Nothing Difficult
There was nothing hard about it.
Because the mission was an entry assault, there was a lot more to do than usual — nothing like the old days, when you just sat around and waited out the prep timer.
Vwooom.
Here, you could pilot a small disc-shaped drone. Slip it into the building and you could pin down enemy positions, mark the objectives that needed neutralizing, the whole picture.
My viewpoint dropped to floor level. With a hiss of vented air, the drone started moving under my control.
Every corridor was boarded shut, but there were just enough gaps for a drone to squeeze through, so recon went smoothly. People sent theirs in through the back door, the front entrance, and the ventilation shafts cut into the walls.
I deliberately parked mine near the spawn point first, then jacked into the camera network to watch the other drones work.
From one that had made it onto the second floor came a cascade of footsteps, the thud of reinforced walls going up, and a string of gunshots as the defenders tried to swat down every drone buzzing through the rooms.
A continuous roar of shotgun blasts. Someone planting a booby trap beside an entrance. Someone else boarding up a doorway with wooden planks. Through a process they called construction, the defending players were busy forcing an ugly, hostile environment on anyone who tried to approach the objective.
When the recon window closed, three drones were still alive.
Players had used the jump function to stash them in some genuinely creative spots, but the defenders found those hiding places with supernatural accuracy and smashed them. One of the survivors was the drone I'd parked at spawn. Only two had actually tucked themselves into legitimate positions and were still feeding us enemy locations.
"Confirmed the bomb's on the second floor. As you can see, they've planted Entry Denial Devices, so watch yourselves. Looks like they've got a Medic too — keep that in mind..."
The briefing was over in an instant.
A moment later a voice announced the start of the match, and my character dropped into the middle of a locked-down city center.
Approach time on the Bank. Players started their entries however they'd planned. Some went in through the sewers. Some looped around toward the parking garage. One even tried to rappel in directly from the second floor.
So there's a rappel function too.
"Rappelling... been a while since I practiced."
I muttered it quietly to myself, watching that player. I'd learned how to rappel, sure — but I hadn't practiced in so long I wasn't sure my body would remember.
Click.
One round in the chamber. The magazine only held five, but they were .338 Lapua Magnum — widely regarded as one of the finest anti-personnel sniper rounds in existence — and ten more magazines of the same were packed tight in my pouches.
I finished checking the rifle and picked the disc-shaped drone up off the floor, stuffed it roughly into a utility pouch, and started moving.
Where I was going to enter was basically already decided. Given the gun I was carrying, pushing the second floor or the front entrance was out of the question. That was just advertising please kill me, so I picked the approach they'd be least likely to watch.
Bang!
With a sharp crack, the CCTV camera mounted on the parking garage's exterior ceiling shattered into pieces. That should keep them from tracking my position. From here on, it mattered. I didn't know where they were, which meant I had to kill my footsteps completely and make the entry clean.
Rifle tucked against my arm, I slipped slowly into the garage and swept every spot I figured they might be hiding. The parking garage was empty.
This was the entry corridor into the building. I focused every nerve on my ears. Nothing loud. I pulled the drone from my utility pouch and started flying it.
"......"
Inside the vault. The CCTV control room. Not a single sound.
Are they not here? Too early to relax. I let out a short breath, then slammed straight through the barricade, shattering it to pieces, and in the same motion tucked myself deep into the far side of B1.
While any enemy distracted by the sound of the barricade breaking was still reacting, I planned to link up with the teammate pushing from the cave side at the server room stairs and clear the basement completely.
But the next moment—
"Cave entrance! Enemy holding!"
A violent burst of gunfire rang out. I was circling the inside of the vault and immediately spun around. Even with a numbers advantage, the first-shot initiative belonged to the defense. Get unlucky and you could easily end up in a four-on-six.
I reached the control room, but I still didn't know exactly where the enemy was. Force the barricade and I could walk straight into a waiting bullet.
I hesitated for a second, then pulled the recovered drone back out.
A few seconds later, gunfire erupted from the control room. The drone didn't even make it a few meters before it was blown to pieces, the feed dissolving into static — but that was already enough.
I yanked the grenade launcher off my back, slipped a finger onto the trigger, and put a breach round into the control room wall. Then I moved.
The wall detonated with a thunderous blast. I burst out through the wreckage, stomped hard off the ground, and snapped my direction around.
BANG!
A single enemy bullet punched into the spot I'd just been standing. The target was the enemy hiding behind the control room wall. Distance: barely five meters. No time to swap weapons. I aimed the grenade launcher I was still holding at the hidden enemy.
—BOOM!
"Gah!"
Even knowing it was a game, the shock was enough to make my vision swim. A grenade detonating at that range hit not only the enemy in front of me but me as well. My HP dropped by nearly twenty in an instant. Of course, they'd taken worse — so I couldn't call it a loss.
Looking at the opponent stunned by the close-range blast, I showed the bare minimum of mercy and raised my sniper rifle. In an FPS, nothing was more humiliating than dying to a melee weapon.
BANG!
A short gunshot, and the score changed.
"Hell yeah, Unknown. Already got one."
"Came here to carry you and it turns out we're the ones getting carried."
The link-up with my teammates went off without a hitch. We immediately pushed from the central stairs on 1F into the lobby.
The space was wide open at a glance. The ceiling soared impossibly high, held up by several elegant stone columns arranged in a gentle curve. The floor was a chessboard of interlocking black-and-white marble, thoroughly cluttered with debris of every kind. A spiral staircase on one side of the lobby led up to the second floor. The teller windows that would once have greeted customers stood completely empty, opening onto some space of unknown purpose beyond.
"I'll sweep 1F for anyone hiding, then push the central stairs."
"Unknown, come up to 2F with me."
I answered with a nod.
I climbed the stairs carefully; my teammate slipped over the teller counter and disappeared toward the back. I thought about covering them for a second — then a single red laser appeared right in front of my eyes.
An Entry Denial Device. A mine that detonated the instant it detected someone crossing its laser, chewing up everyone nearby. The enemy I'd spotted earlier with the drone had planted one here too. Shooting it would just give away my position, so I had no choice but to draw my knife.
Normally these things took a considerable amount of time to disarm. But this was a game, so that part had been simplified — one slash with a knife and they crumbled. That soft a durability. The immediate threat was gone.
Not far ahead, the letter A marking the objective came into view. Naturally, every possible entry point had been heavily reinforced. Destructible walls had reinforcement panels, and every door was barricaded. I could blow through and go in — but I'd get turned into a pincushion.
Should I just smash in with the grenade launcher?
The thought had barely formed when the teammate beside me spoke up.
"Could you draw their attention for even a second? I've got a plan."
"Got it."
The teammate moved as quietly as possible, then went to the opposite door and started planting something. A thumbs-up that they were done, and I pulled the trigger on the grenade launcher aimed at the barricade in front of me.
BOOM—
A violent explosion, and the barricade shattered to pieces. Startled by the sudden blast, the enemies turned toward us and clustered around the EMP bomb. And as if they'd been waiting for exactly that, my teammate grinned and triggered the device they'd planted.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Something like small beads dropped to the floor with a faintly ridiculous sound. It didn't take long to figure out what they were.
BANG! BANG!
For something so small, the beads went off with spectacular explosions and wiped out the enemies gathered around the EMP in a single instant.
Victory was all but certain. Just as we were about to push into the neutralized objective—
"AAAAAH!!"
Cheerful gunfire from the first floor, and a pretty desperate scream coming through the comms earpiece. And the score changing.