by Arthur Stone
Cheater shot the elite in the head. He had no hope of breaking through, just of stunning it further with a serious blow.
Grabbing the radio, he slammed the transmission button.
“The hell are you doing? Get away from it!”
But the girl continued moving towards the monster. Cursing again, he shot it twice more in the head. As if it were reading his thoughts, or just understood what was happening, the elite showed neither its sporesac nor the bullet-shattered armor plate. So there was nothing else Cheater could do.
Even though the harsh rules of the Continent demanded he abandon the crazy lady to her ways rather than try to give her cover.
Titty Tat had circled around the monster by now. She dropped to one knee, raised her gun, and began shooting the infected in short, calculated bursts. Cheater realized she wasn’t as far gone as he had thought. Taking advantage of the elite’s collapse, the girl had positioned herself with a view of his sporesac and was trying to hit the vulnerable area from a few dozen yards away. She was very close, but she had just been running full speed, which is bad for steady breathing. That plus the adrenaline, and the unpredictable twitching of the beast.
No, the conditions were not ideal for marksmanship.
Still, some of the rounds hit just the right spot. The beast’s legs began to convulse. That dance meant that the delicate filling of its sporesac had been damaged.
But Cheater wasn’t about to let down his guard. He didn’t have another magazine, but he did have more rounds. With only one left in the gun, he began to hastily reload the first magazine as he glanced all around. They had made a lot of noise, and the area had a lot of infecteds. All of them kept away from this beast’s lair, but hunger could be a stronger force than fear at times, even for a human.
It was then that he saw a glimmer in the distance. The sun was behind the clouds, but just enough of it poked out through a hole for him to catch it. The sunbeam reflected right off of a windshield, and right into Cheater’s eyes.
It was a vehicle. A truck that was well protected. More protected than usual. The owners had put their soul into its complement. It looked to be as strong as some armored personnel carriers, from its powerful frame with its large steel sheets and bars, to the intricately sloped armor of its heavy machine gun turret.
Cheater set the magazine and ammo aside to pick up the radio once again.
“No time to relax, Tat, we’ve got trouble. Some kind of vehicle approaching.”
“Who is it?”
“No idea. Gut the sporesac and get out of there, quick.”
“Back to your location?”
“No. Run anywhere, but not my way. If they start tracking you, I’ll give you cover. Don’t get mixed up in this, just bail.”
“What about you?”
“If they take me out, wait till I get back from respawn. Or just leave my share in my locker at Pyramid. I rented one for thirty days. Come on, get going.”
She didn’t need any prodding. Leaping over the still-kicking creature, she crouched down. Her short knife gleamed in another sunbeam, and she moved several black lumps into her readied jacket. Hastily wrapping them, she stood, froze for a moment with her eyes toward Cheater’s position, then nodded, turned, and darted past the trio of buildings. One of which held the coveted album.
Cheater returned to his work reloading the magazines. This rifle was his best shot in the encounter that was likely approaching. Newcomers didn’t ride in cars like that, unless it was loners accompanied by bands of veterans. A band of veteran players would be worse than a lonely elite.
Unless, of course, he managed to avoid conflict.
But that was improbable. The strangers had likely heard the racket and were on their way to check it out. That said a lot about them. They weren’t afraid of going to a place that was likely also the destination of multiple beasts. And they weren’t hesitant to go somewhere where they would fall under fire.
Psychos, or professionals. Or both.
The truck plowed offroad in a straight line until it encountered an old, abandoned construction site the heavens had filled with water. It took a sharp turn left. A pair of runners jumped out, but three hundred yards into their journey, they stopped abruptly. Unnaturally. As if they had crashed right into an invisible wall. They’re still afraid of the elite’s lair. Else they would have already swarmed the area after so many rounds had been fired at the monster.
The truck practically disappeared behind the shopping mall where not so long ago the monster hunted for lunch, but then it slowed dramatically, turned, and headed confidently for the beast’s carcass.
Now they’ll know we’re here. In a couple of minutes, they would realize that the elite had just been killed and that its sporesac was about as full as the cash register at a brothel next door to a monastery.
Something might be going down here, and soon.
The truck stopped about twenty yards from the fallen monster. The turret spun around to face the buildings that were the aim of this entire mission. It was the action that made the most defensive sense in their position.
Two men jumped out the rear door. They were very intentionally dressed, with carefully selected gear and bulky helmets. Each carried a machine gun outfitted with all kinds of nonsense. They moved like veteran warriors. As they approached the carcass, they slipped around like drops of mercury in a tiltable wooden labyrinth. Smooth, quick, and confident, but unpredictable. Either they suspected this was the work of a sniper... or they always suspected snipers were about, hence why they were professionals.
One crouched over the fallen creature’s head, then jumped up before three seconds had passed. In sync, both of them returned to the vehicle. With a clap the door closed, with a roar the engine returned to life, and with a rattle the truck began to turn around and depart.
Watching through the scope, Cheater saw the turret hatch swing open, and one of those hiding within leaned out. The man confidently turned, waved his right hand lazily, and disappeared into the vehicle once again.
After a few minutes had passed, only a faint rumble remained of the truck. The strangers had vanished as quickly as their loot had.
“Tat, we’re in the clear.
Come on back.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. Come on back.”
This wasn’t a case of treachery. The strangers had evaluated the situation and left with a display intended to prove they were peaceful people with no intent of starting anything.
What exactly had they realized?
All Cheater had to do was consider things from their point of view. They had been going about their business, bothering no one, when suddenly they heard several shots from a large-caliber rifle, followed by fire from an automatic. Interested, they decided to check it out and see if there was any gain to be had. In the Continent, looting corpses was as common as snow in winter.
What did they see when they arrived? The corpse of an elite, and no players’ corpses around.
By all appearances, the elite had been outmatched.
And a mighty elite was only outmatched by grenade launchers and cannons, plus large-caliber machine guns, in conjunction with a self-propelled flamethrower. And perhaps anti-aircraft guns. Huge guns in huge quantities, that was the ticket. Yet here there had been no explosions, no prolonged gunfire. Less than a dozen sniper shots, the rat-a-tat of a worthless rifle, and a colossal corpse with an empty sporesac.
They must have assumed that whoever killed the elite was more pumped than a bounce house for weight watchers. Few would want to mess with the party that could pull off such a kill.
Alert: Party victory: extremely dangerous infected destroyed. Level 80. Chance of valuable loot: 100%. Congratulations. That was an excellent battle. You defeated an opponent more than fifty levels higher than you. A rare triumph! You have received 60 distributable base stat progress points. You have received 25
distributable bonus stat progress points. +14 progress points to Agility. +224 progress points to Willpower. +22 progress points to Stealth. +134 progress points to Accuracy. +68 progress points to Luck. +47 Humanity points.
The battle was over. He was used to trusting the System. The mighty team of veteran players had been too scared to engage a couple of rookies.
He chuckled.
Chapter 18
Life Seven: The House on Chemist Street
Cheater opened a window above the entrance and greedily sucked in some fresh air. Elites were not very clean creatures. The pigeons had decorated the place for generations, leaving a layer of droppings nearly ankle deep, and a smell thicker still. What had gone before, though, made this place look spick and span.
The elite had been a very messy tenant. He had pulled the most delicious morsels into his lair. Under normal conditions, the vermin and bugs would have eaten what was left, but they had few or no ways to get in here, so all of the leftovers were strewn around the apartments and hallways, in varying stages of decomposition.
His eyes were exhausted from all of their watering. I would trade all of the loot for a couple of gas masks, down to the last spore.
No one for miles around sold gas masks, though.
Titty Tat was feeling the same. “If I can’t get a few decent breaths soon, Cheater, I’m going to start decomposing myself.”
“Then let’s head down.”
“Agreed.”
They took a breather by the entrance, in a minibus that had crashed into the wall. All of its doors were open, so there was no need to make noise breaking in.
Cheater took a slow swig of lifejuice and offered some to Tat.
“Top off?”
“I don’t even want to think about that stuff right now. Close enough to vomiting as it is.”
“Ah, so maybe a bite to eat then?”
“Yeah, as long as it’s your tongue!”
“Sheesh, can’t take a joke, can you?”
“You think this is funny, huh? I bet the System made it smell that bad just to make things hard for you. You’re fine, of course. You get the experience and the prize, but why the hell should I suffer?”
“I get the experience? What do you mean?”
“Oh come on, you know.”
“No, I don’t. I just read that pamphlet for newbies at Pyramid. It didn’t mention anything about quest experience.”
“If you complete the quest successfully, you’ll get a bonus. Usually, that’s distributable progress points, which is great. So everybody loves quests. They’re hard to get since NPCs are damn near incomprehensible. An NPC will give a quest to someone and watch him fail it. Then a whole slew of people line up to try it themselves, and he’ll turn them all down. And a couple of months later, he’ll give it to the first person he happens to run into on the street!”
“Is the bonus decent?”
“Considering the quest involved taking down a serious elite, I believe you’ll be satisfied. But I won’t get any of it, since the quest isn’t mine.”
“You get half the loot, though.”
“Last time I just collected things from your ruptured sack, and I didn’t spend a ton of adrenaline to do it. And I got more. That was to my liking. What I’m doing right now is not to my liking. Especially the stench and the ‘half of the loot’ part.”
Cheater found it hard to disagree with Tat. Not because of the stench but because of the loot.
The elite had been poor. Exactly one hundred spores, plus ten yellow peas, ten kernels, and a pair of nuts. Nothing else. No stars, not a single strand of amber, not even simple amber, and no hint of pearls. Selling everything, including the webbing, would net a grand total of two hundred and twenty spores. Half of that was Tat’s share—minus expenses.
That wasn’t right. This elite’s loot was barely better than a tramplers. Pearls were up to chance, sure, but every elite should have stars and amber. At least a little.
The girl suggested that the elite had been weakened to match the quest, so that even newcomers would have a chance. That explained how their victory had been relatively easy. Cheater had his own opinions, but he kept them to himself. And Tat’s suggestion did at least try to explain the lack of loot, and the suspicious rounding of most of the quantities to the nearest ten.
Cheater didn’t think the girl had stolen anything. Everything gained in the course of battle, and everything picked up by a party member, was clearly visible in the party log history. No one could steal in secret.
There was something off about this quest. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the beast had been weakened so that someone could at last complete the quest.
“Let's go look at the carcass,” she suddenly suggested.
“What for?”
“Maybe it was weakened, but not possibly that much. I just don’t understand how you took it out so fast and I want to get a look at those wounds. We didn’t have the time before, I just gutted it and fled, but now there’s no hurry.”
Tat would definitely have more questions if she found out that her companion had, from almost four hundred yards, hit with bullet after bullet right into the center of a triangular plate of armor no bigger than a large smartphone. So he tried to redirect her.
“Actually, I’m kind of in a hurry. And you’re bored silly. The faster we find that album, the quicker we can get back to Pyramid.”
“I spent an hour on one set of apartments, and there are still five more entrances left. The scent of the place chokes me. I need to wrap my face up somehow.”
“We could make a wrap out of gauze and wet it with vinegar. Or something else that has a strong smell.”
“No. We’ll smell for days after a mask like that.”
“Gauze without something on it won’t do much.”
“Then we’ll deal. What are you planning to do after this? Don’t answer me if you want. I’m just interested. Loners aren’t that common here. Especially loner girls.”
“We’re both loners. So they can’t be that rare.”
“Our roads just happened to cross. For now.”
“Maybe, but I doubt we’d reach level twenty if we never teamed up with anyone.”
“Eh. This isn’t as good as being in a decent party, but it’s okay.”
“So if you like parties, why are you a loner?”
“It’s hard for me to stick around in a decent party. My ability is only leveled up enough to find caches of stuff. So parties aren’t exactly eager to share their experience with me just for that. And everyone I did try to work with turned out to be a psycho. Look, you’re a guy, so you wouldn’t understand. Things are different for you.”
“Then you decided to work in the arena?”
“Not the worst pay around.”
“Now you have a thousand spores, enough to kick back for a long time, even at Pyramid’s prices.”
“Nah, at Pyramid prices, that’s only enough to stretch your legs a bit.”
“So you don’t know what you’re doing next.”
“Any offers? Tell me, don’t be shy.”
“It’s not an offer. I have this one acquaintance. He’s odd, and not always pleasant, but he hasn’t let me down yet. Spends his days drinking beer in the stable. It’s not easy to figure him out, but he has said a couple of times that he wouldn’t mind going hunting. For the excitement. But he finds hunting boring when it’s alone. He’s a sort of sensor, but with a twist. He can’t see everything. The two of you might have complementary skills. Your level difference is high, true, but as long as you’re not just killing runners you’ll level up nicely. If you just want to work on your ability, you could find the ghouls and he could kill them. After all, you want to work on your Willpower.”
“What’s the point of a sense who can’t see a trampler thirty yards away?”
“Thirty yards is pretty far. You can talk with my acquaintance yourself, if you’d like. His name is March. I’ll introduce you two.”
“Are you tryi
ng to set me up with another miserable shithead? I’ve had enough of those.”
“He pretends to be a lousy guy, but he’s not. Eccentric, sure, but reliable.”
“You seem like a man who’d be easy to trick. How do you know he hasn’t been pulling the wool over your eyes?”
“What would be the point of that? What use am I to him?”
“How should I know? You really are some kind of cheater. Full of inexplicable surprises. First you’ve got a massive bag of loot, then you’re taking an elite out with a rifle and trying to change the subject to keep me from figuring out how you did it. I can’t even trust you, so I certainly can’t trust this comrade of yours.”
“Whatever you say. I offered, so my conscience is clear. Just think it over, and still let me introduce you.”
“Why doesn’t he just team up with you?”
“He prefers to watch me from the sidelines?”
“What?”
“Exactly. Our relationship is an odd one.”
“There’s something there.”
“In our relationship? I...”
“No,” Tat pointed to an empty doorway. “Over there. Below. Somewhere in the basement.”
“What is it?”
“I’m used to always looking for ammo. Old habit. That way I can find weapon safes and all that. The basement has ammo, and I think it has a lot of ammo.”
Cheater stood up and looked at the spot. “I see doors bound by a padlock. Perhaps the basement doesn’t smell as much since I doubt our hulking friend ever went down there.”
“It’s some variety, at least. Let’s check it out.”
“Ammo would be useful. I’ll look for something to break the lock with.”
Tat raised her head now, then shook it negatively. “Don’t bother. It’s a simple lock. I can open it with a piece of wire.”
“Why didn’t you just do that at the police station?”
“That lock was complicated. This one is easy.”
“Lucky me...”
“Why?”
“I’ve traveled with two women so far in this world, and both of them have been good with locks.”