The hours passed quickly as the destruction of Arasaka spread rapidly around the world. All of Arasaka's buildings in South America had been completely eradicated, reduced to dust surrounding the bodies of Arasaka's forces. Then came Africa, followed by North America, Europe, and most of Asia.
The only one that had been spared was the Arasaka Tower in Night City, where we were, but even so, our machines had already surrounded the entire building, and it would be destroyed once we left Mikoshi.
Although we no longer had any reason to be here, the Arasaka Network had completely collapsed. 100% of the data had already been destroyed by the Daemons placed within it. Following the destruction of all Arasaka offices and network servers, 78% of the Arasaka network was completely down, with no possibility of restoration.
So the access point to Mikoshi was useless to us, especially since GLaDOS had already seized and transferred all the access and control codes for all the orbital stations around Earth that Arasaka possessed. They were now completely under our control, so Izanagi, Mikoshi, and the Arasaka Tower were no longer needed.
The only real problem was Japan, the only place that could resist HADES' attack long enough to mount an effective counterattack. With Arasaka dominating much of Japan, it was literally very difficult to destroy Arasaka in its entirety in a place as entrenched as Japan, especially since Saburo Arasaka and most of Arasaka's elite army were there. Even with machines as powerful as Smasher, they were being quickly dismantled. Finally, I stood up and began disconnecting the cables from my body.
"Rebecca destroy the Arasaka Tower in Night City." I mentally sent the message to Becca.
"I'm coming right away!" Rebecca shouted, very hyperactive.
"GLaDOS, make sure all nearby buildings are empty, and transfer Arasaka's money to the people who suffer material losses from the Tower's destruction, just like you did around the world," I told GLaDOS easily. She simply nodded as she disconnected all the cables and stepped through the portal, back to the Penthouse to finish overseeing the entire operation. "Lucy, it's time," I said simply. Lucy's gaze hardened, and she nodded.
"I'm ready," Lucy said simply, and I nodded.
"It's time to go to Japan to hunt down Saburo Arasaka." I said seriously. Lucy nodded. I created a portal to Japan. It was time to end Arasaka's legacy once and for all.
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