I darted to the middle of the street right in front of the car. The non-player driver slammed on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a stop. I dashed toward the driver’s-side door and shoved my badge in the NPC’s face through the open window.
“I need your car. Get out!”
The NPC obeyed without question. Once he got out, I slid in and slammed on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward, accelerating rapidly. The two occupants of the SUV noticed me and tried to give me the slip. I heard the engine of their car rev louder, but the vehicle continued to drive down the road almost at the same speed as before. Their vehicle wasn’t much of a getaway car. Those players were total novices.
The driver was clearly trying to coax some more speed form the SUV, to no avail. I had no trouble catching with their car whatsoever. As I got closer, I saw the passenger twist in the shotgun seat and bring up what looked like a machine pistol.
Half a second later, I saw flashes from the weapon’s muzzle. I hunched down in my seat as the player started squeezing off bursts of rounds. The slugs chewed into the hood and punched holes in the windshield, shattering it.
I reached for the Sig Sauer, stuck it out the broken windshield, and depressed the trigger. As I was firing almost blindingly, I had no idea if any of my bullets wounded either of the two players.
I yanked on the steering wheel, swerving to the left to get out of the gunman’s line of vision. I stuck my head up to glance at the car. The gunman had already readjusted his aim and cut loose through the left-hand rear side window with a long stream of fire. His aim was somewhat off, so most of his bullets missed my car. Then his machine pistol ran dry. The player commenced reloading his gun.
Luckily, it wasn’t long before I reached the two players. When I pulled abreast of the car, I eased off on the accelerator, matching my speed to the damaged vehicle’s.
I started to bring up the Sig Sauer again, but then another idea crossed my mind. I put the weapon down across my lap and yanked a grenade from my tactical vest. I pulled out the pin and thumbed away the spoon. I let the grenade cook off for two or three seconds and when I saw the gunman bring his machine pistol up to bear on me, I tossed the grenade out my window and into the SUV’s cab.
Then I put my car into reverse and backed away.
Before the two players could bail out, the grenade detonated. A moment later, the fireball filled the interior of the SUV, flames erupting from all the windows. The blast was strong enough to lift the car a few inches off the ground. I could feel the heat and the shock wave of the explosion pass through the broken windshield of my car. I brought up an arm to shield my eyes against the flash effect of the blast.
A message appeared before my eyes.
> +1000 exp
Then another one popped up in my HUD.
> Congratulations! You eliminated all the criminals. (*)
> Mission Accomplished
> Criminals killed: 2
> Criminals apprehended: 1 (+$25,000)
> Hostages killed: 0 (–$0)
> Hostages saved: 0 (+$0)
> Money earned: $75,000
> (*) Note: You have one heister arrested. To receive additional experience points, you need to ride the criminal to the nearest police station and lock him or her in a cell.
Since I hadn’t freed any of the hostages during the mission, I hadn’t received additional money for it.
I executed a tight U-turn and drove half a block back. I pulled to the right shoulder of the road and got out of the car. When I reached the police cruiser that I had left in the alley, I saw that Jennifer was still in the back. I had half expected that she would get out of my car somehow. Yet it hadn’t happened.
I leaned over and peered in the car through one of the rear windows. Jennifer glared back at me. I wasn’t particularly interested in getting her in prison. I wanted to test something out, which would be impossible to do with her being in prison.
So I swung the door open and said, “Get out.”
I didn’t have to say it twice. The girl climbed out of the police cruiser and looked at me.
“Turn around,” I said.
“Why?” She asked eyeing me suspiciously.
“I’m gonna let you go,” I replied.
“Oh really?” She asked. “Why in the world would you do such a thing?”
“If you don’t want to be freed, then get back in the car so I can send you to prison.”
She looked at me for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and turned around. After I unfastened the handcuffs binding her wrists, she turned to face me again.
“Now what?” She asked.
“You’re free to go,” I said.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re a cop. I’m a heister. You’ve apprehended me, I get it. Then you’ve let me go and this I don’t get. Why have you changed your mind and decided to let me go? Or you’ve suddenly fallen in love with me, huh?”
Without bothering to reply, I turned, stepped to the driver’s-side door, and swung it open.
“Where are you going?” Jennifer asked.
Ignoring the girl, I slid in behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition, igniting the engine. The car roared to life. I pushed the accelerator down and pulled out of the alley. When the car rolled onto the street, I spun the wheel, turning to the left, and floored the accelerator. As I passed the still flaming remains of the SUV, I felt the heat of the fire through the rolled-down window.
I gunned it for a few miles, then pulled over, and reached for my cell phone. After I tapped on the icon of the tracking app, the city map filled the screen. I saw a white blip representing Jennifer. It was moving down a street. Judging from its speed, the girl was walking on her feet.
A couple of minutes later, she stopped. The blip was now completely unmoving. I wondered what Jennifer was doing right now. I got the answer to that question half a minute later. The blip was moving again. This time, it was moving much faster than it had before, which meant that Jennifer had just hot-wired some car.
I pulled from the curb, executed a U-turn, and drove in the direction the white blip was moving.
About half an hour later, the blip stopped for a few seconds, then resumed moving somewhat slower, which meant that the girl was walking on foot now. I saw the blip enter a building. The girl spent fifteen or so minutes in there. Probably it was her safe house. I decided to check it out. It took me ten minutes to get to the place. When I pulled to the curb in front of the building, Jennifer was long gone. It was good.
I climbed out of the car and looked at the building. It was a laundry. Jennifer wouldn’t have spent fifteen minutes in there if it hadn’t been her safe house. I entered the building and commenced feeling the walls, looking for a hidden button. Eventually, I found it. A section of one wall slid upward to reveal an elevator.
I just stared at the control pad. I didn’t know what the entry code was, nor had I any means of cracking it, so I didn’t touch the control pad. Not that I was eager to get in Jennifer’s safe house.
A few seconds later, the section of the wall slid back down to cover the elevator again. I went out of the building and returned to my car.
So the application that could track a cell phone location worked perfectly and actually could help you to discover someone else’s safe house. Which meant that I knew now how the British players had discovered the safe house of my own. What I still didn’t know, however, was how they had managed to learn my nickname and the number of my cell phone.
I sat in my car for several minutes, thinking hard. Yet no bright idea occurred to me.
I decided to test something else out. I checked my cell phone for available missions. One of them had started only a couple of minutes ago, so I picked it and tweaked the filters so no random players could join me. After consulting the map, I pulled from the curb and set off.
A few minutes later, I reached the place. It was a jewelry store. Instead of stopping in
front of it in plain sight, I elected to back up in an alley to hide my car out of sight. I then stepped from the car, walked out of the alley, and looked around. The jewelry store was on the other side of the street. From the look of things, the heisters were still inside the building.
I hid myself behind one of the vehicles parked along the curb and resigned myself to just waiting and watching the jewelry store.
After a few minutes passed, three heisters walked out of the building, carrying bags obviously filled with pieces of jewelry. The players looked around but failed to notice me. They climbed in a white sedan and took off. I jumped to my feet and returned to my car.
Once inside the vehicle, I pulled from the alley and drove in the direction the white sedan had gone. However, I wasn’t trying to catch up with the heisters. Instead, I slowed down and reached for my cell phone. Then I tapped on an app called Watcher. This app allowed me to see a white blip on the map, which represented the players’ white sedan. So even I couldn’t see them yet, I know where they were, thanks to Watcher.
As I drove through the streets, I glanced at the screen of my cell phone mounted on the dash every now and then. Although I didn’t engage the heisters, the mission wasn’t over yet because I was still chasing them. However, according to the piece of information showed on the screen, if the heisters managed to put more than five hundred yards between themselves and my car, my mission would be over, which meant that the heisters would be able to get to the van and finish their mission.
I eased off on the accelerator. A few seconds later, the white blip disappeared from the map and a message popped up in my HUD.
> The criminals are getting away! You have to catch up with them or the mission will be failed.
> Remaining time: 00min59sec
So I had a minute to get within five hundred yards of the white sedan. Yet I wasn’t going to do it. Instead, I pulled over, cut the engine, and turned my attention toward the cell phone mounted on the dash.
The Watcher app had another useful function, which allowed the user to watch the live feed from the street surveillance cameras. So although I couldn’t see the white sedan on the map any longer, I remembered which way the car was going. I commenced jumping from one outdoor security camera to another until I had the white sedan on the screen.
It barreled through an intersection and disappeared from sight. I know the name of the next street, so I quickly switched to another rooftop camera and saw the sedan again. Since I knew the layout of the city very well by this point, I had no trouble switching between various external cameras, keeping the white sedan on the screen almost constantly.
A minute later, a message popped up before my eyes.
> Mission Failed!
> The criminals have gotten away!
So even if I got close to the white sedan again, it wouldn’t pop up on the screen of my cell phone now since the mission was failed. However, I could still watch the video feed from the various street cameras because this feature of the Watcher app wasn’t dependent on the missions. So I continued to watch the heisters.
Once they realized they had managed to get away, they slowed down. A few minutes later, they pulled in a parking lot and parked the sedan next to a black van. Then the players started to carry the bags with the jewelry from the sedan to the van. I watched the feed coming from an external camera mounted in the parking lot. When they were done, the players got back in their car and drove away.
After that, I turned the app off and leaned back in my seat.
So I had just found the answer to another question. Now I know how the British players always knew the whereabouts of the heisters they were planning to rob. While one of them drove the car, one of the others used the Watcher app on his or her cell phone to keep track of the heisters’ movements.
However, I still had no idea how they had managed to learn my nickname and the number of my cell phone. And I didn’t know yet for what purpose they robbed heisters. But I was determined to find the answers to these two questions.
I just sat in my car for another half an hour, deep in thought. Then my cell phone rang. It was Flynn. After we agreed on the rendezvous point, I started the engine.
When we met, I filled him in on what I had found out in his absence.
He nodded and asked, “So how are we gonna find those Brits, Striker?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“What are we gonna do now then?” He asked.
“Think it wouldn’t hurt to get a few levels and learn some useful skills. So let’s do some missions.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirteen
Flynn and I played as cops for several days. Since we were very experienced players in this game by that point, we successfully completed most of the missions we took on, gaining levels and money very quickly.
When I leveled up to level 2, I examined the second branch of the skill tree.
> Level 2 Branch
> Name: Sentry Turret gun 1
> Description: You can deploy a small automatic sentry turret gun. It has a radar that is programmed to fire at criminals only. However, bear in mind that while the turret gun does not target civilians or cops, it will waste whoever gets in the crossfire, including civilian NPCs and police players. The turret gun has a small monitor that shows its total loaded ammo, allowing the police players to keep track of the sentry gun’s remaining capacity. When the turret gun is out of ammunition, it tilts down its barrel and its highlight turns red.
> Additional information: The sentry turret gun actively targets and fires at enemies that enter its detection radius and does not switch targets until its current target is dead or no longer near the gun. The turret gun stops functioning only when it runs out of ammo or is destroyed. The sentry gun can be destroyed by being shot at or having explosives such as grenades detonate near it. Players cannot repair a damaged or completely destroyed sentry gun. Also, once deployed, the sentry gun cannot be picked up and carried to another place.
> The level 1 sentry turret gun’s stats:
> Amount: 1
> Armor: 50
> Ammo: 100
> Damage: 10
> Headshot Multiplier: 3X
> Magazine Size: 20
> Reload Speed: 5 seconds
> Firing Mode(s): Automatic
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Name: Road police spikes 1
> Description: Road police spikes (also known as traffic spikes and tire shredders) is a device or weapon used to impede or stop the movement of wheeled vehicles by puncturing their tires. They look like back strips extended across the roads. The strips are extended across the roads all over the city. When you chase heisters and they race toward such a strip, you can use your cell phone to remotely cause the spikes to protrude. When driven over, they cause any land vehicle's tires to deflate.
> Road police spikes’ stats:
> Distance: you have to be within 100 meters of the strip to be able to make the spikes to stick out.
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Name: Blockers 1
> Description: Blockers, or bollards, are retractable mechanical objects found around the city. You can use your cell phone to remotely cause the bollards to extend to cut off a road. Blockers are strong enough to withstand car crashes. If a player drives a vehicle at high speed and then slams into blockers, it will inflict powerful damage on the car.
> Blockers’ stats:
> Distance: you have to be within 100 meters of the strip to be able to make the bollards to protrude.
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Name: Virus 1
> Description: This skill allows you to install an app on your cell phone that can be used to temporarily infect enemies’ cell phones with a computer virus. The virus causes your enemies’ cell phones to emit a long high-pitched sound, which can compromise your enemies’ positions. The effect lasts for several seconds.
> Virus’ stats:<
br />
> Noise level: low
> Duration: 3 seconds
> Cost: 1 skill point
> Name: Downed but not defeated 1
> Description: When you are downed, your crawling speed gets increased by 5%.
> Cost: 1 skill point
I wasn’t sure if the Sentry Turret Gun skill would be of benefit to me. I was a crack shot, so I didn’t need the automatic turret gun. Moreover, it could kill civilians if they got in the crossfire, so I decided not to learn it. I also wasn’t sure about the Downed but not defeated and Virus skills. Probably, they might be pretty useful in some situations, but I decided not to learn them. At least for now.
The Road police spikes and Blockers skills seemed much more useful to me than all the other ones on the second branch of the skill tree. I had learned from bitter experience that blockers could be extremely useful when you were chasing heisters. The road police spikes skill was very similar to that one, so there was no point in learning both of these skills. Which one should I learn?
After giving the matter some thought, I decided to learn the road police spikes skill. Since the metallic spikes were way smaller than blockers, it would take them much less time to extend and then retract back into a road surface.
So I learned the Road police spikes skill.
After I leveled up to 3, I examined the third branch of the skill tree and decided on the Quadcopter skill.
> Level 3 Branch:
> Name: Quadcopter 1
> Description: A quadcopter is an aerial battle drone. You can control it by using your cell phone. The drone can be used to detect movement in an area, giving an overview of hot zones of the battlefield. The quadcopter can stay airborne indefinitely. However, the quadcopter is a bit slower than the twin-wheeled drone is.
Heist Online Page 30