9 The User

I continued my monitoring of the 10th floor and below for the remainder of the day before it was eventually my time to leave.

The day hasn't finished and yet there's already people running around spreading the news regarding Mortiqar, about how Blue Moon's being recalled following the company being hit with the lawsuit they're in.

I can't help but wonder how every single inch of Blue Moon is going to be recalled other than the pharmacies that sell them. Perhaps the law would keep track of the orders via the receipts and payments that were recorded upon purchase.

Basically, the receipts and transactions were a memory stock of the customers regardless of how old was the Blue Moon users were. I wouldn't be surprised if the Military Police had to handle it.

You didn't have to spend the rest of your life here in this nation to understand just how much power and influence the MPs have. The sheer amount of numbers, all across the nation. Even the newest of members had equipment that was more superior.

When I walked out of the building and sought a bus stop, I saw a humvee in addition to a few trucks carrying MP officers, each with either an AR-15 or maybe a FAMAS. A gun was a gun regardless, the only real differences being the power and the person who used it.

But very few places in the nation actually sold them, for obvious reasons.

Once, my father said to me; you know what freedom is? It's a dangerous gift. Give too much away and shit hits the fan immediately. Like, really bad.

A certain revolt in the 60s was an example of giving the people way too much freedom. Some people around me even wished they weren't in Decou.

I wish I could agree with people, the intensity of the military police's presence here, the constant monitoring, even around the cities with Tracker Drones and CCTV cameras on street corners and poles.

Unfortunately I could not imagine myself or my family had we not been here.

Would being outside of Decou make any difference? Would there be a better homeland out there for all of us?

I walked against the sidewalk, the storm had not arrived, not even specks of rain. I had a small umbrella strapped against my belt just in case. The pay at Saturn-Voyde for the 10th floor employees and below were reasonable, but it was a far cry from the price of a car, let alone one that actually works and doesn't break down ever 10 minutes.

Many people at worked previously asked me something that I'll pretend I've heard it the first time: why haven't you moved out of Belmont Beach, they asked. I answered because my parents were living not far from it.

The beach itself was a fine place, it was some areas around it that Decou has problems with, including the Cauldron.

My family and I used to live in that beach house actually, the one I was in right now. By the time I started working for Saturn-Voyde, the pay I received was enough to buy them their own house, somewhere not far from the beach horse.

The streets were semi-crowded; bunch of people, but far from a ghost town. I passed an alley, and a cough got to my ears. Stopping in my tracks, I turned to see that nobody was following me, let alone peeking from the alley.

As I took another step forward, the coughing became louder and louder. It was a dry cough, almost violent, as if someone was choking. I turned around swiftly and headed to the alleyway.

In the bleak alleyway was a large garbage bin, in addition to some plastic bins, each of them having their respective colors of red, yellow and green for tras that's either dry, wet or organic like leaves, eventhough such things of the latter are unlikely to appear in this part of Midtown at all.

Over along the city streets, there wasn't really trees being planted and absorbing oxyge; instead we had Saturn-Voyde's artificial trees. Each of the leaves consisted of 100 or so nanobots that had special sensors which keep track of the oxygen flowing in the sky, before filtering it and making it more easy to breath by us Decouns.

I raised my eyebrow at the sound of the coughing I heard, before I heard the same cough. Turning my head left to the giant garbage bin, I saw the tip of the bin going up slightly. In between the edges of the tip and the bin itself, I saw a head. Half of it to be more exact. It's eyes were medium bit bulging greatly, the owner of the eyes were was also fidgeting.

The person, who seemed like a teenager judging by the face, took its head out.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

The teenager huffed. "Yeah"

The teenager crawled out of the bin. His clothes were unbelievably messy. Dirt and sweat drenched his shirt, and his hair suffered a similar fate. He collapsed onto his knees by the time he got out, and out from his pocket came out a syringe.

"No!" the teen spoke in stutters as I went and grab held of the syringe.

"Don't even think about it." I told him. This teenager could be in highschool if he wasn't using this beyond a single dosage. Even then, it's not like Blue Moon was created for everyone in particular. Some people might get different side effects earlier. |

"What do you care man? I'm just trying to make myself better?"

"I care for my country, including those living in it!" I yelled. "You think Blue Moon makes you better? Or whatever tech that involves you looking at a screen and caring how many people have given likes on your funny photos?"

The teenager seemed stunned. I wondered where his parents were.

I threw the Blue Moon syringe into the garbage bin, shattering it as tiny pieces of the glass syringe scattered across the other parts of trash. "What's your name?"

"Santino."

"How much Blue Moon have you taken?"

Santino's eyes tried to stir away from me. I sighed and said. "I'm not trying to scorn you, as a fellow Decoun I'm concerned. You'd think what happened had I not heard you coughing?"

Santino looked down, releasing his breaths and holding on to his right arm. I'm assuming that's where he injected the shot.

"It's not easy living in the Cauldron mister." Santino explained. "Not one bit."

"You live in the Cauldron? Where are your parents?"

"At home." Santino said. He also added that he was initially going to sell some tissues around the busier parts of Midtown. Unfortunately he was robbed by petty thugs, he said.

Not a single Decoun here helped him when I was at work. Bastards.

"You're coming with me Santino, back to the Cauldron." I explained. "If nobody's gonna help you out, then I might as well do that job. Come on." I walked first, before he followed. Looking up at the gray sky, I decided to fasten my walking pace. Santino copied me.

"Not to sound ungrateful mister, but why are you willing to help me this far?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be a fellow Decoun." I thought. Everyone living in this nation, this city, or the other cities, is a Decoun regardless. We have always been a close knit nation, back then at most.

Is Blue Moon and other developments of our society really going to be a giant blockade to that all?