From Mercer's vantage point, he saw that Lucy and the others had already looted the items he wanted from the warehouse.
Each of them took at least one Arasaka JKE-X2 Kenshin tech pistol, according to the markings Mercer provided in his prosthetic eye.
This pistol uses electromagnetic propulsion to fire tungsten-tipped rounds, with excellent armor-piercing capabilities. It requires a brief charge to fire a double burst, and the bullets can even cause lethal harm through walls.
Additionally, each person also carried an HJSH-18 authentic kinetic rifle, a classic Arasaka weapon.
Aside from the bothersome inherited three-round burst mode, it's an extremely user-friendly, holographic-sight-equipped, precision rifle armed with 7.62 caliber armor-piercing bullets, and the maintenance is quite straightforward.
Everyone was also equipped with various types of hand grenades, and had three magazines worth of bullets for each of their weapons, with an extra pack of bullets for supply.
Even so, it exhausted the young hackers. Kyoko was even dragging the bag with gritted teeth when Mercer slapped his forehead, remembering to send in the hovering robot to lend a hand.
"The hovercar is almost here. Hand the items over to the robot to take to the door. No need for you to join the firefight. Meanwhile, go and get me a large storage hard drive. I've gathered quite a lot, and a standard chip just won't cut it."
Mercer appeared out of nowhere, and this time Lucy wasn't startled. She nodded immediately: "I'll go get it. Do I need to connect it to your server?"
Mercer replied, "Just find any networked facility. The entire base is under my control now."
"Understood." Lucy turned and went to get it.
"Everyone else, take the time to rest, eat something, drink some water. Help me detach that agent's prosthetics...no, I'll do it myself. Use a robot, just bring me the refrigerated container."
Mercer decided to spare these pale little hackers. If they actually tried, he feared they might vomit right there.
However, he felt perfectly fine right now, even great.
Kyoko nodded quickly. Just looking at the piles of mosaics in her vision made her queasy. She couldn't imagine dissecting one herself.
Tetsuya Daichi and Leon also breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, they didn't want to see the ground floor of the base littered with corpses. They swallowed hard, found a spot to sit down and rest.
Later, they saw a robot drop its weapon, pick up a refrigerated container, and take the scalpel that Kyoko had been carrying all along.
They got it from the medical room as Mercer had requested, then found the agent leader twisted like a pretzel.
Mercer coldly controlled the robot to cut along the spine, examining the experimental Sianwistan on him. He sighed a bit regretfully:
"A lot of the neural connections are fried, and some parts he even twisted himself, probably easy to break even if repaired... It's not for us to use. I'll practice on it on the way and find a buyer for it later.
This isn't a prototype, but laboratory-grade stuff is certainly worth some money. Just can't offload it casually, better save it for Dog Town."
He crudely removed the Sianwistan, threw it into the refrigerated container, closed the lid, and set the temperature.
Then he turned to the agent's hands, dissecting and examining them again without hesitation, nodding:
"This can be used, can sell later too... Such a shame. If I didn't have Single Molecule Line, I'd love to try out the Mantis Blade."
"Does anyone here want it?"
Mercer's virtual figure stood next to the operating robot, looking at them. The kids quickly shook their heads, fearing he might suggest attaching it to them.
"Alright, then it'll be sold. This thing is also quite rare and can definitely fetch over twenty thousand even in the black market."
Mercer contentedly put it in, as the kids' search for Money Chips yielded only just over two thousand Euros.
They currently only have an Arasaka Bank account, which will surely be frozen later, so they couldn't extract from the deceased's Brain-Computer Interfaces to access their virtual wallets... What a pity.
Thinking of this, Mercer casually searched the aunt's room with the remaining security robots... Sure enough, there was no Money Chip, but there was a custom version of the Kenshin pistol.
The color was the classic black and red, yet it had an additional red stripe on the barrel compared to the normal version.
The grip had a sakura pattern engraved on it. In a game, this would certainly be an epic-grade weapon, probably called... Kenshin Sakura Blossom Fall?
Mercer simply commanded the robot in the room to bring it along as well, sending it straight down by elevator, making the effort worthwhile.
A slight embarrassment—he'd just said it was the last time... Well, you see how it goes.
Next time, he'd search thoroughly before making such a statement.
Mercer quietly waited for Lucy to connect the external hard drive to the network, and immediately uploaded all the crucial data he'd gathered.
The camera outside the base finally captured the hovercar's silhouette, and Mercer promptly activated the security robots and drones on the ground floor for combat readiness.
He ran a round of friend-or-foe identification, changed permissions, enabling their auto-targeting capabilities, and began preparations for the final battle.
.....
"Captain, the call still instructs us to proceed as planned to enter through Cargo Entrance 2."
"Understood, prepare for landing."
A black hovercar, painted with the white Arasaka Company logo, descended slowly. As the massive metal door gradually lifted, the driver routinely drove the hovercar into the entrance checkpoint.
He instinctively glanced over, noticing the typically tightly managed post was being manned by two robots today, which prompted him to feel a pang of caution.
The driver inquired through voice command, "Where are the security personnel stationed here?"
"Under Director Tanino's orders, all security personnel, agents, and related staff must undergo a second security audit today.
Security facilities are temporarily monitored by security equipment. Please proceed to the unloading area after the inspection and wait for the receiving personnel to appear. Complete the transfer according to regulations."
As the robot's cold voice ended, the red scanning beam finally concluded.
"Identity verification unsuccessful. Please have the driver turn off the engine and step out of the vehicle with the passengers for identity inspection."
"Damn, is this for real? Captain, why don't you send a voice message to the director?"
The driver murmured hesitantly.
The transport team captain had already been sending messages with a furrowed brow, but received only one response.
[Director Tanino: I am in a meeting. A second audit of all base personnel is being organized today. Please leave a voicemail if needed.]
That adds up... but could Director Tanino's account have been hacked?
The transport team captain contemplated this, then simply nodded and ordered the driver to turn off the engine before stepping out of the vehicle fully armed.
However, before he could figure out what was happening, the next moment, weapons from two robots were already aimed at his head.
Before he could react, a hail of bullets from a raised turret-mounted machine gun behind him was faster than the robots raising their guns.
He was horrified to discover that all his prosthetics had been directly locked down — by Director Tanino's authority!? His prosthetic was locked by Director Tanino!?
In an instant, high-caliber machine gun bullets tore through his head.
The other two agents and the driver were directly gunned down by the security robots and airborne drones, with no chance to resist.
"Mercer! What do we do next!"
The prepared black-hat hackers rushed out at this moment, while several hidden robots and drones helped them with the heavy lifting.
Mercer's virtual image appeared:
"Open the driver's seat, get in, and connect the personal data line. I'll hack in using your relic chips, then sit in the hovercar, tidy up the belongings, and check my prosthetic."
"Got it!"
Upon hearing this, Lucy crawled into the cockpit and plugged in the data line.
The others immediately began transporting the equipment. Kyoko, lacking in strength, ran up first to help inspect the imported prosthetics.
There were five advanced bulletproof cold storage boxes, each the size of a storage box, on the transport vehicle. Before Kyoko could ask, Mercer sent her the passcodes, taken from Aunt Director's emails.
Kyoko glanced through them, then checked the count: "It's all here, nothing missing."
"Good, but why are these things so bulky when packed..." Mercer glanced helplessly at the hovercar's now crammed cargo area.
The hovercar used for transportation was Arasaka's most common type, with only a driver's seat and four other seats, along with a small trunk.
If it were just two people and five cold storage boxes, the space would be more than sufficient, but now it was four people plus a ton of equipment...
Luckily, the trunk was still empty. They tossed less fragile luggage inside and piled the prosthetic cold storage boxes in the middle of the seats. Fortunately, they were all kids, squeezing in managed to fit them all.
Using the connection Lucy inserted into the hovercar, Mercer quickly hacked its system and then ordered:
"You all sit in the back seats. I'll send a person with a robot later; toss him inside and take him along.
Ensure he's always unconscious; he can't wake up, but don't let him die—just keep him unconscious, I'll be there soon."
"Understood," Lucy and the others replied — they had long noticed Secretary Inoue, who was still unconscious and being carried by a robot.
Then, Mercer immediately started uploading automated programs to the server to keep the network turned off for everyone, postponing detection as much as possible.
He then began locking all employee room doors.
The reason he hadn't done it earlier was due to the noise it would cause. If someone was connected to a subnet or had special channels to alert, he might not catch it all.
After all, there were no cameras directly connected within employee bedrooms. Arasaka wasn't so perverse as to watch every employee sleep through cameras. Closing the door meant Mercer lost sensor access to the room.
But now it didn't matter. Even if alarms were triggered, by the time Arasaka investigated, he'd be long gone.
Lastly, he set up a self-destruct program for the server.
He hesitated for a moment before deciding to make it trigger-activated.
That is, if any employee room he locked were opened or if other network signals appeared, the server would overload destructively, burning itself out.
Subsequently, Mercer performed selective formatting, deleting all precious data and logs.
While deleting, his gaze paused briefly on the employee archive section.
Lucy's data flashed briefly, but certain special data that stood out from other black-hat hackers piqued his interest.
So, Mercer opened Lucy's file to examine it, and the information he found made him frown slightly.