The Life- Illusion

by Lincoln Greene

  Jimmy reflexively covered himself and took a step backward with a heavy grimace, but the pain appeared to fade quite quickly. He looked at her sideways, and then re-approached for the hug, arms out questioningly. This time she embraced him, giving Kurt a wicked look over his friend’s shoulder.

  Kurt approached next, hands protectively over his crotch. “Hi Kitty. Please don’t kick me.”

  She appeared to ponder his request for a moment, raising one hand to her chin. “Oh alright. Since you asked nicely. C’mere you gorgeous idiot!” They embraced shortly, and when Kurt pulled away, she clung to him for a moment, making him push at her to let go.

  “What is that?!” He shoved her back slightly, referencing the sharp bulks he had felt pressed against him during the hug.

  Kitty looked confused for a moment, before her face lit up. “Oh you mean my ladies!” Stepping back, she yanked open the long wool peacoat she was wearing, taking a wide legged stance and throwing her head back to the sky.

  Holstered in a long bandoleer across her chest were four flintlock handguns. Their handles were shining dark wood, and their barrels a burnished iron. She looked back down at them, clearly amused to play on their expectations. Kitty also had a strange looking gun in a hanging holster at the center of her belt, dangling obscenely. It shared the look of the flintlocks’ handles, with a lighter color wood and rounded copper tipped grip. The gun had a picatinny rail across its top and a modern trigger system, causing Kurt to stare at it in confusion. Kitty noticed his gaze and gave him a lurid wink, dropping her coat slightly and rubbing it back and forth across her shoulders while wiggling the holster between her legs. He blushed and looked away, causing her to laugh.

  “Oh come on Kurtis, you’re too easy. Let’s get inside guys, we can talk out of the noise.” Kitty raised an arm in the air and spun it, causing four Pirates around the edges of the party to start moving towards them. Once they were in front of a metal door, she spun a wheel on it and swung it open, stepping inside. Her crew members followed her in, each wearing a distinct set of weapons and armor.

  Kurt hung back as Jimmy and Gadot went in, staring back towards the deck. He felt the drag on his attention of the perception skill, drawing his gaze down onto the deck. Looking up at him from the middle of the party’s dance floor, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and white khaki pants, was Jimbo.

  15. Cloak and Dagger

  Chapter 15

  Cloak and Dagger

  Anger clouded Kurt’s expression, and he stepped past the door, quickly scaling the handrail and dropping to the lower deck. Jimbo didn’t wait for him, sidling through the crowd and dodging Kurt to jog around the tanker’s tower and approach the front deck. The mental magnetism of Kurt’s perception skill drew his attention to the area of the ship Jimbo had ducked around.

  Drawing his Glock, Kurt darted around the corner of the tanker’s tower, weaving between party goers and shouldering a few aside. The bow of the ship was clear of people, being somewhat more boring than the main deck, as it was apparently used for storage. As he chased after Jimbo, the hint of a plan came into his mind and his anger vanished. He halted his run and began walking casually, more details rushing into his mind as he realized the opportunity that had fallen in his lap.

  Kurt approached the very tip of the bow, following the natural path Jimbo must have taken while weaving through oversized crates and scattered supplies, including an open crate of oversized munition shells. Muted music and cheering was audible, floating and echoing across the ships and ocean around them. Jimbo stood casually, leaning against the lip of the railing and looking back at Kurt as he came around the corner with a wry smile.

  With an overt movement, Kurt holstered his gun, approaching instead with hands before him in the universal gesture for ‘slow down.’ “Hey Jimbo. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Jimbo paused, his eyes wide for a moment. “Big believer in co-incidence?”

  Kurt allowed himself a quick laugh. “Not so much, no.” He put his hands in his hip pockets, coat jacket pushed back to allow a view of his new magnum. He hoped Jimbo would take it as a slip up, and was pleased to see his opponent’s eyes hungrily take in the weapon. “I assume you’re off to report this development to the Goons?”

  A shrug and a teasing frown was his only reply.

  Nodding in turn, Kurt gave Jimbo a raised eyebrow. “So you know what’s going on here then?” He leaned against a guardrail, looking up at the sky.

  Jimbo scowled, his head turned slightly to the side. “…Yes?” A smile suddenly broke out on his features and he smiled at Kurt. “Why don’t you tell me? It’s rude to tease a spy with information.”

  Kurt sighed. “GoonStorm is buying out the Pirates and they’re buying out The Ursa.” He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “And here I am, stuck playing the white hat who gives a shit about saving this server.”

  “…so you…don’t care?” Jimbo looked skeptical, and his hand moved to his sidearm casually.

  Kurt leveled his gaze at Jimbo, holding eye contact and nodding. “Oh, I care. Just not about Illusion.”

  Jimbo fully scowled, looking down at the deck beneath Kurt’s feet. “You can’t steal the buyout.” He squinted and shook his head. “No one can.”

  “You know what all the best heist flicks have? The one element that makes them the most fun, the most…sexy?” Kurt raised a corner of one lip, cocking his head to the side. “An inside man.”

  With that, Kurt turned to leave. He paused for a moment, turning to look over his shoulder. “You said you were interested before. Well, my endgame is somewhere in the neighborhood of three billion in dirty cash. How interesting do you find that?” Not looking over his shoulder as he walked away was excruciating.

  He heard a splash, which was quickly followed by a jet ski engine revving as it left the area. Shaking his head as he walked back around the corner, Kurt hoped he had done the right thing. Either way, things were in motion. Jimbo was his only way to get to the buyout. A glance at his wrist showed him a level up in the perception skill, and Kurt scowled at its mercurial nature and description.

  Primary

  Perception. Rank 3 (Interaction)

  “a man’s mind is wont to tell him more than Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower.” -Rudyard Kipling, 1918

  Noticing that which is not always obvious is a critical survival skill. Certain objects of use may become “focused” or pinged to the map. NPC interactions may also become more overt to the player. Chances of both benefits occurrences increase with rank.

  Kurt glared at his wrist, before sighing and shaking his head at the inscrutable skill. “Guess I’m supposed to just be good at noticing things for this one…” He muttered to himself as he moved back towards the dancefloor, blending into the outskirts of the crowd.

  16. The Ocean’s Delight

  Chapter 16

  The Ocean’s Delight

  His idea set in motion, Kurt slipped through the crowd, moving to stand near a group of other people clustered around a frantically working bartender. He took a place in the loosely formed line, and began bobbing his head along to the music, seemingly quite into it. Kurt didn’t have to wait long before he heard a sharp whistle from overhead and looked up to see a man on the upper deck gesturing towards his area. As he watched, the man raised a rifle with a large scope on top of it and pointed it directly at him. Two other men forced their way through the crowd towards him, armed better than the average Pirate.

  The first to reach him had a soul patch that extended down into a short braid, and glared at him from under a red bandana wrapped around his head. He shoved at Kurt with a short barreled SPAS-12 shotgun. “You’re expected upstairs.” His words were spoken between grit teeth, his finger twitching near the shotguns trigger.

  Kurt glanced over at him dismissively, swaying slightly to the music. “Right on, can I get my drink first or what?”

  A shorter man sidled up on the other side of Kurt, his large black military rifle still in a sli
ng around his back. He had neatly parted hair, and a pair of rose colored glasses resting above his smile. “The Queen has a full bar in the meeting room. Would you kindly come with us please?” A hint of a German accent was clear, and the man’s demeanor was vastly friendlier than his counterpart.

  With a shrug, Kurt stepped out of line and followed the Pirates back up into the meeting room. Long burgundy curtains covered the windows of what used to be a navigation room, large sonar devices and other equipment was scattered around the room or poorly hidden beneath cloth drapes. Gadot and Jimmy were seated at a long table, both of them glaring daggers at him when he walked in. He was sure to adopt a confused expression, raising his arms out to the side in a half shrug.

  “Off to a great start!” Kitty grinned at him from across the table, her smile decidedly predatory. “What were you doing Kurtis?” Her voice remained high and light, a false air of pleasantness firmly embedded.

  Carefully managing his facial expressions to maintain a confused air, Kurt pointed a thumb behind him towards the door. “They’re handing out some kind of jugs at the bar down there.”

  Jimmy blinked once, hard. Then he burst out laughing and leaned forward on the table, putting his face into one hand. Gadot didn’t move, she just glared at Kurt from her position beside Jimmy.

  Kitty magnanimously swept an arm at a fully stocked bar to the rear of the room. “By all means Kurtis, help yourself.” The smile she gave him did little to make him think he had fooled her.

  Kurt gave the room a small smile as he walked over to the bar. After fiddling with bottles for a moment, moving them around and picking them up and down, he turned back crestfallen. “There’s no jugs in this one…” His tone was slightly whining, and Kitty mechanically turned her head to coldly stare at him.

  Her smile didn’t change as she leaned back in her chair. Slowly prying her narrowing eyes off Kurt, she turned and addressed an NPC behind her. “Would you get us a jug from downstairs please?” Kitty’s expression was cemented on her face, her patience obviously wearing thin. Kurt glanced at his phone as he sat down, happily noticing a bump in his dishonesty skillset. Whether or not he had fooled the pirate queen, most everyone else had believed his act. Liar had jumped to rank nine, Underhanded went up to rank six, and Obfuscation was creeping well into rank four. The combination of those three stacking skills was becoming powerful.

  “ANYway!” Jimmy broke the atmosphere of mistrust. “We have a proposal for you.”

  Kitty’s icy gaze shifted to Jimmy. “Funny, I could have sworn you came to beg for my help.”

  Kurt spoke up from his new seat beside Jimmy and Gadot, an unassuming expression on his face. “Both, really.”

  Kitty waved a hand dismissively. “Spit it out guys, we’ve got a raid in an hour.”

  Gadot raised her hands from the table, keeping her wrists in place and effectively silencing Kurt and Jimmy. “We need your help to stop GoonStorm, which we feel would be in your best interests.”

  “The one point five billion they’re offering for my turf would be in my best interests too, I’m sure you understand.” Kitty blinked innocently, offering a demure smile.

  “Really Kitty? Pretty sure that’s not how you operate.” Jimmy returned her stare until she stuck out her tongue at him. “This crew is based on merit and equality. We’re not vicious marauders, we’re plucky rogues, and we EARN every coin we make. You expect us to believe…you expect ME to believe you’d ever take a bribe like that and screw everyone under you?” His eyes never left hers, and there was nothing but steel in his expression.

  “Yeah, alright. Just trying to make you squirm a little. Always forget you don’t rattle easy.” She looked back as the NPC returned with an opaque ceramic jug, pointing at Kurt with an unimpressed look on her face. “GoonStorm won’t get our turf without a fight, but I’ve been leading them on a little. Keeps the peace on the border, for the most part.” She kicked her booted feet up onto the desk before her, crossing her legs and leaning back comfortably. “Unless some idiots go tearing through their raids, getting them all…bristly and doing drive-bys at shadows, of course.” Kitty waggled her hands at them for that last part, unimpressed by their recent antics.

  Kurt happily accepted his jug from the NPC, grinning like an idiot when the wooden cork made a hollow popping noise as he yanked it out. He took a big slug of the liquid inside and immediately began choking, spluttering as he bent double and disappeared from view below the table momentarily. “Oh man, that’s horrible. What the hell is that stuff?!”

  “Rum.” Kitty graced him with another of her patient smiles. “Classic original recipe. That’s what rum tasted like a thousand years ago. It’s a retrieved piece of history. A miracle that you can hold, touch, and taste. The plants to make the spices are extinct, the only known seeds in a vault under Switzerland.” Her expression became severe, her disappointment clear. “And you choke on it. Call it…horrible.” Her lips curled up a bit on one side, she looked crestfallen, and nodded slowly to herself.

  “Yeah, it’s gross.” Kurt smiled at her, setting the jug down. “Thanks though, it was cool to try it.”

  “Right.” Kitty sat up again, leaning forward on the table and tossing her crown across it. “What the hell were we talking about?” She snapped her fingers. “Ah! GoonStorm. Yeah, you guys really riled them up, kicked the old proverbial hornets’ nest there. War is all but certain.”

  Gadot shot Kurt an annoyed glance. “Is it a war you can win?”

  “Of course. Not against both them and The Ursa, mind. But one or the other shouldn’t be a problem.” She winked. “Something tells me you have those cranky Russians all lined up though. Interesting events in the theme park today. Apparently, a three-man squad of GoonStorm officers gave Ursa a HELL of a hard time. A stealth specialist, a walking tank, and some kind of female sniper who drives like a demon.” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “Sound like anybody you know?”

  Gadot flushed slightly, shifting the repeating rifle at her back. “I can’t just sit back and let GoonStorm take the city.”

  Kitty nodded, propping her head in her hand, elbow planted on the table. “Yeah, I can see that. And you’ve somehow seduced my JimJam into your little crusade. Best officer I ever had.” She quickly turned to her gathered officer group. “No offense guys. You’re good, but Jimmy here…he’s something else entirely.”

  Jimmy lowered his head a bit, eyes on the table in front of him. “Shut up Kitty.” He shook his head slightly, embarrassment hot on his cheeks.

  “You say that, but do you really think it’s likely to happen?” She grinned at him, her predatory smile returned. “Anyway. No, I’m not taking the buyout.”

  “Then…” Gadot looked hopeful, perking up a bit.

  Kitty rolled her eyes. “Also no, I’m not picking a fight with them. If they come calling, we’ll throw em a party. But I’m not going to war if it’s not in my crew’s best interests.” She shrugged with her hands. “Basic stuff, really.”

  Gadot shook her head, frustrated once more. “They won’t split their forces. If you turn them down, they’ll come for you sooner or later, but the ONLY way to beat them is if you AND Ursa team up. Why can’t you see that?!”

  Fixing her with an icy glare, Kitty rolled her shoulders slightly. “Maybe I can see it. Maybe I just don’t like you. You storm into our city from the competitive side and suddenly decide what policy is best for us all?” She nodded at Gadot’s surprised expression. “Oh yes, I know who you are, Getaway. Tell me again why I should risk everything my crew has built on this little crusade of yours?”

  “That’s not fair, Kitty.” Kurt spoke up finally. “Just because we’re small, we don’t count? Your crew is the only one with anything to risk? Look how much we’ve done already.” He narrowed his eyes slightly and cocked his head just a fraction. “You should know better than most what a small crew can accomplish, if properly motivated.”

  Kitty leaned back in her chair again, raising a hand to her chin as she
fixed Kurt with one of her looks. After a long moment, she nodded. “I like you better when you’re not pretending to be stupid with me Kurtis.” She fixed him with an unusually serious gaze for a moment. “You’re not wrong. And I do remember the good old days. We kicked a lot of ass together. Tell you what, I’ll help.” She stared at them, a small smile on her lips.

  Jimmy sighed slightly. “If?”

  Her smile got wider as she shook her head. “No if. I’ll help this city, this server, all I can, because you’re right. Our interests align.”

  His eyes narrowing, Jimmy looked between Kitty and Gadot. “…But?”

  “Yes, but. It’s not an ‘if’, it’s a ‘but.’ I like buts…” Kitty shrugged, looking around at her gathered officers. “We have a resource issue. It’s why GoonStorm thinks they can buy us out in the first place. It’s also why we’re hitting one of the biggest raids in the game tonight. We need the income.”

  Gadot shifted in her seat, interested. “Which raid?”

  “The Ocean’s Delight.” Kitty looked down at the table as she spoke.

  “The cruise ship? That’s a great spot, plenty of different raids to hit. Which one are we talking about for tonight?” Jimmy had also perked up, happy to talk shop.

  “Uhh, yeah. All of them.” Kitty’s eyebrows raised a bit. “Like I said, we’ve got financial issues. GoonStorm didn’t start off by asking nicely for our turf, they’ve been encroaching on us for almost a year already. Rouge?”

  A woman in her thirties stepped forward from her place at the door. She wore a sleeveless hooded sweatshirt, and lowered the hood as she approached the table. Her hair was jet black, in a braid tucked down inside the sweatshirt, with various feathers and ribbons woven into it. She wore burgundy face paint in streaks underneath her eyes, and tapped at the air above her wrist for a moment before holding her arm out to Jimmy, Kurt, and Gadot. “These maps represent our turf at the start of last year, and progress with each major change. The latest is from a week ago, just before the official buyout offer was made.”