> Stamina: 150/150 (Basic Stamina + Sprinter)
> Speed: 3.75 m/s (Basic Movement Speed + Sprinter)
> Skills learned:
> First Aid Kit: 9 FAKs, 75% Health Restoration, taking 15% less damage for 180 seconds
> Health Regeneration: 45% per minute (Health Regeneration 1 + Health Regeneration 2 + Health Regeneration 3)
> Dodge: 30% (Dodge 1 + Dodge 2 + Dodge 3)
> The Real Deal: 100% Intimidation (25% Basic Intimidation + 75% The Real Deal)
> Up you go: Your teammates take 45% less damage for 90 seconds after you revive them (Up you go 1 + Up you go 2)
> Rise and Shine
> All for one
Now I was max level and had all skill points assigned. I could unlearn some of the skills to get back skill points and use them to learn other skills. However, after reviewing my build, I decided that I was happy with that and didn’t want to change anything. At least at the moment.
Finally, I closed the skill tree. Then I just sat behind the wheel for some time, deep in thought.
The British gang had trashed my safe house. Sure, I could still return there and start to furnish it again, but there was no point in doing so now that the British players had found my place. Alternatively, I could buy another safe house. However, if those players had managed to find the first safe house of mine, they could as easily find another one. Seeing that they could pay me a visit at any time, I wasn’t eager to acquire a safe house at all.
Moreover, one didn’t need a safe house to pick contracts and play heists. One could pick a contract on his or her cell phone from anywhere. Sure, having a safe house was beneficial for a player. For instance, you could keep various guns at your place.
But again, you didn’t have to have lots of guns. You only needed primary and secondary weapons. You could carry them along with you all the time. Or you could keep them in the trunk of your car. Or you could even purchase new guns in the preparation menu and then take them from the van before starting a new mission.
Considering, how much money I had at this point, I could easily buy new guns before every mission and it wouldn’t affect the overall amount of money on my bank account at all.
Speaking of money, each player had his or her own bank account in this game and there was no way other players could steal the money from your account. Although the British gang had trashed my place and took all my weapons, they hadn’t stolen the money from my bank account. Which probably meant that they were no hackers. Otherwise, they would’ve stolen all the money from my bank account as well.
Both Allison and Flynn didn’t seem to be particularly interested in finding those players. Although the British gang had robbed us once, Flynn didn’t appear to be overly offended by it. As to Allison, she and I had managed to fend off the players when they had tried to rob us again. We had made them run away, so as far as she was concerned, she had taken revenge on them, which was why she wasn’t interested in the gang anymore.
Unlike my teammates, I wasn’t done with the British team. Not in the least. I was eager to find those players and get even with them. If they thought that they could barge in my place, trash it, steal all my guns, and then get away with it, they were wrong. Dead wrong. I would find them. I didn’t know yet how exactly I was going to find them, but I promised myself that I would do my best to find them. Sooner or later, I would hunt them down and then I would make them regret messing with me.
Both Allison and Flynn were offline now. I wasn’t eager to play with random players, so I decided to start looking for the British team. First of all, I pulled into a grocery store’s parking lot and purchased a fast car via my cell phone. The British players seemed to have supercars stashed all over the city for a quick getaway. So in order to be able to keep up with them, I would need a fast car as well.
I purchased a sports car that kind of looked like a Porsche 911 and hired a non-player character to drive the vehicle over to the grocery store.
Ten minutes later, a blue-colored car that looked like the one I had stolen from the car shop earlier on pulled into the parking lot and an NPC climbed out of the vehicle. The NPC then pulled a small box from a pocket of his jacket and hid the object under the rear wheel well. After that, the NPC strolled away without a care in the world.
I climbed out of the SUV, locked the car, and strode across the parking lot to the 911. I felt under the lip of the rear wheel well and found a magnetic container. There was a key to the car inside the container.
I opened the driver’s-side door open, slid in the car, and stuck the key in the ignition. When I twisted it, the engine purred to life. I pulled from the parking lot onto the main street and drove away.
I dropped by a weapon store to buy some guns. I also bought a duffel bag. After returning to my car, I put the weapon in the passenger seat, walked around the front of the sports car, and slid in behind the wheel.
Then I set about examining the available contracts on my cell phone. All the three British players must already have reached level 20, so they would probably be hunting down players who did heists on hard difficulty. I tweaked the filters so that only the level 15-20 hard heists showed on the screen of my cell phone.
There were about ten contracts available at the moment. One of them caught my eye.
> Name: Big Bank
> Level Requirement: 15-20
> Difficulty: Hard
> Objective: Your goal is to steal as much money as possible.
I had never played this heist. But as far as I could tell, there had to be plenty of money in the vault of that bank. So probably the British players would be interested in hunting down players who would try to rob this place. I decided to give it a shot.
I pulled from the curb and drove away. Ten minutes later, I pulled over and looked out the side window. On the opposite side of the street was a huge building of the bank. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t being robbed right now.
I backed up in a narrow alley between two two-story buildings and get out of the car. There were the fire-escape stairs close by. I used them to climb to the roof. I walked to the edge of the roof, squatted on my haunches, and set about watching the bank on the opposite side of the street. I had no idea how long I would have to wait until some team decided to rob this place. And I didn’t know if the British gang would show up. But I couldn’t come up with another way of finding the British team, so I was willing to give it a shot.
Half an hour later, a black SUV pulled over and three players got out of the car. They gave the bank a careful look, then crossed the street, and entered the building. It wasn’t long before the police sirens sounded and three police cruisers showed up. Three cops leaped from their cars and rushed toward the bank. A minute later, the crack of gunfire erupted in the building.
I waited tensely. Fifteen minutes later, it was all over. The cops got out of the building. One of them was dragging a cuffed heister. The two other players must have been killed in the gunfight. The player shoved the unfortunate heister in the back of his car and then all the three cops drove away.
Over the next few hours, several more teams tried to rob this place. Most of them failed miserably and ended up being apprehended or killed.
I was very dedicated to the cause, so I continued to wait and watch the bank.
Then another trio of would-be heisters showed up in a big black SUV. These players appeared to be pros. Judging from their movements, they knew what they were doing. They instantly spotted external surveillance cameras trained on the main entrance and either side of the building.
Then the three players started walking toward the building. One of them entered the bank through the main door while the other two turned around the corner, apparently heading for the back door. I waited and waited. Nothing happened. No alarm blared from the inside of the building and no cops arrived.
Half an hour later, I spotted one of the heisters turn around the corner. He was wearing a mask and carrying a big duf
fel bag in his hands. He looked around the street to make sure there were no passers-by nearby and then jogged for the big SUV they had parked close to the bank. After he threw the bag into the back of the vehicle, he turned around and dashed back in the building.
Another player carrying a bag appeared. Just like the first one, he put the bag in the black car and got back in the bank. Over the next ten minutes, the three players carried bags filled with money from the bank to their vehicle. Overall, they had about ten bags.
Then the players jumped in their black SUV and tore off. The players had managed to rob the bank in stealth, without raising the alarm and dealing with cops.
I raced down the fire-escape stairs and jumped in the 911. The small sports car dashed from the alley. I cut the wheel to the right and raced after the big black SUV. I could easily catch up with them, but I didn’t. There was no point in overtaking them. My goal was to wait for the British gang to show up.
I followed the black SUV through the streets. I kept a safe distance behind the car so that its occupants didn’t start to suspect that I was after something. Still, I was pretty sure that the players must already have noticed me. They drove at high speed and the traffic was as light as always in this game, so it was absolutely impossible for them not to put in stock the blue sports car that followed them wherever they went. Nonetheless, the players didn’t try to shake me off nor did they try to take me out. Not yet anyway.
I was constantly looking around, taking stock of my surroundings. The British could appear any minute now. Or they could never show up. But if they were going to suddenly pop up, I was fully prepared to meet them.
Unfortunately, that never happened. The big black SUV soon pulled over. A few feet from the place where they had parked their car, I noticed a black van. The three players got out of the SUV. All three of them held assault rifles in their hands. And all three of the players watched my sports car intently as it drove by them. They seemed to be ready to open fire on me if needed.
I dashed past the players without slowing down. In the rearview mirror, I saw them standing by the curb and watching my car. There was still a small chance that the British gang might appear, so I drove about half a block, then tapped the brake pedal, and pulled over.
I looked in the rearview mirror. The three players started to carry the bags with the stolen money from their SUV to the van. The heisters cast suspicious glances at my sports car ahead of them every now and then. I scanned the street for the British gang. With each passing second, the chances narrowed that they would appear.
In the end, they never did. The three players put all of the bags in the black van and it drove away. Then the heisters just stood at the curb, watching my car, waiting to see what I was going to do next.
I pulled from the curb, executed a tight U-turn and raced the way I had come. As my car dashed past the players, they brought up their assault rifles. But they didn’t open fire on my sports car. They just wanted to be ready to return fire if needed. I wasn’t intent on attacking them, so I raced past the players.
After pulling back in the narrow alley, I climbed the fire-escape stairs, took up a position at the edge of the roof, and resigned myself to a long wait.
Over the next few hours, several more crews tried to rob the bank. Someone managed to pull it off, the others didn’t. I followed the successful teams, but they never got attacked by the British gang. I was quickly getting tired and frustrated. What if the British players were never going to show up? They might not be in the game right now. Or they might not be interested in hunting down players robbing this bank for some reason.
I decided that I would wait for one last team to rob this bank and if the British gang didn’t appear, then I would call it a day.
Half an hour later, another car, a black truck, pulled up along the curb. Three players climbed out of the car and fixed their gazes on the bank. They were about to rob it, that was for sure. The players spoke quietly to one another for some time, then crossed the street and entered the building. Unlike those guys that I had been following a few hours earlier, these players didn’t seem to be pros. I wondered if they would be able to nail it.
It wasn’t long before the alarm was raised. If that team had tried to do this in stealth, they had just failed. A few minutes later, cops arrived. Three police cruisers screeched to a stop in front of the bank. Three players leaped from the police cars. Yet they didn’t rush into the building right away. They were well aware that there might be hostages in there, so they wanted to reconnoiter the bank first. They deployed small twin-wheeled robots called drones. They remote steered the drones in the building, using their cell phones.
A few minutes later, the cops put the cell phones away and started to advance on the bank. One of them walked inside through the main door, leading with his weapon. The other two dashed around the corner, heading for the back door. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. Then a violent gunfight erupted.
Sure enough, I couldn’t tell who was taking over since the shootout was taking place in the building. I waited and waited. About half an hour elapsed. The gunfight was nowhere near ending.
Then I saw one of the cops appear before the police cruisers. He must have been killed in the building and had just revived. He rushed back into the building right away.
Some time later, two more cops revived outside. Instead of getting back in the bank, they took cover behind one of the police cars. I was really intrigued about what was happening. The third cop burst from the building and raced down the steps, his clothes caked with blood. He joined his teammates behind the police cruiser. Seemed like the cops were losing the battle.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. The cops crouched behind one of the police cars, aiming their assault rifles at the main entrance. The heisters were still inside the building, obviously waiting for a drill to open the vault door.
I looked down from my perch on the roof. The players waiting behind the police car didn’t seem to be pros. Neither did the heisters. I wondered who was going to win this clash.
Eventually, one of the players jogged around the corner of the building and darted toward the black truck. The player had a bag across his shoulders. The cops spotted him instantly and opened fire. Ducking his head, the player brought his assault rifle to waist level and sprayed the police car with bullets on the run.
Another heisted with a bag across his back burst from the back door and started to run toward the black truck. The first one had already reached it and thrown his bag in the back of the car. He then dropped to his knees, stuck his weapon around the front of the car, and opened up on the cops. However, since he was firing blindingly, most of his bullets missed the police car.
The second heister staggered as one of the bullets hammered against his body armor. The player continued to run toward the pickup truck, firing his assault rifle on the cops.
Although I didn’t know who these heisters were, I felt for them. We were on the same side. I was a heister just like them. I really wanted to help that gang out, but I knew that I had better not. It was a team-based game where a three-player team of cops fought a three-player team of heisters. If I tried to interfere, the game wouldn’t allow me to do it so that not to disturb the game balance. If I were to open up on the cops, I would instantly be getting hurt. I would need to get away from the scene before my Health depleted and my character went tits up.
So I couldn’t do jack to help those guys out. All I could do was sit on my ass, watch the events that were taking place below me, and hope that the heisters would manage to pull it off.
The second heister was fortunate enough the reach the pickup truck and take cover behind it. However, the concentration of gunfire directed at the car wouldn’t slack off even for a second. The two guys couldn’t pop their heads around either end of the car for fear of being shot in the head. All they could do was fire blindingly. Most of their bullets completely missed the car the cops used for cover. It was obvious
that if something didn’t change soon, the two heisters would be as good as dead.
At this exact moment, the main door to the bank was kicked open and the third player came from the building. The cops didn’t notice him immediately because they were too busy dumping their mags into the pickup truck. And it was their fatal mistake.
Cradled on the third heister’s right shoulder was a bazooka.
A moment later, I heard a distinct shrieking. The warhead lanced across the air toward the police cruiser. The three players finally got aware of the danger that was about to happen to them. Yet it was too late for them to do something to save themselves.
The warhead struck the police car and exploded with savage, devastating force. A bright, red-orange fireball engulfed the interior of the vehicle and the bluish white gases expended enough energy to blow out all the windows. The gasoline tank had to have caught because a secondary explosion followed a moment later.
I felt the concussion shock waves roll into me from below. Heat rolled off the exploded police cruiser like a sun going nova. Black smoke rolled off the bonfire of gas, rubber, and oil.
All the three cops were killed by the explosion instantly. They should have taken cover behind various cars instead of crouching all behind the same vehicle.
The third player carried another bag to the car and threw it onto the back seat. Then all the heisters hastily climbed into the pickup truck.
I raced down the fire-escape stairs, leaped into the Porsche 911, and pulled from the alley. Since the sports car was way faster than the pickup truck was, I had no trouble catching up with the black vehicle. Yet instead of getting too close to the pickup truck, I kept a safe distance behind the vehicle.
I wasn’t sure if the British gang would show up. To be honest, by this point, I was sure that they would never appear. Which was why I barely paid attention to my surroundings. I just followed the pickup truck, my eyes never leaving its taillights. I had been playing this video game for more than ten hours by then, so I was really tired. I was resolved to leave the game as soon as the heisters in the pickup truck carried the bags with the stolen money to the van.
Heist Online Page 21
