Chicago's industry is highly developed with a complete range of sectors, making it very suitable for opening a branch.
Harry had always wanted to find a place to expand his company and move production capacity outside of New York, to avoid the company being too heavily impacted after the Battle of New York.
Previously, it was because he had no way to control places that were too far away, but now, as long as he installed the power grid, Lening could control this area.
Therefore, he had always been curious about what was wrong with Chicago that it wouldn't allow the power grid to be installed.
"Mr. Osborn, thank you for coming to Chicago. There are many opportunities here, and many people want to meet with you."
Greeting Harry was the local mayor, a bloated, fat man.
Harry treated what he said as wind passing by his ears—this guy had been talking about who wanted to meet and negotiate with him and where banquets were going to be held ever since they met, which made Harry somewhat annoyed.
Sitting in the car, Harry suddenly saw a high-tech advertisement on a billboard across the street.
"Connect everything, embrace a smart life, and make the World a better place."
The next second, the ad screen became distorted—
Screech—the harsh sound of tires sliding on the ground made everyone's heart tense up. A blue car slammed hard into another white sedan. The traffic lights at the intersection suddenly flickered, and the traffic, which had been orderly just seconds ago, suddenly descended into chaos. A multi-vehicle pileup appeared before Harry!
In the midst of the chaos, a blood-covered man crawled out of the white sedan that had been hit first, looking panicked—
Immediately following this, a man stepped out of the blue car, wearing a baseball cap and a black scarf covering his face, holding a pistol in his hand.
Bang! This man killed someone in broad daylight on the street!
In the chaos, the man in the baseball cap walked to the side of the corpse, took a look, then immediately hijacked a motorcycle and disappeared into the confusion.
"What is going on! Get the Police—" Donald was clearly panicking. After shouting a couple of times at the person in the front seat, he hurriedly looked at Harry, wanting to explain something.
But he saw Harry smile, with an ambiguous meaning.
"Every city has outrageous criminals; I can understand that, Mayor Donald." Harry indicated that he would not be frightened. "It's just, is this ctOS system really as powerful as the ad says?"
Hearing this, Donald's face instantly flushed with excitement.
"Of course! Is Mr. Osborn interested in this?"
"Interested." He was very interested. "This is a great invention."
[Anomaly Item Discovered: ctOS (from the Watch Dogs series)]
[Description: A super central control system that integrates surveillance, the Internet of Things, data analysis and prediction, and precise targeting. In the hands of its owner, the city is just a large, movable toy.]
[Control or destroy ctOS in exchange for a technology.]
"Yes, I also think this is a very great invention!" Speaking of this, Mayor Donald was beaming.
It was by relying on this system and his Master that he managed to turn the tide and sit in the position of Mayor of Chicago.
While speaking, Donald hurriedly operated his phone a few times, instructing the control room to clear a route for the motorcade.
The street, which had been extremely chaotic just a moment ago, actually slowly cleared a path for Harry. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, ctOS also parted the traffic for Harry.
And Harry knew that this system could do more than just that.
As long as a device was connected to the network—in fact, with the promotion of ctOS, almost all devices in Chicago were connected to the network, even the heating valves on the street and the lift bridges connecting the city could all be operated in real-time.
Relying on ctOS, the developers also created a data prediction system called "Bellwether," used to predict various data, including lottery data, stock trends, and even everyone's probability of committing a crime.
Not only that, but it could also suggest and guide you to do what it wanted you to do by constantly pushing information.
For example, if it wanted you to divorce your husband, it would push information to you on how to test if your husband is cheating, what signs of cheating your husband might show, and even how the wife could obtain more property after the divorce; the same applied in reverse.
It was with the help of this system and the manipulation of the mastermind behind the scenes that Donald successfully turned the tide and was elected Mayor of Chicago.
And since Bellwether successfully predicted Donald's election, it was even easier to promote. The more data there was, the more it could do. One could imagine what kind of power this system would eventually possess.
This felt similar to how HYDRA used Dr. Zola to monitor the World after World War II.
"A magical system. The person who developed this system must be a genius. Perhaps I should take some time to go meet him."
"That's great! Actually, their investor also wants to meet with you."
Harry smiled. The person Donald was introducing to him was not the development team, but the "investor," who was also Donald's mastermind, Quinn, a very powerful gang leader.
However, Harry was not interested in Quinn. If things went smoothly, he wouldn't even need to meet with Quinn to resolve this matter.
"However, there are always some people who are not very smart and resist progress," Donald said with a sigh.
"Oh? That really is too stupid. Who are they?"
"A hacker organization called DedSec. They insist that we are infringing on citizens' privacy rights. This is simply nonsense!"
"Hmm, this system does indeed have that capability, so their concerns are reasonable. However, I believe you are certainly not that kind of person, right?"
"Of course. But if they were just opposing the promotion of ctOS, that would be one thing, but now they are also obstructing your company's projects in every possible way. Last week, they even openly blocked construction on-site!"
Harry now understood what the trouble Max was talking about was.
It seemed that this group of hackers thought that Osborn and Quinn, the mastermind behind ctOS, were in the same camp, or perhaps someone made them think that he and Quinn were in the same camp.
However, Harry was really not in the same camp as him; he had always disliked working with gangs.
Even if this gang had supported a mayor as a puppet, it was the same.
"Hmm, I think I understand where the problem lies."
Solving this matter is very simple: change the mayor and take down Quinn.
This was also what the protagonist Aiden Pierce did in the original work. What Harry needed to do now was to sponsor the original protagonist group and then recruit them to work for him.
Arriving at his residence, Harry sent Donald away and then called Hurley.
"Hurley, help me look into Blume Corporation. It should be an emerging tech company. How much would it cost to buy it?"
"What? Fine, you really are a willful CEO. I'll check."
Just then, Lening told Harry that there was an anomaly in his phone's operation—someone was hacking his phone.
Harry smiled and had Lening block the intrusion.
"This is an emerging information company with its main area of activity in Chicago. It doesn't look like they are short on money, but I think you need to pay attention:"
"Hmm, this company seems to have a lot of controversy. There is a hacker organization accusing them of using illegal methods to monitor citizens' privacy. Also," Hurley paused for a moment.
"They are hiring mercenaries with tainted backgrounds at high salaries to protect their facilities. Are you sure you want to buy it?"
"Then help me check which mercenaries they have hired and offer them a better contract. Also, help me look at private armed contractors near Chicago; I want to hire a few armed squads."
Taking it down is also fine; I am determined to get ctOS.
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