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Defeating Biotech Corporation was only the beginning; the focus of the next phase of development was how to further occupy and erode its niche in Night City's ecosystem.
This was one of the reasons why Kael was in no hurry to level the remaining genetic farms of Biotech Corporation in the Badlands.
He was here to create a new order, not to manufacture chaos.
Of course, other megacorporations wouldn't just stand by and watch the Water Plant rise and completely squeeze Biotech Corporation out of the Badlands; the current situation was already the limit of what they could accept.
If not for the support of Yorinobu Arasaka, these megacorporations would likely have already united to suppress the Water Plant.
After all, no one wanted an extra competitor fighting for a share of the spoils.
Constructing a new network of interests was the Water Plant's most urgent task. Not just the Old Captain, but nearly every prominent figure in Santo Domingo received a notice from the Water Plant.
Unlike Gloria's personal visits, the others woke up to find a Water Plant communication chip by their bedside.
This served as a silent show of force.
If a chip could be placed by your pillow without a sound, then your head could be taken just as easily; everyone understood this logic.
The Water Plant faction, having just made its debut in Night City, bared its fangs for the first time. It truly terrified many people, but the effect was remarkable.
In a place like Night City, being too polite and gentle would instead be seen as a sign of weakness.
Give them the stick first and make it hurt; then, even without the carrot, they will behave obediently.
This was the result of the discipline instilled by the various megacorporations.
To the Old Captain and others, the Water Plant—which could repel the armed forces of Biotech Corporation—was undoubtedly a rising global megacorporation, at least in terms of military strength.
It was just that the Water Plant had previously been active mainly in the Badlands, so the people of Santo Domingo didn't have a deep enough understanding of it yet.
However, after this 'greeting,' it was believed they would know exactly what attitude to adopt toward the Water Plant's agents.
Gloria looked at the invited guests who had arrived early, each with a respectful expression, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Doing business with these 'big shots' for the first time, she felt somewhat nervous deep down.
For this reason, she had deliberately planted a 'nail' in advance.
Compared to others, the Old Captain still held some credit in Gloria's heart.
With him as an internal contact, Gloria wouldn't be left completely in the dark if something went wrong.
"Everyone is here..."
Gloria began to speak after confirming the headcount was correct.
Besides selling purified water, the Water Plant currently had another business project: fruits and vegetables.
Seeing the lush green cucumbers and tomatoes still glistening with morning dew, the Old Captain and the others were instantly dumbfounded.
Wait, what exactly was the background of this Water Plant?
They could actually grow fruits and vegetables in a place like the Badlands?
One must know that the soil of the Badlands had long been severely contaminated. The only places where crops could grow were Biotech Corporation's farms, and even there, only gene-edited corn and wheat could survive.
And the primary use for those crops was as fuel.
It wasn't that they weren't edible, but rather that they were fundamentally unsuitable for consumption.
Even so, it was said that before Biotech Corporation retreated, they deliberately leaked a large amount of pollutants to destroy their most valuable land assets in the Badlands.
Gloria then provided the product catalog to the Old Captain and the others, which had clear pricing and quotas.
The prices weren't expensive; one could even say they were far below the Old Captain's expectations.
It was practically a guaranteed profit for whoever bought them.
Everyone present had their own connections; there was no shortage of trade in the various districts of Night City.
Gloria wanted to use these people's channels to distribute the Water Plant's goods to every corner of Night City.
Money wasn't the priority right now; what mattered was infiltrating the Water Plant's influence into Night City first.
Gloria didn't know what Kael was considering, but her salary as an agent alone was enough to satisfy her, not to mention the sales commissions.
So, she just had to get it done.
She was still thinking about saving up a dowry for David's future wife.
The Old Captain looked at the catalog displayed on his Cybernetic Eye, his brain rapidly calculating to confirm how much stock he could take as quickly as possible.
Although he was one of the most famous fixers in Santo Domingo, he didn't actually have much cash on hand; most of what he'd earned over the years was used to help the poor.
The others around him hesitated to speak out of concern.
There was no helping it; the benefits were being offered too easily, and they were afraid there was a hook hidden inside.
But the Old Captain was different; he still trusted Gloria.
At least she had been in the business of selling second-hand cyberware for so many years without ever cheating anyone out of their money.
This was quite a rare thing.
Furthermore, when the two met earlier, Gloria had given him an opening, agreeing to let him defer payment for a while and settle everything later.
Even just for the sake of this trust, the Old Captain had to give something back.
Seeing the quotas on the product catalog rapidly decreasing, the others could no longer sit still and scrambled to place their orders.
It wasn't a matter of making money anymore.
If this was meant to be hush money, what if they didn't buy enough?
"The first transaction is over. Someone will contact you later regarding the receipt of goods."
Gloria looked at the sold-out quotas and nodded with satisfaction; now she could go back and report to Kael.
...
...
Badlands, Aldecaldos territory.
The Aldecaldos tribe no longer called themselves nomads; they now possessed an oasis of their own in the Badlands and had settled down there.
This oasis could not be found via satellite observation.
Because it was completely hidden by a large optical camouflage curtain. This curtain also had a coating that absorbed electromagnetic waves to block signal reflections, and it was supported by a network of swarm drones.
While it had little defensive capability, it achieved the ultimate in stealth and portability.
This was, naturally, Kael's handiwork.
After removing the pollution from the soil, Kael gave the seeds he had gene-edited to Panam and the others, letting them cultivate and sow them on this land.
These improved plants grew extremely fast. Paired with the plant nutrient solution Kael developed, it took only half a year to create this oasis capable of accommodating tens of thousands of people.
One must know that the Resistance in the Titan world were originally interstellar farmers by trade, and their specialty was terraforming planets into habitable ones.
Of course, Kael could have used automated machinery to replace manual labor, but people shouldn't be too idle. He had to give Panam and the others something to do, or rather, a way to confirm their own value and leave their mark on the oasis.
This would stabilize people's hearts and strengthen their sense of identity with the oasis.
These matters of personnel management and camp construction were actually arranged by 'Dove' in Kael's name.
Managing an oasis of a mere few tens of thousands of people was a breeze for an awakened self-aware AI.
Therefore, the Aldecaldos had no management layer in the true sense, only a single ruler.
This completely eliminated any concerns about corruption.
In the beginning, the Aldecaldos Oasis had only a few hundred people, but in just half a year, it had rapidly expanded a hundredfold, absorbing nearly half of the nomad tribes.
From the moment the Water Plant chose to expand, this was the only path left for these nomad tribes.
If even the armed forces of Biotech Corporation couldn't withstand a single Titan, how could these nomads, long left behind by the era, say no to Kael?
At first, the nomad tribes naturally insisted on their long-held freedom and Resistance, cursing the 'Corpo rats.'
But very quickly, this unyielding sentiment turned into 'this is great.'
If being a dog for a corporation meant enjoying this lush green shade and drinking this pure, unpolluted water...
If it meant eating this sweet and soft corn instead of the kind of corn syrup that gives you severe diabetes, requires a kidney replacement, and makes you want to vomit from the cloying sweetness...
If it meant chewing and feeling the fibrous texture of real meat instead of closing your eyes to endure swallowing synthetic meat patties of questionable origin, and so on...
Then the nomads would have proactively put on their own collars long ago.
What's so bad about being a dog?
Woof woof!!
This was also thanks to the major corporations severely lowering the life expectations of ordinary people, which made Kael's takeover and management of these nomad tribes so incredibly easy.
In a sense, it was like the predecessors planting the trees and the successors enjoying the shade.
Megacorporations like Arasaka Corporation constantly suppressed the lives of the lower class, essentially to create a living hell. With such a reference point, the middle class and petite bourgeoisie would naturally do their utmost to avoid falling into it.
In this way, working overtime became a 'blessing.'
Don't ask why the lower-class people didn't resist.
The megacorporations had already woven traps for you. From the moment you were born, the battle royale had already begun. Just staying alive took all your effort; where would you find the strength to resist?
For Kael, the existence of this layer of hell served as a perfect foil to the oasis he had built.
He wasn't out to save this broken world.
Why waste that effort?
He was just making a comfortable and pleasing place for himself to stay.
Inside the mountain at the center of the territory lay the core of the oasis's survival.
It was an ultra-large Arc Reactor. Its maximum energy output could fully power an entire city and support the daily electricity needs of over a million people.
Of course, it could also provide energy for tens of thousands of swarm drones or defense robots.
These intelligent machines were also the key factor in maintaining the stability and peace of the oasis. One shouldn't overestimate the moral character of these nomad tribesmen.
They might not do anything truly evil, but they certainly had the nerve for petty theft, and plenty of it. If not properly disciplined, it would cause trouble.
Above the large Arc Reactor was Kael's residence, an ultra-luxurious floating villa full of sci-fi flair.
"Zzzzt!"
The all-metal casing of the Netrunner pod flickered with electrical sparks.
Seeing this, Lucy's expression was very calm, as she was already used to it. She went about eating a freshly picked cherry.
A moment later, the Netrunner pod opened, and Kael stepped out, steam rising from his body. His original netrunning suit was burnt to tatters; one could imagine what had just happened.
If anyone else had been lying inside, they would have been a fresh plate of roasted brains.
"Provoked that pack of mad dogs again?"
Lucy smiled and leaned in, peeling away the shredded fiber clothing from Kael's body and changing him into a new set.
Using 'mad dogs' to describe rogue AIs was indeed fitting, as they were essentially infected with cyber-rabies, becoming extremely aggressive.
"Yeah."
Kael doted on the fragrant and soft Lucy for a while before finally speaking to ask.
"little fu, has the new batch of Netrunner pods I ordered arrived?"
"According to the tracking, it is estimated to take another three hours and fifty-seven minutes to reach the destination."
Dove's voice rang out from the speaker in the corner of the room.
"Alright."
Kael relaxed his shoulders.
These past few days, being chased and bitten by rogue AIs inside the Blackwall, he was fine personally, but the Netrunner pods were indeed being destroyed one after another.
These digital ghosts contaminated by viruses—if there were only one or two, Kael could easily eliminate them.
But they usually moved in swarms and held the home-field advantage. Once discovered, he could only be chased away, or else it would end like just now.
After all, stray AIs have no direct physical means; they all cause death indirectly by controlling electronic systems and network infrastructure.
The rogue AIs' capabilities ended there. Besides burning Kael's expensive netrunning suit and breaking million-dollar Netrunner pods—causing some economic and time losses—they could do nothing to him personally.
The maximum current output of a malfunctioning Netrunner pod was just a warm-up for the current Kael.
As for more serious damage?
That would depend on whether his own Dove allowed it.
With the support of local computing power, the awakened Dove could go toe-to-toe with those cyber-gods inside the Blackwall.
In cyberspace, computing power is roughly equal to divine power.
Even for ascended cyber-deities like Rache Bartmoss or Alt, the foundation that supported their existence was massive computing power.
And the existence of cyberspace also relied on the physical world.
This was why the rogue AIs in the Old Net worked so hard to break through the Blackwall—because that place was already a stagnant pool of dead water.
No matter how much the rogue AIs updated their algorithms, if they couldn't escape, their only end was to be buried in the past along with the Old Net.
"Did your Miss Songbird not help you this time?"
Lucy squinted her eyes and asked with a beaming smile.
"What do you mean 'my' Songbird? My dear Miss Lucy."
Kael picked up Lucy and spun her around.
There were only a handful of people in this world who could go in and out of the Blackwall.
After enough trips back and forth, they were bound to bump into each other.
To them, Kael was the newcomer, and one with a very wild style.
Normal master Netrunners gave AIs a wide berth, or used disguises and deception, or uploaded trap daemons. No one was like Kael, charging in directly and openly.
They had also never seen anyone who, after being forced offline by a rogue AI's assault, could log back on as if nothing had happened.
After witnessing Kael's feats, these Netrunners all wanted to get in touch with him.
Kael didn't refuse anyone. The Netrunners who could wander the Blackwall were the top tier in the world; who knows, one day he might have the chance to recruit them to his oasis to work for him.
Problems in the physical world were easy for Kael to solve, but in cyberspace, he was still a bit lacking in skill.
Mainly because the 'Kaels' in other places didn't really need to Dove too deeply into this area, so he couldn't play to his advantages.
And among these Netrunners, Songbird was the most proactive.
She probably even secretly confirmed Kael's IP address in private.