And so Arron’s first rage week festival ended with a bang.
The next morning in Chief Chesty’s office.
“With your previous work before the festival and all of your help with several big cases during the rage week festival you have proven that you have what it takes to be part of M1. Your probation ends today. Since you two are not specialized in anything major I’ll see about putting you on the next big project that is coming down the line,” said Chief Chesty.
“Sir, has it already been decided?” asked Kix.
“It has. The researchers are still putting the last touches on it. I can’t say anything other than it will change the way we do things here. For the better, I hope.”
“Chief, the junk in the ERF storage room. What will be done with it?” asked Arron.
“Mainly just collect dust or we’ll use them for spare parts in other projects. Why? Is there something that caught your attention?”
“The broken prototype Hover-cycle v.8.”
“I’ll have to contact the researchers first and get back to you on that. If they are done with that line of prototypes then I can draw up a document of sale for you,” said Chief Chesty.
“Thank you sir!”
“You two shouldn’t relax just because the rage week festival is over. Right now the police are overwhelmed with work from the week’s large uptick in crimes. You have been put on transportation duty to help lessen the strain.”
“Transportation duty?” asked Arron.
“You will be taking several troubled suspects to the Office of Reason’s main court of justice in Sector 12.”
With their orders given, they left the office and headed to the garage where they had to pick up a new prototype armored hover-van that was dark blue and had the usual M1 markings on its side.
“This thing looks awful,” said Kix. He walked up to the armored van’s driver door and entered the armored van only after a quick inspection of the boxy outer appearance.
Arron got into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. “I don’t think the researchers were worried about its looks when they created it,” said Arron.
“They should have…”
“So are we supposed to go pick up our passengers at any of the police stations?” asked Arron.
“No, we’re lucky that the police at least had the decency to drop the first batch off here already. We just have to escort them to the court and keep an eye on them until they receive their judgment,” said Kix while tapping on the van’s holographic menu.
After a few options had been pressed a holovid with several angles of the back of the armored hover-vans cargo area showed over 20 people crammed inside.
“We’ll probably have to pick up another batch when this lot is dealt with,” said Kix as he continued to mess with the Armored hover-van’s options to set it up the way he liked.
***
Arron stood at the back of the Armored hover-van, his weapon pulled out as the troubled suspects exited the opened back doors.
As they exited his visor scanned them for any contraband and listed the major crime above their head that had led to them being arrested and put in the back of the hover-van.
[Stealing, Bribe, Littering, Repeated speech code violation, Scamming, Suspected Separatist, Class one terrorist, Class two terrorist.]
“Kix what’s with this? Apart from a few of these guys they’re all petty crimes. Did we really have to transport these guys to the Main Office of Reason court?” asked Arron over their helmets’ secure comms.
Kix didn’t answer, he only elbowed Arron in the side with his armored arm and nodded his head towards someone that was just exiting the hover-van.
“Oh… so they are just camouflage,” said Arron.
The man in question had both his arms and legs cuffed with magnetic cuffs. He wore a generic first-level work outfit as well as a large visor that hid his face. Even with all the steps taken to hide his identity, Arron could see through it all.
It was Azistant, who they had captured the other day.
“Let’s get moving!” ordered Kix when the last of the troubled suspects stepped out of the van.
Kix walked on the left side of the group while Arron was on the right as they escorted the troubled to the front entrance.
Arron glanced at each of the troubled they were escorting and found that most of them were all looking down at the ground with dazed expressions.
Only Azistant was stealthily looking around to see if anyone noticed him.
As they neared the court’s entrance Arron gave the command, “Stop!”
“What is that big crowd doing in front of the entrance?” asked Kix.
“Shouldn’t we be taking these guys in through a side door?” asked Arron.
“There is no side door. That is the only entrance.”
“Look! A group of Troubled have arrived! Could one of them be the [Killer Criminal]?” shouted a female reporter who had just noticed the group of troubled being escorted by Kix and Arron.
Kix cursed as the rest of the milling media mob all looked over at them. With hungry looks deep in their eyes they all began manipulating their news drones to fly towards the group to get close-ups of the troubled.
One of the drones flew so low that it hit the top of Arron’s helmet and spun out of control for a moment before regaining its stability.
While Arron and Kix dealt with the news drones, a smaller group of only two people had arrived at the court and approached the gathering of media reporters that were hovering around the entrance.
Only a few reporters paid any attention to them as they reached the doors. As the two stepped on a large padded platform in front of the door a purple light slowly rose from the ground and scanned their entire bodies checking for any weapons, illegal cybernetics, and also making sure that the NerViz was up to date and not tampered with.
Halfway through the scan, a hovering bot appeared from within the crowd of reporters and charged at the two people.
BZZTTTT!
Its sharp claws slashed out with yellow electricity crackling all around it.
A large gash appeared on one of the men’s chest, spurting out a gush of blood before it was cauterized by the high voltage.
The man fell to the ground as his body twitched and frothed at the mouth from the effects of the high voltage.
Arron did not know what was going on but decided it was better to take action and ask questions later.
Bam!
One shot from his BigBoy service pistol tore a large hole in the floating bot sending it crashing into a nearby wall before it could attack the second man.
Everything happened so fast that the reporters only now realized something was wrong after seeing Arron raise his gun and shoot towards them.
The panicked reporters all ducked down several seconds too late expecting Arron to keep firing toward them. But no more shots were fired.
The reporters sheepishly stood back up and they all turned to the two men on the padded scanner. The man who had escaped harm was shaking the unconscious man on the ground trying to wake him up.
“Are they separatists?” asked a reporter.
“Did you guys see that? I caught it live! A bot appeared out of nowhere and attacked two men. Why? I have no clue. Let me go ask them for you all!”
It seemed the other reporters had similar intentions as they all stormed forward blocking the entrance to the court as they had their news drones fly in close to capture the scene in all its glory. A flood of questions slammed into the two men.
“Are you separatists!”
“Who wants to kill you!”
“Why did you piss someone off enough to make them want to kill you?”
“What crime did you commit?”
The man who was bombarded with dozens of questions stared at the many news drones hovering all around him like a deer caught in the headlights for several seconds before regaining his senses.
“We’re not separatists! We just came here to testify in a court case!”
As soon as the reporters heard this they immediately turned away from the two, ignoring them as if they did not exist. Instead, they returned their focus to Kix and Arron who had reached them and were now pushing their way through the crowd of reporters to reach the padded scanner so their group of troubled could get inside.
Both Arron and Kix had to push the nosy reporters aside making sure that no one got close to the troubled that they were in charge of.
They ignored all questions hurled at them as they herded the troubled over the now cleared padded scanner and into the courthouse.
