Chapter 194 In short, we've won so much!
At 10:00 AM, most of the media broadcast vans outside the West District Police Station building had finally left.
The heavy oak door to the director's office clicked softly, completely shutting out the lingering excited whispers in the corridor.
Victoria Sterling turned around, leaned against the door, and let out a long breath. Her shoulders, which had been tense in front of the camera, instantly slumped.
Today she wore a fitted dark blue uniform skirt suit, the hem of which just stopped above her knees, paired with a silk blouse with a low neckline.
Especially her long, straight legs encased in extremely thin black stockings, combined with the voluptuousness of an adult and the aura of someone in a high position, exuded a highly aggressive allure.
"We won, Lyon, we're ecstatic."
Sterling dropped the solemn facade of a bureau chief he had maintained in front of the reporters.
She walked to the sofa, kicked off her high heels without any regard for her image, and stepped onto the soft Persian carpet with her feet encased in black stockings.
Sterling skillfully poured two cups of black coffee at the coffee machine next to him.
"Those reporters were just asking how many shots were fired at the Pink Swan Club."
"I told them it didn't matter."
"The important thing is that we, the residents of the West Precinct and the West Precinct, have won. In short, we've won big."
Sterling walked over to Lyon with a cup of coffee, handed him a glass, and then sat down on the single sofa opposite Lyon, his long legs naturally crossed.
"The commotion last night was indeed a bit outrageous. More than thirty corpses."
She held the cup, her tone light and cheerful.
"But the finishing touches were done very well."
"Those old men from the Police Foundation even called to congratulate me just now."
"They now feel that every penny of their political donations is being spent wisely."
Lyon took the cup and drank a sip of the bitter liquid.
He leaned back, sinking into the soft leather sofa, with one leg draped over the knee of the other.
"Now that the branch office has sufficient funds and the sponsors are satisfied, shouldn't we talk about something more practical?"
Lyon looked at Sterling and cut straight to the point.
"In addition to the tactical equipment and field personnel replenishment mentioned earlier, the ACU also needs to expand its non-combat organization."
He paused, his tone becoming very serious:
"I need you to transfer two of the best civilian police officers from the archives or dispatch center who are skilled at writing official documents."
Sterling paused for a moment as he was about to drink his coffee.
A hint of surprise flashed in her bright blue eyes.
"civilian?"
Sterling put down his cup and looked at Lyon with a puzzled expression.
"ACU field tactical teams are not suited to have dedicated civilian staff."
"Those firefight reports and police dispatch logs are, according to regulations, written by the officers on duty themselves."
"Rules are flexible, Director."
Lyon shrugged, his tone matter-of-fact.
"I have now separated the responsibilities within the team."
"The on-site investigation and firefight report of last night's more than thirty bodies is like a mountain."
"Mia stayed up all night in front of the computer last night; she's almost driven crazy by those things."
Lyon looked into Sterling's eyes:
"I need you to give me two clerical staff to assist her, specifically to deal with those endless, tedious forms from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the City Hall."
After Sterling heard this, the office fell into a brief silence.
She looked at Leon, who was leaning back on the sofa.
This man had just finished dealing with those horrible media outlets with her outside, and then he specifically followed her into her office, just to ask her for two insignificant clerical jobs.
In order to reduce the workload of the secretary named Mia.
Sterling suddenly felt a pang of bitterness.
The feeling was unfamiliar and absurd, but it just popped up uncontrollably.
She turned around and stared at Leon with a half-smile.
"You're incredibly considerate of that secretary who's always acting like she wants to retire, Officer Vance."
Sterling's voice carried a clear hint of teasing and a touch of barely concealed jealousy.
"To prevent her from working overtime late into the night, you even went so far as to blackmail your branch chief."
"Why haven't I seen you pay this much attention to me, your boss, before?"
As soon as he said it, Sterling realized that his words had been a little too sarcastic.
Her gaze shifted slightly, landing on the green plants beside her.
Good heavens, what am I saying? This sounds like a jealous, resentful woman. It's completely out of character for her as a politician.
Lyon keenly caught Sterling's fleeting moment of annoyance.
He couldn't help but want to laugh, but he maintained that roguish composure on his face.
He put down his coffee cup, stood up, and walked to the armchair where Sterling was sitting.
Then, Lyon bent down slightly, placed his hands on the armrests on either side of the sofa, and partially encircled Sterling in his shadow.
"Chief, that's not how you do it."
"Mia has been with me since I was a patrolman."
"If she dies at her desk from overwork, then I'll have to sit in front of the computer and type out those long and tedious firefight reports myself."
He looked at Sterling's face, which was so close to his, and his gaze swept over her delicate collarbone.
"If I spend all my time nitpicking over words, then I'll have less time to help you boost your political achievements on the streets."
"This is a huge loss for the branch office."
Leon paused, then leaned down a little more, bringing the distance between them to a dangerous level.
"More importantly..."
He chuckled softly. "In that case, I won't have time to come to the director's office anytime for your private guidance."
Sterling felt the heat emanating from Leon and turned his head away from Leon's aggressive gaze.
She raised her right hand, coughed lightly twice to try to hide her slightly quickened heartbeat.
"Alright, stop with your tricks for dealing with little girls."
Sterling tilted his head, stretched out his left hand, and tapped Leon's chest with his index finger, pushing him back a little distance with a slight force.
She sat up straight again, straightened the hem of her uniform, and regained the composure of a bureau chief.
"You want two of the most adept storytellers, seasoned office workers, right?"
"I agree."
Sterling picked up his coffee cup again and took a sip as a cover-up.
"Before the ACU is fully staffed and resumes its duties, the system has matched you with the urban fiction category. Click to view details. I'll send the two most story-telling laymen from the archives to report to you."
"They're under your control now, or rather, under the control of your little secretary."
"Thank you very much, Director."
Lyon, knowing when to stop, straightened up and gestured to Sterling with his coffee cup.
……
Meanwhile, in the southern part of Seattle, under the overpass of Interstate 5.
The continuous rain has filled the air with a pungent smell of urine, the acrid odor of burning marijuana, and the sour stench of fermenting garbage.
This is one of the largest homeless communities in the southern district.
Colorful, tattered tents clung tightly to the bridge piers like mold.
"Get out of my way! You Eastern spies! Don't touch my high-energy microwave transmitter!"
A series of harsh and broken Chinese curses came from in front of a makeshift shack made of supermarket shopping carts and cardboard.
The one who shouted the insults was an Asian man in his thirties. His name is Wang Zhenwei, but now everyone calls him by his English name, "Tony".
Wang Zhenwei was originally a firefighter in a third-tier city in the east.
Two years ago, he not only poured all his savings into the cryptocurrency market, but also borrowed millions of yuan in high-interest loans, trying to turn a bicycle into a motorcycle.
After his account was wiped out and he lost everything, he acted impulsively and believed an online intermediary who said that washing dishes in the United States could earn him $30,000 a month. He then followed a smuggler from South America, walking and crawling through barbed wire, enduring countless dangers to reach the United States.
In the end, he didn't see the beacon of freedom he had imagined, which was filled with gold. He was first imprisoned for several months because he was an illegal immigrant.
He then worked as a dishwasher in Los Angeles for two months, and because he didn't have legal status, his wages were deducted. Coupled with long-term malnutrition and trauma, he completely lost his mind.
Right now, Wang Zhenwei is clinging tightly to an old microwave turntable wrapped in tin foil, his whole body curled up in the mud.
His once neat black short hair was now a mess, like a bird's nest, and the original color of his windbreaker was no longer visible.
Three tall, white and black homeless men were surrounding him.
"Let go! You crazy yellow-skinned monkey! That's just a damn copper plate, worth two dollars!"
A white homeless man with a full beard and half a tooth missing kicked Wang Zhenwei in the shoulder while cursing.
Wang Zhenwei rolled around in the mud, but his hands were still tightly holding onto the plate.
He looked up, his face covered in mud, his eyes wide, and began frantically spitting out broken English mixed with Chinese.
"You don't understand! This is for locking onto coordinates! You dare steal my equipment? Believe me, I'll call in an air-to-ground missile and blow you all up!"
" "Damn air-to-ground missile!"
A homeless Black man, about 1.9 meters tall and wearing a ripped hoodie, lost his patience and stepped forward, ready to rob the man outright.
Just then, the third homeless man standing to the side, a tall, thin white man wearing a tattered baseball jersey, suddenly shouted.
"Wait! Forget about this lunatic! Check the messages in the group chat!"
The tall, thin man was holding up a secondhand iPhone 8 with a screen cracked like a spider web.
In the United States, even if homeless people are so hungry that they have to eat garbage, have no toothbrush, or even no pants to wear, they absolutely cannot be without a cell phone, as it is their only means of survival in this society.
This broken screen is used for everything from getting electronic food vouchers, finding free charity kitchen locations, searching for fast food restaurants with free Wi-Fi, to even tipping each other off before being beaten by gang members.
This broken screen is used for everything from getting electronic food vouchers, finding free charity kitchen locations, searching for fast food restaurants with free Wi-Fi, to even tipping each other off before being beaten by gang members.
As a result, social media platforms like Facebook even have dedicated mutual aid groups for the homeless, where they share information about which churches are distributing free food or where there are clean public toilets.
The white homeless man with the missing tooth stopped what he was doing and moved closer.
"What are you looking at? Which stupid church is giving out free turkeys again?"
"Ten thousand times better than that!"
The tall, thin man was so excited that his fingers were trembling as he swiped across the screen.
"West District! All the old gangsters in the Eighth Block are dead!"
"People in the underworld say the police wiped out Lamar and Darrell's entire gang last night. Now there's not a single protection collector left over there!"
The Black homeless man frowned:
"So what if there are no gangs? The cops in the West Side are notoriously difficult to deal with, and there are tons of 'Karens' (meddlesome aunties) in that middle-class neighborhood."
"If you dare to pitch a tent on their lawn, the police will be here to kick you out in five minutes."
"No! This is the craziest part!"
The tall, thin man swallowed hard and pointed to a post on a homeless people's mutual aid forum on his phone screen.
"Some guys set up camp in the West Side this morning, and guess what happened?"
"The city hall's sanitation trucks didn't come! None of the cleaning crews who usually spray our tents with high-pressure water cannons showed up today!"
"Someone found out that the city hall has cut its budget and completely halted the homeless cleanup efforts in the west wing!"
The three homeless men looked at each other, and a greedy glint gradually appeared in their eyes.
There were no gangs collecting tolls or throwing Molotov cocktails at them in the middle of the night for fun, no sanitation trucks chasing them away, and large vacant lots near the bustling commercial street.
For them, the West End is now a promised land flowing with milk and honey.
"Then what are we waiting for?"
The toothless white homeless man completely forgot about Wang Zhenwei and the copper plate.
"Let's hurry up and pack our things, bringing the tents and carts. If we're late, we won't even be able to find a spot under the bridge!"
The Black homeless man was still somewhat hesitant.
"Should we go a little further west? I heard that the western edge of the district, near the sea, is the rich neighborhood of those tech elites, and you can find unopened Apple computers in the trash cans there."
"Did you fucking fentanyl poison your brain?"
The tall, thin man looked at the black homeless man as if he were an idiot.
"Go to the rich neighborhood? Do you think that's a park?"
"Before you even reach the intersection halfway up the mountain, you'll be stopped by those SUVs from private security companies."
"Their powerful flashlights could cook your retina, and then they'd just dump you in the middle of nowhere!"
"We might wander around the fringes of middle-class neighborhoods at most; the commercial streets of the West Side are paradise right now!"
The three ignored Wang Zhenwei on the ground and turned around to frantically dismantle their tattered tent, preparing to join the massive migration of homeless people that was about to sweep through Seattle.
Wang Zhenwei remained huddled in the mud.
He watched the white and black people excitedly push their carts away, and nervously scratched his head.
"A strategic retreat...this is a strategic retreat; they're evading my air-to-ground missiles!"
Wang Zhenwei suddenly scrambled to his feet, raised the microwave turntable high in his hand, and then, dragging his tattered snakeskin bag bound with tape, limped along to the very back of the group.
"I'm going to take over the enemy's high ground! For the glory of America!"