Mercer decided to give Lark a surprise—primarily to let her understand whose territory Dog Town is now. Flexing some muscles first makes negotiations easier, and for the New Americans, this has been a way Mercer never tires of using.
Although it's highly likely that the other party has already mastered the Black Wall's gateway protocol and can use the Black Wall to manipulate others, Mercer, with his technical prowess, is on guard.
Not to mention using the Black Wall gateway, even if the Black Wall AI loses its mind and targets him, he is confident he can safely go offline.
Uh, confronting it is out of the question; the servers hosting the Black Wall AI would probably have to be measured on a city scale, and no matter how strong Mercer's skills are, he cannot withstand being overrun by sheer numbers.
Always fond of using numbers to outmatch others, Mercer knows the drill well and would never give others the chance to outpower him computationally.
Just in case, he called the still angry Lucy back, asking her to wait for Venus's signal. If anything unexpected happens, she should disconnect Mercer immediately, while switching the servers back to local mode.
Once preparations were complete, Mercer dived deep and headed straight for the Netherworld Dog's server domain.
Mercer had just leaped to the opponent's IP when he noticed, amidst a pile of data, a short-haired woman.
At this moment, she looked at him with both surprise and caution. However, as a top-tier hacker, she did not disconnect immediately upon being discovered, unlike ordinary hackers. Instead, she eyed Mercer with interest, and after a once-over, took the initiative to speak:
"I guess you're the A."
In the Cyber World, her attire was rather ordinary. She wore a Street Kid-style jacket, long sleeves, and pants, looking as if she was just in her early twenties—though in the real world, she was already around thirty-something.
"Lark, I've heard a lot about you." Mercer directly revealed her name as well, and the mask on his face displayed a standard pixelated cartoon smile.
"Oh, you know my name? I thought not many hackers were still familiar with me." Lark was visibly more surprised, her eyes were slightly aglow, clearly scanning through data.
In just a short exchange, Lark marveled: "So you discovered me a long time ago and even planted a detection program in the server... Not bad programming skills. I didn't notice it."
"Maybe you're just getting old and rusty?" Mercer crossed his arms, tilted his head with interest: "So, tell me, what brings you to my turf?"
"Your turf?" Lark was amused and retorted: "Isn't this Hansen's territory? To be precise, before Hansen and you arrived here, this place has always been my territory."
"So, after narrowly escaping death to run back to Washington, why come back?" Mercer asked nonchalantly.
However, Lark looked at him cautiously: "You seem to know more than I expected... These matters aren't something a street hacker can casually know about."
Before New America decided to sign the ceasefire agreement, Lark, as a senior agent of FIA, along with agents like Li De and Alex, was ordered to establish strongholds in Taiping Prefecture of Night City.
However, with the ceasefire agreement unexpectedly signed, they all became pawns—Arasaka agents began clearing out the Military Science and New America intelligence forces in the city.
To survive, Lark even had to sell out Li De to get the chance to withdraw and narrowly escape death.
Li De, on the other hand, was ambushed by Arasaka agents on the train home, shot several times, but unexpectedly spared and survived.
The one who spared him was none other than New America's President Miles, perhaps considering that loyal dogs are hard to find, and also considering that New America needed to leave some secret hands in Night City, found a way, through unknown means, to save and keep Li De.
All of this is very confidential information, the conflicts between Arasaka and New America's agents are top secret, and Mercer, a mysterious little hacker, could know these things?
This had to make Lark instinctively begin to speculate that perhaps Mercer's identity was far more complex than they had investigated.
"Is there anything in this world a hacker wants to know but can't discover?" But Mercer just smiled: "As long as something exists, it leaves a trace."
Lark warned: "I don't know where you got this information, but here's a kind word of advice—often, the more curious a hacker is, the more likely they are to find themselves courting death.
You have no idea what you're investigating and what you're facing!"
"It's nothing more than various companies coming after you, coercing, and enticing you, threatening your personal safety, or using your family, friends, or loved ones..."
Mercer shrugged, the data around him surged and coalesced into two sets of sofas and a coffee table within the server.
He casually sat on the sofa and nonchalantly said: "That's about it, why, are you unhappy working for New America? I've heard you're currently the most important hacker around Miles."
Mercer said meaningfully: "Given your current status, you shouldn't need to secretly use a network line to hack into Night City to dig data..."
Lark silently stared at him for a moment, then smiled, sat on the sofa, and revealed a slightly wistful smile: "Indeed, working beside the Madam President is no easy task."