This cop popping pills on the street as calmly as eating candy.
He paused slightly while chewing and handed the bottle with the evidence label to John.
"You don’t look good, want to fix yourself up before working again? Being clumsy is an easy way to ss up."
John hadn’t gone ho to rest.
The days of running around combined with the side effects after Black Light recovery made him look like a high fever patient without the sniffles.
John waved his hand in refusal.
He took the data chip and inserted it into his neck.
[Decoding information...]
The docunt itself wasn’t encrypted, but the Black Light routinely broke through the ECPD’s standard procedures, leaving only the original information.
The contents inside were quite ordinary.
So citizens of Eden City reported missing persons.
Their husbands, all maintenance workers under the city departnt, had been missing for over two weeks when the file was created.
The original employer said this group should have taken on private work, and there were no official leads to track them.
"The family needs a body in order to obtain company compensation through the insurance process, otherwise they can only be treated as absentees quitting."
Barry provided specific targets.
He had confird with the cabinet in advance that this task was within John’s acceptable range.
John finished reading and waited for the follow-up.
Every day, people go missing or die in Eden City; there are countless similar cases, and even the residents don’t want to waste their ti enduring more than half an hour of ineffectual forms at the police station.
John raised his doubts.
"What’s so special about this case that it’s worth a police lieutenant colonel’s attention?"
"I knew one of the deceased, an honest African guy."
"Can soone with a conscience be a cop?"
"Do rcenaries have principles?"
Barry calmly retorted, and after confirming John had nothing more to say, he added.
"I have the address of those maintenance workers’ supervisor. Go straight to this idiot’s mouth to get the answer, then investigate as you go, and finally settle the reward based on your findings... it’s fair, right?"
"Not fair. What if this Shark Coin doesn’t know? I can’t just wander around the city aimlessly like a headless chicken."
"Haha, you’ll find sothing."
Barry seed very sure. "I know what kind of secrets those people have in their hearts. Just go ask."
[Contact - Barry Kit (unread ssage)]
John received an address two blocks away.
[Mission objective updated]
[Find the supervisor of the municipal repair departnt. (Unaccomplished)]
John twisted the motorcycle throttle and left the street.
The engine roar added a touch of heat to the industrial zone, and water trucks and cleaning machines were still working under the traffic lights.
There were few pedestrians on the road.
At this ti, most citizens willing to endure the low air quality had a job to support their families.
John never thought he’d be working for a cop one day.
Barry Kit was quite bold.
Rule-abiding people could never be part of police managent, yet he was willing to take on small cases, investigating the disappearance and death of ordinary people, which was quite surprising to John.
[Eden City - Lot 335 construction site]
Under the midday sun in the dust.
The road repair machine was slowly advancing, as the bullet holes and road depressions left by gang shootings required a departnt for clean-up.
The city councils lean on the parliant, with funding from major companies.
Every year, there’s a massive amount of "sponsorship," but by the end of the day, only a tenth of it reaches practical work and the hands of workers.
John parked his motorcycle among the materials.
As he dismounted, he saw a man wearing a yellow helt and reflective vest leaning by the roadside vomiting, enveloped by dizzying toxic waste in the air.
The breathing mask he wore was really old, even dirty inside.
John withstood the pungent sll and, amidst the chanical roar, scanned the area one by one, finally finding his target cursing and commanding beside the construction site.
[Do not cause panic. (Optional)]
[Do not cause casualties. (Optional)]
The mission popped up a new target.
The supervisor wore a white shirt with reflective strips on the back. Both arms were newly modeled prosthetics, practical types with stronger durability and strength, better suited for heavy labor.
His cursing faintly overrode the machine’s roar, with an undertone of urgency and vexation in every word.
The cold gun muzzle pressed against his back.
The supervisor was furious and tried to turn around, but felt his shoulder firmly fixed by what felt like an iron clamp.
"Shh, you’re being held hostage, buddy."
"Damn it, don’t shoot, okay? I have a whole family to feed, and Tuesday next week is my daughter’s tuition deadline. If this project isn’t finished, I can’t collect the performance bonus, I have no choice..."
"Let’s chat sowhere else."
John controlled the hostage and left the site.
The supervisor’s steps were a bit shaky. Every few steps, he looked back at the construction site.
They ducked into another pile of materials, facing each other.
"...Phew, what can I give you not to kill ?"
"Got a guilty conscience?"
"Ah, those workers, huh? If you just want to vent by beating , you can hit my cheek, the cheekbone is fine, just don’t knock out my teeth, can’t afford to fix that."
The other person thought John was there to get back at his subordinates for being scolded.
"Oh my God, a supervisor pushed to this point?"
John felt a little sorry for this guy.
He rattled off the nas of several missing workers, watching the other person’s expression grow somber.
"See, you must know sothing, right?"
"I can’t speak up, buddy, otherwise those people upstairs will have fired on the spot... it won’t matter even if you threaten with the gun, losing my job is just as fatal as you pulling the trigger."
The supervisor was growing agitated.
He kept licking his lips, his neck covered with beads of sweat.
[Threaten and entice. (Optional)]
[Persuade gently. (Optional)]
John wasn’t willing to get rough with people like this, because life had already given them enough hard knocks.
"You do know, huh? Heh, can your conscience handle it? If we can’t find a body, the deceased’s family won’t be compensated. Soone’s got to be responsible for this, no matter who it is, I promise it won’t trace back to you."
He tried to guide the other person along.
The supervisor began hesitating.
The acrid sll in the air was getting stronger; it was a wonder how the workers could operate in such an environnt.
Even if the city council had top-tier dical subsidies, the number of people eligible for the service awards was unlikely to be many.
John thought of a new tactic.
He raised the gun butt in threat.
"I’m in a hurry. If you won’t speak, I’ll make sure you miss the project’s follow-up, and then it’ll be you looking for soone to complain to..."
"Damn it, you... fine."
The supervisor sighed and explained.
The life and death of the missing workers weren’t actually related to him, and indeed they matched the company’s investigation results, as they had taken on other illegal gigs, most likely doing dangerous under-the-table jobs for industrial firms.
Many people worked like this.
The higher-ups turned a blind eye.
These n had invited the supervisor to join a new job, which he refused, so they borrowed diving suits and such from him.
"I’m on assessnt, avoiding trouble, so I said no. I only roughly know where they disappeared, but afterward, the company pressured to keep quiet."
"And the benefit was?"
"Complete performance for two quarters, that’s all, and only if I finish those basic tasks. I need that money, and I’m not making profits off of the dead, that’s it."
That’s how the supervisor explained it.
John pressed his lips together, nodding, and, grasping the gun, said to him after acquiring the new address.
"Turn around and leave, don’t look back. We never t."
The supervisor was startled and followed instructions.
He returned to the site disoriented, and not long after, the roar of a motorcycle erged behind him.
"Whew~"
The supervisor sighed in relief, realizing that the sweat on his back made him feel chilly, embedded with difficult-to-escape industrial sll.
Rumble.
The machinery radiated noise.
Thick smoke spewed two ters high from the input port.
An accident on-site pulled the supervisor back to reality, who imdiately started cursing at the site personnel.
The motorcycle’s rumble faded into the distance.
The supervisor returned to his routine.
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