The first gig did not go so well. D had almost gotten himself caught in a gang skirmish.
He had not expected the transparent dot to suddenly turn red, especially when he did NOT mess with them. One thing was certain, whoever saw him didn't appreciate him disappearing like a blur.
Because after that a whole group chased him as if he owed them a fortune.
Did they think he was a walking jackpot?
What did D do? He made a run for his life. That was at least 15 people. From their outfits they didn’t look like anybody from the big gangs but the guys didn’t hesitate. One of them almost grabbed him.
Sandy activated and D zigzagged between the buildings. They almost scared the hell out of him when one of the guys fired at him, until he realized he could dodge fucking bullets and made a personal record of longest Sandy run ever, around 30 real seconds.
D admitted his mistake. He shouldn’t have thought about system mechanics during this dangerous job and enter an abandoned residential area just because it was a shortcut.
Lesson learned, keep on the safer roads.
One side of the pickup location was filled with red dots, or hostiles. D almost shouted TRAP, but the numbers were too many, expected to be around 100, way too many just to catch him. He did a preliminary survey around the area and found the building beside was guarded by a group of gang members.
After some hesitation he zipped inside his target building.
The pickup of the item itself went without a hitch. The guy was a scary looking old man with arms and an engine for a stomach. Was that even cyberware? D could be sure it wasn’t in the books findable in the academy.
He was handed the item without so much as a confirmation. The delivery this time wasn’t so secretive, it was a piece of heavy cyberware. Thankfully, it came with a leather bag.
“D here. It seems loud outside, is everything ok?” D asked after deliberating for a moment. Talking with these people could get him more connections, meaning more sources of biz and information. Exactly what people meant by killing two birds with one stone.
“Gang fight, usual thing.” Grandpa spoke like he valued it more than iron.
“What you got there, old man. Maybe we can do biz sometimes.” D wasn’t one to be easily defeated.
“Haven’t heard of your name,” and grandpa shut the door in his face.
“Great conversation!” D left the building with the same method. The gang members never left their building but things took a dire turn for him.
Even if he used Sandy, running with over ten kilos didn’t get easier.
He checked his [Cyberware]. He ran the Sandy 4 times today and RCD was already over 9 hours, he didn’t know the limits of the Recommended Cool Down mechanic, but he really didn’t want to find out today. So, he took a different path to avoid any troubles.
D actually considered putting the cyberware into his inventory or taking the NCART to complete his delivery. Just think about it, while others had to take so much trouble, he could just breeze through everything. Neither Scan nor any other sensors would detect the goods, heck, he could even chat with the NCPD’s and take a tour through the police station.
As soon as he had that thought, he searched for a closed area without any presence in the mini-map. Despite the obvious signs of scavengers already harvesting everything from the buildings, to be extra careful D found a small cabinet and crouched there to put his plan into motion, but first, he had to figure out which storage contained his backpacks.
“Backpack.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Assign this bag as your Backpack?
→ Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
D looked at the now glowing backpack on his shoulder. “How about a no. Inventory.”
“Weird... this one’s blue.” The glow faded from the bag and an ice-blue screen of 7 columns and 4 rows appeared before him. D noticed the Inventory written on the left side of the window and on the right side was a [Balance: 0].
On the first two blocks were the bags he recognized as his own.
“How do I take it out, let’s see...” He put his hand inside the screen and took out one bag. As for the other one, he just clicked it.
The bag materialized around the same area mid-space and fell off before he could catch it. Since he was already crouching, it was just above ground, he hoped his old Arasaka SecureBook survived that.
But he remembered that his thought put these two bags inside the inventory just like he made them vanish now, so with another thought, one of the bags once again appeared in his hand.
“Damn, this is too addictive but I’ll really have to be careful to use this in public. It is easy to summon things out of convenience. If the corpos knew I’ll be fucking experimented on until death because no way they will be able to create something like this.” D gloated as he focused on the backpack and stored it inside inventory.
Realizing he had gotten too focused on the inventory, D glanced at his mini-map.
The result made him freeze.
His back tingled and nerves flared, out of the sheer intensity of shock and fear the Sandevistan activated. On the mini-map, roughly just two meters behind him was a presence. However, it was rapidly flickering in red and yellow.
D instinctively ran a Scan on her, but something buzzed and came up with a ‘No Facial Record Found’.
It was a woman, roughly mid-40s, a blue cybernetic jaw, red and blue eyes wide open that D could only accept as shock and incomprehension. Her right arm was transformed into a giant gun, and from the angle she seemed to have even forgotten to aim from what she saw.
D felt his throat dry, fear and panic gripped him so strongly that even though Sandevistan was running, it only numbed those emotions by half.
Only one thought ran through his mind.
‘ShesawmeShesaemeShesawmeShesaemeShesawmeShesaeme...’
D knew one thing.
She couldn’t be left alive. It didn’t matter whether it was corpos or gang, anyone would want a piece of him then.
“D--o--n--u--t....M--u--v–”
He moved, picked the Lexington he never fired and pointed at the woman before the other party did. The safety came off and he loaded the gun, it felt slow.
The world didn’t feel the usual 1:5. It was double that.
Bang!
Even though it was only two meters away, it flew off-course and struck concrete. Both the recoil and his shaking arm were unexpected to him. Sandevistan always cooled him.
The woman pointed the gun at him and it was charging with a white light.
D swallowed, ran behind her and pressed the gun at her skull.
‘Now it won’t miss,’ but he hesitated. Gloria’s face replaced the woman, he couldn’t pull the trigger. Even if it was another woman, she wouldn’t have wanted him to pull the trigger, she had kept him away from all and every kind of violence. Ayase Momo’s words rang in his mind, saying he was the type of person who would help anyone.
Her metal elbow slammed into his gut, sending him to the center of the room.
The Sandevistan fizzled but D willed it to fire again.
A mantis blade came out of the woman’s left hand and she threatened, “Behave, you don’t have t-u--g--e-t--h-a--r-t–”
But D wasn’t listening. His head rang with a chiiii– sound.
‘Why did I hesitate...’ he was not fighting her just because she found out his secret. She was pointing a gun and sword at him. Whether it was for his chromes or his system it didn’t matter.
D avoided another giant bullet and zapped past her.
Pressed the gun against her head, Gloria’s smiling face appeared before the gun.
‘Mom wouldn’t want me to die!’ Ken shut his eyes and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Thud
The barrel of the hand cannon slammed on his shoulder and once again D was sent flying and crashed on the wall. He coughed out blood and what felt like some lumps. Lifted the gun with a shaky hold and fired it once again.
Bang! Bang!
“Still... not dead? cough” the Sandevistan wore off and D struggled to lift his head, the mask even blocked his vision.
BANG!
THUD
A charged shot landed a few feet away from him and tore a hole on the floor.
After some struggle, his vision finally steadied. The woman lay motionless on the ground.
Ken let out a shaky breath, and with it, the strength he’d gathered left his body.
“...I...”
His gaze remained fixed on the corpse.
Daring, for it to move, or perhaps, hoping.
The smoke curling from the Lexington drifted across his vision, as though trying to spare him the sight.
His holo rang, and D repositioned his mask with difficulty.
<Gin: D. What happened to the package? >
D felt his mind hazy, why was she asking about the package?
<D: I was attacked. Is that your person?>
<Gin: Why would my person attack you? Did you lose the package?”
<D: The package’s safe.> He felt irritated, her timing was too good to be true. <D: If your people didn’t attack, why did you call now to ask about the package?”
<Gin: Idiot, that’s because the tracker disappeared! You don’t even have a name, do you think your head’s worth even champ change?>
D took a deep breath, he definitely had broken some bones, his heart hammered against something hard, hopefully something wasn’t poking at it, and knowing it was a random encounter didn’t calm his nerves.
<Gin: Your voice sounds strained, do you need my men to collect you?>
<D: ...I’ll be fine, delivery needs to be done by tonight, right.> He was here to survive, but not just survive. He had to fucking make a name here, and failing a gig didn’t give you more credibility.
<Gin: That’s right. The pickup gig can be delayed.>
<D: I’ll let you know after I complete the first gig.>
<Gin: ...Ok. Report on the goods. Is it damaged?>
<D: It’s safe and undamaged.>
<Gin: That doesn’t explain the tracker disappearing from the map!>
D had some idea what happened but coming up with an excuse at his current situation was taking more than he could afford. Especially if it went live once he took it out.
<D: EMP...>
<Gin: EMP?>
<D: They placed it in an EMP bag, I already recovered it.>
<Gin: They must have put it in a high quality EMP bag. That seems rather prepared. I will check with the supplier and see if there was any leak from that side.>
<D: Yeah, please do that.>
<Gin: How’re your targets? Did you flatline them or let them get away?”
<D: Flatline? Yeah, done.> D looked at the corpse, and made the connection. Flatline indeed.
<Gin: See if you can ID them. If they have bounties I can collect them for you. Not that you can do it if you want to keep your identity hidden.>
<D: Couldn’t ID her, the scan failed for some reason.>
<Gin: Facial Matrix Scrambler? Or just unknown champs? Well, you’re in luck, most who use facial matrix likely have some bounties on them. 70-30, on your favor.>
<D: Wait, you’re taking a cut from this?>
<Gin: Why of course, this is biz. You have something to gain by hiding your identity, so I get a cut. Or if you’d like you can collect it yourself, your call. First check if there is a bounty. Matrix should’ve died by now and scan should work since they flatlined already.>
D took a glance at his mini-map and wearily turned the body. The scan worked without a fanfare.
<D: Bad luck, petty crimes, no bounties.>
<Gin: I guess that’s about true. If they had bounties, you’d have been long zeroed. Ok, remove the EMP Bag and deliver the thing.>
D frowned. The street really loved its slang. First “flatline.” Now “zero.”
<D: I think I will deliver it in EMP bag.>
<Gin: If you are willing to take responsibility, do as you wish as long as you deliver before 0400, but know that you’re more likely to be noticed if you walk around with an EMP bag that big.>
<D: Noted.>
Honestly, after her warning he would very much like to take it out, but with his current condition, walking with his body was already a chore.
D let out a shaky breath and gave the corpse once over.
Name: Elena Gomez
Occupation: Gang Member
Criminal Record: Felony, Arson, Illegal BD, Robbery
Threat Assessment: Medium
Bounty: 4,600 E$
The bounty was a welcome bonus, and D almost shared the info. He didn’t stop at the last minute not out of guilt or greed of getting the whole bounty. It was the possible leakage of his secret.
He checked the map once again, collected the body in his inventory, which for some reason felt a slight resistance but still entered the space. After much hesitation and deliberation, and realizing that he didn’t really have a concrete method to make sure nothing left her brain, it was the only choice left to him.
After sloppily collecting all his blood samples and clues, D carefully slipped out of the building.
The mini-map expanded. On the edges of the map a few hostiles were moving randomly.
“Are they searching through the nearby buildings? Friends of Elena? Or because of the gunshots?” Either way he didn’t have the energy for another fight or the courage to ID them for another time.
With weak steps, D left the area while making sure he wasn’t leaving any blood trails. Leaving the dark alleyways, he took the main road. After finding an all-night café, he hopped in without thinking much.
He didn’t dare stay there for long. After wiping the mask and any traces of blood stains, he left the settlement.
The mini-map covered a small range indoors, from his estimation so far about 20 to 25 meters, while it doubled outdoors. To be more specific, whenever he entered a building, or closed spaces, the map focused on a closer area and he couldn’t find a way to enlarge it.
As for the big city map, or World Map, it showed various markers like it showed with Victor’s Clinic but he couldn’t find a use for it. So far it was only there for navigation, but his holo map worked better for that.
And the big lesson?
There was never any fucking way he was trying new system mechanics just because they sounded freaking cool and cheaty.
Especially when they felt cheaty.
{Alternative Titles: First Blood; Lesson; Kill or Be Killed; She Saw Too Much; Presence Concealment? Hello?; Inventory Test; First Corpse; The Woman with the Gun Arm; Lesson; }