"As you say." Mercer didn't have any objections. If she wanted to storm in through the front door, he would unhesitatingly order V to drive straight in through it.
Qiwei nodded. Even before starting the hack, the tight black service under her coat made her feel her body was vaguely heating up, and her heart was racing. The closer she got to the factory, the more she felt an indescribable impulse.
Guiding V to drive near the back door, Qiwei opened the door and got out.
Mercer and the others followed behind her, arriving at the back door of what appeared to be a sizable factory.
As they walked, Qiwei explained in a complex tone, "The back door is only accessible to the management. It connects to the employee dorms. See that two-story building?"
She looked up at the building with most of its windows dark and said quietly, "Inside, there are dozens of dorms. Regular employees, ten to a room, each only getting a single bed. They can only use electricity from nine to eleven at night for washing up and using the bathroom.
On the right side of the second floor, where the lights are still on, is the so-called management dorm. They each have a single room, with 24-hour hot water and electricity... When I was young, my dream was to move from the ten-person rooms into there."
V asked cautiously, "You used to be here?"
"Yeah... before I was sold off," Qiwei didn't hide it, just stared at the small building, especially the window that was still lit, shook her head, and walked to the back door's entrance.
The security at the back door was rather tight, with four guards, two sitting in the surveillance room, and two stationed at the door. Each had a rifle, and there were even two automatic turrets at the entrance.
"The security here seems tighter than the Vortex Gang's." Rebecca marveled.
Qiwei, however, coldly watched everything: "Because there was once a mass escape incident, a few security guards and over ten employees died, so the security is extra tight now.
But inside the building, there's almost no security. They now control the workers with things similar to sex doll chips. Anyone who dares to disobey just needs to be subdued by the chip to lose resistance, then punished."
"Is this a prison or a factory? How did it turn into this?" Rebecca was somewhat taken aback. Initially, upon seeing that employees had dorms, her first thought was that the factory seemed to offer decent conditions.
Jobs that provide room and board are rare in Night City.
"A mix, prison factory." Qiwei sneered, summarizing with a sentence, then her prosthetic eye started to glow.
Her approach was both brutal and direct—hacking into the automatic turrets, seizing control permissions, causing the two standby turrets to abruptly turn and fire.
The two guards at the gate didn't even realize what happened before being torn apart by bullets suddenly firing from behind.
The guards inside the surveillance room, realizing a hacker had arrived, immediately hid under the table, attempting to reboot the security system. But the automated guns had already turned, started firing at the surveillance room.
Their end was naturally miserable—the reason these automatic turrets are called turrets is that their gun calibers, to a regular person, are like getting hit by a cannon shell.
The bulletproof glass was shattered by several shots, turning the entire room into a sieve. The two guards could only let out a few pitiful cries before their wails were drowned out by the roar of the automatic guns.
Only after the automatic guns ran out of bullets, the clattering sound of automatic reloading was heard, did Qiwei stop, expressionless, and walk in through the back door.
Rebecca nudged Mercer's leg with her elbow: "Won't the people inside notice?"
"She used the Magic Puppet Program to block internal signals. As for the gunfire... I reckon most of the people are in the factory now, so even if the gunfire from the back goes over, it might not raise alarm."
Mercer said, glancing around, because the factory was isolated and there were no people in sight, there was no worry of anyone discovering it and calling the police.
Or even if discovered, Qiwei probably wouldn't care—this is the Watson District, the far northern edge of Night City. Even if the NCPD came, it might be after ten minutes.
Silently, Qiwei advanced inward, gathering the conspicuous corpses at the entrance, tossing them into the battered security room to make a slight cover-up. Rebecca and V lent a hand.
After the slight concealment, at least no one driving by would immediately notice the deaths, Qiwei walked straight into the dorm building.
Mercer immediately chose to follow, while Qiwei walked indifferently into the dorm's only lit lobby on the first floor, heading up to the second floor.
Along the way, her gaze occasionally scanned left and right. The scene was identical to her memories, making her expression even colder. On reaching the second floor, she moved inward, soon stopping in front of a room.
Now, faint sounds of hedonistic music came from the room.
Qiwei just knocked on the door.
Mercer and V exchanged a glance, both taking positions at either side of the door, ensuring they could act immediately if needed. Mercer stepped back a few paces, keeping watch over the still-quiet dorm corridor.
The sound inside abruptly stopped.
"Who?"
A man's slightly panicked voice emerged.