Empire of Shadows

The morning dawns earlier in the summer.

By a little after six, the sky was already completely bright, but ninety percent of the city's population was still fast asleep.

Whether they were working-class laborers or Bay Area tycoons, they all needed more sleep to make up for their physical exhaustion.

The rich were physically exhausted because they had to fight until late at night with beautiful girls or handsome boys, while the manual laborers were simply tired from a whole day's work!

At least an eleven-hour workday meant that the vast majority of heavy manual workers couldn't get out of bed once they lay down, leaving them little time to rest.

But some people get up very early, such as those workers contracted to do the city's sanitation work, who get up very early every day but earn very little.

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And then there are… reporters!

At six fifteen, a large number of reporters gathered outside the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau again, making the guard in the duty room so nervous that he couldn't breathe!

Last time, the Lance family hung a leaker on a lamppost outside the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau, causing the entire department to lose face!

Even a small section of the 'Federal Daily' reported this news, and Director Dale directly fired the guard.

He first looked at the lamppost, and when he saw that no one was swaying on it, he breathed a sigh of relief. He craned his neck and looked at the walls on both sides of the street, and there was no one nailed to the walls either.

The reporters were surrounding a car, and although the car was parked on the side of the road and not far from the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau, it obviously had nothing to do with them anymore!

He even watched the excitement from the sidelines until Lucar drove to work.

He hadn't slept well these past two days. The raid on the wharf warehouse was a success for the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau.

They not only destroyed a warehouse, but also sealed off a place suspected of openly selling intoxicating beverages, and caught a large number of people involved.

But for Lucar, it was a failed operation, because he still hadn't caught any clues related to Lance. He was still at large!

Yes, at large. Lance had not been sanctioned by law or justice in any way. He still enjoyed freedom, wealth, and everything!

Director Dale had spoken to him privately, feeling that he was becoming a little abnormal when it came to Lance. If he really wanted to catch Lance, he had to calm down.

Not to arrest anyone regardless of the size of the crime, nor to actively provoke Lance, but to be like a viper, looking for a suitable opportunity and then delivering a fatal blow.

Lucar was also reflecting. He was indeed a little too extreme when it came to matters related to Lance. He had to reorganize his thoughts and analyze the problem from a higher or broader perspective.

He left early in the morning because he needed to check some information and think.

When the car arrived outside the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau, he saw many reporters taking pictures in front of a car. He drove the car into the gate and casually asked, "What's going on at the entrance?"

The guard curled his lips. "I'm not sure. A lot of reporters came early in the morning and kept taking pictures of that car. Is it a new car, or a rich man's car?"

Lucar vaguely felt that something was wrong. After he parked the car and put on his badge, he came to the car. "Let me through…"

This sentence made many reporters suddenly point their cameras at him. The burst of magnesium light made him a little unable to open his eyes. He impatiently pushed through the crowd and walked to the innermost part, then glanced at the guy sitting in the back seat of the passenger seat and cursed!

Two minutes later, he dialed the police.

Although the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau has great power, it seems to lack something in the category of criminal cases.

The police quickly arrived at the scene. The criminal investigation team officer from the city police station was a rookie.

He just glanced at it and said, "It's very similar to the last situation. Another leaker."

His tone carried a gloating emotion. Recently, the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau seemed to be trying to obtain more law enforcement power, which was very dangerous and unfriendly to the police system. The police naturally wouldn't like them.

The body had been loaded up, but the scene was still preserved. It was said that they were going to collect some evidence.

When it was time to go to work, the entire Hazardous Materials Management Bureau knew about this, but this time they didn't know who had died.

Dale called these supervisors to his office one by one, including Lucar.

He told Dale truthfully that it wasn't his man, but it was his colleague's, and the matter was very likely related to the warehouse that day.

Director Dale looked at him a few times. Seeing that Lucar had been working actively, he didn't say anything, but just told him to reflect on himself.

As he went out, he saw his colleague. The two walked towards each other, meeting each other's eyes.

Lucar was very calm, while his colleague had some dissatisfaction.

As the two were about to pass each other, Lucar apologized, "I'm sorry."

His colleague stopped, turned around and looked at him seriously, "The person is already dead, and you're saying sorry to me?"

His voice was not small, attracting the attention of many people, including Ponda, who had just received a sum of money from Lance.

"I didn't know this would happen, and the matter is already over, and we also seized a lot of smuggled wine," Lucar continued to forcibly explain.

"You didn't know this would happen, so you decided to act without authorization?"

"It was my man who died, not yours, so of course you don't care now."

"You've made a contribution, and everyone says you've done a good job. Who cares about the death of a marginal person?"

"You make people feel disgusting, Lucar!" His colleague stopped talking to him and walked straight into the director's office.

Lucar looked at the door that was slammed shut, spread his hands, looked helpless, and then looked at the colleagues around him who were watching the excitement, and then turned and left.

Ponda asked the colleague next to him, "What's going on?"

He had only heard a little about it when he came, but he didn't know exactly what had happened.

His colleague knew a little more and explained it.

"They caught another leaker. It should have been done by someone from the Lance family. They put the body in the back seat of a car and parked it outside the gate."

"Lucar was in the limelight in the last wharf warehouse case, but judging from the situation, it wasn't his undercover agent who died, it was…'s."

In just a few words, he restored a rough truth. Ponda kept this matter in mind.

Back in the office, Lucar sighed. He walked to the window and looked at the sky and the slowly floating white clouds, and fell into contemplation for a while.

The "…knock knock" sound of knocking on the door brought him back to his senses. It may have only been a short while for him, but in fact several minutes had passed.

A clerical agent was standing outside the door. "Someone has come to apply for bail for those rioting workers."

Lucar is now in charge of this case. Director Dale has given these supervisors a lot of authority. Whether to detain them or not is up to the supervisors.

Keeping Johnny is useless. Suing him will not have any good results. As long as he insists that he was drinking alone at home, no one can punish him for drinking.

Therefore, for these drunks, as long as they don't make too much trouble, the Hazardous Materials Management Bureau won't care.

Plus, an undercover agent had just died, and Lucar's emotions didn't seem as irritable as before. "Let them pay the money and let them go."

He had interrogated Johnny and the others, and he couldn't find too many valuable clues and evidence from them.

Even if they said that the workers' club was run by Lance, the court would most likely not adopt it, because what drunks say is inherently lacking in credibility in court.

In addition, they can't produce any actual evidence, so the court will not adopt these unproven claims at all.

It's better to send them away as soon as possible than to keep them here as an eyesore.

The clerical agent quickly brought Lucar's opinion downstairs, and Johnny and the others were bailed out by the union's legal counsel.

Spending two days in a law enforcement agency for the first time was also a novel experience for them.

After gaining freedom, Johnny's first thing was to ask about the situation at the wharf.

"The situation is getting more and more tense. The management company's attitude is very firm, and it is very likely that they will not agree to raise wages."

These people gathered together, and someone asked, "What is the union's attitude?"

The legal counsel also belongs to the working class. He said loudly, "Of course we will stand on your side. We will help you fight for your legitimate rights with the company. Don't worry…"

When Johnny returned to the wharf, he was treated like a hero, and many people ran over to greet him.

During the two days he was detained, some rumors about him were spreading rapidly.

People's previous bad impressions of him have also improved in the demands he made to the company this time.

Although he knew that everything he was doing was a script, a play, he liked this performance and began to immerse himself in it!

Everyone surrounded him, some touching his hair, some touching his shoulders, some touching his arms, and some touching his waist.

"Who the hell is touching my ass?" he shouted loudly and looked warily at the people behind him. The workers were all laughing.

Someone shouted, "Johnny, you bastard, tell us something!"

This is a unique way of expressing the emotions of the working class. They like to listen to others speak.

Johnny's emotions were also on time. He coughed and hummed twice—

"Imprisonment and intimidation won't silence me. My demands have never changed: give us all a raise!"

"If they're not willing to give us a raise, I'd rather not do this job."

"I want to show them whether they, sitting in their offices, are more important to this dock, or us!"

These were very direct words, but their meaning caused the workers to both cheer and begin to think!

Were the white-collar workers sitting in the office truly indispensable to the dock, or was it them, the ones working on the docks?

Under Johnny's appeal and call, and with Vaughn and the union's organization, a strike was brewing and already beginning to threaten the city!

On Tuesday morning, George, who had already resigned to take responsibility, proactively contacted the media. The media gathered in front of his ordinary house in the Presidio district to attend his speech announcing his candidacy for city councilor.

In front of the cameras and media reporters, he explained his views: that Goldport City's security had begun to rapidly deteriorate since he lost his position.

This was largely due to the mayor's inaction regarding public safety. Even now, the city police department has not officially appointed a new police chief because of the mayor's negligence.

Charlie believed that the mayor, as an outsider, had a certain prejudice against the local law enforcement agencies and distrusted Goldport City's law enforcers.

This would cause the relationship between the two sides to become increasingly tense. But he, Charlie, the former police chief, could solve these problems.

But this had a prerequisite: he had to have a better reason to participate in these matters, and not as an ordinary person. Otherwise, he would not be qualified to say or do anything for this city.

So, he planned to run for city councilor in the Bay Area, and promised that if he won the election, he would urge the city hall and the police system to communicate effectively as soon as possible, quickly change the chaotic situation, and suppress it!

He also stated that he was not using such an inopportune time and event to gain political capital for himself.

It was because he couldn't bear to witness the city's rapid decline that he had no choice but to stand up again at his age of retirement.

Charlie's speech directly targeted the mayor, which also caused some internal conflicts within the city to surface. Immediately, many people expressed their views, and some even directly blamed the mayor for the city's chaos.

Eleven police precincts and one city police department expressed their support for Charlie's campaign, saying they needed an effective communication channel with city hall to solve the many current problems.

The police's implicit statement further led the public to believe that the current poor public security was directly related to the mayor.

The matter of Chief Charlie being forced to resign to take responsibility was also brought up again by some people, who claimed that Chief Charlie's forced resignation was a conspiracy from city hall.

The mayor used some shady means to force two suspects to commit suicide, and then used the suspects' suicide to make Charlie lose his position.

They even blamed John's death on the mayor's conspiracy!

Faced with so much mudslinging, the mayor didn't have much to explain. He simply told the citizens that he would hold a public speech tomorrow, Wednesday, and he would explain many issues clearly, hoping everyone could come and listen to what he had to say.

The whole city seemed to be becoming restless and uneasy.

In the afternoon, after a short rest, Johnny, as the representative of the working class, sat on the other side of the negotiating table with the dock management company, starting the tripartite negotiation.

This time, three directors from the dock management company also came; the manager could only sit at the end of the table.

On the union side, there was Vaughn and the legal counsel, as well as several staff members who would record the entire negotiation process.

As for the workers' side, in addition to Johnny, there were worker representatives who represented the interests of the workers, and their interests were consistent with the workers' interests. This time, they only had one request: a raise.

As the middleman, Vaughn spoke first, "Entrusted by the dock management company, I contacted the worker representatives, which led to today's negotiation on the wage issue."

"I should have taken a neutral stance to participate in this negotiation, but as the chairman of the workers' union, it is difficult for me to remain neutral, so I will not speak first for now."

He looked towards the worker representatives, "Johnny, state your demands in front of these directors."

Looking at the three directors sitting across the table, and seeing the contemptuous look hidden in their eyes, Johnny felt a surge of anger in his heart.

Even though he had forced these people to the negotiating table, these people still looked down on him, their eyes full of contemptuous disdain.

In the past, he might have had to admit defeat, bending over and lowering his head in the face of their calm and disdainful gaze.

But now, he wanted to be a hero, a true hero!

"I have no other demands, a raise is a must!"

"This is our only condition, and it is an absolutely unshakeable condition!"

The other worker representatives nodded in agreement, they had no other demands, only a raise.

Vaughn asked, "Do you have any requirements for the amount of the increase?"

"At least one dollar and fifty cents!" Johnny still spoke first, "Other industries increase wages every six months, at least twenty to fifty cents,"

"We haven't had a raise in more than two years. Counting the time from now to the end of the year, you owe us five wage increase opportunities. An increase of thirty cents each time is a very reasonable number!"

Before he could finish speaking, the manager slammed the table and stood up, "That's impossible!"

"The income of our dockworkers in Goldport City is already considered middle-class. You won't easily find such a comfortable and high-paying job outside."

"We can make concessions in other areas, twenty more minutes of rest time each day, the food will be a little better, but a raise, impossible!"

He said it decisively, without the slightest room for negotiation.

After listening, Vaughn also revealed some dissatisfaction, "We are in negotiations, manager, you need to have the right attitude."

"The right attitude?" He chuckled, "My attitude is not a problem at all. I'm telling you, if you think that causing a ruckus will get you this much money, then you've made a wrong move!"

"We will not compromise on this matter. A raise is an unreasonable demand, and we will not agree!"

Johnny's anger grew even greater, "Why is a raise an unreasonable demand?"

"Then what is a reasonable demand?"

"If you're willing to talk, then let's talk properly."

"If you're not willing to talk…"

The manager directly interrupted him, "What, you don't want to work anymore?"

He forced Johnny with his words. Johnny's face turned red. He stood up, holding the table with both hands, "You want to fire me?"

The manager slammed the table, stood up directly, pointed at Johnny and shouted, "As you wish, you're fired!"