Heist Online

by Victor Deckard

  I curled my index finger around the trigger, put the security guard’s head in my iron sights, and squeezed off a shot. The Sig Sauer quietly spat out a bullet. The security guard staggered back as the slug penetrated his forehead and blew out the back of his head in a gory spray, splattering the monitor screen behind the man with crimson blood.

  The security guard toppled to the ground and everything went silent. Now that nobody was watching the feed from the surveillance cameras, no one was going to call the police if one of the cameras spotted me.

  A message popped up before my eyes.

  > –$100,000

  > You have killed an NPC! You are only allowed to kill police players and criminals. If you kill an innocent NPC, you’ll get less money. Each innocent NPC you kill cost you $100,000. The amount of penalty money for all NPCs you kill during a heist is deducted from the money you earn after completing a heist.

  “Great,” I muttered under my breath. “You should’ve warned me about it before I took him out.”

  As if in response to my thoughts, another message appeared in my HUD.

  > However, since it is the training mission, killing civilians doesn’t deduct money from you and you won’t gain any money by accomplished this mission.

  “Well, okay,” I thought. “Good to know.”

  The message disappeared and I strode to the desk to check the monitor screen. The first security guard was still standing in the corner of the main room. The feed from the second camera showed the cashier who was still behind the counter. Seemed like none of them heard any noise. Good.

  I left the security room, crept down the corridor, and stole through the open door. Once in the main room, I turned to face the security guard standing in the corner and lifted my pistol to eye level. He noticed me, but before he could draw his handgun, I wasted the security guard with a single bullet to the head.

  > –$100,000

  One hundred thousand dollars for killing a civilian NPC was way too tough. This game really discouraged players from killing civilian NPCs. In the main game, I should refrain from wasting them, otherwise I might end up earning little to no money for a successful heist.

  As the body of the now dead security guard collapsed to the floor, I turned around. And none too soon. The cashier had already pulled a cell phone and was about to type in a number.

  I pointed the Sig Sauer at him and yelled, “Don’t!”

  The NPC instantly froze.

  “Drop it,” I ordered in a menacing tone of voice.

  The cashier did as he was told. The cell phone collapsed to the floor with a thud.

  “Hands up,” I said and he put his hands in the air.

  I quickly looked around the place to see if any customers had entered the store when I was dealing with the guard in the security room. Yet there was no one in the room except for me and the cashier.

  “Get down,” I said to the cashier. He instantly obeyed.

  I took the dead guard by the arms and dragged him toward the counter, leaving a bloody trail across the floor. I heaved the body over the counter and dropped it beside the cashier who didn’t seem to mind lying next to the corpse.

  Unzipping my duffel bag and reaching into it with my left hand, I grabbed a pair of tie zip cuffs. I then put the Sig Sauer on the counter, leaned over, quickly lassoed the cashier’s hands behind his back, and pulled the zip tie tight.

  “Stay down,” I said menacingly before straightening up and grabbing the pistol off the counter.

  I swept my eyes around the room once more. Luckily, no customer had entered the convenience store while I had been busy dealing with the security guard and the cashier.

  My gaze rested on the bloody trail across the floor. I wondered if NPCs would call the police if they noticed it. Or they would just ignore it? I had no idea but decided not to waste any time reading through the FAQ.

  I opened the door behind the counter and stepped into a small storage room. The safe I was looking for was set in one wall. I shrugged the duffel bag off letting it drop to the floor. I put the pistol away, took the drill out of the bag, and straightened up. I didn’t know how to attach the drill to the safe door.

  As it turned out, it was quite simple. All I needed to do was to touch the business end of the device to the safe door. As soon as I did that, the drill got firmly attached to the safe. Only then did I notice a switch and a small monitor screen on one side of the boxy device. I threw the switch and the drill kicked in, starting to bore through the safe door.

  The small screen lit up showing a countdown: 2min59sec. Seemed like it would take three minutes for the drill to crack the safe open. Not too long, but the problem was that the drill was causing quite a din. Any NPC inside the convenience store could easily hear the noise, that was for sure.

  Taking the pistol back in my right hand, I dashed out the door and checked on the cashier. The noise the drill was making was clearly stressing him out. The NPC was trying to get to his feet. I brought my pistol to bear upon him and barked, “Don’t! Stay down!”

  The cashier ceased moving. I looked around the place once more. Still, there were no customers. I took up a position behind the counter from where I could watch the door to the convenience store.

  Despite my anxiety, nobody entered the building while the drill was working. Three minutes later, it was quiet again. I got back into the storage room and saw that the safe door was ajar. I swung the door open and saw a few bundles of hundred-dollar bills inside. When I fixed my gaze on one bundle, a piece of info popped up in my HUD.

  > $10,000

  There were five ten-thousand-dollar bundles in the safe, which meant that there were fifty thousand dollars in total.

  I started to take the bundles from the safe and throw them into the open duffel bag. Once I secured the money, I tried to detach the drill. Yet it firmly clung to the safe door. I tried throwing the switch on the side of the drill off. The boxy device instantly detached itself from the safe door. I put the drill into the bag as well, then zipped it up, and slung it across my shoulders.

  I went out the door. The cashier was trying to get to his feet again. I pointed the Sig Sauer at him and said, “Stay down and be quiet.”

  The NPC saw the muzzle of my pistol pointing at his face, turned ashen, and flattened himself on the floor again. I strode toward the entrance door and went out of the building. I looked up and down the street. Fortunately, there were no passers-by nearby. I quickly crossed the road and headed for the alley in which sat the black van.

  Sliding the side door open, I looked around once more and threw the duffel bag in the cargo section of the vehicle. I then climbed in and slid the door close behind me. Behind the wheel sat an NPC.

  “Nailed it,” I said grinning. “We’re rich, man. Well, kinda. Let’s get outta here.”

  The driver said nothing. He wouldn’t so much as cast a glance at me.

  “What the heck,” I thought.

  Before I could say something else, a message appeared in front of me.

  > Mission Accomplished

  > Money stolen: $50,000

  > Money laundered: $25,000

  > Penalty: –$200,000 for the two civilians killed

  > Gang members survived: 1

  > Money earned: –$175,000

  “Oops,” I said to the driver. “Not so rich, after all. Seems like I have no money to pay you. Sorry, dude. Wasn’t my fault.”

  As expected, the NPC ignored me.

  Sure enough, I was well aware that I wouldn’t have gotten any money even if I had earned some because it was the training mission.

  I wasn’t sure what I had to do next. Should I doff the balaclava or not? And why the driver was just sitting behind the steering wheel, without making an attempt to drive away from the crime scene?

  Then another message emerged in my HUD.

  > Congratulations! You have completed the training mission. Here are a few more final notes for you. />
  > First of all, you have to always put the money in the van, otherwise you aren’t be able to finish the job. The money you steal is hot, which is why you cannot use it. It needs to be laundered, which is not for free. So after a job is done, you get only half the sum you’ve stolen. You receive the laundered money on your bank account. You can spend it on whatever you like.

  > Second, once you put the stolen money in the van, it becomes untouchable, meaning the police players cannot retrieve it. Bear in mind that the van is only used for carrying equipment and money, but you cannot use the van to escape. So you have to obtain your own getaway vehicle.

  > Third, in the main game, you cannot just waltz into a place and rob it. Technically, you can do it, but it won’t give you any experience points and you cannot use the money you steal. Instead, you have to use the computer in your safe house or your cell phone to get access to the website called crime.com where there a number of contracts to choose from.

  > Last but not least, when back in your safe house, you will need to come up with a four-digit code. You are going to need to type in the code every time you enter your safe house. Your safe house is the place where you can keep your stuff and hide from the police players when they look for you. Which is why you had better not reveal the location of your safe house to those who may turn against you at some point.

  > If you still have some questions about the game, please check the FAQ.

  > And there you have it! Have fun!

  Once I read the text, everything went dark.

  Chapter Two

  A moment later, I found myself back in the basement where I had started. In front of me was a computer desk. Beside the monitor lay a key to a car and a cell phone. I sat at the desk and booted the computer up.

  The homepage of crime.com instantly popped up and the map of the playable area appeared on the screen. There were lots of icons of various contacts on the map. I took some time to examine them. There were plenty of contracts to choose from. Banks, jewelry stores, armored cash transport cars, etc. Players even could rob trains and yachts.

  I also noticed a few so-called legendary heists. From what I could gather, a legendary heist was an extremely difficult heist. It took a lot of skill to complete such a heist. Entry-level requirement for every legendary heist was 20, which was max level in this game.

  Most of the contracts were unavailable for me at the moment because my character’s level was 0. So I tweaked the filters so that only the heists available for me were showed on the screen. This done, I examined the map once more and moved the cursor toward the contract named Small City Bank.

  Yet when I clicked on the contract, a message appeared on the screen that read, “You have got to pick a class you want to play as before you can choose a contract.”

  A moment later another message appeared. This one popped up not on the screen of the monitor but in my HUD.

  > (Do you want to pick a class: Yes/No)

  I agreed and the page before my eyes refreshed.

  > Class: Shot Caller

  > Description: The Shot Caller is a seasoned criminal and the leader of the gang who excels in situational control. The Shot Caller class is the main support class. He or she can heal the members of the gang, as well as ensure the success of the heist. The Shot Caller being a hardened criminal can intimidate and manipulate civilians. The Shot Caller cannot wear any type of body armor, but he or she can learn the skills that increase their movement speed or make them capable of dodging enemies’ bullets.

  > (Do you want to pick the Shot Caller class: Yes/No)

  > Class: Engineer

  > Description: The Engineer is capable of quickly cracking doors, safes, vaults, as well as hacking computers and various electronic devices. The Engineer can wear any type of body armor except for the heavy one. The Engineer has a wide range of skills to learn. For instance, he or she can deploy sticky surveillance cameras that can be attached to all types of surfaces. The live video feed from such a camera is available to all gang members. It is definitely one of the most important classes because the Engineer’s skills are always sought for, no matter in which way––stealth or “loud”––you prefer to carry out a heist.

  > (Do you want to pick the Engineer class: Yes/No)

  > Class: Punisher

  > Description: If the heist went south and the cops are on their way, the Punisher is who you need! He or she can wear heavy body armor and wield powerful heavy-caliber weapons. They can also deploy ammo bags if one of the gang members is low on bullets. Moreover, the Punisher is capable of reinforcing walls and windows, as well as setting various traps and sentry turrets. In other words, this class is capable of turning a house into an unbreachable stronghold. If you don’t like a stealth approach and prefer to do the robbing with raw force, you ought to have the Punisher on your team.

  > (Do you want to pick the Punisher class: Yes/No)

  After I read the text, I gave the matter some thought. A Punisher was obviously a tank. This class allowed the player to wear heavy armor, reinforce walls and windows, and so on. I decided to rule a Punisher out because I wanted to complete heists in stealth. It left two classes to choose from. An Engineer seemed to be a fun class to play as.

  However, I decided to choose a Shot Caller for two reasons. First, this class could heal other members of the gang. A healer was valued in any multiplayer game. Second, as I had learned from completing the training mission, the ability to hold hostages in check was very important in this game. I remembered the cashier trying to get to his feet while the convenience store was being robbed. In the main game, there was going to be a lot more hostages to deal with. I was sure of it.

  A Shot Caller excelled at manipulating, controlling, and intimidating civilians. In my opinion, it was one of the most important classes in this game. Which was why I picked this class.

  Another message popped up in my HUD.

  > +100 exp

  > Congrats! You have just leveled up to level 1! You have got 1 skill point to assign.

  Before moving on, I decided to take a few minutes to check the FAQ to know more about the skill system in this game.

  I learned that after leveling up, the player received only one skill point, which could be used to unlock one of the new skills from the so-called skill tree or to upgrade one of those that the player already learned. The skill tree consisted of ten branches, each of which had five skills to choose from. Some of the skills required more than one skill point to be learned.

  Moreover, after choosing the class, the player instantly leveled up to level one. The first branch of the skill tree got unlocked and the first-branch skills became available for learning. But the other nine branches of the skill tree remained locked. In order to unlock the second branch, the player needed to learn at least one skill from the first branch, and so on and so forth. In other words, in order to unlock the next branch of the skill tree, one needed to learn at least one skill from the previous branch.

  I elected to spend the skill point right away. I brought up the skill tree, which appeared in my HUD, and examined it. As told in the FAQ, only the first branch––the top one––was unlocked. I examined all the five skills from the first branch.

  > Level 1 Branch:

  > Name: Medic Bag 1

  > Description: You can deploy a medic bag. It has three charges, meaning it can be used three times. After a medic bag is deployed, it cannot be moved. When a gang member uses a medic bag, it restores 50% of their Health.

  > Cost: 1 skill point

  > Name: Stamina Capacity 1

  > Description: Increases total Stamina by 25%.

  > Cost: 1 skill point

  > Name: Movement Speed 1

  > Description: Increases Movement Speed by 5%.

  > Cost: 1 skill point

  > Name: Health Regeneration 1

  > Description: Your Health regenerates over time at the rate of 10% a minute.

  > Cost: 1 sk
ill point

  > Name: Painkiller 1

  > Description: After being revived, you take 30% less damage for 60 seconds.

  > Cost: 1 skill points

  After giving the matter some thought, I decided to learn Medic Bag 1 first. This skill seemed the most vital to me because I was a healer after all. After I learned it, the next––second––branch of the Skill Tree became unlocked, giving access to the other five skills.

  I checked out the level 2 branch skills as well.

  > Level 2 Branch

  > Name: Tactical Reload 1

  > Description: Increases reload speed with all weapons by 25%.

  > Cost: 1 skill points

  > Name: Dodge 1

  > Description: You have got a 5% chance of avoiding being hit by enemies’ bullets.

  > Cost: 1 skill point

  > Name: Up you go 1

  > Description: Your teammates take 15% less damage after you revive them for 30 seconds.

  > Cost: 1 skill point

  > Name: Taking Hostages

  > Description: You tie hostages 75% faster.