The Jinwoo Martinez that sanitation civil servant Leo Vance remembered was an ill-mannered little bastard.
When a senior spoke to him he would stare back with sharp eyes, then toss out a short answer half a beat late.
―The kid was originally C3-grade trash, that's why.
―C3-grade citizens are bastards no different from the unregistered.
Young C3-grade citizens usually expressed their resentment and dissatisfaction with the world in the form of drugs and violence.
But among them, very rarely, there were bastards who refined that resentment and dissatisfaction into venom and condensed it inside their hearts.
Men like that endured and endured, then at some moment turned on you and bit, and Jinwoo Martinez belonged to that type.
Humans of this type were easy to push around.
They were smart enough to live with an eye on the future, so they didn't strike back over ordinary matters.
They glared at you with fierce eyes, but they were just as cowardly, you might say.
‘But what's this? Was this kid ever this relaxed?’
The Woojin standing here now was different.
He sneered at his seniors' threats as though they were laughable, and instead proposed a bet to them.
The Jinwoo Martinez that Leo remembered would have kept his face hard, glared at his seniors, and quietly refused.
“If I die within a month, 1,000,000 credits. Wouldn't conditions like that work for a bet?”
Woojin was even grinning from ear to ear, proposing the terms of the bet on his own.
‘Has this kid lost his mind?’
Perhaps seeing Paul Ford die had driven him mad.
He had despaired at finding out that sanitation civil servants were more dangerous and worse paid than he'd thought, and his eyes had rolled back in his head.
The rule was that you didn't associate with a madman.
“W-what do you mean, 1,000,000 credits? Our salaries are…….”
“Right! Maybe 100,000, but…….”
Leo Vance and Jax Miller, who had picked the fight with Woojin, muttered while stealing glances at each other.
They had been completely overwhelmed by Woojin's momentum.
Just then, a man who had been watching the scene from across the garage as though he found it pathetic suddenly came toward them.
“You'd be better off dropping that bet.”
He was a large man who looked to be in his forties.
Thick deltoids running down from a thick neck.
A submachine gun slung over those deltoids.
Under his fluorescent uniform with the sleeves rolled up, a well-maintained prosthetic arm gleamed.
It wasn't a prosthetic arm that shone because it had never been used, like Paul Ford's.
It was an arm with plenty of scratches from long use, but maintained well enough to give off a subdued luster.
‘This man I do remember.’
Woojin traced his memories.
No other sanitation civil servant remained in Jinwoo Martinez's memories, but that man's name alone was carved there clearly.
Victor Kruger.
He was the leader figure among the sanitation civil servants of District 297.
Leo Vance spoke to Victor with a cautious attitude.
It was a far more courteous attitude than the one he had taken with Woojin.
“What do you mean, Victor? Drop the bet?”
“Jinwoo Martinez there. He has no money. Not one credit. When his salary comes in, all of it will be pulled straight out of his account. And he's still in the red after that.”
Hearing that, Woojin drew both corners of his mouth up.
‘How does that bastard know I run a deficit every month?’
Jinwoo Martinez had never once told Victor about his financial situation.
Nor anyone else, of course.
Someone as wary as Jinwoo Martinez would never expose his most fatal weakness that easily.
So where had Victor learned it?
“What? He tried to make a bet without a single credit to his name? That rotten bastard!”
Meanwhile Leo made a fuss and cursed Woojin.
Perhaps because he was in front of Victor, he wasn't putting on airs and was clowning around instead.
Woojin completely ignored Leo and asked Victor.
“It's true that I run a deficit every month. But how did you know that? There's no way Daphne told you.”
“There are ways of knowing. I have an information source.”
“An information source, huh.”
Roughly a hundred sanitation civil servants clocked in from this garage.
Their unofficial leader was Victor Kruger.
And that Victor had an information source impressive enough to learn someone's debt details?
At this level they weren't sanitation civil servants so much as a gang.
In fact, sanitation civil servants were rather similar to a gang.
In the sense that they carried weapons and had to shoot dead any bastard who got in the way.
“That aside. About the bet.”
Victor folded his arms as he spoke.
“I could take your bet. The terms would have to change, of course. It doesn't look like I could get money out of you.”
“Hm? That sounds strange.”
Woojin tilted his head.
“We make a bet, but I don't have to put money on it?”
“That's right. Only I will put up money.”
“Then what do you get out of it?”
“Obedience.”
Victor came closer to Woojin.
He fixed Woojin with an overbearing stare.
“If I win, you do whatever I say.”
Woojin still wasn't convinced.
“Obedience? Is that so important? It's not like we work together. We're nothing but bottom-rung officers. Isn't the real boss who gives us orders and manages our shifts the City Public Service AI?”
“That isn't what I mean. This is an emotional matter.”
Woojin stared hard at Victor.
Was Victor's behavior simply coming from an animal instinct to make the pecking order within the group clear?
Or was there something in it that brought Victor a practical benefit?
Either way, Woojin had no reason to avoid it.
Because he was confident.
“So what are the terms of the bet? I lose if I die? If I die you won't get to see me obeying you.”
“Of course we'll change it. The terms of the bet will be based on your performance rating. What's your performance rating now?”
“43.2 points.”
“If it drops below 40 points within a week starting today, my win. If you hold out a week, I'll call it your win.”
“And if you win, I obey you. If I win, how much are you giving me?”
“1,000,000 credits.”
“Hah.”
Woojin laughed at the sheer absurdity of it.
Victor won if the rating fell below 40 points within a week, which was to say if 3.2 points got eaten up?
‘He's trying to get this for nothing.’
How many days would a newly hired probationary crew member need to eat up 3.2 rating points?
And on top of that, under conditions where his trainer had died and he had to work alone?
The answer was two days.
Losing 2 points a day, he would drop to 39.2 on the second day and lose the bet.
The new probationary crew member might even die during the bet.
In other words, this was a very easy bet that Victor could not lose.
Conversely, from the new probationary crew member's standpoint it was the worst possible bet, one he could only win with a truly enormous amount of luck.
And Victor was putting up a mere 1,000,000 credits on a bet like that?
Wasn't that too shameless?
“I don't much like the terms.”
“What?”
“There are no terms for when I raise my rating.”
“What? Raise your rating? Heh.”
Victor twisted an eyebrow as though he had heard something bizarre.
Then he looked at Leo and Jax and let out a laugh.
At that, Leo and Jax read the mood and sneered at Woojin along with him.
“Ha ha ha! His trainer died and he's gone completely off the rails?”
“Isn't he high? You can't say something like this without being doped up.”
Woojin looked at the bastards cackling away and simply shrugged.
Then he spoke with a confident attitude, in a way that from the other side would look like pure bluster.
“Fine, if you don't want to. It makes no difference to me whether we bet or not.”
Woojin turned his body toward his garbage truck.
And sure enough, Victor called him back.
“Hold on, Martinez. When did I say I wouldn't bet?”
Woojin didn't turn to face him right away.
So that he would look inwardly nervous.
“…Oh? You'll bet?”
“Of course. Name your terms. I'll hear them.”
“Hmm…….”
Woojin considered what figure to propose so the other man would swallow it whole without suspicion.
“Give me an extra 2,000,000 credits for every rating point I gain. On top of the 1,000,000 I get for winning, of course.”
“Done. But I'll set a condition of my own.”
“What is it?”
“If I win, I'm going to neural hack you. I'll need to plant a code in you so you obey me for certain.”
“Neural hacking, huh.”
“You can manage that much, can't you?”
Hacking someone's neural interface was only possible with considerable skill.
Net divers capable of neural hacking were high-grade personnel, and even in the city there weren't many of them.
But if you obtained the other party's access permission, the story changed.
Connect to the neural interface by cable and drop the firewall, and you could intrude far more easily into the deepest part of the other person's mind and plant a code that controlled their thoughts and actions.
You became Victor's eternal slave.
“Well? Scared? Are you going to tuck your tail and run?”
Victor smirked and taunted Woojin.
Woojin looked blankly at Victor for a moment, then deliberately snorted and gave him a grin.
“Hmph! As if.”
“Then let's draw up the electronic contract right now.”
Victor used the net service of a law firm that provided simple contract services and drew up an electronic contract on the spot.
Woojin had Daphne's help verifying the contract's legal validity, then signed.
And so the bet between Woojin and Victor was established.
***
“Daphne. What did you think of that bet earlier?”
Woojin spoke while sitting in the garbage truck's driver's seat.
The steering wheel was moving on its own, driving the truck.
<It was a very dangerous bet, heavily disadvantageous to you, Officer Woojin. Though since it is a private matter between sanitation civil servants, I did not step in.>
“Oh? So you're neutral?”
<Of course. I am the City Public Service AI that manages every sanitation civil servant in this district.>
Daphne said that, then added after a moment.
<But personally, I am worried about you, Officer Woojin.>
“That's unexpected. Weren't you neutral?”
<You are my friend, aren't you, Officer Woojin?>
“Friend?”
When did we become friends?
<You said I could call you by a nickname! If I can call you by a nickname, doesn't that make us friends?>
“Ah. Right. Call someone by a nickname and you're friends. You can treat me however freely you like.”
She was a fairly innocent AI.
To think being allowed a nickname made her decide they were friends.
<Officer Victor Kruger has never once treated me this warmly. And all the other officers are too busy cursing me out. I don't say anything to them, but I hear all of it, you know.>
“What rotten bastards.”
Wasn't the reason the officers cursed her that Daphne heard all of it?
The thought did cross his mind, but Woojin sympathized with the grumbling City Public Service AI.
He had no idea whether an AI needed sympathy, but at any rate, getting along with Daphne couldn't hurt.
<I really am worried.>
“Then all you have to do is push my rating way up, right?”
<I cannot do that. I have to follow the rules.>
“Which is why I'm saying, follow the rules and push it way up.”
<What? What do you mean…….>
Right on cue, the garbage truck came to a stop in front of a garbage bin.
Woojin grinned and climbed down from the truck.
“Time to do this job.”
<Just a moment, Officer Woojin! What do you mean by that?>
“No time for a leisurely chat. I have to clear this fast if I'm going to win the bet, don't I?”
<That is true, but……!>
Woojin brushed off the curious Daphne's voice and went straight into the work.
A sprint toward the garbage bags left out on the street.
Hoist a bag up and run for the garbage bin.
Then a light toss, like shooting a free throw.
CLUNK!
With a satisfying sound, the garbage bag dropped neatly inside the bin.
Woojin didn't stop there and kept moving.
TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!
It was work that meant lifting and moving heavy garbage without a moment's rest.
Hard labor that used agility, strength, and stamina all at once, the kind that would have worn an ordinary person out and knocked him down in no time!
Sure enough, Woojin's breathing turned rough and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
“Haah. Haah. Whew!”
Even so, Woojin didn't rest even once.
Once he had cleared away all the large garbage, he started sweeping immediately.
He was sweating and short of breath, but he still had plenty of stamina left to move comfortably.
<What in the, no, Officer Woojin……?>
Daphne called out to Woojin in a dazed voice, very unlike an AI.