Over the next few days, Arron was able to learn the basics of his new ‘job’ by touring the several buildings that were under the supervision of Ox and the Ryu family. In doing so, he was able to learn of the many different operations that the family ran.
His eyes were opened to many new things that he had never known or thought about. With his new position, he had the perfect bird eye view of one of, if not the largest, yakuza family. With all this access he was able to gather large amounts of information that would make any of the Office of Reason Agents drool.
Unfortunately, he was never left alone. There was always either Ox or a drone monitoring him, so he was unable to contact Kix or A.S. Overall this was not really anything to worry about since the less he talked with A.S., the better he felt. Even if he did try to contact him he would do little to help him.
Today Arron was once again touring different buildings with Ox. As they were leaving the security room ready to leave the building, a person called out to Ox.
“Chief Ox! It’s good to see you! Can I talk with you for a moment now that we have had the rare fortune to meet?” asked a man who was sitting at a table that had a curved couch around it instead of chairs.
Arron’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the man who had called out to them.
He was a uniformed zone one Police officer!
“I can spare a few minutes,” said Ox, walking over to the table.
The other people sitting at the table all stood up and left allowing the two to have more privacy. Of course, Arron was standing next to Ox.
A small domed privacy shield was turned on covering the three men and blocking all sound and the view of those outside.
“I have some…” the officer’s voice trailed off as he looked at Arron suspiciously.
“It’s all right he is a probationary member under my command,” said Ox.
“Alright… I have some… chaka that are looking to be lost for the right price.”
“We would love to find them. Is the usual fine with you?”
The police officer nodded his head with a greedy look in his eyes.
Arron had to bite his tongue to stop himself from cussing out the officer. These sorts of corrupt deals the officer was making were one of the main reasons that his job as an M1 officer was so dangerous.
“Is that all?” asked Ox.
“No, no. I was going to look for someone to tell this to later today, but luckily I met you. Just yesterday we were given orders to prepare for raids on several illegal businesses tomorrow. Two of these raids should be on businesses your family controls. I am only telling you this since we are friends,” said the officer as he swiped a file from his wrist datapad over to Ox.
“I, along with the rest of the Ryu family, are grateful for your warning. If that is all we must leave to take care of a few things that you have just told us about,” said Ox after glancing at the new information he had received.
“But of course!” said the officer waving to Ox.
When Arron was once again sitting in the armored flying car and it was speeding through the air, he watched Ox for a short time in confusion before asking, “Aren’t you going to call the family and let them know about this?”
“Why would I? The Office of Reason, as well as Mother and Father, would slobber all over themselves to catch us doing something so stupid when they are clearly monitoring our communications right now. The best thing we can do right now is take care of everything in person so that no rats are listening in on our conversations. That way only the two of us know about this.”
Arron gulped and said, “I see. That is smart. But don’t you normally use the holo-calls even if they are monitored?”
“We only show them what we want them to see and listen to. If we didn’t give them a few bread crumbs then they would start causing more trouble. It is best to keep them happy with the mixed truths that we leak through our conversations.”
The first destination they arrived at was a rundown shop deep in the slums. It was near the border of several other yakuza families’ territories. A blinking holo-sign hung over a thick metal door that was shut tightly. [Second Best Cybernetics: We guarantee everything was used once before!].
Both the name and the slogan were exactly something that screamed ‘Scam!’ to Arron. If he was in the hunt for new parts he would definitely not want to come here.
“Don’t let its small size fool you. Besides the main warehouse underground, there are several operating rooms inside. This place is one of our main money makers. Almost all of the low-ranking members get their work done here. Even a few of the members from other families and gangs come here because we offer the best deals.”
Arron still doubted its legitimacy, “But why the name and the slogan? Isn’t brand new cybernetics far better than secondhand items?”
Ox shook his head, “You are not a native to the mega-city so you wouldn’t know. Almost every shop on the first level that sells new parts can barely make a living while secondhand shops are always raking in the money.”
This confused Arron. “Why?”
“Because there is a 90% chance that the ‘new’ parts are counterfeits or defective parts that were sold in bulk by the factory trying to get rid of them, meaning that they are more than likely to cause you harm. To add insult to injury they try to charge double the cost of a second-hand unit that is far superior to the junk they are selling. Our shop only sells real parts, although many of them are from older generations and cost the original owner an arm and a leg when they were first launched, we are able to sell them at a reasonable price. Because most of the second-hand parts we have collected were given to us as payment or taken from the dead, we have the best of the best implants.”
The last sentence made Arron shiver as he thought of the people who had their implants, limbs, and other parts pulled or extracted as payments for debts that they owed the family.
“You just stay out here and block anyone from coming in or bothering me while I take care of the situation inside,” said Ox.
Arron was forced to just stand outside as an hour passed by without incident. The street that the shop was on was rather empty and no one had even shown interest in entering the building, making Arron feel that business was not good today.
The door behind Arron opened and Ox came out clapping his hands.
“I have placed the order for the parts you wanted. Everything should be ready by tomorrow,” said Ox.
“Ahh… I see. Thanks,” said Arron, confused at what Ox was talking about.
“Anyone try to cause trouble?” asked Ox as they jumped back into the Armored car.
“Not particularly, but there definitely is someone watching the shop. I saw the same three people pass by more than three times while you were inside.”
Ox looked at Arron with praise as he nodded his head, “Good eyes. I’ll send the building’s surveillance recordings to the office minions to comb through and find out who they are.”
With this task cleared up the armored car flew them deeper into the Ryu family’s territory toward a nicer area where the buildings were not as run down and were well taken care and the parking garages and moving sidewalks actually worked unlike the areas controlled by the party of Mother and Father.
The flying car gently landed on a VIP parking spot that was next to a small restaurant that only had 30 floors.
Arron stayed silent as he read the flashy holo sign that was plastered on all four of the building’s walls. [Food Ration: The best-rationed meals in sector 1! The menu changes monthly!]
‘What’s with these horrible names? Do they have to pick the worst or weirdest name for their business?’ was the first thought that popped up in Arron’s head. Now that he had spent several days going from place to place he had seen that most places in sector one all seemed to be in battle with each other to see who had the worst naming sense in the entire first level.
“Come on, we’ll be staying here for a while,” said Ox.
“Is this one of the places to be raided?” asked Arron.
“No, I was just hungry so we’re stopping here for some lunch.”
“…”
Arron was unable to see much of anything inside the building. As soon as they entered the side door they were escorted to a VIP mag-shoot that shot them up to the top of the building and opened up to a private room that only had floor cushions for the guest to sit on and a low table to eat at while they relaxed. The entire room had a light red glow to it.
“Hmm what should we eat,” said Ox as he plopped down on one of the cushions and began to tap on the holographic menu that was floating above the table.
Arron caught a glimpse of some of the meals’ cost and almost had a heart attack! He could have at least a month’s worth of synth-energy jelly for the cost of one meal!
To Arron’s horror, Ox tapped on the most expensive meal twice. They only had to wait a short while in silence before the center of the table parted to the side showing a miniature mag-shoot that had gently pushed a tray all the way up from the kitchens far below them.
Ox grabbed one of the large bowls and several of the side dishes before heartily digging in.
“Hurry up and eat before it gets cold,” ordered Ox when he saw Arron hesitating.
With no other choice, Arron grabbed the bowl and took a bite of the food.
“Not bad…”
“Of course, it’s not bad! Otherwise, why would I come here when the food costs so much?” asked Ox.
The two continued to eat their large meal in silence. Ox with his wild eating was the first to finish his meal.
“I’ll use that bathroom to clean up. No need for you to rush your eating,” said Ox as he pointed to the only door on the room’s wall other than the Mag-shoot.
‘What a Fancy place, it has its own bathroom attached to it,’ thought Arron as he continued to savor the flavor and texture of the expensive food.
15 minutes passed and Ox had still not exited the bathroom causing Arron to worry that something had happened. He stood up and walked over to the door with his hand raised.
But before he could knock to ask if Ox was okay… the doors automatically opened for him.
Arron stopped in his tracks as he looked through the doors in confusion.
“Wait… where’s the bathroom?” asked Arron as he looked to the left and right of a long empty hallway.
As he was looking to his left 4 security bots and two muscled enforcers were walking his way looking right at him.
Arron was quickly surrounded by the security bots and the two muscled enforcers.
“Valued guest, are you ready to leave? Please pay the bill,” said one of the buff men holding out a portable payment scanner.
“What? No, umm… the person I am with is paying. He just went to the bathroom and will be back soon.”
“We met that person already and he told us that you would be paying,” said the frowning man as he shoved the scanner in front of Arron’s face.
Zap, zap. [Valued customer please pay. Or…] said the four security drones all at the same time causing their robotic voice to echo off the walls of the hallway.
Arron couldn’t help but sigh, he was only human and could not fight against such an overwhelming force without any armor or weapons.
He reluctantly held out his right hand which had his NerViz cloud chip and allowed it to be scanned.
[Error! Payment denied!]
Arron quietly cursed inside as he remembered that his new identity had 0 credits to his name. He could not access his own account now that he was undercover.
“What? Did you come here to eat without any money?!” asked one of the enforcers who leaned in closer to look Arron right in the eyes.
“Are you trying to make a fool of us? Are you a low life that dines and runs away?”
The two burly men were now almost touching him as their faces were screaming only an inch away with spit spattering his face.
“How are you going to pay this off? Do we need to send you off to get a diet plan surgery to pay off your bill!?”
“No of course not!” said Arron hurriedly after hearing the threat of being given a diet surgery. “I can pay! Just let me call someone and everything will be fixed!”
Arron turned around and quickly tapped a few options and called Kix on one of the pre-planned throwaway accounts set up by A.S. It was a cheap connection plan even the poorest of D-rank citizens would not be willing to use as all it offered was voice communication and nothing else.
“Friend we have a problem,” was all Arron said.
“What?” asked a confused Kix.
“I’m short on a few credits. Can you send me some?”
“Sure how much do you need?”
Arron quietly muttered the number that was on the bill which was being shoved in his face.
“WHAT!?” shouted Kix when he heard the number.
“I’ll pay you back, but right now I am in a tight bind.”
“Just wait ten minutes. I have to go see if I can gather the credits. You know money is tight this month so…”
The call was cut short leaving Arron standing for over ten minutes with the enforcers breathing down his neck and the security drones constantly zapping their metal claws in the air.
Ting! Arron looked at the message notification and found that some unknown person had transferred the exact amount of credits into his fake bank account.
Arron held out his hand once again and the enforcer with the scanner swiped it over Arron’s hand.
[Payment authorized! Credits have been transferred!]
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Ox stepped out into the hallway a short way away from Arron. As soon as he did the enforcers and security drones stepped back away from Arron.
“Congratulations, You passed the test,” said Ox as he clapped his large hands.
“Huh? The test?” asked Arron.
“What? Did you think that because you passed that simple filtering test earlier that you were done being tested? It is not that easy to join the Ryu family. Like the old man says all the time, not just anyone can join.”
Yes, Arron did think that the test had been over with all the secret inside stuff he had been shown.
“This is only the beginning. There will be more to come until either I break you or I decide that you really are not a spy. In this way, I will be able to fish out more details on who you really are. Now come help me take care of the food rations stocked here. We have to get everything moved before tomorrow.”
