A minute later.

I’d taken the elevator to the 55th floor, and was currently standing in the stairwell of the 56th floor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ascend any higher through the elevator, or stairwell. The elevator only went up to the 55th floor for some reason, and there was a locked gate in the stairwell leading up to the 56th floor, as well.

No matter, it just seemed like this was where the action was supposed to start. According to S, the guards were armed with guns - which was fine… as long as I could get my hands on one.

Okay… okay… let’s go!

…

I slowly, slowly, slowly cracked open the stairwell door, then poked my head out and looked up and down the hallway.

There was nobody in sight, but I could hear a guard patrolling somewhere around the corner. I tucked my head back, but kept the door slightly ajar, and listened.

Once I heard the guard pass the stairwell door, I cracked it open, pulled my knife out of my inventory, and tiptoed forward, before lunging towards the guard, stabbing him in the neck.

29 guards remaining.

Yeeep.

I looked around, then dragged the deceased guard into the stairwell. He was slightly taller than my avatar, but oh well. I changed into his clothes, then propped up his body against the door.

Hopefully nobody would come by until I finished my mission.

Now in the guard’s uniform, which was actually just a black t-shirt, black jeans, a pistol in a holster at the waist, and a frowny face, I stepped back out into the hallway.

…

And ran into a guard.

“Hey, you dipping again?” The guard hadn’t seen my face yet, as I’d been facing away from him when I’d exited the stairwell.

Ah… shit.

I spun around and threw the knife at him, but my hand-eye coordination was off, and the knife sailed past his head.

With a grimace, I quickly pulled the pistol from the holster, turned off the safety, and loudly whispered toward the guard.

“Freeze!”

His hand paused, barely an inch from his pistol.

“Remove your holster and slide it on the ground to me, quietly.”

The guards hand drifted closer to his holster, then he rushed to grab his pistol.

*Bang!*

I shot him in the face before he was able to shoot me, but the damage was done.

I could hear more guards running to my location as S updated me. 

28 guards remaining. Target has been warned of your presence.

“I got it, I got it.”

I reached down and grabbed the guards pistol, turned the safety off, and held a pistol in each hand.

I took a moment to relish the situation.

“Akimbo…”

In order to kill the target, I’d need to “speed run” through the next few floors, before he could escape from the building.

Judging by how VR games worked, I’d probably fail the mission once he escaped. 

I shot the lock on the gate, and it burst open, allowing me access to the 56th floor. Unfortunately, as I rounded the stairs, I could see another gate, but this time the lock was an electronic one. Shooting it wouldn’t work.

I busted open the door to the 56th floor and rushed around the corner, popping two guards in the head. Perhaps there would be another way for me to reach the next floor.

Wait, the gate.

If this was a video game, then there should be an “officer” or a “special” guard with a keycard to the gate on them. 

With little to no time to spare, I rushed around the floor like a madman, shooting anyone who I came across.

In almost typical video game fashion, when I killed the last guard on the floor, a keycard “flew” out of his pocket and fell to the ground.

No time to waste!

I ran to the gate, opened it, and surged up the stairs before S suddenly notified me.

Target location updated. He is now on the first level of the building and is exiting to an escape vehicle.

“Mark the escape car and the target!”

In my vision, far below where I was, parked on the side of the street, a car was highlighted a bright red, and I could see where it was, despite the many building floors between me and it.

I could even see the target, almost exactly 56 floors below me walking through the lobby, surrounded by his bodyguards.

I looked up - if the front entrance was where I thought it was, then there was a window on my current floor that was directly over it. 

Just really, really, high up.

It was even floor-to-ceiling. I raised the blinds, then looked down at my feet. Far below me, the target was about to reach the front doors to the building.

Well, here goes nothing…

I backed up a bit, then ran towards the window, crashing through. And so, I began to fall towards the ground.

Faster and faster, I hurtled towards the ground, but I kept my hands tightly gripped around the pistol.

With how fast I was falling, I could probably manage one, maybe two accurate shots, max. I struggled to keep my eyes open as the wind tore into my eyes, but god damn, after even just a second of falling, I had to squint my eyes so tightly that I could only see a line of the ground below me.

Line it up...line it up…

Less than a hundred feet from the target, I finally fired, unloading my pistol clip towards the target.

Alas, it turned out it’s really, really hard to shoot someone accurately while falling from the sky. But luck was on my side, as while all of my shots missed, not even a full second after firing, my avatar landed atop the target, crushing him.

I was ejected from the VR game, and S updated me. “Mission complete: target terminated.” Well, turns out my survival wasn’t a requirement for mission completion. Either way, I’d take the win. 

The officer who’d tortured us through ten miles of running earlier stood in front of me. 

“Not bad, J. You died executing the mission, but still, you succeeded. You were the third to finish, and your methods were… fine, given your lack of training.”

“J?”

“You’ve graduated from maggot, but you’re not worth calling by name, yet.”

“Thanks...? Sir.”

“Alright, go to the mess hall and grab a drink. There’s about twenty minutes before you all need to report to the weight room.”

“There’s only twenty minutes left, and I was the third to succeed? Why is the success rate so low?”

The officer stared at me without saying anything.

“Alright, forget I asked, sir.” I turned around and left the VR room.

Back at the mess hall, I sighed and rubbed my temples. What the hell, exactly, was going on here? 

How long would it be before I’d be able to see the outside world again? Would I even survive until then? Statistically, it didn’t seem all that likely, as 90% of the people who’d been pulled into the situation by C Systems had died already, either in the free-for-all, or the drowning test afterwards.

How many of the forty that remained would survive? I stared at the iced coffee in my hand, then took a sip.

This was really quite a shitty situation, but what could I do?