Free Web NovelChapter 10: The Perfect Weapon
The gear chest sat open on the bar table with everything laid out in the order I was going to need it.
The bar’s under-lighting made the whole spread look cleaner than it had any right to in the context of what it was for.
Five loaded mags in a row, green-tip 5.56 seated in all of them.
The DDM4 beside them, bolt forward on an empty chamber.
The tan Beretta 1301 with seven buckshots in the tube and one in the chamber, and the safety on.
The grenades and flashbangs in two tight groups. The blades right beside the C4.
Tikki sat on the far end of the bar with his eyes tracking every piece of it without blinking.
I had the knee pads, elbow pads, groin protector, and gloves already on.
The plate carrier was under my jacket, because knee pads read as sports injury prevention, and nobody questions gloves in October, but a Crye JPC with Level IV ceramics visible was the worst kind of conversation starter.
[Alright... Attachments first.]
I touched the AR-15 and sent it to inventory along with the EOTECH and the SureFire suppressor, then opened the crafting menu and went to modifications, and a three-dimensional render of the DDM4 V7P appeared in the space in front of me, every component labelled in clean corporate font.
[Okay. That’s actually cool.]
I focused on the top rail and a full list of compatible optics unfurled, organized by category, everything from LPVO scopes down to iron sights, and at the top of the list was a section marked Owned containing exactly one item: the EOTECH EXPS3.
I selected it.
-Ding!
{Installation fee: 30 Credits.
Confirm installation of EOTECH EXPS3 Holographic Sight?}
[Confirmed.]
-Ding!
{Installation complete.}
The 3D render updated with the optic seated on the rail.
Moving to the muzzle, I clicked the threading, and the suppressor list opened, and I immediately moved to Owned, and stopped just as immediately.
Two items in there.
The SureFire SOCOM556 RC2 Mini I had just bought. And right below it was: Enhanced Universal Suppressor. freewēbnoveℓ.com
[Right... that Start-up reward... System. What exactly is the Enhanced Universal Suppressor?]
-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.}
I read the whole thing twice.
"Thirty decibels," I said out loud. "That’s basically a whisper..."
I felt my breathing go faster as I stood there looking at the notification, while the implications of a shotgun making the sound of a person whispering assembled themselves in my head.
Even a suppressed pistol is still loud enough to draw infected from blocks away, but thirty decibels on a 12-gauge buckshot load meant I could clear a stairwell, and the floors above it wouldn’t know.
My eyes went to the 1301 on the table.
I put the SureFire and the weapon light on the AR-15 quickly, and sent the shotgun to inventory, opened it in the modifications tab, selected the Enhanced Universal Suppressor from the Owned list, and accepted the installation prompt.
-Ding!
{Installation fee: 1,000 Credits. Confirm?}
"Yeah, that’s a lot," I said, still confirming it.
-Ding!
{Installation complete.}
I pulled the shotgun back out of inventory the very next second.
The suppressor was the same tan color as the gun, had a round profile, about six inches in length, looking more like a compact SureFire I had on the AR than any shotgun suppressor I had ever seen.
[This shotgun is now basically the perfect weapon...] I breathed as I checked the chamber, confirmed it was still loaded, sent it back, and popped open the inventory.
The inventory used grids instead of open space, ten slots total, each capable of holding infinite quantities of the same item.
And that came with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
So, I spent the next two minutes working through the inventory layout, buckshots in slot one, slugs in two, AR in three, shotgun in four, C4 in five, fragmentation grenades in six, flashbangs in seven, the chest with the helmet and ear protection in eight, the Ascender in nine, slot ten clear.
The five AR mags went to the plate carrier, the karambit clipped inside beside them, the 1911 and its mag on the left side of the rig. The combat axe seated in the back of my waist into its holster with a solid, clean click.
I pulled each of the three accessible weapons and checked the chambers one more time. AR loaded, 1301 loaded, 1911 loaded. Safed all three, stowed the pistol, picked up Tikki’s custom earbuds, turned around, and began walking toward him.
And the moment I began walking towards him, Tikki’s tail puffed, and his body arched high while his eyes flicked between the assistant manager, who was lying with his neck at the wrong angle and one finger missing, and then me.
And I immediately froze where I stood and understood what was going on inside his head.
"It’s okay, buddy..." I spoke softly, inching close with a hand extended towards him.
Tikki’s eyes came back to me... at the hand I had extended.
As I brought the hand closer to him, he sniffed my fingers, and then slowly pressed the top of his head against my palm.
I let him set the pace and started moving my thumb between his ears until he didn’t pull back, and as he calmed down, I gently cupped his face in both hands and held it until his eyes were on mine.
"I’m going to be real with you, Tikki," I said softly. "The world has ended... It’s every man for himself now. And I’m gonna be killing a lot of people to make sure we live through this comfortably."
Seeing him slowly blink, I smiled gently and continued, "Kara is in danger... So, I’m going to go and rescue her... So I need you to stay here and be good, alright? I’ll leave enough food and water to last you a week in case I’m running... a little late."
Tikki looked at me with his eyes wide before blinking slowly.
Giving his head a rough little rub, I fitted the custom earbuds carefully into his ears, one at a time, checked the fit on both, and backed up, buying him a bowl, a bag of cat food, and a water dispenser.
After setting it all up at the bar, I made sure the balcony doors were latched and the bedroom wing door was closed. frёeωebɳovel.com
Once everything was settled, I finally walked toward the mahogany double doors.
[Let’s handle this...]
And just as my hand reached the door handle, I instinctively stopped and just stood there for a solid second looking at the door before slowly turning around.
Tikki was still on the bar, watching me, tail wrapped around his feet, ears forward, and my mind flashed back to the past.
The last time, I had locked him in a plastic carrier. I had told myself it was to keep him safe, to stop him wandering, to protect him. And that became the reason he died.
[I promised I wouldn’t cage him again...] I thought. [And I’m about to leave him on the tenth floor of a building that has one elevator and one fire... what if there are too many infected surrounding the building to get inside?]
"I’m going to rescue Kara..." I said as I walked back to him. "She got taken by some bad men."
Pointing at the body on the floor, I looked into his eyes and continued, "And I’m going to do that to every one of them... and they’ll try to do the same back. Point is... it’s going to be dangerous, and I’m not expecting to come out of it clean."
Tikki slow-blinked at me once.
"So..." I said. "You wanna come?"
Tikki looked at the body on the floor. Looked back at me, then he stood up, walked to the edge of the bar, and hopped onto my shoulder, sliding into the pocket with his front paws settled on my shoulder, and his face pointed towards the door.
"Atta boy. Let’s go slaughter an entire criminal empire." I grinned as I turned around and walked out through the mahogany doors with steps lighter going down that hallway than they had been coming up.
