Leo stayed calm and, smiling, waited for the two to settle down before speaking. "Alright, alright. Tonight, let's head over to El Coyote Cojo and have a good long drink—my treat."
"Wuhu!"
"Yay!"
V and Jackie raised both hands in approval. But then Jackie immediately pulled a bitter face, scratching his bun awkwardly, "How about we switch to Lizzie's Bar, you know my mom…"
Leo seemed to see through Jackie's concern, patting his shoulder, "It's fine, Jackie, just for tonight, I believe Mrs. Wells will allow it."
Mrs. Wells was not an unreasonable person. She didn't like Jackie drinking too much, not only because she worried about Jackie's health, but also because she worried Jackie used alcohol to numb himself and escape reality. After all, Jackie's father was a habitual drunkard. Mrs. Wells didn't want to see Jackie follow his father's old path.
"Let me call T-Bug first, get her to come out too."
As soon as Loe connected, before he could say anything, the pop-up window showed T-Bug's panicked expression, "Leo! Leo! Something's wrong! Something's very wrong!"
Seeing T-Bug like this, Leo's heart sank too, "What happened?"
In the holo-call window, it could be seen that T-Bug was huddled in a corner, her eyes and face full of fear, "It… it came alive."
Leo was confused, "Who came alive? What are you talking about? T-Bug?"
"It's… it's a cyberghost… no, don't come over here!"
Before Leo could say anything else, the connection on T-Bug's side was cut off with a scream.
"Leo?"
V and Jackie saw Leo's face looked very bad and both turned to look.
"It's T-Bug."
V frowned, "Arasaka people went after her? No, that can't be, didn't Yorinobu arasaka say it was over?"
"No, it didn't sound like that, she said it was a cyberghost."
Like Leo, V and Jackie also showed puzzled looks.
"Cyberghost?"
"Jackie, are there really ghosts in this world?"
Jackie retorted, "How could there be, this isn't a space opera."
Flathead was just a robot.
Without an operating chip, it couldn't move on its own.
Moreover, they had already shut down the Flathead when they entered the safehouse.
At that moment, a flash of realization suddenly struck Leo's mind.
"Could it be, at that time…"
Jackie saw that Leo wasn't speaking or doing anything and couldn't help but anxiously ask, "Leo, what's the situation inside?"
"T-Bug has already passed out, but luckily, she won't die for now."
"And… and that ghost?"
"It's just the Flathead."
V and Jackie looked at each other, both seeing the same shocked expression on the other's face.
"Flathead?"
Leo nodded.
"It seems like it's been possessed by something, that's why it suddenly 'came alive' and attacked T-Bug."
Jackie's face changed dramatically, "What the fuck?! There's really a ghost?!"
At this moment, Jackie's expression was like that of a firm atheist discovering that unspeakable things truly existed in this world.
But Leo quickly comforted him, "No, it's not something supernatural, but I roughly know what it is, let's go, let's meet it."
Leo took the lead and walked toward the safehouse.
But he didn't immediately open the rolling door.
Instead, he spoke through the intercom at the door, "Don't hurt the woman on the ground, she's with us, we're not bad people."
Inside the house, the Flathead first jolted, then let out a slightly hoarse male voice, "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck did you do to me?"
"What the fuck…"
Before Jackie could finish, V jabbed him with her elbow, then pointed at Leo and put her finger to her lips, "Shh, Jackie."
Leo gestured for the two to stay quiet, then continued speaking to the person inside.
"We didn't do anything to you."
"Bullshit, you goddamn corpo dogs! What is this? Some new torture your boss came up with? You think this will make me submit? Make Johnny Silverhand submit?
Fuck you! Stop dreaming."
Jackie's eyes instantly went wide like copper bells.
"Johnny Silverhand? The soul of Samurai, that legendary rockerboy? The one who blew up Arasaka Tower decades ago?"
Leo wasn't surprised at all, as if he had known that the soul trapped in Flathead was Johnny Silverhand. That was for sure, after all, the relic containing Johnny's engram was the one he had plugged into Flathead's slot.
"I need to correct you on a few things. First, we don't have a boss."
"Second, the one who killed you and your girlfriend back then, Arasaka Corporation's CEO Saburo Arasaka, is already dead."
Inside Flathead came Johnny's roar, "What did you say? You said Saburo Arasaka is dead? You're lying!"
"I'm not," Leo shrugged, though Johnny inside the house couldn't actually see his gesture, "there's a terminal in the room, right there on the table, see it? Go online and check it yourself, you'll know if I'm lying or not."
The Flathead, being a combat robot, didn't have a personal neural link.
But its spider-like long legs could act as fingers to search and type on the virtual keyboard.
For a while, it was silent inside and outside the room.
A moment later.
"So, that old monster really is dead, and he died within his own empire?"
Johnny's tone sounded deeply incredulous.
It was no wonder.
Only by personally throwing oneself into the fight against Arasaka could one truly understand how huge and terrifying this military-industrial beast was.
It simply wasn't something an individual could shake.
It was like the Yamata-no-Orochi from Japanese mythology, with eight heads and eight tails. Even if you were lucky enough to chop off one or two heads, new ones would quickly grow back.
As for Saburo Arasaka, the very core of the Arasaka empire, there was no doubt he would be under layer upon layer of protection.
Don't even think about touching a single hair on him.