Futuristic The Taxmen Cometh

[MrThe]

Senior Assets Officer John Muhammed Wang, most frequently Officer Wang, was doing an Asset recovery. More specifically he was repossessing a car. Normally Ultrabank gave the easy jobs like this to rookies but things were pretty slow lately. He and his partner Uriah Kohen had this handled. Some punk kid bought a racecar when he really should have bought some beater and the guy defaulted on his loans within a week. "Hey Kohen. Where do you think we'll nab the car? The garage, the house, or at work?" Lord Bradorian

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Assets Officer Uriah set in the driver seat of the '34 Chevillon HELLA unmarked service vehicle, gliding to a stop behind a dusty taxi-cab with four heads bobbing around visible to the repo-men through the back window, at a red-light. The HELLA was nothing to write home about, but got the pair of repo-men to and from their jobs. The vehicle was up-armored and it's engine and tires refitted to enable the small sedan-sized car to tow other vehicles, even trucks, stopping short of commercial vehicles or busses.



Uriah's partner, John, sat in the passenger seat. As the car breezed to a stop a few inches back from a crowded taxi-cab's bumper, he struck up conversation about the suspect they were after. Young kid who got his first grown up job at some office corp and thought he was THAT guy; got himself a last year electric, custom build, chassis constructed here in the city. Just the cost of the labor of the greedy, privatized, corrupt automotive repair industry should've been enough to ward this kid off. But here Uriah and his partner were, after him and his souped-up speed wagon.

"No way he's driving that thing around -- he knows we're after him, and he's not exactly livin' in the nicest part of town. If he's got any brain at all, it'll be in the lockup."

Their target lived in an apartment, so Uriah was guessing it would be in the paid garage area beside it. Most people would simply park in the lot, but if you have something like what this kid has, you'd probably spend the extra eighty a month to keep it locked away. Now Uriah and John just had to figure out which garage unit the target vehicle was in, and how to get it out.



"When's he get out of work?" Uriah asked his partner, referring to the target. It may be that a confrontation is necessary to retrieve the car, if it can't be accessed in lockup.

 

[MrThe]

Wang liked riding passenger, that way he got to chill. No need to concentrate on the car in front of him and the ongoing traffic. Just a lot of concentration on the job ahead of him and a cool night breeze through the window. His partner Kohen was saying how the kid definitely got it locked down in the garage. "You're probably right about that Uriah. You're almost always right about stuff like that." They pulled up to the apartment and took a look at the parking garage next door. Uriah then asked John a question about when their debt dodger got out of work so he pulled up the datapad and began checking their files. After that he signed into the parking garage to reserve a parking space. "Looks like he punches out at 11:30pm. That's a good 3½ hours from now. Check this out, his apartment number is 106 and the lockup for that apartment is still occupied. Let's check it out, I think we got a hit already."

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Officers Wang and Kohen continued on the road toward Regal Apartments, sitting precariously on the border between the slums of Roddam and the neighborhoods of Helton. The rampant gang activity and petty crime kept the rent low, compared to living closer to the Combat Zone, where rent was almost nonexistent, but so weren't your average renter's chances of survival.

As they turned the corner onto Fulton's Strip, exiting off the hyperway at terminal 10, the two officers learned that lady luck was not only on their side, but perhaps had developed some affinity for the repo-men. Just as the Regal came into view, so did a white, brand-new Chevillon e-sports vehicle, unceremoniously throttling out of the automatic door servos of the wide, stout, bland-looking lockup adjacent to the big, towering, decorated apartment complex. The Chevillon merged rudely into traffic in front of another HELLA, this one much older than the officers' Archer, to the chagrin of the latter driver, who let it be known with a long sounding of her buzzer.



"Oh? No work today, Xavier?" Uriah asked under his breath, though loudly enough for Wang to hear. "Tail 'em? Light 'em up?" Uriah asked John. Though the two tended to make decisions together,  Senior Assets Officer Wang did hold rank on Officer Kohen, and would often have the last word, if not the last laugh. If it weren't for rush hour traffic, the Chevillon would leave the officers' HELLA in the dust any day, if Xavier decided to try and evade them. At the moment, Uriah and John were three cars back from the one they were after.

They could follow the target to see what they're up to, or cut to the chase and attempt to pull them over for a traffic stop using the unmarked car's lights and electronic siren.

 

[MrThe]

Right as they got off the hyperway and up to the building a sleek new ride pulled out of the garage and started heading for an unknown location. Kohen asked Wang what they should do, try and pull it over right away or track it down to wherever it's trying to go. Wang figured it would be good to nab it while Rush Hour was still going on. "Let's light em up just as soon as we pass these first few cars ahead of us. He might think he's a hotshot but he can't get far in this traffic without seriously denting his ride." John got ready to lay down the law on some punk kid who thought he was somebody. As soon as they pulled up directly behind or to the side of that speedster he would flash the lights and impound the ruddy kid driving it. "Alright, let's do this thing Uriah"