Chapter 12: Quality Control Issues
The mugging had netted Noah exactly forty-seven dollars in cash, two smartphones that probably weren't stolen, and a pair of gold teeth that he was pretty sure violated several health codes just by existing. The sneakers had been authentic, but the smell suggested their previous owner had strong opinions about personal hygiene, all of them wrong.
Still, forty-seven dollars was enough for a taxi, and Noah had places to be and people to shoot.
He'd spent the rest of the day playing an increasingly frustrating game of Russian mob hide-and-seek across New York City. The intelligence Weasel had provided included five locations where Jeff Mond supposedly conducted business, and Noah had visited four of them without so much as glimpsing his target.
Either Weasel's information is garbage, Noah thought as his taxi pulled up to the final address, or I have the worst luck in the history of contract killing.
The building was a nondescript apartment complex in Manhattan's west side, the kind of place that looked respectable from the outside but probably housed three different criminal enterprises and at least one meth lab. Noah paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the windows and wondering if this was about to be another waste of time and taxi fare.
Fifth time's the charm, he told himself, walking into the lobby. And if Mond isn't here, I'm going back to Sister Margaret's and demanding a refund.
The elevator was one of those ancient contraptions that wheezed and groaned like it was personally offended by the concept of vertical transportation. Noah rode it to the seventh floor, checking his stolen pistol and trying to remember everything he'd seen in action movies about professional assassination.
Step one: find target. Step two: shoot target. Step three: don't get caught. Step four: collect payment and try not to think about what I've become.
The elevator dinged softly as it reached the seventh floor.
The doors slid open.
Noah found himself staring directly into the faces of six heavily armed Russian gangsters.
One of them, a man with the build of a professional wrestler and the face of someone who'd made very different life choices, was holding a metallic briefcase. The others were arranged around him in what was clearly a protective formation, and all of them were carrying enough firepower to level a city block.
At the center of the group, looking exactly like his mugshot photo, was Jeff Mond.
For a moment, nobody moved. Noah stood in the elevator, gun visible in his hand, staring at his target and five heavily armed associates. They stared back at him with the expression of people who'd just discovered an unexpected complication in their evening plans.
The silence stretched like a rubber band about to snap.
Well, Noah thought with the detached calm that comes from accepting that your day has just taken a turn for the dramatically worse, this is either the luckiest break I've ever had, or I'm about to discover what it feels like to be turned into Swiss cheese.
"Uh," Noah said, raising his free hand in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture, "I'm just here visiting my... grandmother. She makes excellent borscht. Wrong floor, obviously."
Six guns swung in his direction with the synchronized precision of a very deadly ballet.
"Kill him!" someone shouted in heavily accented English.
The elevator became a small metal box full of muzzle flashes and very loud noise.
RATATATATATAT!
Noah felt the bullets tear through his body like angry hornets made of lead and physics. The impact drove him back against the elevator wall, his limbs jerking spasmodically as automatic weapons turned his torso into something that belonged in a medical textbook's trauma section.
Blood painted the elevator walls in abstract patterns that would have been artistic if they weren't made from Noah's cardiovascular system. He slumped to the floor, his vision going dark around the edges as his body registered the fact that several vital organs had just been relocated to places they weren't supposed to be.
This, Noah thought as consciousness faded, is going to hurt when I wake up.
The gunfire stopped. Smoke filled the elevator, and the smell of cordite mixed with the copper tang of blood created an atmosphere that suggested violence had recently occurred.
"Fucking amateur," Mond spat, stepping over Noah's apparently lifeless body. "Who sends one guy with a pistol against six professionals? What kind of idiot operation are they running?"
"Maybe it's the Italians," one of his companions suggested. "They've been making noise about our territory."
"The Italians aren't stupid enough to send one gunman to a meeting like this," another replied. "This was probably just some street punk who got lucky with intelligence and stupid with planning."
They filed into the elevator, carefully avoiding the growing pool of blood. None of them bothered to check Noah's pulse, partly because they were professionals who knew what dead looked like, and partly because nobody survives that much gunfire to the torso.
As the elevator descended, Noah's eyes snapped open.
The healing process was already underway, his Ultimate Stuntman ability working overtime to repair damage that should have been instantly fatal. Bones knitted back together, organs regenerated, and bullet holes sealed themselves with the efficiency of supernatural video game logic.
Noah sat up, golden bullets dropping from his body as his skin pushed out the foreign metal. He flexed his fingers, rotated his shoulders, and marveled at the complete absence of pain.
Holy shit, he thought, looking down at his blood-soaked but otherwise perfect torso. I just tanked automatic weapons fire and walked it off like a stubbed toe. This immortality thing is seriously overpowered.
He picked up his pistol, checked that it was still loaded, and smiled for the first time since entering the building.
Time for round two, gentlemen.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Five bodies hit the elevator floor in quick succession. Noah's aim was perfect, apparently, surviving automatic weapons fire had given him a confidence boost that translated directly into marksmanship skills.
Only Jeff Mond remained standing, his face cycling through confusion, terror, and the dawning realization that he was dealing with something that shouldn't exist.
"What the fuck are you?" Mond whispered.
"Customer service," Noah replied, then glanced at his talent system interface to check his progress.
[ELIMINATE DANGEROUS CRIMINALS: 1/15]
Noah stared at the notification, his satisfaction curdling into bewilderment.
"One?" he said aloud. "ONE? I just killed five armed gang members, and I only get credit for one?"
He looked around the elevator at the bodies scattered across the floor, then at Mond, who was pressed against the wall and probably wondering if he'd accidentally stumbled into a horror movie.
Wait, Noah thought, let me check something.
He focused on Mond, pulling up whatever information his system could provide.
[TARGET DOES NOT MEET CRITERIA]
"Are you kidding me?" Noah demanded, staring at Mond with the indignation of someone whose supernatural power set had just failed a quality assurance check. "This guy is a professional gangster! He deals drugs, runs guns, probably has a rap sheet longer than a CVS receipt! How does he not qualify as a 'dangerous criminal'?"
Mond looked around nervously, clearly wondering who Noah was talking to and whether the answer would affect his life expectancy.
Noah ran through the logic in his head. Five gangsters killed, but only one qualified for his achievement. That meant four of them, including his actual target, apparently weren't "dangerous" enough for his system's standards.
What the hell kind of grading curve is this thing using? Noah wondered. Do they need to be war criminals? Serial killers? People who talk in movie theaters?
The system's apparently strict definition of "dangerous criminal" was going to make his fifteen-kill requirement significantly more challenging than anticipated. If professional Russian mobsters didn't automatically qualify, Noah was going to need to seriously recalibrate his target selection process.
Great, he thought, looking at the briefcase Mond had dropped. My supernatural achievement system is apparently more morally discriminating than the federal justice system.
This was going to be a longer project than he'd anticipated.
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