Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

Pilos crouched low, trying to move quietly into the angled shelter formed by the roadblocks and police cars, following the postures and movements taught during his police academy training.

He dared not peek out to look, but instead quietly pricked up his ears to listen carefully.

Volume 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 7 The First Battle

Soon, a rustling sound came from behind, and the footsteps became clearer. The subtle sound was so faint that it could easily be missed if one wasn't listening carefully.

Piloz thought for a moment, then silently gripped the Glock pistol in his hand and peeked out with half his head out.

The massive silencer was almost pressed against his face, and the vent holes around the muzzle were clearly visible.

"Hey, what do you want to do?"

At this point, Piloz snapped out of his utter despair and replied in a strained, trembling voice, "I heard your...footsteps...um, footsteps."

“New York Police Department.” Raphael glanced at the officer’s bulletproof vest; the “NYPD” lettering made his identity clear.

However, she still asked as a formality, because life needs a little ritual, doesn't it?

The idea that someone wearing a police uniform, using a bulletproof vest with the word "Police" on it, or even using police equipment is not necessarily a police officer is absolutely true in New York, where public authority has completely collapsed.

"Me..."

Piloz glanced at the number 26 on his collar—police numbers consist of six digits: the first two are the municipal code, the next four are the county code, and the last two are a sequential number; the starting number "26" indicates he works for the 26th Precinct—and swallowed the bitter taste rising in his mouth.

"There are only a few of us left in the branch office."

"What's going on up ahead?" she asked.

“We received a report that Lafayette Cafe and Bakery had been violently robbed and a gunfight had broken out, so the chief led the rest of us to the scene.”

"You guys?"

"..." Upon hearing this, Piloz's pent-up resentment suddenly erupted. "Who are you? What right do you have to point fingers here? Huh—!?"

The forces left to maintain order in the city are few and far between. The fact that they can still respond to calls is already a result of their best efforts.

"I think I really am qualified."

After Raphael finished speaking, he used the sturdy police car as cover to set up his XM5 assault rifle. The Razor HD Gen 1-10x24 low-magnification variable sight mounted on the scope bridge was set to 10x magnification, allowing him to observe the situation inside the restaurant.

Under the flashing lights, several masked kidnappers brazenly hid behind the restaurant's pillars and counters, armed with pistols, shotguns, and fully automatic submachine guns. No wonder the police had such a hard time getting around the perimeter.

Their firepower is beyond the capabilities of ordinary police officers; at the very least, the SWAT team should be called in.

Therefore, the officers in front were severely suppressed.

In the past month, they have not only experienced the city falling into riots, but also faced the successive deaths of people around them. They were already exhausted.

During the more than 20 hours she waited on the bridge, all the news she received was negative; not a single piece of good news came from the city.

The federal government remained indifferent to the greenback outbreak in New York, and various public authorities within New York were acting independently, without any coordination or cooperation.

However, these people are well aware of the situation they face, and they know that they are almost incapable of shouldering the heavy responsibility of "restoring order to the city".

However, those who remained unanimously shouldered this insurmountable burden on themselves and their subordinates, because there was no other way; maintaining public order and handling police incidents remained essential.

If someone had told Piloz before the Green Dollar virus outbreak that one day his entire NYPD would be reduced to only a few hundred people, he would have laughed.

However, this is indeed the case today...

Let alone a hundred people, this is the only number of people that the 26th Precinct can send out today.

Tell your colleagues that they don't need to work so hard today.

Identify the target location, prioritize the fully automatic firing positions, and then arrange the firing order according to their difficulty.

Quickly shoot the submachine gunner twice to kill him, then knock down the shotgunner behind the counter.

Raphael leaped out of cover, raised his assault rifle in one hand, and ran to the restaurant entrance. He threw two smoke grenades inside, and once the smoke filled the entire space, he strode into the smoke-filled restaurant.

"what--!"

Taking advantage of the lull in the fire caused by the smoke enveloping the restaurant, a figure rushed out of his cover and quickly approached the source of the smoke, trying to seize a chance to survive.

The heavy footsteps drew Raphael's attention. She turned and fired two shots, but this time not at the forehead, but at the thigh.

One of the 6.8mm full-power rounds hit the robber in the thigh. He felt his steps suddenly slow down, but he still lurched forward half a step due to inertia.

As a result, his legs quickly lost strength, and he immediately knelt down. He looked back and saw a leg wearing thermal pants on the ground. The shoe looked familiar; the broken end was covered with skin and a tiny bone fragment.

Then, I felt a sharp pain, like being stung by a honeybee.

After a while, the swelling and pain returned, so intense that he wanted to scream.

The robber felt no feeling in his left leg. After a while, he felt dizzy and wanted to sleep.

At that moment, Raphael walked up to him.

The man suddenly raised his pistol, and she grabbed the holster.

"boom--"

The pistol was caught in time, and the only bullet fired landed on the ceiling.

The sleeve, which should have been retracting, was gripped tightly, even with the index finger hooked...

Even if the trigger is dead, it won't work.

She didn't fight the robber; instead, she kicked him away. As she retreated, she twisted her waist to the left, only slightly adjusting her stance as she aimed her gun downwards.

"Bang, bang..."

Two shots hit the other robber. He immediately collapsed to the floor, his chest feeling as if it had been pounded twice, as if the air in his lungs had been forcibly squeezed out, and he stopped breathing.

He struggled desperately, opening his mouth to try to breathe, but it seemed he couldn't breathe anymore; his mouth was open but he couldn't inhale any air.

"Damn, we actually failed..."

After he was able to breathe again, blood would come out of his nose and mouth with every breath. Each breath he took felt like a tearing pain in his chest, and each rise and fall of his chest brought him an even more severe feeling of suffocation.

When he finally managed to tilt his head back, he was shocked to find a dark gun barrel in front of him.

"boom!"

Gunshots that have been silenced sound better.

A bloody hole appeared on the robber's forehead, and in the blink of an eye, he became a corpse.

Raphael killed the bandit, then immediately turned around, picked up her XM5 assault rifle, and found the guy whose leg she had just broken and who had been kicked.

This person has a strong will; even at this stage, they haven't gone into deep shock.

He strained to keep his eyes open, but when he saw the culprit appear, his eyes only flickered, and his body showed no further reaction.

With just one glance, Raphael knew this man was doomed.

The femoral artery spurting had ended, and water was dripping from the veins and other branches, forming small puddles in the low-lying areas of the restaurant.

Volume 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 8 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

"All Clear!"

Raphael lowered his gun, slowly walked out of the restaurant, and said to the stunned police officers outside:

"Relax, guys, watch out for accidental discharge... I'm not a robber."

She took a deep breath, the cold air entering her body through her nasal cavity. The readings on her body's temperature sensors plummeted, instantly activating her body's pre-programmed procedures. Her outward reaction was just like a human's—she shivered.

"who are you?"

“I hate this question,” Raphael thought for a moment, then reached into a small pouch inside his tactical vest, pulled out his identification, and tossed it into the gray-haired sheriff’s arms. “Here’s my identification. Are you satisfied?”

The sheriff glanced at it briefly. Putting aside the contents for now, at least judging from the feel, quality, and serial number pattern of the document, it should have a certain degree of authenticity.

However, he did not rule out the possibility of forgery.

Anyone in the current situation would be cautious, and he didn't want to send the "friendly" armed personnel to the opposite side. Creating an enemy with one's own hands is a terrible feeling—a valuable lesson he'd learned in over twenty years of police service.

“I’m sorry to have offended you, Lieutenant.” The sheriff shook hands and said, “I’m very grateful for your help. The security situation in New York has worsened these past few days.”

"Being cautious is never wrong."

"Don't touch my sore spot. You know, if we can't maintain normal public order, it means the city is doomed. As the chief of the 26th Precinct, I can't sleep at night because I have nowhere to vent my guilt."

Leading my remaining men out on a mission to quell the riots always left me with a heavy heart. What if they got infected with the virus? What if they got injured in the gunfight…?

“Don’t be discouraged, Sheriff,” Raphael said. “Perhaps it’s not my place to say this, but with such good men, one or two setbacks are nothing to worry about.”

"Hey, young man, come here for a second."

She beckoned to Piloz, who was on semi-alert duty on the perimeter, and said after he approached:

"Here's the thing, your superior is a bit frustrated right now. Could you please tell him what your motivation is for choosing to stay?"

The young man glanced at Raphael and said shyly:

"My home is right here."

He reached into his police uniform pocket and pulled out several pages of paper covered in dense, clearly written text. It was a letter home, which he had written on the very first day of the greenback virus outbreak… but he had been too busy with work to take it out until now.

Pilos handed the papers to the director. "They were supposed to be sent out. The post office is finished, and the safe zone outside won't let anything from the epidemic area out."

Chief Samuel Johnson judged from his own feelings that the letter carried an unprecedented power.

Piloz's convictions made Samuel feel ashamed, as he had previously only habitually viewed things from the perspective of the director.

However, this feeling had nothing in common with inferiority; on the contrary, it was a feeling of great nobility, and he felt honored to work with noble people.

The outbreak of the greenback virus caught him, like millions of other ordinary people, off guard.

The sudden death brought his otherwise orderly life to an end, and the hoarse voice of the television announcer echoed throughout the city: the city was beginning to collapse.

Life was suddenly split into two unrelated parts: one part was the beautiful old days before the wave of death began; the other part was the present.

It seems that everyone is waiting for death, but before death actually comes, some people stand up and decide to do something.

"I'm sorry, I'll adjust my mindset."

Samuel felt he'd said "sorry" far more often than usual today, but his mood had improved. He neatly folded the papers again, slapped Pilos on the chest, and said, feigning displeasure:

"You should pack your letter and give it to your family yourself. I don't accept these here."

Samuel felt exhausted after the two police officers who had been taking photos in the restaurant returned. The gunfight had drained the middle-aged man's energy reserves; the short ten-minute shootout had brought him to the brink of death more than once.

The tension and exhaustion drained his body instantly. He didn't care about anything else and sat down on the ground, leaning against the police car.