6:05 A.M. read the large red digital clock on one of the lobby’s walls.
“What a mess,” said Arron as he looked at the scattered legs, arms and chunks of body parts littering the floor.
“Serves the idiots right for trying to rob the bank. I can’t believe that people are still this stupid to actually believe they could find credits to steal here. But here we are,” said Kix standing next to Arron.
They both looked over to a moaning man lying on the ground not too far from them. They had been called here to take care of the lone survivor of a harebrained robbery attempt on the local bank. Unlike banks from several centuries past, modern banks under the joint control of the party of Mother and Father and the WHO were nothing more than glorified offices.
Arron turned to the female manager of this branch office and asked, “Are the defenses turned off?”
The manager tapped on a few invisible menus on her wrist-datapad before nodding to Arron.
Arron was still a little skittish about walking towards the troubled suspect lying on the ground.
The reason he was hesitating was the invisible laser defense systems scattered about the lobby to protect the building from malicious people during the hours that the building was empty.
These invisible lasers had already sliced through four or five other people leaving only large chunks of their bodies and limbs lying on the ground. And that was just a rough estimate judging by the number of limbs lying on the ground.
The only survivor was a man who escaped death but lost both of his legs which had been immediately cauterized so he was in no danger of bleeding out. Just a few inches farther north and he would have had his stomach sliced in half leaving no one alive for them to come and pick up.
Arron turned to Kix, “You’re wearing the light exoskeleton so it’s safer for you to test the waters.”
“These defense systems will eat right through my armor. I’m no safer than you,” said Kix.
“You two, I said I turned them off,” said the annoyed manager.
“No offense to you lady but we don’t know you. And we have had many problems in the past with things ‘mistakenly’ happening almost killing us,” said Kix.
Both Kix and Arron stepped to the side and silently stared at her waiting to see if she wanted to walk out in front of them to prove the lasers were off but she stayed at the entrance not moving an inch.
“Those things look like they can take some damage,” said the female manager pointing to Spike and Chewy.
“Can’t do that, the Office of Reason would kill us if we sent them back all sliced up,” said Arron.
“Plus we just got off of a week of unpaid vacation…” said Kix over their secure comms.
Both Chewy and Spike began glaring at the manager after realizing what she wanted to use them for.
And so it was decided by rock, paper, scissors that Kix would be the one to venture out and grab the troubled suspect. They were not being overly paranoid since they had intimate knowledge of this defense system which had been tested out by past M1 ERF team members with disastrous results.
It had a bad habit of staying on for several seconds and even minutes after being turned off.
Kix inched his way forward constantly putting the tip of his armored foot out first. If the lasers were still active they would only cut off the metal parts just above where his foot was. Doing it this way he would receive no damage.
Small step by small step he managed to reach the moaning man and grab him under the arms. Not wanting to stay out on the open lobby floor any longer than necessary caused Kix to not be gentle with the injured troubled suspect as he dragged him towards the entrance doors quickly.
“AHHHH! You’re hurting me!” complained the injured man between his moans of pain.
“This little bit of pain should be the least of your worries,” said Kix, not slowing down.
When they reached the doors Arron helped cuff the man’s hands with a pair of his mag-cuffs.
It was not like he was going to run off on them… you know because of the missing legs and everything… but it was better to be safe than sorry as he could still cause them problems if he wanted to.
With Arron grabbing the man’s right arm and Kix on his left they hoisted him up in the air ready to carry him out.
“Alright thanks for your help,” said Arron nodding to the manager as they began walking out the door.
The manager followed them and said, “What about the others? Aren’t you going to clean them up?”
“We aren’t cleaners Ma’am. You need to do that yourself or get someone else to do it,” said Kix as he opened the back of the APC and deposited their catch inside.
…bang…
In the distance, Arron could hear the sound of gunshots. He looked to Kix who shrugged.
“Tooth do you know if there is another team in this sector?” asked Arron as he and Kix hopped into the APC followed by Spike and Chewy.
“No one other than you,” said Tooth over the secure comms connection. “I’ll check in with the other Orgs and see if they are doing anything over there.”
“Oh, what’s this? Something just came in. A police unit was sent to deal with a disgruntled man, but he has taken one of the officer’s guns and is now held up in a random goods shop. No other information at this time.”
“We’re just down the road so we can take care of this quickly before coming back,” said Kix.
“I’ll let the dispatchers know.”
The APC did a U-turn away from the angry female manager and shot down the road which was filled with light traffic as early birds went about whatever tasks they had to do.
Kix parked the APC behind the parked police car where two police officers not wearing any armor were currently hiding.
One of them was aiming an ancient pistol at the doors of the store while the other seemed to be on a heated call with their HQ.
Arron and Chewy got out and dashed over to the officers.
“Are you stable?” asked Arron as he looked over the officer who had been on a call seconds before.
He was breathing heavily and looked to be in pain. On closer inspection, Arron saw that there were two large blood stains that blended in with his red cloth uniform, one on his right shoulder and the other on his lower left leg.
“I’ll live. I managed to use the clotting medicine to stop the bleeding,” said the wounded officer.
“Are you two the reinforcements that the main office said they would be sending? You guys sure got here quick,” said the officer who was still pointing his gun toward the front door.
“We’re not your reinforcements. We were just down the street and decided to come help,” said Arron.
“Any help we can get is welcome. Especially help from someone as heavily armored and armed as you two. The target has a gun and has taken everyone inside as a hostage.”
Arron thought that they were lightly armored for what they had to deal with constantly, but compared to the police officers who only wore cloth uniforms, he guessed they were better suited for this.
“This place have a rear exit?” asked Kix.
“None, just this front door and a few windows in the front…” Before he could finish his sentence several flying cars and hover-copters noisily flew in and landed a short distance away.
“Are these your reinforcements?” asked a frowning Arron as he saw several gray exoskeletons hopping out of the hover-copters.
“I’m not sure… they didn’t say who was coming. This really has turned into a big S-show…” said the officer pointing to the hovering news drones that had caught wind of something big happening and had followed the Office of Reason hover-copters here.
Arron turned on the news livestream to see what was going on.
“As you can see there are only a handful of police and M1 officers guarding the entrance for the Office of Reason agents. Inside there is a suspected separatist who also happens to be a member of the Chozen family!” said the female reporter who was walking next to the young commanding officer of the Office of Reason force that had just shown up.
She did not seem to notice or was not informed that civilians were being held hostage inside.
When Arron saw the commanding officer he uttered a few curses. It was Yung Dod who they had worked with in a past operation to clean up a hotbed of ‘separatists’.
Yung Dod leisurely sauntered up to Arron, Kix, and the police officers who were all squatting behind the police car. The female reporter was making sure to capture everything with the news drones.
“Good work holding down the fort for us! I will be taking the reins now,” said Yung Dod in a bossy manner acting as if he had commanded them all to be here.
Arron and the three others next to him stayed silent and stared at Yung Dod as if he were some odd creature. They all knew he was putting on a show for the people watching the news stream.
“So what’s the situation here right now?” asked Yung Dod, ignoring their silent stares.
“Someone stole a gun from one of the officers, shot him twice, and has now taken hostages inside that store,” said Kix with a bland voice as he pointed towards the random goods shop.
Yung Dod stood there for a few seconds as he looked at Arron and Kix before asking, “Haven’t we worked together before?”
“Yes we have,” said an unhappy Arron.
“Odd that we are here together on another case such as this.”
Yung Dod’s face scrunched for a quick second as he realized he had messed up and admitted to something that he was officially supposed to have not taken part of. Even if those watching the livestream did not know what it was that he had just admitted to, it was still a major slip-up.
“You four can stay where you are. If we need something we will call for you,” said Yung Dod as he walked over to a new fortified command post that was set up right next to the police car.
The front of the command post was made out of a curved reinforced parasteel. The other Office of Reason agents and the gray exoskeletons were all gathered behind the command post with the female field reporter crammed in with them so that she could continue to capture everything that was going on both at the command post and inside the shop.
“Troubled suspect. This is the Office of Reason,” said Yung Dod using the command posts’ external loudspeakers. “You have nowhere to go, so come out!”
A loud crackling came from the store’s intercoms as a fuzzy and cheap holographic body of a man appeared in front of the store.
“I knew you would come! Give me back my brother!” said the fuzzy holographic man.
“Your brother?” asked Yung Dod, feigning confusion.
“Don’t act dumb! You know who I am talking about! Hark was attacked and grabbed by you on bogus violations of the religion act passed by Mother and Father! Give him back to me!”
“Oh, that’s who you are talking about. I am sorry to tell you but for the crimes that your brother committed, he was sent to be re-educated and we can not let you see him until he finishes his sentence.”
One of the agents snickered and whispered to another and said “Even if we wanted to, there is no possibility of doing that.”
Yung Dod’s head jerked to look at the agent and he gave him a death glare shutting him up. They were being live-streamed and had to put up the wall of perfection for those watching.
“Don’t give me that b*******! I know what happens to those who get normalized by you! They never come back alive.”
Arron listened to the man rant about all of Yung Dod’s dirty laundry and why he hated him.
Even though the man was a troubled suspect and was holding several hostages Arron was enjoying watching Yung Dod squirm as he tried to keep the situation under control.
Yung Dod turned to the female reporter and quietly hissed under his breath, “Cut that part out.”
“B… but sir we’re live right now,” said the stuttering reporter.
“Don’t give me that crap I know you have the tools to fix this. Mother and Father have spent enough money on such programs just for situations like this.”
“I.. I’ll see what I can do…” said the reporter as she tried to work out how to get the near-impossible task finished.
While she fiddled with the options and menus of the news drones the drones continued to livestream the troubled suspects’ rant for all to hear. The longer it went on the more spicy it got causing Yung Dod’s face to get redder and redder.
“Normalize the separatist inside that building!” ordered an angry Yung Dod as the situation spiraled out of his control.
This was Arron’s first time seeing the calm and cool Yung Dod like this.
The heavily armored gray exoskeletons marched out of the command post and into the random goods store.
Bang! Bang!
The sound of the stolen officer’s gun was heard before the loud whirring and quick repeating, BAM! BAM! BAM! of the heavy guns used by the exoskeletons as they permanently normalized the separatist threat. Young Dod had wanted to capture him alive but it had turned out this way.
Arron and everyone else were able to watch what was going on inside from the fuzzy intercom holographic video that was still active. In the short gunfight, the gray exoskeletons did not care where they shot which led to several of the hostages being shot, a few of them even dying.
Only after being permanently normalized did the man’s rants against Young Dod stop.
Young Dod turned to the female reporter and said, “We have successfully rid the mega-city of another separatist and saved those he took hostage.”
