Chris Processing Plant was an electronics assembly factory located in the Watson district.
By Night City standards, this factory was far from small, employing nearly two hundred workers.
The electronic devices it produced were not only sold locally but, thanks to Night City's extremely low business taxes and labor costs, were also exported to NorCal, SoCal, and other neighboring independent states as decent-quality, low-priced electronics.
Benefiting from Night City's uniquely favorable business conditions, the factory hardly ever lacked orders and even had its own independent brand.
They purchased low-cost electronic components from corporations to assemble affordable devices like agents, tablets, and electronic displays, primarily profiting from the low-end market that larger companies struggled to penetrate.
However, anyone familiar with this processing plant knew:
The reason it could sell its products at such low prices while maintaining stable profits, even making its owner a fortune, was certainly not due to technological or sales prowess.
Behind these cheap products lay the blood and tears of countless child laborers sold into servitude.
Every year, Chris Processing Plant "hired" a group of children aged 12-15 through various channels.
Some of these children came from gangs, others from their own parents.
As long as they passed a physical examination, these children were purchased for around 10,000 eddies and put on the assembly line as workers.
These children were subjected to forced labor under near-prison conditions: waking at 7 AM, starting work at 8 AM, and finishing at 9 PM, with only one day off per year.
As for wages? None.
Every child would earn zero income until the age of 18, as most of their "pay" was forcibly taken by the factory as "tuition" for technical training.
The remainder went to the "supervisors" who had delivered them there.
After turning 18, they were forced to sign a lifetime employment contract, with a monthly salary of less than 100 eddies for the first 10 years, increasing gradually thereafter.
However, unless they were exceptionally lucky and promoted to management, most employees would "resign unexpectedly" the night before their pay raise, some suddenly lost the ability to work, while others were fired and sued for compensation due to "accidents."
Some of the less fortunate simply died in factory accidents.
Want to leave? Then you'd have to pay a massive penalty; the factory was required to pay at least 50,000 eddies to terminate the contract.
Where would you get 50,000 eddies? Naturally, "helpful" gangs like the Maelstrom, based right in Watson, would offer you a loan, with monthly repayments required.
If you ultimately couldn't pay off the debt, you could go work at the Maelstrom's food processing plant or become a "test subject" for their cyberware modifications, repaying with your body.
This was the truth behind Chris Processing Plant's high-quality, low-cost products. But in Night City, no one cared.
Night City was happy that the factory solved resident employment issues, and their employment contracts' total value even helped raise the average wage.
Large corporations also dump their low-end products into processing plants, leveraging cheap production contracts to turn a profit.
The gangs entrenched in Night City further guarantee a steady supply of workers for these plants.
This particular processing plant, operating year-round, has thrived in Night City for over two decades by feeding on the blood and tears of child laborers.
Yet, this cycle of exploitation was destined to end today.
At this moment, the sky was just beginning to dim with the approach of dusk. In Watson, the district's assortment of aging factories continued running at full capacity, spewing noxious fumes into the air, the acrid, smoky stench that defined Watson's unique aroma.
Their previous operation vehicle had been sent to El Capitán for a fresh coat of paint and updated registration at City Hall. Once rebranded, it would return to the garage as good as new.
For this mission, Mercer and the team were riding in V's personally owned Archer Hella EC-D i360, outfitted with bulletproof bodywork and windows, as they arrived in Watson.
Upon reaching the factory perimeter, no one rushed into action. Instead, they all turned to look at Kiwi.
This operation was entirely hers to command and execute; the rest were there purely as her protection detail.
V and Rebecca knew little about Kiwi's past, only catching fragments of stories about how Mercer had rescued her from a dollhouse.
They didn't understand why they were targeting this factory or the reasons behind Kiwi's thirst for revenge, but they had followed without hesitation nonetheless.
After taking a deep breath, Kiwi spoke calmly: "My targets are the foremen, the manager, and the owner of this factory. I know the workflow and layout inside, so follow me through the high-level staff entrance at the back. We don't need a bloodbath, just slip in quietly, neutralize the manager first, then use his authority to summon the foremen and other management for a meeting. After that, I'm burning this place to the ground. As for the owner, I'm not sure if he's here today. If he isn't, I'll wait until he shows up to inspect the damage after getting the news, and then I'll hack his brain myself."
"Your call," Mercer replied without objection. Even if she'd wanted to storm the front gates, he wouldn't have hesitated to order V to ram right through them.
Kiwi nodded. Beneath her jacket, her netrunning suit already felt warm against her skin, her heart racing even before she'd begun any hacking. The closer she got to the factory, the more an indescribable urge surged within her.
She directed V to park near the back entrance, then pushed the car door open and stepped out.
Mercer and the others followed her to the rear of the sprawling factory complex.
As they walked, Kiwi explained in a tone layered with complexity: "This back door is only for management. It connects to the employee dormitory. See that two-story building?"
She gazed up at the structure, most of its rooms still dark, and said softly, "There are dozens of dorm rooms inside. Regular workers sleep ten to a room, each with just a bed. They only have electricity from 9 to 11 PM for washing up and using the toilets. The second floor on the right, where the lights were still on, was the so-called management dormitory. They had single rooms with independent 24-hour hot water and electricity. When I was a kid, my dream was to move from the ten-person shared room to there."
V cautiously asked, "You used to be here?"
"Yeah, before I was resold, I was here." Kiwi didn't hide it, just stared at the small building, especially the window that was still lit, shook her head, and walked to a spot not far from the back door entrance.
The security at the back door was quite tight; four guards in total. Two were sitting in the surveillance room, and two were stationed at the door, each holding a rifle. There were even two automatic turrets positioned right at the entrance.
"The security here looks tighter than Maelstrom's," Rebecca remarked with a click of her tongue.
Kiwi just watched coldly: "Because there was a mass escape incident before. A few guards and over a dozen workers died. That's why security is so strict now."
"But inside the building, there's almost no security. They now use something like doll chips to control the workers. Anyone who resists or disobeys just gets their chip activated to neutralize them, and then they're punished."
"Is this a prison or a factory? How did it end up like this?" Rebecca was surprised. Actually, when she first saw that the workers had dormitories, her initial thought was that the factory's conditions seemed pretty good.
Jobs that provided food and shelter were rare in Night City.
"A combination, a prison factory," Kiwi sneered, summing it up. Then, her cybereye lit up.
Her method was brutal and direct; hack the automatic turrets, seize control. In an instant, the two turrets, which had been on standby, suddenly swiveled their barrels and opened fire.
The two guards stationed at the door didn't even realize what was happening before they were torn in half by machine gun bullets fired from behind them.
The two guards in the security room realized a netrunner had attacked and immediately ducked under the desks, trying to reboot the security system. But the automatic turrets had already turned their barrels toward the security room and began spraying bullets.
Their fate was naturally gruesome; the reason automatic turrets were called turrets was because the caliber of their machine guns felt like being hit by artillery shells to ordinary people.
The bulletproof glass shattered after a few rounds, and soon the entire room was riddled with holes. The two guards only had time to let out a few agonized screams before their cries were drowned out by the roar of the automatic turrets.
Only when the turrets ran out of ammunition, emitting the clattering sound of automatic reloading, did Kiwi stop. Expressionless, she walked in through the back door.
Rebecca nudged Mercer's thigh with her elbow. "Won't the people inside notice?"
"She used a virus to block internal communications. As for the gunshots, I'm guessing everyone's in the factory right now. Even if the gunshots from the back door carry over, they might not raise any alarms."
Mercer glanced around as he spoke. Given the factory's remote location, there wasn't a soul in sight, so there was no need to worry about anyone noticing and calling the police.
Or even if someone did, Kiwi probably wouldn't care; this was Watson, Night City's northernmost industrial district on the edge. Even if the NCPD showed up, it'd likely be over ten minutes later.
Kiwi walked inside without a word, picked up the conspicuous corpse at the entrance, and tossed it into the shabby security booth for some cover. Rebecca and V both lent a hand.
Once the scene was somewhat concealed, at least enough to prevent anyone driving by from immediately noticing the dead body, Kiwi headed straight into the dormitory building.
Mercer promptly chose to follow. Without looking back, Kiwi entered the dimly lit dormitory lobby and made her way up the stairs to the second floor.
As she walked, her eyes occasionally scanned left and right. The unchanged scenery, identical to her memories, made her expression grow increasingly cold. Reaching the second floor, she turned inward and soon stopped in front of a room.
Faint, indecent sounds could be heard from inside.
Kiwi simply knocked on the door.
Mercer and V exchanged glances. The two women positioned themselves on either side of the door, pressed against the wall, ready to act if anything went wrong. Mercer took a few steps back, keeping watch over the eerily quiet dormitory hallway.
The sounds inside abruptly ceased.
"Who is it?" a man's flustered voice called out.
Kiwi remained silent and continued knocking.
After a moment, footsteps approached, and the automatic door slid open, revealing a disheveled middle-aged man.
The moment he saw Kiwi, he froze, then his expression shifted to one of mocking amusement. "Well, if it isn't my little Kiwi. What, couldn't cut it at the dollhouse? Finally realized you need a man after all?"
Kiwi tilted her head slightly, her gaze fixed on the man's face. Under his wary stare, she pulled out a pack of ladies' cigarettes, took one, and asked, "Got a light?"
"Enough with the act. Who are they? Let me tell you, if you're here to cause trouble..."
Before he could finish, he suddenly cried out in pain as if struck, stumbling backward and collapsing. From the bedroom of the studio apartment, a young woman peeked out. The moment she saw Kiwi, her face paled, and she quickly retreated, slamming the bedroom door shut.
Kiwi's cybereye glowed faintly, a scornful smile curling on her lips. "Only now do I truly understand how weak a piece of trash like you really is."
She planted a foot on the man's chest, leaning down slightly to stare directly into his eyes. "Do you have any idea how much suffering you've caused me?"
"I, I'm sorry! I'll pay you back, okay? I'll compensate you! I apologize!"
Only then did the man realize what was happening; he'd been hacked. Not some petty netrunner mischief online, but a direct, in-person Quickhack!
The speed was so overwhelming that his neural link had only just begun to alert him before the program had already invaded his mind. In that instant, he understood that the Kiwi before him was nothing like the person he once knew.
Moreover, the emergence of V and Rebecca from behind Kiwi made it painfully clear just what kind of trouble he'd stumbled into.
This... this was a professional hit squad!
"Heh." Kiwi let out a cold laugh and suddenly drew something from the back of her netrunning suit. Thinking it was a gun, the man flinched instinctively, only to realize it was a BD wreath.
"Rebecca, give me a hand. Find something to tie him up with."
Kiwi spoke, and after a moment's thought, Rebecca chose the simplest and most brutal method: "How about breaking all four limbs and tying him up by the neck?"
"Good." Kiwi nodded, readily agreeing.
"No, please, I..." The man screamed in terror, scrambling backward to get away, but before he could finish, Rebecca roughly grabbed his calves and snapped them both.
"Ahhh!!" He let out an inhuman, piercing shriek, so terrifying that even the girl hiding in the bedroom couldn't hold back her muffled sobs.
V, with her sharp hearing, warned, "She seems like she's about to jump out the window."
"No worries, I locked down her system. It's Mercer's Quickhack; she can't do anything."
Kiwi watched with a mocking expression as Rebecca broke the man's limbs, then roughly used the blanket from the sofa to tie his neck to one corner of the couch, securing it with a tight knot.
In his agony, he tried to twist away, only tightening the noose around his neck. With all four limbs broken and no strength left, he could only let out miserable pleas: "Spare me! Please! Kiwi!"
"There's one thing you said that I think actually makes sense, I do understand now how important it is to find the right man."
Kiwi stared at him coldly and said softly, "This BD wreath has been modified using the program he taught me; it's an XBD I specially picked out for you in Kabuki. It loops through several different intense ways to flatline."
"I adjusted the pain threshold settings of the BD, which means this wreath will let you experience one hundred percent of every sensation, and it won't stop even if you lose consciousness."
"I'm curious; how many rounds do you think you can last before you flatline?"
"No, please, I, I'm so sorry! Please, I have a daughter, I still have..."
Before he could finish, Kiwi roughly shoved the BD wreath onto his head, then, unusually losing her composure, clenched her fist and slammed it hard into his still-talking mouth.
"You dare say you have a daughter? Animal! How old was I when you made me 'entertain' you, huh?" She yelled angrily, punching his face again and again.
Unable to dodge, the man had two of his front teeth knocked out, one half even embedding itself in the back of Kiwi's hand. She didn't know the proper way to throw a punch or hit someone; strictly speaking, this was the first time in her life she had thrown a full-force punch.
But Kiwi felt no pain, only rage as she gripped his neck, forcing him to look up at her: "Do you have any idea what kind of life I lived in the dollhouse? You piece of shit!"
"Not only am I going to kill you, I'm going to find your daughter and make her suffer everything I went through! You bastard, I want to watch you die with my own eyes!"
"No, please, I beg you..." He was crying and pleading, snot and tears streaming down his face, but before he could finish, the BD wreath forcibly activated. The modified wreath Kiwi had prepared had no exit button.
Then, his eyes involuntarily closed as his vision switched to the BD. The pain from reality temporarily faded, replaced by the sight of a middle-aged man in a white suit with yellow skin.
The yellow-skinned man was speaking Japanese, yet strangely, the man could understand every word.
"Alright folks, now presenting the ultimate scorching pain experience! If you've ever wondered what it feels like to be burned to death by boiling oil... well, you'd better brace yourselves!"
"My dear customers, please remember to turn down your BD wreath's Pain Editor. Otherwise, I'm afraid you might not live to see our next flatline BD."
The man in the white suit laughed heartily before the perspective in the BD began frantically looking around in terror, until a barrel of bubbling hot oil came into view.
No. No. NO!!
The man's screams vanished as neural impulses in the BD wreath, but the cold machinery continued playing the BD content exactly as programmed.
At this moment, Kiwi was staring intently at the man's real-world expression.
As his body began convulsing violently, mouth gaping open with hoarse gasps, shaking as if electrocuted, she finally revealed a cruel, satisfied smile. She stood up and casually pulled out the half-embedded incisor from the back of her hand, tossing it aside.
After taking a deep breath, Kiwi rose and turned toward the bedroom. Her cybereye glowed as she hacked the residential electronic door lock, a trivial matter for someone of her skills.
In less than three seconds, the electronic door clicked open. Kiwi stepped inside to find the girl lying paralyzed on the floor, face frozen in terror.
She wore only underwear, the bed was in disarray, clearly showing what she'd been doing with the man earlier. The air still carried an unpleasant odor.
"Please... don't kill me... I didn't do anything, Kiwi, please..." she begged, her face pleading.
Kiwi simply stared at her. "You were the one who told me to persevere back then... So why are you lying here now?"
"He... he sold you out. I was scared," the girl stammered, voice trembling as she begged Kiwi: "Please, stop my chip... it hurts so much..."
As a factory worker, her brain contained a repurposed doll chip that Kiwi had taken control of with a virus. Not only was she paralyzed, but the chip continuously stimulated various pain receptors, putting her through unbearable agony.
"Is that so?"
Kiwi coldly sneered, walking over to pinch the girl's face, staring intently into her eyes. "You know what he said when he sold me out?"
"He said 'This ungrateful bitch doesn't know what's good for her. If you won't do it, plenty of others will.' Guess who that 'willing someone' might be?"
Kiwi's grip on the girl's face tightened gradually. To the girl, Kiwi's current appearance and voice felt as chilling as a venomous snake hissing.
"He's the type who changes partners frequently. You've been with him for years, yet still need to rely on this chip... Ha, you're truly pathetic."
Kiwi's mocking words made the girl break into sobs. She turned to seek mercy from Rebecca, who stood behind Kiwi looking younger than the others, hoping this accomplice might show some compassion.
She'd judged correctly; despite Rebecca's often fierce appearance, she was actually the softest-hearted among Mercer's crew.
However, even the most compassionate Rebecca now coldly turned away, refusing to look at her.
"Please, I had no other choice. I just don't want to die, don't want to suffer."
She pleaded, "Please, you gentlemen and ladies, let me go. I really haven't done anything wrong. Look at what I've ended up with; what kind of life is this? All I have is a life where, while others are at work, I have to be their personal doll. Please, spare me, Kiwi. My life is no better than yours."
But Kiwi only felt disgust. She released her grip and shoved her aside forcefully, her cybereye gleaming. "Fine, I'll set you free."
"No, don't, you bitch! You'll burn in..."
The girl's expression shifted wildly before she finally broke down into curses, but her words were cut short as they turned into screams. Her neural link began to overheat, eventually scorching her brain's nerves.
The chip and electronic components in her head ignited, spreading flames up her entire neck.
She wailed and cursed miserably in the fire, but not a single coherent word could be made out.
"Tsk, still had the money for cosmetic surgery... That faceplate doesn't come cheap," V remarked with a click of her tongue, immediately seeing through the lies of the woman whose head was now ablaze.
For her head to burn like that, it was all thanks to the dense circuitry hidden beneath her skin, a type of facial reconstruction typically only attempted by joytoys.
Kiwi stood up expressionlessly, her lips pressed tightly together. After a moment, she said, "Let's go. We're burning this factory down."
"How do we do it?" Rebecca asked cautiously. "Before we start the fire, we need to find a way to evacuate everyone. There are hundreds of people in this factory."
"I know," Kiwi replied flatly.
Rebecca added, "I know, but if a factory this big catches fire, NCPD will respond quickly, and there'll definitely be a lot of them."
"Leave it to me. I'll have Morning Star lock down all emergency communications in this area. From now on, not a single distress call will get through within the entire factory grounds."
Only after Mercer spoke did Rebecca feel reassured. "Then where do we get the fuel?"
"The backup generator room here stores large quantities of CHOOH2," Kiwi said, rising and heading out.
Mercer reached out and patted Rebecca's shoulder. "Don't worry. Kiwi must have been planning this for a long time. Nothing will go wrong. Just trust her."
"I know... It's just, well..."
Rebecca felt that her questioning might seem like a lack of trust in Kiwi, so she admitted honestly, "I'm just afraid she might be too emotional."
Kiwi had indeed seemed somewhat unfamiliar earlier; usually so quiet, yet today unexpectedly fierce.
"I'm perfectly calm," Kiwi even had the leisure to turn and flash her a satisfied smile before standing in the living room, watching the man's suffering with a look of pure gratification.
At that moment, the man in the living room, still under the influence of the BD wreath, silently gaped as if screaming.
His body shuddered violently from time to time, then trembled and fell still, trapped in a cycle of agony, awaiting the inevitable flatline.
XBDs are called "black" not only because of their illicit nature but also due to their dark, unregulated content.
On the other hand, due to its excessively intense content, sometimes surpassing the limits of human neural tolerance, even the most thrill-seeking XBD enthusiasts often avoid setting the BD's realism level too high.
Some even block pain sensations entirely, solely to experience emotional impacts like "despair."
This man, however, was granted no such mercy. To ensure his suffering met her requirements, Kiwi had personally experienced parts of it herself, all to guarantee his death was sufficiently agonizing.
A one hundred percent authentic death experience, cycling through various ways to die repeatedly; this manner of meeting death was something many XBD fanatics dreamed of.
As they put it, dying this way was equivalent to dying over a dozen times, essentially netting themselves more than ten extra lives!
Kiwi pulled another cigarette from the pack and casually picked up the lighter from the living room. This classic metal-cased fluid lighter was expensive, its silver exterior adorned with an intricate angel design.
After lighting the cigarette, she tucked the lighter into a small pocket on her netrunning suit.
"Let's go."
Kiwi took one last glance at the still-twitching man and uploaded a timed program into his neural link. Once the countdown ended, as long as the neural link remained functional, it would fry his brain, a failsafe to ensure his inevitable death.
Then, she strode off, leading Mercer and the others out of the dormitory.
"Is there no one else in this building?" Rebecca asked, glancing around.
"No. He's the factory manager now, and given his management style, the foremen are still at the factory overseeing the workers."
Kiwi smirked mockingly. "That's also why, no matter how loudly he screams, no one can save him. What a shame; it would've been even better if he could've suffered in public."
She shook her head and then deftly guided the group through the factory's side entrance.
As she walked, Kiwi observed her surroundings. Everything was exactly as she remembered, only more worn and repulsive.
But thanks to that, she effortlessly led Mercer and the others to the factory's security room. After neutralizing the guards inside, she took control of all the factory's system permissions.
Using the security server's authority, Kiwi issued an emergency meeting alert. The foremen and lower-level managers exchanged uneasy glances before hurriedly gathering in the conference room at the back of the factory.
Once she confirmed all management had assembled, Kiwi didn't even need to leave the room. With an expressionless stare fixed on the crowd in the conference room, she deployed a virus through the factory's server, directly targeting everyone connected.
The local server automatically began distributing the virus packages. One by one, those without ICE protection, still linked to the server's intranet, started screaming, clutching their heads and arms in agony.
This method of automated uploads via the server operated on the same principle as what Mercer had done at Arasaka. Although the lack of a deep dive prevented precise computational targeting, it was more than sufficient.
No one could save them. Kiwi had all the time she needed to deal with them, one by one.
Rebecca and V exchanged bewildered glances. "That simple? Feels like we didn't even need to be here. Such a huge factory, and it's handled just like that?"
"All thanks to Mercer's universal bypass program. Whether it's a door lock or a server, just upload it and you get access. Honestly, if we sold that program alone, it'd probably be worth hundreds of thousands of eurodollars."
Kiwi unplugged the cables connected to the server, then casually pressed the emergency alarm button on the security server.
Instantly, all the machinery in the factory ground to a halt. The workers paused in confusion before quickly following the voice-guided evacuation procedure from the emergency alert system, rushing toward the exits.
Then, without hurry, Kiwi led the team to the backup generator room, grabbed several containers of CHOOH2 fuel, and began spilling it from the corridors all the way through the factory floor.
"Such a shame. If we could take this equipment with us, it'd probably save Mercer a lot of money, huh?"
Rebecca said, suddenly feeling a pang of regret; if only they'd brought more people and a truck. Burning it all was such a waste; might as well have looted the place clean.
"Even if we took it, we've got nowhere to use it. Equipment this size requires way more power than our base can handle, plus we'd need specialized operators. Sometimes a loss is just a loss."
Mercer, however, was completely unbothered. Some jobs were for profit, others weren't. If burning it all down gave Kiwi some peace of mind, he wasn't going to complain.
Kiwi glanced back at him with an apologetic smile. "I actually forgot about that earlier."
"No worries. It's all just outdated equipment anyway. Besides, this place must've put you through hell, didn't it?" Mercer replied, his eyes scanning the worn, heavily used machinery.
Kiwi sighed. By now, she had finished spreading all the fuel. A single spark would turn the factory into an inferno.
To avoid accidents, she led everyone out through a side exit, speaking softly as they went: "It was hell... First, they made us learn simple assembly line work. One mistake, and you'd get beaten. They never hit your hands; you still needed those to work, so they'd whip your legs. That way, you could still sit and keep working. Once you got the hang of it, they'd pile on more work, making sure you were pushed to your limit every day. One time, the woman next to me was so exhausted she passed out from low blood sugar and collapsed onto the conveyor belt. Before anyone could react, her arm got caught in the machinery. By the time they pulled her out, it was crushed. The company not only refused compensation but made her pay for the damages... I never saw her again after that."
As they walked, Kiwi continued quietly, "Almost every machine here has blood on its hands. Some died from overwork, others broke down and used the equipment to end their lives. Once, someone even tried to burn the whole place down, hoping to take the owner with them... But all that did was get the factory a few more security guards and a second-hand fire suppression system."
She smiled, but her eyes were ice cold. "Pity the boss isn't here today. Otherwise, I'd have thrown him into one of those machines and let him burn to ash right along with them."
She let out a long, regretful sigh. Unlike Rebecca, Kiwi felt nothing but an indescribable sense of catharsis in her revenge.
The group walked out of the factory and returned to the car along the same path. Kiwi lit another ladies' cigarette while simultaneously activating the overclocking program left on the server.
All the factory machinery began to run at an overclocked pace with no one inside. Perhaps a spark was ignited by clashing metal parts, or maybe a circuit shorted out. In any case, thick, heavy smoke began to billow from the factory in less than a minute.
Two minutes later, towering flames erupted, devouring everything in their path.
The raging inferno consumed all, its crimson glow reflecting off the sky like a painted sunset against the fading night.
Kiwi simply sat in the car, calmly watching the distant flames burn.
In that moment, she felt an indescribable sense of liberation.
It was as if her unsightly past had also been burned away in that blaze.
"Thank you, Mercer," Kiwi said softly.
Mercer's cybereye glowed faintly. Hearing her words, he smiled slightly. "Wasn't this all you? We didn't really help at all."
"No," she replied quietly, a faint smile gracing her lips. "Without your quickhack, it would've taken me a lot of effort just to get in unobstructed. Anyway... thank you."
Her pupils reflected the factory's flames as she spoke. After a long moment, she added softly, "Let's go."
"Not yet," Mercer said with a smile, winking at her.
In the distance, a luxury car was speeding toward them.
"Didn't you want to see the factory owner burn along with his factory?"
"I borrowed the communication system of that guy in the dorm and notified him that something happened at the factory, urging him to come quickly. See? His timing is perfect, isn't it?"
Mercer laughed heartily as Kiwi watched the luxury car seemingly lose control, accelerating faster and faster until it drove straight into the sea of flames engulfing the factory.
The car window was partially rolled down, just enough for Kiwi to see the terrified expression of the factory owner sitting in the back seat.
"Let them burn together," Mercer said with a smirk, gesturing for V to start the car. "But for now... we'd better make a run for it."
In the distance, a fleet of NCPD patrol cars approached at high speed, sirens blaring.
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