"I want you to kill those men and wreck their shops. No witnesses, no getting caught. If you can do that… I'll give you a medicine pack for free, and even throw in some credits and anything else you want."
Damn. Jamie's worst fears were confirmed. It seemed that to save his brother's life, he would have to take others' away. Not that he wasn't already prepared to do so, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.
"Okay." Jamie nodded slowly. "Who are these guys?"
"My rival black market merchants. Terrible people, overcharging and scamming. Really, killing them is doing Old Orion a favor."
"So I just kill them, and come back here? Do you want me to bring back evidence they're dead, or…"
"I'll know when they're dead." Beck waved a hand, gesturing to a guard to open the door. He then opened a drawer and pulled out a pistol. "You have a day to kill all 3 of them. Go past it, no medicine for you."
Beck tossed Jamie the pistol, who caught it and gripped it tight.
"Wait." The guard that was about to bring Jamie out paused. "How do I know you'll keep your end of the deal?"
"My word isn't good enough? Despite my… reputation?" Beck raised an eyebrow at Jamie, who gulped and shook his head.
"No. I want one dose of the medicine to take with me. Prove that you're actually willing to give it to me."
Jamie was just saying whatever. He didn't really care about the deal being upheld. He just wanted to be able to give Aiden some relief in case he failed to kill all 3 merchants on time.
"Alright then, here's my act of goodwill." Beck opened another drawer, pulling out two syringes filled with a clear liquid. "Two doses, free of charge. Complete my task, and you'll still get a full medicine pack on top of that. Now get out of here."
"Thank you." Jamie took the syringes and nodded to Beck, hurrying out of the building.
He hopped on Prime and the mecha started running back to the mechanic shop. He wanted to get this to Aiden as soon as possible, and make sure the medicine was the real deal.
Arriving at the shop, he made his way upstairs, surprising Amanda. Aiden was still the same.
"Jamie, did you…"
"A little."
Jamie knelt down next to Aiden and pulled the blanket back. He picked up his arm and pulled out a syringe. He injected it into his arm and pressed down on the plunger, watching the clear liquid leave the syringe and enter Aiden.
Putting away the empty syringe, they waited with bated breath. Jamie was nervous, what if it was fake? What if it didn't work? What if-
"Thank god."
They relaxed as they saw Aiden stop frowning and groaning, instead being replaced with a relieved expression. Jamie was glad the medicine was the real deal. Unfortunately, now he would have to kill 3 men to get more.
"Here's the other one I have so far." He gave the second syringe to Amanda. "Do you know how often he needs it?"
"One dose every 12 hours." Amanda sniffed as she looked at the syringe. "That's what I heard."
"Okay." Jamie nodded. "Listen, I had to go to Beck to get this. I know you don't like it, but-"
"No, I understand." Amanda slid her hand into his, giving it a tight squeeze.
"I'm gonna have to do bad things to get more medicine."
"Just be good when you come home."
"Thank you, Amanda." Jamie squeezed her hand one last time and smiled at her before getting up.
"I'll bring more medicine." Seeing Amanda nod, he went downstairs and left the mechanic shop once more.
The immediate issue temporarily solved, Jamie pulled out the map, aiming for the nearest target, which was all the way on the west border of the slums. The picture of that target showed a fat, balding man with golden teeth.
Looking at the man he was going to kill, Jamie felt the gun in his pocket become heavier. Well, it wasn't like he would have to do stuff like killing and wrecking places for Beck forever, right? Aiden would get better eventually with a steady supply of medicine, then Jamie could leave Beck behind and focus on improving his family's life.
On the way there, Jamie started envisioning how to do it. He considered just having Prime blow up the place from outside, but that would attract a lot of attention, and the target might have a panic room or something.
"I'll walk in and shoot him, I guess." Jamie grimaced, not noticing the person in front of him.
"Ow! Sorry."
"Watch where you're going-! Oh, it's you."
"Ohhh shit."
Jamie stepped back with an alarmed expression. The man he just bumped into wore a white and blue long coat bearing the Dynamos crest. Not only that, but this cop was one of the trio that locked him out of the border, trying to kill him.
"Look man, I kicked you in the balls, you locked me out of the slum… Let's let bygones be bygones, alright?"
Jamie tried to walk past him but was shoved back. While the cop was focused on him, Jamie directed Prime to hide in an alley before he was noticed.
"No, no, actually I think we should talk." The cop grinned at him, gripping his shoulder tightly. "How the hell did you get back into the slums? We locked that door."
"I guess you didn't lock it hard enough." Jamie shrugged, trying to get out of his grip. "It opened quite easily."
In response, the cop shoved him harder, making Jamie fall against a wall.
"That's the thing, though. I was on patrol there a day or two ago, and what do you know? The door was broken. Now how did that happen?"
He leaned on his knees, glaring at Jamie, who coughed and glared back.
"Look man, you already got me in for a quota that day, so how about you just mark me down for jaywalking or whatever, and just leave me alone."
Jamie was getting frustrated. He didn't have time for some scumbag, Dynamos pig!
"I would, but I think you did some illegal activity to get back in here!" He kicked Jamie across the face, knocking him on his back. "In fact, I think you're doing illegal activity right now!"
He kicked Jamie over and over, bruising him and opening a cut on his forehead. Jamie was getting pissed. He needed to kill a guy, and this bully of a cop couldn't just leave him alone. Didn't he know how much pressure Jamie was under right now!?!?
"Sure, I'll let you go. Once I'm satisfied!"
"That's IT!" Jamie yelled as he took another kick to the face.
"Heh, what was that?"
BANG!
"Augh, what the… you piece of shit…"
The cop reeled back, clutching his chest that sported a baseball-sized hole in it, blood gushing out. He stumbled back before collapsing, choking on the ground as he tried to curse Jamie, his voice getting lower, and lower… before everything was silent.
Jamie was breathing heavily. His right hand was outstretched, clutching the pistol that was previously in his pocket, the barrel releasing smoke. His body shook, the pistol falling out of his grip and onto the floor, before he keeled over to the side and threw up.
"Blargh… Ugh…"
His stomach churned as his mouth burned with the taste of bile. Spitting out the rest of it, Jamie took deep breaths. His body ached with pain, but his heart was the heaviest. He'd just killed a human for the first time.
"No, I've got it… you guys aren't human…"
Jamie glanced at the dead cop, who had an expression of anger in his final moments, trying his best to cover up the hole that Jamie blasted into him. The first-time killer, on the other hand, realized something.
"That was… easy."
[You have killed a Level 5 Human]
Coughing, Jamie called Prime over. He knew what to do now, to not hesitate, to not deliberate over whether or not to take a human life. He just had to see them as something other than human. Like the beasts he killed whenever he needed to level up.
As Jamie came to that realization, the notification altered itself, almost like a physical manifestation of his new mindset.
[You have killed a Level 5 H@#a:]
[You have killed —————]
The panel went through a few more glitches before reforming itself one last time.
[You have killed a Level 5 Dynamos Pig]
"Heh, it changes, I like that." Jamie made the notification go away before continuing onwards to the first target. "Looks like people can help me level up, after all."
It was quite ironic, too. A Dynamos cop, a part of the main oppressors in the slums of Old Orion, gave Jamie the lowest leveling experience from all of his kills. That dead cop was weaker than the weakest beast in the wasteland outside the border.
"Doesn't look like they hold affinities, either. Here we are."
Looking at the small shop that was built right on the border wall, Jamie sighed. Using Thermal Vision, he confirmed that there was only one person inside the shop, most likely the target.
Making Prime hide in a side alley, Jamie stuck the pistol in his waistband so he could draw it quickly, hiding it from sight with his jacket, and took the photo of the target in his hand. Jamie breathed in and out for a minute or so before going up to the door and knocking.
"Ah, a customer?"
Entering, Jamie saw his target turned around, hunched over a counter. The baldness and the fatness matched from behind, but Jamie had to be sure. He gripped his gun and waited for the man to turn around so he could see the teeth.
"I swore I heard the door, huh?"
Hearing no response, the shop owner turned around, his golden smile turning into shock as he saw a boy with red eyes and dark hair aiming a gun at him.
"Wait-"
The man stuck out a hand, but by then the trigger had already been pulled. Jamie watched as the energy blast left the barrel of the gun, covering the distance between him and the bald man's head in an instant, blowing his brains out the back of his head.
He slumped backwards on the counter, dead. Jamie lowered the smoking gun, shaking his head.
[You have killed a Level 3 Fat Baldy]
"One down." He mumbled as he stepped outside the shop.
Now it was Prime's turn. He mecha stepped up to the stop and punched through the window, casting one Fire Blast and setting the place on fire.
Jamie checked the map, seeing that the next closest target was north of their current location.
"Two to go."