Ting!
The mag-shoot’s doors opened onto the 299th floor.
Instead of them walking to one of the doors in the well-lit hallway, Kix led Arron to the end of the hall where the stairs were and placed his right metal hand over the scanner of a black door that was blocking the stairs to the 300th floor.
With a loud electric buzz, several locks could be heard clicking as they automatically unlocked, allowing the thick black door to slide open revealing a short set of stairs leading to the 300th floor.
“Quite the fancy place you’re staying at. It has more security than our apartments in sector 11,” said Arron.
“It better be. I’m paying a lot of credits every month for a place here,” said Kix.
They walked up to a metal door with the number 11 on it and Kix began entering the hand code for the holo-lock.
“Try not to be too surprised,” said Kix as the door opened.
Kix stepped into the small entryway and took off his shoes, placing them on a shoe rack that had two other pairs of shoes each of different sizes.
“I’m home,” said Kix as he walked into the combined living/kitchen room.
At the sound of his voice, one of the three doors at the end of the room slammed open and a small boy with pitch-black hair rushed out and jumped at Kix latching onto his leg.
“Have you been a good boy for your mother?” asked Kix as he reached down and used his left arm to pick up the young boy who was now sucking on his thumb.
The young boy thought for a second before nodding his head.
“Don’t let him fool you. He’s been a little brat as usual,” said a female voice from inside another room.
“You have a son and a wife?” asked Arron, shocked. “It all makes sense now. No wonder you never want to hang out when we have our days off.”
The young boy, still sucking his thumb, looked at Arron for a second then asked Kix, “Is he one of grandpa’s men?”
“Naru, you rude little b*****, is that how you’re supposed to talk to your father’s partner?” asked Kix.
A woman of similar age to Kix, walked out of the room allowing Arron to see her long flowing black hair that reached her waist.
With a smile, she said, “If you had told me that you would be bringing someone home with you I would have prepared food and drink for them.”
“There’s no need for such a hassle. Arron is just my partner from work,” said Kix, poking Arron in the side with his free elbow.
“Hello, I’m Kumi. Kix’s wife,” said Kumi, holding her hand out for Arron.
“I’m your husband’s partner in crime at the M1,” said Arron, bowing slightly to her before taking her hand and lightly shaking it.
“I hope you have been keeping him in line and out of trouble,” said Kumi.
Kix snorted at that. “It’s me that’s been doing that for him. He’s a handful! He only recently recovered from that blast that was on the news.”
Kumi’s facial expression turned solemn and said, “So you were one of the officers caught in that explosion? It’s good that I made it out alive and still in one piece.”
“Yeah… it was something,” said Arron nervously rubbing his neck with his bionic arm.
Kumi turned to Kix and scooped up Naru while saying, “Your brothers have been calling every day asking to speak with you when you return to Sector 1.”
Kix scowled as he heard this and said, “Why? I already broke all ties with the Family when I officially joined M1. I don’t want the three of us to get dragged into whatever schemes they are plotting.”
“It’s a request from your father. It is important enough that he has been having them call every day. If you keep ignoring him, sooner or later they will just come and find you.”
Kix was silent for a while before saying, “I need to think about it. Arron and I will be discussing some work-related stuff in my office so we won’t be out until dinner is ready.”
“How long will he be visiting?” asked Kumi.
“Not too sure… several days, weeks, or even a few months?”
Kumi gave him a hard look as he turned around.
“Hey don’t look at me like that, it was an order from the Office of Reason! Just look at the bright side, I will be able to come home every night for the foreseeable future because of all of this,” said Kix defensively as he looked over his shoulder and sent his wife a smile. He hurried his footsteps and escaped with Arron into a third room that was being used as his office.
Arron looked at Kix with a raised eyebrow as the door of the small office closed. The office was quite cramped having little room for the desk, chairs, and a small drop-down cot attached to the wall.
“There’s nothing to worry about since it’s all in the past. I chose this new path in life so that my son and wife would not have to experience the hardships I had to go through during my childhood and teen life,” said Kix.
Arron did not press any further on the matter and asked, “So what exactly is this secretive mission that the Office of Reason has put us on?”
Kix held up a hand for a second stopping Arron. He pressed the holographic button on a large air purifier in the room turning it on to its highest setting which made a constant loud white noise to block and muffle their voices for anyone that was trying to listen to the conversation.
“You will be infiltrating one of the major Yakuza families of Sector 1,” said Kix, his face completely serious no longer carrying his slight smile from before.
“What? Why is the Office of Reason not doing this with their own agents?”
“The Office of Reason has many Moles inside its organization. Some of them belong to the many Yakuza Families of Sector 1. Since it is too hard to clean them all out, they have decided to use outside muscle with no information linking them to the Office of Reason or Mother and Father. That’s you. This way the moles will not be able to learn who the pawn is or any of the future plans of this operation,” said Kix as he pulled out a bottle of alcohol from his desk and two clean glasses.
“This is also supposed to be a good thing for you as well. Since you are a nobody, just someone that has only recently come to stay in the Mega-city, there is little information for them to dig up on you that would out you as the pawn of the Office of Reason. There is also the fact that they recently installed that new prototype NerViz system for you right? With that, they believe that your information will not be able to be hacked while also allowing the office of reason to keep a close eye on you. Or so they hope. This will also be a live test for that prototype and all its functions for future operations. We can only hope that the new identity they create for you is enough to fool both the yakuza families and the gangs who have Moles everywhere so that they can sniff out infiltrators,” said Kix as he handed over a half-filled glass of dark alcohol.
“Why do I feel like they are just playing with my life here? This is a seriously deadly game to be playing around with untested prototypes. What happens if it can be hacked? Even if it is not hacked anyone can search for me on the holo-web and find all the articles and videos they want of me and you. We aren’t exactly low-profile people.”
“We’ll have to bring that up with the agent overseeing this mission when we see him tomorrow,” said Kix, taking a sip of his drink.
“So I have no say in this? Wait, you said I would be infiltrating one of the Yakuza Families, but what about you?”
“I will be helping you out from the darkness. Because of my past… and the certain connections I have with a few people. I can not be the one to do the infiltration or join you in person. But with my knowledge and connections, I can still be a great help to you! I will be with you through the secure comms the whole time, hopefully, to help you navigate the tricky Yakuza family system.”
