A Good Stalker Is a Dead Stalker

"Tsk."

In a corner of the corridor the shattered lights could not reach, the Stalker clicked his tongue low in his throat.

The instant he had pulled the trigger, he had thought, Got him. And yet the target had, by sheer dumb luck, survived. He had watched the metal-rod projectile strike the man in the head — of that much he was certain — but the target had staggered and immediately taken cover. Alive, then. For now.

A fatal wound? Or did it just graze him?

The range had been considerable; he could not afford to guess. Still, unlike his own, the target's gas mask would not have carried a separate ballistic lining. There had to be damage of some kind.

The limits of a non-gunpowder weapon. Nothing to be done about that.

Failing to put the man down before he even noticed still rankled. But what of it? In raw firepower, the advantage was already his. And besides — he had gone to the trouble of preparing such an excellent meat shield.

"The bastard's still alive. You take point."

"W-wasn't my job done here? I guided you all the way inside!"

"Then you'd rather die here?"

Click.

The moment he leveled the muzzle that had punched clean holes through his comrades' brows, the prisoner flinched. Like the small fry he was — a man who could not tell a bluff from a genuine threat — he had no choice but to scrape himself up off the floor.

Monster cries were already rolling in from every direction, and the ground shuddered hard enough to rattle bone, but there was only one way out of this alive. Work together, or die alone. That was simply how teamwork operated.

This game has blown past RNG-screwed and is now trying to murder me with pure spite physics.

Crack. Snap-crackle!

My vision kept flooding black ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at random, then exploding into a storm of static, throwing an absolute fit. I hurriedly slapped a strip of duct tape over the cracked section of the goggles. The special lenses had a weak self-repair function; given time, they could patch minor damage on their own. But if a gap opened wide enough to let air through, or the crack ran deep enough to be serious, it was better not to count on that feature at all. Sealing the breach with industrial-strength duct tape — cutting off contact with the outside air and stabilizing the display — was the smarter play.

"...You okay?"

"I didn't actually lose the eye, so don't worry about it."

Even if I had gone genuinely one-eyed, a heavy dose of industrial-grade nanobots mixed with an all-purpose stem-cell compound would have knitted it back together good as new. The problem was that a nobody prisoner like me had no way of getting his hands on something like that.

I got extremely lucky a minute ago. The projectile's angle of incidence was bad, so it never punched all the way through the gas-mask goggle. Thank every god that still answers mail.

There had been no ringing gunshot, so it was not a powder weapon, and the impact had not been quite vicious enough for a crossbow or a compound bow. The projectile itself, being generous, was about the size of a nine-millimeter round. Actual stopping power sat at roughly that level, or a shade under.

I ran every scrap of EFD knowledge I had and reverse-engineered the weapon that had just tried to open my skull. Slot in a few extra conditions and the candidate list collapsed in seconds. The answer fell out clean.

The weapon he used was a Steelshot. No question.

The Steelshot. A charming little piece of hardware people joked about calling a portable railgun, it used high-pressure compressed gas instead of gunpowder to launch a metal-rod projectile. It came in a pistol version and a semi-automatic rifle version, and the rifle in particular packed enough punch to blow the head off most Native Species in a single shot.

Which meant, naturally, that what had hit me was the pistol. If it had been the rifle, I would already be filling out the paperwork for my next isekai reincarnation.

"Did you happen to piss someone off?"

I shook my head without a word and pushed myself up in an awkward crouch. Half my field of view was gone, but the remaining half had more or less clawed its way back.

"I'm a virtuous prisoner who's only been here a week. How does a harmless guy like me even make enemies?"

"That so?"

"Though, actually, I do have a guess."

"..."

Why was he looking at me like that? The fact that I was a virtuous prisoner was an extremely fact-based statement.

Anyway. Setting that aside — if the other party was running a Steelshot, and if they were going out of their way to hunt me in a situation this lethal, the identity was obvious.

A Stalker latched on.

The fact that they had put the first shot dead-center on my skull told me everything. A fairly competent Stalker, from the look of it, and nine times out of ten the commission had come from that Gwangsu Family or whatever they called themselves.

In the EFD storyline, the usual villain roster — the Warden, government agents, the overseers from the corporate consortiums — had a habit of running every kind of sabotage they could think of whenever a prisoner's (a player's) bounty started climbing too high. One of those tools was the Stalker System.

If a prisoner escaped well, farmed well, and kept knocking down primary objectives, the payouts scaled exponentially. So the game would, at random, drop a hostile NPC into the Darkzone alongside you. Players had no idea a Stalker had been deployed until they actually ran into one; you only learned they existed after something that was not a Native Species tried to kill you. A little mafia-game seasoning stirred into the pot, if you wanted to put it that way.

In any case, Stalkers were famous for using nothing but quiet assassination kit, the better to keep their identities buried.

Pistol-version Steelshot, so not a High-Ranking Stalker. At best, Intermediate?

If that Gwangsu bastard had opened his wallet a little wider, a High-Ranking Stalker — or an Executioner — might have come down in person.

The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. Slapping an Intermediate Stalker on a rookie prisoner one week into intake? Did this guy never get his certificate in basic home training?

Then again, a guy like that was exactly the sort who committed a crime and got stuffed into a prison like this.

I crooked a finger at my prisoner friend, who had been flicking nervous glances in my direction. I was about to pick a fight with a Stalker, and having him hovering at my elbow was going to be spectacularly annoying.

"Once you're out of here, run straight down the left-hand corridor. Then turn left, right, left, left, in that order, and you'll hit the entrance you came in through. It's a fair hike, but that's not my problem."

For the record, I had run the route past Crazy Clock. It would not be wrong.

"Then what about you?"

"I've got some business with that bastard."

He had nearly turned me into a cyclops. I was not about to send him home in one piece. I did not know whether I was dealing with one of them or several, but Stalkers usually dropped in solo. Handling one should not be that hard. Granted, if the client who had paid to have my head caved in had spent a truly grotesque amount of money, a two-man Stalker team could be on the board — but the odds of that were vanishingly low. I did not buy that Gwangsu had opened his wallet that far.

"Once you're outside the facility, the usual exits are anywhere with a small generator, or a ladder, or an elevator. Get yourself there. And don't lose my backpack. Take care of it."

"A-alright!"

The way he clenched his vibro-blade and visibly locked in his resolve was actually pretty satisfying to watch. I had spelled it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out this kindly. Surely he could manage an escape.

I cocked an ear toward the outside, timed the gap, and slung my walking, talking bio-backpack out through the door. He bolted down the left-hand corridor exactly as instructed. He vanished from sight so fast I had to assume he wanted to live very, very badly.

As expected, no Steelshot for him. So I really was the target.

This was why you did not keep company with criminals. Get on their nerves a little and they went straight to commissioning a hit. Had every last scrap of duty, righteousness, and loyalty a human being was supposed to carry simply dropped dead?

But justice is still alive.

And the one who survives is justice.

Tap-tap!

The instant I caught the faint scrape of footsteps and confirmed he was on the move, I snatched up a cabinet door and burst into the open.

CLANG!

The thick metal panel dented inward, but it did not punch through. The shot had not come from the figure who had just entered my field of view. Something further back, a presence in the dark, had fired the Steelshot.

Two of them?

No. Looking closer, the one trembling in front of me was just an ordinary prisoner. The Stalker had probably grabbed some inmate passing by and dragged him all the way here to play meat shield. A guy like that was not even worth the effort.

"Hey. If you don't want to die, get the hell out of here. I can't see the bastard behind you."

"Eeeek!"

Whether it was the metal rods hissing past his ears that did it, he shook like a leaf and bolted for anywhere else. The Stalker, apparently unimpressed with his meat shield's performance, stopped firing and melted back into the dark. The intent to set up another ambush was written all over it.

Not happening.

Leave a type like that alive and he would glue himself to you all the way to extraction. Endlessly annoying. I raised the cabinet door like a shield and ran straight into the dark, then put Crazy Clock to work tracing his probable route.

"Any other bulkheads around here you can operate?"

"Then shut the outer bulkheads first so he can't run. The only entrance still open is the one that guy just left through anyway."

To reach that exit, he would either have to take a long way around or come straight through me. And the temporary bulkheads along the long way around were ones Crazy Clock could close himself?

You're dead.

I could put up with a lot of things, but deliberate trolling that hurt your own team was not one of them. A Stalker was not a player, but he was about as close as you could get to a sentient, intentional troll. Right before you cleared a primary objective. Right before you stuffed a high-value item down your pants. Right before you shook a pack of Native Species and finally had a second to regroup. I still remembered, with perfect, bittersweet clarity, every time a Stalker had popped into existence at the single most infuriating possible moment and smashed me in the back of the head.

Which meant a Stalker had to die. No exceptions.

A good Stalker was a dead Stalker.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound of several bulkheads slamming shut rolled in from far down the halls, and the backlash set the Native Species thrashing even harder. The ones already torn out of hibernation had tasted the blood of the countless prisoners who had failed to get out of the facility. In that state, their frenzy would not burn off until every last inmate had left the Darkzone.

By now the Stalker had to be having a fairly ugly argument with himself.

Kill me, extract, and cash in a fortune — or throw the whole contract and run away looking pathetic. Worth thinking about.

Stalkers were supposed to be bloodless and tearless, but they were still living human beings. Their own lives mattered to them the same as anyone else's. There was just one problem. I was not the kind of saint who let someone who had taken a shot at me walk away clean.

CLANG! KANG!

The escape route slammed shut in his face, and a Steelshot came whispering out of the dark in a panic, hammering the cabinet door a second time. Every item and object the Darkzone generated was built like a tank, which I appreciated. They were a different breed entirely from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠those soggy, boneless, all-domestic-meat Korean apartment complexes.

"Five. Four. Three."

Cover, sprint, cover again. I muttered the count under my breath as I closed. He had put one round into me at the start, two more when I burst out of cover, and two again once I started chasing. A pistol-version Steelshot loaded thirteen metal-rod projectiles, chamber included. He would have been too busy running to reload, and I had made a point of never giving him the window — constantly moving, constantly leaning on him.

Two. One.

The instant I confirmed the magazine was dry, I hurled the cabinet into the dark with everything I had. The exo-suit, running on a battery reserve so thin it barely qualified as a charge, flung the heavy door like a boomerang. From somewhere in the blackness came a faint but solid whump.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did not stop there. I had farmed a compact flashlight and a handful of outdated batteries earlier; I wired them together into a light-source blob that looked like something ripped off a club disco ball, then threw it with a motion clean enough to belong in a field manual.

A beautiful spray of light tore through the dark, and I caught a glimpse of the Stalker — one shoulder already wrecked — vanishing again as fast as he could.

"What do you say we settle this like a man? Bare hands?!"

A throwing dagger came whirling back in lieu of an answer. I slipped it with something close to miraculous reflex and kept charging.

This one, I was going to loot down to his underwear.