Five Minutes to Steal the World

A Prisoner dropped into the Darkzone for the first time is terrified of everything. They have no idea what the Darkzone even is, what they're supposed to do once they're inside, or how farming, survival, and escape are supposed to work. The whole thing is a blank slate of ignorance.

That's why, if it doesn't suit your palate, it's an unbearably dull game — and if it does, there is no finer tasting menu on earth. Which is how I spent ten years with my face buried in the bowl, slurping it down like a starving animal, and still couldn't bring myself to quit.

"Something delicious!"

That pure, simple pleasure of eating something good. A human hooked on that single-shot hit of dopamine can never walk away. Not even if they've only got one life coin left.

SKREEEEE!

The instant I reached for a usable bundle of wiring, a tentacle punched in from behind at terrifying speed. I flicked a glance over my shoulder. A Goblin was scuttling up the wall, tentacle fully extended, eyes locked on me.

I whipped Pretty around and smashed the tentacle flat against a desk. Leaving the thing pinned and squealing, I flipped every cabinet and desk within reach. The contents crashed out in a messy avalanche across the floor.

Most of it was worthless junk. Every so often, though, something lit up on my desire radar.

"This one's to-die-for delicious, this one's deathly bland, and this one's art-school-portfolio edible."

I plucked out only what I needed, like picking pearls from mud, and rolled sideways without a shred of lingering attachment.

BOOM!

A thick tentacle punched through the steel of the cabinets and desks and slammed into the exact patch of floor I'd just vacated. Shrapnel shattered the ceiling lights, and a rain of glass and sparks came down. Through that fantastic shower of broken light, I spotted Big Bob, its massive bulk grinding forward.

That's the fourth spore it's sacrificed.

The spores covering Big Bob's body average around thirty. This one, though — leftover from some classified bio-experiment, maybe — looked closer to fifty.

If I keep baiting tentacle strikes at this rate and force it to burn through its spores, I might even drive it to self-destruct. Not that a trick like that is going to work forever.

A Goblin bravely vaulted the cabinet wreckage and charged. I rammed a machete through its chest and started running again. The roar at my back was getting closer by the second. The battery on my Modular Exo-Suit was almost dead.

At this rate, it'll catch me eventually.

The only reason I hadn't been caught yet was, ironically, this thing on my wrist. I followed Crazy Clock's intel, shoved the door open, and sprinted full-tilt for the temporary isolation chamber at the far end of the corridor.

Crazy Clock's laser hit the touch panel first and dropped the chamber's bulkhead. I slid through on my side like a runner diving for home plate.

Even in a situation like this, I wasn't about to skip the farming. There's a saying: a Prisoner who doesn't farm has no right to eat.

Luckily, the isolation chamber was still stocked with sanitation gear the old staff had left lying around. I folded up unused hazmat suits and gloves — absurdly clean, absurdly light — and jammed them into my pack. In a facility that had spent so long drowning in contaminating fog, the fact that this stuff was still spotless was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠proof enough of how good its dustproof and antimicrobial ratings were.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

They were already plastered against the bulkhead, howling to be let in. The supposedly sturdy wall was already denting and buckling. Two or three minutes, if it held that long.

The opposite bulkhead was opening, though, so I slipped out in a hurry. Once that one sealed behind me, I'd have bought myself about five minutes.

Just five minutes. But five minutes is enough to steal the world.

I didn't give a damn about bank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jobs. Darkzone jobs, though — those I took very seriously. And that applied equally to the other Prisoner teams I'd had the misfortune of running into out here.

They were using transport trays abandoned around the facility, piled high with loot, and their packs were already fat. They'd hit a proper score.

I threw up a hand and called them over.

"Hey! The exit's this way!"

The three-man team, which had been moving in a hurry, swung toward me. They must have pushed deep into the facility to farm and then lost the way out. Then this whole mess had erupted on top of that. They'd be half out of their minds by now.

"Are you sure this is actually the exit?!"

"You think I'd be wandering this deathtrap alone for the hell of it?"

"Well... yeah, fair point."

"Quit chatting and move! If those monsters catch us, we're finished!"

They'd already run into a pack of Primordials, then. The Prisoner barking at the others kept glancing back, and the gear on him was glistening with fresh blood.

"Follow me."

I'd been dropped into Darkzones with facilities like this hundreds of times, so finding the way wasn't hard. Even if every exit to the outside was sealed shut, Crazy Clock could open the bulkheads. Worst case, I wasn't going to fail at escaping.

I fell in beside the Prisoner struggling to push a transport tray by himself and casually lent a hand, deliberately picking up the pace so we pulled ahead of the others.

"So how did you guys end up this deep? Regular Prisoners wouldn't push this far into a facility."

"O-our leader insisted we search the deep end. The farming actually went great, but we had the rotten luck of waking one of the ones that was still asleep..."

"Woke it? Not because the facility suddenly got power again?"

The Prisoner pushing the tray glanced sideways at one of the others, as if checking whether he was allowed to answer. So a teammate had been the one to wake a hibernating Primordial. Obvious enough.

"Tough luck."

I killed the conversation with that and looked over their loadouts. These guys had come here meaning business. Oversized packs, extra pouches, even hanging pocket-bags lashed on with cord. Even if they'd only scooped white-tier junk, they would've turned a decent profit.

If they make it out alive, that is.

I wasn't in much of a position to say it out loud, but greed past a certain point invites disaster. Unlike me, they hadn't been careful — relatively speaking — and they'd gotten greedy, and now they'd caused an incident.

I gave the guy beside me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he flinched at another roar from behind us. Then I spotted a small sealed bulkhead not far ahead and immediately extended my wrist. Crazy Clock, without waiting for an order, remotely worked the touch panel and opened it.

What I'd opened wasn't an isolation bulkhead blocking a corridor, and it wasn't an exit bulkhead leading outside the facility either.

"An elevator? There was an elevator here?!"

"Damn! How did we not know about this?!"

Because until now, no Prisoner besides me has ever met the conditions to use it.

In EFD, escape routes sometimes exist inside a given zone or facility — hidden things like this elevator, sitting there whether anyone knew about them or not. Rare exits like that always require you to meet certain conditions, and those conditions are almost always ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brutal to fulfill, or so pointless you'd be better off not bothering.

Elevator exits, though, usually have conditions you can see coming a mile away.

Fortunately, I'd already satisfied the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two, so the elevator would operate normally. Now it was time to honor the third.

"Get in!"

The guy beside me and I shoved the transport tray aboard, and I waved the two coming up behind us.

THUD! BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The moment the two of them piled in under the crushing weight of their gear and loot, the cramped elevator started screaming.

"Damn it! There's only four of us. How is that over the limit?!"

"Probably all the loot you're carrying."

I was running a relatively light, cost-effective loadout, and I hadn't even finished farming, so I didn't weigh much. Body and gear together came in around a hundred kilos.

Theirs, though — equipment, farmed items, and body weight — had to be north of a hundred and fifty kilos a head. There was a reason they'd been lagging behind us even though they looked plenty strong, while we pushed the tray.

"Weight limit's lower than I thought."

"Seems like it. It's pretty cramped, too."

"Tsk. That's a problem."

The two of them had been murmuring to each other. Then the air changed, and they put bloodied knives in our faces — mine and the guy beside me.

"You two. Get off."

"Let's not make this complicated."

"W-wait! Fine, him, but why me?! I'm on the same team!"

The guy beside me protested, but the other two only let out thin, ugly smiles behind their gas-mask goggles.

"You were just a hanger-on anyway. That unlucky leader bastard is already dead. Why the hell should we look after a lackey like you?"

"Yeah. Think about it. That bastard is the one who said we should loot this place, and that's how we ended up like this. So the one with the lowest contribution should be the sacrifice, right?"

"Heh. That tracks."

"...!"

The guy beside me looked like he still had something to say, but he didn't look like he had it in him to try anything against two Prisoners already leaking murderous intent. He was small and scrawny to begin with. Honestly, the fact that he'd run this far at all was close to a miracle.

"Get out. Or you wanna get knifed like that leader bastard?"

"I-I'll get off! I'm getting off!"

In the end he squeezed past me and stepped out of the elevator first. I shrugged, as if I couldn't win this one either.

"Hey, pal. Honestly, I'd love to take you with us, but we can't give up these items. Just think of it as bad luck."

"Yeah. Use that idiot as bait if you have to, and try to stay alive. If you're lucky, we'll see you again."

"If you luck out and make it, we'll forget all this and grab a drink."

"...Sure. You're buying, though."

I said it like that, left them snickering behind me, and walked out.

Pressing the Close button on the way.

The overweight warning cut off, and the doors sealed shut.

"W-what do we do now?!"

"What do you mean, what do we do? We farm a little more and take a different exit. I'm still hungry."

"But the monsters are going to be here any second...!"

"Well. That's their problem to deal with, isn't it?"

I glanced back once at the elevator, which still hadn't moved an inch from this floor even after the doors closed, and then walked on without a shred of regret.

The second condition of an elevator escape.

They didn't have authorization to use the elevator.