Arron stepped out of the locker room’s large mist shower room with only a towel around his waist.
He had stayed inside for over a half hour and had been trying to get his thoughts straight while inside.
Everyone else, including Kix, had already left the showers. The night shift officers were getting dressed into civilian clothes, while the morning shift officers were finishing putting on their uniforms and gear.
Arron and Kix had the unlucky schedule that required them to work the day shift, even though they had been up since midnight.
The whirring air-filtration vents on the ceiling of the locker room tried to work as fast as they could to clean the air and keep the moisture low in the room to prevent problems inside as it was an important area where many m1 officers gathered.
Arron walked to his locker where Kix was also sitting on a hover-bench putting on his Armored boots.
As he opened his locker a loud BEEEEEE~ came from the left locker room wall where a muted holo-tv was playing KNN’s morning news. Everyone’s attention was drawn to the holo-tv.
After the loud noise stopped the previously muted Holo-tv automatically switched to maximum volume.
“Breaking news! Late last night and into the early morning, there was a large raid on a Den of Evil people. I have been told that it was a large gathering of despicable people that was caught red-handed in their act of debauchery,” said Kommy.
“That’s correct! For all our viewers we have a special guest here to explain things further. Please welcome Office of Reason agent Yung Dod who was the leader of the raid,” said Fella as she waved her hand to a hover-couch where a young gray suit Office of Reason agent sat.
“You flatter me by saying I and the Office of Reason were the leaders of the raid. As much as I would love to take credit, the true heroes last night were the special M1 officers and the first-level police officers who did the raid. I was just there to keep everything civil.”
Several loud curses inside the locker room could be heard and a few shoes were thrown at the holo-tv only to fly through the image and bounce off the wall leaving no damage.
“I see. Can you tell us more about the raid that the special M1 force and police officers participated in last night?” asked a completely serious Fela as she leaned forward to closely listen to every word.
“It is as you said before. Last night a Den of Evil was raided. In that raid, the Special M1 and police officers managed to capture over 200 Non-believers.”
“200!? There were so many in one place?” asked a shocked Fela.
“For a Den of Evil like this, the number captured last night is rather low,” said Yung Dod, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“With such a large group of Non-believers, the special M1 and First-level Police asked the Office of Reason for help in sorting everyone out. With our help, they were able to successfully normalize a large number of separatists. The rest of the brainwashed Non-believers along with those diagnosed with Sluggish schizophrenia have been sent for Re-Education to clear their minds so they can return to living as normal citizens.”
“Separatist? Can you tell us how many you caught last night?” asked a curious Kommy.
“Unfortunately the number is classified, but I can tell you it was not a small thing to make light of. All of this was thanks to M1 and the first-level police officers.”
“There was also some other big news you wanted to let the viewers know. Can you share it with everyone now?” asked Fela.
Yung Dod nodded his head, “The Office of Reason is in the last stage of gathering evidence on those who aided the Den of Evil by knowingly selling them items and raw materials. A live stream of their trials will be held later today for all who wish to watch.”
“Thank you for sparing a few moments out of your busy day to do this interview with us,” said Kommy holding out a hand for Yung Dod to shake.
The extended hand was ignored as Yung Dod stood up and left without another word.
Arron shook his head as he turned back to putting on a clean uniform and then his battered armor.
“See, what I tell you. They left us holding the bag for the entire thing,” said Kix, not even bothering to be mad at something out of their control.
There was still a half hour left before their shift started, so Arron and Kix sipped on a synth-energy jelly pouch while they swiped through the news portal looking for interesting things to read.
Before Arron closed the news portal the page refreshed and a large portion of the page was now taken up with large bold red letters:
[Small gathering of troubled arrested outside of Office of reason: A Small group of troubled claiming to be family of those raided the night before. They claim to be protesting the Normalization of their family members…]
A second later the article disappeared and reappeared at the bottom of the page in a small unnoticeable font.
Arron did not click on it as his shift was about to start, so he closed the news portal and headed down to the garage with Kix.
When he closed the APC’s door as if on cue, Tooth’s head popped up above the APC’s dashboard.
“What’s up Tooth?” asked Kix.
“All of M1 HQ’s exits have been blocked by a large gathering of people. Apparently, there are a few gathered at the local police station as well,” said tooth.
“Okay…?” said Arron.
“The Chief has ordered everyone that is not already out on patrol to handle the situation,” said Tooth.
“How?” asked Kix. “We are not the Office of Reason. We don’t have the authorization to be heavy-handed like them.”
“Since the two of you have not left yet, you have been picked to go out and see what they want. Let me know the details when you find out. While you’re at it try to get them to leave, if the situation changes, the chief will give you and the other M1 officers updated orders on how to handle them.”
The call abruptly ended leaving Kix to quietly grumble, “Today’s going to be one of those days.”
The APC drove up the ramp and out of the HQ building only stopping near the exit checkpoint which was now blocked off by a decent size of people gathered outside the gates.
As Arron watched more people seemed to be streaming in to join them, and this was just one of the exits to the building.
“Let’s go see what these idiots are doing,” said Kix as he lowered his helmet’s visor.
Arron had to admit it was a stupid thing to gather around M1 like this as the likely outcome was Normalization.
Both Arron and Kix walked up to the checkpoint and stopped dead center where the crowd could all see them.
Arron could hear the doors of other armored patrol vehicles being slammed behind him as more M1 officers arrived to help handle the growing crowd.
When another 20 patrol officers joined them Kix used the helmet’s external speakers to get the crowd’s attention.
“This is an unauthorized gathering. Those that wish to report something may speak to me or one of the other officers next to me. If you have nothing to report, leave immediately.”
The crowd did not move and silently stared at the M1 officers for several seconds.
“What gives you the right to raid citizens who did nothing wrong?” shouted an old man with a white beard.
“Mother and Father along with the Office of Reason gave the orders for the raid,” said Kix.
“That’s not what I heard on the news! Are you calling the Office of Reason liars?” shouted a woman.
“This is an unlawful gathering. Leave now if you have nothing to report,” boomed Arron.
“Or what? Are you going to kill us like you did to my husband?” shouted an angry elderly woman.
“… my Daughter.” “… my son.” “… my mother.” “… my father.”
Several angry voices shouted out the names of those that had been Normalized the night before.
No matter what the M1 officers said, the crowd was having none of it and kept angrily shouting retorts back at them.
While all this was going on news drones appeared at the rear of the crowd along with several on-the-field reporters.
Their appearance caught the attention of some of the gathered people who decided to rush over and try to tell the reporters their story to try and get some justice for their loved ones.
The reporters did not say no and with blank faces let dozens of people rant about all sorts of things into the cameras of the news drones.
As this was happening a larger force of M1 officers ran over from the side exit to join the 20+ officers already near the checkpoint.
Ping!
The chief’s head appeared on the right corner of Arron’s helmet visor as a new secure group call was initiated.
“This farce has gone on long enough. I have just received Orders from the Office of Reason. You are to Normalize everyone that has gathered. You are to immediately stop those who are leaking sensitive information to the reporters.”
The call was ended, those last words still ringing in each of the officer’s ears.
Curses could be heard all around him as the other officers reacted to the chief’s call.
“They set us up!” shouted an angry M1 officer behind Arron.
“We’re just being used as a lightning rod for all the people’s anger…” muttered another.
“ENOUGH!” shouted Kix. “We were given an order from the Office of Reason. We have no control over what they want us to do. But if we ignore the order we will be normalized by the Office of Reason as well.”
Everyone hated being used like this, but they could do nothing about it… and so the large group of M1 officers along with several security drones that popped out of the checkpoint booth rushed forward and boxed in the gathered Troubled suspects.
Several fights broke out as the M1 officers tackled people who tried to run away.
The security drones shot out an almost non-stop stream of neutralizing needles piercing the skin of the Troubled suspects at the rear who almost escaped the corralling of the M1 officers.
Terrified cries of horror and crying wails of the troubled suspects rang out from those who were still conscious as they were all cuffed and rounded up.
All of this was captured live by the hovering news drones that were controlled by the on-the-ground reporters who all had gleaming eyes and ugly smirks on their faces.
