by AssassinCat
A mysterious and extraordinarily skilled underground hacker and intelligence peddler codenamed "Black Cat" roams in the shadows of Neo-Chinatown Metropolis - a world-renowned capital of cyberpunk culture since the 2070's near Vancouver, Canada.It's a ghost in the depths of the data abyss, there is no vault it cannot crack, no data stream it cannot intercept. Yet it acts solely on whim, charges exorbitant fees, and remains elusive. It never reveals its true form, appearing only through a virtual avatar of a black cat.It accepts commissions from clients to solve their problems, demanding “stories” and large amounts of credit points as payment. To ensure Black Cat’s services, several conditions must be met simultaneously:1.Black Cat must be interested in your case.2.You must pay an enormous fee.3.You must allow Black Cat to implant a highly covert monitoring code into your cyberbrain — it will act like an invisible recorder, faithfully capturing and documenting everything you see and hear until the commission concludes, at which point Black Cat remotely retrieves both the code and the recorded data. As a witness—and sometimes even a participant—Black Cat will recount to you the bizarre, grotesque, twisting, and thrilling stories it has gathered from its commissions： Story 1: Stardroop: Lost in TransitTwelve "passengers," each with their own purpose, are trapped aboard a virtual consciousness train speeding toward destruction. As victims fall one after another, suspicion runs rampant among them. Forced to cooperate even as they distrust one another, they must unite against the killers hiding in their midst. This is no game of Werewolf—it is an orchestrated slaughter. Story 2: Fog over Science CastleIn Science Castle, which founded as a salvation "ark" to combat the rampant cognitive virus, a hawk-like Indigenous private detective who was hired to infiltrate under the disguise of a security guard, encounters a nightingale-like genius female scientist. What kind of story will unfold between them? This is a precious sample of how humanity, under the crushing wheels of technological hegemony, is both fragile and tenaciously flickering. Story 3: Ghost of MontrealThe Montreal round of the FSA (the airborne version of F1) is imminent. A washed-up driver from a struggling team asks Black Cat to look into the so-called "track haunting". Meanwhile, a Chinese racing team gets a threat letter demanding they quit the race, and a young cop heads to the team to investigate after the report. The two groups' separate probes unexpectedly cross paths... Story 4: Requiem for the Summit Over thirty heads of state from across the Americas will soon gather in Neo-Chinatown Metropolis for the Americas Trade Summit. Meanwhile, various individuals and organizations are on the move, each planning acts of disruption of varying scales to take place on the opening day of the summit. The Deputy Security Commander in charge of on-site protection is about to face wave after wave of pressure and attacks from multiple factions… How will she rise to these gruelling challenges? A soul-shaking requiem is set to ring out across the entire summit hall...
