Chapter 31: Roundup

“Alright, looks like the nearest two targets are in the shopping district across the street. Take your Fatboy and leave the portable motorcycle inside,” said Kix, parking the APC at the corner of the large entrance to the street market.

When Arron placed his hand on the dashboard in front of him, a green light flashed as it scanned his NerViz cloud-chip. With a clack the front console plopped open and a small platform extended out. On it was a well-worn Fatboy and several small metal cases of different types of ammunition.

He grabbed the Fatboy and tapped the edge of the platform to close it.

As he exited the APC he placed the Fatboy into the metal holster of his heavy-duty utility belt. With a click it was locked in place protecting it from the reaching hands of criminals.

Both Kix and Arron did one last check of their equipment before they walked through the wide entrance of the packed street market.

The air of the street market had a foul taste to it, and the food stalls that they passed were giving off an off-putting smell.

Arron was a bit overwhelmed by all the information flowing into his visor.

Everywhere he looked hundreds of faces were immediately scanned. Their name, SCS, government ID, criminal records along with any notes left by the Office of Reason or police, was all displayed above their heads.

Almost everyone he saw looked worn out and were still covered in grime and dirt from just getting off of the night shift. They had all come here to buy something to eat before heading home.

Arron could not figure out what type of work would cause them to get so dirty. Most factories should have robots to do most of the dirty jobs.

All the scanned people were grayed out signaling that they had no active warrants. Arron saw that Kix was not lying when he said the majority of the people here had a D-rank SCS.

As the people in the market noticed the two M1 officers in their metal armor and mirrored visors, they either stopped and watched the two like deer caught in the headlights, or they moved off of the street trying to hug the walls of buildings and small street shops to stay as far away from the two as they could.

“Why did they only send two of us to patrol the entirety of zone three?” asked Arron using the helmet's secure intercoms.

“What? You think every day the whole unit needs to be mobilized in one area? It's bad in some areas here, but not that bad. If it was sector one... then I would agree with sending the whole unit. But here the majority of the zone is handled by the patrolling security drones. All we have to do is show up and take care of any task HQ has for us. If any of the patrol bots or drones are attacked then we have to check it out. Simple, no need to overwork ourselves,” said Kix. He kept his head constantly on the move from side to side looking through the thousands of faces.

“Sector one, that's where you grew up, right? Is it really that dangerous?” asked Arron.

“Very... deadly. It's an open secret that the mafia, yakuza, and gangs all have their main headquarters there. The only criminal group not in sector one are the secretive separatist who tend to like living in areas like this, so they can cause major damage to the factories,” said Kix, pointing to the far away towering apartment buildings.

“What? Shouldn't the Police and Mother and Father take care of such criminal organizations just as harshly as they treat the separatist?”

Kix shook his head, “They turn a blind eye to them due to the large yearly tax. As long as no one steps too far out of line they don't interfere. Things can get... very bloody before they do anything. Plus they probably view it as a good thing since they can keep a close eye on them. If they were all hiding it would be harder to keep track of every group's actions.”

PING! As they were talking, Arron's helmet visor zoomed in on a person who was outlined by a red box.

“First target found!” said Arron, sending the info over to Kix.

The two quickly made their way over to a short chubby man with a greasy mop of black hair on his head. He was sitting behind a booth selling random knick-knacks.

When the man noticed Arron coming in from his right he stood up ready to flee but Kix was already charging in from the left and quickly grabbed onto one of the man's arms.

“Wha... wha.. why am I being arrested? I've done nothing!”

Arron helped Kix cuff the man with a pair of their magnetic cuffs not paying any attention to the stuttering man's words.

Kix looked at the second person's profile and then back to Arron, “You think you can capture the next target yourself while I take him back to the APC? They're somewhere over there at the next street, shouldn't be too much of a problem for you.”

“Isn't that against protocol?”

“If you're that worried I'll wait here for you. Look, she's just come to the intersection!”

Arron quickly jogged through the crowd, his metal boots letting out loud thuds as he charged towards his distant target that was outlined in a red box.

The target was a pudgy female that was eating food while mindlessly walking and watching a bootleg holovision using her NerViz.

The loud thudding of Arron's boots drew her attention away from the show she was watching. When she saw Arron, she dropped the food that she had been eating and started running in the opposite direction.

Seeing the two running down the street the majority of people jumped out of Arron's way, those who didn't were quickly plowed through. Arron closed in on the escaping female criminal and lunged forward, tackling her from behind.

He quickly grabbed her flabby arms and placed them behind her as he used his magnetic cuffs.

“Unhand me you barbarian! I know people!” shouted the pudgy woman.

“Nice, I know lots of people as well,” said Arron. He lifted her onto her feet and led her back towards Kix who gave him a thumbs up.

“Not bad probie.”

The two led the captured targets to the back of the APC where they shoved them inside before taking off the magnetic cuffs.

Before the pudgy woman could try and escape, Kix activated the electric barrier which let out a loud crackling zap.

Arron and Kix hopped back into the front seats of the APC before looking at the Zone three map.

“Looks like everyone else is in the apartment district,” said Kix as he began driving towards the next target.

They quickly arrived at an old towering apartment building which had several broken Holo-ad screens covering the wall not showing anything.

The two walked up to the building where the large zigzagging ladder staircase was.

As Arron looked at the building it turned into a blue wire 3d blueprint allowing them to see the exact position of the red dot inside.

“The targets on the tenth floor. Let's use the side ladder. Entering through the window should be easier than getting through the door's locks,” said Kix.

“What? Were not going to knock or tell them who we are?” asked Arron.

“If we did that, All that would happen is they would escape out the window. Then we would have to chase after them or worse case they might attack us. Plus the Office of Reason will be here soon, we need to hurry up so we don't make them wait.”

The two climbed up the creaking ladder stairs up to the correct floor.

They quietly walked over to the window of the target’s apartment. The Window was closed and the view inside was blocked by a thick curtain.

Kix grabbed the extendable wire from the back of his helmet and plugged it into the window’s simple lock mechanism.

A few seconds passed before a soft click was heard as the window's lock was hacked.

Kix pulled the wire out and it snapped back into the helmet on its own. He unholstered his Fatboy and looked to Arron motioning for him to do the same.

The window was silently pushed up with Kix entering first followed by Arron.

They found themselves in a small bare studio apartment with loud music blaring inside.

Their target, who was sitting in the corner trying to take a crap, was completely surprised by their entrance that his constipation was completely solved in a second.

“Gross... Arron, you go cuff him,” said Kix.

“You finished?” asked Arron, not wanting to get close just yet.

The stunned man could only nod still in a daze.

The rest of the morning was spent like this capturing the targets that had arrest warrants. There were only two other small surprises during the arrests. The rest were uneventful.

One of them was when they found an elderly man in a temporary coma from the use of an unknown drug. It was quite the pain trying to carry the old man down the nearly 200 flights of stairs due to the building having no Mag-shoot.

The second surprise was when they found one of the targets laying in a pile of their blood missing their head, which had been blown off and splattered on the metal walls of their apartment.