Los Angeles is nicknamed the City of Angels because of its homophonic pronunciation.
The gangs parasitic in the city obviously prefer her other nickname - "Fallen City".
As the second largest city in North America after New York, Los Angeles' permanent population exceeded 10 million in 2154. Crowded cities and low quality of life make the city's security situation very poor.
Even in the busiest urban centers, there are still many gang members wearing bandanas who show their tattoos without scruples.
In their view, joining a violent gang that values human life is a very honorable thing.
Even if life is not easy for gangs under the zero-tolerance policy, it does not affect young people from joining various gangs and becoming the dream chasers in their eyes.
The establishment of the North American Alliance brought a large number of foreign immigrants to Los Angeles, and the ancestors of Max Da Costa, the protagonist of the Elysium world, were also among the immigrants.
Max, who grew up in a poor family, would go to a monastery in the city to do odd jobs to support his family when he was a little boy. Because of family reasons, he can also speak fluent Spanish, so he is very popular with the old nuns.
After a fierce gang war, Max lost his parents forever, and then his best childhood friend Fleur also left Los Angeles to study in other cities because of her dream of becoming a nurse.
Max suddenly found himself alone. After being depressed for a period of time, Max had to embark on the path of breaking the law and committing crimes after only a few days of school.
Max's innate intelligence, careful thinking and strong execution make him a capable assistant to the Los Angeles underworld boss Spider.
In just a few years, Max completed the transformation from a law-abiding citizen to a legendary car thief, helping Spider make a lot of money.
And if Yang Tianyi's memory is correct, Max will spend three years in prison for Spider in less than two years, and will not be released until 2159, when the plot of the movie takes place.
The legendary car thief Max is still very well-known in the underground world of Los Angeles. After easily subduing a group of gangsters, Yang Tianyi got the location of a car repair shop that Max often frequented recently.
casually throwing out a handful of American dollars for medical expenses, Yang Tianyi stepped on the scattered bodies of the gangsters and left the gang stronghold, took a black car and went to camp near the car repair shop.
...
Outside a remote car repair shop in Los Angeles, Yang Tianyi had been waiting in a low-cost rental house for three days.
Max's delay in showing up made him start to wonder if he had been deceived by those bastards, and he suddenly felt that his medical expenses were still too much.
Just as he was observing the garage not far away with his binoculars, three tattered cars came quickly from the dirt road, bringing up a thick cloud of dust behind the convoy.
Under the observation of the ultra-high-power telescope produced by Star World, Yang Tianyi clearly saw Max sitting in the passenger seat of the first car, and could even see the smile on his face while chatting with his accomplices.
Because he hadn't gone to jail for Spider yet, Max's hair was still very thick at this time, which was slightly different from the bald image in the movie, making him almost unrecognizable.
Seeing that the long-awaited big fish finally arrived, the corners of Yang Tianyi's mouth curled up slightly.
In his opinion, direct solicitation is definitely not possible. He and Max have never met before, and he is a complete stranger to him.
Would a legendary car thief accept a stranger's offer? Obviously impossible.
Yang Tianyi has made careful preparations for this, and he won't take the bait if he doesn't believe it.
...
After the two cars obtained this time were driven into the garage, the person responsible for appraising and recycling the vehicles stepped forward and shook Max's hand.
The name of the legendary car thief is not for nothing. Max can bring them luxury cars in perfect condition every time he takes action. Even if they are dismantled and sold in spare parts on the black market, they can make a lot of money.
Max skillfully led people to remove the iron-clad wooden boards covering the car. It was his idea to use rusty camouflage boards to turn the glamorous luxury car into an old car on the verge of being scrapped.
Through this self-created trick, Max obtained many vehicles from other gangs, which made the gang boss who lost the car furious, but he could not produce enough evidence to send Max to jail.
"These two cars are good, but you don't know that those green cans have been strictly inspected recently."
The appraiser took out a writing board and started drawing and gave his quotation.
"How about giving you a total of fifty thousand for two cars?"
Max's eyes narrowed when he heard the price, obviously not satisfied with the price.
Fifty thousand American dollars is indeed a lot of wealth for ordinary people, but who is Max? Even if the market is sluggish recently, it would be too greedy to resell two luxury cars worth millions of dollars each for only 50,000!
What's more, every successful operation requires careful planning, spending money to purchase equipment, hiring experts, and sometimes buying people around the car owner to act as inside agents. The cost of purchasing information and hush-up fees alone cost tens of thousands of American dollars.
If he accepted the appraiser's offer of fifty thousand, Max calculated in his mind that he would only make a few thousand this time.
With such a small amount of money, he might as well work as an assembly line worker in the sweatshop of Amadana Company! At least he didn't have to risk being shot dead by the Zoe robot and steal a car in front of a group of murderous gang members.
After shaking his head simply, Max was too lazy to talk nonsense and directly led people to re-lay the camouflage boards, planning to leave here and go to other selling points.
Seeing two luxury cars worth millions catching fire in front of him, the appraiser finally lost his composure and quickly ran forward and held the car door that was about to close with his hand.
"One hundred thousand! Help me say a few good words to Spider!"
If he had offered $100,000 from the beginning, maybe Max would have said yes.
But now, he wants more!
"One hundred and fifty thousand! Next time I have a car, I'll send it to you!"
Seeing that the appraiser hesitated after hearing the figure of 150,000, Max decided to add fuel to the fire.
"Blind Jack in Santa Monica is out of stock recently! I just sent it to him if you don't want it."
"Okay, okay, get out of the car and get the money..."
Knowing that Max could not be persuaded, the appraiser had no choice but to stuff the bundles of cash into Max's companion's bag with a heartbroken look on his face.
After confirming that the car belonged to him, the appraiser shook hands with Max again and put on an ugly smile on his face.
After seeing his companion in the car confirming that 150,000 U.S. dollars was a lot, Max smoothed his short blond hair coolly, stepped into the car and left the garage.
...
"Max, that's $150,000! We're now rich!"
A man with brown braids held the steering wheel and said excitedly: "I bet it won't be long before we can collect enough money to go to Elysium!"
"Haha, it would be great if we could stay in the Elysian Space forever. Unfortunately, Spider's ticket only allows us to stay for a short time..."
Thinking of the possible fate of the stowaways, Max laughed twice and then stopped laughing.
The man driving the car is named Julio, and he has been by Max's side since he started working for Spider. Several years of life-and-death experiences together have made their relationship as close as brothers.
Julio is very similar to Max in the past, full of all kinds of fantasies about the Elysian Space, but unfortunately, Max at this time is no longer the Max in childhood.
Instead of gambling with his life money, Max now wants to use his money to find the beautiful girl he puts deep in his heart - Fleur.
"Spider said that as long as we can use that 3000-type medical bay, we can all live to at least a fucking hundred and fifty years old! Just a little while!"
Max touched his hair after hearing this, and suddenly felt that the smell of smoke in the car was a bit strong, so he opened the car window to breathe in the not-so-fresh air outside the car.
Just when the car window was halfway open, a cool-looking sports car sped past Max's eyes. The deafening sound of the engine made the two people in the car curse.
"Fuck! You're driving so fast at night. Why don't you just buy a rope and fix it at home if you want to die?"
Max, who still couldn't get enough of the curse words, stretched his hand out of the car window and gave a middle finger to the bright red taillight of the sports car.
"If you don't know how to drive, don't go out and harm others! You fucking idiot!"
Just after Max and Julio finished getting angry and looked at each other with a smile, the black sports car in front of them suddenly swayed from side to side, as if a drunk person was driving it.
"what the hell?!"
Just when the two were in shock, the sports car with an unstable center of gravity drifted and hit a telephone pole on the roadside. Parts suddenly flew everywhere, and one of the tires flew off.
Max, who reacted very quickly, quickly asked Julio to stop the car when he saw this, and explained under the puzzled eyes of the other party.
"This is a Lan-type supercar. It costs millions of dollars. Even if it's hit and scrapped, it can be dismantled into parts and sold for a small amount of money."
Perhaps feeling that this reason was not sufficient, Max continued to speak.
"If the owner of this car survives the disaster, we will be his saviors! Then we will have to give him hundreds of thousands, right?"
After a quick scan of the surroundings and realizing that there were no cameras, the two men no longer hesitated and quickly got out of the car to prepare to rescue people.
Yang Tianyi was sitting in the deformed sports car, lying on the steering wheel and pretending to be unconscious. His keen ears heard the sound of the two getting out of the car, and he knew that his plan was successful.
Sure enough, he was right about Max and Julio.
Yang Tianyi, who has watched the movie several times, was sure from the beginning that the two people's characters would never let them die.
