I told myself not to. I really did. I thought about the fact that the dude there was probably wearing a bomb, or was backed by a bunch of armed thugs. But either Deus Ex got involved or some other part of me was way too interested because my feet took me over there and I stopped shy of the dark, trash-strewn deathtrap.
Fortunately a real character stepped out, darting nervous glances around.
“I saw your work back there,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the dwindling fracas. “Good stuff.”
“Thanks,” I said, and sized him up. The squirrelly glances, the cybernetic thing up on his temple, the sleek suit, and the shiny shoes all told me he was someone with cash. Almost certainly a quest giver. Maybe even something better.
“You look like a guy who can handle himself.”
“I look like a guy on my way to buy a quality firearm. I assume you are someone who is about to make that purchase a lot better?” I asked.
He stuttered, obviously unsure in the face of my cranky impatience. I watched him, saw a determined light come to his eyes, and then he did the stupidest thing he possibly could have.
He grabbed onto my sleeve.
I turned, furious, and activated Bruiser, Bloody Knuckles, and Static Shock, smashing the dummy in his face. He stumbled back, a shocked O of surprise gaping up at me from where he hit the ground, a good third of his life force gone.
“Try that again, buddy, and you’ll be staring up at me from hell. Tell me, right now, what it is that you want from me.”
He stared at my fist, trembling, before glancing at my face and realizing that what he’d done was absolutely not cool. He jerked up into a sitting position and made to get up.
“Stay,” I warned.
He plopped back down, and gulped audibly.
“I think we could help each other out,” he gasped, wiping a sudden trickle of blood from his nostril.
“I don’t do vague,” I warned. “You have ten seconds.”
“The Ringo-Dango Gang, you know of them, right?”
“Might have heard of them,” I said.
“A lot of their leaders are just about at each other’s throats, okay?” he stuttered. “They’re ready to tear themselves apart.”
“Why should I care?”
“They own the geishas over there. They own my part of town. They own just about everything.”
“Not real convincing,” I told him. I glared. “Are you real human or are you an NPC?”
He paused just long enough for me to get my answer, then continued as if I’d not said anything at all.
“You’d be a hero,” he blurted. “Thousands of people are suffering. They pay for protection, but it’s protection from their own people.”
I nodded. “I know how gangs work.”
He flipped out a holographic business card. It read the guy’s name in Japanese characters, but when he tilted it toward me, it shifted over to English. It read Kenji Tetsumako. Beneath his name was a rising sun with a Credit insignia in the middle of it.
I wondered if this was one of the rival gang guys trying to use me to disrupt their enemies, and received a notification that I’d succeeded in a local politics check.
Way to think it through, Einstein. You’ve been granted one Insight!
MERCENARY OPERATIVES ARE A CHEAP WAY FOR THE RIVAL YAKUZA GANGS TO UNDERCUT THE COMPETITION. THESE TWO WILL USE ANY MEANS POSSIBLE TO WEAKEN ONE ANOTHER. IT IS VERY LIKELY THAT THIS MAN REPRESENTS THE KEBUKAI-KOGAN GANG, THOUGH YOU WILL NEED MORE INFORMATION FROM SPIES, INFORMANTS, COURTESANS VIA THE NETWORK OF BROTHELS, OR SIMPLY ASKING THIS INDIVIDUAL WITH YOUR FISTS.
Well then.
The quest popup appeared: YOU’VE BEEN OFFERED A QUEST: DISRUPT THE RINGO-DANGO. WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT? Y/N
I thought it over. Why not? I’d already dealt the Boss a blow, and he was in charge of the Ringo-Dango, or at least a portion of their organization.
I pressed Y and marveled when a second later, my hand took over. It closed around a phone shape, which appeared, and when it touched the business card, Kenji Tetsuko’s name appeared on there, along with the rising money logo beneath.
New Quest Unlocked!
Disrupt the RIngo-Dango.
In two nights’ time, leaders from several of the Yakuza’s coalition will meet at the location provided, to discuss matters of security. Surprise! E. Gojira-X will be one of the topics of conversation! If you can disrupt the proceedings, Tetsuko will pay you handsomely.
[would you like to read more?]
Reward: 50,000 Credits, one random rare card draw
Side Quest: The Serpent Bites Its Tail. Get at least one member of the Ringo-Dango coalition to defect as a result of your meddling.
Additional Reward: An additional 10,000 Credits, +200 Reputation with Tetsuko and his associates, future Quests.
“That’s a lot of cash,” I muttered, amazed. “Why didn’t you —”
I stopped abruptly, realizing that he had already gone. Didn’t matter. The quest was there, locked in, and it’d just give me my rewards when I won.
Easy peasy.
I had a lot to think about with the quest. Seemed like a big one. Especially considering that Tetsuko’s business card came with detailed information on half a dozen of the gangs who were going to attend this big meeting.
All things considered, both major gangs were dangerous Yakuza groups and equally likely to stab me in the back at the best opportunity. I couldn’t prove too useful or dangerous, or they’d put a hit out on me.
That said, my territory was on the border between the two of them, so I reasoned that the Kebukai-Kogan Gang should be interested in absorbing me into their organization, provided it was useful.
Or if I proved to be a powerful ally whose services pissed off their rivals.
I mulled it over, then sighed.
“We need some ranged protection,” I muttered. “This is all going to go down hard with lots of bullets and killing, I’m sure of it. Gonna need more levels too.”
I looked to where Patches should’ve been, realized I’d left him at the apartment, and frowned. I needed someone to bounce ideas off, preferably someone smarter than me, and Patches fit that to a Tee.
In reality I just needed a bit of reassurance, and my good boy gave me that without fail. I decided to turn back to my new card. A Gentler Touch, the words said. Learn Chance 57%.
A 25 clicked into place and I slotted it, bringing me to a crimson 9(24).
It was nice. Really made me feel better too.
A few minutes later I found what I was looking for: a scantily clad hologram of a girl with a green army helmet, complete with twigs and leaves, a camouflage bikini, and unlaced combat boots.
She was holding a gun against her hip that was bigger than her entire body, and winking at me. She was also a good twelve feet tall.
“This place,” I told myself, shaking my head.
Inside was a mixture of what you’d expect from a gun shop, and also not at all. The store was staffed only by the absolute hottest of holographic women in all shapes and sizes: starting with a demure, petite Asian girl in a metal bikini and spiky shoulder armor, with very pink hair and a silvery eye patch.
The next was a tall Nordic blonde in a crop top and overalls, so bits of her toned abs peeked out. She held a long and archaic looking rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the crook of her shoulder.
Last, the last one that I could see anyhow, was an anthropomorphic catgirl, a gray and white furred one, but done up in goth fashion, including a ton of metal studs both in her clothes and pierced through her in various places.
And, of course, her breasts were gigantic.
On the other hand, there were guns. Lots and lots of guns.
And in front of each of them came a holo-readout programmed with interactive advertising, a sort of 3D popup that activated as soon as you looked at it.
Running through the text I saw so many options behind so many short-skirted avatars with word bubbles rising from their wide-open, evidently over-joyed mouths.
There were holdout pistols beneath the glass cases, machine guns and assault rifles on the one wall, a couple of sniper rifles on the back wall above the things that looked like laser guns.
Far back I could see a whole section devoted to mechanical monstrosities: a giant minigun, a mech suit, a sword as big as myself, coursing over with flickers of lightning. All of them threatened to pop up holographic advertising if I scanned them for too long, all beckoning me with this gizmo or that tactical option for the low low price of ‘you can’t afford this’.
I stared at the mini-gun and its hologram came to life, waltzing up to me, breathlessly whispering the words of the ads into my ear even as the speech bubble presented the text before me.
Beautiful. That’s the only word to describe the long, sleek trail of bullets that come from this bad boy. Weighing in at two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, the Magumba Minigun Battleset comes with thousand-round a minute capabilities, gyro-stabilized, tied into a basic weight-distribution frame to allow you big boys to show it off around town. Or go glorious and get the Magumba Power Armor Mk I, II, or III for half-off with your purchase. Its artificial system of musculation guarantees smooth tactical movement as you carry enough weight to lay out a cyber-mammoth.
The Magumba Minigun. A smart purchase for a smart hunter. 35,000 credits.
DMG 4-48 (short/medium)
Spd Fast
Suppresses targets, Area of Effect damage, blasts all targets within 1000 yards within a 90 degree frontal cone.
An Asian girl stepped out from behind the counter. A real one this time. She approached, speaking in Japanese for a few seconds before understanding my blank stare meant she should switch to English.
She was dressed like the hologram I had seen before. Metal bikini, complete with metal bikini bottom, with a transparent blue plastic miniskirt attached.
From the knees down it looked like she had mech legs; like legs that would go on a kaiju-sized fighting robot. But the elasticity of their movement suggested to me that they were instead a skin-wrapping fashion statement.
“How can I help you today, sir?” she asked.
“I want something that can stop a hunter-killer,” I said.
She squinted adorably and rubbed her chin, going ‘hmm’ several times before snapping her fingers and brightening into a huge smile.
“I think I have just the thing! Right this way!”
She whirled, which showed off a series of metallic bits embedded in her spine, spaced four or five inches apart. I wondered if the Cybernetic Enhancement looked like this on me, but put it out of mind.
I followed her back through a door to a small, empty room with only one chair, where I was told to have a seat. I fully expected she’d come back out and start up a lap dance, and was trying to think of what to do when that happened, when she reappeared with a friend.
The friend was a tiny furball about two feet tall, blue of fur, like Yoda had messed around with a Wookie somehow, who… was now in a rebellious teenage phase and dyed herself blue.
Anyway.
The gun in question was more like a cup that fit around the furball’s hand, with a number of tiny holes around it in a circle. It was attached via a thick cable to a belt pouch.
“I don’t need a fanny pack,” I told them. “I’m–“
A video appeared on the wall of someone firing this thing at a hunter-killer bot. A shower of teensy missiles froze in mid-air, specs shot out showing the type of pencil-sized missile this was, and how the missiles were designed to punch through the ballistic glass. When time resumed, the missiles punched through the glass coating on the robot, then exploded it from within.
The video flashed to a wall of text, complete with husky red-blooded voiceover.
Introducing the Personal Micro-Missile System. Anti-human, anti-tank, anti-robot. Powerful range, distance, and punch ensure compliance from even the toughest of targets. Don’t be a victim. Be a hero.
DMG 5-50 (all ranges)
Spd Med
Can be guided to attack at vulnerable angles.
The user in the video then scooped up a bunch of the remaining bot parts, put them into the fanny pack, and a timer started up: 22 minutes.
“In only 22 minutes, the Personal Micro-Missile System’s side-pouch nano-factory will regenerate its signature rockets via nanotech conversion. This is especially useful for the credit and safety-minded consumer, who doesn’t have thousands to spend on highly volatile micro rockets, which are difficult to store without the risk of blowing oneself up!”
I nodded. “Alright,” I said. “How much is it?”
“The basic model without the nano-factory starts at twelve thousand,” she said. She turned to the blue furball. “Yonda?” she prompted.
“No one goes in for this model without the nano-factory,” the blue furball Yonda said. “That adds another fourteen thousand.”
I growled.
“We do have payment plan options available,” Yonda suggested.
“How about something laser…ish? Something plasma or flamey?” God, I could talk all day about conventional weapons out of the US Armed Forces, but I had no idea about all this cyberpunk stuff.
“We could see about a plasma blaster,” Yonda said, “but they’re far less effective at your intended target.”
“It was just an example of what I might end up fighting,” I replied lamely. “I have… a lot of enemies, I guess you could say.”
All of them. If I was going to use this mega-card’s special power, I was going to have to go right to the top.
The two of them exchanged a long look that I couldn’t decipher well. Then Yonda hopped off and away, and the girl took me by the arm and away from the pricy items of the back counter. Together we went to tour the store and look at several more guns, each of them with their own anime character and word bubble.
MAXIMUM CARNAGE MK I - A NEW GENERATION OF HIGH-TECH PLASMA FOR A NEW GENERATION OF FREEDOM. MAXIMUM CARNAGE OFFERS EFFICIENT, COMPACT, ACCURATE AND VERSATILE FIREPOWER CAPABLE OF FELLING EVEN THE BADDEST OF THE BAD. 15,000 CREDITS. NOT A BAD PRICE FOR FREEDOM.
DMG 4-32 (short/medium/far)
Spd Med
5% chance of Knockback. Ignites target 10% of the time. 5% chance of critical
The Maximum Carnage sounded sweet, but I wasn’t nearly in the position to be buying it yet. I had a good amount of credits coming in hourly, but some of that was going straight into upkeep and some of it had to be spread around. I needed to provide all of the real humans good protection as soon as possible. I sighed and checked out the next one.
The New HitchKick Plasma Carbine from Solarian Systems. This multipurpose carbine is ideal for close quarters combat, middle ranged conflict, and even the occasional potshot across the battlefield. Our patented diopter rear sight technology allows for fire at any range.
And adjustable fields of power reform the shape of every shot, giving absolute accuracy to shots of any range (within maximum effective range). What’s more, the three shot detachable magazine pops out easily with a simple flip of the thumb, giving you extra moments to load those next rounds.
At 10,000 credits, it’s practically a steal. Shop hard, shop tough, shop Solarian Systems, quality guaranteed!
DMG 5-50 (short)/6-60(medium)/3-30(long)
Spd Slow
Versatile
The HitchKick Plasma Carbine was a lot more reasonable and came off as a very versatile weapon. But its shape was like two triangles stuck together at the most uncomfortable of angles. Add in a flame red barrel and the fact that I could not identify the magazine well by sight and it was ultimately a now.
I kept browsing, passing by a number of strange-looking weapons and going lower and lower tech until they gave me something recognizable. Hell, damn-right down to earth excepting one very basic feature. You could plug into the wall or your car in order to reload.
This was three grand, and according to the salesgirl, would kill an unarmored foe with a single shot.
I let the advertising anime, this one a stern-looking general with a comical mustache, pop out his speech bubble and fill me in on the rest of the information.
Stop them hard and put them out of their misery. Accurate sight, small kickback, and plasma so concentrated you’ll sear an elephant’s legs off at fifty meters. How’s that for stopped? The Mark VIII Schpladow, your first and last plasma blaster. *Now in fashionable teal, magenta, and taupe clip-on panels to color coordinate with any look. Starting at 2,500 Credits.
MVS Plasma Blaster, Pluggable (Common Ranged Weapon)
DMG 2-16 (short/medium)
Spd Med
Damage x3 to unarmored foes
Your standard battery pack had juice enough for a dozen shots, or fifteen if you were okay risking the battery pack exploding.
I paid a thousand up front, which I thought meant I would have to return, but the girl (she told me her name was Hina) informed me they could just pull the credits out of my account whenever I had enough to make a payment, so I could have it paid off in a couple of days. I shrugged and authorized this, then pressed the palm of my hand to the pay thinger and paid out the majority of my cash on hand.
“Hey,” Hina said, and leaned down to put maximum effect on her not-great (but not terrible) cleavage, “can I get your number?”
What. Was I… getting hit on? For a moment I panicked; surely I had a number, but I wasn’t clear on what it was or even where to find it. The last time I’d talked to the game interface I’d started a street brawl, so I wasn’t about to do that anymore.
“Uh… I’m new to town. Not sure if I have a number or not.” That sounded so stupid, but it wasn’t a lie.
She turned her hand over and pressed at the bottom of the palm credit card chip thing, and up popped a hologram of a handheld phone. She winked. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
“Right.” I imitated her action, and up popped a rectangle that looked like a phone, hovering in that same aqua blue light. Hina grabbed onto her pink and purple hologram, and touched the top of hers to mine in a move that felt very personal, so I grabbed onto my holographic phone. They touched, and a popup announced I’d just gotten her contact information.
“I run East Gojira-X,” I told her, hoping it sounded less pathetic than I imagined.
She smiled, and an adorable dimple appeared. “Give me a call, Mr Steele. Good luck with your hunter-killers.”
Turns out I’d gotten +50 reputation rating with Hina Owari.
