John's mother's bedroom window opened onto a small alley so he hadn't gotten a look at the city since everything happened. From the street view, he wasn't able to see much other than the tall buildings around him but the air was heavy with the scent of smoke. Contrary to what he thought the streets were completely empty, there were no crowds rushing to escape the city, it seems like for the most part people have decided to stay in their homes and hunker down to wait for help to arrive. Making his way over to the cruiser he reached into his bag and pulled the keys off of one of the officer's belts. He decided it would be best if he moved the car off the road, the last thing he wanted was someone thinking he was an actual police officer and coming to ask for help. Fortunately, after an incident a few years ago where the self-driving police cars were hacked in a few of the bigger cities all police cars were now strictly human operated so he could drive it himself. He drove a few blocks down and pulled into an alley so he could take some inventory. From the belts he had; 3 pistols 2 of which he removed the magazines from, 9 spare magazines, 3 small flashlights, 3 stun guns, 9 spare stun gun cartridges, 3 sets of handcuffs, 3 batons and 3 cans of pepper spray. looking around the inside of the car he managed to find the wallets of all 3 officers with about $300 all told, He found Gomez's card too and decided to head to an ATM soon since she had gone earlier that day and John now knew her pin and you never know when you'll need some cash. He put it all in his backpack taking only one of the belts with him. He went round to the trunk of the car and popped it open, inside he found a weapons case with a shotgun and a rifle inside, a bunch of ammo for them and the pistols, a couple dozen spare stun gun cartridges, a few collapsable traffic cones, police tape, a much more powerful flashlight, a collapsible shovel, a first aid kit and defib, some alcohol wipes, a spare set of body armour and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that might be useful to an on-duty cop.

He put all the ammo, the flashlight, first aid kit and the alcohol wipes in his bag and put the shotgun and rifle through the straps on either side of it. He realised he was gonna look dangerous but he figured he probably wasn't gonna be the only one armed if there were monsters running around. Putting the bag on the passenger seat he then pulled out his phone and started looking up what people had found out about what's going on.

As it turns out, whilst most people were freaking the fuck out there have been a few people who have figured out a bunch of stuff already. Turns out a bunch of gamers had been "dreaming of this day their whole lives" and "can't wait to finally shine", needless to say the majority of these people had already been ripped to shreds by all kinds of monsters when they thought they could get some XP or something but at least they left behind some useful info before getting themselves killed like idiots. People had figured out that now if you thought the word 'status' a screen would appear giving you a rundown of your stats and skills. It was also possible to unlock the 'inspect' skill by closely studying items, though it didn't work on people it seemed. There was also some kind of inventory system, at level 1 this was a 10x10 grid that you could store items in. Items of the same type would stack up to 99 times and size didn't seem to be an issue, though larger objects like a sofa or a bed would take up several slots and would not stack. It also seemed like this inventory didn't fully nullify the weight of stored objects, it reduced weight by about 60% and distributed it across your body in a way to make it easiest to carry, much to the chagrin of one guy who tried to store a truck in his inventory and ended up a red paste on the side of the road.

After reading through as much as he can and reading up on some of the monsters that were appearing John decided to start trying some stuff out.

"status"

Status Window Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE Level: 1 (80%) Class: NA Race: Doppelgänger Gender: Male Acheivements First Blood, Matricide Fame: 0 Infamy: 0 - Health: 100/ 100 Health Regen: 1.0 / Min Mana: 150 / 150 Mana Regen: 3 / Min Stamina: 100 / 100 Stamina Regen: 1.0/ Sec - Strength: 15 Agility: 13 Vitality: 10 Endurance: 10 Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 10 Luck: 10 Physical Resistances Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5% Crushing: 5% Elemental Resistances Fire: 0% Water: 0% Wind: 0% Earth: 0% Lightning: -20% Darkness: 0% Light: 0% Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Assimilate Unique 1 10% Shift Common 1 10% Speed Reading Common 5 0% Small Arms Common 3 0%

Focusing on each of his stats a notification popped up for each

Strength Your Strength is a measure of how strong your muscles are. It affects your ability to lift and carry heavy objects as well as how hard you can hit with melee weapons. Agility your Agility is a measure of how fast you can move and how flexible you are. Vitality Your Vitality is a measure of your physical health and well being. +10 Hp, +0.1 HP regen/min per point of Vitality Endurance Your Endurance is a measure of your physical fitness and resolve to keep going through fatigue. +10 stamina, +0.1 stamina regen/sec per point of Endurance Dexterity Your Dexterity is a measure of your accuracy, precision and capability when performing physical tasks. Intelligence Your Intelligence is a measure of your ability to comprehend, memorise and interprit information. It also increases the strength of your spells. +10 MP, +0.1 MP regen/Min per point of Intelligence Wisdom Your Wisdom is a measure of your ability to think creatively, your perceptiveness and your mental fortitude. +5 MP, +0.2 MP regen/Min per point of Wisdom Luck Your Luck is the measure of the likelyhood of things going your way.

It also seems that Resistences would reduce the damage taken from each of the respective damage types. Weirdly enough when he focused on his race no window popped up. He would have to look into that at some point. He then brought out each of his items from his bag and began to study them. After about 5 minutes of looking at the shotgun messages appeared.

Skill Gained NAME: Inspect Your close study of an object allows you to notice details others wouldn't. Effects- allows the ability to identify weapons, items of higher rarity may require a higher skill level to inspect. Higher skill levels will reveal more information. MP cost- 5 Activation Time- 10s Level 1 Item Name: Remmington 870 Type: Shotgun (pump-action) Durability: 111/ 120 Quality: Good (mass produced) A reliable weapon often issued to the police force. Item Name: Colt AR15A3 Type: Semi-Automatic Rifle Durability: 120 / 135 Quality: Good (mass produced) A reliable weapon often issued to the police force. Item Name: Glock 19 Type: Pistol Durability: 45/ 60 Quality: Good (mass produced) A small and versatile pistol. Item Name: Glock 19 Type: Pistol Durability: 48/ 60 Quality: Good (mass produced) A small and versatile pistol. Item Name: Glock 19 Type: Pistol Durability: 53/ 60 Quality: Good (mass produced) A small and versatile pistol. Item Name: TASER x26 Type: ECD Durability: 30/ 30 Quality: Good (mass produced) A non-lethal, elctrode cartridge based anti-personnel weapon. Item Name: SABRE Red Type: Pepper spray Durability: 30/ 30 Quality: Good (mass produced) A spray containing major capsaicinoids causes debilitating irritation and inflamation. Item Name: Alpha Elite body armour Type: Body Armour Durability: 300/300 Quality: Great (mass produced) A body armour vest that provides some protection from piercing and slashing damage. Notice Skill [Inspect} has reached level 2

The first aid kit and other items also had similar descriptions but didn't contain much information of note. He also emptied what appeared to be mini first aid kits which Gomez's memory let him know were belt worn trauma kits, into the box of first aid equipment. After placing all of his stuff from his backpack and the whatever ammo he couldn't fit in before into his inventory he felt a pressure on his shoulders and back but it wasn't too bad. It took a couple of seconds to move something in or out of his inventory, definitely possible in combat but might put him in a bad spot so kept a pistol strapped to his waist and swung the shotgun over his back. He then changed into normal street clothes but kept the armour on underneath. He decided to go on foot from here so as to not draw attention to himself, well as little attention as an armed man walking through a monster infested city can draw.