Chapter 20 First Job (Please Read More~)

The homeowners' association is a nonprofit organization that is widespread in the United States, with homeowners voluntarily joining and providing membership fees.

The main purpose of the association's existence is to manage the public facilities, security, landscaping, and other shared resources of residential communities to ensure the overall quality of the community is maintained and improved, making it a part of American community culture.

Of course, in places like Hell's Kitchen, where the poor are concentrated, the presence of a homeowners' association becomes somewhat delicate, especially during such unique times.

Regardless, Lille had now decided to establish himself in society using this method, and the urgent issue he needed to address was security.

In doing so, he needed a legitimate identity to handle these matters, such as a company providing security services.

Security services include not only hiring bodyguards but also electronic security systems, such as surveillance networks.

Originating from the Cyberpunk 2077 world, the complete human-machine interactive security system might have been full of holes in that world, but that was also based on the formidable personal abilities of hackers in the cyberpunk world.

In the Marvel World, in this era, Lille's hacker skills were absolutely top-notch, and in security, he was ahead of at least 99% of people, if not 99.9%.

The facial recognition systems in cameras, danger identification and logging mechanisms, and security system design experience are all things that could be organized into a security plan.

However, his clients were all poor, and he felt uneasy about charging Mr. Rigordo.

So he had to earn the first sum of money himself.

He had many software options that could be borrowed from the Cyberpunk World, but being a kid freshly awakened from a coma in the slums, those wealthy individuals wouldn't just invest in him like that.

He had to make a name for himself first.

Another reason was that the people in the community had helped his family a lot while he was unconscious, and of course, he couldn't just walk away.

First things first, the initial task was to restore and secure the existing surveillance network of the community, both private and public.

Mr. Rigordo made no comment about the first thing Lille was going to do.

He produced a stack of signed agreements and documents, and said somewhat angrily:

"Including you and me, we have eight households here, 26 people in total, and one family... hmph, that kid said he found a job as a typist and plans to move out.

Damn it, he still owed me two months' rent! I had always thought he was broke, which is why I let him delay on account of his little daughter!

Right after I finished talking yesterday, he cleared the debt and ran off! Coward!"

"That's already pretty good—and... among the remaining families, there are plenty of strong men."

Lille scanned the resident information with his prosthetic eye, storing all the data in his mind.

As for the documents Rigordo gave him, they were to appoint Lille as the representative of the homeowners' association and delegate him to carry out related tasks.

"What good are they? They're all dockworkers; if there's no work at the port, they're just waiting to starve."

"You can't say they're useless in this situation." Lille put away the documents in his patched-up old fabric bag, "Then I plan to sign a contract with my own company. I need to change the electrical lines around the house and reorganize the monitoring network, free of charge."

"Since it's free, do whatever you want with it, just don't break anything—by the way, there are cameras in the apartment too, I don't know why they stopped working.

The company that installed this stuff went bankrupt and ran away; no one knows how to fix it."

Rigordo said as he mimicked those people: "'The wiring here is maggots in the cesspit'—damn it."

Lille was confident: "I'll fix it—um... and then I need two bodyguards."

As he spoke, he selected two strong men from the information.

John Burnett, 32, black, with a young son at home; Anthony Flor, 40, Latino, whose wife was the loud Natalie, with a daughter.

Both were dockworkers, exceptionally talented in their field, consumed little and worked a lot, and were physically robust.

Walking the streets of Hell's Kitchen, someone like Lille, after one round might return with a bruised face and an empty wallet.

Of course, to insert a word, that's why the tenants also joined the homeowners' association.

Tenant rights in the United States, after several enhancements, are quite broad although, under Mr. Rigordo, everyone's poor, the kind that's several months behind on rent.

With nothing else to do, they might as well stay engaged instead of being kicked out.

After knocking on doors and finding people, Lille's working squad was formed.

Looking at the two bodyguards, Lille said, "Today's job is to organize the apartment's wiring and then reinstall the surveillance system."

Anthony raised his hand to ask, "I know you, Lille. Last year, when you still had a job, I even contributed money to your cause. How did you suddenly become a prodigy?"

Huh?

Lille was somewhat embarrassed— he had run into his lifesaver.

"Well, I have to help reduce my mom's stress, right? Besides, no one wants to become homeless, so naturally I have to study hard."

"That makes sense, okay, I'm willing to work with you. It's impossible to find a job nowadays, and if I lose my house, I'll have to wander around with my wife and kids.

But let me make it clear, we're all law-abiding citizens here; we won't do anything illegal or dangerous."

The black guy next to him didn't seem to mind, looking more reticent.

With two muscular, six-foot guards, one black and one white, by his side, there was a full sense of security.

Even the street urchins on the streets looked pretty appealing.

As an ancient city with hundreds of years of history, New York's wirings are a complete disaster, especially in slums like Hell's Kitchen.

The messy wires extended from the telephone poles, then covered the streets like a spider web.

An electrician's nightmare, no doubt.

However, the scanning function of the Qilusi Eye allowed Lille to record and track the wiring of the apartment complex easily.

The purpose of finding the wires was so Lille could see where the power station that supplied electricity to the apartment was, and consider optimizing the circuitry to reduce fire risks and, more importantly, ensure power supply.

He could even install backdoors in the power grid.

The two bodyguards, bored, followed Lille closely, marking every power station along the way until they reached the substation.

Then, Lille had to hack into the substation.

So, how would he hack in?

In the Cyberpunk World, hackers could simply "stare" to hack because everyone was practically online.

But in New York of 2011, it was somewhat difficult.

Of course, a seasoned hacker wouldn't be stumped by this step.

Lille spent an afternoon squatting outside the substation, using his Qilusi Eye to find someone whose badge identified him as a senior engineer.

After finding his name, Lille fetched specific details about him online.

Obtaining information should allow for locating him online—ideal situation, but in reality, in 2011, most people weren't in the habit of pointing and clicking online.

So Lille needed to work from the telecom base station; he could directly hack into the exchange of information packets between telecom companies. After finding the engineer's name, he used the base station to hack into the engineer's phone directly.

After obtaining the basic operational procedures and other information about the substation from the phone, he could then install hacking devices at strategic points to control the power lines.

This process was not exactly legal, but it was the only way now.

Otherwise, this monitoring schedule—work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, off on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—didn't seem to have any monitoring at all.

For safety… perhaps he should do even more.

Thinking this way, Lille located the nearest communication base station.

Then, he was surprised to find a sneaky figure tampering around near the base station.

Bang.

"This is so tricky, not like what they say on the BBS..."

The figure was evidently a girl who slammed the control panel's metal door shut with a bang.

Muttering under her breath.

When she looked up, she saw Lille standing there with one black and one white big guy just staring at her—

"Oh crap!"

The girl was shocked and turned to run, panicking.

Thump, she tripped over a wire and fell to the ground.

Lille and the two men exchanged glances and decided to go check on her.