RAID

Bullets whizzed by my head, ricocheting off the steel drums and God knows what else around me.

A moment went by, but it felt like an eternity.

Then, the sound of a rifle boomed in the open aired halls, just as loudly as when the enemy Invader decided to reload a moment later. The sound echoed in my EarPro headset, giving me a good idea of exactly where the enemy AI character was located. I was happy I remembered the EarPros, glad to not make the mistake of forgetting them again after what happened the last time we were out here in The Mall.

“Ok, you need to move inside of Transfer, quick. I’ve got him pinned across the hall in Medical.” Taylor, my best friend since we were kids, was running point on this raid and had noticed the NPC (Non-Player Character) Officer as we were working our way deeper into the area. He was one of the regular patrols that you came across in the halls of The Mall. While not necessarily deadly, they could be dangerous, especially if you aggroed more than one or two at a time. Thankfully, we had focused on this particular map more than any other the past few months, so we had a good feel for when and where the AI would spawn enemies for us to deal with.

“Yah, yah. I hear ya,” I replied as I crouched and slowly retreated backwards into the abandoned clothing store. Adjusting the heavy plate chest rig as I settled into my crouch walk I replied, “I’m slowing it down a bit, I don’t want to pull any other officers. I haven’t seen any players yet but someone’s going to be coming for the loot in Corner Store at some point soon.” We weren’t communicating via voice chat in game, so I didn’t have to whisper, but I found myself doing it in intense situations anyway and we were definitely ramping up the intensity.

And then I heard it. The unmistakable clang of a grenade hitting the pavement just in front of us.

Oh shit.

“Taylor get in Transfer now,” I yelled across coms as I leveled my assault rifle into my direct view, aiming down my sights for the bonus they gave me to accuracy and handling. The corner of The Mall we were in was always a hot spot of activity. The store we were taking cover in, Transfer, was an old high dollar clothing brand. Once draped in satin and furs, these days the mannequins were half shot up and didn’t carry much on their skeletons except for the occasional Cowboy Hat. Which, if one had spawned, I would immediately grab. They fetched a decent payout on the market because they were needed for an important quest line. Nothing crazy, but that’s how you kept from going broke around here; looting everything you could and getting the hell out of dodge before you found yourself dead. And look, no, dead didn’t mean you were gone for good, this was a game after all. However it did mean all of the loot you were carrying was. So it wasn’t a good feeling to spend an hour out on a raid to find yourself returning back to your hideout empty handed. Which is exactly what I was currently attempting to avoid. 

Barely skipping a beat as I yelled for Taylor to take cover, I turned on my heels as I yelled, “GRENADE!”

Immediately after the word leapt from my lips, the grenade went off with an unexpected flash of bright white light. A EarPro headset was absolutely necessary whenever you went out on a raid to ensure you could hear quality audio cues from all around you. Thankfully, I was wrong about the little metallic egg that rolled to a stop before exploding right in front of me. It wasn’t a grenade but rather a flash bang. This type of throwable gave off the same impression and audio cues as a grenade, but did not contain any shrapnel, so no damage was taken by my character. However, they did provide a Blind Debuff thanks to the extremely bright light they emitted and if I hadn’t had my EarPro on, an Aural debuff that would’ve greatly decreased my ability to hear would have taken effect.

Suddenly, the sound of Taylor’s rifle rasps off three quick bursts of fire in the direction the flash bang came from. A couple of breaths that lingered in the air later, Taylor spoke camly, “The little shit is down. Once you shake the Blind Debuff off, let me know, I want to go check that invader’s pockets.” A much overlooked loot spawn, an invader’s pockets could spawn just about any item in the game. Most of the time it was junk, cigarette packs and a stack of screws that may be worth it to some level 4 newb, but to veterans like us, wasn’t worth the inventory space. “Score,” he notified. “A stim pen!” A relatively rare medical injection, a stim pen gave a buff to your stamina and energy for 90 seconds, while also giving you a slow heal effect over time. 

I shook my head to clear the fuzziness as quickly as I could and to shake my eyesight back to normal. The moment my sight cleared up, I saw a head drop below a barrier about sixty feet down the hall. “Got a PC (player character) with a blue OSK helmet and what I think was a M4. About 60ish feet, left side ducked behind the gray barrier.” I could see Taylor’s deep blue eyes beneath the face shield of his helmet as he looked in the direction I called out, as he slid the new med item he found into his chest rigs inventory. 

“Heard,” he replied. Then, as if totally ignoring what I just said, “I’m moving across the hall to Corner.” 

“Corner?!” We were barely into the raid and he was ready to rush one of the best loot spawns on the map. It was risky. But if we beat everyone to it, and looted quickly, we could get in and out without much of a fight. Not only that, but if he bolted for the store from his current position, the player I just saw might just peek for a shot. 

“Ah, fuck it. Go for it, NOW!” And almost on my command, the PC down the hall peeked his head around the corner at the sound of Taylor running for the Corner Store. Seeing as I was ready for it, I took a quick shot and before he had any idea what hit him he was down. “PC with the blue helmet is down. He’s on the other side of the main corridor. So open the gate on Corner and let’s get in and out. FAST.” I over emphasised that last part. Taylor was a notoriously slow looter. He was great at Escape though, no doubt about it. He knew the best loot spawns, he knew all the timings for all the maps to get the best PvP (player-vs-player) action, and he was really good at pushing the tempo faster than most players preferred to play. A lot of the time this resulted in catching them off guard. Most of the time, it went well… but sometimes…

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Right then, simultaneously I heard a SNAP and a CRACK. Taylor screamed out as I watched his left leg give out from underneath him in a spray of blood. “Across the hall, left side, he’s got a P90.” He groaned as he turned himself into cover behind some crates along the center of the large mall aisle. “Copy,” I replied as I spun 180 degress, “Lay down cover fire, NOW!” 

As if he knew what I was about to say, Taylor started firing off blind shots with his AK from behind the crates. That gave me the sound cover I needed as I sprinted down the hall. I was going to flank this guy, and I was going to flank him really fucking hard.

Getting to the corner opposite him, further into the mall, I had completed my sprint around what would essentially equate to the bottom half of a square section of mall and was now coming around the top corner. Just as I figured, the guy was crouched deep in Taboo, the store Taylor had spotted him in, and wasn’t sure which direction he should go. He was pinned, and his constant shuffling meant he was getting anxious to make a move. I readied my aim, took a breath, and fired off another shot.

“BOOM, I saw that from my corner, bro. Nice shot.” I was using one of my favorite guns and we had spent so much time running this particular raid recently, I felt comfortable enough to make plays like that one. The tactical advantage that a flank gave you was understated in a game like this. Most of the people who came to play it had no idea what they were getting into. They were used to the shoot, kill, die, respawn, and repeat cyle of game play. But Escape was different. You couldn’t approach your raids with that type of unconcern, or you would lose a lot of loot, fast. It was a hard lesson to learn, but everyone eventually learned it. Slow down, take your time, learn the maps, and use your knowledge to gain an advantage over your enemies. 

I could hear Taylor’s character around the corner huffing as he healed his broken leg. “Just about done on the heal. Want to loot him?” 

“No, he looked like another damn bambie.” Bambie was one of the less colorful names we used for newbies. “I’m going to open Corner. Let’s get in and out, and then we can check his loot if we’re not full up.”

The thick barred exterior door to the Corner Store creaked loudly, echoing in the halls of the mall. Opening Corner was always a gamble. Multiple angles, the loud door, the tendency for the AI to spawn a NPC near the entrance; all combined for a pretty high adrenaline loot spot. I slid one of the keys from my keytool into the small, electronic slit in the massive entryway. There was barely an audible hiss, as the door cracked open, now unlocked. “Got it open, make sure to shut it behind us.” Walking into this place always made me feel claustrophobic. Once you closed that door, you were essentially locked in. That huge metal hatch was the only way in or out.

I quickly scanned the room to see if I could identify any high value loot right away and noticed a rifle on the back wall. Not one I preferred to use on raids but one I would gladly part out and sell on the market. I snatched it up, took off the silencer and removed the magazine from the weapon. This allowed me to stuff it into the overly large, almost comically so, backpack I was wearing. Turning my head to the left, and then the right, I noticed some attachments in a display case. I scurried over to check it and frowned when I realized it was basically junk. Shrugging I turned and entered the back caged room. What was once a sealed safe full of weapons and ammunition, now carried a single gun rack, and a large military crate. The rack had a chance of spawning a really rare SMG, or a semi-rare assault rifle. Neither was there today. So I snatched at the military crate lid, pulling it open with an audible creek, and peered inside. 

A wide smile crept along my cheeks as I noticed an AK-105 sitting on the bottom of the crate. I pulled it out and slung it over my shoulder and onto my back. “Score!” Shutting the crate, I noticed something tucked behind it on a shelf, which normally spawned nothing but medical items at best, sat a small keycard. I couldn’t read the writing on the back of it as it’s smudged to my view. The game's way of notifying me that I haven’t discovered this item yet, and to reveal which keycard it was, I would need to examine it first. I didn’t make a habit of doing this mid raid, as it took a few seconds, so I shoved it into the vest of my chest rig and moved on.

Across the room, I saw Taylor shoving a folded weapon into his backpack and decided to check all angles I could from the back corner of the store. Sweeping my view from left to right, I checked the bushes outside the store, the clothing shop across from us, and the middle of the mall where people would tend to come down the escalators and straight for Corner. I didn’t see anything worth noting and let my partner know as much via comms.

“We’re clear. I’m full and I snagged a keycard I haven’t seen before, so I’m thinking we extract and run it back.” When you were done looting in a raid, and decided you were ready to get the hell out of dodge with the loot you had gathered, you still needed to extract. These points of interest were scattered across the map and allowed you to exit after a short wait period. This particular map had more than most, and going into the basement and out the sewer extract was probably the best bet from where we were at. And… we would pass by… my thoughts trailed off as I began to speak up.

“I think we should go down the Hole,” one of the main points of interests that was just down this side of the hall, “and into the Sewers. It’s the fastest way out.” 

Taylor glanced back over his shoulder at me. “Sounds good chief. I’ve got one of the gold pocket watches for that quest, so I’m definitely down to get out and reset.” Running it back, resetting, ‘going again’, were all ways of saying let’s get out, drop off the stuff we’ve looted and get back into another raid as quickly as possible.

Immediately, I fast walked out of the door. When trying to get in and out of The Mall, we decided as a team that we would only run when necessary. Yes, you got places quicker, but that didn’t matter if everyone on your side of the mall can hear you coming. So I lead the way out, making a swift turn to our left and headed straight for the hole in the ground directly at the end. As we briskly made our way up the left hand wall of the wide walkway, we were about to walk right in front of my favorite loot spot in the mall. 

“T, I’m about to,” 

He cut me off. “Ya ya,” he said. And then in an attempt to imitate me, he raised the pitch of his normally low, brawny, voice and continued, “Going into Toyz.” He huffed deeply into his mic, returning to his normal, deep tone. “I should’ve known. Every. Damn. Time.” I laughed in response, but continued forward towards the toy store.

We’ve played Escape with each other for a while now. We knew how each other likes to approach each map, favorite choke points and loot locations, as well as their favorite type of loot to collect. EVERYONE collected something. Some liked to collect the different types of miniature statues in a game, of which there could be hundreds, or preferred to hoard practical loot like high end armors and helmets. Others, like me, enjoyed the hunt for Chest Champions. One of the only collectibles that spanned almost every game setting across The Net, thanks to an open API and a system that essentially equates to a 21st century blockchain protocol.

I sidestepped into Toyz, keeping my eye out into the hall, as to not turn my back until Taylor could hold the corner. As soon as I see his shoulder, I spin on my heels and scan the shelving, looking quickly to spot any small crystal shards glimmering in the light of my Hunter’s Mod, an attachment for one of the rails on my gun, which emits a pulse into my direct line of sight that effectively lights up any Chest Champion Chips I gaze across. Pretty cool right? Not very cheap though. But I was, well, addicted, and I invested heavily in my collection. Don’t judge me.

Without a single crystal on any of the shelves, I leaned over the counter and inserted a key into the cash register. This wasn’t the cheapest key you could find for this map, but it wasn’t the most expensive. The register had the best odds to spawn rare loot in the store, but also the lowest spawn rate. Meaning most of the time it was empty. But not today. Today, glimmering in the invisible pulse of my Hunter’s Mod light, was a Super Rare, Ultra blue chip. I snatched it up and immediately went back to my partner. 

“I’m good, let’s go.” 

With that, we sprint across the open area to the massive hole in the ground in front of us, dipping into the depths of the mall and making our way to extract.