For the next two weeks, Arron lost himself in work as he bounced between the offices of each of the businesses he was in charge of. During this time there was very little to report to A.S. or Kix.
Arron received a holo-call while at his desk typing up a document for the week’s report that he had to send to the family.
“Ox, why are you calling? Aren’t you busy with the opening of that new building?” asked Arron, when the familiar holographic head popped up above his desk.
“Just calling to give you props for working so hard. The old man has seen your hard work ethic and approves,” said Ox.
“Uh… thanks. Did you need anything from me?” asked Arron.
“No, I was just calling to congratulate you. Keep up that hard work and you will be promoted in the future.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Arron, his thoughts all on the large debt he still owed. In a few more months he would have it paid off.
“As you said before, I am busy. So I’ll leave it at that and let you get back to work,” said Ox before disconnecting the call.
For a few moments after the call, Arron felt a bit of happiness at the compliments… ‘Smack’.
Arron slapped his face.
“Get a hold of yourself!” muttered Arron.
This was a constant struggle for Arron as this was his first major undercover job which had already lasted so long. Over the past few weeks, Arron was constantly losing himself. The lines of his real self and his undercover self were blurring and it was getting harder and harder to keep his identities separate.
Ping! Arron’s thoughts were interrupted by another waiting call.
As soon as he tapped on the hovering accept button the worried face of Lily popped up.
“What’s wrong?” asked Arron.
“It’s bad! Really bad. You need to come here quickly!” was all Lily said before ending the call.
Arron tapped in the last few words on his report and sent it on its way before standing up and walking through the several security locks up to the first-floor lobby where Lily was waiting.
When he arrived there was already a large gathering of several hundred of the girls that work in the building. Many of them were holding each other as they cried.
Arron frowned at seeing this. Whatever had happened was not good.
He pushed his way through the crowd and found Lily who was talking to a few of the building’s enforcers.
“Lily, what is going on?”
Lily turned to Arron and with a grim face said, “It’s best you see for yourself first. Then you have a better understanding.”
With that said, she led Arron and the enforcers out of the crowd and only a few steps out of the building’s front door.
There was a large presence of Enforcers blocking off both the road and sidewalk near the building.
On the sidewalk right in front of Arron, there was a large tarp covering a large portion of the ground.
“Take a look,” was all Lily said.
Arron crouched down and picked up a corner of the tarp. As he saw what was underneath his frown deepened. Behind him sounds of gagging could be heard from a few of the enforcers as they caught a glimpse of the mush underneath the tarp.
“Who was it?” asked Arron as he dropped the tarp corner and stood back up.
“Dandelion. She has been with us for a little over a year now,” said Lily.
Arron’s head tilted back as he looked up along the tall buildings several hundred floors searching for anything out of place.
“Did she have anything that was stressing her out? Any overzealous debt collectors calling for credits?”
“She had no debts. Only a few days ago we had a small party for her as she had saved up enough money and sent it back to her family in the countryside to help pay for the rest of her younger brother’s schooling so that he could get a higher paying job and help the family more. With that taken care of she was planning on saving up for her own future plans.”
“Any surveillance footage?”
“None… at the time it happened everything was cut out and there’s only static. The only footage we have is of her falling past the front doors and …”
Arron nodded and said, “Then this was not a suicide.”
“There have been some rumors of similar things happening at the palaces from other families as well… I have heard that a few other girls died in similar ways. It was all a rumor but now…”
“For everyone’s safety, we will be closing today while I take care of this… If someone has any issues with this just send them my way and I’ll set them straight.”
Arron switched to his M1 officer investigation mode and turned to the enforcers that were blocking off the road and the sidewalks.
“I want you guys to wear hazmat suits and clean up this mess before a large crowd or the police notice what is going on.”
The enforcers, many of them new members with less than a year under their belts, all had green faces as they nodded their heads and tried not to barf while thinking about the task ahead of them.
Arron turned to Lily, “I need you to send me all of the security footage from before and after the incident. I’ll see if I can find anyone suspicious.”
“That’s not going to be easy as many of our customers come here hiding their identity not wanting to be recognized by the news drones.”
“Just do it. We need to start somewhere. When you’re done with that, send Dandelion’s remaining credits and her last paycheck to her parents. It’s the least we can do.”
When Arron returned to his office he received a large batch of security footage from every room in the building before and after the incident.
He tapped on each of the files and swiped them onto his office walls that were really just a large holo-tv. This was all so he could enlarge the video to see everything more clearly and not have to squint at the small screen on his wrist datapad.
Since there was no point in searching through all the dead footage by himself he began tapping in a few commands for the AI search program and then tapped the [Run command] button.
After a few minutes of processing all the security footage the AI discarded all the dead footage that did not have a human in it. This was a large help as it turned a massive mountain into a small hill he still had to look through.
Arron spent the next half hour looking at the thousands of customers that had entered the building and was thoroughly sickened at some of the hobbies they chose to engage in with the holograms and simulations.
He was starting to get agitated as the more he looked the more lily’s words were becoming clearer that it was near impossible to find the culprit as the majority of their customers did wear baggy hooded jackets or sweatshirts. Some wore extremely expensive brands, others cheap ones.
As he was letting out a long yawn and stretching something caught his attention. One of the people on the many recordings looked directly at the cameras each time they passed one. Their face was covered with a red silk face mask underneath their black baggy hoodie that hid their body.
Arron sat up straight and enlarged the holovid trying to see through the disguise before giving up and pulling up all of the other clips that had this person in them. He watched the suspicious person walk through the entire building.
He was able to confirm that the target was on the same floor as Dandelion before the cameras cut out.
“Found you,” said Arron as fast-forward to the last bit of footage that had caught the target escaping after the deed.
The building had its own basic scanners for keeping track of customers and their payments.
Using this data Arron was able to get an NerViz ID number. But since his resources for investigating such a thing were limited he secretly sent it to Kix using a secure message asking him to check out who the person was.
While Kix was handling that task, Arron called up the manager of the Rock family’s pleasure palace.
“… the rumors? They are not rumors, we had two of our girls die from accidents last week. Or so we thought, but now… Why are you asking? Did something happen to you as well?” asked the manager.
“Yeah, a little while ago. I’ll call you back if I find out more about the issue. I have a lead but I am still trying to nail it down,” said Arron.
“Hopefully you capture whoever it is that is causing us such problems!”
Ping! An incoming call notification popped up as soon as he ended the call. He tapped on the noise cancellation function for his office before accepting the call.
“Kix what do you have for me?” asked Arron as he connected to the secure line.
“Naz is their name,” said Kix as he looked at the data he gathered.
“Great, can you tell me any other information? Where do they live and work?” asked Arron.
“They died several years ago.”
“What? But they were just here hours ago. Are you sure they died and it’s not just someone who went into hiding?”
“I’m sure. He was a soldier who fought in the army against Mother and Father. He, along with the remaining members of his squad, were permanently normalized for the crime of killing several officers of Mother and Father’s army during the last days of the war. Toothbrush pulled up some videos of his permanent normalization that were in the records. Why are you so interested in him?”
“There is a serial killer on the loose. The person with that Nerviz ID was just here earlier and killed one of my workers,” said Arron.
“Don’t waste time on this fruitless hunt as they are using a fake ID set up by an identity broker. Depending on how much you pay there are some people who can move from the first level to live on the second level. It is not a 100% guarantee but most of the time it works. Sounds like a low-level cheap broker sold that ID to the killer.”
“Great. That should be helpful in finding them. Then I can take care of this problem for everyone here,” said Arron.
Hearing this Kix looked at Arron with a frown appearing on his face, “Arron, I know you are undercover, but you’re going too far. Just listen to yourself. You need to let this be handled by the local police. Send them the information and be done with it before you get yourself into a situation you regret later. Remember you are not a member of the Ryu family but an undercover M1 officer working for the Office of Reason…”
Arron glared back at him, “I know who I am! It is ‘Our’ duty to stop crime and capture the troubled suspects so that they can receive justice. That is what I am doing. I don’t need you to lecture me.”
