Ding! You handed Lieutenant Rudolfson 38 PDF tags. Disposition improved: Lv.0 → Lv.1.
Goods unlocked: PDF semi-auto pistol (800 tokens), PDF autogun (3200 tokens), PDF flak vest Class 3 (1500 tokens), PDF helmet Class 3 (1000 tokens).
Special item: Mid-Hive personal identifier (100,000 tokens).
Hint: The hive has strict pass controls. Gene-scanners stand at every gate. Without the appropriate identification, you cannot enter this district.
Lieutenant Rudolfson apparently has connections and can enter your data into the hive's gene registry, raising your status to a Mid-Hive citizen. But it costs an enormous amount of money.
Li Qingyu's breathing grew heavier. Mid-Hive citizenship! Holy shit! Since arriving in this world, he'd seen only the Underhive and the surface. He'd never been to the Mid-Hive.
What was there? As far as he knew, "proper" people with citizenship lived there, earning two thousand tokens a month or more. He desperately wanted to get in—there had to be tons of goods for upgrading the Hideout. But the price... One hundred thousand! Robbery. He didn't even have forty now—not even half.
He had to figure out how to make money!
Rudolfson took the tags, turned on a lamp, sat at a field table, and opened a laptop. He began copying the names off the tags to file a report to the Governor for compensation payments. Meanwhile, Li Qingyu used a knife to turn the potatoes on the hotplate so they wouldn't burn.
"Listen, old Rudy," he began, "I've got something brewing. I need a more serious gun. Can you help me out, friend to friend?"
Rudolfson paused, then kept writing.
"Talk."
Li Qingyu took a potato and scraped the charred skin away with his knife.
"Down below, the Chems and Fertilizers are about to clash. Nepal offered me five grand to take part, I agreed. But the Chems have cyborgs plated in iron—normal bullets won't take them. You got anything armor-piercing?"
Rudolfson turned and stared at Li Qingyu, as if checking whether he was lying. Li Qingyu speared a baked potato with his knife and held it out.
They stared at each other for several seconds. Finally, Rudolfson took the potato, bit off a piece, and pulled a weapons case from a corner of the tent. Inside lay a rifle with a long barrel.
Working the bolt, the lieutenant explained:
"PDF semi-automatic battle rifle. Caliber 8.9×55 mm. A heavy long barrel lets it use high-pressure rounds. It punches through 15 mm armor at three hundred meters."
Li Qingyu whistled and reached for the weapon, but Rudolfson pulled it back.
"Your debt is paid."
Li Qingyu nodded.
"We're square."
Only then did the lieutenant hand over the rifle.
Li Qingyu took it and lovingly stroked the stock. Black polymer, long barrel. It resembled an ancient M14, only more angular and brutal. He immediately checked the stats through the System.
Name: PDF semi-automatic battle rifle.
Value: 4500 tokens.
Weight: 5.5 kg.
Vertical recoil: 71.
Horizontal recoil: 61.
Ergonomics: 51.
Stability: 51.
Accuracy: 89.
Hip-fire: 42.
Effective range: 800 m.
Muzzle velocity: 1550 m/s.
Mode: semi-auto.
Rate of fire: 450 rpm.
Caliber: 8.9×55 mm.
Damage: high.
"And ammo?" he asked.
Rudolfson handed him three magazines of 15 rounds and two loose boxes of 50 each. One hundred total.
"Those are high-pressure AP rounds. You can only fire them from this rifle—an autogun will jam or burst. But this rifle eats regular rounds just fine."
Li Qingyu scanned the ammunition.
Name: 8.9×55 mm Armor-Piercing (AP), high pressure.
Value: ~200.
Penetration class: 5.
Hint: In the PDF arsenal, this is rare and valuable ammunition that punches through light armor. Due to excessive pressure, it requires a special weapon with a heavy barrel, so infantry doesn't like it.
Li Qingyu broke into a grin. Now everything was set. Chempigs wore iron plates no thicker than a centimeter—this rifle would punch through them like paper.
They sat by the hotplate, ate potatoes, and talked.
"And how much does the Governor pay for a soldier's head?" Li Qingyu asked.
Rudolfson's eyes went dull.
"Fifteen hundred tokens."
Li Qingyu choked. That little? On this world a peasant made two hundred, a citizen two thousand. So a soldier's life was worth less than a clerk's monthly wage? Everyone said the PDF were the regime's dogs, but for the Governor to really treat them like dogs... No wonder discipline was zero and the rebels had taken everything beyond the hive walls.
After finishing the potatoes, Rudolfson unfolded another cot and lay down.
"In the morning my men will escort you to the Great Lift in the Mid-Hive. Don't wander there—go straight down. I don't need trouble."
Li Qingyu lay down too, propping his head on his hand.
"Any more work?"
Rudolfson thought, then said:
"The Colonel assigned a job to clear the Reservoir in the west. Before the war, it was the main water source—there's a pumping station there. Now rebels have dug in, about a thousand of them. They say two PDF companies died there. Considering the rebels' combat capability, that's nonsense—impossible. There's something there. I need you to scout what the hell is going on there within two weeks."
"Details?" Li Qingyu asked.
"There are. A survivor babbled something about distorted screams and..." Rudolfson hesitated, "ice on the ground."
Li Qingyu's pupils narrowed. Distorted screams—Warp? Ice—psyker? He remembered that weak or uncontrolled psykers often caused temperature drops around themselves. Two companies dead... Looks like a Chaos sorcerer had taken root at the Reservoir!