Players Invade Cyberpunk-Chapter 687 - 222: The Reporter and the Detective
Doctors from Horizon Corporation frequently offer free clinics in Night City, providing free diagnoses and low-priced medicines. This is nothing new.
However, most companies don't take it seriously, assuming Horizon Corporation is just using these people to test new drugs under the guise of free clinics.
Moreover, the quality of those doctors varies greatly. Many are newcomers who struggle with even the simplest tasks, like dismantling a prosthetic, let alone performing surgery. They're not even as competent as ERO paramedics.
Only the desperate poor are willing to visit them for treatment.
And even if they can't afford it, they can earn medicines by doing odd jobs at the clinic sites. So the poor in Night City are quite happy to seek help from these players.
They earn some experience and barely cling to life with cheap drugs; you could say it's a win-win situation.
However, Derek is not very keen on these activities.
"There's no such thing as a free lunch, my friend. If they're not after your money, they'll take something even more important from you. I advise you to be careful."
If a businessman isn't after money, Derek can't even imagine what he might be after.
John didn't pay much attention to Derek's grave advice. After finishing his water in one gulp, he said,
"Buddy, we're all living on borrowed time. I've got nothing except two years of driving experience. What could they possibly take from us?"
He's been here longer than Derek. The mercenaries here are a bit neurotic, but they are good people.
They are always the first to face threats, never letting ordinary people get hurt, even if it means sacrificing themselves. If there's a problem with your prosthetics, those doctors run faster than you.
The recycled plastic may be dirty, but the entire processing procedure is open. Once you get over the initial mental hurdle, you find there's nothing wrong with it.
The desperate homeless even take on jobs from Zeta Technology to pick up radioactive materials in polluted areas. What's a bottle of water compared to that?
"It's not bothered that I'm poor, so what right do I have to question whether there's something wrong with it?"
Watching his colleagues brush themselves off and return to work, Derek sighed internally.
People like that are destined to remain at the bottom all their lives—with no sense of alertness at all.
————
The environment of the artificial meat cultivation center is indeed much better compared to the previous two places. The white and clean floors were scrubbed to a shine, and a faint medicinal scent filled the air. However, it only had two floors, a top research lab and a production area, with nothing in between.
One after another, enormous transparent polymer tanks stood within the floors, layered like a beehive.
Several wriggling delivery tubes were attached to these tanks, seemingly piping in a light yellow nutrient solution, sustaining the ever-growing flesh and blood multiplying inside.
When the pale red flesh in the tanks grows to a preset size, the indicator light on the glass tank will turn green. A mechanical arm above will descend to extract the meat, slicing it with blades and allowing chunks of meat to fall into a pool below, where workers retrieve it and send it on conveyor belts for processing on a cutting line.
Though watching the meat multiply and grow at a visible pace is a bit sanity-draining, Brother Dao really couldn't find any apparent issues here; even the pool connecting the meat was clear and clean, according to the notice on the wall, it was changed every six hours.
It was only upon approaching that he realized, it wasn't water inside, but a configured preservative liquid, weakly acidic. It's no wonder the workers outside had traces of acid corrosion on their hands.
In truth, Brother Dao had no issues with artificial meat. It saves space and costs, no need for massive construction of farms. As long as the nutrition and taste aren't too bad, adding a little bit of medicine is fine. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖
But Brother Dao knows that's impossible. The sanitation management on the outer layer is so poor, there's no way the inside can be clean.
Yet, after three consecutive days here, he found no useful information. He finally decided to take a risk and see if he could sneak into the top-level lab to steal data, willing to stake his life on it if necessary.
For him, nothing reflects personal value more than getting a big scoop.
Even though the factory operates 24/7, the top-level employees only work there; they only need to work 14 hours a day, leaving after 10pm. The floors are then locked electronically, and lower-level workers like Brother Dao don't have the access to open the doors, let alone those doors equipped with facial recognition and other features.
Brother Dao's stealth skills are virtually zero; all he could do was wield a mop around randomly while inching towards the top level.
To divert the floor guards, he specially learned a diversion tactic from Potato.
"The sewage gas exploded! Shit's leaking out! Someone come help block this thing!"
"I don't want to! I don't want to!"
Due to working hour control, the workers in the outer factory have no time to use the restroom properly, so they do their business in the recycling chutes prepared by the factory. The waste gets recycled to the septic tank, extracting undigested organic matter to be processed into nutrient solutions, continuing to nourish the meat.
With hundreds of people, the daily waste could be calculated by the ton.
A blast echoed downstairs, followed by a gushing sound along with workers screaming. Dozens of tons of filthy waste mixed with decomposition fluid flowed everywhere, throwing the inner factory into a state of chaos.
