Well, whatever happens, happens.
«Hello, Philippa.
«What ******** you're doing! I'll kill you ********! Making such a fuss! And ****** you went to the Life Foundation?! He's already put out a reward for you. Do you have any idea the strings I had to pull to keep the other teams from sending other teams up your arses and settling this thing peacefully, huh?! Do you have any idea?!
«I'm sorry, I realise we went a bit overboard last night and--
«A little too much?! You've got the whole town up in arms. What the hell did you do to make that happen?!
«First or last?
«Oh, my God. - I could hear the sound of facepalming.
«Philippa, calm down. I think I can recover your financial losses.
«You do?! How? I'd like to see that.
«Pull up to the Two Pines Motel, and I'll show you what we got with Remy yesterday.
«Is Remy with you?
«No, he's hiding somewhere. But I'm sure he's not remorseful at all. - "Don't hang up on me, you bastard."
«All right, I'm on my way.
She arrived an hour later and I showed her our loot. When she saw our riches and learned that Remy still had a map with marked weapons stores that only the cartel boss knew about, she melted and her look stopped making me feel like I'd killed her family, having previously abused both of her parents. By pure calculation returning what she gave up to get the Life Foundation off our backs and the costs for the lost debts, she could get 300,000 and Gambit and I could each get 500,000.
After all that, I had to convince Gambit for another half hour that it wasn't a trap and he wasn't going to be lynched and could come back. And after I reminded him for the fifth time how much we were able to raise with good violence, he finally gave up and agreed to come back.
When I was done with all the problems created by my stupidity, I decided to check my status.
Name: Raine Pierce
Level: 18
Experience: 6900 / 7000
Parameters:
«Strength: 60
«Dexterity: 58
«Endurance: 75
«Intelligence: 50
«Intuition: 50
«Free points: 21
Specialities: "major", "lab mouse", "hitman".
Skills: "martial arts - 27 level", "shooting - 42 level", "polyglot - 5 level", "psychology - 14 level", "strategist - 17 level", "stealth - 20 level", "player's mind - MAX", "intimidation - 10 level", "animal style - 8 level", "drug resistance - 7 level".
Superpowers: Time acceleration, lycanthropy.
Wow! Wow! I don't even know what to say! I had a pretty good run last night. Wait, which one of my choices made me a strategist? I got stealth at the Foundation for Life by hiding after it and after the zoo. Intimidation? Well, that's easy - a scuffle at the Vampire Club and a shootout with the cartel. But what's the style of the animal? Where's it from? I don't get it. Hey, what happened to the one in intelligence? Does this drink have side effects?!
Not sure whether to be happy about what happened yesterday or not, I went to the base. Arclight said she'd already contacted the right people and the sale would be resolved soon, but because of all the noise we'd made, we'd have to lay low in another city. We went to South Bend, which is not a very prosperous town, with a lot of abandoned factories and places where nobody cares about you. The economy is pretty bad: many industrial companies left the city in the sixties, and with them most of the jobs disappeared, so crime is lounging and thriving here.
Upon reaching the city, my training with Arclight finally began. She showed me how inadequate my fighting skills were, and convinced me that while I could defeat ordinary humans with speed and strength, I would be rolled in a minute against someone of equal ability and fighting skills. Although she herself rolled me in 20 seconds.
If I used acceleration, the fight went on longer, but it didn't give me a giant advantage and mostly just stretched the time until I was defeated. By the end of the week of our training, I could last 40 seconds without using acceleration. And by the time half of the month had passed, I was already holding on for over two minutes. Philippa was amazed at the speed of my progress and said that with such talent I would surpass her in 3-4 months.
***At the end of the thirty days of leave***
Today will be our last sparring session - tomorrow we leave for a new assignment. We've been ordered to find/catch/eliminate a scientist named Fritz von Meyer. Warned that he was a super, no information about his abilities was given and only the address of his last place of residence, where he appeared 3 days ago. The assignment, as Philippa said, is certainly strange: if they know he's a super, why didn't they tell us his abilities and goals, but they pay a lot even for simple information about his new location? And they're each getting 300,000 for elimination. That Fritz must have done some serious damage. It wasn't the money I was worried about that day, though.
I'd been feeling uneasy since morning. I couldn't figure out what it was, and I was confused most of the day. When it was time for training and I was in full shape, the feeling increased many times over and pulled me in. Philippa, on the other hand, was surprised at the metamorphosis I had undergone. My eyes in full form changed colour from bright yellow to blood red. She said it made me look more threatening that way and seemed to just accept it as a development of my mutation, but I-know-it's not normal and something caused this change in me. I felt extremely fucked up for the rest of the day, and I didn't get depressed under the oppression of these feelings just because of the player's mind.
It got worse by nightfall, but I was still able to sleep. As I lay under the light of the full moon, I had a rather strange dream. In it scientists were walking around me and writing something down, then the scene before me changed to an operating table and I felt horror, hatred and boundless rage towards a woman surrounded by doctors hovering over me, which was strange - I had never seen her before. Then the picture changed again and I saw a large white room and in it other people in similar clothes to me, with numbers on the right side, then a door opened and another man with the number 80 on his clothes was dragged into the room. He was in a very bad condition and he was even vomiting blood. No one paid much attention to this and he was also told to get in line with the others. Five minutes later a blonde woman, who looked to be in her early 30s, entered the room. She's the one I saw performing the operation.
«Well, my lovely children, almost all of you have pleased me. Numbers 76 to 83 were able to demonstrate a complete transformation, although they had a control problem and had to be removed. But you, number 80, you're just brilliant. Tell me, what exactly made you come to your senses? The murder of number 78?
«I don't know, ma'am.
«Hmm. Okay. We'll deal with that later - I've come to tell you the unfortunate news. Blood tests on numbers 71, 73, 74, 75, 84 and 88 did not show the expected changes, so I regret to inform you that we no longer need you. - Her face took on a sad expression similar to that of children who have broken a toy.
The faces of the named people lost all their colours. One of them, the one standing closest to the exit, rushed out of his seat at top speed. Looking at the fleeing figure, I noticed how his body proportions had changed during the run, and his legs had taken on a partially mangled appearance. The collar around his neck turned red, and he convulsed and fell to the floor. Immediately afterwards, one of the guards approached him and put a bullet in his head.
The faces of the subjects did not change after what they saw, as if nothing out of the norm had happened.
After that, that woman came up to me and started to say something, but my vision blurred and I felt myself waking up.
Waking up in a cold sweat, I couldn't understand what had happened to me. This dream was so real! It was as if I had experienced the whole thing. Not sure how to feel about it, I decided to put my speculations aside for later, as we were going on a new mission today, and I was glad that the strange oppressive feeling was gone.
***
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