2036 Chapter 6: 77_Howard_Street

Chapter 6: 77_Howard_Street.

1/2/2036

The pacific beast!

Don’t you hate rain? It gets you all wet, you have to cancel plans, everyone gets miserable yada yada yada. But you’ll have to cancel any plans you MAY have, because meteorologists have found out that from May 26^th to May 31^st, heavy downpours are expected to come in from south-east Asia. However, the specific area comes from the pacific garbage patch, currently the most toxic place on earth, meaning the rain will have an estimated pH (acidity) of 4.5, meaning it’s pretty much acid rain. We recommend that from these dates, you stay inside until June 1^st.

This report was sponsored by IO, protecting you with compassion.  

Anyone who knows basic chemistry knows that something with a 4.5 pH is equivalent to vinegar or Soya sauce, and that the pacific garbage patch is nowhere near the most toxic place on earth. Then again, 5 days of Soya rain had never happened, not even in South East Asia. Yet again, I felt like the news were faking things, mostly because police corps kept sponsoring stories. Though, I couldn’t deny the rains certainly picked up from after that night.

I drove up to the house at dusk. There was yellow police tape all around the house, along with one guard. He had an IO police uniform, security grade, with three black stripes on the hood, black body armour, an IO shock staff in hand and a black face scrambling mask.

No guns. Good.

I had my old YKP 9mm pistol on me, loaded with stun bullets and equipped with a silencer, in case things got violent. I was also in civilian clothes, so should things get violent, a Themis police captain wasn’t the immediate suspect. There was, however, the problem that there were more officers inside, but IO forensics usually took the evidence they needed and left. One guy with an electric stick wouldn’t be a problem. It was a problem that the map and those pictures with names Felix had described to me where probably gone, but there would be more to it than that. No one is that casual with secret information.

I decided to park at the end of the road, sneak through the front gardens of the other houses, and go through the house’s kitchen window, since most windows in the Soma area had a latch on the outside. As I walked through the half-built garden wall of the last house, I almost knocked a bottle over, which could have ended my plan very quickly.

But, as I hopped over the police tape, I realised there was a small blinking light on it.

I cursed to myself. This must have been the trap tape all the big police companies started buying.

I heard a static sounding “WHO’S THERE!!” from the front of the house, along with the charging up of a shock staff. I hugged the wall and drew my gun.

Guess I should have been more careful.

As soon as the guard came around the corner, I shot one bullet into his chest. But it did nothing. It sparked with electricity on impact, and that was it. I could tell the guard smiled at his choice of body armour. He then began slowly walking towards me as I fired more and more rounds at him to no avail. He then grabbed me by the neck and slammed me against the wall of the house. He then hit me with the blunt of his staff.

“TRESPASSING ARE WE?” he said in a booming voice. It was common for scrambling masks to have voice changers, making the wearer sound more intimidating.

My nose was bleeding, my head was banging, and I was flat on my back. The guard then began to slowly and sadistically move his staff towards my chest. I knew I was gonna get shocked, sent to IO court, and put in re-education for at least a year for breaking and entering. Or worse. I would disappear.

Just as hope was disappearing, I saw the bottle I almost tripped over. Without a second thought and with all my strength, I grabbed and threw the bottle at the guard, which shattered right in his face.

He yelled in pain and started swinging his staff wildly. I used this opportunity to grab my gun and shuffle back. The guard took of his mask, showing that his face was covered in glass. I took this opportunity to shoot him in the forehead. He spasmed and fell on his back.

Almost instantly, I checked for the guard’s heartbeat. He was luckily still alive. I decided that since he was the only one here, IO forensics had already left. I opened the window and pushed the guard inside, then pulling myself in.

The house wasn’t anything to gasp at. Just mundane grey walls, wooden floors and sort of musty smell in the air. I expected IO forensics to have taken everything that wasn’t nailed down, but it looked like nothing had happened a couple of nights ago, which was weird.

After looking around the house for a basement, I finally found the entrance. IO hadn’t cleaned up the blood stain from Felix’s feet. As I entered the basement, I saw it.

Nothing had been taken.

The maps, the pictures and the names where all like Felix said, along with a whole lot of other stuff. There where at least 5 different computers, all of them looking pretty ancient, blueprints for a headset-looking device and a bunch of paper files labelled “RAT details.”

Before I could get a good look at the files, I heard the front door open. I looked for a place to hide, but there was nowhere. No cupboards, no dark corners, I couldn’t even hide under the desks the monitors where on. I thought to myself, why I had even come here in the first place. Maybe Felix had attacked and killed Dr Locke and IO where doing the right thing by putting him away, maybe…

Then I realised that if it was IO, I would’ve heard sirens. I as I heard only one set of footsteps, I figured that if it was just one person, I could take them.

I hugged the wall and drew my gun, again, hoping my theory wasn’t wrong. As the person walked through the door, I pointed my gun at her head.

“Don’t move.” I said.

“JESUS Akira!” shouted Sarah “Why do you need to point your gun at everyone!?”

“Sarah? Why are you here?” I asked.

“I was gonna help you get the evidence but now your pointing a gun at me!”