However, Mercer was somewhat worried—what if this was a trap set by the AI inside for him?
What if the other side purposefully let the Netherworld Dog scout, and then lured him in personally?
This possibility cannot be ruled out.
But this also further proved the danger of this facility and its contents. Mercer thought for a long time and ultimately decided to take the risk and give it a try.
Since the facility is still operational, it indicates that the power system and the servers are still running. This also means that if a roaming AI currently controls the Little Beidou Facility, it could potentially use Little Beidou's servers at any moment to access Night City, or even the network of Dog Town.
Letting a potentially extremely dangerous AI work quietly right under your feet? It's better to go disarm the bomb early for peace of mind.
After planning and equipping a series of specialized defensive gear against AI, Mercer cautiously donned full armor and led some members of the Spark Team to personally enter the underground through the excavated entrance.
The core structure of the Little Beidou Facility is situated thirty meters underground. After entering a structure approximately six to seven meters below the surface, one must take the so-called internal rail elevator to reach deeper inside to formally enter the core of the Little Beidou Facility.
To be honest, seeing the integrity of this facility made Mercer a bit greedy.
This place just looked too good. The entire underground base, despite being abandoned for years, still looked spotless, and almost all the internal facilities were intact.
Although many devices were removed, a considerable number of devices were temporarily left here instead of being taken away, including numerous advanced research equipment.
Trying to build an underground base of this scale and grandeur by oneself would be unthinkable without starting with at least billions of Euros.
Unfortunately, Mercer currently didn't want the Military Science people to discover he had tampered with the Little Beidou Facility, so he had to suppress his greed and led V and the others to find the entrance to the core area of the underground facility.
After pressing the rail elevator button, a gigantic rail elevator crawled up from below and stopped in front of Mercer and his team.
After checking the procedures, Mercer was the first to step onto the rail elevator.
Fully armed, Jack, V, and Rebecca followed closely behind.
The reason no additional personnel went with them is that Mercer also made a second plan—if all went smoothly, in Mercer's opinion, it should be enough for him to fully control the Little Beidou Facility within two hours.
Mann and the other hackers and Pira were left on the surface as a precaution.
But if there was an ambush, and he couldn't exit safely within two hours, the external support team would need to initiate safety measures, cutting power, severing the network, and using a large force of personnel and equipment to launch a full assault on the facility.
At that time, even if the entire Little Beidou Facility had to be torn apart, Mercer would not feel heartbroken.
"This place sure feels like a maze, and although it's clean... in such a big place without a living soul, there's definitely a chilling vibe."
Rebecca muttered, standing on the rail elevator, slowly entering the deeper parts of the underground facility. Her curiosity led her to keep asking Mercer questions while looking around:
"Is this the secret base built by Military Science for decades? I must say, it's quite grand!
Did they just abandon such a valuable place like this? How much would it cost to set up something like this..."
V remained vigilant about the surroundings: "Stay alert, we've walked a long way without encountering any issues, it doesn't feel right..."
"Come on, don't jinx us..." Rebecca said this, but her expression turned serious as everyone knew V's premonitions often turned out quite accurate.
Yet Mercer remained calm: "Don't worry; when issues occurred before, they were concentrated underground. Considering Little Beidou Facility doesn't have powerful firepower equipment, just some outdated Robots, you don't need to be overly tense."
The real danger is likely to happen in the cyber confrontations.
This is also why Jack is carrying a large signal amplifier.
Even though he was wearing tank armor, making his silhouette shoot up to over 1.9 meters, the signal amplifier still seemed like a heavy school bag.
This signal amplifier is connected by an optical fiber for a physical link to the server. This is to avoid network communication signal interference, allowing Mercer to directly boost his network warfare power by plugging into the server computational power.
Mercer dared not let Venus come, facing a place potentially equipped with corruptive AI capabilities, it'd be better for his treasured AI to stay away, just in case it got hacked, he'd truly be heartbroken.
The rail elevator swiftly descended the passage underground, and once the team alighted, they couldn't help but glance collectively at Mercer.
Because just after the elevator descended, the previously well-lit Little Beidou Facility suddenly lost power.
Only a few red lights remained, along with various standby lights from the equipment, casting eerie light across the dark underground space.
Yet despite the dimming lights, the mysterious underground base became somewhat frightening due to this sudden darkness.
Jack couldn't help but speak in a low voice: "Damn, this is like something out of a horror movie! Mercer, what do we do? What's happening?"
"Don't mind it. Either our enemy noticed our presence or it's simply a power shortage... Activate the low-light night vision goggles and keep moving, find the host's location."