Chapter 10: Police HQ

“Hey! Over here!” said the grumpy NavGuide for the millionth time.

“I can see it! Will you shut up!” said Arron, growing irritated with everything.

He now had a growing headache due to everything in the city trying to access the NerViz cloud chip.

The sidewalks, doors, bots, ads, even the lights on the streets all accessed his cloud chip to adjust to his settings which were all set to default.

“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” said the grumpy old man pixie. “My job is done. Only ask for my help if you are too dumb to find your way around the city.”

Arron was only a few steps away from the front door of the large red and yellow police HQ building. The large building pierced the sky well above the other buildings near it. There were no ad's news screens on or near the building.

The large yellow doors, each with the badge of the police department on them, opened as he walked up to them, and closed when he stepped inside. There was an audible click as the doors locked behind him.

He was now standing in a small 10x10 lobby with no doors or stairs anywhere.

Four holes in the walls, two on the right and two on the left opened and spat out four hovering security bots each with four hands. Two for grabbing and two for electrocuting or stabbing troublemakers.

“M-031-3-239019, what do you want?” asked a cold female voice from the ceiling wall.

“I have an interview with Chief Harlan,” said Arron.

“Documents?” asked the cold female voice.

One of the bots next to Arron reached out one of its gloved mechanical hands demanding the documents to prove why he was there.

Arron handed over the military-grade datapad and watched as the bot silently plugged it into a slot in its chest.

Nothing happened for over a minute.

“Military-grade?” asked the cold female voice. “What is the decryption key?”

“Ah! Sorry about that.”

Arron walked over to the datapad that was sticking out of the security bot's chest and used the holographic keypad to enter a long string of numbers and characters unlocking the document.

A blue holographic light shot out from each of the walls near the ceiling creating a blue screen as they all connected. The screen quickly fell, passing over Arron and disappearing into the ground.

A few more minutes passed and then the cold female voice spoke again.

“Don't move, you will be brought to the waiting room.”

The security bot returned the datapad to Arron before the entire floor and ceiling started to move up at a fast speed.

It only stopped at two red doors when it reached the second to last floor at the very top of the building.

The doors opened immediately as the floor came to a complete stop.

Arron quickly passed through the doors into a brightly lit red waiting room that had several neat rows of hover chairs. All along the side of the room were the red and yellow flags of the party of Mother and Father.

At the front of the room, there was a long marble front desk, with three middle-aged females sitting behind it.

Behind them carved into the wall, was the motto of the Party of Mother and Father: Liberation, Inclusion, Normalization.

Two of the females were busy watching a large floating display of several holo-screens that showed security footage of the entire building. Every few seconds they would make a swiping motion and the footage on one of the screens would change to another area.

The third was typing furiously on a holo-keyboard. She only stopped for a second when Arron walked towards the front desk. She said no words, only silently jabbed a finger towards the hover chairs and returned to her paperwork.

Arron just picked a random chair and looked at the walls on the side. He hadn't noticed it before due to the flags, but there were several projections of 3d holographic faces spinning all along the wall. Each of the heads had their name and government ID underneath.

On the wall above all of the spinning heads, was a large holographic sign with yellow words: [Most wanted Separatist].

When he looked back to the front desk he found that the entire surface of the front desk had turned into a holo-screen and was now Broadcasting KNN.

Overall Arron was quite pleased with the security and the professionalism at the place he would soon call his workplace.

'With such a large building I wonder if I will get an office of my own or if I will get one of those privacy-screen cubicles,' thought Aaron.

Only five minutes passed before a door to the right of the large stone desk opened.

A female secretary wearing a yellow officer skirt uniform entered the waiting room. Her eyes quickly scanned the room and found Arron, the only person sitting in one of the hover chairs.

She walked up to Arron and asked, “M-031-3-239019”

“Yes, that is me.”

“Follow me.”

Without another word she turned and started to walk briskly back towards the door that was still open.

Arron followed behind her as they walked down a large marble stone hallway with many doors on either side. The only noise was the loud clack of the secretary's high heels on the marble floor.

The secretary stopped in front of a closed stone door. Her hand waved over a scanner on the door and a holographic light was projected allowing the secretary to place her hand inside and start moving it in many weird motions and gestures as if she was playing some invisible game.

A loud click was heard and the stone door hissed opened. The secretary motioned for Arron to enter the room.

It was quite spartan inside the room, with only a marble desk in the right corner and two hover chairs on the opposite side of the room. Directly across from the stone door was another closed door with a large nameplate above it reading [Chief Harlan].

A small holo-tv screen was hovering over the desk and was playing KNN at a low volume.

The female secretary walked over to the desk and pulled out a super slim current-gen secure datapad from one of the drawers.

She started to tap many options and type in several things before walking over to Arron and handing the datapad to him.

“Fill this out.”

After handing him the datapad, she returned to her desk and started working on documents that were needed for chief Harlan's afternoon speech.

“Due to the public outcry of the citizens of Neo-Tokeyo who want stricter regulation on the city police, the Party of Mother and Father have agreed to support such reasonable requests. A statement was put out by Mother and father,” said news anchor Kommy.

Fela continued to where he left off, “Here is the statement. 'We are aware that many citizens do not want the police to have such questionable power as they had before. With the new regulations that we have put in place, everyone can be assured that the police have been further regulated and brought under our control. You can now think of every action they take as a sanctioned order by Mother and Father.'...”

Arron turned his attention back to the datapad and started to fill out all the information it asked for. He checked one last time to make sure that everything was filled in correctly before standing up and walking over to the secretary's desk.

She held up a hand to stop him and then with her other hand opened a menu and pressed a name starting a call.

“What is it?” asked the floating head of a 50+-year-old man with graying hair.

“Chief, your afternoon interview.”

“Send him in, let's make this quick. I still have to prepare for the news press conference.”

The closed door slid open revealing a bright room that had a full wall of reinforced paraglass, allowing Arron to see the entire city far below as well as the many flying vehicles.

Inside the office, there was a large wooden desk with two hover chairs in front of it and several cabinets filled with who knows what.

“Sit,” said chief Harlan, pointing towards one of the hover chairs.

A security bot flew from the ceiling and grabbed the datapad from Arron's hand and brought it over to chief Harlan.

He quickly swiped through and taped things here and there and typed in a few extra details.

When he finished he tapped a final button and swiped his hand towards Arron.

Arron's NerViz system notified him of a new message. Taping on the blinking message icon revealed a floating holographic business card above his wrist-datapad.

“Everything looks to be in proper order. That is my business card with my secretary's number. Someone will be in contact with you within a day or two to give you the results. You need to stay out of trouble until then. If you have any questions talk to my secretary and she will help you,” said Chief Harlan, before turning back to preparing for his important press conference speech.