Twenty minutes later.

I’d just gulfed down… well, you know already. I made my way to the virtual reality room with a full stomach and a smile on my face. It’s really interesting, actually, how happy food makes me. It’s one of my few joys in life, even now.

And one of my other joys was virtual reality gaming. I’d spent at least ten thousand hours of my life in VR, in various fantasy and shooting games. And I was quite a natural when it came to shooting.

We each sat down in a zero-gravity chair as each system automatically placed VR helmets onto our heads.

Full-dive VR.

I opened my eyes, and suddenly I was in the outside world again, in a city of some sort. Taking a deep breath, I relaxed myself and took in my surroundings, then my inventory.

I was sitting at a table just outside a cafe, on the side of a moderately busy street. In my inventory, I had a six-inch knife, a can of soda, two bottles of water, and five “ration” bars, that were basically edible bars that provided a lot of calories in a dense format. Finally, the last thing I had in my inventory was a wallet.

I took out my wallet, and found six dollars, an ID, and a few crumpled coupons, even a faded picture of a family. 

Interestingly normal.

A screen showed up in front of my face.

Mission Briefing: Your target is this man - Neil Barskov.

A picture of an old, russian(?) man popped up. Fat, a few strands of oily white hair, looked like he was angry… you know the type.

Coordinates and real-time tracking of his location will be forwarded to your Life: Life chip. Mission difficulty: very easy.

S updated me at the same time.

Secret Operations Update installed. Target is within the city, 2.2 kilometers from your position. He is guarded by thirty guards, spread throughout the 56th to 60th floors of their building. Technological defenses are minimal.

You will have five chances and two hours to complete the mission.

Well, then. I’d played plenty of first person VR games, including several stealth games. There was one in particular that I liked, where my friends and I combined minds to figure out ways to steal money from banks, diamonds from jewelry stores, and the like.

This would probably be pretty simple, and honestly, pretty fun. Hell, if C Systems was willing to pay me to play VR games, and a million dollars a year at that, life was perfect!

It was all great, as long as I didn’t think about why they were having me play them, at least.

I put five dollars on the table, then walked away from the cafe, towards the target. Looking down at my clothes, I was dressed in a suit, a dress shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned, and suit pants.

Perfect - it was an ensemble that could get me into most places, no questions asked. Just to be sure, I looked at my hands, then checked myself out in the reflection of a store window.

Yep, I looked completely average. This looked to be some sort of American city, and I was white, about five foot nine, and had a completely average, even boring, face. C Systems was really making this first mission as simple as it could be.

But that made sense - they likely wanted to establish a baseline for their new recruits. Despite the missions’s simplicity, or rather, because of it, it would be easy for watchers to distinguish the skilled from the useless.

I leisurely walked into the vicinity of the target’s building, all the while looking at my surroundings for an ideal scouting location.

Luckily, there was a similarly tall building across the street, and it was a hotel, which meant that as long as there was a room at the right level, facing the other building, I could do all of my preliminary scouting there.

I strolled into the hotel and walked up to the front desk. “Hey, can I get a room facing the… west side? Around the 58th floor would be ideal.”

“Let me check, sir.”

After a brief moment, the woman behind the desk nodded. “There is a room, but it’s a double. Is that okay with you?”

“Yep.”

“Okay… give me a moment.”

Two minutes later, I was in my new room, staring at the building across the street. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see much into the building. Most windows had their blinds lowered, and those that didn’t, didn’t give me much information to work with, either.

No matter - I had five chances to complete the mission. I’d just have to figure stuff out on the go.

I redirected my attention toward the entrance of the opposing building. After ten minutes of observation, I laid back onto one of the room’s beds. The opposing building seemed to be a fairly normal office building, with businessmen and businesswomen leaving and entering at a constant pace.

I checked my phone for the time.

It was 12:17PM.

Perfect timing, really.

Generally speaking, 11:30AM-1:00PM was the period in which most salarymen took their lunch breaks. This meant that about 12:30PM-1:00PM would be the period of time in which most would be returning back to the building.

I could follow the crowd into the office building and make my way to the 56th floor, easily. The only problem was, employees at these buildings typically wore badges to show that they were allowed in the building.

Could I just flash my ID card and hope they didn’t look too closely?

No, that was just stupid, too risky. I’d have to steal someone’s badge. 

I looked up and down the street. There were a few restaurants lining the street. When eating, some lazier salarymen tended to leave their badges on their table, or hanging out of their pockets.

There was even a hot bar/cold bar restaurant - a prime location for stealing a badge.

From there, it was really simple. I just stood on the street, pretending to mind my own business, until I saw a group of guys leave the target’s building and enter the restaurant. One of them even looked like my avatar. Bland, undistinguished. 

I followed them in, and, yep. With just a glance I could see three badges had been left on the table. I casually strolled past the table, and hell, one even kind of looked like my avatar.

I grabbed the badge and walked out of the restaurant, then into the office building without any trouble.

I took a deep breath. From here on out, I’d need to move quickly.