[TN: sup guy, sorry for the late chapter, just enjoying my winter break before i go back to school, plus burnout, will try to go back to my semi-normal schedule, been looking for another novel to translate as a side project.]
The absurdly strong alloy, the super-power engine, the internal mechanical structure as delicate as octo-arms, the active defense system that could fend off anti-armor weapons—
Each was a core component of "Legend," but the most important core was the thing that unified all those complex systems.
An AI.
[Leo: Get in and try it.]
[Little Octopus: I'm not going! (ì_í)]
[Leo: ?]
Little Octopus huddled beside the car and refused to get inside.
Jackie was still circling the vehicle, and V also saw Little Octopus clutching her tentacles in front of her head, absolutely refusing to get into the car.
"What's wrong?"
V walked over. Little Octopus whooshed up onto V's shoulder and pointed at the car:
[Little Octopus: I'm not getting in. I'm a limb-control AI, not a car's central control!]
Leo looked baffled.
[Leo: What's the difference?]
Little Octopus nodded very seriously.
[Little Octopus: There is! Look at my head. Look at my silky tentacles. Do I look like a car?!]
"Yeah, you don't," V said, pinching Little Octopus's cheek. Little Octopus leaned into it like she was loving every second.
To anyone nearby, though, it looked extremely weird.
Mitch, still working through the checks, wiped his sweat, shut his mouth, and kept working—
Boss had no idea how many implants he'd stuffed into himself. Seeing things other people couldn't was normal. He'd seen plenty of that when he was in the military.
Scorpion saw it too. When he noticed Mitch didn't react, he just kept his head down and worked—
None of his damn business.
With a little hop, Little Octopus jumped down with righteous seriousness and stood in front of V.
[Little Octopus: Boss, I don't think I'm cut out for this. And if I'm driving, who's going to be your behavioral assist?]
"What's behavioral assist?"
[Little Octopus: Helping Boss control his body. Helping you control your Sandevistan and stuff.]
V gave Leo a very particular look. "No wonder you're weird sometimes. Turns out you're running cheats."
"How does using your brain count as cheating?"
A cheat you wrote yourself isn't cheating. It's research.
Still, Leo rubbed his chin and considered Little Octopus's point. Sometimes AI preferences had no reason—though what she said was also fair.
The internal complexity of the "Legend" Mackinaw was comparable to, and even exceeded, octo-arms.
Saying an AI couldn't operate in parallel was nonsense, but Little Octopus was originally designed for data processing and behavioral control. Adding another job with similar complexity… he didn't know if it would cause side effects.
[Leo: Then copy part of the data and write a sub-instance.]
[Little Octopus: That works.]
Little Octopus floated onto the Mackinaw. Her tentacles pierced into the wiring assemblies as if she were transferring something.
That transfer made the vehicle's entire control suite move again at full range, startling the Aldecaldos workers.
"Don't panic. I'm writing the control software."
"Scared the shit out of me…" Carol, the one responsible for checking the electronics, wiped sweat off her brow. She was a netrunner and an engineer.
Just now, the computer had been kicked right off the port and kept spewing red garbled code.
Carol wiped her forehead again. "I thought a rogue AI had broken in, hahaha."
Little Octopus made an evil grin at that, but when Leo glanced at her, she went back to work.
Leo was curious. "You've dealt with rogue AIs too?"
"Nope. But we got training when I served. 'If any of the following occurs, immediately cut all networks and physically contact the nearest network technical support.'"
Carol shrugged. "No one's seen them. And people say anyone who has… is dead."
Hiss—
The suspension began adjusting automatically. Little Octopus withdrew her tentacles from the car.
[Little Octopus: Fresh off the line! But it'll probably take a little time to adapt.]
Leo began reviewing the core code and realized—
It was completely inconsistent with Little Octopus's own core code. There were barely any traces of human-written structure.
Leo suddenly remembered something: in the Cyberpunk world, aside from AIs infected by the "Rabies virus," not a single dangerous critical-threshold AI had a core written by humans.
You could even say that the ability to hand-write a dangerous critical-threshold entity's core code seemed to exist only in the Marvel world.
Little Octopus was… kind of special here.
[Leo: Good work. Start it up.]
[Little Octopus: You got it.]
Vroooom—
The engine ignited suddenly. Even the airflow around them was visibly pulled, washing over everyone's bodies.
Electric current was generated in the engine, flowing into the graphene solid-state batteries hidden throughout the chassis. Those batteries formed the entire electric drive control system.
All six wheels spun in place. The differential created a pivot turn, then the steering system joined in—six wheels turning in different directions, pairing with differential forces so the vehicle could even slide sideways in place.
Next, the suspension compressed sharply, dropping the chassis to its lowest point, then snapping upward—its powerful electromagnetic system even producing a thrust that lifted the tires slightly off the ground!
Then the huge machine began twisting irregularly through all its control systems, like a newborn creature learning its own body.
Hiss—
Steam vented from the cooling system. The engine note dropped sharply.
The Legend Mackinaw completed its readiness cycle and came to a silent stop.
A heavily metallic voice boomed out: "System start complete! Mackinaw, 'Legend' online! Whatever the challenge, I will give everything—crush them into dust!"
Everyone in the workshop clapped their hands over their ears!
The thing's voice was way too loud—its metallic edge was off the charts, like it was tearing their eardrums apart!
"Holy—" Jackie lowered his hands and slapped the hood hard. "This car… is this a sonic weapon system?"
"It is not!" The booming metal voice rang out again, and Jackie felt the hand he'd left on the hood trembling!
"'Legend' does not possess dedicated weapon systems!"
Clang!
A wrench hanging on the wall slipped loose and fell, clattering onto the floor.
People looked at the car, then at Leo—who was also covering his ears.
V punched the body panel and shouted into the cabin, "Lower your damn volume!"
"Understood! Volume reduced by 90%!"
"Twenty percent is enough!"
"Understood!"
This time it was much more tolerable, though the metallic edge still made their eardrums ache.
Especially the tone—it sounded like some hotheaded rookie, and it dragged V's temper right up to the surface.
"Lower it more."
"Understood!"
Still the same hotheaded tone. Veins stood out on V's forehead.
Leo cut off V's "voice tuning." "Ahem. Let's leave it there. The car needs a little more time to calibrate. Want to take it out for a spin?"
Before he even finished speaking, Jackie and V were already inside.
Little Octopus perched on the car's nose like a hood ornament, looking ridiculously imposing—making it hard not to suspect she was just trying to slack off.
Leo turned toward the Aldecaldos workers. The car wasn't for them, but they were still buzzing with excitement.
As engineers who'd helped build it, everything they'd learned and every technique they'd seen would benefit them enormously.
More importantly, simply succeeding in building this steel behemoth was already satisfying enough.
Without Leo, where would they have gotten equipment like this? Knowledge like this?
The 1.5 million cost sounded huge, but without Leo's early groundwork—material sources, equipment, and even the sheer energy burned over this period—they couldn't have scraped it together.
Mitch saw Leo coming and smiled, raising his hand first. "Don't say any thank-you crap. Without you, none of this would exist. We'd probably have been chewed up and swallowed by Night City already."
"Go show that city who's boss, Burger King."
The Aldecaldos valued loyalty, and they knew exactly what was what.
Truth was, they'd already started treating Leo like family.
Leo opened his mouth, swallowed what he'd been about to say, and instead grinned. "It's Burger King Big Shot, dumbass."