Chapter 8: Back to the Grind

Chapter 8: Back to the Grind

When I woke up, it was already late afternoon, not long before sunset. I stayed out until sunrise yesterday but only found a grand total of three encounters to gain some experience.

Maybe I should start tracking them back to their hideouts, because what I was currently doing didn’t seem efficient at all. I could also try asking Fitel, though I doubt he would hand out information for free.

With no obvious answers coming to me, I headed out to visit the weapon store downstairs. From the experience of my last visit, I unloaded my firearm with practiced ease and headed further into the store.

I headed straight to the counter to sell the loot I had gotten last night. It was a different clerk this time, a gruff man sporting scars on his face. We completed our transaction quickly, and my HUD notified me of the new funds I had received.

My next errand brought me to a place I had never visited before. It was three blocks down from where I lived, at the edge of the downtown area.

Honestly, I was surprised this place was open when I had checked earlier. My common sense told me a bank wouldn’t be open on New Year’s Day, let alone past 5:00 PM, but I guess there weren’t any unions in this world and corporations didn’t have their employee’s working conditions in mind.

Now that I thought about it, I don’t think there was even a public holiday, ever.

Fortunately, I didn’t need a teller, so I headed for the much shorter line to use the ATM. I followed the instructions on the screen that weren’t much different from my world and deposited the cash from my new gains.

As I was navigating the machine, my thoughts couldn’t help but stray toward leveling up my hacking skill until I could hack the bank and get rich from it.

There was so much I could do with that money, though their security seemed tough. I was confident I could do it as long as I invested enough points into hacking.

It was only a thought though, as I doubt I would get away with it without an entire corporation or two hunting me down. I was just one man. I’d rather not take on an entire organization alone.

While getting rich was my goal, there was no point if I couldn’t enjoy my wealth.

I put any tempting thoughts about robbing banks and corporations behind me and returned home.

I had rested enough, so it was time to take on another job. Once I got home, I immediately placed a call to my QG through my SAID.

“You have reached Fitel. What can I do for you today, Rollo?”

I minimized the empty profile picture with ‘sound only’ labeled in it to the corner of my vision.

“Fitel, got any jobs that suit me?”

“I hope that means you have fully recovered?”

“Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“I see. There is a job that I have been waiting for someone like you to handle, though it’s more of a lead in finding an item, so it may not pay if the lead is wrong.”

“What’s the missing item?”

“A SAID from one of their presumed to be deceased middle executives. Raiders wiped a Nova Tech caravan in New North America out in the wasteland and they want the SAID retrieved or proof of its destruction.”

“New North America...you think it’s here in Elevate City, a few thousand kilometers across the sea? And a big corporation like Nova Tech didn’t have some fancy self-destruct function on their important equipment?”

“That is correct, and they did, but it seemed to have malfunctioned when their caravan got hit with an EMP. That is why we were hired. You’ll be paid thirty thousand credits if you can retrieve the item, but nothing otherwise. They want this to be done quietly before any rival corporation catches wind of anything,” Fitel emphasized the last part.

“Ok, I’ll take the job, but you better find me something else if this lead doesn’t work out. I’m not trying to waste time looking for a needle in a haystack or anything, not for long at least.”

The tracker I had put on the car started to move. It seemed like my target got into his car while I was distracted, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to follow too closely, anyway.

My automated taxi arrived in three minutes. I guided the taxi toward my target, taking a slightly different route.

After twenty minutes of driving, the target seemed to have stopped at a secluded area that had nothing but storage buildings, so I had the cab stop a distance away.

With night as my ally, I stayed in the darker parts of the street and made my way toward my target. It didn’t take long before I spotted a pair of old warehouses that were gated off with flimsy chains, surrounded mostly by a thicket of weird-looking trees.

The area was quiet, but from the thermal vision of my optics, I spotted figures at the entrance of each warehouse that faced a shared outdoor parking lot.

I moved around to an unmonitored section of the fence. I pulled out my dagger and flipped the switch on it, producing a dull buzzing noise as it was brought to life. Slowly pushing the blade toward the fence, the obstacle parted way before my knife with little resistance, like cutting through butter.

I moved cautiously, mindful of generating any noises, and made my way to the other side of the fence. I spotted the car I was tracking in front of the warehouse closest to my position.

As I had done to infiltrate buildings previously, I moved toward the side door but to my surprise; it didn’t have any electronics to hack into. It was a mechanical lock.

Why can’t these people use half-decent facilities...?

I hugged the building’s walls and made my way around until I noticed an open window on the second floor.

Luckily, there were also dumpsters nearby, so I slowly pushed one toward the opened window. When I was halfway there, the dumpster suddenly screeched loudly.

Damn it, underneath the patch of grass on where I pushed it, was a hidden patch of worn-out pavement.

I quickly jumped into a dark patch of tall grass and aimed my firearm at the back door that was nearby.

I waited for five minutes, but there didn’t seem to be any movement.

After another minute, I got back up and started moving the dumpster again, while trying my best not to screw up again. Before long, I managed to push it right under the window. I climbed it and reached for the window when I suddenly heard the metal door that was just around the corner swing open.

It caught me off-guard. I froze awkwardly atop the dumpster with my gun pointed to the corner of the building, hoping no one would come my way.

The noise of a lighter being lit rang out, accompanied by footsteps that only grew louder as it headed my way.

A bald man soon entered my vision with a cigarette in hand. He took a puff before looking up and found me frozen atop the dumpster.

Our gaze met for a full second before he reached for the gun on his hip, but he was too slow. I pulled the trigger repeatedly in a slight panic.

The Suri quietly hissed out multiple times and the man soon collapsed onto the ground.

+10 EXP

I jumped off the dumpster and took cover behind it, while I kept my gun aimed toward where the man came from. It took a full minute before I realized there wasn’t anyone else and released the breath I had been holding.

Okay, while I admit that wasn’t the most elegant, it did the job. The previously locked door was now opened, and I also had the window as another potential point of entry as well.

Let’s hope the rest of the night goes more smoothly than that had gone...