In the M1’s dim locker room Arron was pulling off his chest armor and placing it in his locker with the number 3-3-2 on the door.
Ding! His NerViz notified him of a new message.
He opened the messages with his wrist data-pad and frowned at the name of the sender.
“Something the matter?” asked Kix.
“Something from the Office of Reason,” said Arron. He finished taking off the rest of his armor and put it in his locker before closing it.
“Who’d you piss off now?”
“Who knows,” said Arron, shrugging his shoulders as he tapped onto the blinking holographic message.
[A package from Novhere is waiting for you at the Office of Reasons Import and Mail sorting building. Come to Sector 1 zone 3’s Import sorting facility.]
Arron and Kix grabbed their work bag and left the locker room.
“Why do I have to go all the way to Sector 1 zone 3 to pick up a package? Can’t they just send it to me via drone delivery?” asked Arron.
“The Office of Reasons sorting facility? If the packages came from someplace outside Neo-Tokeyo then you have to pick them up yourself. It’s an easy way to catch those trying to smuggle things into the Megacity using the regular import system,” said Kix as they exited the M1 building.
Tooth was already outside waiting for the two. Since none of them had a hovercar they all used the moving sidewalk to reach the nearby Sector 12 MagLev station that would take them back to Sector 11 zone 3 where they lived.
When they reached the MagLev station Arron stopped.
“I won’t be going back with you guys today since I have to take another MagLev to pick up a package,” said Arron.
“Don’t go sticking your nose into things while you’re in Sector 1. It’s best to just ignore everything,” said Kix, giving his partner a friendly warning.
“Stay safe,” said Tooth with a short wave. Both Toothbrush and Kix got in line to board the MagLev that would take them to Sector 11 zone 3.
Arron walked down the station’s somewhat clean para-concrete platform as he searched for the MagLev that would take him to Sector 1.
When he found it, he was able to buy a ticket and board the MagLev with no trouble.
Just like almost all of the MagLevs on Level 1, there were only two miniature benches attached to the cabin’s two walls with the majority of space left to cram as many people in as they could.
Arron was lucky to have picked one of the cabins that was not packed like sardines. He still had enough breathing space at the rear of the cabin where he held onto one of the ceiling handlebars.
On the MagLev’s ceiling, KNN was playing the latest broadcast. Since he had nothing else to do he just watched the news while the MagLev headed to Sector 1.
“The regular Mother and Father approved power outages will be implemented in Sector 1 affecting all nonessential operations as the planned maintenance is conducted. The power outage should only last a day or two,” said Fela as she read off the news.
“Again?” muttered Arron.
“This isn’t anything new, there will always be maintenance happening somewhere,” said a nearby passenger.
“Planned my ass, they are just trying to cover their asses because the system broke and they are scrambling to fix it. How come the 4th level never has these Planned Maintenances or even any type of outages?” asked another.
“Do you even have to ask?”
The MagLev quickly passed through Sector 11’s border, and then Sector 1’s as well.
It was a relief not having to constantly stop at each border to identify yourself like you had to if you were driving a hover vehicle.
“Now arriving at Sector 1 zone 3! Now arriving at Sector 1 zone 3!” A female voice echoed out as the MagLev came to a stop at the station.
When the doors opened Arron stepped forward to exit the station but a Female MagLev station attendant several inches shorter than Arron stepped in front of the open door and put a white-gloved hand up stopping him.
“Halt! Only those authorized are allowed to exit the MagLev,” said the female attendant.
Arron held out his hand for her to scan his Cloud-chip. He was confident that if the Office of Reason sent him the message he would be allowed off the MagLev.
Ping!
“You may pass,” said the female attendant. She waved for him to hurry up and get off.
“Anyone else want to exit?” asked the female attendant.
“Me,” said a woman with tens of small black braided hair on her head.
AHHHHHNNNNNN! The scanner let out a loud buzzer when it scanned her Cloud chip.
At the sound of the buzzer, Arron turned around to see what would happen.
“What? Why are you not allowing me to exit? I come here all the time?”
“Unauthorized citizen, you are to stay on the MagLev,” said the female attendant, uninterested in the woman or her questions. She held up her hand to stop and push the woman away from the open doors.
“Authorize this!” shouted the angry woman.
BAM!
A fist was thrown and punched the female attendant right in the face knocking her to the ground where she hit her head on the ground hard.
The angry woman jumped onto the station attendant and began pummeling her as the attendant was trying to roll into a ball and cover her head with her arms to protect it from the blows.
The other passengers did not step forward to stop the angry woman. Instead, they either looked away or continued with what they were doing, not paying any attention to her.
Arron took one step forward to stop the fight but then he remembered what Kix had told him before they had separated… and stopped moving.
The angry woman landed nearly a hundred blows onto the female attendant’s head, arms, and body.
Weeeooo! Weeeooo!
Several security bots with blaring alarms floated over to the area of disturbance. As they neared their arms all extended out towards the angry woman.
“Troubled citizen found! Begin Normalization!” said the security bots all at once.
“Screw you!” shouted the angry woman.
She was not going to be captured without a fight. With both hands, she swung her large handbag which slammed into one of the Security bots and sent it flying back slamming into a crowd of people on the busy MagLev station. Several of those that were plowed over received minor injuries from the impact.
The rest of the security bots evaded her heavy handbag and shot several needles at her. Her arms, legs, and neck were all pierced with tens of needles. The angry woman flopped to the ground unable to move or speak as the numbing toxin took immediate action.
The security bots swooped in and dragged her out of sight.
The MagLev station attendant lay on the dirty para-concrete moaning as blood dripped from her broken nose and a large gash on her head where it had hit the ground.
Arron was hesitant to walk over and help as he did not know if that was considered interfering in other’s business. Plus there were too many cases where someone tried to help another person and they were accused of some made-up crime by the person.
Arron’s dilemma was solved as a red and yellow med bot slowly floated over to the station attendant and jabbed her with a needle before floating off. Whatever it was that was injected into her took effect in less than a minute.
The female attendant stood up and wiped the dripping blood from her swollen face.
She hobbled back to the MagLev’s door where she opened her mouth revealing several new missing teeth. In a slurred voice she shouted, “Last call, step forward if you want to exit!”
No one stepped forward or looked at her.
With a wave of her hand the MagLev doors shut. All up and down the MagLev there were hundreds of station attendants scanning the passengers that wanted to exit.
Arron shook his head feeling helpless at all that he had witnessed. He accessed the NavGuide and typed in the [Office of Reason Import and mail sorting facility] and pressed Enter.
Ting! The blue holographic sparkling ball let out a happy tune as it appeared in front of him ready to lead him to his destination.
