Arron woke up to the cold rain hitting his face sending a jolt of pain through his entire body with each drop.
His entire body was now completely soaked as he lay on the flooded ground near the base of the building he had slammed into.
He felt the warmth of a fire nearby but could not see it.
When he sat up his head let out a painful throb nearly causing him to fall back down.
Arron held his head with one hand as he tried to open his eyes.
“Aggghhhh!” he let out a low grunt of pain. He could only see out of his left eye, his right eye wouldn't open.
As his blurry sight cleared he could see that the helmet's paraglass visor had shattered and was probably the reason his right eye could not open.
His ears were filled with a loud ringing which blocked all other sounds.
As he took in his surroundings he found the source of the heat he was feeling. It was the APC that had slammed into the wall more than 30 yards away from him.
The rain battled with the fire trying to extinguish it but the fire was fiercely fighting back.
The light of the sizzling fire lit the area in a flickering glow.
“Kix!?” shouted Arron in a hoarse voice as he scanned his surroundings.
He continued to call out his partner's name even though his ears were still ringing and he could not hear anything.
Arron used the wall for support as he stood up while still holding his throbbing head.
He stumbled forward a few steps at a time as he tried to clear his head and search for his partner. He circled around the burning hulk of the APC.
“Kix..?” asked Arron as he looked around the base of the building's wall on the left side but he did not find him there.
He turned to the crumpled APC and looked inside but could not see any signs of a body.
As he stood there looking around the area he saw movement in a row of thick bushes.
He fumbled with his slippery holster and pulled out his service weapon, unsure if it was one of the racers or someone else.
A man with a dark blue helmet and armor crawled out of the bush and stood up.
It was Kix.
Seeing Arron with his weapon drawn, Kix pointed at Arron and said something.
Arron pointed to his ears and shook his head which caused him to groan in pain and hold his head once again.
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Kix was in far better shape than Arron and had only suffered relatively minor damage.
He walked over to Arron and helped inspect his wounds.
Slowly the buzzing sound in Arron's ears cleared up and he found that it was Toothbrush constantly trying to get them to answer.
“What's going on! We lost the APC's signal. Are you guys there?”
“This is Arron... We have run into a slight problem. Requesting transportation back to HQ...”
“Everyone is currently busy but I'll send out the request and see if anyone can respond. Can you not drive back?”
“The APC is totaled,” said Arron.
“I'll let the wreckage recovery team know,” said Tooth.
Kix applied a first aid salve on his face and slapped Arron on the shoulder.
“You look a mess but you're good to go for now. We'll have to have Dr. Octy fix you up when we get back,” said Kix.
Arron started walking towards the inner part of the park.
“Where are you going?” asked Kix.
“We still have a job to do. If the stranglers are still there, then we can drag them back to HQ.”
***
“Man you look terrible,” said Tooth as he handed Arron a cup of steaming hot synth coffee and a generic pain reliever from a small bottle of pills from Dr. Octy.
Arron and Kix were still soaking wet and wearing their armor as they sat in the information room at a desk next to Tooth.
As soon as they arrived back at M1 HQ and were patched up by Doc Octy, they were ordered to fill out a detailed report on what happened to them before doing anything else.
“Thanks,” said Arron.
He quickly threw the pill into his mouth and swallowed it with the extremely bitter coffee. He had been hesitant whether or not to take the pill earlier but he now had a pounding migraine that was just too strong.
“When you finish typing that up you need to also give your assessment and suggestions for the APC.”
“What about the damn new helmets? That paraglass is supposed to be bulletproof but look at what it did to his face when it received a bit of blunt damage,” said Kix pointing to Arron's scared face that was covered in bandages.
“It's fine. Doc Octy was able to remove the fragments and said that everything should be back to normal after it finishes healing in a few days. I can already see blurry images again with my right eye,” said Arron.
As if trying to prove his point he opened his still-healing right eye only a fraction before he quickly closed it with a pained grimace.
“The only problem is this damn migraine that won't go away,” said Arron.
“It's not OK, just think if it was a bullet. You would be dead,” said Kix as he furiously tapped out his report.
“You can type up one for that as well, but I doubt the researchers will read it since they are working on a new design now,” said Tooth.
Several minutes passed as they racked their brains and filled the reports with all the details.
“Hey toothy, I finished the Autopsy for the APC's systems. You can add this to their reports,” said the ever-smiling Kat.
She handed Toothbrush a secure datastick and looked over to the soaked Arron and Kix.
“AH! Who wounded our cute probie?” asked Kat.
“It's from the crash,” said Arron.
“What did you find?” asked Kix.
“It wasn't a malfunction. The APC used cheap mass-produced data chips from one of the local Level 1 factories. The hacker must have known this as they used the backdoor access codes to lock all the hover-driving systems down.”
“Did you find the culprit?” asked Arron.
“Yep, I sent the info to Lexa to do a background check.”
Everyone turned to Lexa who had ten different screens up in front of her as she busily typed and swiped on each one.
Feeling everyone’s gaze she looked up from her work.
“Your suspected hacker has been dead for over 2 years,” was all she said before returning to her typing.
“You sure?” asked Kix.
Lexa tapped a few options bringing up a holovid which she swiped toward the group.
It was a video of a man being shot several times by the Office of Reason agents during a raid.
“How could they be using the information of a dead man?” asked Arron.
“This is nothing new and is only getting worse. I've sent many requests to the Office of reason to clean up the database by removing the data and access codes for all the dead people. But party members under mother have always halted the attempts to do so,” said Kat.