Sector one. Zone three. Midnight.
A sharply dressed young man was running for his life down a narrow side alley. As he saw the end of the alley opening up into a larger street, he picked up his speed and darted across the deserted street and pulled himself up and over a chest-high para-concrete barrier landing onto an empty balcony of a more well-to-do megapartment.
“Huff… huff…” he hugged the back of the para-concrete barrier and stayed in the darkness trying to catch his breath.
Seconds later several floating drones swooped down from the sky and began scanning the local area.
“Have the drones found him?” asked a heavily breathing man in a red police uniform.
“There’s nothing coming up on the scanners…” said a second police officer while he looked at a flowing readout of the data being sent to him by the drones.
“The tracker showed he was here just moments before, he could not have gone that far. Re-scan the entire block, lock everything down!”
The young man let out the breath that he had been holding when the drones and police officers left the area.
“Young man, what are you doing out on my balcony?” asked an old woman. The young man jumped in fright and whirled around to see who had snuck up on him.
“Who are you!” asked the young man.
The old woman ignored his question and said, “It’s cold out here. Why don’t you come inside and warm up.”
The young man didn’t care about the cool temperature much but after thinking over the offer for a few seconds, he agreed as it would allow him to hide from the officers and patrolling drones. If he was any slower earlier he would have been caught for sure.
“Thanks,” said the young man nodding to her and accepting the offer to go inside.
The thick metal door connected to the apartment was already open allowing them to enter quickly and it slid shut quietly blocking all sound from outside. The inside of the apartment was as bare as most apartments he had seen on the first level.
“You poor thing. Here, this should warm you up,” said the kind old lady as she poured a drink from a steaming kettle.
The young man took the drink gratefully and took several gulps to ease the pain in his dry throat. After several more sips, his alert eyes started to grow sleepy and he quickly fell asleep with the half-empty glass falling to the ground with a thud and a splash.
The kind old lady ignored the mess and opened a menu on her wrist-datapad and started a call.
“This is Sector 1, Zone 3’s police department. Why are you calling?”
“Hello officer. I have captured a wanted criminal that was being chased by the police a little while ago. I want to turn him in!”
“Show me who you got…” said the officer disinterestedly as he wanted to get back to his holo-drama show.
The kind old lady changed the view of the call and showed the sleeping young man sitting in a chair.
“You’re at the ‘Weltudo’ Megapartments right?” asked the officer sitting up straight as he looked away from his holo-drama and began to tap in some information on an unseen holo-screen.
“That’s correct… and about the reward?”
“You will get what you are due and nothing more. I’ll send someone over there in 5 or 10 minutes to pick him up,” said the officer before ending the call.
***
Slap!
“Wake up!” shouted a gruff voice as his hand repeatedly slapped a sleeping young man that had been shoved into the back seat of his patrol car.
The young man sat up with a groggy face, his eyes were half open as he started to look around while holding his cheek that had been hit several times.
“Huh? Where am I?”
“Tell Ox he owes me at least a week of free services for this. I injected you with a bit of a custom pick-me-up so you should be back to normal in a bit,” said the police officer.
Arron’s fuzzy thoughts started to clear as he realized where he was. He was caught!
But by the sound of the officer’s voice and the words he said, he didn’t need to worry about it.
“Wait, why am I here?” asked Arron.
“Ox must have his hands full trying to train a rookie like you. You fell for the oldest trick in the book. That kind old lady drugged you with sleeping pills and handed you over to me for a measly 10 social credit points.”
“What! That kind old lady sold me out?”
“You shouldn’t be surprised at this. It happens too often to count. Close friends, co-workers, or family turning in wanted people for an easy boost to their SCS happens every day and is a no-brainer for most people. With the Office of Reason and Mother and Father offering such a lucrative reward there is no safe place to hide with others as they will always turn you in and take the reward.”
“So what happens now?” asked Arron as he rubbed his face, his body was starting to grow hot as whatever he was injected with started to spread through his body.
“I can drop you off wherever you want, as long as it is not a known yakuza hot spot. I’m on duty right now.”
“What about those officers and the security drones that were chasing me?”
“I took care of that and altered the data for you. There is nothing to link you to the crime. Now that I have ‘caught’ the suspect there won’t be anyone after you.”
“But that old lady saw my face.”
“She won’t be talking anymore. A robbery gone wrong,” said the officer nonchalantly.
Arron was slightly startled at hearing this but he kept his mouth shut.
After several minutes of quiet driving the patrol car stopped at the back of an expensive 24/7 restaurant.
“Don’t forget to tell Ox he owes me. I already sent him a message, all I need is for you to confirm it. Don’t think about trying to flake on me as I know who you are,” said the officer before slamming the door shut and driving off.
Arron felt more and more jittery and hot from whatever had been injected with.
He did a few stretches and breathing exercises to try and calm down before entering a nearby cafe where he sipped on a single cup of the cheapest and most bitter synth-coffee. The synthetic caffeine did not help his jitters as he scanned the outside crowd and people around him for over a half hour. He had to do this just to make sure no one was following or paying close attention to him.
When he was sure that no one was tailing him, he left the cafe and disappeared into the early morning crowd of night shift workers who were just getting off of work.
After taking another half hour that was full of detours and backtracking several times, he finally entered one of the Ryu family’s safe houses to meet up with Ox.
It had been a week since he had met Krok and had been interrogated by him while under the influence of Stims. Since that day Arron vowed not to touch stims as the feeling they gave was too addictive and muddled his thoughts making it hard to think clearly.
Luckily he had managed to complete his task given to him by AS and had taken some sneaky pictures and holo-vids of the others. He was able to capture each of the main heads of the family on holo-vid as well as the illegal activities they were engaged in. The Office of Reason already knew about these activities and had done nothing about them so Arron did not expect anything to happen with the information.
Over the past week, Ox and Arron did not talk about the events that happened that day, and since Arron was still alive and breathing, he guessed he had passed their test.
“You’re late. Did you finish the job?” asked Ox with a blank face.
“It’s done. But I almost got caught by the police as soon as the trade was completed. They must have had some informant tip them off,” said Arron.
Ox smiled at him and said “Yes, I heard about that. My old pal Suguru says you got duped by an old lady and you were bailed out by him. Just so you know, I’m not paying for his free week of service. It will be taken out of your paycheck.”
“What! I still haven’t gotten a paycheck yet. Cut me some slack, with this I’m going to be even deeper in debt than before!”
“Don’t get caught next time,” said Ox with a smile. He opened some menus on his wrist-datapad and flicked a few files over to Arron.
“The family has a new job for you to take care of.”
“I just got done with a job,” said Arron.
“This one is important. For both the family and your probation status.”
