The next day’s visit with Doug was brief. I gave the man a room on my floor, a large corner apartment that had been trashed by Beyonce in the beginning, but was now nicely fixed and cleaned up. I gave him his mission, I gave him his place, and I gave him a crew of scroungers to help him fix it up as he needed. 

I needed him to work out his magic and make some sort of crystal ball. And I knew that I didn’t have any idea of what that took, so I left it to him. I told him to bill my account for stuff that he couldn’t find or construct and I’d approve or disapprove the purchases whenever they came my way.

That done, I went and visited my combat team. Those guys were going to need hard levels fast. 

Just like me. 

And I felt like today was a good day to do it. I took the elevator down to the basement level and turned left into the gym area. They’d gone ahead and taken crafted weapons from the pile and set up and armory. 

Smart guys. I was glad I’d turned out so wrong.

“Hey there, it’s the King of the Roost!” Blunt yelled, snapping to attention and throwing up a salute. 

“Top Poobah!” Turtle cried, doing the same. 

“All of that crap and more!!” Dragon followed.

I cracked up. I couldn’t help it. The rest of them looked over at Phil, who put his hands up and started dancing. “100 credits, everybody. Told you that he’d laugh.”

“Get out of my head,” I said to Phil and we all shared a chuckle. Blunt flipped out a deck of cigs and shot one out into his palm. Not a brand I recognized. A moment later it was lit.

Self-starting cigarettes.

“So, whose heads are we going to be cracking?” Dragon asked. The rest of them nodded, all except GhostFace, who was fumbling his own cigarette into his hand. 

I smiled wide, impressed. “Not quite sure yet, but there’s bound to be some side-quests that’ll level us up quick.”

I nodded at the walls, impressive weapons brackets showcasing all of the gear the team had found suitable to their purposes. The crafting team had recently unblocked bolt-action rifles, Mosin-Nagants, so those had gone to the griefers. I stared at it, just giving it the same old action I used to give magic items in my games with my mouse point, and an info box appeared.

Mosin-Nagant

DMG 3-12

Spd Slow

Quadruples damage on a called sniper shot. Half-damage and half-accuracy on short range attacks. 1% chance to deal knockback.

‘If it was good enough for the Soviets, it’ll be good enough for you.’

I nodded, satisfied. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t bad. Especially not for weapons manufactured right here at home. “You guys get any levels for prettying up the place?”

“Gained two ranks in Martha Stewart, Poobah,” Blunt said. I cocked my head. Given what I knew about the system, that might well be true. My eyes continued to roam over the arsenal. There was a scimitar, a longsword . . . a lightsaber?

“Holey moley, is that thing what I think it is?” I asked, pointing. The crew bust out laughing again.

“Just a box of Bravo-Alpha 1100 November Sierra if you catch my drift,” Blunt said. “Want to bug out the eyes of any new recruits that you send down to us. It’s garbage but wow does it look real.”

When I’d been a private I’d been sent to test the shocks on a Bradley. The rest of the platoon laughed so hard when they saw my naive self jumping up and down on the 28-ton vehicle. It was a good experience.

I heartily approved.

I rolled my eyes further over and stopped, glued-in-place. There was a machine-gun! No way the crafting team had gotten that far yet. I glanced over and saw the whole team smirking, that knowing look deep in their eyes. Taking heavy steps over to it, I breathed in the fumes of oil from its gears and casing.

This was real.

A MG-08, a heavy machine gun that dated back to the first world war. I wasn’t surprised that it was vintage, but wow it’d be good suppressive fire and area of effect damage in a fight. It was a good weapon too, all things considered. They were still using them in places in the 70s. They’d been used for anti-aircraft fire as well. Only a couple of drawbacks.

I gave it the whole hard-eye again, wondering if I could do this with items outside of my control or territory. I guess I’ll find that one out the hard way, I reflected.

MG-08

DMG 2-30

Spd Fast

Suppresses targets, Area of Effect damage, blasts all targets within 2000 yards with a 30 degree frontal cone

 

‘The Maschinengewehr 08 is almost as good at fighting as it is hard to pronounce. Sound it as it’s spelled, people.’

That was pretty nice. But I knew that it had its downsides. Things that I didn’t see in the description yet I couldn’t help but think I would experience on the battlefield.

One, it was a heavy weapon that required a tripod to fire accurately. I looked around quick and saw a couple of flip out tripeds stored in the corner. Check. 

Two. It ejected shells in a way that got into the face and clothes of the user when they weren’t careful. I had no way to know what game effect that would be, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“You all pick someone for this bad boy?” I asked. 

GhostFace put up his hand, smoke trail from between his fingers and ash falling in a trail. “That’d be me. I went with the big skin and have been upping my strength. I’m gonna be the heavy weapons guy of our A-Team.”

I put up a hand and stopped the rest of them right there. “GhostFace, why the heck did you make yourself so big? Does it have any effects on game stats?”

“+2 to Strength, easier to get hit, lot more carrying capacity besides strength allotment. Figured it out while I was playing with it. Almost went with a really small skin. Really hard to hit. But basically no carry capacity. Plus I wasn’t sure if I could get laid looking like a small child.”

Blunt nodded. “Rest of us got plusses to persuasion with NPCs who are sexually attracted to us, but also a Target of Envy debuff that basically causes the exact opposite to those who are not. I’m interested to see what happens when we finally hit the club!”

“Huh,” I said. “Well, which weapons are yours? Got something that works synergy with your sexiest men of the year award?”

“We’re going with the bolt-actions,” Blunt answered. “If they worked for our great-grandparents against the Krauts and Turks, they’ll work for us. Can’t wait to get something more modern though. Dying to fire a gauss sniper rifle.”

“I’m waiting for some tracks, myself,” Turtle added. “Not a fan of all of this walking around stuff. If God wanted men to fight in their boots, he wouldn’t have made the Abrams.”

“Tankers,” Dragon sighed and reared back his head, laughing. “I’m gonna suit up with a rifle, but I’m also gonna tack on a longsword if it is alright with you, Poobah. I have a feeling blades are a bit tougher here than they would be in the real world. Plus I wanna get used to it for when I find Excalibur!”

Phil threw back his head and sighed. “This stuff again.”

“Hey, man, screw you. It’s all nano-nonsense anyways, right? Random loot based on game algorithms? And there are swords here. So I bet there will be a magic sword that wrecks enemies that is named Excalibur, and when we find it, I want to be ready.”

I have to admit, I was in high spirits. This was great. All of it. The feeling that swept through me, I’d been missing it for a long time. I opened up my game menus and ran a search while I kept my ear open to the army chat that just kept on jibing, ribbing, and cracking into laughter. 

Alright, Deus Ex, you piece of garbage, save me some legwork. I entered a single word into the search. Contracts.

A moment later, my vision was filled with them. Lost loved ones, lost items, assassinations. All the stuff I was expecting to find in a gangland like this cyberpunk prefecture. But the one type I hadn’t been sure of but had desperately wanted was right there at the bottom.

Sunday Sunday Sunday. Battle Brawlers presents: DEATHNOOB! Bring your friends, bring your family, watch the ground run red with the blood of the desperate.

Quest: Enter the arena. 1000 credit entry fee. Crews of up to 6-members-only fight a match against a rival team to the death. The winner takes home their entry fee, an additional 500 credits, and any items the spectators throw to them from the stands.

I selected it and shared it with the rest of the guys. GhostFace started to cough hard on his smoke, but the rest of them were shiny-eyed and bushy-tailed.

This was going to rock!

I was already ready for a bruisin’, my weapon on a strap across my chest, my gloves ready to shock and rock, my cyberware itching to bullet-time and dodge. GhostFace and the rest walked over to a pile of footlockers stacked in the corner, pulling out a ruck each. Before my impressed eyes they drew back the drawstrings and checked their combat loads.

“Hell guys. I thought I was on top of things,” I said, staring in proud amazement.

“Stay alert, stay alive,” Blunt said, giving me the trigger finger. “We figured that with the crafters fashioning low-budget bandages, healing salves, nail bombs, bunches of rounds for our rifles, and all of that stuff, we might as well pack heavy enough to feel it.”

“I just do it cuz it gives me a place to strap the M-08 and the tripod,” GhostFace added. “But I keep it full enough for a few battles running if you know what I’m saying. Plus having stuff in the packs gives them some shape and form. Makes them easier to carry.”

My rucks had always been full but I could see what he was saying. An empty ruck would be like a deflated pillow stretched across a frame.

“But where did you get them?” I asked.

“Oh, didn’t you know? We asked the crafters and after a day they had one ready for each of us.”

I didn’t know. I shook my head, pledging to stay on top of things in the future. 

Undoubtedly there was a way to tell Deus Ex to tell me whenever the crafters started making some new gadget or weapon that they hadn’t produced before. 

But I’d figure it out later. 

For now I planned to get us all as many experience points as I could manage in a day. The basic plan was fight the first match, wreck ‘em, get our money and random loot, then repeat as many times as the event allowed us to. Do seven or eight of those, get the guys to level 10, then hit the nearest hooch shop and bring it back to get wasted.

I frowned. I needed another combat team, guys I could level-up to protect us while me and the boys got drunk at a proper club. Give them a proper victory celebration.

The guys retied their rucks and slipped them on. They grabbed their rifles from the walls, Dragon making an extra big show of also getting a scabbard and then sliding his sword into it while his mouth made a long shiiiing noise. 

I gave them a check over to make sure the rucks were square and their boots were tied, hoping that the game might give us some sort of buff against critical failures. Nothing showed up, but who knew for sure? 

Plus it gave me a chance to make sure that GhostFace wasn’t overburdened with his complement of M-08, tripod, ruck full of rounds, and his own bolt-action Mosin-Nagant to boot. The man stood proud, no arch in his back and no quiver in his calves.

We were good to go.

“Time to go wreck some enemies boys!” I yelled. We filtered out of the converted arms room and into the elevator.