Just then, Sarah called. Carlos stepped aside to answer.
'Hey, I heard you guys are handling a murder case?' Sarah asked curiously. 'How is it? Exciting?'
'We're just guarding the door, waiting for the medical examiner.'
Carlos didn't want to talk about this at a crime scene, and at the same time, he felt relieved that ending their relationship was definitely the right choice. If he failed to answer a question correctly, she would get moody. It would be fine if he really wanted a relationship, but he had secrets and often wasn't in the mood to deal with a temperamental woman.
'Alright, what are the plans for the next day off?' Sarah's tone became casual.
Carlos thought of the desert eagle in the system space; he still needed to get proficient with it. If he went to the shooting range alone, he might seem too antisocial... Sarah was a good cover.
'How about I take you to a shooting range tomorrow?' Carlos said. 'I remember there's one in the suburbs. The environment is average, but there aren't many people.'
After two seconds of silence, Sarah said, 'A shooting range? Wow, I really didn't expect that. Fine, what time?'
After agreeing on a time and meeting place, Carlos hung up the phone.
A Forensics Department vehicle approached in the distance... The next day after work, Carlos drove Sarah to grab a bite to eat before heading to an indoor shooting range in the suburbs.
This shooting range was quite large, though the facilities were a bit old.
After parking, he carried a sports bag into the range, completed the paperwork, and rented a shooting booth.
At this time, besides the two of them, only two other booths were in use.
Deafening gunshots echoed in the enclosed space. Even with noise-canceling earmuffs, one could still feel the impact.
Carlos first took Sarah to practice basic shooting with the glock 19. Although Sarah worked on the administrative side, her basic training from the police academy was still there, so she picked it up quickly, though her accuracy was a bit poor.
After emptying two magazines, sweat appeared on her brow, and her eyes held a hint of excitement.
'Your turn, Coach Diaz.' Sarah stepped aside.
Carlos nodded, picked up the glock, and casually emptied a magazine.
Sarah let out a 'wow' of amazement. It wasn't that Carlos was particularly accurate—his accuracy was almost as bad as hers—but Carlos's hand was extremely steady, as if this wasn't a lethal weapon but a child's plastic toy.
After Carlos adjusted, the second magazine was almost all near the bullseye, his accuracy improving significantly.
Sarah raised her hand in surprise and high-fived Carlos, shouting 'Yes!' as if she had been the one firing those shots.
It had to be said that Sarah provided Carlos with great emotional value at this moment.
Carlos smiled and didn't continue. Instead, he reached into the sports bag, pretending to take something out. With a thought, the desert eagle from the system instantly appeared in his hand. Its heavy metal body and iconic shape glinted coldly under the range lights.
'Whoa, a desert eagle?'
Sarah whispered in surprise, 'When did you get this? That recoil is no joke.'
'You know my strength. It's just for fun.'
Carlos didn't explain much and skillfully checked the firearm—even though he knew this gun didn't need checking at all and the bullets were 'infinite'.
This time, he cautiously put on his goggles, took a firm stance, and aimed at a silhouette target twenty-five meters away.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang—!"
A massive gunshot exploded in the booth, far louder than the glock. A powerful recoil traveled up his arm, but it was slightly lighter than Carlos had anticipated. It seemed that while the system reduced the weight, it had also optimized the recoil to a certain extent, making it easier to control.
But whether it was the sound and light effects or the power, it still retained the unique shock of a desert eagle!
A clear bullet hole appeared in the chest area of the target.
Carlos steadied himself, flexed his fingers, and pulled the trigger repeatedly.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He deliberately controlled the rhythm, feeling the vibration of the gun.
The shell casings clattered as they were ejected and fell to the ground.
After seven rounds, Carlos pretended to have emptied a magazine, stopped shooting, and pressed the button to retrieve the target paper.
The chest and head areas of the target paper were riddled with bullet holes, distributed quite densely, almost no different from his performance with the glock.
'My god, you can shoot so steadily with a desert eagle?' She unceremoniously squeezed Carlos's arm, as if wanting to see if his muscles were real.
Carlos put down the gun and flexed his wrist, feeling fine.
Aside from the most heaven-defying feature of not needing to reload and having infinite bullets, this system desert eagle was fundamentally no different from a high-quality ordinary desert eagle in other aspects, such as recoil, accuracy, sound, and appearance. This both reassured him and made him realize that the weapon itself wasn't everything; it ultimately depended on the person using it.
'Like I said, you know my strength,' Carlos said nonchalantly, pretending to put the desert eagle back into the sports bag while returning it to the system space with a thought.
Sarah's attention was still on the target paper, and she didn't notice anything unusual.
The two rested for a few minutes and then took turns shooting the glock twice more.
When they left the shooting range, Sarah seemed very excited.
'I didn't expect it to be so much fun! We can come again next time.' Getting into the car, Sarah buckled her seatbelt. 'But you suddenly wanted to practice shooting and even got a big guy like a desert eagle... Is it because of yesterday's case?'
'Maybe, maybe not.' Carlos started the car. 'Being a bit more prepared is never a bad thing. Remember the junkies I told you about before? They really are even more brazen than I imagined.'
Sarah nodded thoughtfully and didn't ask further.
On his day off, at night, Carlos acted alone again.
This time, he brought the miniature camera again, repeated his previous reconnaissance route, climbed the fire escape of that apartment building, and set up the equipment in the same spot.
Two hours later, while it was late and quiet, Carlos retrieved the camera.
This time, Carlos stayed up all night reviewing the footage.
An hour into the video, he discovered that there weren't two guards in the Warehouse yard, but three!
The third person seemed more alert, not as lazy as the first two. However, he didn't participate in moving goods; he only checked by the window whenever there was movement in the yard, only showing a silhouette.
Perhaps this person wasn't a guard?
More importantly, he observed an inconspicuous camera on the side of the factory building near the roof.
The security measures here were more troublesome than he had anticipated!
After finishing the video, Carlos looked through the vehicle information on the black Ford van on his computer, then took out a sketch that looked like a child's doodle. He lit a cigarette and began to think with a frown.
Carlos usually didn't smoke because he was afraid of accidentally touching a laced cigarette, but he would occasionally have one when he was worried or thinking.
The 'Drug Den Cleanup' mission couldn't be delayed much longer. However, with his current abilities, completing the mission was practically a pipe dream.
His only advantage was the 50 Points he still had to strengthen himself!
On his second day off, sunlight streamed through the apartment window, illuminating a table piled with soda cans, tape, and simple tools.
Carlos put down the hacksaw in his hand and picked up a cut-open cola can, carefully examining its edges. The desert eagle was incredibly powerful, but its noise was equally startling; when causing trouble in the city, especially on a quiet night, the gunshot would be as piercing as an alarm, so he needed to find a way to silence it.
To install a real silencer on the desert eagle, the muzzle would have to be modified, but Carlos didn't have the time and was reluctant to alter this system-produced weapon.
So, he chose to make a simple DIY silencer.
Referencing a DIY silencer production video he found online, Carlos used an empty soda can as the casing and filled the interior with steel wool from the kitchen and cleaning scouring pads. Then, using tape and clamps, he fixed this crude contraption onto the desert eagle's large-caliber barrel.
The process wasn't smooth. After repeated adjustments, cutting, and wrapping, an entire morning passed before a clumsy-looking silencer finally took shape.
Carlos picked up the desert eagle equipped with the "silencer," and it immediately felt top-heavy. He went to the bathroom, closed the doors and windows, and turned the radio to maximum volume. Amidst the deafening music, he aimed the muzzle at a brick wrapped in several layers of wet towels, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.
"Puff—!"
A muffled sound rang out, much quieter than a normal desert eagle gunshot, but it was by no means silent; it seemed only slightly quieter than a small-caliber pistol.
This sound would definitely travel far in a quiet night, but fortunately, it didn't sound like a gunshot; it was more like the metal-on-metal clank of machinery operating in a factory.
Carlos looked at the ugly thing and ultimately decided to keep it.
Having something was better than nothing.
He no longer had the patience to make another one.
He carefully detached it and stored the desert eagle in the system space.
The system space could only store the desert eagle, so this thing had to be carried on him.
In the afternoon, Carlos returned to his old trade, using IT techniques from his past life to create several simple programs. Through "zombie computers," he hacked into government websites and, after downloading some map information, didn't dare to make any further moves.
He was just satisfying an itch, while also checking the terrain around Brooklyn Bridge Park; he had absolutely no intention of provoking those programming experts.
Although the current IT level of this World was average and seemingly couldn't compare to his own as a traveler from 2026, he felt a twinge of anxiety whenever he thought of the names Stark and Jarvis.
Night fell.
Carlos checked his homemade silencer again. He wore a dark gray hooded tracksuit, black sweatpants, and soft-soled shoes, with a black neck gaiter covering his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.
At midnight, he returned to the five-story old apartment building near the Art District. Avoiding potential lines of sight, just as he had during his previous reconnaissance, he nimbly and silently climbed the fire escape on the outer wall all the way to the roof.
The rooftop was empty, and the night breeze carried a chill.
Carlos crouched at the edge near the Warehouse, used a rope to descend from the apartment roof to the Warehouse roof, then bent down and crawled, carefully peering out while waiting for the right moment.
Using this time, he pulled up the system mall interface again.
Several cards floated in his mind: [Lockpicking Tools], [Strength +0.5], [Agility +0.5], and the once-again lit [Basic Stealth (15-minute limit)].
He ignored [Lockpicking Tools] immediately.
The permanent increases to Strength and Agility were tempting, but a 0.5-point boost would be completely unhelpful for handling the current situation.
His gaze finally settled on [Basic Stealth].
This was the option he had focused on since the afternoon and was his final decision before the operation.
Although it was just a one-time limited skill, it could instantly grant him the abilities of a "professional" from being an amateur.
According to his calculations, five minutes should be enough to activate stealth, slide down the rope, jump onto the courtyard wall, leap onto the truck roof, and then burst inside to finish the fight, with another five minutes to clean up the scene and retreat.
These fifteen minutes also gave him some room for error.
Without further hesitation, he muttered in his mind: "Exchange for [Basic Stealth]."
[Consuming 50 points, obtained skill card: Basic Stealth (15-minute limit). Use immediately?]
"No."
As his points hit zero, that faintly shimmering card appeared in the items section of his [personal status], side-by-side with the desert eagle pistol.
He took a deep breath, secured one end of the second climbing rope he had brought to the rooftop, and tossed the other end downward. The rope made a slight friction sound in the night sky and quickly fell into place.
Time passed second by second.
Near one o'clock in the morning, the familiar black Ford van appeared, its turn signal blinking as it slowly drove into the back alley and stopped in front of the Warehouse's rolling shutter door.
The rolling door made a dull creaking sound as it opened upward... now was the time!
Carlos muttered in his mind: "Use [Basic Stealth]!"
In an instant, a strange sensation enveloped his body, as if a layer of gossamer had been draped over his tracksuit; the contours of his body became blurred, blending more harmoniously with the surrounding darkness.
However, Carlos didn't have time to savor the feeling. He grabbed the rope, pushed off the edge of the building with his legs, and rapidly slid down.
The wind whistled in his ears, but he kept his descent speed steady.
When he reached a height roughly level with the Warehouse courtyard wall, he kicked hard against the building wall while letting go of the rope, leaping toward the top of the nearby Warehouse wall.
The black van was already parked in the yard, and the guards had just begun moving goods. The top of the courtyard wall was not only a blind spot for the surveillance cameras but also for the two guards' current line of sight.
*Thud.*
The two guards and the driver were busy, unaware that an uninvited guest had appeared above them.
Carlos held his breath and observed below.
The three of them were moving cardboard boxes from the back of the truck into the Warehouse. The driver's cab was empty, and the truck's engine was still running.
Carlos saw his chance. While all three had their backs to the truck, he leaped from the three-meter-high wall and landed steadily on the truck's roof.
*Thump.*
His landing was precise, and the sound was masked by the truck's engine and the footsteps of the men moving the goods.
He stayed low and quickly crawled to the side of the roof near the driver's cab, which was a double blind spot for both the yard's cameras and the guards' vision.
He drew the desert eagle and quickly fitted the DIY soda can silencer onto the muzzle. He could clearly feel his nervousness; his movements to tighten the bolt were stiff, but he eventually secured the silencer.
He adjusted his posture, rose slightly to a half-kneeling position on the roof, raised the desert eagle, and aimed at the camera lens flickering with a faint red light.
"Bang—!"
The desert eagle let out a suppressed bang. The volume was indeed much lower, sounding like a small-caliber revolver firing, but it was still quite abrupt in the silent night.
The camera shattered on impact, sending plastic casing and glass shards flying.
The two guards in the yard both froze, looking up in shock at the shattered surveillance camera.
Only the driver immediately dropped his cargo and crouched down to run toward the building, but it was too late.
Carlos didn't give them a chance to draw their guns. He stood up from atop the cargo box, and the moment his feet hit the front of the truck, the desert eagle spat fire.
"Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!"
Two shots accurately hit the two nearby guards. Although they were only hit in the chest, both fell backward without a word, blood spraying across the ground.
The other bullet aimed at the driver was dodged, instead shattering a cardboard box and sending white powder flying into the air.
Realizing he couldn't escape, the driver pulled a pistol from his waist and was about to turn and fire when Carlos fired another shot.
"Bang—!"
The bullet struck his forehead, instantly painting the wall behind his head with a large smear of blood and brain matter. The driver fell straight back with a dull thud.
Silence instantly returned to the yard, leaving only the humming of the truck's idling engine and the strong smell of blood permeating the air.
Carlos sat on the truck's windshield with his gun, slid down, and after the white powder in the air dispersed, he raised his gun and entered the Warehouse alertly.
Three enemies had been dealt with, but there was at least one more person inside the Warehouse—the dark figure at the window, the third guard who didn't participate in the moving.
Inside the Warehouse, it was brightly lit, but there was no movement.
On a long row of tables, individually packaged illicit goods were scattered. What the truck brought were large bags of finished or semi-finished products from the factory; these loose goods, packaged during the day, were being prepared for sale or transport.
The smell of blood spread through the Warehouse hall. Carlos quickly checked the three fallen men, confirming they had completely lost all vital signs. Aside from Carlos himself, there was no other living person in the hall, only a dead silence.
Carlos raised the desert eagle and aimed at the only partition inside the Warehouse.