6

Aiden didn’t have to wait long for the bus to come; he waited only 6 minutes before an ironclad box came his way. Along with two other people, Aiden stepped into the bus and paid by swiping his phone here a metal plate near the entrance. He noticed that the fee had gone up to 200 universal units, or UUs, from 140 which was enough to buy a nice drink at any bar, but didn’t say anything. He found an empty window seat and sat down. Having nothing to do, he observed whatever was outside of the window.

It was only around 20 minutes before they reached their first checkpoints after 3 stations. It was here that two armed security guards went onto the bus to protect it as the bus entered the dark zone. Although Bureogis and the other major corporations of the inner cities like to pretend that they have control and are enforcing the law over the entire country, the truth was that only the 70km radius around the Bureogis headquarters was deemed the light zone while everything outside was called the dark zone. Whereas the light zone had some resemblance to the rule of law, which was enforced by the corporations, the dark zones were run by gangs, minor corporations, or sometimes by no one at all. Effectively, ever since The Engineer decided that publicly funded police was somehow “not efficient to the central purpose of society,” most of the population started living without the protection of the police. But then, one could not exactly call the service which the police offered “protection.” It was not necessarily worse for the population, for when the government existed, police shootings of the innocent were rampant and the legal system was favored towards those who had money anyway. So when the time came that the police was dissembled, no one really noticed anything, and some were even thankful.

Other than being a metaphorically dark, and unpleasant place to live in, the dark zone was also literally dark at night. While the inner cities would usually shine with brilliant light from across all buildings, the dark zone had nothing. One reason was that most of those living there preferred to conserve electricity as they were too poor to afford too much, and thus preferred the uses of torches and lamps for indoor lighting. Another reason was that most of the power cables were either broken due to lack of maintenance or manually reconnected to the living space of certain gang leaders so as to create a monopoly on electricity. The power companies themselves tried to extend their business out into the dark zone, but the lack of security prevented any cable from surviving for more than a week. Eventually, the companies gave up, and simply supplied gang leaders with electricity as long as they paid up.

Aiden looked out of the window again, and saw across the street, the fenced neighborhood that he and Liam grew up on. Although their family technically lived in the dark zone, they were very close to the first checkpoint and since their neighborhood was fenced, they were safe most of the time. Every day when Aiden use to go to school with Liam to the light zone, their parents always warned them to not go deep into the actual dark zone. Of course, Aiden and Liam didn’t listen, and sometimes they went pretty deep. Some of the things that Aiden saw disturbed him at the time, and some disturbed him even more when he grew older. Luckily, nothing too serious ever happened to the brothers themselves except a few times when they were chased and roughed up by gang members for their lunch money in the morning. But the boys were smart and quick to learn and started taking different paths to walk to school, even if sometimes they were late.

Eventually, as they went deeper and deeper into the dark zone, lighted houses became few and far between, and the soldiers looked tenser and more focused. Two hours later, they arrived at the station before Aiden’s, one of the passengers was just about to leave the bus, when he saw half a dozen youths, probably all gang members, standing out of the bus. Immediately the man retracted and tried to go back in. However, the guards, not wanting any more trouble to deal with, pushed the man out. Aiden didn’t expect the guards to stand up for the man, after all, the gang members were probably armed and the guards weren’t too tired of living themselves. However, Aiden still shuddered at what the guards did. As the bus left the station, Aiden could hear the man speaking to one of the gang members in a begging voice, and then a short while after, a continuous stream of screams. It didn’t sound like he was going to die, but Aiden was sure whatever he was going through must have hurt. He speculated that the passenger probably owned money to the gang leader or something, and the six members were just there to give a little incentive to pay up.

The bus ride was silent for the rest of the journey, and as Aiden reached his station, he stood up and was ready to leave. However, before he left the bus one of the guards pulled at his jacket.

“Hey look, my buddy and I have had a long night. Shouldn’t a passenger kindly tip his guard before leaving?” Said one of the guards.

Aiden looked at the two men, who were both gesturing towards their guns, as well as the driver, who was just leaning back in his chair yawning. The first guard he could take out instantly, for he was right by him, but the second was around two meters away. There was almost no chance to stop him from firing the pistol. Aiden could rely on a brief moment of shock that the two guards would experience to his advantage though; if he pulled out his knife from his boots and slit the throat of the first guard, he can use the body as a shield to bump into the second who he would take down almost instantly. However, if the driver had a firearm, Aiden would be dead.

“Hey, he was talking to you!” The second guard spoke to Aiden. Aiden would feel a touch of disgust in the guard’s voice. He thought for one more moment and decided that it was not worth the risk, and plus, he was broke anyway.

“Sorry, gentlemen, of course,” Aiden responded, and held up his watch. The second guard placed his on Aiden’s watch and Aiden watch as the 5340 units he had left drained down to zero.

He left the bus, which sped away behind him and saw that he was in the middle of the community which was completely dark. He checked his navigation on his specs but apparently, there was no connection at all. By the memory of the satellite images that he saw previously, he started walking east towards the meeting point. It was only 11: 20, Aiden had plenty of time.

He walked for around 5 minutes, and as he was just leaving the community into the forest, he heard steps behind him, stopped, and turned.

“Hey you there, you don’t look like you below here mate.”

The speaker was a big man 8 meters away from Aiden, and he had two others following him. Aiden knew that the next thing which would happen was that the man would ask him to hold up is watch or get out his card, and to offer his units. If they discover that Aiden had none, they would probably become angry and beat him until he is dead or unconscious. That was just how things worked out here. Aiden also didn’t want to run as the man probably had a firearm, and can shoot him. So Aiden decided to take the initiative.

“Yeah I know what you want, let me get my card,” Aiden responded.

“That’s a smart one.” Commented one of the people standing behind the big man.

Since there was no light, the trio didn’t have enough time to release that Aiden pulled out a gun instead of a card. After three quick silenced shots, the three dropped dead on the leaves, each with a small hole on their foreheads. Aiden turned around and kept walking; one of the good things out here was that a few dead bodies on the street usually didn’t raise any questions anyway.