Chapter 45: Old Faithful
The bedroom was quiet the way I needed it to be before something like this, and I moved through the ritual one item at a time in the order that had kept me alive across a couple of hundred iterations of the same type of bullshit.
The fitted black T-shirt with the hood went on first, thin enough to breathe under a plate carrier and cut close enough to stop bunching under the shoulder straps. Loose fabric under load was the fastest route to a chafed shoulder, and a chafed shoulder was the fastest route to breaking your firing instincts the moment you needed them to work.
The plate carrier came next, Level IV ceramic slotted into the front and back pockets. My chest bruise complained about the plate, but it was more of a dull ache than rippling thunder rolling across my chest.
The Legacy Glock 20 went into the holster mounted on the carrier itself, a custom full-auto CQB panic button that saved my life more times than I remember.
No spare magazines rode on my body. Why would they? With the Inventory, I could summon a fresh mag straight into my palm in half a second. Besides, every pouch I didn’t carry was one less thing to snag during an escape.
The Shorty 40 grenade launcher went into the shoulder holster under the left arm.
The radio clipped onto the carrier’s front panel with its pair sitting on the bedside table for Nora.
Cut-resistant tactical gloves went on next, and then elbow pads, knee pads, and the groin protector followed, because I had very strong opinions about impact injuries in that region.
Slim-fit pyjamas over the pad systems, and blue jeans over those pads, my concession to the fact that a man in jeans and a jacket attracted significantly less ramdom bullets from armed survivors than a man in full tactical loadout.
Boots went last, titanium reinforcement in the front toe box and rear heel, because my toes had been introduced to concrete at speed enough times that this iteration of my feet was going to enjoy the protection whether it thanked me for it or not.
The half mask respirator went around my neck, ready to pull up whenever the sweet chemical smell of concentrated first strain got heavy enough in the throat to matter.
Helmet went on, chin strap tightened, electronic hearing protection settled inside the cutouts and switched on, ballistic shooting glasses over the eyes.
The hatchet went on the back of the belt, and the Karambit went on the left side before the the jacket went over all of it.
Same black jacket I had been wearing on the night the world ended. Kara had washed it for me on Day Two. It still carried the faint chemical smell of laundry detergent.
I zipped it halfway up the chest, just enough to be able to draw the pistol and the launcher at a moment’s notice before pulling the hood over the helmet and adjusting the collar until almost nothing tactical was visible on my head.
Anyone looking from even a few meters away would see a man in a hoodie and jacket. Which was the whole point of the Grey Man Strategy.
This left the M110A2 in my Inventory, and the M110A2 was where things were about to get expensive.
I pulled the Crafting Module and got to work.
Crafting.
↓
Modifications.
↓
Inventory.
↓
M110A2 SASS.
And a full-color holographic render of the rifle materialized in front of me and started rotating slowly on its central axis, every attachment point pulsing a soft blue haze.
Muzzle, rail, optic mount, grip, stock, magazine well, sling attachment points at three separate locations, hell, even the buffer tube glowed.
I stared at the render longer than I needed to.
[This will always remain criminally cool...]
I moved my hand toward the muzzle, and the suppressor slot enlarged obediently, followed by a full menu of compatible attachments unfolding to the side of the model, hundreds of options scrolling with prices and specifications and thread counts.
Any one of them was a reasonable choice for a precision rifle in 7.62 NATO, but I didn’t bother scrolling through any of them.
"System, I want an Enhanced Universal Suppressor."
Every option except one vanished from the side menu, while that remaining one enlarged, before the specification panel expanded across most of the visible display area.
-Ding!
{
Enhanced Universal Suppressor:
A universal suppression device compatible with all conventional ballistic firearms.
Reduces firearm discharge noise to approximately 30 decibels.
The suppressor can fully suppress up to 3 consecutive shots before requiring cooldown.
Cooldown thresholds:
1 shot: 5 seconds
2 consecutive shots: 10 seconds
3 consecutive shots: 15 seconds
Firing beyond thresholds will result in unsuppressed discharge.
Warning: Device temperature rises rapidly during sustained fire.
Once installed, it cannot be removed.
Cost: 60,000 Credits
}
"Holy shit..."
I looked at the number for another second, then another, still thinking I must be hallucinating.
But the number didn’t change; the damn thing had no sense of tact, because I stared at it for 30 full seconds, but the display didn’t reveal a hidden decimal point I had missed.
My bank sat at roughly 90K credits, most of it from the university demolition on Night One.
I had been planning to spread that across enhanced suppressors for Kara, Nora, and Leo, along with their custom guns, plus vegetables, pharmaceuticals, and radio components.
But that group-wide suppressor dream died in the proverbial parking lot right outside the proverbial store.
[No wait... I got a Custom Firearm Token...]
That Token from Nora and Leo’s rescue quest. I could roll out a brand new precision rifle with attachments that might as well be using alien technology, along with an Enhanced Universal Suppressor already integrated at zero credit cost, and keep the sixty thousand for the group’s kit, and shelve the M110A2 as a backup.
Perfectly logical, the cleanest possible outcome, made complete tactical sense on every possible axis.
Then I looked at the rotating hologram.
The render carried every scratch on the physical weapon.
The tan finish worn down along the handguard from years of my off-hand riding it in exactly that spot. The scuff across the receiver from a fall, the chip in the buttstock from the first day I had ever fired the rifle, and dropped it.
And on the receiver, in letters crooked and slightly oversized, the three words Nia had carved with a rusty shiv: Nikki × Nia.
I put both hands on the sides of my head and made a sound that would not have qualified as language in most jurisdictions.
"Okay..." I said to the rotating hologram. "Okay... Think this through. There has to be a middle path here."
The hologram shared no opinions and continued rotating.
"I could send a couple of random cars into Inventory and sell them off the daily cap... 30K per day. That covers half the suppressor cost in a single afternoon... Yeah... That is a workable path."
I was aware, as I said this, that I was running the exact rhetorical maneuver I had once deployed over two weeks to convince myself I could buy a top-of-the-line graphics card that I did not need in any practical sense.
Then, like the final nail in the coffin, my eyes fell on the Shorty 40 in the shoulder holster.
"That’s right... That crackhead out there has half the city stacked around his place right now. HEAP grenade launcher, C4 by the crate, Telekinesis to place charges wherever I want... I can clear the surrounding blocks after I put a round through his skull, and that’s another university-grade payout easily... I am actually looking at recovering the full sixty thousand and then some more... yeah, that’s just math..."
I was actively talking myself into it, and the practical part of my brain stood cross-armed watching me do it with the patience of a parent watching a child debate the fifth piece of candy.
Practical Nikki presented a very compelling financial argument.
Emotional Nikki responded with several persuasive points, all of which were variations of "Go fuck yourself."
"Know what, fine!" I said aloud. "Fuck it... It’s my fucking System, and I’ve earned every credit in that balance, and if I want to spend 60 Grand on making my favorite boomstick go whisper quiet, then I get to spend those 60 Grand making it happen... Especially when I will clean the debt in a single afternoon."
The hologram continued to rotate without commentary.
"System. Buy the Enhanced Universal Suppressor and install it on the M110A2."
-Ding!
{Installation Fee: 1,000 Credits.
Confirm?}
I stared at the notification for a long, silent moment.
"I swear to god if I could punch you just once..."
-Ding!
{The System notes that Host frustration correlates strongly with recently completed emotional purchases, and further notes that installation fees have been standard across all modification operations to date.
Confirm Installation Fee?}
"Confirm." I sighed in defeat.
-Ding!-
{Installation Complete.}
The M110A2 flew out of Inventory into my hands, and I could immediately tell the weight was different by a precise small fraction before I saw the reason.
The suppressor sat at the muzzle, compact and matching the rifle’s color, threaded against the barrel with the fit and finish the System applied to every single thing. The profile looked exactly like a KAC QDC/CQB 7.62 that had wandered into a subcategory of the catalog it had no business existing in.
I ran a hand along the receiver, finding Nia’s little artwork carving exactly where it had always been. The rifle was still her rifle, except now it could put three consecutive shots under 30 decibels before needing 15 seconds to cool down.
I braced for the regret to arrive at any of my customary addresses.
But all that arrived was satisfaction worth the 60K by itself, which had been the entire point in the first place, and which practical Nikki was not going to hear the end of any time soon.
"Alright..." I said, settling the rifle into its sling across my chest, the off-hand naturally coming up to hold the barrel steady. "It’s done. Let’s move."
Kara and Nora were both on the sofa when I walked into the main hall, both of them looking up before I cleared the doorway. Tikki was nowhere visible, which meant either the kitchen counter supervisory post or under the sofa, his two defaults when there was no active reason to occupy a shoulder.
"When would you be back?" Nora asked. I’ve already told them about the quest.
"By evening." I stopped by the coffee table. "It’s just some crackhead who also happens to know how to shoot... I’ll get a visual, put a round through his forehead from half a kilometer away, blow some shit up and come home."
"Confidence like that always ages well."
"It’s a Tuesday, kid. Nothing bad happens on Tuesdays."
"It’s Wednesday."
"Huh..."
Kara stood and pushed a small metal lunch box across the coffee table in my direction.
"Take this... And don’t forget to eat."
"Thanks."
I picked up the lunch box, and the moment my palm made contact with the metal, I sent it into Inventory before tossing the second walkie-talkie to Nora.
"And by the time I get back," I said, "... you had better have those radios set up."
"You have said that six times already."
"And yet..."
She stuck her tongue out at me while Kara laughed once, quietly into her coffee cup.
"I’m leaving the DDM4 behind and the 1301 Shotgun... Just in case" I turned to Kara.
"Understood."
And with that, I turned toward the balcony door.
Which was when the blur came out of nowhere.
Awareness picked up the approach a half second before my eyes did, as two and a half kilos of calico landed cleanly on my right shoulder and immediately settled itself into the pocket built into the back of the jacket’s right shoulder.
"Huh... And here I thought I could actually sneak away."
Front paws on my shoulder, chin lifted, and tail curled tight, his entire posture translated cleanly to a Let’s Move without needing a single syllable.
"You are not going anywhere, Booger."
"Weaaa," Tikki replied at conversational volume.
"That is not a counter-argument."
"Weaaa!" he repeated, considerably louder.
I sighed and turned to Kara. Her face had already shifted from amusement into extraction-duty mode as she set her cup down, stood, and stepped over.
"Come here, Tikki," she said gently, reaching for him. "Nikki has to work... I’ll play with you."
She barely got both hands on him when Tikki’s claws came out in a single coordinated motion and went straight through the jacket, the T-shirt underneath, and into approximately every square millimeter of skin covering my right shoulder before-
"WEEEAAAA!!"
Kara’s hands came off him at a speed that might as well have made sonic cracks as she backed off, palms open and up in surrender.
"Nope. Absolutely not. I am not getting bitten today."
While I stood there with my skin now perforated in several places along the shoulder, and looked at the ceiling for a couple of seconds.
"Fine."
"Weaa," Tikki confirmed.
Nora was cackling openly from the sofa. Kara had already backed up two steps and was holding her own coffee mug like she had made peace with the whole thing the moment the claws came out.
"Come back safe," Kara said. "Both of you."
"What’d I say about Tuesdays?"
"It’s a Wednesday."
"Right..."
And with that, I walked out onto the balcony with a claw-mounted supervisor on my shoulder and a considerably more complicated set of tactical considerations I now needed to take into account as I flew through the city.
Yep, flew~
Kinda...
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