Subcontracted Patrol

The strangest tier of Los Angeles's market for hired muscle, and the most Los Angeles: a district hires a security contract, the contractor subcontracts the awkward shifts, and the subcontractor hires day labor at the base of Oceanwide Plaza for cash. Somewhere in that chain the work stops being security and becomes whatever the client actually wanted, and every step of it has an invoice.

What the crew hires here is a staffing agency, not a gang, and that distinction is the whole point of the tier: nobody in it owns the job, which means nobody in it can be negotiated with the way a boss can. There's always a level above whoever's standing in front of the crew.

What the crew knows#

• It's auditable, which is the tier's real vulnerability. There's an invoice somewhere with a real company's name on it, and following it upward is a run in itself.
• Whoever's on shift didn't necessarily know what they signed up for. The person who hired them did, three links up the chain.
• Pay is bad and turnover is constant, so the people actually standing post are rarely the ones who'll fight hardest for the client. They're fighting for the day rate.
• Recruitment happens in the open, at the base of Oceanwide Plaza, which means the crew can watch who's hiring for what without asking anybody a question.

Standing with the crew#

Neutral, and impersonal on purpose. Nobody working this tier has a stake in the outcome beyond the shift; the stake belongs to whoever's three links up the chain, and that's where any real grudge or debt actually lives.