Chapter 869 - 148: The Tip of the Iceberg (Part 2)

[Citizen File: John Owen]

[File Number: EU0L2048032400821462]

[Summary: Various loans amounting to 32,000 euros, divorced, son aged 9, traveling in Berlin.]

[Recent Status: Following the announcement of the typhoon emergency situation, ADL Corporation invoked the compulsory overtime clause, averaging 17 hours of work per day until the day of death]

[Psychological Status Analysis:]

[August Status: Stable (fatigue levels within normal range);]

[September 1-8: Internal environment disorder reaching threshold, 3 instances of abnormal dizziness, resulting in substandard work quality, ADL attendance system automatically deducted salary by 400 euros]

[September 9: Abnormally depressed and angry, suspected trigger event: Discussing with a colleague the recent unreasonable work demands, and complaining about the wage deduction incident.]

[Encountered colleague’s ridicule, key statement recorded: "You’re lucky to have work to do, isn’t the wage deduction because your work is substandard?"]

["If we don’t work well, we’ll all be blown away by the typhoon, this is a matter of life and death now!"]

["Don’t have a little tantrum, we are hardworking Europeans, not those lazy and stupid Night City people."]

[September 10-21: Multiple instances of fainting at work, supervision robots invoked compulsory overtime clause and activated emergency measures, administering stimulants and various medications (deduction of 300 euros, note: severe emotional fluctuations occurred)]

[September 22: Browsing the internet caused intense emotional fluctuations, 2 brain capillaries ruptured, key statement recorded:]

["Isn’t it natural to have your salary deducted for poor work? Now the environment is so bad, it’s a blessing to have work, by the way, is there a place that doesn’t exceed 14 hours a day, preferably with a weekly day off"]

["Your factory is quite considerate, bro, it helped you cover 100 euros of the 400 euro medication."]

[September 23: Phone call with son, status stable]

[September 24-29: Tending to stability, 3 emotional fluctuations slightly exceeded the safety threshold.]

[September 30: Argument with company management erupted, mental illness outbreak.]

[Detailed file browsing...]

Elliot was completely stunned upon seeing this file.

The file was so detailed that merely looking at the summarized key information report felt like 24-hour comprehensive surveillance without any blind spots.

What’s even more outrageous is that this data includes a query capable of precise information down to the second, with a chip equipped with a highly intelligent query tool that can filter by tags such as status changes, whether speaking, or whether sleeping.

Sevens, however, remained very calm, although he had to admit he was indeed surprised that Network Supervision would actually be willing to help them.

Elliot with a puzzled face: "They... they know everything?"

"What’s wrong? Worried about privacy leaks? Don’t be foolish, our privacy isn’t worth much, we’re not engaging in illegal activities."

These are Elliot’s arguments on the internet, especially with those who believe the European Barrier invades privacy.

He wasn’t confused about that.

"No..."

"Are you saying monitoring as precise as physiological conditions makes you uncomfortable? This service isn’t cheap at companies offering Prosthetic System services—

Even the post-mortem data retrieval isn’t cheap, consider it given to us for free."

In this world, every service has a price, including comprehensive monitoring of physiological conditions.

There’s also a low-cost version for the poor: storing physiological conditions as "video" in a storage device, becoming readable post-mortem so that coroners or one’s mercenary companions know how they died.

However...

That’s still not the focus.

The focus is that Network Supervision knows everything; doesn’t this mean the European Union knows everything too?

The European Union knows there are cyber mental disorders in factories, knows the critical points before their outbreak, knows what triggered them to become crazy...

They just don’t bother.

With the help of Network Supervision, the evidence chain that indicts ADL for causing cyber mental disorders will only become more complete...

But does this really have any meaning? Or rather, what’s the significance of him doing this?

Elliot sometimes appeared quite naive: for example, after experiencing Foxstone’s victory, he truly had this illusion—that the European Union was genuinely deceived by companies, that the cyber mental disorder events were indeed suppressed by unethical companies.

Now...Even Elliot’s dullness couldn’t prevent him from discovering the truth: the European Union has always known where cyber mental disorders occur, and could precisely know when events happened from such reports.

Elliot stared blankly at Sevens; his dull expression recognition capability seemed to have improved a bit:

He saw a hint of a cynical smile on Sevens’ indifferent face, a smile hidden so well that Elliot felt if not under such circumstances, he wouldn’t have possibly noticed Sevens was smiling cynically.

At this moment, Elliot felt that as a worker, the resentment towards the company’s exploitation and the European Union’s inaction was less pronounced than Sevens, the civil servant...

Previously, he thought civil servants were just those who drank tea at work and wielded authority while on business trips; he envied...should say he was jealous of them, jealous that they could enjoy a good life without having to do anything.

But now this view suddenly faded a little.

Sevens patted Elliot on the shoulder: "We need to keep going; without us, the cyber mental disorder incidents would never see the light of day, this makes it meaningful."

[Lille: He’s right, at least in fact, without these efforts, these workers would ultimately be documented as frenzied murderers, their families would only be families of criminals, never having the opportunity to become civil servants or enter company management.]

[Elliot: Brother, do you also think being a civil servant or a company dog is the best job?]

[Lille: No, it’s just that the positions enjoying the most labor achievements were closed off because of such events.]

[Lille: Obviously, this isn’t fair.]

[Elliot: But you said not to pursue fairness...]

[Lille: Haha, good memory, let me rephrase—]

[Lille: It doesn’t look pleasant to me, so if given the chance, I would definitely change this situation.]

[Lille: If others need fairness, I’ll say it’s unfair; if others need justice, I’ll say it’s unjust.]

[Lille: You’ve learned well, now enter the next phase: stop complaining, then focus all attention on thinking about how to proceed, how to do it.]

[Lille: Coincidentally, the server setup in Bruges needs a bit of time, we also need time to plan the next trip; meanwhile, you should visit this cyber mental disorder patient’s family.]

Elliot silently nodded, his mind was blank just moments ago, but after Lille’s words, he found himself indeed wanting to visit John’s family.

He looked at Sevens and nodded: "I want to go see John’s family."

Sevens was taken aback, but quickly nodded as well.

The Phantom beside him jumped up from the sofa:

"I’ll start the car."