Neon District: Redux

Chapter 6

       Yuka and Abby stood from afar as they watched beefy looking and heavy built people enter and exit the 'Waves' gym. They stood there until the lights began to dim inside the gym and everyone from inside exited with beads of sweat all over them.

Yuka pinched the bridge of her nose where a headache began to bloom from the lack of sleep she's been getting. Last time she has slept was the night before Chris was murdered- over four days ago. 

She motioned Abby to follow her and they approached the glass doors to the gym where the owner silently nodded at them and let them through. The Syndicate had many connections within businesses on this stretch that allowed them to get situations and dealings done with having to worry about getting snitched on by the owners.

Not without financial compensation, of course.

They rounded passed the many equipment, dumbbells', and mats to the very back where the vending machines were. Next to the machines with its colourful exterior and dull flavours of energy drinks and vitamin waters was a door that led into the owner's office.

In the office was the stereotypical office executive desk and chair with shelves and trophy cases that had little to no trophies in them at all. Behind the desk there was a slight nick in the wall where Yuka had to trace her fingers over the wall to find it. She then pulled the secret door in the wall open and closed it shut behind them as they entered a small and damp concrete stairwell.

The owner of this business had guts when it came to providing the Syndicate with this safe house Yuka thought as they descended the flights of stairs. The Watch can very easily go to the office and find the secret door in the wall and arrest the owner, no questions asked.  

The flights of stairs were labelled with the top flight being level 0 and they descended all the way down to level 4 where a metal door sat in the corner of the stairwell. 

Abby unlocked the door with the key she grabbed from the Shanties before they left and they entered a small room with many mainframes littered about the room. On the back wall was a single keyboard and chair with about 8 monitors covering the wall that showed security footage of different sectors of the city.

"Did you use this to disable the security footage?" Yuka simply asked, taking a seat in the chair and began typing away at the keyboard. 

The security footage vanished leaving all the monitors with a blue screen with a scrawl of white text of some error code.

"No, I used the crappy computer in the Shanties." Abby replied, placing her hands on the desk next to the keyboard, "I should have used this one."

Yuka shook her head and fiddled with her jacket pocket until she pulled out the computer chip that she spent too long to get back.

"He already knows who I am, so what's done is done." She replied nonchalantly as she inserted the computer chip into a socket in one of the many computers.

The screens turned from blue to grey as white letters scrawled across all the screens showing the same 6-digit code with an orange A with no cross between the tilted lines; the logo for Amery Labs.

"I thought it would be something different. I knew it would be that but I wasn't sure." Abby explained with a sigh.

"Wait? You mean you knew what was in that chip?" Yuka asked, copying down the code on a piece of Post It note. Knowing that Abby knew made Yuka a little upset as she went through all that trouble and got caught by Mr. Propaganda just to learn that it was all a waste.

"Oh, no no no." Abby began, "when Chris came to give us the chip the night he died he told me what was on it but I didn't know if it was true considering where he ended up not too long after."