The Life- Illusion

by Lincoln Greene

  Quickly checking his pockets, Kurt produced one, feeling its replacement form in the pocket he had removed it from. “Yep, standing order for me.”

  “Smart. Wags can raise a racket in them, but down here that won’t matter. If we can hold the engine room until the Tug arrives, we’ll have done our part.” Rouge dropped the magazine out of her gun, checked it, and slapped it back in place. “The engine room is big, lots of guards and wags.” She scowled at that, looking back at Kurt. “Civvies. We do Scallywags for civvies, usually just wags, Company for cops, and any variation of treasure for money.”

  “Cool. We do Bulls, Toasters, and Dosh.” Kurt nodded at her as he finished, not noticing that she was ignoring him, her head poking out the nearby door.

  Rouge squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, before turning back to him. “Ok, gonna try not to rip you too hard, cause you’re new. You’re on our run, so me telling you our terms is considered a courtesy. It’s just so you don’t look stupid in front of the rest of the crew. I don’t need your terms in exchange or anything.” She blinked a couple of times, looking sideways at him seriously. “Those suck, by the way. You’re cool…but those suck.”

  “Right.” Kurt drew his Walther and nodded towards the door, trying not to act as embarrassed as he felt. “What’s on the other side for me to screw up?”

  “What, through here?” Rouge shoved the door and let it swing open to show two rows of lockers in a room not much bigger than the one they were in.

  Kurt sighed in slight frustration, before shrugging and moving through the room to the next door. This time he swung it open a crack on his own, peeking out into the area beyond. The already loud sound of machinery became deafening, and Rouge had to shout to be heard above it as she stepped up beside the door.

  “OK! In the next area there are two main engine blocks, with four hallways running along either side of them! Above those are the catwalks, which will also have guards, and sometimes wags! We split up and take one engine each! Kill the guards, tie down the wags, then when we get the signal we shut down the engines!” She started to move in a crouch through the door, but hesitated, turning back to face him. “I almost forgot! There’s a first aid room and a break room around here somewhere, but the location changes all the time! Each of those has a panic button that sounds a ship wide alarm, so be super careful when clearing them out! OK, good to go?!” Rouge winced, thinking of a coms channel a bit later than it would have been useful, and patched in a call with just the two of them. “Good to go.” She slipped out of the door and started making her way towards the left side of the engine room, leaving the right to Kurt.

  Upon exiting the locker room, he immediately pulled up his map and began watching the guards and civilian NPCs within range. The guards were denoted by a cone of vision in red, while the civilians cone of vision appeared in a light blue color. Approaching a corner of the massive engine block, he peeked around it to take in the corridor. Two guards stood in place, watching over a civilian work team of two men in yellow jumpsuits. The civilians were working on part of the engine, with a guard on the catwalk above and one standing just behind them.

  Glancing at his map again, Kurt noticed a patrol approaching and watched from his hiding place as the third guard entered the area. Nodding to himself, Kurt stepped out from his hiding place and rushed forward. He raised his Walther and shot the two guards on the ground level once each, dropping them before he raised his gun and took down the third guard. His aim was low, and took the guard in the stomach. The man fell forward, tipping over the rail and landing with a clatter behind the civilian workers.

  Kurt stepped closer, pointing his gun at both of them and motioning to get on the ground with the barrel. They immediately complied, and submitted to the zip ties he applied to them. Dragging both men to their feet, he checked his map and hauled them back into the locker room before zip tying their legs together and leaving them in place. He attempted to glance at his map, but found a new skill notification awaiting his inspection.

  Specialist

  Small Bore Rank 1. (Combat)

  “9mm vs 45. ACP? Bickering about caliber effectiveness is for people who can hit the ten ring. Argue less, practice more.” -Unknown.

  Bigger doesn’t always mean better. Small caliber firearms have a niche role that only they can fill. 2% Reduction in map ‘ping’ notification for small caliber discharges. 2% Reduction in cost for exotic ammunition and weapon modifications.

  “Huh. Guess in a training center I only get EXP on skills I already have unlocked.” He added the new specialist skill to his watch list directly next to Magnum Force and closed out his phone. Once that task was accomplished, Kurt returned to the hallway and discovered the guard’s bodies were still in place. He frowned and glanced at the map, noting more guards milling about in their own areas and only a few actually patrolling. The bodies not dusting out must be a stealth mechanic, he decided as he moved to intercept a guard approaching.

  A handful of additional guards and civilians later, he had secured most of his area, with one notably large cluster of both in a room off from the engine block area. He frowned and attempted to zoom out on his map, only to discover it was at its maximum range for his skill level and did not allow him to see what was happening on Rouges side. A quick shake of his head and he decided to reach out. “How’s it going over there?” His spoke in a normal tone of voice, certain she could hear him above the engine noise.

  “Uhh, yeah. Good, why?” Rouge sounded more concerned about his progress than her own, and immediately made him self-conscious.

  “No, I’m fine. Wasn’t aware bodies didn’t dust out in stealth is all.” He paused. “Also, I have a big cluster up ahead, think it might be the breakroom.”

  “Ah, sorry. Yeah, a bunch of stuff is slightly different in stealth mode. If you drop a magazine, it also stays around until you break stealth.” He could hear her weapon fire a burst. “And I’m done, I’ll come join you. It’s definitely the breakroom, I already cleared out the first aid joint.”

  “I’m not too proud to accept help, this is a lot of wags.” Kurt happily reloaded his Walther and leaned back against the wall in a crouch, waiting for Rouge to arrive while watching his map. She surprised him by showing up in the hallway in front of him, but not appearing on his map until he actually saw her. “Your stealth skills must be up there.”

  Her eyes went up and to the side as she considered. “Yep, most of them are maxed out. I’ve been doing this for the Pirates since before Jimmy was raid lead. The specialist ones can be a bit…creative I guess?”

  Rouge noticed him staring at the air above his wrist and glanced at her own. “For example, the map stuff gets ridiculous after a few levels. Progress on that one crawls and most people give up on it. But there’s a trick to it.” A brief smile flashed across her features as she saw his full attention on her. “Glance at it, then act on that information. The longer you look at the map, the lower the xp bonus.”

  Kurt thought about that for a moment, still looking at his map. “So basically, since I’ve been sitting here staring at this next room, I won’t be getting much xp once we clear it?”

  “Not map xp, no. Everything else has its own specific weird little rules. You can look up some of them on the forums, that can be a big help. But a lot of this game is just word of mouth or trial and error. People are pretty tight lipped, and we don’t have the community size Brescia had.” She shrugged while checking the magazine in her tiny SMG. “This place is cleared out aside from the breakroom, so I’m ready to breach when you are.”

  With a quick nod, Kurt stood and pressed the flat of his hand to the swinging door. He counted to three with his fingers still pressed to the door, and then shoved it open while moving aside for Rouge. The breakroom was populated by roughly a dozen civilian engineers in jumpsuits clustered around a table with what looked like a birthday cake in the center, bright blue frosting glaring from the plate. Three guards looked up sharply at the intrusion and imm
ediately reached for weapons.

  Rouge stepped forward and raised her gun, shouting in a suddenly commanding tone. “GET ON THE GROUND!!” She took one handed aim at a nearby guard, and they opened fire on one another simultaneously. Going down with a pained grunt, Rouge crawled under a table while clutching her stomach.

  Kurt’s eyes widened as he leaned back and allowed the door to provide him some cover. He noticed the civilians had not bothered to comply with Rouge, having seen their security supposedly deal with her, and one of them was hesitantly moving towards a bright red panic button on the nearby wall. His hand went to the patch of grenades at the small of his back and he shouted at Rouge while tossing a tube into the middle of the room. “Hey Rouge! Over here!”

  She turned and glared at him in confusion as he shut the door an instant before a shockingly loud concussive explosion sounded in the middle of the room. Kurt entered again, raising his Walther and dealing with the remaining two guards, now dazed and helpless. Rouge was on the floor, cradling her head with ears covered, rocking back and forth slightly while the effects of the flashbang wore off and bits of bright blue cake dripped from the ceiling.

  Kurt busied himself with zip tying the civilians, who were all in various states of distress, none of them capable of much more than holding their ears and moaning. When he saw Rouge stand up and move to zip tie other civilians, he waved meekly at her, a concerned grimace of a smile on his face. “…Sorry…”

  Rouge shook her head. “No way, that was exactly the right move. We were losing control.” She paused a moment, looking at him with eyes narrowed. “I honestly wasn’t expecting a new player to just unload on the wags like that though. Or me for that matter. Most of you guys are all concerned about the NPCs, treating them like real people. Or…you know…rampaging against them. Not this calculated thing anyway.” She turned back to her task with a shrug. “Usually takes a while for people to start treating them like the game mechanic they actually are.”

  “Eh. We’re the bad guys, but it’s like the old movies. It’s a job. Only hurt em if you need to, but don’t hesitate to when that time comes.” He thought for a moment, moving from civilian to civilian with his zip ties. “Actually…as a thank you for the map skill tip, and by way of apologizing for flash banging you, I have a pointer of my own. If that Uzi variant you use is 9mm, you can load it with Rat Shot for a quick and easy way to blow tires.” He looked back to her, seeing her eyebrow raised in interest. “I like blind-firing a drum mag of it out the door of a moving car. You blow out all the tires in a line and basically shut down the lane behind you as you go.”

  She frowned in thought for a moment before shrugging. “Rat Shot is usually…you know, garbage ammo, but that actually makes a lot of sense. Thanks, I’ll try it.” Rouge turned back to their task, nodding to herself as she went over the idea. After they had finished, she looked around the room with her hands on her hips and smiled. “Not bad. Usually much more difficult to clear this place. Here.” She reached in a pocket and produced a palm fitted silver ball that opened to display a geode interior filled with jagged red crystals. Nestled in the center was her card.

  Shadow

  Rouge Worrier

  Kurt took the card with a smile, reaching to give her his in exchange. She tipped him a salute with it, before stuffing it into a pocket without bothering to read it. As he pocketed hers, he glanced to his wrist to watch her name appear on his contacts list. “Yay, stealth friend.” He said in a small voice to no-one. She snorted a laugh and killed their coms connection, tapping at her wrist as she set up a new one.

  “Hey. Yep, we’re clear and ready for you. No alarm. Let’s get this party underway.” Rouge paused with a frown. “Oh, ok. Yeah, we just have to go find the control override. Didn’t realize the Tug was that close.”

  Leaving the break room with a wave for Kurt to follow, Rouge glanced at her wrist and moved down past the rumbling engines. Kurt followed her to a control panel with a glaring red button over a wide metal handle. He looked around to take in the small area they had entered, more of a hallway connection than a proper room. On either side of them, the hallways ended in elevator doors, roughly fifty yards away. Behind them stood the break room door, down a hallway of piping and engine machinery. The button Kurt and Rouge stood in front of was labeled (Emergency Override) and the handle had all the ships speeds etched into a metal plaque next to it. She flipped up a plastic case protecting the button and smashed her fist into it, causing red lights to begin flashing as a claxon blared over speakers tucked into corners. Rouge turned to face him, an inquisitive expression on her face. “Would you care to do the honors? Mr. Noob?”

  She stepped back from the lever and flourished her hand towards it, indicating Kurt’s task. He stepped forward cheerfully, ignoring the barb. “Don’t mind if I do.” With a simple motion, he wrenched the handle down to (Full Stop). “Cool. Now what?”

  Kurt turned from the handle to see Rouge climbing onto the catwalk above them. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. Once she was atop the catwalk, she reached underneath her top and drew a ridiculously short shotgun before nodding behind him at the hallway. “Now we defend the room. Hope you brought something a little less civilized than that Walther.” She grinned at him from atop the catwalk.

  Turning to face the hallway she had nodded to, Kurt saw an elevator door slide open. Spilling rapidly out into the hallway while shouting and pointing at him was a swarm of uniformed ships guards. He fumblingly drew his Glock and sprayed a magazine into the hallway, forcing them to take cover behind various engine parts and buying himself a moment to look for cover of his own.

  Stopping to take stock was a bad idea, and earned him three rounds to the back, another squad of guards having come from behind him. As the breath was blasted out of him and he fell to the ground in debilitating but brief pain, he noticed the underside of the control table was hollowed out. Kurt dragged himself underneath it, shoving and kicking as bullets pinged off the metal floor around him and blew sparks from the nearby piping. From his new vantage point, he could see clearly down the main hallway, but neither of the side halls were visible.

  His eyebrows peaked in frustration as he struggled to remove a magazine from his holster, crammed under the console as he was. It was jammed against his side, and refused to come out until he straightened his back, but the Coonan slid down across his chest into view still nestled in its holster. The guards were rapidly approaching from both sides, so Kurt shook his head and grabbed the magnum, letting his Glock drop to the floor in front of him.

  Still crammed in the space beneath the console, Kurt fired at any legs that came into view, hearing a pained shout from the catwalk above. The roar of his magnum was deafening in the enclosed space, and he very nearly smashed it into his own face more than once while emptying its magazine. He could hear the shotgun above him discharge as the last of the guard swarm fell to the floor in front of the console, and he shoved his way free just before Rouge berated him.

  “The hell are you doing down there?!” She was laid down on the catwalk, tucked partly beneath a system of piping while slipping shells from her belt into the shotgun and glaring at him.

  He cast around him for a moment, retrieving the Glock and reloading it. “A bad job, obviously! I got swarmed, leave me alone.” The elevators at the end of the halls on either side of him pinged again, and he narrowed his eyes. Taking a shooters stance, he downed the cluster of armed guards who poured out and flinched away from the rounds he took to the back in the process. Turning with a grimace, he used careful bursts to pick off the guards coming from the opposite side. With a glance at the central hallway, Kurt released an expletive and dropped his empty magazine. Stepping up to the corner as he slapped another magazine into place, he blind-fired around it and dropped out that spent magazine as well. When he reached for another fresh magazine, he realized the holster was empty and glanced at his wrist, seeing that the timer still showed roughly ten seconds to recharge. His health was also dang
erously low, but his armor upgrades were holding up nicely, with just over 50% armor remaining. If he could only keep from getting shot long enough to regenerate some health, he figured he might just make it out of this.

  Rouge was busy keeping more guards at bay up in the catwalks, unloading and reloading her shotgun repeatedly, all while hiding beneath some pipes that made it hard for the approaching guards to hit her, but completely exposed her to fire from the ground level. Kurt shoved his Glock in its holster and switched back to the Coonan, slipping a magazine of armor piercing .357 rounds in place and waiting for the next guard foolish enough to march around a corner.

  They came in great supply, and Kurt continued swapping between his guns, even being forced to use the Walther in one particularly rough wave when both other guns ammunition supplies reached their cooldowns quicker than usual. He did attempt to use the Ratshot in his drum magazine, but it was more or less useless, as his friends had warned him. Its power levels and accuracy at range were terrible, and it took most of the 50-round magazine just to bring down two guards behind partial cover.

  After the fourth wave of guards attempting to reach the console were falling to dust on the floor and catwalk around them, Kurt lost his patience. “What exactly are we waiting for?!”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll know it when it happens. They were close, shouldn’t be long now.” She peeked out from her hiding place and fired the shotgun with a small chuckle. “Thanks for tanking for me, by the way.” Rouge winked at him when he glared up at her.

  Kurt paused to laugh at that in spite of himself, checking quickly to see which gun he should start the next wave with. His Glocks ammo was recharging still, and the Coonan had a magazine finished, so that’s what he went with, exasperated but ready. Midway into the next wave of guards, Kurt was thrown violently from his feet and sent sprawling across the floor. Rolling over, he shot the remaining two guards with his magnum before they could regain their footing.