Arasaka doesn't want the situation to escalate again, nor do they want the Military Science people to obtain irrefutable evidence of 'Arasaka's involvement in this matter.'
The best approach is to catch Mercer and the others before all this happens, reclaim the armor, and hold a press conference to explain that Mercer's group 'stole' Arasaka's equipment for robbery, trying to distance Arasaka from the incident as much as possible.
However, while Arasaka wants to act first, the Military Science is even less likely to take a silent blow.
The female reporter's prosthetic eye flickered slightly, receiving a message from her superiors. Gritting her teeth, she turned to the camera and said, "We can see Arasaka's hovercar suddenly blocking our path.
This inevitably makes one wonder if this group of robbers has some unspeakable secret relationship with Arasaka..."
At the same time, the helicopter pilot could only brace himself and fly side-by-side with Arasaka's hovercar.
And as the story continued to escalate in the news, the pressure on the NCPD gradually mounted — although they were restricted by Arasaka's earlier arrangements, preventing them from pursuing with full force.
But now, Channel 54, disregarding any conventions, directly used a helicopter to follow Mercer's car, they couldn't afford not to get any footage, right?
Even if they can't genuinely protect the city and the citizens, the NCPD must let the citizens think they are 'being protected.' Such audacious robbers — if the NCPD were still messing around, that would truly be a joke!
Thus, on the small map provided by Venus to Mercer, the red dots representing the previously slow-moving NCPD began accelerating, attempting to encircle and intercept them ahead.
[Venus: Detected the Sixth Street Gang is gathering in the Santo Domingo District, I suspect they both want to claim three million euros in reward and also avenge you for aiding the Father before.]
Mercer responded, checking the map location: "We've arrived, prepare to evacuate."
At this moment, Pira suddenly steered the wheel sharply, the car directly veered off the city expressway, forcing the hovercar and helicopter to turn and follow them into the building area.
But when the car suddenly turned into an underground parking of a building, cameras could no longer capture their figures.
Without saying another word, Agent Arasaka ordered the hovercar to land and charge inside, but before the hovercar could get close to the entrance of the underground parking, a burst of explosive firelight suddenly appeared.
The driver had no time to react as a rocket grenade directly exploded towards the hovercar's driver's seat.
With a loud explosion, the hovercar plummeted towards the ground, even though the thick armor ensured the structure inside the cabin remained intact, the driver was less fortunate, a large hole was torn in the cockpit, igniting a fire.
When Agent Arasaka crawled out from the hovercar wreckage covered in dirt, they saw the helicopter not far away suddenly ascending, with the reporter shouting: "They ran out from the other side of the underground parking!"
In the sky, the Military Science's hovercar sped past, Agent Arasaka looked at each other, realizing something was seriously wrong.
They must not let the Military Science get ahead!
Thus, they immediately contacted ground forces and other hovercars to swiftly compete with the Military Science.
"Boss, they suddenly entered the parking lot, they might be switching cars..." An agent, holding a broken arm, reminded: "Anyway, the car is damaged, let's go in and check."
"Alright." Agent Arasaka nodded, only holding onto the last hope, they organized into small squad formations, armed, and began entering the underground parking.
But unfortunately, there was no trace of the vehicles they were chasing recently, nor any signs of personnel presence inside.
The few agents, still unwilling to give up, opened their prosthetic eyes to search several times, including going to the security office of the building to check underground surveillance, but ultimately found nothing.
From the camera footage, it could only be seen Mercer's group briefly parked at the entrance, fired a rocket launcher backward, then retreated into the car, and directly exited from another parking lot exit.
Agent Arasaka, thus having lost hope, reported the situation and continued to chase the two cars rampaging through the streets.
After they left for a long time, the elevator doors suddenly opened, and Mercer and his team took turns walking out.
The elevator here had long been controlled by Mercer using Venus, they hid in the elevator shaft, thus evading Agent Arasaka's inspection.
As for the surveillance footage, it was even easier to handle, editing techniques combined with AI extraction, ensuring no one could spot any anomaly.
Even if they realized something was wrong afterwards, with traces modified by AI, Mercer would've long been gone by that time.
"Damn, did we really trick them?" Pira felt his hands shaking, such an exciting scene made his adrenaline pump endlessly.
While Mercer somewhat regretfully said: "Alas, pity the equipment in my hacker car..."
At this moment, he was still wearing an exoskeleton, his footsteps echoing with metallic clangs as he walked.
"Alright, we need to evacuate quickly." V also felt a sense of survival after the ordeal, although there were no firefights along the way, the helicopter and hovercar chase was indeed as thrilling as in the movies.
Inside the parking lot, two low-key vans had long been waiting, Mercer, Qiwei, Lucy, and V hopped into one, while Mann, Dolio, Pira, and Rebecca got into another.
Everyone got into the cars respectively, then drove towards the city highway exit on the east side.
Mercer wasn't heading to Evil Land, but instead was planning to go to Bruce's safe house he'd been to once before for a temporary rest.