You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

With Alex and Irina gone, Lyon returned to the carriage filled with the stench of feet and the buzzing of electronic devices.

After the car door closed, the sound of rain outside subsided slightly.

Leon shook the water droplets off his coat and sat back in the passenger seat.

Mia, who was standing next to her, was curled up in a small ball, her face still pale.

She stared intently at the row of flashing monitor screens, her eyes unfocused.

As a newcomer to ACU, or rather, as an ordinary person who has just stepped out of an office building, tonight's lesson was a bit too intense.

"Boss."

Mia suddenly spoke, her voice very soft.

"When I worked at an insurance company, my daily job was to find all sorts of reasons to refuse claims."

"What happens to people whose claims are denied? I never thought about it. I assumed they would find a way, that they would have savings, or that they would apply for other forms of relief."

She looked up at Lyon, her amber eyes filled with confusion:

"But in reality... won't all those I rejected eventually become the things inside that tent?"

"To become trash sleeping in tents, cut up like pigs being slaughtered, and then hauled away like swill in these unmarked vehicles?"

The carriage was very quiet.

Lyon unscrewed a bottle of soda water, took a sip, and the cool liquid slid down his throat, slightly rinsing away the fishy smell in his mouth.

"That's true."

"Even if not all, this is the fate of the vast majority."

"If you're lucky, you might survive the winter under the bridge, or you might meet a priest like Anderson who, although greedy, at least gives out some rotten bread."

"But for most people, the process is basically the same."

"Perhaps it started as a car accident or some other injury. The insurance company refused to pay, they couldn't afford the medical bills, and the bank foreclosed on their house."

"Without a house, you can't find a good job. Without a job, you can only live in your car. And when you lose your car, you'll live in a tent."

"What if you get sick again? The doctor won't prescribe medicine because you don't have money."

"To relieve the pain, they can only go to the street corner to find someone like Big T and buy some heroin or fentanyl. Because that stuff is cheap and works quickly."

"Once you get involved with that, you're ruined."

Lyon pointed to the empty, muddy ground outside the window:

"You've become a walking corpse. You can't create value, you can't pay taxes, and you're even too lazy to vote."

"To the city hall, you're a liability."

"Since nobody cares, naturally nobody will care whether you die under a bridge or are chopped up and hung on a hook."

"In the end, I become a donor, contributing my remaining energy to companies like Alex earn some extra money, which is a way of making the best use of my resources."

Mia trembled as she listened, clutching her arms tightly.

"Alright, stop making a scene."

Leon reached out and flicked her forehead. "This isn't your fault either."

"You're just a lowly worker filling out forms, earning a few thousand dollars a month. What are you worrying about, being a capitalist?"

Even if you show them mercy and let them pass, there are still supervisors and auditors above you.

"You didn't set the insurance company's rules, nor did you write the clauses for denying claims. If you don't do it, plenty of others will. The decision-making power has never been in your hands."

Mia paused for a moment, then covered her forehead, the heaviness in her eyes easing slightly.

Although this sounds crude, the principle is indeed sound.

"so……"

Lyon looked at her and asked casually.

"Since you were doing so well in that job before, why did you suddenly become a policeman?"

"A change of heart? Or did you find that kind of life too oppressive?"

"ha……"

Upon hearing this question, Mia gave a bitter smile, her initial sadness instantly replaced by the resentment typical of a corporate slave.

"Boss, you overestimate me."

"I left the company simply because it wasn't cost-effective enough."

"My boss discovered that the same review work could be outsourced to an Indian team in Mumbai for only one-tenth of the cost."

"And those Indians don't need to sleep, nor do they need overtime pay."

"They also introduced an AI review system, which claims to be able to reject a thousand claims per second."

"AI won't even take that one-tenth of the money, and it never makes a mistake. It's also heartless, more like a ruthless claim denial machine than I am."

"So, I was pushed down by a group of Indians who couldn't even speak English fluently and had a strong curry accent, and a bunch of code, and that's how I was optimized."

"If it weren't for paying off student loans and insurance premiums, I wouldn't have become a police officer and suffered like this..."

Leon: "..."

well.

This reason is very strong, and very American.

The atmosphere of "we're all in the same boat" in the carriage became even stronger as Mia complained.

"Sigh, I feel you, sister, I feel you too."

Kevin, who had been staring at the screen, suddenly took the lollipop out of his mouth and angrily picked up the thread of conversation:

"Back in the day, I was also a Silicon Valley aspirant. Before I lost so much hair, I was quite good at coding."

He pointed to the thick-rimmed glasses on his nose, his face showing a look of utter dismay:

"And the result? ChatGPT 4.0 is out, and Copilot is out."

"The boss took one look and thought, 'This AI-written code may lack any soul, but it doesn't need a salary!'"

"And it doesn't need to drink coffee, doesn't need to take vacations, and won't get complaints for wearing slippers in the office or not washing its hair for three days."

"I was among the first to be kicked out because I was bad at socializing, didn't care about my appearance, and only knew how to bury myself in coding."

"After being unemployed for three months, I almost borrowed money from those Vietnamese loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates, the kind... you know, the kind where the interest is so high it could make you sell a kidney."

Kevin made a gesture resembling the act of cutting off a kidney, a flicker of fear crossing his eyes:

"If I had actually signed that document back then, I probably wouldn't be sitting here showing you the surveillance footage now."

"I'm probably already rotting in some sewer, or like that unlucky guy, hanging on a hook waiting to be weighed."

"laugh--"

A long static noise suddenly came from the car radio, followed by the extremely tired voice of the deputy team leader, Harrison.

"You bunch of bastards, can you please remember to turn off the public channel on your walkie-talkies when you're chatting?"

Harrison had clearly listened to the whole thing.

"But Kevin is right. I've been a police officer for fifteen years, and now every month when I get my paycheck, three thousand dollars is forcibly transferred by the court to my ex-wife who ran off with her fitness instructor."

"If I lose my job tomorrow and can't make it through two weeks, I'll have to line up for welfare."

Jacob scratched his head, looking embarrassed, and reached out to touch the switch on the walkie-talkie.

"Hey Harrison, I thought I just pressed mute... Well, looks like this car is full of potential donors."

Even Carlos, who had been sitting silently in the driver's seat watching the windshield wipers swing back and forth, let out a heavy sigh.

An eerie silence fell over the carriage, as everyone seemed to be reliving the lingering fear of almost being doomed.

Except for one person.

FBI agent Perkins, who always sat upright in the back row, maintaining an elite demeanor.