As Arron followed the NavGuide pixi out of the Sector 1 zone 3 MagLev station, there wasn’t much scenery to look at just several hundreds of towering rundown buildings with hundreds of people exiting and entering them.
Every building that Arron passed, looked completely bare without any Holo-ads playing due to the planned power outage.
This simple thing surprised Arron at how much a difference it made the city feel. The normal colorful and well-lit main streets were now only dimly lit by street lamps and the headlights of the passing Hovercars.
This made Sector 1 zone 3 feel far darker and eerier than normal. On top of all that, the sidewalks were not working either, forcing Arron and the thousands of other people around him to have to physically walk their destinations.
Arron looked down at the beat-up and crumbling sidewalk as he walked and was unsure if it was even functional when there was power.
Luckily, the main Import and sorting facility was only a dozen or so blocks away from the MagLev station.
The situation was not all that bad as it gave Arron a chance to think while he walked and looked around at the buildings.
While passing one of the many side streets Arron could see that the walls of the buildings on the lower floors were covered in Holo-graffiti. It seemed whoever was in charge of keeping the walls clean had given up on it and now the entire lower wall was plastered in holo-graffiti.
Arron followed the blue NavGuide pixie to a small three story stone building. The small building was attached to a large paraconcrete warehouse that had somewhere between 200-300 floors.
Outside of the small building were two obviously fake trees standing near the entrance.
Arron saw that there were a few groups of young teens leaning on the building’s walls chatting and eating food.
A security bot flew out of the building and headed towards one of the groups nearest to the entrance.
“Illegal loitering! Move away or be Normalized!” said the security bot as it shooed away the loitering teens.
“Stupid bot!” shouted a few of the teens as they ran away.
At the entrance to the building, Arron was forced to pass through a civilian-grade bio scanner that was attached to the front door before he could enter the building.
The front lobby was a rather extravagant dome shape with the walls and floors all built with real polished white marble.
The light from a giant crystal chandelier lit up the entire lobby making it feel extremely bright.
On the far wall across from the entrance there were over 20 reinforced para-glass windows each with long lines of people waiting.
Next to those windows were even more lines of people waiting to access the several dozen automated kiosks used for specialized packaging and delivery that could not be done from home.
The lobby was empty of any furniture or decorations other than a few Party of Mother and Father flags that lined the walls in between several doors.
The lack of hover chairs was to make sure no one got comfortable. It was also so that they could fit as many people inside as possible during the peak hours of business.
The voices, clacking of shoes on the polished marble floor, and the opening and closing of doors echoed off the stone surfaces of the lobby making it louder and feel more lively inside than it was.
While Arron was waiting in one of the lines that led to a reinforced paraglass window, one of the doors on the side of the lobby slammed open.
“I’m not delivering to that place!” shouted an angry man.
The man’s loud voice echoed throughout the entire domed lobby attracting everyone’s attention.
Arron looked over to see a man standing in the middle of an open door. His head was wrapped in white bandages and his arm was in a sling.
“Bill we need…” said an unseen female.
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me!” he shouted back.
“It’s only a few hundred packages.”
“Look at me! This was from delivering ‘Only a few Hundred packages’ yesterday!”
“We have to send you because the drones keep on getting attacked and the packages stolen.”
“So because you lost a few delivery drones you are forcing me to deliver them by hand? Those heathens in zone one and two attack if you are only a few minutes late delivering their package. I am not a drone so I can’t get around and deliver as fast as them!”
“Enough! You are ordered by The Office of Reason to deliver the packages to the troubled zones. Now get in here and close the door or quit!” said the female voice more firmly.
The delivery man looked ready to cry from all the stress from the current dilemma he was in. He only took a few seconds to make up his mind as he slowly walked back into the room.
“You’re sending me to my death,” said the defeated man as the door shut behind him.
The lobby returned to the way it was before the outburst but now it felt too quiet.
Ten minutes later Arron reached the front of the line.
“Place your hands on the counter’s scanner and keep them there until I say so,” said a bored man on the other side of the reinforced Paraglass.
Arron did as he was told and the counter quickly flashed a blue light as it scanned his Cloud chip.
An opaque holoscreen popped up in front of the man’s face and he quickly read the information. He looked back at Arron squinting at his face and then back at the information before tapping a few holographic buttons.
A drone dropped from the ceiling and flew through a square hole in the wall leading to the large warehouse.
It soon returned carrying a decent-sized square box underneath its belly.
The bored man took the package and dropped it inside a two-way locker underneath the window and closed the door on his end.
Bzzzzzz! Click! The buzzer and click from the lock sounded before the door on Arron’s side dropped down revealing the box.
Arron didn’t move his hands and still kept them on the counter.
In an annoyed voice, the man said, “You can take the package now. Stop making everyone wait.”
Arron grabbed the package and closed the door causing it to let out another, Bzzzz! And click as the door locked and opened back up on the other side.
He walked out of the building and once again had to walk through the Bio-scanner before he could take a closer look at the package.
There was a small card attached to it so he tapped on it and a short holo-message appeared.
[We decided to send you a care package from home as a thank you for the gifts and money you sent us. Mel also gave us something to put in as well. From: Your loving parents.]
Arron was eager to see what they had sent but had to wait since he still had a bit of a ride to get back to his apartment.
He placed the package into his bag with his dirty uniform and headed off towards the MagLev station.
