Duel of systems

Fifth .

I woke up to the sound of cars. I opened my eyes and saw Lucia, she was driving another red Ferrari. I was in the passenger seat with an impressive pain in my head. I smelled blood, and I was a little dizzy, I was very annoyed by the smell of smoke coming from some cars, it irritated me a lot.

The woman felt that I was moving and spoke to me.

-Don’t move too much. You must stay still for a while.

-Are you taking me to a hospital?

-Almost. Let’s go to my house. I accept your proposal. I need you to help me on a mission.

“Why?”

“You said you would do what I told you if I helped you. Well I need your help too, some users made groups and that dangerous. This week’s missions are in another city, there are none here.”

I just thought to calm down a little, I knew how dangerous it was to face another group of assassins. Maybe that would be short-lived and I could be calm for the rest of the day. However, the further we went. We reached the exclusive area of the city. Only rich people entered there, a watchman was in charge of removing the speed bumps and letting us pass.

I was so dizzy that I didn’t realice when I entered Lucia’s house.

I only knew that the car stopped, and she helped me get out. I went into a house and ended up on a bed. Little by little, I regained consciousness and could move a little more, but the headache would not go away.

I just looked out the window and knew I was in a house overlooking the ocean with a very cold breeze. I could see from here the boats and people boarding.

I got out of bed and tried to close the window.

“You’re already up. Well lie down, you must sleep and eat plenty, you lost blood. You must learn how to handle a rifle and small arms.

I had never touched a gun before and was a little afraid of them. I couldn’t imagine myself handling one, however, she had them. An M40 rifle and two pistols.

“A doctor will come to see you. In the evening, we will travel tonight on a private jet.”

“I don’t know how to shoot, I never have.”

“Before the mission, you will practice. There is no time. Do you think it was easy for everyone to do this? We were all given the same information as you. You have to learn to survive with the little you have.”

“I was just working in a call center and…”

“Yes, I know, I’ve been reading your file, but you have to get used to it. This will be your reality from now on. When you help me finish my mission, you’ll be free to do whatever you want and see how you do yours”

“Is it that hard? Can’t you help me?”

“I have a month and a half to go. Many would love to kill me. Well, I killed several players who were also about to leave, and the system put me on a top list, so whoever kills me will have one week less in this hellhole. If you even think of betraying me, you’re on your own.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do that. So, the system promotes you to kill those who are about to leave?”

“Yes, this is like a perverse game so that no one gets out, but the best thing to do is to kill the targets, not in every mission there are users worth killing”

I wasn’t happy to hear that, I felt like a mindless fool, What was the point of spending so much time doing missions if we were prone to get shot. I sat on the bed and tried to look at the guns, at that moment she spoke to me.

“What happened to your hands? They are a little weird, too red.”

“I didn’t fulfill my daily mission and I got punished.”

She opened her eyes a little and spoke to me.

“Really?”

“They took me to a cold and lonely place. I spent five hours walking on the ground.”

She started to get a little worried, she was about to call someone, by cell phone, but I spoke to her.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you. Because of your attitude and everything you are doing, the mission is difficult. I already promised him, so I’m going to do it.”

“Ok, we are one day first of the week of the month. The first missions of the month are the hardest, if I do it I can be free for the rest of the month, but most of the users think so too, so we have to do this fast. We’ll go to Manhattan.”

“Manhattan?”

“Yeah, some problem.”

“No… Uh. I’m separating from my wife and, well, she’s upset about some pictures that came out of the disco. She got jealous, and now she says I’m mistreating her.”

“And you mistreat her?”

I got a little shy talking about my life, the words almost didn’t come out, but I was forced to speak.

“Never, we just argued, although she is the one who tells me some things, she had a better job and was from a better family.”

“Don’t tell me she hits you?

“No, she just said some strong things to me.”

“I don’t understand how you married someone who belittles you, well when we get back from that mission a lawyer will help you”

I didn’t want to tell him that Adriana had thrown a padlock at me, nor that she had gotten herself beaten up. It was uncomfortable enough, and it was already too humiliating.

[…]

In the evening hours, just as Lucia said, we got on a private jet. I was a bit nervous, I had never been in a place so small and so luxurious, plus it had a kind of air conditioning that enhances the stay there. The night was a bit chilly and the air was getting hot.

I took advantage of the time I would have on this short trip. I looked at my system, I wanted to ask Lucia some questions, I was kind of curious about some things I saw there.

My stats had changed.

Muscle mass 32

Strength 25

Stamina 14

Intelligence 72

Weapons skill 5

Position: 1923

It was a strange change, I didn’t know at what point I moved up in position. I was kind of curious to ask Lucia what position I was in, but she was kind of far away from where I was sitting. Maybe she was sleeping, I didn’t know, so I decided to look at other things in my system. Most of the stats were at zero. So far I hadn’t done anything, and possibly the rest were like that.

Player data

Completed missions 0

Users killed 0

Skill achieved 0

I decided to close my system, there was nothing to look at, but my exwife started calling me several times. It was very annoying. I didn’t understand what she was calling me for, but I hung up on her.

Again she started calling me and I decided to answer.

“What do you want?”

“I already burned all your stuff, don’t worry about the rent for the apartment. My boyfriend is going to pay it, I’ll see you in court.”

Again she wanted to annoy me, but I was already thinking about other more important things, I wasn’t interested in anything from her. Just getting away and making my life somewhere else.

[…]

In the evening we arrived in New York, and we would go by car to Manhattan, a city with huge skyscrapers. We arrived at midnight. It was freezing cold and the wind was quite strong at that hour.

Lucia was acting normal, but I could see a set of knives in one of her suitcases and small weapons. She was a murder specialist. I got a little scared, I stayed silent as we got off the plane.

I just took the briefcase that had my weapons in it and went down the stairs and followed her.

We were on a runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport. There were a few planes starting to get organized to fly.

The airport lights were a bit annoying, they were on the plane in the dark and getting the light from the lamps was annoying. Plus, the sound of the turbines of other planes annoyed me.

Lucia’s bodyguards were escorting her, while I was following her from behind. We went through the whole airport until we reached the place where the cabs were waiting for people.

I saw a car waiting for us outside the airport. It was an armored van.

I got in the car with that woman, and we were both silent, she was only looking at her cell phone. I also tried to make the situation more normal, however, it was not very good for me. I just had stupid messages from my partner telling me I was a bully for beating my wife. I deleted my social media from my phone and just watched city news. However, she took my phone away from me and threw it into the street.

“Why did you do that?”

“I’ll get you another one later, just focus on the mission, not stupid stuff.”

“But you’re doing the same thing.”

“No, I’m just watching target information, and you watch movies.”

All the people the system picked as our targets also have system, and they were the worst of the previous week, we’ll just go for the best. Maybe I’ll get three weeks off.”

“Eh… I think you should take it all in stride and not expose us.”

“I already want to go back to normal. You don’t know what it’s like to be tied to this crap. It’s no use having so much money. You can’t talk to anyone else about the systems other than a user. You can’t travel easy because sometimes they change daily tasks, and you can’t trust another user.”

“I see, sorry.”

I understood from her words that she hated doing this and just wanted to be quiet. I worry that the chauffeur will listen.

“Your chauffeur hears us?”

“There is a speakerphone to talk to him, don’t worry.”

I felt more confident and asked her about the position she was in.

“What position are you in?”

“In the top fifty.”

I felt surprised, but if she was one of the best, the rest of the users were worse.

“Make no mistake, I’ve already killed five users and had a week and a half taken away from me. If you want to betray me, you know what awaits you.”

“Lucia, I don’t know why you are so eager to kill me. I haven’t done anything to you yet. I don’t know how much damage the person who killed you did to you, but I’m not the same as him, I’m just a simple employee of a company, well, I was the best, and I ended up dead.”

Her serious look, terrified me, it was very cold. I guessed she was traumatized by it. I remained silent, crossed my arms and just looked out the window.

The streets of the city were totally lonely, there was almost no one on the street. There were only a few cars passing by at that hour. However, something very strange happened at that moment. The driver started to lose control of the car, and we crashed into another vehicle.