The Life- Illusion

by Lincoln Greene

  The hummer slid to a stop underneath the parachute, driver and passengers disembarking while the gunner stayed in place. Kurt began to avert his gaze, but then noticed the civilian NPCs in the area also gawking at the overt players and decided to maintain his cover. The million and a half in dirty money in his inventory was suddenly a frightening weight on him, ensuring he did nothing rash as he watched the GoonStorm crew.

  The driver and gunner were quickly marked as the only players, speaking to each other while ignoring the three other men. The driver seemed annoyed. “Gone. We took too long getting here.”

  His gunner yawned into a hand. “I can spray down the bugs if you like, maybe some bodies would make the higher ups happy.” Kurt frowned slightly at that, inferring that ‘bug’ was the GoonStorm term for civilian NPCs.

  Shaking his head, the driver looked around again. “They’d just make us pay for the ammo, screw it. We never saw a parachute, simple as that.” Indeed, as they turned away, Kurt’s parachute dissolved into dust and drifted away on the evening breeze.

  The Goons loaded back into the Hummer and drove away, drawing a sigh of relief from Kurt. He glanced at his skills menu, noting with a smile that his disguise skill progress bar had jumped a bit again and was continuing to slowly climb. His reverie was broken by another digital camo Hummer driving down the road past him. He scowled before pulling up his map. Several black dots were driving outside of the patterns of the other vehicles, and Kurt felt a chill run down his spine. He thumbed the call icon for Jimmy, and then for Gadot as he began looking for a place to hide from the Goons.

  Jimmy answered right away. “You survive?”

  “What? Oh, right. Thanks for chucking me out of a plane, dick!” He hesitated, remembering the experience and softening his tone. “I made it fine, but I still need to work on my landing. I’m in the cluster, and there’s Goons literally everywhere. What’s going on?” Kurt walked while talking, making sure not to look at his wrist. He tried to scan the passing windows as if he were just another civilian NPC walking the road.

  Gadot chimed in next. “Show of force, they do this kind of thing sometimes. Trying to remind us that they own the city. If it’s a PK patrol routine, they’ll drive around killing any players they find. Best to avoid them, if you engage one group the rest will come swarming.”

  Kurt nodded to himself, remembering to be inconspicuous only after the action. “Will do. Any tips on getting a safehouse?”

  “Yeah, get a turf-less one. The way the Goons are right now, going through the hassle of turf won’t be worth it.” Jimmy sounded annoyed.

  The sound of a car door came through from Gadot’s side. “Agreed. Once we knock them down a peg and get things back to normal, turf will come in handy. A regular safehouse is just storage, but it’s still pretty much a requirement. Call your attaché, they can help.”

  Jimmy chuckled briefly. “Yeah, attachés are pretty great for pointing you in the right direction. It’d be a pain to find everything on your own every time. You just tell them roughly what you want and they give you a bunch of options. Sadly, they only operate with clean money, even if its stuff you can usually buy with dirty.”

  “Cool, thanks guys.” Kurt was about to disconnect, but scowled as Gadot’s voice came through again.

  “Hey Jimmy, what are you up to right now?” She sounded different to Kurt, less sure of herself.

  “About to hit the range and learn how to use this new heavy-ass gun of mine. You need some muscle?” Jimmy was being strangely polite.

  “Uh, no not really. You mind if I join you at the range though? I have a new rifle I need to work on too.” Her voice was almost pleasant, causing Kurt’s eyes to narrow slightly.

  He decided to intervene. “Stop being nice you two, it’s weirding me out.”

  Jimmy was quick to put a stop to him. “You can hang up. Pretty sure we don’t need your sass. Shouldn’t you be off buying a safe house or something anyway? Get lost! Go! Do work!”

  Kurt disconnected with a chuckle, stopping next to a fine dining restaurant. Another GoonStorm patrol made him decide to duck inside and get a table. While waiting for a server to notice him, Kurt pulled up his notifications to look at his new reputation gains.

  The Lace.

  The Lace is a secretive group of high end heisters. Your discretion and ability have raised your standing to a degree, but much more work will be required to become a trusted ally. With notable risk comes higher than average rewards, and high stakes work seems to be common within The Lace.

  Current Rank: 2

  Current Contacts: “Crane” “Gadot”

  Jobs successfully completed: 2

  Pulled from his musings by a waiter in a stark white apron, Kurt swiped his phone away and smiled at the NPC. After ordering a coffee, he called his attaché. Sipping his coffee while listening to her explain the purchasing options for a safehouse, he quickly realized the options were far too vast for him to explore in a single night. He decided to get something thematically resonant with his faction, with a hidden entrance. Nearly choking at the ten-million-dollar price tag, he forced himself to stop caring about the money so much and ordered it. His attaché paused for a moment before cheerfully informing him the safehouse was his, and that she would be to his location shortly with the key.

  He sat quietly for a moment as he watched the people in the restaurant and out on the street moving around in a facsimile of day to day life. Kurt found his mind going back to his friend, and the way he had moved on his crutches earlier in the day. Jimmy’s nonchalant attitude about being in a wheelchair in a few years bothered Kurt, and he took the time to think about it more. He knew his friend hid his problems from the world and acted like nothing bothered him, but Kurt had grown up with the man and knew better. As he sat and sipped his coffee, Kurt suddenly made the choice to look up the real world exchange rate for in game money.

  The menu was fairly straightforward, and showed what the exchange primarily did for players. One could purchase in game money with real money, but the exchange was fully player operated. Only other players could buy or sell their in game money. Blacklight Industries took a two percent cut for operating the exchange, and enforced a minimum sale amount. Players could only purchase in game money in bundles of at least one million dollars.

  In typical auction house format, the exchange was full of bundles undercutting one another by a single dollar, along with other equally sleazy but effective financial tactics. Auctions raged back and forth under several categories, but the most commonly exchanged bundles were the small single million dollar packs, which were all ranging around the hundred dollar mark in real world money. Quickly doing some math on his phone, he scowled. Three billion in game currency wouldn’t quite cover the surgery Jimmy needed, but it would be a large step in the right direction. Kurt sighed and exited the exchange, the inkling of an idea beginning to form in his mind as he focused on easier things.

  Swiping to his equipment screen, Kurt happily thumbed the ‘shop’ button under his new Glock. A list of websites selling the weapon sprang onto his display, and he thumbed the top option, purchasing two backup pistols, as well as two extended magazines for the weapon. The Glock came with a magazine that could hold 17 rounds, but Kurt had immediately decided that was nowhere near enough for his purposes. He chose a long tower style magazine that held 33 rounds, and shrugged as he splurged on an odd looking drum magazine that could expend 50 rounds.

  Swiping through the shopping options, Kurt smiled and sipped at his coffee. Inventory management had always been something he enjoyed. Next up on his list was a vehicle, and the sheer number of options was staggering. He swiped through various vehicle shopping websites before deciding to just get something for now and worry about more specific vehicles another time. Glancing through the options, he chose a filter based on price and instantly found a winner. For a mere ten thousand, he bought a 1953 Volkswagon Beetle with a full off-road conversion package. The vehicle had its wheel wells removed,
to make room for the oversized off-road tires. Its engine was exposed, with a more robust exhaust profile raising up behind the rear window. Aggressive suspension upgrades rounded out the conversion, ensuring a rugged vehicle that Kurt felt would cover any bases he required of it.

  His attaché sat down at the table across from him, causing him to jump slightly. He had been engrossed in his shopping and hadn’t noticed her enter. She smiled and slid a tarnished copper colored key across the table to him, before motioning to his side with her eyes. He looked down to see a shopping bag with his weapons and extended magazines in it, and when he looked back up, the attaché was already to the door of the restaurant. Standing up with a shrug, Kurt pulled up his map and marked the safehouse location, checking for GoonStorm before he exited the shop. He noticed his clean cash had dropped to 25.5 million, and shrugged again as he exited. Easy come, easy go.

  Kurt followed the GPS directions to a nearby subway station, then down into the tunnels beneath the street. He began to get a little nervous that he had purchased the same style safe house that Gadot used as a meeting hall, but was surprised when the GPS lead him to a subway train sitting at the platform. He followed the trail of the GPS down to the rear car, where it ended with a cheerful proclamation that he had reached his destination. Looking around, he saw nothing but the train car and various passengers moving onto and off of the train.

  The doors on the last car didn’t open along with the rest of them, and no NPCs were lining up to board it either. When he looked closer, he saw that the windows were blacked out with what looked like old newspapers and electrical tape. A simple door lock was present on the doors, and he decided to try his new key. The door slid open with a metallic scream and a tiny shower of rust particles. Stepping inside with a grimace, Kurt’s face fell.

  “Oh good. I bought the world’s most expensive shit heap.” He looked around, morosely taking in his surroundings. The train car was in a state of severe neglect, with the seats displaying gouges in the hard plastic and graffiti sprays in random locations. The train lurched into motion as he brought up his safehouse information, causing him to stagger with an annoyed expression. It indicated he had storage space for three outfits, one extra suit of armor, three spare firearms, and one million in dirty cash.

  Looking around, he quickly found the outfits and armor storage area. A broken plastic mannequin torso was glued down to a seat, underneath three metal wire hangers dangling pathetically to the motion of the train. With a sigh, he turned and found the weapons and cash storage nearby, in the form of two cardboard boxes underneath a seat. One was labeled ‘gunz’ and the other ‘muney’. Kurt found the intentional misspelling more distressing than anything else, and raised his wrist to pull up the safehouse screen again.

  This time he noticed a small number at the top right corner of the screen, displaying 1/5. Raising his eyebrow, he thumbed the button and was overjoyed when an upgrade menu popped to the front of his display. Happily paying the million-dollar upgrade price, he sighed in relief when his surroundings instantly changed. The window informed him he had storage room for ten outfits, three suits of armor, ten firearms, and two million in dirty cash.

  The train’s seats had reverted to an older form, with wooden backs and small cloth cushions. Graffiti no longer graced his walls, having been replaced with burnished metal dotted by lines of rivets. The windows were still blocked out, but now they had fresh looking wooden slats over them, perfectly matched to the wooden seats. He glanced at the seat behind him to see the broken mannequin and hangers were gone. In their place stood three wooden body racks, similar to what could be found in a tailor’s shop, in front of an open armoire style wardrobe. A thick metal briefcase was underneath the seat where the ‘muney’ box had been before, and a wooden rack with hooks for weapons was pinned to the wall above it.

  Kurt happily placed his new Glocks on the rack next to his old starter Beretta, equipping the long magazine to the weapon he carried. It jutted far out from the butt of the weapon, but his underarm holster still allowed the weapon. He decided he just had to be careful about which magazine he equipped when he was trying to be sneaky, as the extended magazine jutted from the front of the suit coat. Leaving the drum magazine in his weapons storage rack for the moment, he patted his pockets to discover the safehouse key had transformed into a plastic keycard.

  With that realization came another; gnawing hunger had set in. No amount of mental coffee consumption would stop his actual hunger, so he made the decision to log off for some dinner. After sending a goodnight text to Jimmy and Gadot, which they ignored, he sat back in one of the seats and swiped to the logoff option. A screen popped up to inform him that logging off for eight hours in his safehouse would provide a six-hour buff of 25% increased skill EXP. That settled his internal debate to log back in later, and he called it a night with the press of a button.

  The world around him faded gently to black, his senses being switched back to the real world. He sat up from his plug-in couch with a yawn, stretching and heading towards the kitchen. His ears quickly picked up the sounds of his parents eating dinner and he glanced at his phone to see the time was nearly eight-o-clock at night.

  Entering the kitchen, he smiled at his parents and moved to the counter to see what his father had made for dinner. Kurt’s father had been a welder until the robotic workforce implementation phased out most tasks for people, and he found a passion for cooking after he had lost his job. His mother had been a tattoo artist for most of her adult life, so her profession was never under threat from robotic replacement. Robotic tattoo parlors did exist, but they were generally shunned as lower in quality than a genuine human artist.

  Following the air laden with hints of an Italian meal to the kitchen, he was pleased to discover spaghetti with sausage and peppers, and hurriedly filled a plate. He plopped down into a seat at the table and began eating, ravenous from his day.

  “Thanks for dinner dad, this is pretty great.” He spoke with his mouth full, his time at college having dulled his manners somewhat.

  “Kurtis. Don’t be pedestrian.” His mother’s favorite insult, covering a wide range of undesirable behavior.

  He finished chewing his mouthful and swallowed carefully, making a big show of daintily dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin before speaking again. “Apologies mother dearest, I shall endeavor to comport myself with greater cordiality in the future.”

  “MMMmm I love it when he talks fancy. Really makes those years at college seem worthwhile.” His father’s eyes twinkled as he gently ribbed his son.

  Kurt sighed and put his fork down. “I am actually sorry about that, believe it or not.” He looked morose for a moment, before shaking his head and starting to eat again. “I dunno what I’m going to do though.”

  “Plenty of ways to get an education son.” His mother’s dismissive attitude towards his college fumble had begun to bother Kurt, but he knew better than to press her when she was like this. He had seen her shut down on subjects that upset her before, and it was often best to just let her come around on her own.

  “Well, its fine for now anyway. Your mother and I don’t mind supporting you while you figure things out.” His father looked pointedly at his mother while speaking, though his tone was gentle and polite as ever. Kurt suspected they had been fighting about him.

  “It’s good to think about options. Options which have become rather limited in recent years, and now even more limited without some form of higher education. Are you considering a different school yet?” His mother had the irritating habit of not looking at him while speaking when she was annoyed or angry.

  He stared at her full sleeve tattoo for a moment before responding. “No.” Kurt took a deep breath and waited for a storm that didn’t come. When his mother looked over to him, he continued. “I didn’t fail school on purpose, but I did fail it. I’m not cut out for it Mom, and while I’m sorry about that, it’s just how things are. I don’t see myself going to school anym
ore.”

  She looked at him for a moment before repeating herself in a measured manner. “Your options will be much more limited without an education Kurtis.”

  “I know. I dunno, maybe dogs…” He burned with shame at his failures, contemplating the napkin in his lap.

  “Every third grader in the neighborhood has their own dog walking service Kurtis, you have to be realistic about this. You can’t just spend your life…” She faded out there, noticing a steady stare from her husband. “I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for you Kurt. Take your time and figure things out, we’re here for you.”

  Later on, when his mother had gone to her study to work on her designs, Kurt approached his father in their living room to talk. His father had the habit of watching old movies, and Kurt had always appreciated their shared hobby. That night his father was watching I, Robot.

  “Oh, Will Smith! He’s a fun one.” Kurt flopped down into an oversized loveseat, his feet dangling off the arm.

  “Well, sure. Early stuff anyway. He got all weird and artsy towards the end of his career, but the actiony films were really his strength.” Sipping at his drink, his father smiled to see him enjoying the film. “Seven Pounds was legit though.”

  “I could never get past the vegan dog in that one.” He snorted at the thought, shifting his mental gears. “The nepotism wasn’t exactly a career highlight either, but I guess it’s to be expected. Plus, his kid was actually pretty talented.” Happily arranging himself to be more comfortable, Kurt chuckled at the dialog on screen while the main character obsessed over a sweet potato pie.