Some time before the Ghostfire Syndicate's attack.
A petite girl with a playful, adorable appearance was reflected in a mirror. She wore a tight black leather suit with the image of a blue mechanical rabbit head embroidered across the chest.
Her short hair curled adorably at the ends, and an exaggerated pair of pink-and-blue goggles rested over her eyes.
She walked up to the mirror, struck a cool pose at her reflection, then pushed the goggles onto the top of her head.
The mirror began making startup sounds. Once the progress bar reached 100%, Bronya stepped into the mirror.
This mirror was an immersive virtual-reality system purchased locally in Dusk City. In terms of both technology and user experience, it even surpassed the commercial immersive VR equipment used by the Mad Hatter organization.
After Haxxor Bunny Bronya arrived in this city, Vill-V had not assigned her any particular tasks.
Since she had nothing else to do, Bronya hacked into the city's darknet and started taking a few small jobs.
In this cyberpunk-dominated metropolis, legendary hackers were highly sought after, and Bronya soon began receiving one commission after another.
She completed them casually and easily earned a large amount of extra money.
"Hm?"
Bronya's fingers hesitated slightly above the screen.
Bronya keenly noticed a mission involving "disconnecting a router from the network," but its firewall system far exceeded the specifications of any ordinary router.
The IP address and access point were both correct, but judging from the data flow, no matter how she looked at it, this thing did not resemble a router at all!
A router that could breathe fire, cut people apart, fly, discharge electricity, run air conditioning... basically do everything except function as a router?
Did city people really play around this wildly?
"And this encryption method is completely bound to the intercity integrated AI network. There's no way to alter it unless I hack into the intercity network..."
"This mission looks pretty interesting."
Bronya's voice was crisp and pleasant, her eyes sparkling with eager excitement. "But the reward really is too low. Twenty thousand credits just to have Bronya infiltrate the intercity integrated network? Are they tossing scraps to a beggar? Since the mission itself sounds exciting enough, Bronya can consider giving them a little discount."
...
Back to the present.
Inside the Black Box, several thousand meters above the ground.
Jeffries' perceived temperature had already dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius. If the right half of his body had not been mechanically reconstructed, he would have been unable to move long ago.
Then, after receiving his body's condition data through the chip implanted in his brain, he suddenly laughed.
"Hahaha! Just as I thought. Aside from those mod functions, all of the powered combat suit's primary systems are operating normally."
His tone was filled with arrogance and mockery. "The core systems of Heliopolis Life Sciences' combat suits are directly connected to Heliopolis' integrated AI network, Connected Entity. No hacker can possibly break into it! The most you can alter are a few additional modules I installed myself."
The composure on the command captain's face gradually disappeared. Only now did he realize that the hacker he hired had screwed him over.
She had taken twenty thousand credits from him and only modified a few additional modules?
The command captain quickly ran through "Haxxor Bunny's" legendary record in his mind.
The legendary hacker known as "Haxxor Bunny" had become a legend through unbelievable feats such as infiltrating the United Nations' sixth-generation security matrix during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference.
Yet that was not what she was most famous for. Her most famous incident was giving a completely nonsensical speech in front of a crowd of programmers who considered themselves the best in the world during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference—
Because she had just finished playing a game before hacking into the conference and had forgotten to mute her microphone.
And that group of supposedly world-class programmers had actually been utterly humiliated by a careless girl who could not even remember to mute her mic. It was embarrassing beyond belief.
I should've remembered that this "Haxxor Bunny" was unreliable. It's all because the cache on my brain implant wasn't set to clear automatically.
"Fuck your mother! Give me my money back!"
The command captain hurriedly opened the hacker-job settlement and after-sales page on his retinal display. At that moment, he noticed the "Haxxor Bunny" symbol flashing under Messages.
Only then did he see the message "Haxxor Bunny" had left him. "An intercity integrated AI network requires quantum-level computing power to deal with... You'll have to pay extra!"
Although the command captain had been complaining nonstop and trying to dump the blame on Bronya, this mess was fundamentally his own fault for failing to explain the difficulty and target clearly when contacting "Haxxor Bunny."
He had even falsely described the project, claiming it was merely an old company router that needed to be hacked and would pose no difficulty.
The command captain's reasoning had seemed wonderful to him. Since the powered armor uses the integrated AI network, it should work like a router module too. If I cut off its network connection, wouldn't the entire powered armor become useless?
Naturally, placing the order under those requirements resulted in a low quote from "Haxxor Bunny."
The fact that "Haxxor Bunny" had been willing to plant a backdoor control program into the powered armor's additional modules was already an extra discount Bronya had thrown in.
After receiving the router module's control program, the command captain blocked communications from "Haxxor Bunny" and never confirmed the exact situation with her.
After all, he knew he was in the wrong and was afraid "Haxxor Bunny" would demand additional payment.
That twenty thousand credits had only been the deposit!
The actual fee was dynamically adjusted based on the difficulty of the mission!
And there was no point complaining that it was expensive. Real-world hackers were not like the ones in animation who could penetrate heavily secured networks just by moving their fingers. Every program had to be calculated and coded by the hacker personally.
It was work even more likely to make someone lose their hair than ordinary programming. To bypass or breach a firewall without any preparation, one needed greater reasoning ability than the person who designed that firewall in the first place. Only then could they discover vulnerabilities that even its designer had never considered.
An intrusion program aimed at a specific target required even more detailed planning and coding to achieve a flawless infiltration.
Bronya had no desire to conduct an imperfect intrusion that triggered alarms or left behind telltale traces in the program.
"Pay extra? I'm just a soldier! Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?!"
The position of frontline commander in the Mobile Response Division looked extremely lucrative, but in reality, employees were still exploited at every stage by Heliopolis Life Sciences and its associated companies.
After all, this was Dusk City, paradise for capital!
Naturally, employee wages had to be circulated internally. How could they possibly allow profits to flow outside the system?
Everything they gave you had to be handed straight back without a cent missing.
Even for a scrap of toilet paper, you had to pay credits into the toilet's POS terminal. Otherwise, forget about leaving.
Cyber-exploitation was everywhere.
"Fuck, those bastards in Heliopolis Life Sciences' upper management really did tacitly approve this, but they seriously aren't giving me a single bit of help." The command captain immediately began considering retreat. He desperately wanted revenge, but only under circumstances where he held an absolute advantage. Compared to his desire for revenge, his own life was far more important.
But Jeffries suddenly charged toward him. He could not allow this traitor to escape so easily.
In truth, the arrogance Jeffries had displayed earlier had only been an act meant to intimidate him!
Even if only the armor's additional modules had been compromised, the effects on Jeffries were still profound... After all, several of those modules were literally connected to his vital parts!
Before the Mantis Squad captain could react, Jeffries roared and rammed him into the corner of the wall.
Crash!
Jeffries drew a folding greatsword from behind his back and prepared to cut down the Mantis Squad captain.
At that critical instant.
A girl's crisp scream suddenly came from above their heads. "Hey, hey, hey! Slow down, Big Bird!"
A red meteor smashed through the wall.