Night had fallen while they shopped, and Kurt looked up at the empty sky while he drove them back to the building. “So few stars.”

  “Yeah, light pollution and smog. Makes ‘em super hard to see.” Jimmy said. “Blacklight has all these historical records they built the city from, so it’s supposed to be pretty accurate to the time.”

  Kurt nodded as he pulled them into the underground lot and parked. He opened the small plastic box that held his new suppressor. It was longer than he had expected; almost six inches. Drawing his handgun, he slid the connector over the barrel and twisted it closed with a solid click. With a nod and an appreciative look, he stepped out of the car and slipped the gun back into his pants. His holster had changed to allow room for the suppressor.

  Cutting through the padlock on the fence was easy, and after arranging the broken padlock more or less back in its place, they stood in the entrance to the employee locker room. Kurt moved quickly, sweeping through the room with gun drawn and making sure there was no one inside. It was a small room, with a door at either end and a series of lockers in the middle. Cleaning supplies were stacked in small cubbies, with a floor drain in each and a mop and bucket setup clipped to the wall.

  They found dingy coveralls in most of the lockers and put on a pair each, to Jimmy’s distress. Kurt tucked the telescoping tube into the coveralls, wrapping his belt around it to keep it in place and less visible. After that was done, Jimmy wandered the room, opening various lockers as he went. “Well, this is fun,” he grumped. As he reached the end of the room, the door opened and four people entered, chatting to each other. They froze as they saw Jimmy, who smiled innocently with a wave. One of the staff members started backing away, and Jimmy changed in a heartbeat.

  “On the ground! Down! On the ground, hands behind your backs!” he hissed at them while pointing his MAT 49 menacingly. The employees all dropped and did as he said, one of them crying in a hoarse voice for help. Jimmy lightly swatted the man across the back of the head with his gun and he went limp. Reaching in his pocket, he produced the zip ties and got to work.

  After looking nervously around the parking lot, Kurt closed the door. Jimmy was zip tying the last of them in the center of the room. Kurt’s heart pounded and it was suddenly hard to make clear decisions.

  Jimmy looked over and laughed. “Been a while, huh? Calm down, though. This is your run. You have to call it.”

  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Kurt nodded. “Right. Right . . . right-right-right. I got this.” He drew his Beretta and pointed it at the eldest staff member, pleased to see his hands only shook a small amount. “Any more maintenance staff in the building?” The older woman shook her head. “How do we get to the top floor?”

  “The staff elevator is at the end of the hall. That way.” She pointed at the door the group had come through.

  Jimmy beckoned Kurt over. “Hey, we might want to kill these civvies. They can really monkey wrench stuff if you leave ‘em alive.”

  His brow furrowed in thought, Kurt shook his head. “I’m betting we get penalties for that. Also, don’t be horrible.” Doing a quick search through the storage shelves in the room, he found a stack of clean white rags. Quickly, he tore them into strips to create makeshift gags. Once the staff was gagged, he nodded appreciatively. “Should buy us some time. Let’s go.”

  Pushing a mop and bucket in front of him, he opened the door into the building’s basement, peering down an empty concrete hallway. After taking a few quiet steps, the bright light of a notification from his wrist made him jump out of his skin. Jimmy chuckled as Kurt swiped it open quickly.

  Primary

  Stealth Rank 1 (Mobility)

  “First rule of battle, little one. Don’t ever let them know where you are.” Firefly - 2002

  Moving without being seen or heard can be useful to criminal activities. 1% Reduction in mini-map presence. 1% Reduction in chance for NPCs to notice player when engaged in stealthy behavior.

  Basic Stealth gear unlocked.

  “I need to turn these things off.” Kurt spent a little time swiping at his settings until the notifications were set to passive mode, before continuing down the hallway. The elevator was exactly where the NPC had said it would be, and the two men entered it, pressing the button for the forty-first floor.

  “Why are we wearing these?” Jimmy moved his shoulders uncomfortably as Kurt transferred his handgun to the front of his coveralls, zipping them back up.

  He shrugged. “In case of guards? I don’t really know, this is all improv.”

  Jimmy was quiet for a moment, a scowl on his face. “Usually just shoot guards.”

  When the door opened, it faced the back of a guard station, populated by two night watchmen in navy blue uniforms holding flashlights. Kurt could see revolvers at their hips, large and silver. Swallowing his nerves, Kurt moved out of the elevator and began walking past them. A clipboard with a sheet of paper on it seemed to demand his attention, his eyes going to it on their own. His perception skill was coming in handy already. Walking up to the clipboard, he scribbled a false name on it while nodding to the guards. Jimmy stepped up and followed his example, also giving the guards a smile.

  “What are you doing here? Cleaning staff went home for the night already.” The guard who spoke was seated before a bank of monitors that showed various areas of the building, mostly the lobby from different angles.

  The other guard scowled. “Two guys for one mop?” Jimmy’s smile suddenly became genuine, and Kurt noticed him unzip his coveralls to the waist. Thinking fast, he forced a polite but tired smile as a plan came to him.

  “Training the new guy. He’s gonna be working the AM shift.” He started to move away from the desk.

  “Hold on.” The guard was scanning the names on the sheet. “Frederico? Why are you training Frederico here at night?”

  Kurt turned back with an exaggerated sigh. “You want him screwing up during the day? When everyone is trying to work? They lost the morning guy on short notice, we got Frederico to replace him. C’mon guys, it’s late and I’m tired. Let me show him how to do this crap so I can go home.”

  The guard at the monitors looked at his partner and shrugged. Kurt tipped an imaginary hat to him as he continued up the hallway.

  The building was hollow, an open air center around a ring of walkways that extended up from the lobby to the penthouse floor. The walkways slanted into ramps, with the offices and cubicle blocks set back from the center. As soon as they were far enough away, Jimmy nudged Kurt.

  “That was close.” He patted Kurt on the back and moved ahead, peeking into offices as they walked up the ramp. The office they were after was the last in the building according to the note, at the very top of the ramp, across from the guard post. The door was unlocked, though it had a deadbolt set into the glass at the bottom.

  With a frown, Kurt pressed the door open. They were in the right place, the painting hung from the wall to their right. The rest of the office was sparse, just a desk with an old boxy looking computer and a small fronded fern. A woman jumped from her seat at a desk, raising a strange rifle at them. The rifle was clearly very old, with a wooden frame. It sported an odd-looking barrel, an oversized black metal tube. She was dressed all in black, with a matching knit cap covering her bright red hair. The woman was lithe and moved easily as she rose from the desk.

  As she raised the rifle to her shoulder, Jimmy stepped in front of Kurt and pointed his MAT 49 at her with an easy smile. “She’s a player. No way an NPC would have a gun like that.” He muttered over his shoulder to Kurt, moving further into the room.

  “What are you idiots doing here?” She hissed. Kurt noticed she had taken a position of partial cover, crouching to rest her gun against the back of the chair.

  He stepped to the side, raising his hands. “We came for that painting, that’s all. Nothing to do with the computer. I’m Kurt, he’s Jimmy.”

  Her eyes narrowed as he spoke. She hesitated, then jerked her head towards the wall where the painting hung. “Gadot. Go ahead.”

  Kurt nodded his thanks and moved to take it down, as Jimmy kept both his gun and smile on her. The target painting did indeed depict an ancient battle; men on horses with spears and bows featured clashing with one another. The title plaque read “The Ten Thousand”. Kurt lowered the painting to the floor and began to break off the backing.

  A guard walked up behind Jimmy with his flashlight pointed at them.

  “Shi—” Before Gadot could finish the word, Jimmy turned and hit the guard with a quick spray of bullets from his SMG. The noise echoed in the hollow building and Jimmy turned back to them, a chagrined look on his face.

  “Oops.”

  Gadot shot him in the face. The rifle made almost no sound, just a sharp snapping of the bolt as it fired. She cycled the bolt action and swung the rifle on Kurt as Jimmy’s corpse hit the floor. His gun scattered to the side, and Kurt’s perception skill drew his eyes to it briefly.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Kurt ducked as she fired again, striking the wall just above him. “Stop! Friendly! Friendly, for fuck’s sake!” he yelped.

  He scrambled into the front of the desk as she fired again, the snap of the bullet striking the floor where he had just been somehow louder than the rifle. The second guard chose that moment to make his appearance, coming into the open doorway and raising his gun at the woman. Kurt fumbled in his coveralls for his own gun and raised it. His suppressor did a respectable job covering the noise, but it was still much louder than Gadot's rifle as he shot the guard in the chest three times.

  He rolled onto his back and pointed the Beretta up at Gadot as she leaned over the desk. They stayed that way for a moment, guns pointed at each other. Sirens in the distance broke up their standoff. The woman shook her head and sat back in front of the computer.

  “You assholes blew my op. Take your stupid painting and get the hell out. Maybe you’ll lead the heat off me.” She tapped furiously at the keyboard. Glancing at his wrist, Kurt was dismayed to see a two bar heat level. He quickly stripped off his coveralls and grabbed Jimmy’s gun from the ground. Cramming it under his arm, he took the painting and ripped it out of the frame, rolling it up and shoving it into the container tube.

  After he slung it across his back, he moved behind the woman and looked at the screen. “Can I help? I think the cops are in the building, it’s getting noisy down there.”

  She snorted. “Right. You genius B&E artists are going to help me hack an info objective console. Just get lost, I can handle the bulls.” She continued to manipulate a pattern on the screen, moving blocks while others moved on their own.

  He shrugged and moved towards the door. “Good luck, Gadot. I’m sorry we blew your heist.” She glared at him over the computer monitor as he turned to leave.

  Exiting the office, Kurt peeked down at the lobby to see it swarming with small figures, each with flashlights. The hallway in front of him curved down into a ramp that circled the building’s atrium, a waist high wall protecting the office workers from a dizzying fall. In regular segments, office blocks were filled with cubicles and separated by glass front offices like the one he had just left. As he watched the figures spreading through the lobby, the building’s lights all came on. He ducked back behind the waist high wall and checked his phone, swiping everything aside until he reached his friends list.

  A text was waiting from Jimmy. “She get you too? Where’d you respawn?” He quickly found the coms option and thumbed it. An instant later he had Jimmy in his ear. “That chick is hardcore! Should we wait out the pork and try again, or you just wanna call it?”

  “I’m actually still up. She shot at me a couple times but chilled out when I took down the other guard. I have the painting, and your gun. How do I get out of here?”

  Sirens came through from Jimmy’s side. “Oh sweet. You saved Annabelle, thanks. Hornet’s nest has officially been kicked. I’m on my way in the hearse. I should be in the garage in, like, two minutes. Think you can get down there?”

  “I’ll try.” Kurt shifted Jimmy’s gun, before noticing a strange feeling at his side. A rolled-up duffle bag was in his jacket’s side pocket, having deposited itself when a need to carry loot had become apparent. Kurt unrolled the bag with a flick of his hand, tossing the painting tube and MAT 49 into it, before slinging it across his shoulder. The belt contracted automatically, shrinking to fit the bag snugly across his back.

  Nodding to himself, Kurt lifted his Beretta and started moving along the walkway, keeping low. The main elevator dinged as he was moving past, and Kurt scrambled out of sight, into a cubicle cluster. He glanced at his map as seven red and blue flashing dots stormed from the elevator. A scowl of confusion came to his face as the police shouted their presence and loudly informed each other of what they were doing and where they were going.

  “Moving up!” One of them shouted as he walked forcefully up the ramp towards the office. “Body sighted!”

  As Kurt peeked out from behind the cubicle wall, a sharp metallic snap sounded and the police NPC at the lead dropped in a crumpled heap. The remaining police began shouting about shots fired and took cover in various locations, none of them making a great deal of sense. Kurt changed positions, using his map to remain unseen as he slid into place behind their group. Another one of them dropped, the sound of Gadot’s rifle bolt snapping into place following shortly after.

  All of the remaining police NPCs raised their guns and began to fire at the office. Handguns and shotguns roared across the space. Kurt noticed the sound didn’t actually hurt his ears. He could even hear them shouting over the roar of gunfire.

  “Man down! Returning fire!”

  He scowled as he moved up behind one of them, leveling his gun at the NPC. He remained crouched and held the gun in close, gripping it tightly as he fired. The NPC dropped, and the rest immediately turned and began shouting at him. Making an undignified sound, he threw himself against a nearby cubicle wall, collapsing it and providing some cover from the gunfire that followed. Crawling away on his belly, he heard the rifle snap again, causing the NPCs to divert their attention back to Gadot.

  As Kurt rolled out from underneath an office desk, he saw her position. She was hiding behind the wall of the walkway, using it as cover while she picked off the NPCs one at a time. Their return fire caused her to drop below cover, and Kurt fired twice at the back of the nearest NPC.

  Rolling again, he went under another desk and came up in a crouch on the other side of it, checking his map. One of them was moving towards him, so Kurt pressed his suppressor to the cubicle wall and fired three times. On the third trigger press the gun clicked empty. He hunched and ran to the back of the cubicle cluster. As Kurt moved, his gun’s weight shifted, and the spent magazine fell to dust as it slid out. The remaining NPC moved back toward the elevator, shouting for backup into his radio. He dropped to the sound of a sharp snap.

  Scrambling in his pockets for a new magazine, Kurt pressed his back against a desk as the elevator pinged once more. Finally thinking to check his hidden holster, he discovered a single magazine in place beside it. Slipping the new magazine into his Beretta, he clicked the release and sighed in relief when the gun’s breach slid closed. A quick glance at his wrist HUD informed him that he had two reloads remaining, with a cooldown timer ticking away for his third. He also noticed a handful of skill notifications awaiting his inspection but waved them away for a later time.

  “Sounds like you’re having fun.” Jimmy spoke in his ear during his moment of respite, a decidedly amused tone to his voice.

  Shaking his head, Kurt peeked around from his hiding place as he whispered, “This is really stressful. Doin’ alright, though.” He thought for a moment, glaring in annoyance at the overhead lighting. “Hey, any chance you can do something about the power from down there?”

  The sound of tires squealing echoed through his internal phone link. “Uh . . . maybe?”

  The police NPCs who emerged from the elevator this time were different, and the heat notification had bumped up a bar. From his hiding spot, Kurt watched them fan out, using hand signals instead of shouting their presence. Each NPC was dressed in more tactical gear, wearing vests and balaclavas with ballistic goggles covering their faces. They carried MP5 submachine guns. Each member of the eight-man team also wore a sidearm strapped to their hips.

  “Ah. Here we go. Lights out in a sec.” The sound of Jimmy’s engine revving was clear, as was the resulting chaotic crash. True to his word, all of the lights and electronics in the building blinked off. The police NPCs became easy to pick out, as they all flicked on their flashlights while continuing to spread out and search.

  Kurt’s eyes widened as he saw the reflection of a light behind him, on the other side of the desk. He lay on his side and shot the NPC’s foot. When the NPC fell with a scream, he shot him in the face. As the man dusted out, a collection of loot was left behind. The armor and gun were not of immediate use, but a magazine peeking out beneath them could be and drew his gaze with the help of the perception skill. He snatched it quickly, tucking it into a pocket as he rolled to his feet and ran for a nearby office.

  There were no snaps from Gadot’s rifle, and the remaining seven members of the swat team were hunting Kurt after his noisy kill. He scuttled between two groups of them, moving as quickly as he could while staying quiet. Keeping his eyes on the map, he darted out into the open area of the walkway, moving down towards the guard post and elevator, narrowly avoiding a swat NPC at the end of the cubicle cluster. He took a moment behind cover to watch the NPCs on his map as they moved through the cubicles, looking for him. A grim smile came over his face when he saw the opening he needed. Checking his pocket, he noticed the magazine he had picked up was gone. His HUD showed a premature refill of the magazine that had been on cooldown, and when he reached in his holster he felt it seated in its well.

  Gripping the spare magazine in his left hand, he watched the map carefully and then stepped out from the cover. He leaned around the corner of the cubicle cluster and shot the NPC he had passed a moment before. A quick glance at his map told him that his plan was working perfectly, as the other NPCS clustered towards the shot. He slid against the wall of a cubicle, and then crept behind them as they passed. Three more quickly placed headshots at close range, and the tables had turned.

  A stairwell door opened and closed up ahead, drawing the attention of the remaining swat NPCs, who rushed towards it. Kurt dropped the magazine out of his gun and slid the fresh one in as he stepped out and fired at the backs of the NPCs. He dropped two but the last one ducked to the side, taking cover behind a pillar. Thinking quickly, Kurt put four rounds into the pillar on the left-hand side as he moved. He stepped lightly, moving around the right side and hitting the distracted NPC in the forehead as he did.

  Grabbing the NPC’s dropped magazine, he slid it into his pocket and fished out a fresh one for his handgun from the holster. The game seemed to have strict rules about re-loading, and picking up a magazine for an MP5 simply wouldn’t cut it for his Beretta, even though they shared an ammunition type.

  Instead, picking up a magazine dropped by an NPC gave him an immediate reload from his own magazine well, the looted item vanishing once secured in his pocket and depositing a seemingly randomized amount of 9mm bullets into his inventory. He stepped up to the door as the elevator pinged again behind him. Kurt shook his head in exasperation. After listening for movement, Kurt shoved the door open and was shocked to see a police officer standing in the stairwell below him, leaning casually against the wall.

  The man smiled and raised a silver monster of a handgun. The gun was a Desert Eagle, another easily recognizable firearm of the era, in spite of a nasty looking spiked compensator on its barrel’s end. Also notable were the patrolman’s cap, and the unusual behavior of being alone in the stairwell. None of the other police he had encountered were dressed in this manner.

  The realization that this was a player hit Kurt as he raised his own gun and opened fire. The player ducked his head and scrambled back down as bullets pinged off the stairs and handrails all around him. He fired over his shoulder as he went, seven thunderous shots ringing out in the stairwell.

  Kurt gasped in pain as a fifty-caliber slug grazed him. The pain wasn’t particularly strong — like striking his shin on something — but it was unexpected and when he glanced at his HUD, his health bar was blinking and nearly empty. Slipping out his magazine, he raced upstairs as another seven loud shots rang out behind him, shattering concrete and warping the handrails where they struck.

  He burst out of the stairwell onto the roof. Gadot was perched on the edge of the rooftop. She was holding onto a handlebar above her head, connected to a zip line. As he watched, she shook her head at him and lunged off the roof, sliding down the line towards another rooftop across the street.

  Slipping a fresh magazine into his Beretta, Kurt turned back and crammed the gun back into his holster as he ran to the zip line, trying to think of anything he could use to make it across himself. Being pinned on the rooftop with a swat team on their way and a rogue player coming fast behind him was daunting. Desperation set in and he slid the bolt cutters from their pocket, which seemed to evaporate or reconstitute them on demand.

  As he stepped up onto the rooftop’s lip, wind buffeted him and made him reel back from the ledge a step. From behind him, the door banged into the frame as it was kicked open and the player with the gigantic handgun stood grinning at him from the doorway. Kurt hooked the open bolt cutters around the zip wire and held on for dear life as he jumped over the edge.