Colonel Brant texted me while I was in the middle of breakfast to let me know she would be here to pick me up in forty minutes. Like last week I had already packed my backpack with food and exercise clothes, so I mostly just had to spin my wheels for a bit until she turned up.
The black pick-up that parked in our lane was fairly new, and it looked to have been raised a bit judging by the space in the wheel wells, the mud and occasional damage to the paint implied that she wasn’t just using it to get around town too. Clambering up into the passenger seat was a bit more of a climb than I was expecting, it had always felt awkward to get into these things but with it being raised and being shorter myself it made it a bit trickier but I managed it anyway.
“Good morning Colonel Brant.” I said a little nervously.
“Morning Sam. Please call me Mary.” She said with both the most casual tone I had heard out of her and the first smile, I tried not to let the whiplash reach my face.
“I’m assuming we aren’t going to the facility?” I asked when she turned away from the city center.
“Yes, we are going to a range run by a friend.” She confirmed once we stopped at an intersection. “It’s quieter than heading up to the nearby base, he said he could set us up with something if you have trouble with the other clientele being armed.”
“I’m not sure how that will work out, I could probably force myself to ignore it worst case.” I admitted uncertainly.
She nodded before focusing on driving, she didn’t seem like the sort of person who split their attention, so I elected to stay quiet for most of the trip.
We eventually parked at a surprisingly new building declaring itself the ‘Orchardville Gun Club and Range’, I could hear occasional gunshots as I got out of the truck but it wasn’t a continuous sound, so I guess there weren’t that many people yet.
Going around the back of the truck with Mary was another reminder of how short I was, when she opened the gate it revealed the bed started from halfway up my torso. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get up, I was reluctant to put my weight on the small footholds they put on the bumper in case I broke them off and I couldn’t really hop up there.
“I’ll get them.” Mary said waving me off while putting a foot on one of the footholds before stepping up onto the bed.
Turning my attention to the contents of the bed revealed a huge durable-looking box mounted lengthwise taking up almost the entire length of the bed, there was another smaller one next to it against the back of the cab. She started by unlocking and opening the long box from which she pulled out a couple of hard black plastic cases, one substantially longer than the other. She laid each of them out on the bed, before opening the other box which contained a duffle bag that she slung over her shoulder before hopping down from the bed.
“I don’t really know what you feel comfortable carrying.” She started while pulling the cases to the edge of the bed and offering the longest which might have been longer than I was tall. “I know you’re pretty strong but…”
“It’s not that heavy.” I commented after trying to lift it. It was ridiculously long and awkward to hold though, but there was a strap so I slung it on my back making it a little easier.
“If you say so.” Mary said while giving me the eyeball, before slinging the remaining long case herself before stepping down from the bed. I had to walk a bit faster than normal to keep up with her long strides and swift pace as she made her way towards the front door.
The door made a ding as we entered the shop part of the building, this part of it seemed to be gear of various kinds but it looked like he might have had ammo behind the desk. I didn’t see any guns for sale, maybe they were in a different area or something. Mary offered a wave to the guy behind the counter as we passed towards the open hallway near to him.
“Hey Mary, Alonzo is round back already.” He said cheerfully, but after greeting her his eyes switched to tracking me and I felt a little uncomfortable with how intense the look was.
“Thanks John.” Mary said drawing his attention back.
I was glad when we got into the hall and out of view, we passed a couple of other rooms and a hall into the rest of the building before reaching a door through which I could hear the muffled sound of shots again. Mary paused before passing through to dig out some hearing protection from the duffle bag, having donned the muffs we went out the door into an antechamber that had a door to the range itself.
I paused after we left the building proper into the awning the lanes started from.
Only a minority of the twenty lanes were actually occupied, there seemed to be a decent variety of firearms in use by the people I could see, I could see a few different rifles and pistols. I mostly didn’t recognize anything specific other than a couple of varieties of AR-15 and what I think was a SKS. I seemed to be hyper-aware of each person for a moment or two, but they seemed to be following the same rules Mary had taught me and weren’t actively threatening which seemed enough to drop them from being threats to just something to be aware of.
I will admit that I didn’t really fit in with the rest of the clientele in their mixture of casual wear and the occasional person wearing camo, my white sleeveless shirt and purple skinny jeans are not exactly a match for the drab colors.
I realized I had probably been left behind and started moving forward before dragging my eyes back forward, I nearly walked into Mary where she had stopped a few steps ahead while looking back at me. She didn’t say anything before she turned away to continue down the lanes till the end where a guy with a cheerful smile was waiting.
Mary leaned close to talk to him over the sound of shots and the hearing protection for a few moments, he gave me an evaluating look partially into their conversation with a frown. Then he shrugged and waved an arm to indicate a path off the side of this part of the range to a nearby smaller structure that I could just about see a couple of lanes in. He then came up shook my hand and introduced himself as Alonzo before leaving to stand midway down the range and survey the other users of the range.
Mary waved me over while settling the duffle bag on the table along with the case she was carrying, she had me lean the case I had against the small wall separating this lane from the next. She then unclipped the latches on the rifle case and opened it.
“This is a C8 Carbine, while it’s unlikely we will need to use it I would like to familiarize you with it anyway.” She began. “Now, ordinarily it would have a C79 sight in the forces, but we would most likely be using it at closer ranges hence the EOtech and magnifier…”
She walked me through the controls and had me shoulder it while she corrected my posture. She watched curiously as I traced the key points of the rifle so that I could load them into my ballistics unit that was waiting eagerly, having already loaded the specs for the ammo.
“OK, I am happy to have you begin.” she declared after I did another dry cycle through what I was going to do. “No full auto, keep it to under five rounds per target but you can pick your own. Stop after the second magazine or the first if you are uncomfortable.”
The targets down range seemed to be a mixture of metal plates most of whom appeared to be hinged. They didn’t seem far enough to need magnification to me, so I flopped the magnifier out of the way then loaded the rifle and brought it up to an arbitrary target.
Once I felt ready, I flicked the C8 into semi before starting shooting.
29…
The plate was already swinging back a bit before the next two rounds hit it
27…
Giving it time to return I switched to another and repeated, although I had more time with it as this was a plate with more mass to it.
22..
Rinse and repeat across the targets
20…17…14…10… 5…
The crack of each shot should have been loud even with the protection, but I think my ears were designed with it in mind and it never felt particularly oppressive. Thinking back I don’t really remember the shots the kidnappers got off as being painfully loud or anything, maybe I don’t even need hearing protection?
I wasn’t going to take off what I had just in case, but I had emptied the mag at this point, so I reloaded while giving the targets a moment to come back to rest.
The second magazine went about the same as the first, given the ballistics unit was deciding what my body needed to do, the act of shooting felt entirely natural. I just went target to target, without anything really defining which to go for I was just picking whichever was moving less. I could feel the recoil, but it didn’t really seem that substantial and it wasn’t able to overcome my arms, so I just kinda ignored it.
Once the second magazine was empty, I checked the gun was clear before laying it back on the table.
I looked back to Mary to see what she wanted me to do next, she had a small smirk for some reason.
“Full-auto with the last one, the solid target at the back.” Mary said flatly.
I turned back then brought the rifle back up, loaded it, then found the target.
Brrrrrrrrrt
Keeping it on target got a bit annoying without any relent in recoil as the gun itself was wobbling in my otherwise steady hands but it was nothing unmanageable.
Once I had emptied the magazine, I cleared and safe-d the gun before returning it to the table, smoke still spiraling away. Mary hadn’t brought more than the three magazines worth of ammo from what I could tell, so I took the opportunity to return the empty magazines to the case and then turned back to Mary.
“Looks like you don’t even have an issue with that.” She said while leaning towards me. “I will still have you come out to practice to make sure it’s not something that degrades with lack of use.”
I nodded, then noticed we had attracted some attention. Alonzo was staring at me like I had grown a second head and there were some other clients peeking around their lanes towards us.
“Let’s give the gun a couple of minutes to cool down then we can head over to the long lanes.” Mary said drawing my attention back to her before making a head motion towards the pair of lanes down the path.
----------------------------------------
“I was surprised when the requisition request went through on this” Mary said as I set the long case down on the table. “It’s possible someone’s arm was twisted to get them to give it to us, but I won’t argue.”
These lanes had both a table to which a rifle could be strapped via a clamp or an area to lie prone to shoot, downrange there was only a single target per lane in a hut a few hundred meters away. I couldn’t tell exactly how far away it was, but I would guess something like half a kilometer. There was a small screen in an enclosure on the lane wall with a simple representation of the target on it, presumably for displaying where rounds landed.
Alonzo had joined us after pushing off responsibility for invigilating the main part of the range to an employee. He was giving the long case a suspicious look, he remained silent but would occasionally glance at Mary the look of suspicion getting a different target.
Mary opened the case revealing what I could only describe as the mother of all sniper rifles, it was huge.
“I have no idea how Summers got them to give it up, or give us ammo for it. It’s a C15 anti material-“ She started.
“Jeezus h fuck christ Mary!” Alonzo shouted. “You better not get me shut down for letting you fire that fucking thing.”
“It’s fine, Alonzo.” She said dismissively. “Now, as I was saying, it’s officially designated as a C15 long-range sniper weapon, I’ve been eying having something like this in our hands pretty much from when I arrived at the CRD as a just in case option but we’ve never had someone trained up for that kind of shooting.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She gave me a conspiratorial smile. “No offense to Molly, but she’s not exactly sniper material.”
“Er, I don’t really have training either.” I pointed out.
“No, but that has been unnecessary with the other weapons you have handled, at least so far as accuracy is concerned.” She countered while unpacking the gun. ”Now, let me walk you through it…”
There was obviously less mechanical stuff going on what with it being a bolt action weapon, but it brought a bunch of other considerations thanks to its size and her preference for me to start laying prone for shooting. Once I was confident enough that my ballistics computer would be able to handle getting rounds on target, Mary handed me down a couple of magazines.
After loading the gun I brought it roughly on target, then in a first, my ballistics unit gave the indication of needing to calculate for a while. Interestingly, I think I physically couldn’t pull the trigger even if I wanted to, safety interlocks prevented me from firing before it was confident of where the round would land. I was aware of it selecting several plants at the edges of my view in the scope to track the wind motion, at the moment while it was fairly gentle but there were some occasional gusts. It worked to estimate the range off the scale of the structure and what that would mean for the trajectory of the round, it was still using rough estimates even with the cartridge characteristics loaded as it lacked any experience with this particular rifle.
I felt the final clack of adjustments finishing and then I knew how I needed to adjust the gun to get it to where it needed to be.
The interlock fell away and I was free to pull the trigger.
The rifle boomed.
Ooof, I felt that one. Didn’t really hurt but wow that had some kick.
Looks like I got a hit high and right still on the target though, I have four rounds left in this magazine so let’s get them downrange too.
3…
It’s funny having to rack the bolt after each shot but it gave time for adjustments to be calculated at least, that last round was almost on point though.
2…
Oh, that one was centered, nice.
1…
And there’s all five rounds.
I don’t think I dented my shoulder and the last two were good hits, so I would say that went well.
Reload.
4… 3…2…
All good hits and I was pretty used to the recoil now.
“Hey Mary?” I asked a thought crossing my mind before I cycled the next round. “Would it be an issue if I try a couple of standing shots?”
There was a pause. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“If you wish then.”
I stood up keeping the gun under control the whole time and brought it up to my shoulder again before cycling the bolt. My ballistics unit recalibrated for the change in height but was otherwise unbothered by my standing.
Fire.
Fuck that had some kick. I actually had to bring it back on target from the recoil this time, it looked like a good hit though.
Cycle the bolt.
Fire.
Good hit, but I think this thing could use a proper foregrip or something as it clearly wasn’t designed with this kind of shooting in mind.
“That was pretty neat.” I declared.
“I would say that went well,” Mary said wryly looking up from the small screen. “We should try and find a longer range for you to try sometime.”
“Sure.” I answered with a shrug.
“For the moment, pack up then I will go over cleaning everything.”
When we were getting ready to heady back over Alonzo caught us on the way back “Hey you, sorry I don’t know your name, how long have you been shooting?”
“It’s Sam.” I responded loudly to be heard over the hearing protection. “Uh maybe like an hour in total now?”
“Jeezus fuck, ok whatever.” He walked away with his hands in the air and Mary followed him with a smirk on her face. I wouldn’t disagree with his reaction, but I guess I can at least use the excuse I was literally made for this. Mary claimed a room in the employee area of the main building from a grumbling Alonzo, and once the door was closed chuckled a bit.
“Well, that was entertaining if nothing else.” She said while collecting a number of tools and cleaning supplies from the rack over a table at the side of the room. “I am going to accelerate getting those weapons released into the field agent ready locker, you seem more than able to handle them.”
“Er, what about the whole if I need to shoot someone bit?” I asked incredulously. “I don’t think I am really there psychologically.”
She sighed. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to be. In my opinion, there’s a limit as to how much I actually can get you ready for that.” She put the box of cleaning cloths she was carrying down on the table in front of me. “Ultimately regardless of what I do, it still comes down to your finger on the trigger and a person down your sights.”
“You are still a civilian, and I am not going to send you off to basic or a police academy where they will essentially give you a mental construct of ‘you’ vs ‘other’ to let you do it. That’s not how our department works, and Molly would kill me for it.” She said with a fond smile, then her mouth returned to a grim line. “To be honest my hope would be that these become your very fancy range toys, I do want you to have them available though. The potential for us having to deal with forces like you have already fought is increasingly likely and we might need something more than just your pistols, We Molly is getting a C8 too for that reason.”
“In the coming weeks, I will have you run through courses to practice selecting targets but I have a feeling your brain handles that well enough already from watching your reactions to the other people on the range.” She then got a wry grin. “Given your demonstrated ability to handle engagements with superior numbers of armed and trained individuals I would suspect you will need to spend far less time with me than I might have original scoped.”
That was a lot to take in. “You seem remarkably trusting of me, both in capabilities and with some of the weapons today,” I said uncertainly. “Is that wise?”
“Molly trusts you, and you have demonstrated that you can be safe with them.” She said succinctly then smirked. “As for capabilities, I am assured you are well designed for it, little miss Battle-Maid.”
“Ah uh, yeah.” I admitted steaming up embarrassment.
“Well, enough distractions if we are to be back in time for your chance to go tumbling around in decaying buildings with Molly we need to get all of these cleaned…”
There’s some cruel irony in spending like twenty minutes on the range and then an hour and a half carefully cleaning the guns after. She did say we were going a bit more in-depth than the usage perhaps warranted, but that it was good practice.
----------------------------------------
When I opened the door to the office Molly was watching some anime with a lot of egregious English while picking at what looked like a burrito bowl, I guess since it’s in an actual bowl there’s a cafeteria somewhere in the facility.
“Yo Sam, didja shoot a big gun?” She asked while pausing the episode.
“Yep, check this out.” I said pulling a 12.7x 99mm case out of my pocket and placing it standing up on the desk. I think this might actually be the first time I have used my pockets for something in a while. Some of the clothes I have do have big enough pockets for my phone or wallet in them, but I am a bit leery of putting them there as my body doesn’t really yield at all. If you sit on your phone with a flesh body then the phone is fine because it just gets pressed into you uncomfortably, if I sit on a phone on the other hand all my weight gets applied to it which will most likely crunch it.
“It’s one thing to know we are getting it and another to see one of these.” She said with a whistle as I settled into my chair. “Did it have a kick?”
“Yeah, first thing which I actually had to recover from the recoil.” I admitted. “The gun was basically my height too!”
She laughed.
“Well, the rest of the day probably won’t be as dramatic as that, but it should be fun nonetheless .”
Molly’s car crunched to a stop on a patch of ruined tarmac that had half turned to gravel in front of a partially collapsed chain-link gate held closed by a rusted chain. An old factory was visible beyond the scraggly dead-looking bushes and small trees characteristic of this part of spring, it wasn’t the largest building but tall enough that the idea of people having gone up to the top on the ledges to graffiti the roof structures was alarming.
we weren’t actually that long of a drive from the facility and the main part of the city but far enough urban sprawl hadn’t reclaimed this area yet. Historically Orchardville had a lot more industrial activity that collapsed over the 80s and 90s resulting in this part of the region being filled with a mix of semi-operational or outright abandoned factories and worn-out neighborhoods with the occasional seedy mall. When Orchardville started leaning into the university and going for the tech bucks in the later 90s it sort of grew in the other direction leaving this side to go to ruin. The future for this part is looking to change though the crawling gentrification the rest of the region is experiencing has started to move in this direction too, with old buildings being torn down or turned into lofts but it would probably be decades before the last of these structures went.
“Here we are! I have no idea what exactly they did in there, and the machines have been gone for decades but it’s safe enough for our purposes today.” Molly declared leaning against the hood of her car before She went digging in her backpack for a second, and came out with a couple of dust masks.
“I have no idea if these do anything for you, but it’s probably a good habit anyway.” She said offering one to me while putting hers around her neck for the moment, I took it not sure myself but not really seeing a reason not to use it.
She then stepped over the low hanging chain at the gates and continued in the direction of the factory while tunelessly whistling, I couldn’t quite clear the chain without a hop but it didn’t take me long to catch up.
“Ok, so there’s a window here that’s usually unlocked.” She said as we reached the building before jumping down into one of the below-ground window wells. Pressing at the window she was rewarded with a creak. “Bingo, mask time.”
After I had joined her and we had masked up she gave the base of it a shove again with her shoe, it moved a little but didn’t open.
“Ah dammit, it’s probably rusted some more.” She groused beginning to crouch, but before she had an opportunity to do anything I just slammed it open with my foot almost ripping it off the hinges in the process and certainly getting it permanently stuck open.
“Oops.” I was so used to subconsciously metering the force I applied to things that I kinda forgot how strong I was.
“I don’t think anyone will care.” She chuckled. “Give me a sec before you follow.” She was already shimmying in through the still narrow gap, she was gone for a few moments before calling back out again. “Ok, it’s fine.”
I dropped in behind her, between being smaller and heavier I was able to easily go through the gap, but my landing was not exactly quiet. I glanced around at where we were as the little cloud of dust I disturbed settled, it was an empty room with the remains of some rusty shelving visible in the dim light. Molly handed me a flashlight from her bag and got another out for herself.
“Right this way.” She said while turning her light on before going through the open doorway leading into the rest of the building. The sounds I made as I followed were particularly loud in the otherwise silent building, every hiss and clank echoing off the hard surfaces around us.
“I don’t think I am cut out for stealth.” I commentated dryly. “I am pretty sure the mice two fields over can hear me.”
“Ha, well at least that means we won’t surprise anyone who’s here.” She laughed.
“Is that likely?” I asked while looking around the empty hall nervously.
“Probably not, maybe a homeless person or a graffiti artist in the upper rooms.” She said with a shrug before she began down what as far as I could tell was arbitrary direction. “It floods unpredictably down here, so people who know what they are doing don’t stay in this part.”
She paused at another room shining her light in, I couldn’t tell its purpose without any of the stuff that would have previously been in there when this was an operational factory. It was a fairly large room, maybe the size of my place’s ground floor, with the ceiling supported by a few strategically placed pillars.
“I picked up a changee in here once, the poor guy’s feathers were trapping him after they got soaked by the rising water.” She said. “I ended up making him all but unaffected by gravity and then dragged him out. Took like an hour as he kept on getting caught on stuff.” She snorted, before turning it into a lesson. “Alright, I am guessing you’ve already noticed the watermarks on the walls.”
“Uh, I hadn’t actually,” I admitted then looked around again, then noticing a line tapped my finger against it. “This?”
“Yeah, it’s not particularly scummy below that line so it dries out again, but the high water line is up to your waist and is pretty substantial. Pretty bad sign in my experience, changees will go down to places like this and get in trouble when it rains.”
“If someone is missing I usually go and do a quick survey of places like this before they have a chance to drown in their sleep or something.” She grimaced. “I’ve been too late a few times too.” She sighed and then continued. “People who sleep rough learn from others or just don’t go places like this, but people who’ve never needed to think about it just see durable basement away from anyone else.”
She continued down the hall. “It’s worse in that no waste or piles of garbage are down here, so they feel safer sleeping without evidence of other people without realizing that the lack of human occupation is an indicator of danger. There isn’t stuff here for a reason, right?”
I nodded when she looked back at me, before playing the flashlight over the place again.
“I don’t have any scary structural things to point out down here, cause this place isn’t that bad. I would say it’s important to keep your tetanus shots up to date, but uh I don’t think that’s relevant for you.” She said with a chuckle as we continued down the hall.
“Honestly there’s not much down here, if you look in that room there’s a big pump or something built into the building.” She said pointing her light in a room. “It’s just a hunk of metal so not that exciting, well someone had attached a fleshlight to it for like six months, so I guess that’s something.”
“I don’t want to know if people actually used that.” I responded with a shudder.
“Oh, I’m sure someone did.” She said with a dirty chuckle, as I made gagging sounds admittedly they didn’t sound right as I couldn’t really gag. “Maybe not multiple times though.”
“Ah there’s the stairs, don’t trust the handrail it looks solid, but it’s rusted away at the concrete.” She said while kicking the bottom of one vertical support and it just bounced free.
As we went up the stairs natural light started to return.
“This parts pretty neat.” Molly commented as we walked out into the main working floor. The contrast to the drab exterior couldn’t be any starker, instead of dirty brick and plain concrete every surface was covered in a kaleidoscope of paint. It looked like someone had gone over the entire space other than the ceiling far above with abstract designs in a multitude of colors. That wall was long bars of green and blue intermeshing with sharp black lines, another was starbursts of oranges and pinks. The floor had been painted to resemble sand dunes, and even each concrete base for the beams holding the ceiling up was a different abstract design.
It looked to have been done around the parts where nature was infiltrating the place. Under a central hole in the roof where a skylight had broken away stood a neat little birch tree that someone had draped a blanket around the base of, and while they still looked dead there were vines crawling their way up the supporting beams around it.
“What’s the tree growing in?” I asked wonder at the room creeping into my voice.
“There was a cistern or something there that got filled with dirt when they emptied this place out, probably so people wouldn’t fall in it.” She said with a fond smile. “Honestly I mostly took you here for this, there are some sketchy bits in the office I will show you in a bit but hell this is worth the trip alone right?”
“For sure.” I said while looking at a design like a spider web in a corner, complete with a spider. although this spider was made of clocks, like the cheap office ones you see, either cut into slivers and assembled into the legs or attached together to form the body. A few of them were still ticking away too.
“Do you know who did all this?” I asked catching up to her as she traced a path painted amongst the dunes.
“Not a clue.” She admitted. “It appeared over a few months last year, I think it’s sort of private as I haven’t seen pictures anywhere on social media. Plus the other graffiti artists have been leaving it be, so I was wondering if it’s a memorial to someone.”
She looked over her shoulder with a grin. “Sometimes not knowing is more interesting right? You can dream up any wild story for why someone would go to all this effort.”
“Now, let me show you a good rule of thumb for what floors you can walk on safely…”