Jimmy clapped his hands once, standing up. “Well, that covers my questions. Gadot?”
Gadot scratched her earlobe for a moment, distractedly staring at the floor. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry Kurt, I…I should have trusted you.” She rose as well, still looking at him from the corner of her eye. “Congrats on the car.”
Kurt stayed in his seat. “We still need to discuss raising two hundred million for the Pirates. Any ideas on that?”
Stretching with a yawn, Jimmy shook his head. “No chance. Raids are all hit for the week, city is mostly in ruins. Nothing resets until Sunday night. Weekends are usually turf wars and PVP in Illusion.”
Moving towards the door, Gadot spoke over her shoulder. “We can hit the competitive side tomorrow, good chance of making some or all of what we need in there.”
Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “Oof. Not my favorite part of this game, but yeah. Money can be good.” He yawned again, more forcefully this time. “It’s way too late for me though. I’m logging off, catch you guys tomorrow.” He smiled at Gadot and waited for her to return it before swiping to log off. She shook her head slightly, still smiling from the corner of her mouth as he vanished.
Kurt prodded the bag on the table in front of him. “Saved your stuff.”
Her eyebrows raised slightly, and she frowned appreciatively, nodding as she spoke. “Oh cool, thanks. I’ll have to remember to shoot that asshole Les literally every time I see him from now on. Should be a fun project.” She equipped her gear again, and then swiped at her wrist for a moment before turning to look at Kurt one more time, her eyes narrowing just a fraction. “Goodnight.” She swiped once and vanished.
Kurt pulled his skill notifications up and winced to see a level up in Liar, Underhanded, and Obfuscation. Looking seriously at his wrist, he sat still for a moment before standing up with a small shake of his head and leaving. Feeling unwelcome in the hub due to an overabundance of guilty conscience, he drove to his own safehouse and logged off for the night.
His house was dark and silent, his parents having gone to bed long before he was finished for the night. Kurt moved up to his room and flopped into his bed, glancing at the alarm clock beside his bed to see the time was just past four am. He sighed and thought about his plan, rolling uncomfortably in his bed. The bumps in his dishonesty skill set still ached, and made him question himself. That was how he fell asleep, fully clothed and congealed in self-doubt. His dreams were not restful.
Jimmy approached him, his body and clothing wreathed in flames. Horrific damage raged across his body as he waved a partially melting hand at Kurt to get his attention, bubbling skin sloughing from the bones of his wrist. “Hey Kurt…am I on fire?”
Kurt looked him up and down, a confused expression firmly on his face. “What? No…” His voice was slurred and felt strange to hear.
“Oh. Ok.” Jimmy turned to leave, collapsing and screaming horribly as the flames finally destroyed him. He fell to a pile of silver dust and drifted away in the breeze, leaving Kurt to jerk upright in bed, fear etched on his face.
19. The To Do List
Chapter 19
The To Do List
Shaking off the nightmare, Kurt rolled over and swiped at his phone, shutting off the alarm and checking his messages. They were empty for a change, and he shrugged as he got up to shower and find some breakfast. His bad dream was forgotten before he made it to the kitchen. The house was empty, and he found a note on the counter from his parents. “Went for brunch.” He nodded, somewhat grumpily, and had another bowl of granola before plugging in at his couch.
He loaded in to the familiar rattle of his safehouse on the tracks, his perception swaying with gentle movement. When his eyes opened onto the game, he was mildly shocked to notice a stranger in his safehouse, smiling gently at him from the seat in front of him. She wore a red dress and held a small case in her hands, resting on her lap. Kurt reached for his Coonan, but came away empty handed, having forgotten he had dropped it in the boss fight the night before. He cringed slightly, looking up at the AI representative in front of him.
“Why does every player do that?” She scowled slightly, still smiling. “I find it somewhat rude.”
Kurt squinted at her for a moment. “Stop referring to yourself as ‘I’. It’s creepy. In fact, less personality in general, please.”
“Very well.” The woman’s gaze became less friendly, her expression going slack as she averted her eyes from Kurt’s face. “Message for Mr. Kurtis.”
“Go ahead.” Kurt swiped up his phone, pulling up the shop menu to find a replacement for his Coonan. He had become accustomed to having the firepower and was annoyed at having lost it.
Looking slightly to the left of Kurt’s chin, the AI representative raised the case towards him. “Blacklight Industries would like to thank you for your creative contribution to The Life of Crime. Your character is rewarded a unique item to commemorate your contribution, which has ensured that the dynamic of power on the Illusion server will never be the same.”
Kurt had been paying half attention, swiping at his phone when realization came over him. His jaw slackened slightly as his eyes went wide, looking at the case being offered to him. The case was jet black metal, with a cross work of small bones etched into the lid. It snapped open at his touch, revealing a handgun sunk into a black silk covered cushion. The silk was rotted and patchy, with corroded holes in the cloth.
While it looked at its core like his lost Coonan .357 magnum pistol, the gun in the case before him was significantly modified. It was matte black all over, with tiny charred black skeletons intertwiningly carved into the frame, handle, and slide. Two larger skeletal figures dominated the sides of the grip, their arms reaching down the barrel to join at the end of the gun in a bone compensator. A small tarnished bronze plaque in the lid of the case read simply; The Messenger. Kurt scanned the gun.
The Messenger
Unique Pistol. Unique quality weapons do not drop upon death and respawn with the player.
Caliber: .357 Magnum
Rate of Fire: Semi-Automatic.
Capacity: 7 round magazine
The Messenger is a Coonan .357 magnum handgun and is able to use all .357 magnum ammunition types. This item is not eligible for any modifications, but Unique items are capable of growing alongside their owners. When fired, no report is pinged to the map. When equipped, players map presence is reduced by 25%
Kurt took the pistol and stood up slowly, feeling the heft of his new weapon. “Holy…”
“Thank you Mr. Kurtis. This message from Blacklight industries is now complete. Have a lovely day.” He looked up to see the Ai representative collapse into dust, fading away quickly and leaving the case for The Messenger in her place on the seat. Kurt slipped the gun into his old magnum holster, smiling as it fit perfectly.
Grabbing the case, Kurt turned to set it into the bottom of his weapons storage cabinet and slid the door closed. Still in the throes of his excitement, he pulled up his phone and sent a text to Jimmy. “Have you logged in yet today??”
A lack of response had him scratching his head. Jimmy always responded immediately. Frowning with a shrug, Kurt made the decision to do a little grinding at his skills while he waited for his friends to log in. He pulled up his skill menu to take a quick look.
Specialist: Ambush, rank 2. Big Bore, rank 1. Obfuscation, rank 5. Small Bore, rank 1
Secondary: Combat Driving, rank 1. Gunslinger, rank 10. Sneak Attack, rank 5. Strategist, rank 4. Street Sweeper, rank 1. Underhanded, rank 7.
Primary: Armor, rank 5. Cartography, rank 7. Disguise, rank 12. Driving, rank 1. Liar, rank 10. Perception, rank 3. Planning, rank 6. Small Arms, rank 12. Stealth, rank 7.
His Ghost class added an additional ten ranks to Cartography, Disguise, Gunslinger, Liar, Planning, Small Arms, Sneak Attack, Stealth, and Underhanded. This raised his effective percentage boosts a great deal and combining his new Unique weapon with his class bonus of reduced map presence was a powerful t
ool for a stealth build.
Looking things over, he realized his driving skill set was woefully inadequate for his masterplan. Stealing the buyout would almost certainly require driving the large amount of dirty cash somewhere, and with a war looming, Kurt decided that was a skillset he could no longer ignore.
He exited his safehouse and got in the Testarossa, pulling up the new Hub on his map and heading towards it after setting his respawn to it. Kurt kept his driving skill up on his phone and watched the bar creep upwards, far too slowly for his liking. His attention was pulled sharply from his phone as an M1 Abrams tank rumbled across the intersection ahead of him. Bogged down in a line of cars at the light as he was, Kurt went un-noticed by the blue digital camo painted behemoth, but its presence alone was enough to create panic in the road. Speeding past it alongside the crowd of NPCs, he glanced back at his phone to notice a bigger spike in the driving skill.
Kurt shook his head with a sigh, before hauling on the steering wheel and turning back to follow the tank. He crept around the corner behind it and started driving closer, glancing at his skill and frowning to see it rising at the same glacial level it had been before. As he was starting to get confused, the tank’s driver noticed him, and its turret began to swing around towards him.
His eyes going wide, Kurt floored the accelerator and sped past the Abrams, swerving around a corner as the turret tracked him. It blew a corner out of the building he ducked behind and moved to follow him. As the tracks crushed a parked car behind him, Kurt sped around another corner and realized that if he was smart about it, this tank was not actually all that threatening. With a shrug, he turned the wheel to make another pass. This time, the Abrams cut across the road in an attempt to crush him. He neatly dodged the clumsy tank, but his car was lifted physically by the follow up blast of the cannon into the road behind him. White smoke began to pour from his hood and Kurt decided a hasty retreat was in order.
Glancing at his wrist, he was pleased to note a level up in his Combat Driving skill and a solid two level ups in Driving. It seemed that high risk encounters were worth significantly more exp. His musings were interrupted by a second Abrams tank cutting into the roadway in front him, its turret swinging towards him. Kurt’s eyes went wide again, and he cut into an alley as a shell went off a lane over from him. The white smoke immediately became black, and the Testarossa belched flames from its exhaust as the engine stalled momentarily.
He sped out of the alley, cutting through panicked civilians as he moved to place large concrete buildings between him and the two tanks hunting him. Taking a moment to recover, Kurt flicked his map up onto the windshield, causing his eyes to go wide again. Several oversized dots were now converging on his location. He charted a quick path through the dots and gunned his smoking engine. Escaping the Downtown Cluster, Kurt set a waypoint to the new Hub and made his way there. His car sputtered and died as he stopped outside of the warehouse, and he got out while coughing from the smoke.
Checking his equipment screen did little to help his attitude, as it showed the vehicle destroyed. He moved around to the entrance and was let in by Tigg, but he ignored her as he swiped through his menus in an attempt to find repairs for his car. Sitting down in the common area, Kurt frowned at his lack of options. He had discovered a mobile repair operation, but it was absurdly expensive. There were several garages he realized he should have gone to instead of coming to the Hub, but that ship had sailed when his Testarossa had sputtered to death in the parking lot.
He scowled suddenly, looking around the warehouse structure he was in as an idea formed. Kurt eyes narrowed as he pulled up the Lace faction menu and started looking through the small handful of buildings they owned. The Hub in the downtown cluster was marked as useable, but it had a notification claiming that only Gadot could make modifications to it, and turf was marked as inaccessible as long as GoonStorm had a presence there. The Hub he was currently occupying however, had an upgrade tab.
Kurt immediately swiped to it and was confronted with several options. If he upgraded the building, a closed off section would be opened and he could assign what it was used for, from a list of unlocked options. One of the options was for a vehicle workshop, and he instantly swiped to it. The upgrade would cost him most of his remaining fortune, having a price tag of ten million dollars. Kurt felt it would be worth the price, as a plan had been forming while he sat on the couch. He took a moment to ensure his respawn was set to this Hub, and stripped his Walther from the holster, leaving it in the common room after getting assurances from Tigg that it would stay there. Mentally berating himself for being forgetful, Kurt texted his attaché about getting his armor repaired, and left it on the table in the common room for pickup. He equipped his Glock in his sidearm slot and started walking, moving through a handful of doors to the garage.
The sound of a large diesel engine could be heard as Kurt moved through the Hub to his new garage area. His Ferrari was being towed into the building by a hulking tow truck. The sliding metal door closed on its own as the vehicles came to a stop in a cramped but lengthy garage, walls slathered in tools. A tall lanky man with long dark hair stepped down from the tow truck, giving Kurt a nod as he moved to unhook the Ferrari. He wore a deep forest green mechanics jumpsuit, and Kurt was surprised to see a graphic of unfurled leather wings with heavy scales on the back of it.
“Uh, hi?” He waved to the man’s back, getting only a raised eyebrow over a shoulder for his efforts. Kurt moved closer, leaning to inspect the process of unhooking his car from the tow truck. After the man had finished, he stood and turned to finally face Kurt.
“Afternoon. I’m Drake. Good to meet you.” He clasped Kurt’s hand once, in a quick but crushing shake. “You want her fixed up, I gather. Any mods?” As he waited for Kurt to respond, he pulled a small metal case from his pocket and drew out a hand rolled cigarette, firing it up with the click of a metal lighter. When he parted his lips in a toothy grin, a cloud of fragrant smoke curled around his face with the exhale.
Kurt shook his head. “Eh, not right now. I’m working on getting my skill up first.” He paused. “Actually, what kinds of armor can I get?”
Drake sniffed, rubbing his nose against a sleeve. “Well…I could slap a little anti-ballistic armor plating on there for cheap. Cheaper when I’m doing a full repair like this, actually.”
His eyebrow raising slightly, Kurt paused in thought. “Any chance I can make that blast plating instead?”
“Oh yeah, sure. Nothing GOOD, mind, but the cheap stuff I could throw on there no problem.” Drake reached into a pocket, pulling out a block of plastic that took Kurt a second to recognize as a phone. He swiped at its screen for a moment, before reaching out for Kurt to tap his wrist against it. “Here’s your options right now. Not exactly thrilling, but I can actually build on some of these as we go.” He took a moment to run his hand along the warped frame of the Testarossa. “This is a really nice ride, what’d you do to it?”
Kurt happily accepted the mods file and began swiping through his options. “Oh nothing really, just crossed paths with a couple of Abrams tanks.” His options were somewhat varied, separated by sections. ‘Armor’ was at the top, but beneath that option several more waited. ‘Cosmetics’ did nothing for him, so he skipped it and went straight to ‘Performance,’ before realizing he needed a much higher rank in the Driving skill before he could get anything worth having. At the top of his page, the upgrades menu had a dual tab similar to a weapons scan screen. It read ‘standard’ and ‘custom.’
When Kurt swiped to custom, the screen changed entirely, a holographic display of the vehicle floating in front of him. He moved his finger to touch the hood, and a tool tip screen opened. It showed the various ways he could customize the vehicle, using his own designs. In his initial bumbling attempts to navigate the system, he managed to create a large wedge of armor across the hood that extended into a sharp point in front of the car. He scowled and was about to swipe it away when he suddenly paused, a p
ensive expression coming across his face.
“Hey Drake, can you work with me on some custom builds?” Kurt raised his eyes to see Drake release another cloud of smoke from between his clenched teeth.
Drake nodded, spreading the sweet smelling tobacco smoke around his head as he did so. “Of course, you have something in mind?”
Kurt waved him off, saving the work in progress on his phone and moving to leave the garage. “Not right now, but I’ll need your help with something soon.” He turned back in the doorway. “How long for a full repair?”
Drake shrugged, turning his back. “Twenty minutes. Longer if you stay to watch.”
With a nod to himself, Kurt left the garage and went looking for Tigg. He had her set him up on the training course and ran through it with his Glock a few times before sitting down in an exhausted huff on the couch. He was pleased to see a level up in his Small Arms skill, in spite of the slower exp gain in the shooting range. More important than that, working closely with Tigg and paying attention to everything she taught him was helping his personal skill with the Glock. No longer was it merely a tool for spray and pray tactics, he was actually getting good with the machine pistol, able to navigate an assault course with an increasing score each time.
A chime on his wrist notified him of the Testarossa repairs completion, and he moved into the garage again to collect his car. Drake gave him a quick run-down of the blast plating he had added, informing him it would reduce explosive damage taken by five percent, and then deducted the cost of the repair and upgrade from Kurt’s clean money account. The full repair had cost just over a hundred thousand, and the upgrades were a mere ten thousand.
The Life- Illusion Page 33