It was a calm and quiet time in downtown; Chris was looking around the fountain to kill time while waiting for the CP job assignment to arrive so he could earn his money. Downtown, as it was called, was what all the citizens of it called it, in reality it was CITY 21 which was a prototype city implementing alternating-cpu technology inside smaller underground thumpers which worked well to not disrupt the peace and at the same time stop the antlions from drilling above the ground and attacking.
Chris noticed that the time was 3:59 p.m. and as soon as it reached 4:00 the CP officer would arrive to give him the note that decided what job he got, or if he didn't get it. Sure enough, the local nexus door opened up and an officer walked out in the gear that they all wore to protect against any sudden uprisings. He saw on the uniform a badge that said [21.2.72830] now the officer (we will call him 2127) came up to him and asked in a muffled voice "Are you Citizen 21.1.15243?" Chris said "Yep, that's me, Chris Bakersfield." "Alright Bakersfield, here's the disk." 2127 said and handed him the designation disk.
"Why a disk?" Chris asked of the officer. 2127 replied that the disks were meant to safe keep information and had a strong encryption that only holoreaders hooked up to the combine mainframe could read because the disk had a polymorph machine bugged onto it that would break the disk if it was taken off. "Why so much security? It's not like someone's gonna snatch a disk and blow up the citadel."
The citadel he was referring to was not the common, large, and protruding tower in the middle of every city but city 21 (excluding the city 5 incident), it was the before mentioned thumper network that had its main controls hooked up into the nexus. "Of course it isn't going to blow up the citadel, but if someone gets that disk and cracks it, they have all your personal information, your CADNC, AND a license to sell whatever that disk allows you to! If a criminal got it and cracked it, we would be swimming in debris because some idiot coded the disk wrong and now the underground is blowing buildings up left and right!", "Jeez, I'm sorry I didn't know that a CIRCLE was the cure to cancer, now can I have it?", "Sure, just don't lose it." And 2127 left.
"Seriously, it's not like this thing holds the deactivation code to a bomb in the Sun." he said to himself and went home. As Chris was walking, he noticed something weird; the alleyway next to his CHB was very clean without any debris. He disregarded this for now and went to his room in the complex. As he opened the room up, he went straight to the computer to decode the disk; he was tired of being a recycletorium worker and wanted to see what this was going to do! He booted up the computer and got the IGE logo before the desktop showed up. As he put in the disk a message appeared on the screen in Combine Script saying LOADING… … … COMPLETED and showing an extracted fire named 15243 that was blinking, he saved it to the documents folder and opened it.
It Read:
COMBINE DESIGNATION FORM
Hello! If you are the owner of this and reading it in your own home away from others, then congratulations! You are now a(n) CIVIL PROTECTION OFFICER and now have CIVIL PROTECTION RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. We hope you enjoy this assignment and have a nice day!
END MESSAGE.
Chris was a tornado of swirling emotions right now, "Wow, I actually made it into the CPD!" He was about to jump for joy until he remembered that it was illegal to do so inside a CHB. He walked down to the lobby and opened the door, "I wonder what I'll do!" he said to himself, bursting full of pride and happiness from getting his new job!
"Why did I even wonder what I would do," he said after sitting at his desk for an hour filing paperwork and deciding punishment on petty crimes. "Beep beep beep" went the pager telling him that someone was calling him. He gazed over it in boredom and noticed that he catched it saying "-ESTING BACKUP, UNIT 2.72830 REQUESTING BACKUP, UNI-" and said to himself, "Finally! Something to DO." And suited up in his gear and rushed out the door to the area where 72830 was, "Wait, 72830 sounds familiar, where did I hear that before?" He decided that now was not the time to review the day and was definitely the time to help someone that needed backup.
As Chris (Who was now named 2.15243) Rushed down to the block that needed backup. As he turned the corner he heard the buzz of a baton being turned on and heard "Don't Move!" He heard the click of a baton being shut off and holstered "Oh, it's backup." 15243 put his hands down and looked at the officer, "Hey! It is you!", "The officer at the same time said "Wha- How did you get into CP?" 15243 explained how he wasted some time looking at the test results and it told him that he was a CP Officer because of his Aiming, Technology, and General Science scores. "Well that's nice and all, but it's time to put those to use." 7283 took out his pistol and explained the situation.
"We've got reports of illegal money printing operations in this large building here and we have a job to go in and sweep the door, the search warrant was approved by the administrator so we have to move in fast to shut them down." The officer took a deep breath after explaining and set a breach charge on the door after using a snakecam underneath it.
"Ready?" "Yes." "Go!" The charge exploded, sending fragments of wood everywhere inside and busting the door off its hinges. 1524 rushed in and mirrored the corners while 7283 followed behind and looked around. "Nothing yet," 1524 said on the radio that only he and 7283 could hear "But we're getting close." 1524 and 7283 went to the door next to them, a storage closet, and 7283 said "Stop." 15 replied "Why?" "Because the scanner is finding ALPE around here."
ALPE (AntLion Pheromone Extract) was a commonly used chemical in the drugs that the criminals sold that forced adrenaline to be constantly used and affected vision by registering movement much more and contrast, Not only was this an illegal substance used in drugs, it was very dangerous because when the adrenaline passed out, so did the heightened health and ability, causing you to almost instantly pass out on the spot, And the chemical would vaporize and turn into gas that clouded the lungs, causing breathing problems.
They kicked the door open and sure enough, "Freeze!", a suspect was using the lab and creating pills. "Stop what you are doing and put your hands above your head." The suspect put his hands above his head and walked to the wall. 72 said "I'll take care of this one, you check the other rooms." 15 left the room and checked upstairs. There wasn't any movement so it was pretty quiet, but one small thing stood out. Irregular breathing. To a normal citizen it would seem quiet as space but to a trained officer like 15, It sounded to his audio sensors like a train crashing into a burning building that was inside a cave full of TNT. It was LOUD. 15 switched his boots to stealth and got next to the door. Sure enough "EAT THIS!" was heard and a fist came out of the door aiming right for someone that would be there.
Trained for this situation, 15 set his boots to dynamic, Rushed through the door, and caught the suspect In the chest and knocked him over, Out of the corner of his eye he could see a printer working to print fake money. He pressed the off button and secured the money in an evidence bag before taking his boot off the man's chest and arresting him. He radioed in to 72 "I Found and arrested a suspect along with a money printer. Everything else is clear, request an APC" 72 requested the APC and they moved outside with the evidence and suspects to a large APC and loaded the evidence in the back and got the suspects into the part that could only be opened from the outside, they got in the vehicle and were transported to base.
They both got medals for successfully apprehending suspects without anyone being harmed serverely and securing evidence. The medals were blue patches that had a yellow IGE symbol on them. "So what do we do now?" 15 asked of 72, "I guess it's back to paperwork." They both laughed and went to their offices to file reports on the two suspects and evidence. Meanwhile: In a dark section of the derelict underground train tracks, a person with a radio listened in to a broadcast made on an old wired connection, "I have heard reports that the civil protection have shut down one of our funding outposts, I am very displeased and the arrested individuals will be demoted when they are returned from the nexus, Next time you will NOT fail me in keeping one simple outpost out of their grasp. Electric Eye, Cutting into the storm of hatred and lies, Bringing truth to all who deserve." And the radio went dead while the shady person went into the darkness of the room.