United States
Pennsylvania, one of the original thirteen founding states of America, ranked sixth in the nation in population, with 12.7 million residents. Pittsburgh, located within the state, was the nation's largest steel industry center, while Philadelphia was America's fourth-largest city and the state's biggest industrial hub. The coal mining industry here was also highly developed, second only to West Virginia. Those abandoned mining towns stood as witnesses to Pennsylvania's once-glorious mining era.
In a town in the northeastern region, Michael had just returned to the FedEx warehouse when a tall black figure approached him.
"Hey, Michael, here's a job you absolutely have to take."
The tall black man grinned as he wrapped an arm around Michael's neck and stuffed a delivery slip into his arms, wiggling his eyebrows.
"My dear little runt, I'm sure you'll accept this job, right?"
"Uh..."
Michael, a skinny white man, did not dare resist at all. He answered weakly before unfolding the delivery form in his hands. The moment he saw the delivery address, he immediately understood what his black coworker meant.
Yellow Dog Village.
A place located about an hour away from their town. More importantly, it was an abandoned mining town. Why would anyone request deliveries to such a place? Aside from shady dealings, there was nothing else one could imagine. And the fate of couriers involved in shady transactions had already been perfectly explained by countless Hollywood movies.
"Heh, you know this damned job was originally assigned to me. If you can't complete it properly, I'm sure you can imagine the consequences."
The tall black man grinned as he pulled open one side of his jacket. A glossy black handgun sat tucked into his pocket.
Both the black man and Michael were FedEx couriers, each with their own assigned workload. The black man was simply forcing his own assignment onto Michael.
Normally, couriers hated delivering items to remote areas. However, since Yellow Dog Village had only been abandoned a few years ago, the damned programmers at FedEx still hadn't removed it from the delivery system. If the black man failed to deliver the package and received a customer complaint, there was basically no chance he would keep his job.
The cowardly Michael began trembling in fear the moment he saw the handgun. With his timid personality, there was no way he could refuse his coworker's demand. Helplessly, he climbed into the delivery van and headed toward the desolate mining town marked on the map.
Along the way, countless thoughts flooded his mind.
He thought about his younger sister, who had only just graduated from elementary school.
He imagined himself ending up like some insignificant side character in a movie, taking a bullet and dying just like that.
He imagined refusing the delivery and being beaten and threatened by the black coworker afterward.
His mind remained muddled the entire drive until he unknowingly entered the abandoned mining town of Yellow Dog Village via a road long left unmaintained.
On both sides of the road stood old, dilapidated wooden houses. Wild weeds climbed up their walls. Looking through the broken front doors into the dark interiors somehow gave off an inexplicable sense of dread.
Several old-model cars sat abandoned on the roadside, their exteriors looking as though they had been violently smashed with baseball bats. Even before the mining town had been completely deserted, criminals often gathered here. The heavily damaged buildings and facilities all bore traces of the violence they had left behind.
Michael swallowed nervously and slowed the van to a crawl. Following the address on the delivery sheet, he arrived in front of a rundown bar and began unloading the numerous packages from the back of the van one by one.
All of these packages carried high-value insurance, which meant Michael needed confirmation from the recipient before he could leave.
With trembling hands, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number.
The town remained deathly silent. There was not even the faintest sound of a ringtone.
"Rumble rumble rumble~!"
Just as Michael sighed in relief, a strange sound entered his ears.
A car?
No—more accurately, it sounded like tracks moving along the road.
Like a tank!
He hurriedly moved around the van to look toward the source of the noise. A mechanical tracked vehicle, only about half the size of his van, was slowly approaching.
Michael swore he had only seen something like this in movies before!
Compared to the black man's handgun, this tracked vehicle was the true steel monster.
Mounted atop it was a heavy Vulcan machine gun. Thick golden bullet belts the length of a palm hung from the side of the weapon into a large ammo box mounted beside the vehicle. Beside the Vulcan machine gun sat a long, thick black cannon barrel. Anyone with even basic common sense could tell that thing was designed to deal with tanks or armed helicopters.
The moment Michael saw the horrifying machine, his legs went weak and nearly gave out beneath him.
The appearance of this steel beast shattered all his fantasies. Possessing this level of firepower in America—even with legal firearms—was itself a major crime.
—It's over. They're going to silence me.
Michael wanted to run, but the gun barrel was already aimed at him, and the deep rumble of the engine left his legs powerless.
"Rumble rumble rumble rumble~!"
The tracked vehicle stopped in front of Michael. The oppressive presence at such close range left him frozen in place. He could practically see the rocket launcher mounted inside the side barrel.
"Click click~!"
The mechanical vehicle shifted forms. A small LCD screen extended outward, and words appeared on the dark display:
"Signature required?"
"Uh... y-yes! Sir!"
Michael stammered. He tried to hand over the signature form in his hands, but his trembling fingers lost their grip, and the paper fell to the ground.
Michael watched as another precise mechanical arm extended from the vehicle, picked up the form, and scanned the barcode attached to it as confirmation of receipt.
Michael weakly accepted the form back, finally sighing in relief—only to suddenly notice a triangular red infrared targeting laser pointed directly at his heart.
He looked up in shock and saw the Vulcan heavy machine gun mounted atop the steel vehicle aimed squarely at him, as though the next second a torrent of bullets would tear his body to shreds.
Another word appeared on the LCD screen:
"Goodbye."
"Whirrrrrrrrr~!"
The barrels of the machine gun began rotating.
Michael stood there dazed, clutching the delivery form, his mind completely blank.
"Bang bang bang bang bang!"
Crisp gunshots rang out.
Michael's body went limp and collapsed onto the ground. Staring blankly ahead, he saw six wooden sticks extending from the six rotating barrels of the machine gun. Attached to them were six newly issued one-thousand-dollar bills from the Bank of America, slowly unfolding before him.
The LCD screen displayed a smiling face alongside the words:
"Your tip."
······
Wrong movie set?
No.
Because this was Pennsylvania, United States, in the year 2063—the world where Kamiyā Yuu had once lived.
In this world, it had already been thirty years since the appearance of the legendary super hacker known online as "Blank." Within the internet of this world, Kamiyā Yuu's consciousness possessed terrifying computational capabilities. Even China's most powerful supercomputer, Sunway TaihuLight, could not compare to it.
Beyond developing the abilities of his consciousness space, Kamiyā Yuu had also consciously begun connecting to this world's network. After more than a decade of planning and manipulation through cyberspace, his hidden influence in this world was no less than that of certain superpowers.
It sounded absurd, but in reality, if Kamiyā Yuu wished, he could launch any nuclear missile in the world at any time.
Once one thought of it that way, things became much simpler.
Not content with merely stirring chaos online, Kamiyā Yuu purchased this abandoned American mining town and planned to create things that interested him.
As for why he chose America as his development base—
Everyone knew America was the land of freedom, where any capitalist could loudly proclaim their right to freedom.
Here, Kamiyā Yuu would not be bound by any laws whatsoever.
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T/N: Im i missing somthing here, so confused 😑