Chapter 70 - 67: The Feeling of Being an Elder Brother

The Six Street Gang wasn’t out of men, just out of organization.

Gangs are like this—if it were corporate security, they’d hold out to the last minute and then continue to send military forces incessantly.

As long as the enemy hasn’t truly taken over core assets, the fight won’t stop.

But the core asset of a gang is rather intangible— it’s their level of organization.

This kind of thing grows when they’re winning, but it can vanish without a trace especially during a major setback.

In just a moment, as they watched Valentino’s convoy brazenly rush into Aloroy, the underlings felt their souls fly away in fright.

Even with a few skilled men by the sergeant’s side, it didn’t make much difference—when Valentino had already shit on your face, underlings would invariably entertain other thoughts.

So it’s best to just talk it out and put an end to things here.

Lille sat in the chair, arrogantly swinging his legs up onto the negotiation table.

The sergeant’s brow twitched, "Young man, being too arrogant isn’t good."

"I have trouble with my legs, just using the table to rest them—Sergeant, strictly speaking, we don’t really have a grudge, we’re just paid to do a job."

While saying this, Lille pulled out two pneumatic injectors from his pocket.

One was an α-neuro tranquillizer, and the other a γ-rabies vaccine.

"So it was you who stole them..." the sergeant said through gritted teeth.

"Why not share a lucrative deal with your good neighbor?"

After finishing his sentence, Lille paused, and the sergeant thought he was expecting a gesture.

But Lille continued, "Here’s the deal, I’m selling you this information: Saint Domingo is hit with a plague called γ-rabies, this is the cure, and this is the vaccine.

I’ve heard it’s been selling for quite a price in Saint Domingo recently, and it’s in short supply. I’m selling these two samples to you, you decide the price."

"Don’t be too excessive!"

"Not excessive at all," Lille shook his head, "This is Valentino painfully sharing a money-making scheme with you, then let’s talk about the second matter."

Lille put his legs down, hands on his knees, leaning slightly forward, "You bring in cyber-psychos for a terrorist attack, that’s a crime against humanity in both old and new U.S. law.

If word gets out, how will you explain it to your brothers? That the Six Street Gang’s sergeant brought in a psycho to help in a fight? What would people think?"

These things can’t be said in the open.

It’s only in this soundproof room without anyone else around, and no equipment, that Lille dared to speak so boldly.

In public, you cannot admit to it.

Moreover, these two issues were actually connected, Lille was reminding the sergeant.

The epidemic might have been orchestrated by biotechnology simply to clear out soon-to-expire vaccines, the sergeant had extensive information channels, but if this got out, he wouldn’t be able to continue his work.

The Six Street Gang has many idiots, but if even this got out and they still followed the sergeant unconditionally, then there’d be no point in being in a gang - they might as well go work in a factory screwing bolts.

When you’re in a gang, you can kill people, push drugs, and be part of the PC, but what you can’t do is get in bed with the corporations, especially not to screw over your own people.

After all, most gangs are in it to have their own people’s back.

Especially the Six Street Gang, with a slogan that translates to "with us around, no outsider will ever be able to bully you again."

"You can’t cover this up; let’s settle this account and we’ll be on our way. You handle the deal between Valentino and the Six Street Gang with the Father, deal?"

The sergeant crossed his arms, twitching his leg irritably.

This business was very profitable, if he stockpiled secretly and worked clandestinely, by the time James takes out Valentino’s territory in the Scenic Area, the profit would be enormous, more than double!

Maybe by then, the Father would have to buy medicine from him, but not now.

Lille was right, as the gang boss you have to follow one principle: when you mess with civilians, you have to bring your own people in, not silently collaborate with corporations.

If you did do that, you have to make sure not many people know.

The sergeant’s prosthetic leg kept trembling.

Click, click, click, click—

He wasn’t blind to the situation, he just felt he was losing out on a deal that could be worth millions and it made him panic.

Then suddenly, the sergeant stopped shaking his leg, took a drag on his cigarette, and after a pause said, "You guys are mercenaries, right?"

"That’s right."

"Then you’re top-notch—maybe there will be opportunities for cooperation in the future."

Transfer: +90,000 euros.

Lille revealed a smile: "More than I expected, thank you for your patronage, sir."

Before leaving, Lille even gave the sergeant an old U.S. military salute, its precision made the sergeant wonder if the kid had served before.

As Lille turned around, his prosthetic eye suddenly lit up, and a vast amount of data began to whirl—

Since he was there already, of course, he was going to leave something behind.

...

Father: "Well done, Lille, Valentino and the Six Street Gang have ceased hostilities, the people of Scenic Area and River Valley District owe you their thanks."

Lille: "One more thing to mention, the Lama Armory on Wood Black Street, the arms dealer in the factory, they aren’t with the Six Street Gang anymore."

Father: "Don’t worry, Valentino’s boys will take over that. You are the big brother now, in the next life you’ll get a club membership card, maybe we can all go for a drink sometime."

Lille: "Jack will be thrilled to hear that, thanks, Father."

Father: "You’re welcome, my child, this job is settled."

Transfer: +120,000 Euro.

...

Roshan: "Lama Armory has reopened. I heard you helped the red ochre guys, and now all the Wanderers know about it."

Roshan: "I thought you were crazy at first, but I’ve changed my mind now. I hope our future cooperation won’t be like the first time."

Lille: "I’ve always been generous with my partners. Let’s talk about Evil Land some other day."

Roshan: "I’ll be in the store, and this time, don’t use the back door."

Lille: "Of course."

...

Cheson: "Man, you hit the big time! Just as the NCPD got through to the Terrorist Mobile Team, you guys snatched James and took him away!"

Cheson: "The city’s gone nuts, I don’t know how, but people have started cussing out the NCPD again, and now they’re even including the Terrorist Mobile Team."

Lille: "Did you receive the goods?"

Cheson: "Got ’em. Kantao is very satisfied—though the delivery hasn’t been made yet, we keep it clean."

Cheson: "They want to meet with you—don’t worry, I scoped out the place for you. Your back door hasn’t been removed; you can look at my visual data yourself."

Lille: "No need, I’ve got to trust you at some point, right? The day after tomorrow. I have classes tomorrow and the day after."

Cheson: "Classes... what?"

Lille: "Classes—you must have forgotten something."

Cheson: "Oh, right, this is the advance payment Kantao agreed to give us. Normally the street rule is a seventy-thirty split, but I think you should get five parts, let’s split it fifty-fifty."

Transfer: +150,000 Euro.

...

"Time to split the money—360,000 Euro in total, 120,000 each."

"Wuhu!"

In the car, Jack and V cheered simultaneously.

Is that a lot of money?

To be honest, not really. But the fame and connections we’ve made this time are worth quite a bit.

Whether it’s Cheson or Father or the Sergeant, the money they give is just enforcer’s pay. The real value is in using your brain to cash in.

As soon as the money was transferred, V leaned in.

"Didn’t you forget something, like the 380,000 you owe me?"

"Uh... can I keep a bit? Like paying back twenty or thirty thousand first?"

"110,000—that’s what you’re going to pay back first."

Lille sighed, resigned to having just 10,000 left from the money he had just received.

"And you, Jack, you owe me 210,000." V started asking Jack for money.

Jack’s implant surgery had cost 310,000, of which only 100,000 was his own money.

Jack scratched his head and honestly transferred 110,000 to V.

Now the three accounts stand as follows:

Jack: 10,000 (owes V 100,000).

Lille: 10,000 (owes V 270,000).

V: 340,000.

After the transfer, Jack and Lille exchanged glances through the rearview mirror and simultaneously sighed.

"There’s one more thing; Father got us VIP access to Afterlife, we can set a time to check it out—

Tomorrow and the day after won’t work; I have classes during the day and at night I need to deal with the backlog of drugs, oh, and the day after tomorrow is out too. I have a meeting with Kantao’s people."

"Afterlife!"

Jack’s gloom vanished instantly, and he became excited, his face flushing as he moved up next to Lille from the backseat.

The kid must have forgotten his own strength, as the car suddenly sank, and the chassis left a white mark on the ground.

"Holy shit! That’s Afterlife! And you’re talking about going to classes?!!"

"Keep it down, Jack." Lille scratched his ear, "It’s just a drink."

"That’s where you’re wrong..."

On the way back, Jack kept schooling Lille and V on the legends of the Afterlife nightclub.

Finally, as if he had finally grown tired, he lay back in the seat, watching the sunset that was about to fall, and the trailing Valentino Gang, he murmured:

"Feels like being a big brother..."

V glanced at Jack through the rearview mirror and laughed, "The way you look, people would think you just picked yourself a doll from Cloud Peak."

"Exactly—just don’t do anything dumb when the time comes."

But... Lille didn’t even know if he could make it to that place for the first time.

[Unstable Energy will erupt soon, please be prepared.]