“Thought cops weren’t allowed to waste civilians,” I said.
“They aren’t. If a cop kills a civilian, they gets a penalty, just like us, heisters. But unlike us, if a cop kills three civilians in a row, he or she gets suspended for a few minutes.”
A new hailstorm of bullets arced through the air overhead, shattering the remaining display cases and lodging in the rear wall.
“These guys should be stupid novices who are still learning the game and don’t know much about it yet,” Flynn continued. “Dammit. I should’ve taken that possibility into account. Thought they would act carefully, giving us plenty of time to escape. Dang it.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting the heck outta here,” Destroyer yelled as he started crawling across the room toward the corridor leading to the rear of the jewelry store.
“He’s right,” Flynn said. “Let’s go.”
A hailstorm of lead burned through the air, pervading the main room as we began crawling toward the corridor on our bellies, keeping below the hail of heavy gunfire.
The three cops kept laying down suppressive fire. The fusillade of full metal jacket bullets tore through the fragile structure. Glass shattered as wood and plastic housing materials were splintered under the violent onslaught. The furniture all around us disintegrated as the three players let loose with long bursts of devastating fire. White plumes of plaster dust erupted from the walls. Stuffing flew from couches and chairs.
Destroyer had already reached the door. He got to his feet and raced down the corridor.
“No, get down,” Flynn shouted to him.
One of the shooters dragged his fire across the length of the storefront, the bullets flying into the room and zipping above our heads. A cabinet blew apart, a cheap clay vase on the counter exploded in a shower of chips, and shelves fell off the walls as the bullets kept slicing through the air above us.
When Destroyer was halfway down the corridor, one of the rounds caught him in the back. He screamed in surprise––and probably in pain as well––and collapsed to the floor.
“What an idiot,” Flynn muttered.
Destroyer crawled on, leaving a trail of blood along the floor.
One of the shooters walked his or her line of bullets along the right-hand wall. Flynn and I ducked our heads as gouges and pockmarks appeared on the wall above us.
“Dammit,” Flynn cursed as one bullet zipped past so close to his head that it singed his hair. “They’re inside the store!”
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that my partner was right. The three cops advanced on our position, assault rifles in their hands, blazing.
I rolled on my back, pulled the AK-47 from my bag, pointed the muzzle at the three cops, and squeezed the trigger. The three cops scattered, scrambling to get out of the line of fire. I dumped half the magazine when I heard Flynn yell behind me, “Striker, move!”
I looked at him and saw that he had almost reached the end of the corridor. While I was crawling toward him, he provided covering fire, discharging his pistol in the general direction of the cops.
“Guys, come here,” Destroyer shouted before getting to his feet and darting in the manager’s office.
“No, dammit,” Flynn yelled at him. “Get back! We gotta use the other way out!”
Destroyer either didn’t hear him or just didn’t care. Either way, he didn’t come out of the manager’s office.
We reached the door to the security room and got in. Flynn jumped to the back door, opened it a crack, and peered through.
“It’s clear,” he told me. “Let’s go.”
“What about Destroyer?” I asked as I stood up.
“The hell with him,” Flynn said.
“I don’t feel like leaving him.”
Flynn looked as if he was going to argue with me, but then he changed his mind.
“Alright, dammit,” he said. He then craned his to peer through the door to the corridor and shouted, “Hey Destroyer! Get over here, now!”
“I’m hit,” Destroyer screamed from the manager’s office. “I got a debuff. I’m losing blood. I’m bleeding, dammit. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die on my first heist. I don’t wanna die, guys. I’m too young. I haven’t even gotten laid yet.”
“Shut up, comedian, and come over here,” Flynn shouted to him.
Since the door to the security room and the door to the manager’s office were right in front of each other, I saw Destroyer dash from the room. Once he was in the corridor, the cops opened up with their guns again. One of the bullets caught the player in the chest, dropping him to the ground.
“Dang it,” he screamed. “I’m hit! I’m hit!”
Destroyer was wounded twice already. I figured that if the cops were armed with AK-47’s, then two more bullets to his body would finish him off since an AK-47’s damage was 25 while a player’s basic Health was 100.
The cops kept a steady fire. Just as Destroyer got to his feet, a few more rounds punched through his body, dropping the player to the ground again.
However, he was still alive. The player sat up and then tried to get to his feet, to no avail.
“Help me,” he yelled to us. “Can’t get up for some reason.”
I wanted to dash over to him, but Flynn stopped me by placing his hand on my shoulder.
“He’s downed,” he explained. “He can’t get up on his own or use his weapons. But if you try to help him, the cops will down you too.”
He was right. I heard the pounding of running feet from the corridor. Once I got in the corridor, the cops would riddle me with bullets as well. There was no way I could help Destroyer without getting myself downed.
He noticed me eyeing him and shouted, “Just leave, guys. Don’t worry about me. Run for your lives. Just run while you still can.”
“Okay,” Flynn said as he nodded. “Let’s go, Striker.”
Destroyer then realized that we were actually going to ditch him and his mood instantly changed. “Hey, I was just joking, guys. You ain’t gonna leave me here, right? Right? Guys?”
“Sorry,” I said and jerked the back door open.
Flynn and I dashed out of the building and raced along a short alley. We then scaled a chain-link fence, landed on the other side, and burst from the alley. We temporarily stopped on the sidewalk to get our bearings. To our left were the ruined storefront, my severely damaged sedan, and the three police cruisers.
I wanted to run toward where the black van was, but Flynn intercepted me. “Where are you going?”
“To the van, of course. We need to toss the jewelry in there, right?”
“There’s no van anymore.”
“What?”
“Look, I’ll explain later. Follow me.”
We ran across the street and entered a narrow alley between two buildings. There was a silver-colored sedan in there. The car looked exactly like my own car had before it was reduced to debris.
Flynn swung the driver’s-side door open, tossed his bag with the stolen jewelry into the back of the vehicle, and slid behind the wheel. I climbed into the front passenger seat. Before I even could shut the door behind me, Flynn slammed the car into gear and threw the car out of the alley with a screech of tires. Once on the street, Flynn jerked the steering wheel to the side, executing a left turn and floored the gas pedal, driving away from the jewelry store. I turned in my seat and threw my bag with the stolen jewelry onto the backseat.
I then cast a glance at Flynn and asked, “What now?”
“Now we need to get rid of them bastards,” Flynn replied as he looked in the rearview mirror.
I twisted in my seat and peered through the rear windshield. The three police cruisers were chasing us. Flynn stomped on the gas pedal, revving the engine to top speed. Still, the police cars were on our tail.
“No way I can give them the slip,” Flynn said. “You gotta deal with them.”
I nodded and unslung my AK-47. First of all, I
pressed the release button with my thumb, dropping the mag in my left hand. I checked the load. The mag was half-empty. I slammed it back home and looked over my shoulder again.
The player in the lead car thrust his assault rifle out the window, propped it on the side mirror to steady his aim, and started shooting. The rounds punched holes through the rear windshield of our sedan, shattering it. Some of them lodged themselves in my seat. One the rounds passed so close to my head I felt its heat on my right cheek. Another one struck the headrest of Flynn’s seat, blowing it apart in a flurry of shredded leather and tufts of the stuffing.
“Dammit,” Flynn cussed.
I raised my rifle to shoulder level, brought it to bear on the lead vehicle, and opened fire. Despite all the chaos, I kept my cool and fired in controlled three-round bursts through the broken rear windshield, the smoking spent shell casings flying in an arc and falling to the floor. The report was nearly deafening in the confined space of the car. Still, it didn’t seem to bother Flynn in the slightest. Neither did it bother me.
I walked my fire across the hood and up the windshield of the lead police car. My rounds punched holes through the windshield and drilled into the player behind the steering wheel. One of them buried itself in his skull, killing the player instantly. The lead police cruiser swerved off the road and crashed through the storefront of the nearby building.
“Way to go, Striker,” Flynn exclaimed, casting a glance in the rearview mirror. “One down, two to go.”
I put the diver of the next car in my iron sights and stroked the trigger. The AK-47 spat out a short volley of bullets and clicked dry. Keeping my head, I dropped the spent mag, pulled a fresh one from the pocket of my jacket, and slammed it into the well, my eyes never leaving the second police car.
I had barely sighted the driver as he raked our sedan with heavy machine gun fire, rounds plinking through the metal body of the vehicle. It was just a wonder that none of them hit us yet.
“Holy crap!” Flynn cried out. “Them bastards ain’t joking, Striker! Just in case you haven’t realized it yet, they’re badly wanting us dead! So why don’t you take them out already?”
Not bothering to reply, I pressed the trigger and held it down, letting the muzzle rise with the recoil. The rounds stitched a line of holes across the windshield and caught the driver in the chest and the face.
The body of the dead player was flung across the steering wheel and the police vehicle swerved sharply to the left before slamming into a streetlight.
The body of the dead player was propelled forward. It sailed out the crazed windshield, shattering it, a sharp spike of glass still attached to the upper frame tearing his back open in the process. He flew over the sidewalk before his head slammed into the brick wall of the nearby building with a sickening crunch. Then the body collapsed onto the ground in a heap.
The player behind the last police car must have decided that he wanted no more of this. Not willing to push his luck, he executed a tight U-turn and headed back the way he had come.
“That was awesome, Striker,” Flynn said. “You are a crack shot, aren’t ya?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty good at shooter games.”
“We’d make a pretty good team, you and me,” Flynn said.
“What about Destroyer?” I asked. “Probably it ain’t too late for us to rescue him. If anything, he has the third bag with jewelry.”
“Fat chance. He’s done for. Ditto for the bag.”
“Think they killed him before they gave chase to us?”
“Nah. Although them cops were novices, one of them wasn’t as stupid as the other two.”
“How so?”
“I saw them cops run from the alley in the rearview mirror. One of them carried the bag and dragged cuffed Destroyer. The cop pushed our guy in his car before all three of them raced after us. Guess Destroyer was in the car that just got away. The driver of that car must’ve decided not to risk losing the perp he arrested and the stolen goods he retrieved. See, when a heister is downed, a cop can either arrest or finish them off. We, heisters, need to complete a heist in stealth to get a bonus. As to cops, they need to arrest perps and retrieve stolen goods in order to get more exp and money. Which is why that cop cuffed Destroyer and put him in his car.”
“So what’s going to happen to him now?” I wanted to know.
“He’s going to do time,” Flynn replied matter-of-factly.
“Do time? In prison?”
“Yeah.”
I just couldn’t get over it. “Really?”
Flynn glanced at me and turned his attention back to the road ahead.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Well, that sucks.”
“He had that coming,” Flynn stated indifferently.
“How long is he going to be in prison?”
“The amount of time one spends in prison depends on how much one has stolen and how many civilians one has killed. Since we’ve stolen not too much and killed only one NPC, Destroyer’s going to serve about ten days in prison.”
“Ten days?” I asked, amazed.
“Yep. Ten full days.”
“Can he escape or something?”
“One can escape from prison,” Flynn said. Then a sinister smile tugged at his thin lips and he added, “But I don’t think our guy is capable of accomplishing such a feat. He’s just too freaking dumb for that.”
Like Destroyer had said, Flynn was kind of toxic. I couldn’t agree more with that statement.
“He’s not very good at these kinds of games,” Flynn continued. “He told us that himself. And as if it wasn’t enough to get the point across, he decided to demonstrate how dumb and unreliable he is by setting off the freaking alarm and letting himself be shot and apprehended.”
Geez, I thought. Flynn really disliked the poor guy.
“I feel kinda bad for him,” I said. “He’s just started to play this game and he already has to serve a prison sentence.”
“Forget about him,” Flynn said. “Like I said, he deserved it. He sucks at both shooter and stealth games. He told us he is more into fantasy, so I think he better get back to fantasy-oriented games. Probably he doesn’t suck at them. Not that I care.”
I said nothing.
“By the way, we can take our masks off now,” Flynn said as he pulled his balaclava off his head. “Totally forgot about it.”
I doffed my own balaclava, pocketed it, and asked, “So what do we do next? The van’s gone. Where do we need to carry the jewelry then?”
As if in response to my question, both Flynn’s cell phone and mine chirped, telling us we had messages waiting. I pulled my cell phone and read the message. It said, “The van has just arrived. Check the map to see where it is at.”
I brought up the map application on my smartphone and the city map appeared on the screen. A moving green dot showed our sedan’s location. About three hundred yards from the green dot was a pulsating white-colored icon of the van.
Flynn mounted his cell phone with map showed on the screen on the dash and said, “See, when stealth goes wrong and cops are about to show up, the van drives away. After that, your team has to deal with the cops and escape from them. Once you get away from the place you’ve just robbed and deal with the cops, the van arrives again and your cell phone shows its location.”
“They don’t tell you anything about it on the training mission,” I observed.
“There’s a lot in this game which the training mission doesn’t teach you,” Flynn replied.
It wasn’t long before we reached the black-colored van. As usual, it was parked in a narrow alley. After Flynn pulled over, we took the bags with the jewelry and stepped out of the sedan. When we put the bags in the van and slid the side door close, the black vehicle pulled from the alley and drove away.
A few moments later, a message popped up in my HUD.
> Mission Accomplished
> Money stolen: $300,000
<
br /> > Money laundered: $150,000
> Penalty: –$100,000 for one civilian killed
> Gang members survived: 2
> Money earned: $25,000
Seemed like each of us had received only twenty-five thousand dollars. Not too much.
Then another notification appeared before my eyes.
> +1000 exp
> Congrats! You have just leveled up to level 4! You have got 3 skill points to assign.
My cell phone chirped again. I pulled it out and read the message. “You have just received $25,000 on your bank account.”
I pocketed the cell phone and looked at Flynn. “I’ve gotten three levels for this heist.”
“Yeah, me too,” he replied. “You gain levels pretty quickly in this game, especially in the very beginning because you get exp only for successful heists. Max level in this game is 20, by the way.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“When you’re max level, you can take legendary contracts, which are the most difficult and therefore the most interesting heists in this game.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we got some money. Sure, it ain’t much, but it will do for now.”
“If we hadn’t wasted that security guard, we would’ve gotten seventy-five grand each,” I mentioned.
“No,” Flynn said. “The guard we killed has nothing to do with that. If Destroyer hadn’t screwed up, we would’ve taken much more jewelry and gotten a bonus for stealth. We could’ve earned about five hundred grand had it not been for him.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s some serious green.”
“Well, kinda.”
“Kinda?”
“Yeah. Everything is sort of expensive in this game, especially, real estate and luxury vehicles.”
Before I could say something, Flynn added, “So look, we make a pretty decent team, aren’t we? How about we play together every now and then?”
I regarded him for a couple of seconds, pondering his proposal. Flynn was kind of toxic. On the other hand, he knew a lot about this game and could show me the ropes. So I replied, “Okay. Why not?”
Heist Online Page 5
