In the week after the old man’s death, Arron and Kix along with the entire M1 force, were now even more busy than during the last rage week holiday. A massive number of calls were sent out detailing violent battles flaring up all over the first level.
Without the steady hand of the old man to lead the Ryu family and the other families, several upstart gangs were causing trouble. This also included a few of the smaller families that were suspected to be under Mother and Father’s control as they started to chip away at the Ryu family territory and businesses.
The Ryu family of course fought back along with several of their more loyal allies among the other families, but for the rest, they offered words of help but not any solid support.
The lack of help caused friction between some of the families but not to the point that they came to blows.
With all this conflict the sound of gunshots and explosions was not uncommon in the poorer areas of the first level. Crime was on the rise with no end in sight.
***
Arron and Kix exited their APC and dragged out a grubby man whom they had been hunting down for the last two days. He had finally been found living in one of the local dumpsters near his original apartment.
Both Chewy and Spike walked alongside them now that were on active duty once again after they had received both hardware and software updates to follow the regulations passed by the party of Mother and Father. They were still the same as before but just with more restrictions.
This was the first time in a long time that the four had been on a mission together once again because of all the underground work with the Office of Reason and other cleanup missions.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
Several news drones were hovering above them as they took pictures and live-streamed everything around them.
“There he is! One of the infamous and most wanted violent gang members who once worked for Mother and Father but turned to a life of crime!” shouted a female news reporter as she pointed at the grubby man who looked rather plain. You would never have guessed he was such a famous person.
Arron ignored the news drones and the reporters as he began dragging the man towards the thick paraconcrete launch pad that had been set up in sector one near the outer wall of the megacity.
High above their heads, a large hole in the ceiling had been opened allowing everyone to see actual sunlight which was now shining on the launchpad. The large booster rockets of the shuttle were steaming as the AI pilot went through the checklist to launch into orbit.
“For those of you joining in just now, Efamas the infamous, was captured earlier today. It was decided that his mind was unable to be Re-educated. His crimes are so egregious that a simple normalization is not enough! He will be sent to the Moon prison! That’s right! For the rest of his life, he will be mining minerals on the moon for the mega-city and the rest of the WHO member states!”
Arron shoved the cuffed Efamas through the open doors of the Shuttle. Both Kix and Arron buckled him into his seat and shoved a self-sealing space helmet onto his head before exiting the shuttle and slamming the door shut allowing its auto-locking systems to activate.
As they walked back to their APC the shuttle’s checklist finished and the countdown was initiated over loudspeakers.
All of this was being live-streamed to anyone who wanted to watch.
[3…2…1… Liftoff!]
The roar of the rockets sent out plumes of smoke and long jets of fire as it shot into the air and flew right out of the open hole in the ceiling.
Arron watched as the shuttle flew higher into the sky and grew smaller and smaller. When it was just a large black dot… a massive fireball burst out high in the sky as the shuttle exploded.
Arron stood there slightly shocked but recovered himself and turned on the volume for one of the news streams he had been watching earlier.
“A missile!” shouted one of the reporters on the live stream as he pointed to a small object captured by the news drones that had been zoomed in on the shuttle.
“It wasn’t from Nippon! Why would another country…”
The live stream was immediately cut off and was replaced with the daily KNN news in less than a second.
“Today we have a special update about a former party member you may remember.”
“Who?” asked Fela.
“Everyone should know who I am talking about. It is of course the D-rank citizen Nuck. He was recently spotted living in his hover-car on the first level,” said Kommy.
“Why would he want to live in his hovercar? Does he not like living in an apartment?” asked a coy Fela.
Kommy smiled and nodded while he said, “I believe there are rumors flowing around that he has had a hard time finding a new place to live since he became a normal citizen with a D-rank SCS.”
Rando Poyson who was a guest on the news for this segment spoke up, “This man has been a long-time troll. So no one should feel sorry. Instead, you should be happy as this shows that normalization works! Those who are Normalized must feel the pain from their actions and words! There may be many non-believers who disagree with this and scream that this is not fair. But I say they are just sympathizers of the separatists.”
Both Fela and Kommy nodded their heads at this and then switched to a new subject.
Arron and Kix both got into their APC and continued their patrolling of the area for the day.
“What the heck was that?” asked Akira.
Kix only shrugged and continued to listen to the news as they slowly cruised around looking for any suspicious gang member or family enforcers looking for trouble.
“Over the last few weeks, the rise in gang violence has sharply risen ever since the leader of the underground families was captured by the special M1 forces and was found dead. Shootings, explosions, and worker-bot crimes are all on the rise. If you have any information on those committing these crimes, send it to the Office of Reason,” said Fela.
“We will take all the information sent to us seriously,” said Rando with a serious and upright expression on his face.
Arron snorted at that. They would probably hand off all the grunt work to the M1 and once again take all the glory for the results.
“It seems a gang war has started between the underground factions. I guess there is no honor among thieves,” said Kommy.
“In other news, all government social media will be adding a new yearly fee that you must pay in order to use. Each platform has had its TOS updated to conform to the new regulations passed by the party of Mother and Father. Here is an excerpt from the new guidelines. ‘We will enforce these new Community Guidelines using a combination of human reviewers and machine learning, and apply them to everyone equally—regardless of the subject or the creator’s background, position, or affiliation. That is unless a user or users post views that do not align with the party of Mother and Father, this will result in the said user or users accounts being permanently normalized.’”
Arron muted the live stream once again and looked out his windows to see the old buildings nearby looked even more shabby due to the uptick in violence.
Those that lived here were unable to escape the fighting and so they were forced to hide in their homes which only offered them a little more protection than standing outside.
The Office of Reason was constantly yelling at M1 to do something because the fighting was affecting the local economy, which was already in a major recession. Even if Mother and Father along with the news refused to call it that and made new definitions to describe what was happening, everyone knew what was going on.
It seemed like every day there was some major explosion killing dozens if not hundreds of people each time. The factories of the first level were having trouble keeping their workers working as they all feared random violence flaring up or the threat of a car bomb exploding. So many were now staying home.
There was little that the M1 officers could do as the main culprits were faceless groups of lowlife gangs that had no honor, unlike the Families who were defending themselves against the attacks.
“I just don’t get how these gangs are armed so well,” said Arron as they were nearing the end of their shift.
Kix shrugged, “No use in trying to go on a goose chase hunting down the source. There will always be a way to get something if you really want it. For every weapons shop shut down, two more open up.”
Ping!
Lexa’s face appeared above the dashboard and interrupted their chat, “Arron, the Chief wants to speak with you as soon as you arrive back at the station. It seems to be very important.”
With that the call ended just like that, Kix continued to stare at Arron.
“What!? I didn’t do anything! You were with me the whole time!”
