Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 502: Enchiladas.
Caroline walked to the center of the warehouse while everyone else waited at the entrance. Taking out the phone she received earlier, she stared at it for a moment before unlocking the screen.
There was only one number in the contact list, and going by the first few digits, it seemed to originate from Orvakia. The phone itself seemed brand new, as if it had been taken out of its box a couple of minutes before it was handed out. The appropriate course of action would be to hand it to a team of Divers so they could try and figure out who was tracking it, but that might have eliminated their chance at studying what was about to happen.
Glancing at the group gathered at the door, Caroline held the phone up, giving them the signal that she was about to start. She then pressed the call button, waited for it to ring, then placed the device on the floor and walked back to the entrance, or she intended to.
Somehow, it took her no more than a step to arrive where the others stood, as if the distance to the center of the warehouse didn’t exist.
They all turned to the center of the warehouse, watching the small light of the phone’s screen while listening to it ring.
No one dared to blink, but it never mattered. There was no signal. No sign. No warning. The warehouse was empty in one moment, and full in the next.
The area trembled, but everything calmed right away, giving the impression of something extremely heavy falling from a very short height.
Caroline’s eyes gradually widened, then her head snapped to the right. The shadowy man who was standing beside her was gone-
"Yup, it’s the same guy."
Or so she thought. Even in this serious moment, Erebus couldn’t resist pulling one of his tricks.
"The same guy?" Thunder Strike stepped toward him, his eyes serious. "From Red Garden?"
"From the town hall." The shadowy man sighed. "Well, they are the same guy, I think..."
It took him a moment, but Strike eventually remembered their first time encountering the armored villain. Back then, they were unable to do anything about him as well.
"Can you track them?"
"Nope. Sorry," Erebus shrugged. "Just like last time, I couldn’t even catch the moment the space warped."
And just like that, their hopes were entirely crushed.
""I can drop anything, anywhere, and you can’t do anything about it," huh?" Star said. "I’m starting to understand why they sent Mr. Strongest over."
"Teleportation is a very troublesome power to deal with," said Erebus.
"You don’t say." The others said in unison.
"What I meant to say is..." He paused, pressing a finger to his forehead. "It’s troublesome, but not impossible. Even this guy’s tricks must have some limitations. Otherwise, he could have just teleported all of us to the core of the earth and be done with it."
"... True..." Star said.
"Don’t take my word as confirmation, though. As far as I know, he might be holding back for no reason at all and is just waiting to crush us just when we believe we have a chance at winning."
Before anyone could turn their anger to him, the shadowy man vanished, as if he had never there.
Brimming with annoyance, Caroline turned to the machines that spawned out of nowhere.
"Get these things checked and packed." She said, "I want to know what those Orvakian bastards have been up to."
Staring at the distant machines as well, Star scoffed and turned away.
"Fucking commies."
Strike followed after her, sparing the workers who went in after them only a glance. Caroline went and picked up the phone. Her anger boiled as she realized the whole thing might as well be a scam, even though she got everything she set out to get.
~[ ]~
After parting ways with the BEO commander, Dante vanished into some building and then made his way to the sewer system. Once he was sure no one was following him, he put on 8-6 and teleported to a certain location.
There wasn’t any particular reason for him to choose it—anything other than it being the farthest from any signs of civilization. He simply needed an empty spot to keep his toys before he would hand them to their buyers.
Why bother with all of that? Well, it’s because his resident AI was concerned about their enemies tracking the teleportation back to them. At the very least, they didn’t want to send something from a location they planned on using more than once, in case the enemy had a way to trace the connection between the sender and reception point.
’Now that that’s done...’
Heaving a sigh, Dante looked at the 3D model created through 8-6’s Spatial Awareness and sighed.
Though they had kept it at the most minimalist setting, its true size was still hard to grasp. Though he was still far from scanning the entire world, capturing a whole country was no small feat, and being able to teleport anything anywhere in it was a power that could leave any nation cowering in fear.
’Maybe I should take a vacation...’ He thought, looking at the border to Teneberosa. ’I feel like eating some enchiladas right now...’
He had just had a really big payday. It wouldn’t hurt if he treated himself to something nice.
After giving it some thought, Dange realized that he had no reason not to do it. Instead of teleporting there, he opened a portal and stepped through it, arriving at a random empty alley.
Unequipping the bulky, slightly round armor, Dante changed his entire outfit down to his shoes, then put on a random helmet he had never used before. Though he was sure the people of a foreign country wouldn’t recognize the boss of a small gang from a city on the other side of the continent, there was harm in being careful.
’I should change the Module, too...’
Giving it some thought, he swapped out 4-3’s Module for the first time since he first decided on it. It had truly become a part of him, to the point that it felt a bit off to have a different Module on.
Stepping out onto the street, Dante looked around, then did some searching online, looking for places with the best local cuisine.
The reviews led him to a food truck owned by an old Teneberosan woman. Going by the aroma alone, Dante knew he had found the right place. He ordered some takeout, left a sizable tip, and then went to find a quiet place to eat.
A local park served him right, and to his surprise, no one showed up to pick a fight or ruin his mood. The enchiladas were truly something. Somehow, the cook was able to completely remove the artificial taste of the meat, making it feel natural.
’Where should I go next...’
Dante opened the 3D model and stared at it for some time. With a thought, he zoomed in on a certain part of the western coast. Soon enough, the outline of a city became visible.
A massive crack ran through it, as if the earth had split it in half. That’s what he would have thought if he didn’t know about the river that spilled out into the ocean.
You can pretty much tell which economic class which parts of the city belonged to based on the density of the buildings. The elevated areas lacked the packed megastructures, with some of the buildings having no more than three stories, surrounded by empty space that sometimes exceeded the size of the building itself.
Dante followed one of the routes, tracing the turns with his eyes based solely on his memory. Eventually, he reached a place surrounded by a high fence that spanned several miles. Several buildings were erected inside the walled area, but one of them stood out as the main hall.
The model was as simple as it could get, but it had enough details to be recognizable. Dante stared at it for a while—much longer than he thought.
Zooming out, he studied the model once more then opened a GPS app. His location was still set in Hollowgrid, even though he was outside the country.
He zoomed out until he had the entire world map within the screen, then moved the 3D model, adjusting its size and overlaying it on its location on the map.
Though it had appeared massive before, Dante was made to realize that he barely scanned 1% of the world. As his eyes veered to the bottom, to the continent covered in white, the thought that it might be more efficient to travel there the normal way and scan the place.
[You can always teleport outside the planet, then fly to the location of your choosing.] A voice that wasn’t his spoke in his mind. [That should be much faster than scanning the entire planet from your home.]
’Yeah, I know...’
Heaving a sigh, Dante got up and went back to the food truck, ordered some more enchiladas, then found another empty alley. Soon after, he was back in familiar alleys of Hollowgrid, making his way back to his new home.
