“Some girl tried to get down the stairs,” Flynn explained.
“Did you kill her?”
“Nah, she managed to get away.”
Allison’s voice came through the earpiece in my right ear. “Guys, I’m in trouble. This asshole downed and cuffed me. I’m busted. Sorry, guys.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll free you.”
“He’s dragging me outside,” Allison said. “But the girl’s still in the house. Guess she wants to hide somewhere to ambush you once you’re out of the basement. Be––”
She suddenly went silent.
“Allison?”
No answer.
“That guy who apprehended her must’ve just removed her earpiece so she couldn’t communicate with us,” Flynn said.
“Let’s go help her before he takes her away.”
I wanted to dash up the steps, but Flynn stopped me.
“Wait, Striker. I’ll go first. Remember what Allison said? There the girl somewhere upstairs waiting for us to come out. So I’ll go first. I have the body armor on after all.”
“But I don’t need armor,” I said. “I had all the three Dodge skills. They’re very useful.”
However, Flynn must have been thinking that the Dodge skills couldn’t be relied on. Totally ignoring me, he started up the steps. I followed him. Once we reached the door, Flynn burst through the door, his shotgun at the ready. I followed suit.
However, the girl was nowhere in sight. We turned to the left, jogged down the corridor, and entered the living room in time to see the girl walk out of the house. We dashed across the room to one of the shattered windows and looked out.
The male player shoved Allison, whose hands were cuffed behind her back, in the back of the pickup truck. The British girl was racing across the lawn toward the vehicle. She must have decided to get out of the building because after Allison warned us about the British gal’s intentions, she had lost the element of surprise, which was why she had decided not to take on the two of us by herself.
Flynn and I raised our weapons and opened fire on the girl. Our bullets struck against her armor. She had heavy body armor on, so she was taking reduced damage. She managed to throw herself behind the pickup truck before we wasted her.
“Think we downed her?” Flynn asked.
“Probably.”
“Let’s go finish the job.”
“No, wait.”
The other player was hiding behind the pickup truck as well. By the time we got in the street and to the pickup truck, he would surely revive the girl. So there was no point in exposing ourselves.
I shared my thoughts with Flynn.
“How do we rescue Allison then?” He asked.
I remembered that there was an NPC in the basement. Since I had the All for one skill unlocked, I could trade the NPC for Allison’s safe return.
I told Flynn about this.
“So you learned All for one? Great. That’s a useful skill.”
“Stay here and don’t let them drive Allison away,” I said.
“Okay.”
When I turned around to race to the basement, Flynn said, “Striker, just in case you don’t know it yet. You need to cuff the hostage before you can trade him.”
I nodded and set off for the basement. After racing down the stairs and bursting in, I pointed my assault rifle at the NPC who was still sitting in one corner of the room.
“Get down!”
I dashed over the NPC, rolled him onto his stomach, angled his hands behind his back, and wrapped the bracelets of handcuffs around his wrists. Then I looked at him and a second later, a message popped up in my HUD.
> One of your teammates––Allison––in custody. You can trade this NPC for your teammate’s safe return.
> (Do you want to trade this NPC for your teammate’s safe return: Yes/No)
Sure enough, I agreed. The handcuffs wrapped around the NPC’s wrists instantly disappeared. Without saying anything or even glancing at me, he quickly got to his feet and dashed toward the stairs. I followed the suit.
Once upstairs, the NPC turned left and burst into the living area. I followed him. He then crossed the room and dashed out of the house. I ran up to Flynn who was still standing by the shattered window. I looked out.
The pickup truck was still in front of the house. Allison sat in the back of the vehicle, with her hands still cuffed behind her back. The two British players were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Still behind the car,” Flynn asked.
“The heck they doing there?”
“Dunno. Probably just waiting for the guy you killed earlier to revive.”
I saw the NPC running along the sidewalk away from the house.
“Why haven’t Allison returned yet?” I asked.
“The NPC must get to safety first,” Flynn replied. “When he put enough distance between himself and this place, Allison will return.”
“Fair enough.”
I saw the girl peek around the front of the pickup truck. She spotted the NPC running away from the scene and brought up her assault rifle.
“What is she doing?” I asked.
“She must know that if the NPC gets to safety, then Allison will get back to us,” Flynn snarled as he brought his shotgun to his shoulder.
The British girl let loose with her weapon.
“We gotta get her before she kills the NPC,” Flynn said before we opened fire on the pickup truck again.
One of the girl’s bullet caught the NPC in his left side. He staggered but didn’t fall. The girl wanted to finish him off with another salvo from her assault rifle, but the onslaught Flynn and I unleashed on the pickup truck forced her to duck out of sight.
A few seconds later, the NPC dived in a side street and disappeared from sight. Shortly afterward, Allison appeared in the living room behind us. Her hands were no longer cuffed.
“What just happened?” She asked, sounding perplexed.
Flynn explained briefly to her what we had done.
She nodded and said, “Thanks, guys. By the way, the third player revived already. I saw him. He’s behind that truck as well.”
“Let’s take those guys out already,” Flynn said.
“Yeah, it’s high time we dealt with them,” Allison said.
She then pulled a fragmentation grenade from her vest. She yanked out the pin and extended her fingers, letting the safety lever spring away from the body of the grenade with a soft cling. She let the grenade cook off for three seconds in her hand. Then she tossed the frag out the window. It clanged as it hit the driveway and rolled toward the pickup truck.
One of the players must have noticed the grenade roll under the vehicle because all the three of them spilled from behind the pickup truck. I brought my assault rifle to my shoulder, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.
A second later, the frag detonated, sending thousands of ball bearings and fragments of the grenade’s steel casings flying in every direction. The explosion reverberated through the air, a moment later followed by another one when the gas tank ignited and the car blew up. The fireball filled the interior of the pickup truck, 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 shattered window. I brought up an arm to shield my eyes against the flash effect of the blast.
I resume snapping off one salvo after another at the player running across the yawn. The grass and weeds erupted in miniature geysers as my slugs plowed into the ground. Then his helmet cracked and flew off his head in a grisly eruption of bones, brains, and blood as some of my rounds drilled through his skull.
The girl, who was running in the opposite direction, was flung off her feet by the brutal impact of Allison’s squad automatic weapon’s rounds. Miniature bright red geysers erupted from her neck and face as she was pro
pelled backward to slam to the sidewalk.
The third player managed to dive in a side street, disappearing from sight.
“Let’s go get him,” Allison said.
“No,” I said. “Forget about him. Let’s find a fresh car and put the bags with money in it before the other two players revive.”
We got out of the house. Allison and Flynn dashed to our crashed car to get the money bags out of the vehicle. I was the fastest member on the team since I didn’t wear any body armor or tote heavy weapons, so I set off down the street to look for a big car. Luckily, it didn’t take me long to find an appropriate vehicle. It was a silver SUV, which looked like a Ford Explorer. I got in the vehicle to hot-wire it.
Half a minute later, I backed up and pulled alongside our previous vehicle. Flynn and Allison wasted no time carrying the bags in the silver SUV. I climbed out of the vehicle to lend them a hand. When we put all the bags in the back of the silver SUV, we climbed in the vehicle.
Flynn put the car into gear and tore away from the curb. I rode shotgun and Allison was in the back of the car. We soon left the town.
“Where are we headed now?” Allison asked.
“Dunno,” Flynn replied. “As soon as we put enough distance between ourselves and those players, we’ll receive a notification where the van––”
“Dang it,” Allison said interrupting him. “They’re chasing us.”
“I can’t believe they’ve already revived and found two cars to give chase to us,” Flynn said looking in the rearview mirror.
I twisted in my seat to look back and saw two cars, an SUV and a pickup truck, fall in behind us. The former was in the lead. The girl leaned out of the front passenger window of the SUV and brought an assault rifle to her shoulder. She squeezed the trigger and held it down. The enemy fire streamed by on the right side of our vehicle.
Flynn floored the gas pedal, but our car wasn’t fast enough to give our chasers the slip. Both cars rushed in closer and closer.
“Pop the hatch, Flynn,” I ordered.
“What?” He said. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m sick and tired of those Brits. Time to end this already.”
Flynn reached under the dashboard with his left hand to yank on the lever controlling the catch-release. The rear hatch popped open and swung up, revealing the road behind the SUV and the two off-road vehicles following close behind. The hydraulic support struts caught, locking the hatch open.
I crawled between the two front seats and then into the backseat of the SUV, folding one of the seats down to climb in the cargo section filled with the money bags. I was tossed to one side as the SUV dipped into a pothole. I bumped my head on the ceiling and cursed under my breath.
Star-pattern bursts erupted from the muzzle of the assault rifle as the girl opened fire on the Ford Explorer again.
The SUV lurched hard to the left as Flynn brought it around a bend in the road, dirt spewing from beneath the tires.
I shoved the bags out of the way and spread my legs in the rear compartment to equalize my balance. I then flicked the fire switch selector on my assault rifle from full auto to three-round burst with my thumb and brought my gun up, cramming the buttstock against my shoulder.
The first vehicle rounded the bend in the road and raced after the Ford Explorer. I aimed down the barrel, putting the girl leaning out of the front passenger window in my iron sights, and stroked the trigger.
The assault rifle bucked against my shoulder as three smoking spent shell casings arced out of the ejection port and clinked to the floor of the back of the SUV before bouncing out of the vehicle. The girl took the two bullets in the chest, and one in the throat, the force of the impact yanking her out of the car and onto the dirt road.
I fired another three-round burst. The slugs drilled three holes through the windshield of the SUV, blood splashing all over the interior of the car. Out of control, the vehicle swerved off the road and crashed into a tree.
The other vehicle––the pickup truck––rounded the bend and raced after us. The driver thrust what looked like a MAC-10 out the window and aimed at the Ford Explorer, the gun blazing. The enemies’ bullets zipped by on either side of our vehicle, some of them punching holes in the body of the car. The bullets also arced into the SUV through the open hatch, leather and stuffing exploding into the air. I felt two or three bullets tear into my body. My eyes flicked at the HUD every now and then to check on the Health bar. I didn’t have much left, but I didn’t deploy a first aid kit. I was determined to waste the third player, or die trying.
I brought my assault rifle up once more and squeezed the trigger. The bullets struck the hood engine of the car. I let the muzzle rise with the recoil, the rounds stitching a line of holes across the windshield and catching the driver in the chest, neck, and face.
The body of the dead player was flung across the steering wheel and the car swerved sharply to the right. Two wheels dipped into a ditch, causing the car to roll over and end up on its roof.
Finally, there was only debris in our wake. I reached out with my left hand, swung the hatch close, and then crawled back into the cab and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“Great job,” Allison said to me.
“Thanks.”
“So much for them Brits,” Flynn said as he nodded approvingly.
“They tried to botch our heist, but we pulled it off nevertheless,” Allison said. “That was awesome, guys, wasn’t it? We’re awesome.”
“But we almost failed, thanks to you,” Flynn grumbled.
“Here we go again,” Allison sighed. “Now you’re going to be grumbling and sulking all the way back to the city.”
“I have a good reason to. You intentionally brought that freaking cell phone along with you so those Brits could find us.”
“I didn’t do it intentionally. I already told you that.”
“And I still don’t believe you. You always throw a monkey wrench into the works. Remember that time we were robbing the bank? We were going to do it in stealth. And what did you do? You shot down the security camera so all the NPCs in the area could hear the gunshot. Then pretending to be innocent, you told us that you’d just forgotten to attach a silencer to your pistol.”
“That’s true! That stealth of yours always makes me so nervous because I’m not good at it. So yeah, I was going to put a silencer on my pistol, but it totally slipped my mind because I constantly had to distract my attention to make sure there were no security guards or civilians wandering nearby.”
“You’re never going to be able to convince me of your innocence.”
“Hey Striker,” Allison called out to me. “Do I have to put up with this? Flynn can be so unbearable sometimes.”
“And so can you,” Flynn fired back.
“Stop bickering, guys,” I said tiredly. “We accomplished the mission, so there’s no point in arguing over trifles.”
“My point is that if she ain’t gonna improve her behavior, we may all end up being apprehended on our next legendary heist. Because we’re gonna do another legendary heist, right? Now that we all reached level 20, there’s no point in doing ordinary ones.”
“Well, about that,” I said. “There’s something I want to tell you, guys.”
“What is it, Striker?”
“Let’s get the mission done first,” I said. “Then I’ll tell you.”
Fifteen minutes later, we entered the city and raced through the streets toward where the van was awaiting us. After we pulled over and carried the money bags to the van, it drove away and a message popped up.
> Mission Accomplished
> Money stolen: $60,000,000
> Money laundered: $30,000,000
> Penalty: –$300,000 for the three NPCs killed
> Gang members survived: 3
> Money earned: $9,900,000
“Not bad,” Allison said. “If we hadn’t killed those three military NPCs, we woul
d’ve earned ten million dollars each.”
“Let me correct you,” Flynn said. “If you hadn’t run over those military NPCs, we would’ve earned ten million dollars each.”
“Oh my gosh. Striker allowed me to do it so I could get to the plane in time, don’t you remember this?”
“Guys, please,” I said.
“So what is it you wanted to tell us, Striker?” Flynn asked after we got back in the car.
“I’m not sure how they regard you guys, but those British players clearly don’t like me,” I said. “Especially, the guy whom I tied up, McDermott. So sooner or later, they’ll show up again.”
“Don’t worry, Striker,” Allison said cheerfully. “We’ll deal with them if they show up again. Sure, they robbed us once, but they managed to do so only because they took us by surprise at that time. But we way stronger than they. They tried to deal with us twice afterward but failed both times. So don’t worry. We got this.”
As to Flynn, he saw that I had something else to say.
“What’s on your mind, Striker?” He asked.
“We can deal with them again, but they ain’t gonna stop. They ain’t gonna just kill us once and then leave us alone. They want more.”
I looked at Flynn, then at Allison and continued. “It seems to me that they don’t have beef with you guys. It is me whom they hate. I outsmarted them twice. I hunted them down and then killed two of them. Then I tied up McDermott and killed all three of them again. So I guess they really hate me. And they want more than just to kill me. I heard McDermott say that he was going to do whatever it takes to scare me away from this game. ”
“What do you suggest?”
“I want to fight back.”
“That’s what I suggested,” Alison put it.
“No,” I said as I looked at her. “You suggested we go with the flow. You suggested we just keep playing and deal with them only when they show up. Sure, we are good players, so we probably could’ve dealt with them every time they showed up. But it ain’t a solution to the problem because by killing them constantly we’ll achieve nothing. They’ll just keep coming at us. So I want to go on the offensive instead of the defensive. I also wanna stop them from robbing other players and find out why they rob other players and how they do this.”
Heist Online Page 26
