Hours of continuous trekking significantly consumed energy.
The energy level alert had flashed twice on his visual interface.
Osiris executed the **Acknowledge_LowPriority** command both times, overriding the directive for conservation based on the superior directive of **Locate_Civilization**.
In low-power mode, his thoughts also seemed a bit more "human," as he began to miss the times he enjoyed high-efficiency energy fluid in the Forge World, and even, from more distant memories, the sweet taste of cola.
Just as he was about to conduct another energy assessment, a distorted silhouette appeared on the distant horizon.
"Artificial structure!" His internal processors spiked, increasing his optical sensor refresh rate by 150%.
Traces of civilization meant potential resources, information, and definitely energy! Hope rekindled, causing the internal fans in his backpack-mounted reactor to momentarily increase pitch.
He quickened his pace, his servo-legs calculating the most efficient stride-to-energy ratio.
But the desert seemed unwilling to let him go easily. The distant skyline began to blur, and a yellow wall of dust advanced at an alarming speed.
**Warning: High-speed moving solid particle flow detected. Sandstorm imminent.**
**Initiate environmental adaptation protocol. Servo-skull, retract to shoulder housing." He issued the command. The small drone smoothly docked, its sensors recessed. Probes in his feet instantly deployed, delving into the sand layer and switching to "stabilizing anchor** mode.
His robes sealed, and the internal filtration system began to hum with precise, measured efficiency.
The sand roared, hitting him like a physical wall. He executed a posture adjustment, minimizing frontal cross-section area.
The sound of sand grinding against metal was sharp and piercing, but he merely silently adjusted his posture, calculating the optimal path. This confrontation with the forces of nature, strangely, calmed his somewhat anxious logical pathways—a predictable variable in a chaotic environment.
After the sandstorm subsided, Osiris's servo-arm extended and gently vibrated, mechanically shedding the thick layer of grit. He looked towards the small town.
It looked closer, and more dilapidated. Vehicle wrecks, rusted down to mere frames, were half-buried in the sand—primitive wheeled vehicles, clearly lacking cogitator-assisted intelligence.
Most of the weathered, low-rise buildings had collapsed. A huge, crooked sign with "GG" was stuck in the sand, its neon tubes long broken. He focused his vision, enhancing the faded words:
**...Biotechnica**
**Militech – Securing Your Future**
"Biotechnica? Militech?" Osiris read out the two names. The vocalizer struggled momentarily with the unauthorized, non-Imperial naming conventions. These names carried a cold, corporate sense of the future that didn't match any company from his memory of home; instead, they were more like… products of a specific cultural background.
A vague idea began to form on the edge of his mind, but he couldn't grasp it yet.
He didn't enter immediately; the servo-skull silently lifted from its housing, rising on a column of controlled air, entering reconnaissance mode.
"Reconnaissance mode. Map structure, scan for life signs. Prioritize detection of organized neural network signatures."
Through the real-time data transmitted by the servo-skull, a detailed structural map of the town began to construct itself in his vision.
Heat signal scans showed… life signs, very faint, few in number, and scattered.
**Life form characteristic analysis: No standard humanoid heat signals or neural network fluctuations detected. Gene sequences show high levels of distortion, consistent with high-intensity radiation exposure. Body parameter: small to medium size. Behavioral pattern analysis: photophobic, burrowing, foraging habits. Threat level: low to medium.**
The accompanying infrared image showed several creatures with ulcerated skin and degenerated eyes.
"Radiation-mutated creatures…" Osiris breathed a controlled, mechanical sigh of relief—a system purging non-essential atmospheric particulates.
He carefully avoided the nesting areas, following the structural map toward the most intact building in the town center—an old-era car repair shop.
The workshop door had long since decayed. Inside, it was dim, filled with the strong smell of rust, oil, and dust.
His gaze was instantly drawn to a terminal half-embedded in the wall in the corner, covered in dust but seemingly structurally intact. More importantly, behind the terminal, there were physical cables leading underground!
"Physical interface!" Osiris's voice held a rare, almost imperceptible note of satisfaction.
He brushed away thick dust, revealing the terminal's data port. His right tertiary mechanical appendage, a flexible, multi-pin connector designed for ancient Terran tech, immediately extended from beneath his sleeve. It deformed with clinical efficiency and precisely connected to the port.
"Attempting to bypass local routing, directly trace the signal source through the underlying cables… There's a data stream! Execute Protocol: //DataHarvest_Unrestricted!"
Permission barriers were nonexistent in the face of his advanced intrusion tools from the Warhammer era. A few seconds later, he successfully hijacked the terminal.
Most of the data was still garbled, but finally, some fragmented information began to be captured and parsed.
Broken news headlines flashed by: **…Night City Council's new round of squabbles…**
Blurred clips: **Afterlife nightclub, witness legends…**
Corporate logos were clearly visible: **Arasaka Security Services, Your First Choice," "Kang Tao: Pioneering the Future**
…
Night City… Arasaka… Kang Tao… Afterlife… Every word was like a key, suddenly opening the floodgates of his sealed memories!
The cyberpunk-themed fictional works he had seen and played in his previous life, as an ordinary earthling...
Osiris's entire body went rigid. His optical lenses fixed on the terminal screen, ceasing their automatic micro-adjustments.
The servo-skull, registering the master's sudden cessation of movement, went completely silent on his shoulder, its eye-sockets recording the terminal data and its master's physical state.
A brief silence.
"…Expletive." A complex exclamation, precisely translated to the Terran vulgarism, escaped from under Osiris's faceplate. It was not his home Earth. It was Night City. It was the realm of Cyberpunk 2077.
He froze for a few seconds. His logic core ran a diagnostic loop, before swiftly discarding the emotional output.
He looked around the dilapidated repair shop, recalling the desolate desert and radiation-mutated creatures. All these terrible sights, all of a sudden, had a meaning he could understand, and even felt "familiar."
"Alright, alright… Night City…" he muttered to himself, his voice gradually becoming steady, the mechanical drone returning. "Global network collapse? Massive pollution? Remnants of corporate wars?
Data confirms high likelihood of systemic collapse and extreme technological divergence from Imperial Standard.
Conclusion: Very logical. Perfectly in line with the expected parameters of this specific fictional setting."
Osiris pulled the appendage from the terminal. The time for emotional response was over. The time for resource acquisition had begun.