Noah stared at his talent system interface with the growing frustration of someone discovering that customer service had been outsourced to a particularly unhelpful cosmic entity.
One qualified criminal out of six professional gangsters. The mathematical implications were staggering—if this was the typical ratio, he'd need to kill approximately ninety people to unlock his Ultimate Marksman ability.
Ninety people, Noah thought, looking around the elevator at the carnage he'd created. Either my power system has impossibly high standards, or the criminal justice system has been dramatically overstating the dangerousness of organized crime.
The elevator dinged softly as it reached the ground floor. The doors slid open, revealing the apartment building's lobby—empty, thankfully, because explaining why he was covered in blood and sharing an elevator with five corpses would have required more creativity than Noah possessed at the moment.
Jeff Mond pressed himself against the elevator wall, sweat beading on his forehead as he stared at Noah with the expression of someone who'd just discovered that physics was more of a suggestion than a law.
"Look," Mond said carefully, his voice carrying the measured tone of someone negotiating with an unstable explosive, "I don't know who you are or what you want, but I'm just a mid-level guy. I don't make the big decisions. If this is about territory or payments or—"
Noah pressed the button for the top floor, trapping them both in the metal box with the smell of cordite and recent mortality.
"Relax," Noah said. "I'm not here to kill you. I just need some information."
Yet, he added silently, because Mond still didn't qualify as a dangerous criminal according to his system's apparently byzantine standards.
"Information," Mond repeated, like he was testing the word for hidden meanings. "You want intelligence about our operations? Our territory? Because I should mention that the Russian mob has a very comprehensive health plan, and it includes revenge clauses."
Noah gestured at the bodies scattered around their feet. "Which one of these guys was the worst?"
Mond blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"The most evil. The one with the longest rap sheet, the most bodies buried, the highest score on whatever cosmic morality meter determines who qualifies as truly dangerous." Noah pointed his gun at Mond's head with casual precision. "And before you say they're all equally bad, let me explain that I have a very reliable way of measuring criminal authenticity, and apparently most of your colleagues were posers."
The elevator began its slow climb toward the building's top floor, and Noah could practically hear Mond's mental gears grinding as he processed this bizarre request.
Even the criminals in this universe have performance reviews, Noah mused. What's next, quarterly ethics evaluations?
"Uh," Mond said, clearly struggling with the concept of ranking his dead associates by moral depravity, "they were all pretty bad guys. I mean, we're in the Russian mob. It's not exactly a charity organization."
"Not good enough." Noah's finger moved to the trigger. "The elevator reaches the top floor in about thirty seconds. Pick one and tell me why he was special. Because right now, you're looking at a very creative lesson in workplace performance standards."
Mond's eyes darted frantically between the bodies, then settled on a particularly large man who'd been carrying the briefcase.
"Him!" Mond pointed at the corpse. "Dimitri Volkov. He's—he was—one of Vladimir's top enforcers. Twenty years with the organization, dozens of kills, runs three different drug operations, launders money through half a dozen legitimate businesses. The guy's resume reads like a war crimes tribunal."
Bingo, Noah thought, filing away the information. So the system requires genuine career criminals, not just street-level muscle. Good to know.
"What about that briefcase he was carrying?" Noah asked, nodding toward the metallic case that had spilled open during the gunfight, revealing several pounds of what looked like crystallized chemistry experiments.
Mond's face went pale. "That's... that's not my department."
"It is now." Noah extended his free hand. "Hand it over."
"Look, that stuff belongs to some very dangerous people. People who make me look like a kindergarten teacher. If it goes missing—"
"Then they'll blame the dead guys." Noah wiggled his fingers impatiently. "Supply and demand, Mond. I'm demanding, you're supplying."
Mond hesitated for exactly long enough to make Noah wonder if he'd need to demonstrate his immortality again, then reluctantly passed over the briefcase.
Noah opened his wallet—or rather, the collection of bills and coins he'd liberated from the street muggers—and extracted a nickel. He flipped it to Mond with the casual accuracy of someone making change at a grocery store.
"There," Noah said. "Payment rendered. This is now a legitimate business transaction."
Mond caught the nickel and stared at it like it had personally insulted his mother.
"Five cents," he said slowly. "You're giving me five cents for a briefcase full of synthetic narcotics worth approximately two hundred thousand dollars on the street."
"It's a fair market price," Noah replied. "Supply and demand. You're highly motivated to sell, I'm the only buyer in the immediate vicinity. Basic economics."
The muscle in Mond's jaw twitched like he was physically restraining himself from attempting something that would result in his immediate and permanent removal from the breathing population.
"Of course," he said through gritted teeth. "Very... equitable."
"I'm glad you understand." Noah tucked the briefcase under his arm. "This is what we call a win-win situation. You get to keep breathing, I get to confiscate dangerous drugs from criminals. Everyone goes home happy."
Well, Noah amended silently, everyone who's still alive goes home happy.
"Thank you so much for this... generous... transaction," Mond managed, his smile looking like it had been assembled from broken glass and suppressed homicidal rage.
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