Chapter 24: Apartments

Their flying car started to slow down as it approached a large dark parasteel apartment building that was 300 floors high.

The thousands of individual lights shining out from the many windows of the building made for an enchanting sight. It also brought some light to the ever-present darkness of the First level.

The flying car stopped in front of the building at the 299th floor and waited as the black parasteel wall opened up like a giant monster opening its mouth. But instead of sharp teeth and a dark hole, there was a well-lit garage with many landing pads for flying cars.

As the car softly touched down at one of the landing pads the three occupants inside got out.

Thump! As soon as the door shut the flying car spat out their luggage from the trunk and then shot back out of the building flying back to the M1 HQ.

Kix sighed with a smile on his face as he quietly laughed and looked around at the garage which had hundreds of landing pads but only 10 or 12 of them were ever in use.

“What?” asked Arron.

“We all live on the floors next to this garage. It would be so convenient if we could own a flying car,” said Kix.

“With the huge amount of money we are being paid each month, I'm sure if you saved up enough money you could buy one,” said Arron.

“You may not know this but you can't just buy a flying car. Not on the First level at least. No matter your SCS or your money in the bank. Only the politicians, Office of Reason, police/M1, and major companies are allowed to use them,” said Kix.

“Huge amount? You just joined so how much are you getting paid?” asked Tooth.

“10k a month!” said Arron.

“Huh?” both Kix and Toothbrush looked at Arron confused.

“What? It's a lot of money!”

“What were you getting paid before joining M1?” asked Kix.

“Around 12k give or take a few hundred.”

“Then why are you so surprised?”

“That was my yearly earnings!” said Arron.

“What!” said both Kix and Toothbrush at the same time.

“Even the poorest person I know in the slums of level one makes around 5k a month...” said Kix looking at Arron as if he was a foreign object.

“You said you were from outside the megacity but... damn do you country bumpkins really get paid so little?” asked Toothbrush.

“I see that's probably one of the reasons why Mother and Father implemented the Huko laws. It's no wonder people want to come to the Mega-city,” said Kix.

“You think so?” asked Arron.

“I guess it is probably also because all the news ever shows or talks about is how the people in the megacity are richer and far happier now than they were during the dark years of the troubles. With all the stims and the overwhelming amount of entertainment shoved into our faces it's easy to be distracted and overlook or ignore anything bad happening around us...” said Tooth.

“Allowing mother and father to rule over us with little worry. But when you look at it from our perspective they are only paying us a 10k lump sum at the beginning of each month due to the fact we may die during the month. It is supposed to be hazard pay but it is only 5k more than that poorest person. 10K... that's how much our lives are worth to Mother and Father...” said Kix.

“To be honest there is worse work that we could be doing and getting paid less for it or not at all. In a way we are lucky to at least have a job in sector 12,” said Tooth.

“Well... this garage would be no help to me as the type of car I want is an old hovercar,” said Arron. He decided to change the topic to get away from the gloomy discussion as they started to walk towards the Mag-shoot connected to the garage.

“What car?” asked Kix.

“A 1967 Phord Zelby ZT500. Painted in a dark blue, with twin white stripes down the middle,” said Arron as he gazed into the distance imagining his dream hovercar.

“Ha! Fat luck with that. All of those old clunkers were most likely destroyed during the mandatory...Voluntary recycling,” said Toothbrush.

“I know that, but it's just that they don't make them like they used to. Now, it seems like they are just building the new hovercars to wear out by the time the next generation comes out so that people have to buy the new model,” said Arron.

“That happens with everything in the city, not just the hovercars,” said Kix as they reached the Mag-shoot. “Arron, your apartment Is on floor 300, room 3, so we'll go there first. Both tooth's and my apartment are on floor 298.”

A few seconds after entering the Mag-shoot they were already at their destination on the 300th floor. The Mag-shoot doors opened at the end of the long hallway which had over a hundred doors on each side. There were no windows or decorations in the hallway.

They exited the Mag-shoot and found a young couple just outside and to the side waiting to take the Mag-shoot down.

“Hello,” said the three all at once as they stepped to the side to allow the couple to enter the Mag-shoot.

The man nodded to them with a warm smile while the woman ignored the three of them as she dragged the man into the Mag-shoot.

“Cheerful neighbors you have there,” said Tooth.

“What do you expect? Just this apartment building at the minimum can house 60k people with the max somewhere around 120k. You, as well as everyone else, do not have time to stop and greet everyone you meet in the hallways,” said Kix.

“60,000? 120,000?” muttered Arron under his breath in shock.

That was several tens if not hundreds of times more than the population of many of the farm towns all in one building!

The three of them walked down the shiny hallway with the sound of their feet clacking on the cold para-steel until they reached room #3.

Arron swiped his right hand that had over the lock on the door but nothing happened.

“What are you doing?” asked Kix.

“Trying to unlock the door...?” said Arron.

“How do you not know about the holo-locks? These are not like the old scanner locks from 20 or 30 years ago. Those are easier to hack than these holo-locks.”

“But all the other...”

“No Butts, especially not yours. You should be happy that we have such high security here compared to other places,” said Toothbrush.

“You need to place your hand on the holo-lock and fill out the information to prove your identity, SCS, and then set a lock gesture that is tied to your NerViz Chip,” said Kix. He gave Arron an example showing his hand flailing around.

“Something like this exists?” muttered Arron. He went through several steps to verify his identity and registered his NerViz chip.

When the Holo-lock projected a blue light out the others looked away while Arron placed his hand inside and started to move it. He decided to just make it something simple that he could remember even if he was exhausted.

Starting with... the wave up and down like ocean water, then a flip upside down, a jig to the left, a jig to the right, robot up, down, all around, Dance... just a simple modest compilation of hand gestures anyone could remember.

“Are you done yet?” asked Kix, interrupting Arron's flow.

Deciding that this was enough Arron pressed accept and watched the holographic hand repeat the gesture before he pressed confirm.

“Finished,” said Arron after he unlocked the door to the apartment.

“Hurry up and put your stuff inside and come out. You'll be staying here for a long time so you'll have more than enough time to check everything out later,” said Kix, as he and Toothbrush waited outside.

Arron only took a quick look around the apartment and found that it was bigger than the hotel room he had stayed at on the 4th level. Unlike that room, there was an actual door to a full bathroom and there was also a small kitchen.

The rest of the apartment was quite bare of any of the high-tech gadgets or furniture that he had seen on the 4th floor. There was only the cheap carpet covering the parasteel floor.

There was a small bed in the almost closet-sized bedroom. Above the bed was the only window in the apartment covered with cheap red curtains.

He took a quick peek out of the curtains and was surprised to see that it was quite the view.

Closing the curtains he placed his luggage next to the bed and then exited the apartment where Kix and Tooth were waiting.

They made their way to Toothbrush's room and he quickly went through the same process.

“Alright! Now that's done we need to go out to celebrate! The others are probably already waiting for us, so let's not make them wait any longer!” said Kix as he led them back to the Mag-shoot.

It only took them a few minutes to reach the first floor of the large Apartment building.

With a 'Ding!', the Mag-shoot doors opened allowing them to step out onto a bustling brightly lit street that was filled with so many different aromas.