Arron, Kix, and the other ERF Members and police officers stood near the entrance of the room, their guns still held at the ready.
The group of Troubled suspects huddled together at the front of the room behind the podium where the elderly man still stood. Some were still crying while others’ faces were pale-faced and stared blankly at the floor.
No one talked.
The old man had stopped asking questions as he saw that the M1 and police officers were all waiting for someone. Whoever was coming up right now would most likely be able to answer his questions.
Arron again looked through the crowd and to his surprise he found several familiar faces that he had seen or talked with yesterday, including the frightened teens that they had stopped and questioned.
The sound of multiple heavy footsteps could be heard from the open door causing everyone still in control of their senses to look at the open entrance.
The young commanding Office of Reason agent entered the room with the 9 other young agents behind him.
He only took a few seconds to inspect the table and podium before turning his attention to the gathered whimpering people.
“Be quiet and do not move. You all are suspected of being Non-believers,” said the commanding agent with a calm and cold indifference. There was no emotion on his face or in his voice.
Under such a harsh order the crying and whimpering people were forced to stifle and quiet their sorrow.
“I have not yet decided whether or not you all are separatist… but fear not! If you are not a separatist you will be given a free ride to one of the several relearning camps.”
The old man stepped out from behind the podium and held up a hand, “Sir, please wait! We have done nothing w…”
Bang!
The man’s head exploded with brain matter, blood, and bone bits splattering all over the gathered non-believers behind him. His body fell to the floor limp with blood pooling onto the floor under it.
The commanding agent lowered his gun which was still smoking from the high-powered shot.
“He was a separatist.”
Even though the non-believers were frightened beyond belief and were now covered in the bio-matter of a dead person, they still stayed silent.
Arron only stared at the young commanding Office of Reason agent in stunned silence.
“Sort them,” said the commanding agent, waving his hand for his fellow agents to begin their main duty.
The commanding agent turned to the 10 police officers and said “Nine of you, I don’t care who, need to go and help the other agents sort the Non-believers.”
He then looked at the remaining ERF members that were gathered nearby, “Just stay there ready in case I need your firepower.”
Arron silently watched as the young gray-suit agents, helped by the police officers, started to search and sort the people into two groups.
“Let me go!” shouted a father as he struggled against a police officer who was trying to separate him from his child.
An emotionless office of reason agent stepped up behind him and used a high-voltage stun baton against the back of his legs sending the father to the ground.
Zap! A second jab of the stun baton to the man’s back knocked him out, ending the fight.
The huffing police officer stood back up and dragged the father to the right side where a small group of people, both unconscious and conscious, were gathered.
“Risa I love you!” “I love you too!”
As a young couple was being separated they reached their hands out toward each other trying to grab each other’s hand one last time as they were dragged apart and thrown into separate groups.
Many of the couples and families being split up fought back against the police officers but were all subdued by the stun batons of the Gray-suit agents.
The room was once again filled with the sobs and wailing of the Non-believers.
When the group of over 200 non-believers was completely separated, the commanding agent looked at the two sorted groups and nodded his head.
The group on the right was smaller, only having a third of the non-believers gathered. It was mainly made up of adults, the elderly, and a few teens.
The group on the left which held the rest of the non-believers was largely made up of children, teens, and a few adults.
Several drones entered the room carrying large metal cases. They all floated over to the Office of Reason agents and police officers.
“Bag and cuff them,” said the young officer pointing to the left side group of non-believers.
The hovering metal boxes popped open and the police officers began to pull several sets of magnetic cuffs before using them to secure each of the left group non-believers’ arms.
Once they were cuffed, black synth-cloth bags were pulled out of the boxes and placed over each of the non-believer’s heads. Once placed over their head, the black bags automatically tightened around their necks to an uncomfortable degree while still allowing them to breathe.
Each of the cuffed and now blinded non-believers was kicked and prodded to stand up.
“You guys, escort them to the waiting vehicles below and then return here quickly,” ordered the young commanding agent while pointing at the waiting ERF agents.
Arron was placed at the rear of the group and was put in charge of keeping the stragglers moving forward. It was a pain trying to get the large group of cuffed and blinded people down ten floors of stairs.
Behind him were three of the gray-suited agents who were following them to make sure that nothing went wrong. They were there to make sure that every non-believer made it into the waiting hover-vans. They did not trust the ERF members to do this without supervision.
When they reached the ground floor they had to start shoving the non-believers into the hover-vans that were quickly becoming packed like a can of synth-beans.
One of the supervising Gray-suited agents randomly pulled a small teen non-believer out of the group to question him.
“Where can we find other non-believers like you?” asked the agent.
When the agent received no answer he punched the teen in the gut. The physical questioning continued until the teen collapsed from the repeated blows to the head with blood now soaking the black cloth still covering his head.
“Ha ha ha, Dood, all you got was a sore hand and no answers,” laughed one of the agents.
“You think you could do better?” grumbled an angry Dood.
“I can watch me!”
Dood ignored the other agent and turned to Arron who was nearby.
“You, put him inside the vehicle.”
The physical questioning happened a few more times but each time they received no new information, only sore fists.
As the last Non-believer was shoved inside, Arron slammed the door shut on the prisoner transport.
“Alright everyone back up to the tenth floor!” ordered Dood.
As Arron walked into the building and up the stairs once again he quietly used the secure coms to ask Kix, “Hey… what’s going on?”
Kix did not answer his question and so they continued to climb the stairs and reached the main room on the tenth floor.
The remaining Non-believers that had been knocked out were now awake. They were all kneeling in an orderly line with their arms cuffed behind them. A thick piece of gray cloth had been tied around their eyes to block their vision.
The first-level police officers were spread out facing the neat line of non-believers.
“Join them,” ordered the young office of reason agent.
Arron and the rest of the ERF officers stepped up next to the police officers.
“Aim!” shouted the young commanding Office of Reason agent.
Immediately Arron understood what was going on. With the Office of Reason agents watching them like hawks there was nothing they could do.
Silently, Arron raised his service weapon and pointed it toward the row of Non-believers.
“Fire!”
Arron closed his eyes and as he pulled the trigger he slightly jerked his gun to the right hoping that he would miss.
The sound of several different caliber guns rang out along with the cries of pain from the Non-believers.
“Aim!… Fire!”
Over and over the orders were given until there was no more movement or sound from the kneeling non-believers who were now all slumped in pools of blood and guts.
Seeing the sight before him Arron retched a few times almost puking inside his helmet. Only a few others had a similar reaction to the sight.
He didn’t know what had caused this reaction as he had seen worse while on the job as an M1 officer, but he was having a hard time keeping his late-night meal down.
As the young commanding gray-suit agent looked at the mass of dead bodies he nodded his head in approval and said, “This is true Normalization.”
Upon hearing this Arron who was able to slightly regain control of his stomach turned to the commanding agent.
Before Kix could stop him he asked, “Why did we have to kill them?”
“Are you questioning the Office of Reason’s decisions? You’re not a sympathizer of the separatist are you?”
“No, I am not a separatist supporter. But I was under the impression that we were here to capture everyone so that you could interrogate them. If we kill them along with the leader of the group won’t it be hard to know all of the details?”
The young agent ignored the question and started reciting off an Office of Reason talking point you would hear on the news, “This Den of Evil was corrupting the innocent citizens of Mother and Father with unsanctioned doctrines. Such materials are the tools of Separatists. There is no place in the Mega-City for such things and it MUST be stomped out when found.”
“The bots will take care of the dead bodies. Your next task is to search this entire building for any of these items,” said the commanding agent.
With a flick of his hand, he sent a list of items all with a name and a holographic picture.
“Go and gather everything you can find and throw it in a pile outside.”
While saying this the office of reason agents began collecting the items on the table and the podium along with the confiscated items from the dead separatist.
Arron and Kix were both put on the 9th floor to look for the contraband.
“Arron, what were you thinking asking them such a question,” asked Kix when they were alone in a separate room. Although they were never truly alone since Mother and Father could always monitor them if and whenever they wanted to.
“I have no idea what’s going on so I just asked,” said Arron with a shrug.
“You know curiosity killed the cat,” said Kix.
“Help me out here Kix. I know that you know who or what those people were.”
Kix was quiet for over a minute as the two of them tossed and searched the room.
“…they were probably a secret gathering of different religious groups,” said Kix in a near whisper over the secure comms.
“You should already know that all religious groups are banned in all member states of the WHO. They believe it is a bunch of superstitious nonsense which causes too many problems. The ban was put in place to keep the world’s peace, or so they say,” said Kix.
“So… all of this is… normal?” asked Arron.
“I guess… This is my first time doing this as well. From what I have heard, those who are caught are lucky if they are sent for re-education. After they finish their education(if they survive), they receive a permanent black mark on their SCS that shows up when they need to get a job, buy an apartment, open a bank account or do anything else. Their SCS will be locked at D rank until they die.”
Hearing all of this, Arron thought for a while before asking, “Why can’t the Office of Reason take care of this? With their 6 exoskeletons and the ten agents, they could have easily handled the task. Why make us do the dirty work? Isn’t that what they are supposed to do?”
“It is exactly because it is dirty work. Everyone they gathered for this raid has probably been put on a watch list by the office of reason to keep us under their control. Also with us doing all the work, they don’t have to look like the bad guys while we take the heat if any information is leaked. They can just say they were only watching us to make sure we didn’t go overboard.”
“But they are the ones controlling everything. If…”
“Arron, stop it. You’re going to get the both of us in trouble,” said Kix with a firm voice. With such a touchy subject there was only so much they could say before they themselves became targets of the Office of Reason.
The entire building was stripped of all religious symbols, pictures, beads, and books. The contraband was thrown into a pile outside the building and onto the street.
The walls that once held the religious symbols and pictures, now had new holo-posters of mother and father placed all through the building.
As Arron threw the last of the items into the large pile there were signs of the mega-city starting to wake up and growing more active as the early morning hours arrived.
One of the Office of Reason agents motioned Arron to walk over to him. Arron sighed and walked over to the agent where he spent several minutes having various scanners search him to make sure he was not hiding any of the illegal contraband.
“Hurry up and light up everything that can easily be burned. Everything else will go to the local industrial incinerators.”
A large bonfire was started in the middle of the road as large amounts of flammable items were heaped together. The smoke rose high into the sky catching the attention of nearby civilians as they walked past the blocked-off streets.
Several hovering drones recorded the destruction of the contraband as proof of the task faithfully being executed.
“Listen up!” shouted the commanding agent.
The police officers and ERF members all turned to look at him.
“You all have diligently and faithfully completed your tasks given to you. Mother and Father will be pleased to hear this. Your tasks here are finished and you may return to your headquarters to resume your regular jobs.”
