“You think he is telling the truth?” asked Arron as he looked at the buildings that were speeding by them as they drove to their new destination.

  “Hard to tell since he won't tell us the whole story. Even with the details he gave us there is enough to find their stronghold and see what they are up to,” said Kix.

  Ralph had gone into a crazed muttering after he was captured and brought back to the APC. Now he did not respond to anything they did not even the threat of violence from Chewy would not wake him out of his stupor.

  “We'll get out here,” said Kix as he stopped the APC several blocks away from their destination. They had pulled off the main road and into a side ally so that they would not draw too much attention to themselves.

  Kix turned around to check on the mag-cuffs on Ralph's arm and legs to make sure that he wouldn't be making any trouble for them while they were gone. When he was satisfied he joined Arron and Chewy on the crumbling sidewalk with Spike.

  They were now in the warehouse district of Sector 8, zone 2. This was a bittersweet feeling for Arron as his last time in one of the warehouse districts was when he nearly died from an explosion.

  They slowly walked down the sidewalk hugging the walls of the warehouses to stay out of view as much as they could.

  Some distance ahead of them they could hear loud laughter and shouts coming from the direction of their intended destination. As they walked closer they were able to spot the target building.

  Arron held up a hand stopping the others.

  As they watched the warehouse, several people who were fully armed with outdated weapons and light body armor exited the warehouse and entered a unmarked modified hover-car that was waiting for them. When the last person entered the hover-car it shot off in the opposite direction of the hiding Arron and Kix as it drove off to some unknown destination.

  “How are they able to have such an arsenal of weapons and armor? They are armed to the teeth. Some of that equipment is far better than what the yakuza families have access to,” said Arron over his helmet-secure comms.

  Kix shrugged and said, “No idea, but them leaving makes our job easier. Just to be sure let's have a quick scan of the building to see how many are left,” said Kix.

  With a few taps on his wrist-datapad a small silent drone, the size of the tip of one’s pinky, flew into the air and headed to the warehouse where it started to scan the building using various types of scans.

  Both Arron and Kix connected their helmet feed to the drone so that they could see what they were up against. Luck was indeed on their side today as they only saw one heat signature in the whole building.

  “There is no telling how long they will be out. Let's get this done before they have a chance to find us,” said Arron as he started walking towards the open door of the warehouse.

  “Hey you stop!” shouted the baby-face guard. “Who are you? You can't be here!”

  The young-looking guard started to fumble with pulling his gun out of its holster. But he was having a hard time deactivating the lock function that was in place to prevent someone else from pulling it out and shooting him with it.

  “Chewy!” said Arron calmly.

  Before the guard could unlock and raise his weapon Chewy bolted forward and bit into his arm, yanking it away from the gun.

  “Ahhh!” The young guard cried in pain as his arm was yanked back and forth every time he tried to move it toward his gun. Even with all this pain, he was still dumb enough to repeatedly try grabbing the gun at his waist.

  “Good job Chewy!” said Arron as pat her on the head.

  “ARF!” said Chewy, her robotic voice muffled by the man's arm stuck in her mouth.

  Arron quickly cuffed the man's free arm to his other arm which now had a few new holes in it. With that done he stood the young man up and began to pat him down confiscating the unlocked pistol and his wrist-datapad that he had been trying to use to call for help.

  “HELP!” screamed the young man.

  “Tape his mouth and hog-tie him. He's too much of a risk for us right now. We can search this place without his help,” said Kix as he handed Arron synthetic tape.

  Arron smacked the screaming man a few times causing him to shut up for a moment allowing him to tape his mouth shut. Still, the young man did not give up fighting and tried to bite Arron's armored hand only ending up hurting his teeth.

  With the young guard now incapacitated Arron rolled him into the corner of the warehouse out of view from anyone that might enter the building. As he did this Kix looked outside before closing the building's open door.

  Whoever owned the warehouse had cheapened out and did not include enough lights to light the entire building so Arron and Kix were forced to use their helmet's headlights to light up the dark paths in front of them.

  “Record everything,” said Kix. “Lexa, are you getting this stream clear without any distortions?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Loud and clear for both of your streams,” said Tooth answering for Lexa who was busy with other things.

  There were several dozen rows of large and small metal crates stacked up against the walls of the warehouse.

  Arron randomly picked one of the closest metal boxes that was on the smaller size. When he reached it he found that its lid was already halfway pushed off allowing him to see what was inside without much trouble.

  With his helmet lights shining down into the opening he was able to see a black foam lying at the bottom of the crate. The foam had several holes in which a smooth metal egg was resting in each. He quickly counted over several dozen of them as he leaned closer to get a better view.

  “Arf?” asked Chewy as she also poked her head into the open box to see what was inside.

  “I'm not sure Chewy it could be... What the hell!” said Arron in shock as he realized what the metal eggs were.

  He had to struggle with Chewy for a few seconds pulling her away from the metal box to stop her from doing something that got them all killed.

  “What?!” said Kix, whirling around his weapon drawn and ready to shoot.

  “These are military-grade grenades!” said Arron pointing to the box.

  “How can you tell?” asked Kix as he lowered his gun and walked over to the box.

  “You know I was in the military. It is easy to identify something like this.”

  They opened several other crates and found that they were all full of small and large ammunition as well as a varied assortment of explosives! There was enough to completely level several dozen of the largest buildings.

  “What the heck is going on here? How are they so well equipped and have such a large stockpile that puts even some of the smaller families to shame... Aren't they a small gang that just sprung up?” asked Arron.

  “I don't like this...” said Kix.

  “ARF!” Chewy notified Arron about a nearby door that was hidden from view by several rows of large crates.

  He followed her through a tight squeeze in between the metal crates to reach the door.

  It was unlocked and slid open with only a light push. Inside was a small office with only a metal desk and a hover chair.

  Arron walked behind the desk and tried to open the two drawers but they were shut with an outdated mechanical lock.

  “What treasure do you hold?” asked Arron.

  “Arf?” asked Chewy.

  “No, you can not eat treasure. If we do find anything it's evidence,” said Arron.

  With a bit of elbow grease and the use of simplified tools, he managed to bust them open to reveal what was hiding inside.

  A single normal datapad.

  Arron tapped it to turn it on and was immediately prompted to enter a password.

  “Darn... we'll have to let the techs back at HQ crack it open...” said Arron.

  On a whim, he just entered a simple password and pressed the holographic enter button.

  With a ping, the light turned green and unlocked the device.

  “Seriously? People still use such an Ancient password?”

  There were several folders with multiple documents so Arron just tapped one of the files and let it stream the information in front of him...

  His face darkened as he read the details which were all being recorded on his stream as well. It was details of corruption and collusion of several groups and corps secretly helping the gangs on the first level. There were several targets listed for future planned hits that were supposed to cause the friction between the many groups as well as the yakuza families to flare up even more than now.

  “This will definitely start the war that everyone is talking about...” said Arron.

  He found other damning documents saved under folders labeled [Insurance].

  Along with these documents, there were many saved audio recordings of conversations with an unknown second party.

  This was getting a little too hot for Arron and he was starting to feel uncomfortable...

  BEEEEEEP!

  A bright red alarm message scrolled across his helmet's screen nearly giving Arron a heart attack as he was interrupted from reading the documents.

  [By order of Chief Chesty you are commanded to immediately return to M1 HQ. You are ordered to report to the Chief's office within the next hour.]

  Arron frowned at this as he walked out of the small office with the datapad in his hand.

  With the alarm message popping up his connection to Lexa and Tooth had also been cut causing him to worry that something had gone wrong.

  “Don't look at me like that,” said Kix as he saw Arron's face. “We are definitely in trouble... again.”

  “Ah... we can't forget about this guy,” said Arron as they were walking past the bound guard.

  They both grabbed one of his limbs and carried the hogtied guard to the APC where they shoved him in next to the silent Ralph.

  ***

  “... so that is why you decided to go on your own without orders?”

  “It is something that Mother and Father would be proud of! We have found a massive illegal cache of military-grade weapons, ammunition, and explosives at a warehouse. It's enough to start a small-scale war!” said Kix with a blank face.

  In one of the corners of the Chief's office, three black suit Office of Reason agents stood glaring at the two who stood ramrod straight in front of the Chief's desk.

  Chief Chesty nodded his head with a calm expression as he said, “Indeed, what you showed us could cause us a bit of trouble. Now that you are here, these agents would like to talk with you in private before you leave. Due to your hard work over the last few weeks, you two have earned yourselves a week of unpaid vacation.”

  Arron groaned inside... this was the chief's polite way of saying they were being suspended for a week. Probably something that had been decided by the Office of Reason.

  “Thank you sir!” said both Arron and Kix, not showing any irritation on their faces.

  “Come with us. We only want to chat with you for a few minutes. We can do that while on the Mag-shoot,” said one of the black-suit agents.

  The five of them all walked out of the office and into the Mag-shoot with the Office of Reason agents positioning themselves around Arron and Kix as the doors closed behind them.

  “Do you know what you've done?” asked an agent in a low, even tone that was trying to stay calm.

  The agent did not wait for an answer and continued speaking, “I suggest you two stop messing around. Don't go poking your nose into places you have not been authorized to enter.”

  The agent standing next to Arron was breathing hard as he opened his mouth and said, “Just because you have worked for and helped the Office of Reason does not make you special. We WILL normalize you if you step out of line.”

  When the mag-shoot doors opened once again the agents took control of the two troubled suspects that Arron and Kix had captured. “We will take care of their interrogation.”