Inside the APC Arron bit into his soggy synthdog. A large stream of grease squirted out the rear causing his greasy hands to become even more slippery.
“Let’s not go to that stall again,” said Arron after swallowing the last bite of his lunch.
“Why? The food is almost the exact thing at the other stalls around here,” said Kix, with a mouth full of food.
“We could at least try to eat a little healthier,” said Arron as he wiped his hands on a grimy rag.
“The synth-dogs have all the nutrients and calories you need for a meal. What could be more healthy?”
Zoom!
Creeeeak!
A low-flying red convertible Poorzha shot by at a high speed nearly clipping the roof of the APC that was parked near the entrance of Sector 5, Zone 3’s main food street.
“What the…!?”
Kix dropped his half-eaten synth-dog into his lap and grabbed the steering wheel with his greasy hands as he pressed the pedal to the max. The APC shot off down the street following the speeding flying car.
Arron tapped a holographic button on the dashboard and activated the sirens and flashing lights on top of the APC. As they shot down the street he opened a menu on his helmet’s visor and activated the scanning function targeting the flying car. The helmet’s tracking followed the flying car as it weaved in and out of the afternoon lunch rush hour traffic trying to lose the pursuers.
“Who is it?” asked Kix.
“There’s no match for this flying car in the first level’s database,” said Arron. He continued to scan through the large amount of streaming information that was flowing on his visor screen trying to figure out who was inside the erratic flying car.
The speeding Poorzha continued to bob up and down above the hovercar’s nearly crashing half a dozen times.
“I’ll try to get closer, see if you can get access to its control system and send the abort command,” said Kix as he pressed his foot down harder on the pedal, increasing their already dangerous speed to an even faster one.
Arron continued to use his holokeypad to type up a storm as he tried to stop the speeding car using the special program given to both police and M1. It was a fairly simple program that allowed them to access both the auto-driving AI and command systems of all types of vehicles.
[Error unknown…] [Error…]
Repeated error messages kept popping up whenever he tried sending the abort command. After several failures, he tried to send other commands to gain access to the flying control system, emergency breaks, and the flying cars AI drive system.
“Nothing’s working… I think it’s an illegally modified vehicle,” said Arron as he continued to try and gain access.
“Where are the traffic drones? They should have noticed this already,” said Kix.
“Maybe there was another incident somewhere else that has drawn all of their attention,” said Arron.
After another dozen failed attempts, Arron gave up trying to gain control of the drive system and took out one of the extendable connecting wires from his helmet and plugged it into the APC’s dashboard. New options appeared on the dashboard menu, Arron slapped his hand on the loudspeaker option.
“Driver in the red convertible Poorzha. This is M1 Officer Wynterz. Under the authority of Mother and Father I order you to stop speeding!” said Arron. His voice boomed out of the APC’s loudspeaker using his helmet’s com-system.
The driver of the flying car ignored Arron’s repeated commands for several more minutes.
When the speeding Poorzha finally started to slow down and land, it did so by landing on top of the rear and front of two different parked hover cars at an intersection of a major street.
The weight of the flying car flattened the front and rear half of the two cheap hover-cars trapping the occupants inside their wrecked vehicles.
“What’s wrong with this driver?” asked Arron.
“This is going to cause more complaints to flood in and reports to be sent to the chief,” said Kix.
Arron unplugged his helmet’s wire from the dashboard and hopped out of the APC as soon as Kix slowed down next to the parked Red Poorzha.
He cautiously walked up to the side of the flying car which had black tinted windows that could not be seen through.
“Driver, step out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them,” said Arron as he pulled on the door to try and open it.
The door was not locked so it opened allowing Arron to see the troubled suspect that was creating such a fuss.
“Kid, what are you doing driving an illegal car at such a high speed?” asked Kix as he joined Arron next to the opened door.
“I’m not a kid! I’m 14. You can let me go and I will give you your fee,” said the kid.
Hearing this Arron did not wait for the kid to continue talking and reached in pulling him out and immediately cuffed him.
“Hey! I said I would pay your fee! So let me go!”
“Put him in the back, and we can drop him off at one of the holding cells in HQ while we fill out the paperwork,” said Kix.
“What? Why?” asked the young kid completely clueless as to why he was being arrested.
***
Both Arron and Kix were sitting inside the APC filling out the digital paperwork that would be sent to the Office of Reason. They also included the video recording of the chase and damage done so that they could come and deal with the kid.
Arron pressed the send button and …
Tap! Tap!
He was slightly startled as a middle-aged man lightly tapped on the passenger window to get his attention.
Arron rolled down the window a few inches to allow his voice to reach the well-dressed black-suited man.
“Is there something I can do for you?” asked Arron, unsure who the man was and why he was here.
Kix looked up from his own report and over to the well-dressed man as well.
The man yanked someone out from behind him and dragged him up to the window.
It was the kid that they had dropped off at one of M1 HQ’s holding cells nearly ten minutes ago.
“My son made a foolish mistake. Can you drop charges against him?” asked the well-dressed man.
“Huh?” Arron asked, confused.
“Your son is being charged with driving an illegally modified car and attempting to bribe a government official,” said Kix.
The man turned to his son and said, “Jepp, how many times have I told you? Keep a low profile so that you are not caught? Don’t do stupid stuff like openly bribe someone. Apologize to them for wasting their time with your mistake.”
“But you… sorry,” Jepp was going to say something else but the glare from his father silenced it.
“Are we good here? He apologized,” said the Man.
“What?” asked Arron, still not knowing what else to say to the odd turn in the conversation.
“Sir, we don’t have any say in this. The Office of Reason will decide what to do with him. If you have any complaints please talk to them,” said Kix.
“That’s going to harm my son’s SCS.”
“He should have thought about that before he caused such a commotion.”
“Would it help if I told you my wife is Premella? … so can you do that for me?”
“Who?” asked Arron.
“How can you not know who she is?” asked the man as if he was greatly offended.
Arron looked to Kix who had a smile on his face, he seemed to now recognize the man standing outside the window.
“She’s a porn star,” said Kix.
“Not anymore! She is now a big-time actress on the 4th level! You really don’t know her?”
“What about her?” asked Arron.
“She is married to me! So you should know who I am.”
“Okay… but I don’t know her so how can I know you?”
“GAH! What are you? Some sort of country bumpkin? I’m Jood, a party member under Mother.”
“Oh, I see,” said Arron, not caring who he was.
Kix was trying to keep his laughter in as he watched the conversation.
Ping!
Toothbrush’s head popped up above the dashboard interrupting the deep philosophical conversation that Jood and Arron were having.
“Kix, Arron, the chief has pulled you off patrol duty at the request of the Office of Reason. You have been put on protection duty for a high-class murder case.”
“Who?” asked Kix.
“I’m sending you the information.”
The man outside the window received a hollo-call and immediately accepted it using the privacy functions.
Ping! Arron’s NerViz notified him of new files sent over. He tapped on the blinking notification on his wrist-datapad, opening the file.
Arron looked at the slowly rotating hologram of the target to memorize what they looked like.
… his head slowly turned from the rotating hologram to the window where Jepp was standing. After a few more glances between the hologram and Jepp Arron was able to piece everything together.
Jepp had not been joy riding… he was trying to escape from the crime scene of a local girl’s murder.
