Ping!
A bell could be heard.
[QUEST! "The Rat and the Rattrap"]
[You've stumbled upon the scene of the crime that hasn't happened — but who's the culprit?]
[Objective: Figure out Grandfather's plans (0/1) ]
[Objective: Discover Grandfather's contact (0/1) ]
[Bonus Objective: ??? (0/1) ]
[Reward: 20 EXP, 1 Talent]
… interesting.
By giving himself an objective, a Quest was generated — either that or the [System] had some degree of precognitive abilities, which was honestly too creepy an idea to warrant thinking about. For now, Carter was satisfied with the simple fact that there was an easier way to get EXP than completing his first Objective.
Granted, he planned on taking that anyway, but it would be comforting to not be Level 1 while attempting an assassination.
— how strange. Carter wasn't the type to ponder killing someone, even Grandfather, without feeling a little squeamish.
"… Sure hope I didn't get traumatized into a sociopath," he whispered. "That'd kind of suck."
Oh, my friend, you know absolutely nothing yet. Regardless, Carter focused his mind on the mission at hand. Right out of the bat, he had a few options —
He could walk around and come in from the way they were probably expecting him to, therefore exposing himself to whatever plan they'd cooked up without much fanfare. It would also cost him both his safety and his anonymity, so that was a last resort.
Another option was to somehow beat the information out of someone — but he somehow doubted that would happen anytime soon. The odds of most of the Cops knowing what he wanted to know were big, but the odds of any such attempt to extract information ending with him having a few new orifices in his body courtesy of bullets were even higher.
A third option was to try and impersonate a policeman, but without the armour and the build to do so, that would have around the same chances of succeeding as insisting that his collar wasn't actually a Morpheus' Grasp and he just used it for decorative purposes.
Not very high.
He scoured the area again, but nothing new caught his eye. The woman and the man were both still doing their sketchy things, and the cops seemed about as bored as a four-year-old waiting for their food to be done. They chitchat with one another through their little walkie-talkies and holo-transmitters, aimlessly wasting time waiting for prey that, unknown to them, had decided to play Hunter.
…Waaaaait a minute.
The walkie-talkies. Yes! That was it! His voice wasn't nearly as easily recognizable as his appearance, and he felt confident he could force out a reasonable adult voice without sounding like he was trying to impersonate Darth Vader on helium.
Wonderful. Now came the second, and far easier, question — how could he get one of their walkie-talkies? Which, in Bound-speech, meant roughly "Would it be easier to nick one from them or to try and get one from somewhere else?"
In his case, the best option for an alternative source would be their car — which was parked just in front of the entrance to The Rift itself. From what little he could see from his position, there was no one inside, nor did they bother to watch the car itself — meaning, if he got the turn right and crouched, he might be able to sneak in. Cars like those were usually left with the windows open, especially with so many cops around and in a place where you not only couldn't leave but could legally be executed for stealing, for ease of access for the cops themselves.
Wonderful. Now, operation sneak around was a go, it seemed. Carter stepped back, nodding to himself —
HRSHG!
— and accidentally stepped on an aluminium can, noisily crushing it under his feet. Almost instantly, every eye in The Rift turned to his general direction , which, if you didn't know, was very, very bad. Shit, shit, shit.
He looked back. No dumpsters. And the odds of his being fast enough to run through the entire alleyway before they got there and saw him were very, very low.
— Except.
"I have a skill now!" He intelligently remarked, proving once and for all that intelligence does not in fact make someone brighter. To be fair, it was probably to be expected that he would take a while to get used to such possibilities.
"Ah — < Dash > !"
[ "Dash" activated. ]
[MP: 70/75]
He didn't really feel any different — had it not been for the System Pop-Up, he would've doubted it had worked at all. But he didn't have time to think on it — and as he began to sprint, all of his doubts were evaporated.
— Woosh!
The world slowed down minutely — and Carter crossed twice the length he would have normally in just as much time. It took him precisely two seconds to get out of the alleyway and into the empty-ish Street behind it, which was around when two Policemen ran into the alleyway. By the time they crossed it, he'd already ran far enough away to feel safe, standing now against a wall halfway into the street with the biggest grin on his lips.
[MP: 55/70 ]
[ "Dash" deactivated. ]
It seemed 'Dash' disabled itself once he stopped running — useful, though it could arguably bite him in the ass someday. On the meanwhile, however, he would laugh to himself at the absurdity of it all… and, of course, the notorious awesome factor. Because that had, in fact, been awesome.
"I can't believe I did this… Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." He giggled. "Oh my fucking God. I — Oh, holy shit. Hah!"
Some of the people walking through the streets looked at him strangely but said nothing. There was no rule about using your System's ability in public, and while his clothes, worn and ragged, were odd to see in a System-bearer, his position made it hard to take note of the collar around his neck — thus, they assumed him a random teenager making trouble. Not particularly uncommon, though usually punished.
Well.
He shook himself off his daze and got his mind back on track. As far as he could tell, < Dash > had made him around twice as fast as he usually was — he wondered if there was a way to improve Skills, or if < Dash > would remain a static multiplier applied to his varying speed.
For now, it didn't matter — he could make use of the extra time to proceed with his, ah, mission. Using < Dash > again might be a little risky, though, since his MP recovery was somewhat pathetic and he might need it to escape… Yes, Carter decided, he'd just sneak around the normal way.
Or, you know, kind of. Taking advantage of fire exits isn't exactly the normal way, but it beats standing around in the streets for too long. Safety in anonymity and all that. Also, the bright red ladders that dotted some buildings made for good vantage points and a quick way to get to the rooftops and avoid things on the ground level should he need to.
Yes — That was a good plan. There were no such ladders on the alley he'd left, and if he tried to take the immediate turn he'd be coming in from the opposite side to the one the car was in and therefore exposing himself. It would be a better idea to circle it from behind.
So he did — he exited the street and made sure to walk in the opposite direction to The Rift, taking a sharp turn into an alleyway and then into another one. The alleyways were grimy and with some signs of wear and tear; more often than not, it was one of the Bound's duties to clean up such places, but even that was rare. The Government would sometimes tell a few Bound to do so, of course, but more often than not Government officials had more to do than care for some random alleyway.
As a side note, Carter had some pretty unfortunate allergies. He wouldn't sneeze now, probably, but boy would he pay for this little adventure at home. Alas, that's the price of vengeance — or so he remarked to himself mentally.
… he meant that as in 'sacrifices must be made', mind you, and not 'sneezing comes after justice'.
Regardless, as he exited the alleyway and took a sharp turn into the street that led into The Rift, Carter smiled. As had been planned — he mostly stuck to the edges and the corners of what can be called a wide, if somewhat empty, street.
Still, the more he got near the car, the likeliest it was that he would be seen — even whilst crouched and sticking to the corners, sometimes hiding behind dumpsters or parked trucks. But he pressed on, moving quickly and in short bursts while reminding himself to stay crouched.
He also kept an eye out for aluminum cans this time. Carter would rather not die because of Coca-Cola, thank you very much.
As he had predicted — the car was parked quite comfortably near a wall a few feet away from The Rift itself. The door to it was wide open, and inside, a cop rested his legs on his wheel while carelessly fiddling with his holo-transmitter. In fact, he was pretty sure the man was playing Flappy Bird GX.
Though he'd been relying on little but projected shadows and his general sneakiness to get there, the cop's presence would present an… interesting challenge. Carter dashed back to a dumpster that had been placed near the wall a few feet back, where some tons of trash again invaded his senses with the subtlety of a jackhammer to the testicles.
Dumpsters were pretty disgusting. But they were also pretty convenient — you could hide behind them, you could push them (most had some sort of wheels) if you had the force, you could use shit as projectiles…
Or you could be a complete lunatic and do all three.
Carter inhaled softly.
*Alright then," he muttered, grabbing a crushed can with his hand. "Here we go."
And then, in his very first legitimate act as a rebellious teenager, Carter threw the can with all of his strength.
"Ow, fuck! What the hell?!"
And hit his mark perfectly. Wonderful… but now the man would come running to check.
Thinking quickly, he dropped to the floor in such a way that his chest was pressed to it and crawled under the dumpster proper. Unsurprisingly, the smell was almost unbearable — but he could now see the approaching cop by his feet.
"Shit, where the hell are you, asshat? Who threw that?"
Not an example of self-control, but he was smart enough to deduce the dumpster was being used to hide. And, as he circled it slowly, trying to catch the person behind it, Carter crawled out from the front,
" < Dash > ! "
And sprinted like a madman towards the police car, taking care to be silent and to stick to the shadows. Getting there was easy, but he wasn't fast enough to do much when he got there.
In fact — the man would likely only be distracted for some 4 or 5 seconds more before he chose to either chase down his ghost suspect deeper into the street or give up and return to his car and relax.
— So, in the two seconds he had once he got there, Carter grabbed everything he could see and used another instance of < Dash > to run across The Rift entrance as a man possessed.
"Hey, wait —"
"My shit! He took my shit!"
— Hah!
[MP: 25/75]
...Motherfuck —
He took a sharp turn into the street he'd ended up after his first use of < Dash >, but the Policemen were close by this time, giving pursuit to what they saw (correctly, but it wouldn't do to ponder) as a criminal escaping.
If they caught him, he was, well, dead. But if he did escape, there was no way anyone would associate the thief with him; < Dash > was quite obviously the result of a [System] of some kind, and such generic skills weren't exactly rare.
He took another sharp turn, jumping over a woman's dropped bag without sparing anyone a single look. His hair whipped around with the wind on his face.
[MP: 15/75]
Another sharp turn — and, voila! A fire exit ladder.
He had three seconds to climb — it would normally take him some 8 to 10 to do so. And he had no idea if < Dash > affected running speed or movement speed.
… Well, only one way to find out — with that thought, he jumped on the ladder with another use of < Dash > , and found himself climbing it at twice his usual speed, if not more.
[MP: 10/75]
The Policemen ran into the alleyway under him. "Where are they?!" One of them barked those words aggressively, loading his gun with an audible click. Two seconds — but he wouldn't make it. And the odds of someone noticing the ladder and looking up were far too high already.
Shit.
He was dead.
Ping!
[Due to continued and desperate usage, your DEX has risen by one point!]
… Carter made it.
Within the second after the system bell, he'd climbed the entirety of what remained of the ladder and made it to the top. The difference wasn't staggering, but it was easy to notice.
[MP: 5/75]
Also, his legs hurt a whole fucking ton.