by J. N. Chaney
I grinned back but couldn’t help a twinge of jealousy as I watched her there, twenty meters in the air, acting like it hadn’t even been that hard. I supposed for her, it probably wasn’t.
“What was my time?” she asked when she was back on the ground.
“Eight minutes, thirty-seven seconds,” Pearl said with a smile. “That’s a minute longer than the last time. Not bad.”
“You beat your best time!” I exclaimed with a smile. “At that rate, you’ll be leaving Pearl in the dust in no time.”
Pearl chuckled. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I stepped in, about to take the strap from Clem to have another try myself, but Pearl stopped me. “We’re doing something new today. Follow me.”
We both frowned but didn’t argue.
She led us through a series of hallways, guiding us into a far spot of the building that was previously off limits to us.
When we entered through the door, Pearl gave us each a pair of protective glasses and earpieces in a gray prep room. She pulled two cases from a shelf, and we followed her to the main room. It was pretty massive, although not quite as wide as the training area we’d just come from, but certainly much longer, like a giant rectangle.
For the moment, we had the whole place to ourselves. Pearl walked us toward the edge of the room and then placed the two cases on separate benches before turning towards us.
“You recognize these, don’t you?” she asked, pointing to them.
Clem nodded. “They’re what you used to carry your rifle in.” She paused. “For our job.”
“My job,” Pearl corrected in a playful tone, but her eyes told me that she wasn’t entirely kidding. “Yes, these are the cases that carry disassembled rifles that we use on many of our operations. The casing is meant to be as nonchalant as possible, but I’m sure you’re both smart enough to guess that.”
She opened each case, revealing the pieces inside, all neatly arranged and ready for assembly. On one side of the case, a red felt blanket was folded up.
“So cool,” Clementine said, her eyes gleaming as she studied the disassembled rifle in front of her. “So are we doing target practice?”
Pearl smirked. “That depends. You’ll find manuals inside for how to assemble the rifles. Pay close attention. Eventually, you’ll need to learn to put them together and take them apart quickly while in the field, but for now, it’s important to learn how to assemble them correctly, so have patience and take your time.” She motioned toward the cases. “Begin.”
I pulled the blanket out and laid it on the bench like I remembered Pearl doing a couple days ago on a roof. No wrinkles, completely flat across the surface. There were smaller pieces to this puzzle, and I didn’t want any of them getting lost.
I pulled out the manual, studying it closely before starting to piece it together. The scope, firing pin, muzzle, and so on. Everything had its place. Still, even with instructions, learning how to build something took time to master, but the more I did this, the faster I would become. It was like any other skill.
After a few moments, I snapped the empty magazine into the rifle, then stood and looked at Pearl. “Done.”
Clementine and Pearl both seemed surprised. “You are?” asked Clem.
I nodded. “Think so.”
Pearl took the gun and examined it, checking every piece to make certain, and then nodded. “Very good, Abigail.” Her eyes drifted to Clem, who was still watching us with a slack-jawed expression. “Are you done too?”
Clementine stiffened and dropped her focus back to her weapon. “Not yet! Almost!”
Pearl handed the weapon back to me. “Take it apart and do it again. You were fast for your first time, but still slow compared to the rest of us. We’ll keep doing this until you can both do this in under thirty seconds.”
Clem and I sat there assembling and disassembling our weapons for the better part of an hour, trying our best to get faster and more precise. I wasn’t sure why, but I actually found myself enjoying this. There was something about the way the pieces came together, something about the smell and the feel of the metal.
Pearl’s inspections were quick and thorough each time, causing me to wonder how many she had done before now. Hundreds? Thousands? It had to be as familiar to her as breathing, the way she had been with her own rifle on the roof.
“Nice work,” she said after another inspection, handing the rifle back to me. “Come on, both of you. That’s enough practice.”
We followed her to a bench, where she set the rifle up on the tripod. Pearl pulled a case out of her pocket and withdrew five bullets, placing them on the blanket next to the weapon.
She held one of them up. “These are long-range precision rounds, otherwise known as nexus bolts. They’re untraceable, citywide threat scans can’t detect them, and they can penetrate four-centimeter-thick glass from three hundred meters away. This is what I used on our job.” She looked at Clem with a half-smile. “You’re going to practice now, so you can learn how they feel.”
“Really?!” asked Clementine, her face lighting up. “Yes!”
“Enough of that,” cautioned Pearl, lifting her hand to steady Clem. “Calmness first. Work on that. You can’t get excited when you’re using these weapons. They’re not toys. They’re death itself, and you need to learn how to wield them like adults.”
“Yes, Ms. Pearl!” said Clem, still full of energy as she forced herself to sit still.
Pearl’s face remained calm as she stood over us. “Now, both of you, load your weapons and get ready to fire. We’re going to be here for a while, so take your time and get this right.”
I pulled the magazine from its box and quickly slipped the five bullets in, then screwed the suppressor into place, rolling my shoulders as I pulled the rifle closer to me. I heard Pearl pressing a control panel, and a paper target came into view, dangling by some wires. It was near the other side of the long room, too far for me to see the details. I could only make out its shape, which resembled a man.
“Call it,” she ordered.
I leaned into the scope, pressing a small button on the side. It activated a laser that coincided with the crosshairs of the scope. It wasn’t visible and not used for targeting, but rather for measuring the distance between me and whatever my scope was aiming at. A display appeared, showing the distance.
“Fifty meters,” I said, dragging the bolt back and chambering a round.
“Most shooting instructors would tell you to aim for center mass,” Pearl said in a soft voice. “But like with Dunn, a lot of the people that you’ll be shooting at will be wearing body armor. You’ll have to get used to shooting for the head.”
I didn’t respond but shifted my shot up a few centimeters, taking long, deep breaths. I felt excited, oddly enough, and I could sense my heartbeat quicken. Was I nervous? Afraid? Intimidated?
No, that wasn’t it. This was something different—the same feeling I used to get when Sister Mable told me stories of the outside world. The same feeling I had when I thought about my make-believe parents.
I was having fun. Shooting.
A gentle jitter touched my fingers as I leaned into the rifle, feeling the stock press into my shoulder, and I exhaled.
I gently squeezed the trigger.
A loud pop echoed through the room, mostly covered by the earpieces as the rifle jerked against my shoulder. A moment later, I took control again, finding the target with my scope. I had missed the head, but when I looked again, I saw that I hadn’t missed the target entirely. There was a hole about ten centimeters down from where I was aiming and a little to the left.
“Well, your target’s dead,” Pearl said. “But it’ll be messy and showy. Carotid artery, lots of blood. Not a clean kill, but not bad for a first shot. Want to try again?”
I nodded, chambering another round and peering down the scope. I felt a bit calmer now. Our education had covered this. I aimed higher and to the right of where I’d shot the last time.
>
I heard Clem call to Pearl, telling her that she was finished with her rifle now. I didn’t pay attention. I was staring down the scope, taking long, slow breaths. Another pop, another jerk into my shoulder, and this time, the hole appeared dead in the center of the target’s head.
No comment from Pearl, but a click from the control panel moved the target back another fifty meters. I adjusted my aim and shot again. Another two hits. The first one a little low but still on the head. After those two, she moved it out to the maximum distance of the shooting range, one hundred and fifty meters.
I could hear Clem cursing softly after she took a few shots.
“Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it,” Pearl told her. Clem responded with more unintelligible cursing.
I took a deep breath and shifted my aim up about three centimeters. The jitters were long gone. For the first time in my life outside of a book, I felt in my element, comfortable and at ease.
My heartbeat was even and slow, although I could still feel a gentle tick-tick-tick in my fingertips as I squeezed the trigger again.
But it was good. It was right.
This time, all three shots landed on the head, nearly equal distance from each other, forming a crooked triangle. I looked up from my scope, unable to stop my lips from curling into a stupid grin.
Another click of the controls brought the target buzzing across the range towards us. Clem was already looking at her target after five shots, and the expression on her face was less than pleased.
“A good grouping,” Pearl noted while examining mine. She used a pen to mark the spots where my bullets had struck with an X. She wrote the distance down too, taking the time to circle the triangle I had made.
I moved over to check out Clem’s paper target, and I saw why she wasn’t pleased. Her shots had all been from fifty meters away, and only two had struck the head. A few had hit center mass, another in the neck, but multiple shots were missing altogether.
“It’s because I had to take it apart again,” Clem explained, scowling. “It ruined the calibrating of the rifle. I would have had it otherwise.”
I nodded. “That was probably it. I bet you get way more hits next time.”
Clem smiled, reaching out to squeeze my hand. I squeezed back.
Over the next few hours, Clem did manage some improvement, even putting together a neat grouping out at a hundred and fifty meters. She had a problem with the moving targets though, only hitting one of the five through the shoulder.
“Fucking godsdamn piece of shit!” she yelled as her last shot hit the back of the wall, missing all six targets completely. She picked the rifle up off the tripod and threw it on the dusty floor as hard as she could.
My eyes fell on Pearl, wondering how she would react, but she was on her pad, tapping away at what looked like a message.
“You break it, you pay for it, darling,” Pearl finally said, putting her pad back in her pocket. “Not that you have any money, but I’m sure we can find some extra chores for you to do.”
Clementine looked angrier than I had seen her in a long time. “It’s not my fault that this thing doesn’t shoot straight.”
The last time she’d been like this, she’d just stuck a knife in Alonso’s shoulder.
Pearl remained perfectly calm. “Gun’s fine. You just need more practice.”
Clem scowled. “I’ve been practicing.”
“For what, three hours?” Pearl shook her head. “You have an affinity for close combat, but that doesn’t mean you’ll automatically excel at everything you try. Take Abigail here, for example.” She motioned at me, and I felt myself blush. “She has a talent for this, with a required patience that many otherwise lack. Learn from her as she has learned from you.”
Clem’s eyes darted to me, still angry. I thought she was about to lash out at me, but instead, she simply sighed. “Fine,” she muttered, bending to pick the rifle back up. She put it on the blanket and started taking it apart. “I’ll clean it and try again.”
She had to clean dust from some of the pieces, but by the time she was finished and folding the blanket up, Pearl had left and come back with what looked like a thick belt made of leather.
“These aren’t really my specialty,” Pearl said, laying the belt on the table. “It’s more Galion’s thing. Talk to him, and he’ll teach you how to use them.”
Clem leaned in closer to the belt, her hands touching the Velcro strap that kept it closed. Eagerly, she pulled it open, and for a moment, her eyes seemed to gleam.
There was a line of knives inside. Some throwing blades. A fifteen-centimeter-long combat knife. Another that was longer, curving at the edge. There were so many kinds, most of which I’d never seen before. Each of the grips were charcoal black, and the metal a kind of gray. Upon closer inspection, they didn’t look fully real.
Clem was utterly entranced. “Are these for me?”
“For your training, yes,” Pearl answered with a smile. “Keep them clean and sharp. When you’re ready or during one of your training missions, you’ll be given real and proper weapons. For now, learn to use these.”
“Thank you, Miss Pearl!” Clem exclaimed, already jogging toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” asked Pearl.
“To find Mr. Galion, of course!” she replied. “I want to get started right away!”
When she was gone, I turned back to Pearl. “So I’m not getting a belt of knives?” I asked.
“No,” Pearl said, a smile on her lips as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “I have something else in mind for you.”
10
My eyes flicked left and right. My heart pounded in my ears, and my stomach tightened.
I had gone over this drill for what felt like a hundred times, but it never failed to lodge my heart in my throat. I blinked a droplet of sweat from my eyes, and my fingers held tightly to the rubber grip of the pistol in my hands.
It was small, easy to conceal, and relatively quiet, made even more so by the ten-centimeter suppressor. The downside was that a gun this small had very little in the way of stopping power. That meant that each shot had to count. I had to be precise.
Pearl had spent the better part of the last three months drilling me in the various advantages and drawbacks of each choice of firearm.
And I had to admit, I liked them all very much.
I brushed my arm across my eyes, wiping the sweat away as I moved slowly. I kept my senses attuned to any sounds around me as I moved toward the corner, careful to control my breathing the way that Pearl had taught me to. It didn’t slow my heart rate, but it did keep my hands from shaking.
The training still wasn’t easy. I had mixed feelings every time I went to bed, and I kept dreaming about pistols and target dummies, but at this moment, I felt a whisper of a thrill inside my chest, a rush of exhilaration that pulled at me in ways I’d never felt before I learned to hold a gun. A sense of satisfaction came from doing something that I was good at. It was hard, but each solution that I reached felt natural and easier each time.
I took in a deep breath, dropping down into a squat and twisting my body around the nearby corner. I had to hit the targets before they hit me.
As soon as I had one in sight, I squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked lightly back into my hand, and I released two rapid shots with great precision, tagging the dummy as it swung around, bringing its laser towards me. As the red beam landed on the wall beside me, it disappeared, seemingly dead. Another rotating dummy appeared through the leftmost wall, this time knowing my exact position. Smart targets, Pearl had called them. They learned where I was from my actions, which made things all the more difficult.
Still, I couldn’t hear my heartbeat anymore.
I squeezed the trigger again. The small weapon coughed and jumped back in my hands. The new target went still as the bullet slammed into its center red ring, located where the head would be, indicating a kill shot.
Another came from the rear immediately, this one swinging it
s head and torso, breaking my view of the targets on its body. I brought the barrel to meet the dummy and immediately fired two quick shots, each at its head.
Hit. Hit. Dead.
The dummy stopped rotating and came to a complete stop, slumping its head and arms forward to simulate death.
Three targets. Three kills.
Clean kills were essential to our work. They kept the organization in demand, high at the top of our clients’ call list.
I still wasn’t sure how old the organization was. Angus the V.I. always deflected my questions when I asked. Probably Mulberry’s fault.
He was also the cause of the extra stress that I had dealt with during this mock-mission. Over the months since our mission with Pearl, Mulberry had come to watch me train. Not all the time, but it was typical to find him watching me once or twice a week. I wasn’t sure why he did that, except that he must be trying to decide if I was worth keeping around. I couldn’t say I blamed him for that. I was nothing compared to the rest of them.
Pearl, for example, was a real artist with guns. She could hit every target faster than me, and she knew so much about firearms that I found it inspiring. Her mind was like an encyclopedia of death.
“Range is clear,” I called behind me.
Pearl entered, squatting down to inspect the dummies. She put a marker on where each shot landed. I moved towards her for a closer look.
“Not bad, Abby,” she said, a sense of satisfaction on her face. It was a rare but pleasing thing to see, and I found myself hoping for it every time we did this. “Not bad at all.”
I grinned back, doing a small mock-curtsy. “Why, thank you, Miss Pearl.”
“Keep in mind, no matter how good the dummies, real people are unpredictable.” I heard a deep rumble of a voice from behind me.
I had learned to anticipate Mulberry’s silent approaches. They no longer took me by surprise like they had when I first came to this place. Back then, I could have sworn to the gods that he was actually a ghost, capable of walking through walls.
