Purchases

*Grunt* "god damn that hurts" I can't help but say aloud as I wake up to an excruciating pain coming from my stomach. I reached over and grabbed a couple of pills from the stash I created last night, threw them into my mouth, and guzzled the water bottle I left on my bedside table last night. The small round tablet was oxycodone and the white and green capsule was the antibiotic I grabbed to keep my wound from getting infected.

-----------------------------------------

After half an hour I finally was able to relax and surveyed the situation by using the slight pain still assaulting my body. I felt relatively alright but my right hand and wrist were sore. I moved my legs a bit since I did a lot of running and sure enough, they were a bit sore as well. I looked over to my alarm clock to check the time. "3 in the morning huh, How the hell am I going to go to school like this. I am in shambles"

I thought for a while and the best solution I could come up with was secretly taking oxycodone later in the afternoon before I come home. Other than that, I should just relax for the next week. I still have to complete missions, however. I looked over to my computer and decided to get up and check the date of my next mission.

Sauntering over to my computer I turn it on and a terminal appears on my screen.

"Welcome back Iota" A simple string of text in blue is written at the top. The rest of the window was entirely blank.

"Oh, shut up." My curt reply slipped from my lips. Looking at the window I find that it is waiting for input so I typed a simple command and it asks me to set a password. I used a variation of the password I used to open my computer and the familiar blue and black hologram globe flashed into view. I quickly noticed a couple of things about the window that wasn't there before.

Most notably, on the top left corner of the screen, there was a small box.

[REP: 3] [Cash; $750]

Taking note of the new section my brain connects its appearance to the rewards of the mission I did last night. I checked to see if I had any new messages and to my surprise, I had quite a few. There were several that just told me things I already knew such as that I unlocked the shop after gaining 1 [REP] and had received 3x the rewards for completing a side objective. One message, however, caught my eye. The message simply read "You got lucky" its sender was the same system that introduced me to my firearm. I stared at the ceiling and began to think back to how I felt last night.

I was scared, I was absolutely terrified, the thought of killing that man remains on my mind even now. However, falling asleep has helped clear my head and so far, I have come to terms with it. It was a necessity, I had to do what I did in order to live and wake up this morning. As much as I would like to forget what I did, I don't know if I ever will. The cold feeling of death nipping at my toes as I could feel myself bleeding out has taught me well that I should never forget those who fall at my hands, for as long as I am indebted to this system there will be more lives that I will have to take and they should never be forgotten.

Finally finding peace, I look back to my computer screen and head over to the shop window. In the shop, I see that all of the previously greyed out options are now fully colored. I clicked the first option and was greeted by several drop-down lists. I read through each one and quickly noticed they were different types of guns. The guns were ordered by main type (Sniper, LMG, SMG, etc.) once a list is expanded several more drop-down lists appear sorting the guns by the region they were created. Most of the weapons were greyed out accept a few options in the handgun section of the shop, the currently available ones were the Walter PPQ M2, Glock 19, Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0, and the CZ 75 B. All of these handguns were in my price range but I liked my P320 so I left the gun section of the shop.

In the ammo section of the shop, I purchased enough .45 ACP bullets to fill the ammo box and another magazine. I googled the P320 I was given and found out that it was fully customizable. After adding ammo to my cart, I navigated over to the accessory section and bought a conversion kit in order to change my pistol from 9mm to .45 ACP and looked for the accompanying magazines. In the accessory section, I found and added a pair of black gloves and a full black tactical suit to my loadout. I had some more money so I put it into a F.A.S.T helmet, a ballistics vest rated for small arms fire, and a pair of black ESS goggles. After filling my cart with items and hitting purchase I got a notification telling me that my stuff will be dropped into my backyard via airdrop in a few minutes.

-----------------------------------------

A few minutes slowly passed and I walked out into my backyard, as it was now 4 am I could see the sun barely peeking over the hills illuminating the vast city in the distance. After admiring the view, I scanned my backyard and found a medium-sized black hard case sitting in the corner of my yard. I grabbed the case and carried it across the yard, it was similar to a suitcase but slightly larger and was made of hard plastic and was framed with metal.

I brought the case into my room and opened it. Inside the case, I saw a vacuum-sealed plastic bag which contained black clothing a separate plastic bag containing the gloves was attached to the first via a zip tie. To the right of the clothing was one of the cheaper F.A.S.T helmets I found in the shop. Flipping the helmet over I saw another plastic bag nestled inside the helmet which contained my ESS goggles. At the bottom of the case, I found a couple of boxes of ammunition, a pair of 10 round magazines, and my conversion kit. Lastly, at the very bottom, I found the ballistics vest that I had bought after careful consideration. I tried on the ballistic vest and to my surprise it was a good fit, not to tight, and not too loose.

Happy with my purchase I reorganized the case and realized I had some spare room so I loaded my magazines with .45ACP, put away my gun and, unloaded the rest of the rounds from my previous 9mm magazine placing the bullets in the ammo box provided with the original gun. After stowing away my gun along with the spare loaded magazines I closed the gun case and put it inside the larger case. I put my balaclava in the case as well and with some struggle, I managed to slide it under my bed.

"It just barely fit, at least I am getting better at loading and unloading my magazines now."