Chapter Five—Green Zone Incursion

Before heading out they went back to Maple’s place to get Jon some thermal blocking gear. He made some jokes about the leotard before dressing over it with his usual clothes, which consisted of blue denim, a T-shirt and his brown leather jacket.

“You comin’?” he had asked Maple, and she smiled.

“No, battles and guns are not my thing.”

“We don’t plan on getting into a gun fight, Maple,” Nova said.

“But if we do,” added Mairu with a smile, “I’ll back you up with Little Bullet!” she hefted her huge file, and Jon thought it was almost as big as the little girl holding the thing.

But Maple had spread her hands. “And what would you do then if something were to happen to me? Who would supply all you kids with all your neat stuff?”

“You’re right,” said Koto.

And then they had said goodbye to her. On their way out Jon glanced back at the young woman. Maple had winked at Jon and dragged a finger across one of her horns. “See you, slick.”

He wasn’t sure what that gesture had meant, but he smiled.

*

The kids were pretty fast, even Mairu with her huge rifle. Jon had watch where he was stepping to keep up and more than once he almost tripped. After bending low to get under a chain link fest they had run across some fields and roads and had found themselves inside of an open water duct under a bridge.

A vehicle above drove over, shining a spotlight about as if they were looking for something. “Is this normal?’ he asked.

Nova looked at him and nodded her head, her blonde ponytail shaking behind her head. They all waited for the vehicle to cross over the bridge before Koto nodded.

“Follow me.”

He lead the way up the side of the aqueduct where some old and cracked steps were, and glancing about behind them to make sure that patrol wasn’t coming back, he then led them across an intersection.

It was as dead as a graveyard.

Much of the outer green zone was that way, but the inner wall prevented most from the red zones from entering the cities, except through the gates, but only those with an active green wristband could enter.

They ran to some abandoned buildings and Jon wondered how they were planning to get over the wall. He hoped they didn’t think they could jump it, but having seen Koto do some tricks in that parking lot when he took out that cop bot earlier in the day, he had to admit these kids were pretty impressive.

His questions were answered when Koto led them to a sewer drain.

“This is it?” Jon asked. “The sewers? Really?”

“What?” Nova asked. “Did you expect we were going to shoot the wall down or something?”

“I don’t know,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I just didn’t think it would be this easy.”

“You would be surprised,” said Koto. “I think the government wants red zoners to go into the cities and steal and rob and pillage.”

“Why?”

“A reminder,” Nova said, “that the people in the green zone are protected by the evil marauders from without.”

“Jeeze,” Jon said. “I didn’t even think of that. Kind of malicious, wouldn’t you say?”

Koto chuckled. “You think the corpos running this place aren’t malicious, Jon”

He raised an eyebrow. The kid was really cynical—they all were. But a life out here had to make you that way, right?

The detective would have liked to find the proof he needed to prove what was going on with the water supply. But if this was some kind of conspiracy from the really high top brass, there was nothing he could change.

Maybe his partner had been right. Maybe Kenn wasn’t dirty. It could be that she just had a better handle on the way the world worked than Jon did, as much as that stung to even contemplate.

Koto led the way into the sewer by way of the ladder going down, then Nova and followed by Mairu, who turned around awkwardly.

“Do you need some help with that?” Jon asked as he gestured to her rifle.

“Nono,” she said, and she smiled. “I can handle it.” She slung the rifle onto her back and as she went down the manhole, the stalk of the weapon would have caught on the edge if it weren’t for Jon.

He nudged the weapon so Mairu could fit into the hole.

“Thanks,” she said, and then she paused and looked up at him with a smile.

“What?” he asked. “Kid you’re lookin’ at me funny.”

“I just want to thank you for coming along with us, Mister.”

“Yeah, call me Jon.”

“Okay, Jon.”

Then she glanced down and climbed to the others who were already waiting. Jon made it down in short order and dropped from the height of the last rung and dusted off his hands.

“It’s dark down here.”

His voice echoed along the walls.

“Yeah,” Nova said, and she whipped out a flashlight from her bag. “Nothing we can’t handle. Are you afraid the dark, mister policeman?”

“I’m a detective,” he said, but she wasn’t listening as she had begun to lead the way.

“Your girlfriend doesn’t like me much does she?”

Koto looked at him. “Cops are usually a problem for us,” he said. “Most of the good ones quit the force a long time ago and joined the resistance.”

Jon scratched his head, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mairu said. “If you were one of the bad guys before, I can tell you’re different now.”

“Really?” he asked, surprised and a little taken aback.

“Well yeah,” she said, hefting her gun. She was so small, Jon was surprised she could lug that thing around. “Your wrist band went red—which means you’re like us now.”

He chuckled. “Right.”

“Whether you like it or not, Mister—er—I mean, Jon—whether you like it or not, you’re with us now.”

He nodded. “Thanks, kid.”

“My name is Mairu.”

“Oh, sorry. Sure thing, Mairu.”

“Don’t get to cozy,” Nova said.

Jon wasn’t sure what she meant by that or if she was even speaking to Mairu, who had just now basically accepted him into their fold, as one of the Dregs, though, hhe wasn’t certain.

Maybe she saw him like how their relationship with Maple was, which Jon would guess and say that she was definitely a friend.

And an ally, too.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this water thing,” he said, his voice echoing up to Nova and Koto. “And trust me, if that Ishimura Industries plant is responsible, we’re sending it sky high.”

Nova glanced back at him and shined her light in his eyes.

“Hey!”

“We’ll see,” she said, and turned the light in front of her again.

“Damn punk.”

“Watch it,” Koto said, pushing his hand up against Jon’s chest. In his fist was that folding sword he had. That was a spec ops cop weapons right there. “I might have given you your gun, but that doesn’t mean I fully trust you.”

“Hey,” he said, spreading his hands. “Take it easy.”

But Koto was in no mood to “take things easy.” Karu was sick and he promised Kawa that he would get some medicine. They had failed earlier today, but that had been more of a scouting run.

Now they had to find some medicine or he was probably not going to make it, and Koto wasn’t sure he could handle that. He needed to stop thinking on it so much.

“This way,” said Nova, leading them in a new direction.

They all followed.

Koto glanced back at Jon, who hung behind him with Mairu in the rear. She seemed to like and trust him—and she was pretty good with people, but far too trusting. It wouldn’t be the first time Koto had been betrayed by someone he thought was a friend, so he would keep an eye on this guy.

Jon took his pistol out of its holster, then he released the clip to see if there were bullets in magazine. There was. He would check the chamber later when there was more light.

Surprised Koto gave him his gun loaded, he put it back and smiled.

*

It must have been the middle of the night by the time they came out of the sewers. The smells from before had been very faint, but as they went deeper into the green zone, the sewer turned from a completely dry shaft to a three-foot deep trench of flowing black water.

“Ugh!” he breathed, then gasped from fresh hair.

They were in the alley, and outside on the street there were cars. Jon glanced up into the night and saw neon signs—advertisements of every possible corporate product imaginable all doing battle for the attention of onlookers.

Mairu chuckled. “Pretty bad.”

“Worst part is over,” said Koto.

“You think that’s worse than a gun fight?” asked Nova with surprise. “So reckless.” He smiled at her.

“Hey wait a minute,” Jon said. “I know where we’re at. “That’s Sakura Avenu, isn’t it?” he pointed.

“Sure is,” said Koto with a nod. “We’re going to the Omori Square General Hospital and Clinic.”

“Shit,” Jon breathed. “Are you serious?”

Nova glanced at her boyfriend, but she said nothing.

“We need that medicine,” he said.

Breathing in deeply, Jon thought this plan—if it could even be called a plan—was trash—but the kid was right. “Any idea about how we’re going to get in there?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure we can get in through the back somehow.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Never gotten into a place without my little piece of green jewelry.”

“Always makes it harder without them,” said Mairu, “but it’s not that hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen,” said Nova. “We don’t have time to talk about this here. She moved the manhole cover back over the sewer. “Here,” she said, turning to Mairu. “Cover that thing with this back. You can’t go walking around with a gun like that, you know.”

“Right,” she said and nodded.

“Come on,” Koto said, and he led the way out of the alley. They came out onto the sidewalk where where were pedestrians and cars and cops everywhere. “Keep your sleeves down,” he added.

“Don’t need sleeves,” Mairu said with a smile as she held up her wrist. She looked to have a black armband of some kind. Jon had seen it before when they were in the light of Maple’s trailer, but it certainly wasn’t a government approved wristlet.

It would do from a distance.

They crossed the street. There wasn’t much traffic, and Jon was all too familiar with the neon bombardments, the exotic fashions and the mentally ill sidewalk fixtures who stared or convulsed while shaking their hands and muttering strange things to themselves. In a world where all was equal, those who needed help never got any.

There was a desperation here in the city that, even just being out in the red zone with the Dregs for a few hours, he was beginning to see the differences in everyday life.

Sure, friends helped one another when they could, but as an ideology of pure and total acceptance of who and what you chose to be, no matter what, it created a stark contrast in comparison between the red zoners and the green zoners, even if Jon’s experience with the former was severely limited at this time.

They crossed the Hannover park where some balloon salesmen accosted them, but the kids shook their heads and Koto actually thrust out the palm of his hand in a rude gesture as they passed him by.

The sky trains zoomed overhead while the tunnels bellow created a never ending breath of traffic that echoed out of the tunnels. There were maglevs down there as well, but they wouldn’t be able to use any of the public transport without their wristlets.

It was then that Jon realized for the first time that he had been a slave to these corporate powers for so long—told where he could go, when he could go, and all the monitored by AI that reported all of his comings and goings, watching what he bought, what he looked at and, analyzing his patterns in every aspect of like so that a constant bombardment of product placement adds could be funnels for his individual eyes.

Damn, he thought, nodding as some of the neon advertisements that were lower on the street level changed and flickered based on the pedestrians telemetry. None of the signs flicked for Jon now, not that he no longer had his wristlet that had been clamped on with no means of taking it off—except illegally.

And then a thought came into his mind as he saw it all, the flickering neon advertisements, the drone-like processions of pedestrians of every race imaginable, and some invented races too, who, walking on the street as if they were free, were truly herded to some manner of employment they despised but that had most likely been assigned to them. They would work, clock out, go home or go shopping, and buy things they didn’t need but were told would make their lives better.

Jon shook his head. This was not how people were supposed to live, but after the the the attack, the corps and the governments seemed to have all the answers, provided so many needs, as well as brought everyone into their consumerist clique where the corpo heads sat at the top, enriched beyond all imaginings with no way out for the average person.

Fuck you guys.

“Hey.”

Jon blinked and looked down at Mairu holding her gun. Because of the back heaped over the top, she looked like she simply carried a package of some kind.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You have a funny look on your face.”

He thought about that for a minute, and nodding slowly, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking about some things. But thanks for asking, kid.”

“Mhm.”

“Hey,” Nova said. “What are you doing? Keep up!”

They caught up with the others and before long they were standing under some palm trees, above them the towering high-rises and sky bridges above, making the park and its artificial construction seem even more like an aquarium designed for the leisure of some pets.

Across the street in bright neon of white and blue and red was the Omori General Hospital and Clinic.

“Sure to be some medicinal magic in there,” said Nova.

“Yeah,” Koto said with a nod. He was wearing a black jacket now with a high sheen and hemmed in green that caught the light around them. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Now what?” asked Jon. “It’s not like we can just walk through the front doors.”

“Dammit,” Koto snapped, and he turned to the detective. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do!”

Jon and Nova thought the same thing at once as they glanced at each other with their shocked faces and they said, “Wait, what?!”