The Life- Illusion

by Lincoln Greene

  The two men drove down the alley, with Kurt keeping a mostly glazed expression on his face, trying not to look at anything in particular. He had to control his reaction as they entered the parking lot near the center of the alley, filled with GoonStorm and Ursa elite players, all of whom seemed rather twitchy. A dozen assorted rifles and shotguns raised in a heartbeat, the players holding them encased in heavy armor and wearing ballistic masks. The sight of two men wearing suits and not carrying any obvious weaponry seemed to confuse them a bit, as most of them glanced around and a couple started muttering to each other. Kurt and Jimbo stepped down from the Humvee, moving to engage the players. As Jimbo smiled at them, Kurt kept his gaze distant and unfocused as he took in the parking lot. A small steel door was set into the wall a dozen feet from a tall rollaway metal door that looked like it led to a garage.

  “Gentlemen, hello!” Jimbo started off friendly, opening his coat so that his large silver desert eagle pistol was clearly visible. “I’m Jimbo, here to help oversee the handoff for GoonStorm.”

  “Yeah, I know who you are Jimbo. Why aren’t you with Management?” One GoonStorm officer stepped forward, cradling his oversized rifle and lifting his facemask.

  “The meet went bad. Those crazy-ass Pirates started shooting up the place and tossing grenades everywhere. I made it out, Management didn’t.” Jimbo finished his statement with a shrug. “I’m sure they’ll be along shortly.” With that, he glanced back at Kurt. “What time is it?”

  Kurt reached into his hip pocket and produced a small square of glass and plastic that lit up when he tapped its screen. The ancient phone displayed the time on its home screen. “Seven-fifty-two AM sir.” Kurt read the numbers off almost mechanically before slipping the phone back in his pocket and continuing to look at nothing.

  “My attaché.” Jimbo spoke dismissively, not bothering to look at Kurt. “Can we move this along? I’m supposed to get paid after this handoff thing.”

  The GoonStorm officer held up an armored palm, stepping back and swiping at the air above his wrist. He spoke in hushed tones to someone on the other line for a moment before nodding his head once and turning back to them. “OK, You’re good.” He took a couple steps back and waved his fist at a camera above the door. An electronic buzz sounded, and the door lock disengaged with a heavy thud. None of the gathered guards even looked at Kurt twice as he walked past them, wearing the slightest of smirks.

  Once they were through the door, Jimbo let out a breath in relief as a huge smile crept across his face. “I love that feeling.”

  Kurt nodded, playing with his new plastic phone. The thing had cost him six hundred dollars, a price he found ludicrous, but in the strange little devices favor, it was a fully functional phone synched to his personal implant. He smiled at Jimbo as he overtly texted Jimmy the address and a warning about the welcome party out front. “Yeah, the deception is a rush…I can’t help but agree.”

  Jimbo glanced at his hands before looking back to their new room. “That toy was a nice touch, I always see NPC’s on those things.”

  Kurt narrowed his eyes for a second before shaking his head sadly. “Yep. The devil’s in the details Yojimbo…The devil’s in the details.” He took in the entryway, noting a similarity in defensive construction techniques to other Hubs he had seen. They walked down a straight hallway that seemed to be split in two sections. The entryway was bare and smooth, while the back half was populated by waist high concrete barricades spread out in front of a steel double door. Above and to the side of the door was another security camera.

  Jimbo took the lead, walking in a weaving pattern between the concrete barriers and looking as if he belonged where he was. He kept his head high, and jovially bantered with Kurt as they walked forward. “How’s that unique treating you, by the way? That thing looks nasty, I wonder how it upgrades.”

  Kurt smirked slightly as they reached the door and Jimbo offered a friendly wave at the camera. “Actually, it’s pretty interesting.” He stepped to the side and leaned on the wall beneath the camera, slipping the gun out of its holster and hefting it. Jimbo raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. “I’m supposed to get very specific kills to upgrade it, been working on that all morning.”

  “What kind of kills?” Jimbo gave a quick unhappy look at the camera, then banged on the door again.

  “I have to kill someone who knows I’m about to kill them but can’t react fast enough to stop me.” Kurt quietly cocked the hammer back, aiming at a concrete barricade and miming the action of firing a shot. “I only need one more kill to get it though.”

  Jimbo shrugged. “That’s just the first tier though, I’m sure it’ll have more obnoxious upgrade requirements. We can probably get you that last kill once we get to the garage.” A series of heavy footsteps could be heard on the other side of the door, approaching their location. “Ah, finally.”

  Kurt knelt down and grabbed a smoke stick, popping the cap and tossing it back down the hallway towards the door they had entered from before quickly sticking a Looper disk to the camera above him. He lifted the gun and pointed it at Jimbo. “No need. I’ve been saving it for you.”

  Jimbo’s eyes went wide and he reached for his belt, but Kurt merely squeezed his trigger and made the other man fall into a pool of swirling black smoke as the heavy door lock clanked open. Enacting his plan, Kurt holstered his suddenly heavier unique gun and slid out his Glock. He sprayed the hallway as the door slid open slightly, aiming only to cause ricochets and chaos in the now spreading smoke.

  Armed and armored players shoved their way into the hallway as Kurt holstered his gun and slid down into the corner of the hallway, shouting in fear and pointing towards the other door. “They just started shooting!! Help!!”

  Faithful to his side of the plan, Jimmy began waging a brief but brutal and loud war outside, drawing the attention of the gathered GoonStorm and Ursa players in the hallway. Kurt reached out and grabbed the door as it began to swing closed, content to be ignored. The firefight outside sounded brutal, but it began to dwindle as the new group of players set up behind different barricades, waiting for whatever threat would come through the door. Bracing the door open with one foot, Kurt popped the buttons on his suit jacket and produced his mask, shouldering out of the jacket and tucking it underneath the edge of the door to keep it open. He slid his mask on over his face as the gunfire outside died down entirely. A series of light thuds on the ground preceded a polite knock.

  “Little pigs, little pigs…let me in.” Jimmy’s voice boomed from beyond the doorway and Kurt couldn’t help but snicker at the silence in the room. Within a few seconds, a monstrous gun blast sounded, and the door groaned slightly as one of its hinges was shattered.

  Shaking his head, he gripped the butt of his Silencerco Maxim 9 and drew the handgun in a silent motion. Most of the players gathered before him were wearing ballistic face masks, but with all their backs to him, it was a simple task to put a single 9mm subsonic hollow point into the backs of each of their heads. A dozen players fell to dust around him as he made his way forward to the door just in time to watch the heavy plank of steel fall inwards.

  Jimmy stepped inward, his Beowulf rifle tucked into his shoulder. He stepped into the hallway with a sweeping motion, settling on Kurt and cocking his head to the side. “Oh. Well then.” He shook his head as he moved past Kurt towards the other doorway. “Silly me, thinking you might need my help.”

  Kurt snickered as he reloaded his Maxim 9 and swapped it out for the Messenger. He scanned it to see what his upgrade had changed, as the gun felt more bulky and solid already.

  The Messenger Upgrade Rank 1

  Force and Verve

  The Messenger is now a .44 magnum caliber handgun. Overpenetration chance is increased by 25%

  He hefted the gun again, noting the larger breach and barrel in place. Sliding out the magazine, Kurt was pleased to see it still had a full complement of his specialist shredder rounds, but when he glanced at his inventory,
he noticed it was still full of .357 magnum ammo. After a quick moment of frustration, he shrugged.

  “What’s up?” Jimmy turned to glance at him, covering the doorway forward.

  “Eh. Got my upgrade, but it’s a caliber increase, so all the ammo I just bought is useless now.” Kurt shrugged and holstered the unique weapon, drawing his Glock in its place. “I still have a magazine, but I should probably try to make those count.”

  Jimmy nodded with a shrug. “Yeah, that sucks. Happens though. What’s the plan here?”

  Kurt’s eyes went slightly wide. “I have no plan. The door is open, that’s quite literally as far as I thought this through.” He waved his Glock behind them. “Based on the big sliding door outside, I imagine there’s a garage around here somewhere. Jimbo kept jabbering about a basement, we could start there.”

  Jimmy’s smile was palpable even behind his heavy mask. He slung his rifle and hefted the new shotgun, drawing its priming level and tucking it into his shoulder. “We just storm the place then. My kind of party.”

  They stepped up to either side of the doorway, peering inside for trouble. The interior was darkened, with only the vague reddish glow of emergency lighting strips on the walls and floors to show anything. Loud rhythmic music blared deeper in the building, and Kurt noticed his map was made useless by the sound. A single large red dot pulsed from the back of the building in time with the music, but nothing else was evident, being washed away by the loud music.

  “I think I’m going to go for the DJ booth, try and shut down the music.” Kurt sighed and shook his head slightly, reaching for his jacket. As he slipped it back on, Jimmy gave him a nod and moved up.

  Gunfire erupted from a dozen angles surrounding the door, causing Jimmy to stagger slightly. He recovered his footing and roared a challenge as bullets sparked off his armor, bull rushing a group of players in cover to his left as Kurt used the distraction to slip in. He stayed low and clung to the darkened areas, avoiding the emergency lighting strips as he moved to flank the players Jimmy was clashing with.

  They had entered a lounge area with two supporting bars at either end, and most of the opposing players were nestled into the bars and behind the furniture in the room, firing over their cover at Jimmy as he blew apart the wood and leather in the room with his shotgun. Kurt remained un-noticed as he sneaked past the main group and approached the players behind the bar on his side of the room. A single shot from The Messenger had the bar clear, punching through three enemy players, and Kurt drew his Maxim 9 in his left hand. He continued to move through the room, staying to shadows and silently dispatching players from behind with suppressed 9mm subsonic hollow points. Jimmy darted from pillar to pillar, eventually diving fully behind the bar with his enemies and roaring laughter as he sent them spiraling into dust clouds with point blank blasts from his shotgun. He created a wonderful distraction for Kurt, who was left to his sneakier work undisturbed, with none of the players he killed even realizing he was in the room with them.

  Jimmy popped up from behind the bar, looking around. His shoulders slumped slightly in disappointment when he realized the room was clear. “C’mon guys, I’m only down thirty percent armor! You can do better!”

  Kurt shook his head, barely able to hear Jimmy above the music at this closer proximity to the speakers. He pointed at the next doorway, a lush padded swinging door that Kurt assumed lead onto the dancefloor. Jimmy held up a hand at him, checked his wrist, drew his sidearm, and shot himself in the foot a single time. He stepped up to the door and pushed at it slightly, immediately vanishing in a fireball as a launched grenade went off against his chest plate. He nodded and rushed in, drawing another firestorm of bullets and gun blasts. Kurt stepped back from the doorway as more explosions rocked the area, pulling up his map and looking for another way around.

  Behind the bar to his right, a doorway led into a vacant supply closet with a stairway at the far end. Trying to hear anything beyond Jimmy’s gunfight on the nearby dance floor, Kurt crept slowly down the stairs to a simple metal door. Pressing an ear to it, he could hear movement and speech on the other side, as well as the faint growl of an engine.

  Kurt took a step back and pulled up his phone, sending a quick text to Jimmy. “When you’re done screwing around up there, come back behind the bar and join me downstairs. I think I found the garage.” He took a moment to look around, pulling up his map to see that a hallway lead around the small room he was now in, leading back towards the front of the building and opening up into a massive room that coincided with the underground garage Jimbo had spelled out for him.

  As he looked at the lightly buzzing strip lighting above his head, Kurt received a brief response from Jimmy. “How dare you.” He snorted and shook his head, a resigned expression on his face as another text came in. “I’ll find my own way down, busy as a bee right now.”

  “Well…here goes nothing.” With that, Kurt reached into his pocket and thumbed the button on his ECM device. The overhead lighting sputtered and died, throwing the room into complete darkness as the music abruptly stopped. The voices on the other side of the door rose briefly before dying down. As he stepped up to the door, Kurt could hear screams and more gunfire coming from upstairs, but the other side of the door was perfectly silent.

  Kurt reached a hand back behind his back, gripping a flashbang grenade in his left hand as he squeezed the grip of his Glock with his right hand. Taking a deep breath and mentally preparing himself to get shot, he pressed the bar on the door and swung it wide, throwing the grenade into the corner of the hallway to his left in the same motion. He ignored the rifle rounds that sunk into his armor, swinging around the door and clicking his combat flashlight into strobe as he charged the right side of the hallway.

  The flashbang went off in the darkness behind him, causing shouts and screams of discomfort. He had correctly assumed his enemies in the hallway would be ready for him, and that they would be wearing night vision or thermal goggles to counter the lights being out. His combat strobe light flashed in a quick rhythm, allowing him to see the small cluster of heavily armed players crouched and spread out in the hallway before him. All of them were struggling to see, the flashing lights causing them to be essentially blinded as Kurt rushed them.

  He easily stepped out of their lines of fire, rushing up to each of them with a burst of 9mm fragmentation rounds to end the encounters. Once the right side of the hallway was clear, Kurt turned to deal with the left side, noting that they were still dazed and attempting to recover from the flashbang. He reloaded his Glock and sprayed the hallway with incendiary rounds, jogging back past the door he had entered from as he chased the remaining defenders. One of them made it all the way around the hallway to the entrance of the garage before Kurt managed to light him on fire.

  The hapless player burst through the double doors into the garage, on fire and screaming as he went, with Kurt close behind him. The player fell to his knees, and then to dust as Kurt came to a sudden stop while the lights flickered back into life above him. He faced roughly three dozen enemy players, all heavily armed and armored, every one of them looking directly at him. “Uhhh…Hi.”

  Gunfire filled the air as Kurt dove for cover behind a nearby concrete pillar. The room had a higher ceiling than Kurt had expected and was filled with concrete pillars at even intervals for structural integrity. Kurt flinched as chips of concrete filled the air around him, bullets and shotgun blasts tearing into his pillar. He dove from cover as a grenade bounced past him, scrambling for the next pillar as his armor was put to the test.

  The grenade went off, blowing concrete chips everywhere as Kurt crouched behind his new cover, trying to make himself as small as possible. He gripped the Messenger and his Glock, scowling in determination as he prepared to make another run for it. The constant gunfire died down to a lull, and Kurt could hear his opponents scrambling to reload. A light ‘ding’ noise sounded from across the room in the lull, and Kurt peeked his head around the pillar to see the gathered
players turn around.

  Jimmy stepped out of the elevator, lifting his monstrous shotgun to his shoulder. “Now remember guys, whatever happens next…we’re all here to have fun.” With that, gunfire filled the air once again.

  Kurt wasn’t left entirely alone, but Jimmy had a wonderful knack for getting everyone’s attention. His shotgun blasted steel buckshot all around the room, dusting enemy players and costing anyone in its path desperately required armor and health. Kurt stood up and started doing his part, using the Messenger to blow apart any players standing in a line as he started moving from cover to cover, staying clear of Jimmies line of fire as he went. He used the Glock with incendiary ammo to create more chaos and pain among their foes, as both he and Jimmy continued to take huge chunks off their numbers.

  Jimmy ignored cover, simply trusting to his armor to protect him as he stalked through the crowds of enemy players and laid waste to them. He simply made sure none of them got behind him to his one vulnerable area and shrugged off the incoming fire as he unloaded his automatic shotgun. Once it clicked empty, he let his sling catch it and instantly swapped to his Beowulf M-16. Each of the massive rounds dealt huge damage, often killing the weakened players with a single shot. The remaining few GoonStorm and Ursa players tried to retreat, filing into the doorway Kurt had entered from. Jimmy and Kurt stepped out into the center of the room side by side and lifted their weapons, dropping the last few enemy players into piles of silver dust and clouds of black smoke.

  With the GoonStorm and Ursa forces defeated, Kurt took a moment to look around the basement for their objective. He turned in a quick circle, noticing the big rig tucked away into a back corner almost immediately. It was a huge, matte black boxy thing, with a massive trailer attached to the cab. A quick scan identified it as a 1977 Peterbilt 359, though it had clearly been modified significantly. The windshield was covered with metal sheets, only a small patch over the driver’s area showed actual glass. Heavy armor plating had been riveted to the vehicle, clearly doubled up in several areas, with even the cargo box weighed down by extra armor. The tires were oversized, with giant off-road capable grip visible even at a distance. But the rigs most noticeable modification was a gigantic cow catcher style ram on the front end. Two solid slabs of matte black painted steel with splashes of red extended down from the cab into a massive triangular point at the front of the gigantic truck, coming together into a slim point just above the road line.