Several days later.
Arron and Ox were now walking through the halls of the main underground base at a quick pace. They had a big day ahead of them so there was a lot on Arron’s mind.
When they reached the main common room where everyone was playing cards as usual, one of the men in the group waved to get their attention.
“Hey Ox, Sorry, do you want to join us for a quick game?” asked the man pointing to the half-holographic and half-solid cards that they were playing with.
Arron did not know what game it was but he had heard these types of cards were used everywhere in sector one as they stopped people coming in with their own counterfeit cards to try and cheat. Some people still tried to hack the cards to get the upper hand, but those that were caught were lucky to only be beaten bloody. As with everything in sector one, it only mattered if you got caught.
“You know I can’t play with you guys. Even if I did, we can’t be fooling around with everything happening right now,” said Ox, waving off the offer as he entered the codes for the blast door and walked through them forcing Arron to follow quickly behind him before the doors slam shut.
“Does the family have a rule against gambling or is it that you hate such things?” asked Arron.
“There is no such rule, I love cards just as much as the next person. But anyone with at least two brain cells knows you don’t take money from those that work under you. That is only asking for trouble,” said Ox as he led Arron to the waiting armored flying car.
When Arron hopped inside the flying car and the door slammed shut, Ox turned to him with a serious face.
“Today won’t be fun and games touring around the businesses. We have serious work to do.”
Arron sat up straight, “What’s the problem?”
Ox looked at Arron for a long time sizing him up and down in silence for several minutes as they flew through the air. Arron was getting really uncomfortable from his sharp gaze.
“An informant has tipped us off that the office of reason plans to be making large-scale unannounced ‘inspections’ which will happen at the earliest tonight and the latest tomorrow. We have to get everything in order before they visit us.”
“What? Didn’t the police just do a raid the other day? So now the Office of Reason wants to do a raid as well?” asked Arron slightly surprised. He had not heard anything about this from A.S. or Kix.
“Something like that. On top of that, we were also given a task by the local police to take care of them. If we don’t finish it soon they will start causing real problems for us.”
“There’s something they want us to do? I don’t see why they would come to the family for help…”
“That’s how things work here in sector one. There are some things that the police can not do whether it’s legal or not. Some things need unanimity so that no heat lands on them. That is why they ask us to do certain tasks which we are happy to take care of so that they stay off our backs. The moment they stop talking to you and asking for favors is when you need to worry and start shoring up your defenses. Got any other questions?” asked Ox, looking at a long flowing list of business names along with the items and credit amount that they needed to help disappear.
“Why does the family have so many small and medium-sized businesses of the same or similar type? Wouldn’t a mega-corp be better suited for the family and easier to manage instead of several dozen smaller ones?” asked Arron as he looked at the list and recalled all the places he had been to so far with Ox.
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Ox looking up from the list. “What, do you think the mega-corps are run by the owners, a board, or a CEO?”
“Isn’t that how it works?”
“Not even close. When a company grows to a certain size, Mother and Father take control of it. From the outside, it may look like the mega-corps are all rich and powerful and run by even more rich and powerful people. But that is all a lie. Since they are owned by Mother and Father the people in charge are told what, how, and when to do something. If their orders are not completed to the satisfaction of Mother and Father then the ‘Head’ of the company is changed.”
“What about the media always talking about the charity, loans, grants, and bailouts that are given out to the mega-corps? From what they say it’s all free, but just with extra benefits,” said Arron trying to wrap his head around this new bombshell he had just learned.
“Of course, Mother and Father want to fund the business under their control. They can’t have them failing, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Trust me, no one in their right mind wants to become a mega-corp. Everyone is trying to stay at the medium or small company size otherwise they will be swallowed.”
The flying car started to slow down and descend to their first destination. It was the [Food ration] restaurant where Arron had been given his first ‘Test’ by Ox.
Unlike before the rear entrance, sidewalk, and streets all around this portion of the building were blocked off. Several grunt-looking yakuza enforcers were patrolling the perimeter.
At least ten unmarked and beat-up Hover-vans were parked near the building’s rear doors which were propped open. Dozens of workers were entering and exiting the building carrying boxes of what looked like food and were putting them into the back of the parked vans.
“Hurry up! We need to get everything finished before the noon lunch rush!” shouted the manager that Arron had seen the last time he and Ox had eaten here.
As the manager was shouting and running around like a chicken with his head chopped off, he saw Ox and Arron walking towards him.
“Chief! You’re just in time! We are almost finished with getting all the ‘special’ stuff out of here,” said the manager as he ran over to them.
“Did you already receive your orders on what to do with it?” asked Ox.
“No,” said the manager, shaking his head. “They said you would be here to tell us in person.”
Ox nodded and looked around for a few seconds taking everything in.
“You should ‘Donate’ it to the usual places. Make sure you spread it out to several places, not just a few. We can’t have them getting into trouble as we may still need their help in the future. As for any ‘tips’ they may give you, make sure it is all counted for and added to next week’s pickup.”
“I will make sure that not even one credit goes missing!”
Arron was surprised at how much food was stored inside the restaurant. Just by inspecting a few of the boxes, Arron saw that almost all of the ‘special’ product was fresh food that was currently on a monthly ration limit set by Mother and Father. If the Office of Reason caught them with all of this, there would definitely be some hard-to-answer questions asked.
Arron and Ox oversaw the final minutes of the packing and made sure to look over the financial records for over a half hour just to make sure everything was in order.
Only when the last of the freezer hover-vans left for their new destinations, along with their discreet escorts who rode hover-bikes, did Arron and Ox get back into their flying car and head to the next destination?
“I know you want to ask, so I’ll just tell you. Not only does the [Food ration] sell good food. It also resells rationed fresh food to those with large pockets. There are always those who want more of a certain item that has been restricted by Mother and Father. You would be surprised at how much money someone will pay for the fresh food. It is a big money maker as we just have several grunts buy the food cheaply from the shops so that we can resell it. The black market is particularly booming for those that have a D rank SCS since most of the food is something they can’t get even when it is not rationed. We’ll lose a bit of money by selling the food back to the shops, but it’s better to get rid of it before the raids happen.”
“I didn’t think this was such a big thing…” said Arron.
“This is nothing compared to the low-level gang’s food ration chip scams. They can make huge amounts of money quickly.”
“Does the family do this?” asked Arron.
“No, too risky. Although you could make huge amounts of money, the way they have to do it is too eye-catching. They either steal, buy cheap, or scam people out of their food rations and then sell them to other people at a high price. Some even like scamming the buyers with fake ration chips. As I am sure you are well aware Mother and Father do not take kindly to these sorts of scams and crack down hard. Even so, the majority of the low-level gangs still keep doing it in hopes of a big payday.”
Their next destination was a medium-sized second-hand cybernetic shop.
When Arron and Ox entered the well-guarded underground garage contrary to his expectations there were no boxes of cybernetics being loaded into vans. Instead, there were several large freezer hover-vans with coolers full of human organs being loaded into them.
Seeing Arron’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Seeing his reaction Ox spoke up, “Hey don’t get the wrong ideas! We’re not Mother and Father or the Office of Reason who harvest ‘Donated’ organs from those in need of re-education. Unlike those unlucky guys, the people actually come to us to receive cybernetic replacements for whatever it is. These organs are just the leftovers.”
Arron just looked at him with a blank face.
“Of course, we sell them at a decent profit for those in need of such organs.”
The manager of the building rushed over to them bowing repeatedly.
“I did not notice that you had arrived! My deepest apologies!”
Ox raised a hand to stop him.
“Since these are now a hot item you need to send them to the various safe houses until they cool off.”
The manager nodded his head like a chicken pecking at the ground for worms or bugs.
“If there were any planned sales for today or the rest of the week they will have to be put on hold until later notice. I will leave it to you to notify the buyers about this matter.”
Again more head bobbing up and down from the manager.
Arron and Ox only stayed long enough to see that the stock of hot items was properly being transported away and that the accounts were in order before they left for the next destination.
Similar things kept happening at each site that they stopped at making Arron speechless at all of the odd things he had seen.
