Sector 1 waste management building, Miso family territory.
“Things are getting really bad out there,” said a young lanky teen as he smoked an illegal cigarette that was laced with stims. It was not illegal because of the stims, but the tobacco it used was real and had been smuggled into the city from an outside source.
The young teen was sitting at a small table inside their meeting room with over a dozen other workers who were all part of the Miso family. Each of them wore grimy gray suits that stank of human waste. Although they had not, and would never get used to such smell, they had become adept at ignoring it.
“Can you not smoke that here? This is serious business we are talking about,” said an older man with gray streaking through his hair. He waved his hand trying to clear the smoke.
“There wouldn’t be any problem with it if you weren’t so cheap and fixed the air cleanser,” grumbled the teen as he used an ashtray to put out the cigarette.
“You know that with all the waste pollution here they constantly break down every week. Although waste management is a good moneymaker, the parts for fixing the air cleanser cost way too much. We can’t waste money on it every week,” said a round middle-aged man who was wiping the sweat from his head.
The waste management business was a major money maker since each sector created a massive amount of waste that overwhelmed and constantly broke down any attempt to fully automate the waste management plants. That’s where the families stepped in and took over the business with their members keeping the places running. It was too dirty for Mother and Father to bother with so they had latched onto it.
The older man coughed and cleared his throat drawing their attention. “The heads of the rest of the families have all agreed to go ahead and prepare for a fight. But it is taking too long, there have already been several attacks on family businesses by rival upstart gangs from other sectors. With all the chaos it seems that the heads are hesitant to strike back. If we don’t do anything now we will lose this fight!”
Several of the workers nodded their heads in agreement.
“What are we supposed to do then? Wouldn’t we be disobeying orders?” asked the young teen.
“No. We would break the logjam that they are currently in. With the disappearance of the old man, no one wants to openly take command…”
“I doubt that. They are all drooling at the thought of taking command.”
“I said ‘openly’, everyone knows that they all want to be the next leader of the Families. There have already been three factions formed pushing for a different leader. We are part of the two larger factions who although disagree on who to nominate still believe in working together with each other and following the honor code. It’s the third smaller faction that is causing all the problems…”
“Let me guess… they are the ones that we have all suspected to be working with the Party of Mother and Father,” said another grimy man.
The old man nodded his head, “From what I heard they want to do away with the old honor code. My guess is if they don’t get what they want, they aren’t above playing dirty.”
“So you want us to take care of the problem?” asked the young teen.
“We have already contacted other officers in various businesses of the different families. We have all agreed to remove the roadblock.”
There were a few grunts and nods while everyone’s expressions were grim at the thought of what this meant. The older men who had actually fought in the last blood war had the knowledge and experience in how to mount successful attacks against the Office of Reason and Mother and Father and they would be a major key in helping the families stand against the might of their enemy.
The old man with the gray-streaked hair knew all too well the hardships such a war brought, he had lost his son and his wife in the last blood war. Now their enemies were even stronger than they were back then.
The younger members who were still babies and young kids when the fighting was at its peak only knew about the stories that they heard from the older men, even with all the horror stories they were still eager to prove themselves.
“When do we move?” asked the round man.
“Tomorrow.”
“So soon? We don’t even…”
KA-PA-PA-PA-PA!
Several loud explosions exploded outside their meeting room all centered on the heavily reinforced parasteel door.
The entire room all stood up and pulled out their weapons pointing it at the door.
“How did they get past our security system or those that were on watch?” asked the old man.
“I… I’m locked out of the system!” shouted the young teen as he continued to type in the access codes on his wrist-datapad. No matter how he tried to break through he was constantly being blocked!
BOOM!
The reinforced door was blown out of the wall and shot forward slamming the young teen in the back and crushing him into the wall where his arms, legs, and ribs were broken like twigs.
In the smoky haze from the explosion, several gray heavy exoskeletons stormed into the room.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Their heavy weapons shot off several rounds into those who held weapons and were pointing them at the door.
Large holes appeared in the bodies of the Miso family members, limbs were blown off, and even one of their heads exploded like a watermelon when a large bullet passed through.
The only person left standing without a wound was the old man with the gray-streaked hair. As the smoke cleared the gray-painted exoskeletons stepped aside allowing three gray suit agents to enter the room.
They were each wearing rebreather masks to filter out the stench of the waste factory. A green light shot out from one of the handheld scanners in one of the agent’s hands.
“Target match!” said a female voice that was altered by the rebreather.
In a robotic altered voice, the leader of the gray suit agents said, “By the order of Mother and Father, you, John Gray, have been diagnosed with Sluggish Schizophrenia. For your safety and the safety of those around you, you will be normalized and receive the treatment needed to cure you.”
“We have been looking for you for over ten years,” said one of the gray suit agents as he walked up to John Gray.
The agents and the exoskeleton guards paid no attention to the moaning wounded and dying family members lying on the table or floor not bothering to offer first aid. They only cuffed John with a pair of mag cuffs and led him out of the small office.
All over sector one similar raids were happening. The old hardened veterans of the last blood war were being picked off by the Office of Reason causing further mayhem. All of this allowed the small opposing faction to keep the families in a log jam full of indecision.
***
Sector 10, zone 3. In a small warehouse.
“Thanks for this shipment of weapons!” said a grubby gang member as he held out his hand to three dark-cloaked members.
He had to awkwardly lower it when the three did not move to shake his hand. He turned to the several crates of weapons and explosives that were being loaded off of a hover van.
“With this, we can take on those big shots from the families that always like to crush us and lord around their power.”
“You better not let anyone know that we are supplying you with these or…”
“Whoa! No need to say such threats! We aren’t stupid! We know who is behind you. If those two really want us to do this task for them, then it would be our honor to do it!”
“Cut the crap! Don’t talk about them like that! You are lucky that they gave you this chance to work for them! Otherwise, you would be no different than the families that will be wiped out and become extinct in the whole city.”
“Alright, alright, I said you don’t need to use such harsh words! So… who do you want us to target first?”
A secure data-stick was pulled out of a hidden pocket and handed over to the gang member.
He plugged it into his wrist-datapad and when the files were transferred… the black-clad member snatched the data-stick back and crushed it.
The gang leader read several of the names on the flowing list in front of him and frowned.
He looked back up at the three and asked, “Are you sure these are the right targets?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“It’s just… not exactly what I was expecting…”
“Either you do these jobs or we find someone else to do them. If it’s the latter, then we can arrange your permanent normalization right now since you know too much.”
“Wait! Hold on a second. What’s with you and your threats in every sentence? I didn’t say we wouldn’t do it. Just let us gather some more people. Our current membership is not strong enough yet.”
“There are other gangs in this sector as well right? Just use your new weapons to nicely recruit them.”
‘Nicely recruit them my ass,’ thought Cowhard. They were telling him to kill the leaders of the other groups and cannibalize the groups so that he could grow his own forces.
“If that is what you want, we can do it.”
