I woke up the next morning with a mild hangover and the taste of pizza and beer still lingering intrusively in my throat. At least it didn’t feel as strange to be waking up in my room in the loft, and I’d managed to replace the bed in there with one that was meant for people my height. I didn’t mind if my feet poked out from underneath the covers – some things were inevitable, after all – but when my legs below the knee hung over the edge it really felt more than a little ridiculous.
I half-rolled out of bed, pulling myself to my feet and stretching aching joints before opening my mind to the Matrix and pulling on the feeds of several different news stations.
It seemed things had kicked off last night after the arrest was announced, with opportunistic gangs taking advantage of the tailor-made excuse to strike out at their rivals, while the Ork Rights Commission and other activist groups gradually started to make their own moves; with protest camps springing up in parks, intersections and outside Knight Errant’s headquarters, while notable figures from within the ORC made the rounds on street corners and talk shows alike.
The various human supremacist groups within the Bay seemed to be holding off on an organised response for the moment. I had to figure the wealthy armchair racists behind the scenes were figuring out how best to spin the narrative in a way that let them keep their façade of being anything other than blood-soaked butchers still living in a world that’s a century out of date.
Of course, the street-level guys didn’t care about that. The one kindness they did to the world was to not pretend to be anything other than a pack of wild dogs, and the arrest had set them along the familiar patterns of rage and violence that happened whenever something stoked their ire.
It was far from the first uptick in violence that had happened in my two years alone, but this time felt different. Maybe it was because it was bigger, but maybe it was just that I was actually going out into the city these days. If all the world’s a stage, I’d gone from part of the audience to one of the players. Things didn’t just happen to other people anymore.
I grimaced at that thought, before staggering out into the corridor of the loft and turning towards the kitchen in hope of finding something to wash my mouth clean, or at least switch the taste out for a more palatable one. So I made a beeline for the teabags I’d bought the other day, my body running almost on autopilot as I made myself a cup and added milk and honey – both synthetic, of course.
“Morning,” an amused voice spoke up from behind me, and I turned to see Lisa sitting at the dining room table, fully dressed, with an open laptop in front of her as she scrolled through news sites.
“Morning?” I returned, groggily.
She gestured to a brown paper bag on the table. “Don’t worry, Brian already picked up some breakfast. Though it’ll have gone cold by now.”
“You’re an angel,” I sighed as I slumped down into one of the chairs, jumping a bit as I fell further than I was used to.
“Not really an early riser, are you?” Lisa asked, now openly smiling.
I didn’t need to ask her what the time was, not when it was stamped on every passing strand of data, but I honestly didn’t see what she was getting at. It was only forty-three minutes past ten.
“Matrix time is different than real time. Nobody’s active in the morning, so why would I be up?”
“I get that,” Lisa replied, sympathetically, “and Shadowrunning isn’t much different. But it still helps me build up my picture of you.”
I frowned. “If it’s taken you this long to realise I live on my own, I really have to question whether you’ve earned your private detective look.”
“Please,” she protested, “I’m not that simple. No, it shows you’ve lived alone long enough for the late mornings to become routine, and your reaction to a really small amount of alcohol – especially for your size – shows me that you never took advantage of living alone to go out and get drunk, or stay in and get drunk.”
“It shows that I’m normal,” I countered. “Sure, what I was doing was illegal, but it was video piracy illegal. Not getting shot at illegal.”
“I thought you handled yourself well in there,” Lisa said. “Rachel had the feed from her Crawler up, which meant I got to see how you fried that exec’s brains. It can’t have been easy to hack on the fly like that.”
“I couldn’t shoot, though.” I countered. “Had one of the guards in my sights, but I couldn’t line up the shot right. Couldn’t pull the trigger.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Lisa pointed out. “Besides, it was your first time and gunfights are naturally stressful situations. Have you ever even fired a gun before?”
“Never,” I shook my head. “Dad had a piece – it’s still in the safe back home – but I never fired it, and he didn’t wear it around.”
Which was noble of him, and stupid.
“There you go. You just need a little practice.”
The screen of her laptop was facing away from me, but that didn’t stop me from noticing as she started typing up a message to Brian.
‘Turns out Bug is a virgin when it comes to guns. Think you could show her the ropes?’
I paled, hurriedly spinning datastreams into a spike and sending it down my backdoor into her commlink, deleting the message before she could send it. With the same reflex I jumped up so hard I kicked over the chair.
I stared down at Lisa in shock, but she didn’t seem at all surprised by the way I’d just taken control of her device.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, once it became clear she wasn’t going to break the silence.
“Brian’s got more experience in actual combat than the rest of us. Except maybe Rachel,” she corrected herself after a moment, “but Brian knows the most about guns and punching.”
“Not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Oh, that,” she snapped her fingers like she’d just figured out something difficult. “I figured you had my commlink hacked from the moment we first met, so I might as well use it to see how you react.”
I sighed. “You want me to remove my access?”
Lisa shook her head. “We all have our neuroses. I don’t mind your pathological need to control your digital environment if you don’t mind my pathological need to know what’s in people’s heads. And I can’t just hack that information out, so I like to needle people.”
“About whether I’m interested in Brian?” I asked.
“We’re the first flesh and blood people you’ve interacted with in years,” Lisa explained. “When every other high school graduate was experimenting in college, you were shut away at home. Brian’s an attractive guy, and I was wondering if you were starting to realise that.”
I sighed, looking down at the floor.
“Honestly, I can’t help but feel like the ugly duckling around all of you. And yeah, Brian’s good looking but I really don’t think I’m ready for that sort of thing. There was a time back in high school when I might have leapt into the arms of anyone who so much as smiled at me, but once I left I just… got used to the loneliness, I guess.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Lisa said, and though I looked I couldn’t see any hint of sarcasm or white lies on her face. “You’re just not used to looking after yourself. A little time in the sun will work wonders, and you’ve got legs for days.”
I cocked an eyebrow, bringing up a finger to the grey-blue skin of my cheek.
“This doesn’t tan, you know,” I pointed out.
“Not what I’m talking about,” Lisa countered. “You just need to work with what you’ve got. And besides, whatever you look like, whatever your complexion, there’s bound to be someone out there who thinks you’re the hottest fucking person they’ve ever seen.”
“Fantastic,” I drawled. “There’s a sketchy necrophiliac out there with my name on him.”
Lisa laughed heartily, propping herself up against the wall for a moment before composing himself.
“Fuck, I needed that. But seriously, I can ask Brian if he’ll show you how to shoot? And no double entendre this time, cross my heart.”
“Sure,” I nodded. “I’m going to hit the shower, make myself at least a little presentable.”
I made my way to the bathroom, but paused at the entrance, looking back at Lisa as she typed out a message on her commlink.
“Were you ever tempted to try anything?” I asked, faintly. “With Brian,” I added as she looked up. “You’re both attractive, both worked together for a long time. Hell, you set this whole team up.”
“Not even once,” Lisa answered, looking up from her comm as she hit send. “I’ll use sexuality as a weapon, but I’m both asexual and aromantic so that kind of relationship just isn’t going to happen.” She smirked, looking me up and down. “So I’m sorry to disappoint, if that’s where you were going.”
I blushed, not that she could tell.
“No, it’s not that. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m straight.”
“Only pretty sure?” Lisa drawled. “You really have been living in a cave for the last few years.”
“A bridge,” I murmured, then continued at her confused look. “Trolls live under bridges.”
She snorted, shaking her head. “Sure. And I’ve got some cookies to sell you.”
“Oh come on,” I groaned. “Why go for the cartoon mascot instead of Tolkien?”
“The mascot’s more modern?” Lisa asked. “Besides, Tolkien’s more than a little gauche, don’t you think? Well, outside Tír Tairngire or Tír na nÓg. Honestly surprised you’d even mention it; it’s not like the trolls in it come off well.”
“There’s a poignant metaphor for pastoralism over industrialism in there that’d be incredibly relevant today if it wasn’t the single worst example of unintentional pre-Goblinisation bigotry ever written. Not like Tolkien ever knew trolls were real.”
Lisa just stared at me, looking a little stunned at my sudden literary outburst. To be honest, it had surprised me as well.
“My mom was an English Literature professor,” I explained sheepishly once the silence had stretched long enough to be awkward.
“Clearly.”
Fortunately, both of us were distracted from more awkwardness as Grue’s response came in.
“Grue’s on board,” Lisa said, looking down at her comm. “Says he’ll be here in-”
“Fifteen minutes,” I cut her off, reading the message in the Matrix. “Shit, I need to get ready.”
I turned away without a word to Lisa, ducking under the door to the bathroom, wiping the last dregs of sleep from my eyes and squeezing myself under the showerhead – shivering as the initial blast of ice-cold water ran right down my back with no room for me to get out of its way.
There was a lot I liked about the loft, but the plumbing wasn’t built with trolls in mind, or with how much hot water five people actually use in the morning.
Still, the cold water was enough to shock me awake, and the awkward fumbling as I tried to ensure I was able to get at least a little bit of spray on all of my body was enough to shake my limbs into some semblance of wakefulness. When I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in an almost too short towel, I no longer felt like some shambling zombie from a B-grade horror flick.
Brian would be here in six minutes, but it wasn’t like I had to wonder what to wear. Instead I winced as I realised the only set of clothes I had here were the ones I arrived in. I’d taken all the stuff Lisa and I had bought back home, where it was still gathering dust in my closet.
“You really need to move some stuff over here,” Lisa said, leaning against the doorway. She was wearing her trenchcoat, and looked like she was on her way out the door. “If only for the sake of hygiene.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said, awkwardly shuffling past her into my room so as not to dislodge the towel. “Still, these are fine for another day; they were clean yesterday afternoon. Where are you off to, anyway?”
“I guess you could say I’m paying my dues. With Mentor Spirits, there’s a bit of give and take involved. Snake’s been giving, so now I’m going to hit the streets and find some secrets she can take.”
“I hope you find something juicy,” I replied, turning back to my clothes before hesitating and popping my head out into the corridor.
“Lisa,” I began, as she stopped in her tracks, “can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure,” she shrugged her shoulders, “but I might not answer it.”
“How did you find out?”
Lisa smiled, wryly, shaking her head from side to side.
“I never had a ‘relationship’” – I could almost hear the air quotes – “I didn’t hate. It took me a while to figure out it was more than just the other reasons I had to hate the whole situation; that it would never work out. Sometimes you just have to learn from experience.”
“Well I’ve not got much of that,” I observed. “Anyway, good luck looking for blackmail.”
“Have fun on your date!” she responded gleefully, before disappearing down the stairs.
I quickly threw on my clothes, taking a moment to wring out my hair again as a droplet of cold water ran down my back. My gun was still in its holster; I pretty much considered it part of the outfit, so had brought it with me last night. Plus, it was reassuring to know it was within reach.
Brian was pulling into the garage as I came downstairs, parking his dark blue Ford Americar up where Rachel’s van would normally be, but it seemed she was out. He smiled at me as he stepped out of the car, waving as I crossed the floor of the old auto shop.
He was dressed in deep grey cargo pants, robust work boots and a steel blue sports t-shirt that hugged his muscles, worn underneath a black leather jacket with a syn-cotton hood poking out the back. It looked warm, practical and stylish all at once, in a very Brian way.
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“Thanks for agreeing to come by,” I said, brushing a hand over the submachine gun under my jacket. “I’d really like to know how to actually shoot straight if I’m going to be walking into another firefight.”
Not that I plan to make them a regular event, but it’s not like that’s entirely something I control.
“It’s no trouble,” Brian answered. “And it’s important; a weapon you don’t know how to use is as dangerous to your friends as your enemies.”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded. Even though the line sounded like he’d lifted it straight from a martial arts movie, there was something genuine about the way he’d said it. “So where are we headed?”
“There’s a place I use just north of Midtown. It’s not too far.”
“Lead on,” I gestured, as Brian turned back to his car. I followed him to the front passenger door, which he opened before suddenly stopping – looking down at the seat before turning back to me.
“Ah,” he said.
“I’ll fit,” I said, brushing past him and leaning into the car itself, hunting around the side of the seat. “Where’s the handle to push it back?”
“Other side of the seat,” Brian spoke from somewhere behind me.
“Got it.”
I pushed the seat back as far as it would go, then reached back to grip the roof as I swung myself around, only for my horns to bang up against the roof of the car. I tried to lean forwards, but there was no way I could do that and fit my legs in the footwell. I managed to get one in, but the second just wouldn’t fit.
“Taylor, I’m not sure…” Brian began.
I caught sight of the steering wheel in the corner of my eye, and something in me flipped a little. I started to struggle, only wedging myself deeper in as I stopped trying to sit down and instead started frantically trying to leave the car.
I caught sight of Brian looking down at me with wide eyes, his arms half-outstretched as if he was unsure whether I wanted his help, and somehow that gave me enough focus to get my head out from under the roof and my hands on the concrete floor of the garage.
It wasn’t the most dignified exit, and as I stood up, brushing the dust off my sleeves, I found myself looking anywhere except at Brian.
“You alright?” I heard him ask, followed by the sound of a car door closing.
“I’m fine,” I almost snapped. I stopped, walking towards the open garage door before stopping. When I looked back at Brian, I hoped he didn’t see how strained my smile was. “Guess the car’s not an option. Hope I didn’t scrape your roof.”
Brian shrugged his shoulders. “Who cares about fabric?” he asked, and I hoped he meant it. “We’ll take the bus?”
“Sure,” I nodded, stepping out into the hazy mid-morning light. It was overcast again, but so far it didn’t look like rain. I reached out into the matrix and took control of the garage door, closing it shut behind Brian as he followed me out.
He led the way through the streets for a block and a half, before we found ourselves sharing a bus stop with a couple of teenagers and a near-comatose junkie propped up against the glass, a chip in her head currently running a Better than Life simulation. I didn’t look close, in either the Matrix or meatspace, and Brian didn’t look at all.
“So…” he began. “You mind telling me what that was back there? I’d guess claustrophobia, but I remember something similar happening in the van when Rachel stopped a little too fast.”
I didn’t answer at first, as I debated whether I should answer. In the end, though, I figured it was a big enough part of my past that it would probably come out eventually.
“I lost my mother in a car accident,” I admitted, quietly. “I used to be fine riding in my dad’s car, but it’s been years since then and… I guess being trapped in there hit a little too close to home.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Car of the people my ass.”
“They do a troll-friendly version,” I shrugged my shoulders. “Costs more, though. More metal, I guess.” I smiled, as a memory rose up unprompted. “Mom used to call it the ‘tall tax.’”
Brian snorted, smiling briefly before his features settled back into a more serious expression.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how long has it been?”
“Almost seven years.” I almost couldn’t believe it, hadn’t thought about the number inevitably climbing up, but there it was.
“And your dad…” he continued, slowly, “is he?”
I shook my head.
“Two years. And a bit. He was shot. Everyone knows it was the mafia.”
“That’s a hard hand to be dealt,” Brian sighed, before we were saved from further depressing conversation as the bus pulled up.
It was an old and tired vehicle, its electric engine audibly straining as it pulled up to the stop. The sides of the bus and the metal mesh that covered the windows had all been painted in blue and white, except for the spaces that had been set aside for a digital advertisement board – a Mitsubishi Runabout speeding through empty city streets, free from pedestrians, traffic and smog. The paint was chipped and faded, and both it and the advertisement were obscured by blood-red graffiti that proudly declared ‘FREE ANDREW GAR” before trailing off in a long line of red spray paint.
“That’s not going to last in this neighbourhood,” Brian observed as we queued up behind the teens. “I give it an hour before someone changes that ‘free’ to a ‘frag.’”
Inside the bus, the driver – a weary-looking woman with her hair tucked under the baseball cap of her company uniform – was separated from the passengers by a Perspex barrier coated in more metal mesh. On the passenger’s side of the divide was a device for reading credsticks and a small printer that churned out synthetic paper tickets. Most didn’t bother collecting them, since nobody ever came around to check, and a small pile had gathered on the floor.
Brian and I bought our tickets and moved back as the driver shut the door and set off. The sudden lurch had me reaching for a handle, but it wasn’t accompanied by the same stab of fear I’d felt in Rachel’s van.
It’s good to know my limits, I thought.
Most of the bus was taken up with plastic seats arranged in rows, but there was no way I’d be able to fit my legs in them. Near the front of the bus, there was an open area set aside for strollers, and that had a couple of seats that had enough legroom.
Luckily the bus was quiet enough that those seats were free, or else I’d have had to stand the whole way there. As it was, the only other passengers were a few old pensioners and a handful of teens. The benefits of travelling at mid-morning, I guessed.
We sat in silence for a while, as I looked out the window at the passing tenement blocks and rows of small businesses packed into small shops. Eventually, though, I spoke, without looking at Brian.
“So you’ve heard about my family, and I get the impression the others don’t really have families to talk about, but you’re local. Do you have anyone in the city?”
He didn’t speak for long enough that I looked over to him to make sure I hadn’t pissed him off, but I guess he was just psyching himself up. He sighed, and started talking.
“My parents split up when I was about thirteen. Dad’s still around. We don’t exactly talk much, but I see him every now and then. He’s a boxing trainer, used to go in the ring himself. Taught me how to fight, too. The basics at least. He was always…” he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I guess you’d call him a hard man. No warmth to him.”
“And your mom?” I asked.
“I don’t even know if she’s alive,” he said, matter-of-factly. “She was an addict. Don’t know if it happened after she and dad split or if she was just a functioning addict before then, but it only got worse with time. A few years back this guy I knew came up to me and said she’d been evicted from her apartment, and I never saw her again.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said. It felt like too little, but what else could I say? I couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like.
Brian leant back in his seat, taking a moment before continuing.
“Everyone’s got a sob story. The trick is not letting it define you. Besides, I had it a lot better than my sister; I went with dad in the divorce.”
“You have a sister?” I asked.
“I hope I still do,” Brian replied, cryptically. “Aisha ran away from mom when she was about fourteen, not that I can blame her. Every few months she’ll show up out of the blue and crash in my apartment for a couple nights, only to disappear back onto the streets. Where she goes… I’ve no idea. I don’t want to push in case she stays away forever.”
“How old is she now?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” Brian answered. “Her birthday was a month and a half ago, not that she was there to celebrate it.”
I fell silent as I debated whether or not to offer some help, but after about a block I figured I might as well present the option and let him decide whether or not to take it.
“I could… I mean, I might be able to track her down if you wanted. If you still have the details of her System Identification Number – or maybe your dad does – then I can have a sprite comb the city for her signature. Everyone leaves a trail.”
“Not her,” Brian shook his head. “She’s SINless.”
“How’d that happen?” I asked, surprised. Brian had to use a fake SIN on our jobs to stop his criminal activities being tied to Brian Laborn, UCAS citizen. I did much the same, except using my technomancer abilities to fudge the details. I couldn’t buy anything without revealing myself as Taylor Hebert, but nobody would be identifying me on a job anytime soon.
“The Crash, back in sixty-four,” Brian explained. “Our whole family’s data got wiped out when the matrix went down. Dad took advantage of the amnesty to re-register me and him, but mom didn’t, and Aisha was living with her.”
So she ended up SINless. Someone who doesn’t exist on any records, who has no citizenship, no social security number, no legitimate digital existence of any kind. Which, in real terms, meant they didn’t exist full stop. Brian’s sister couldn’t even buy a bus ticket, because a person’s credstick used their SIN for payment verification.
“Do you know how she’s supporting herself?”
“No, I don’t,” Brian replied. “It’s why having my own apartment is important to me. I need somewhere she can come and stay if – when – whatever she’s doing turns bad.”
“I think it’s admirable,” I said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, but if I did I like to think I’d be prepared to look out for them like you are.”
“Thanks,” Brian smiled, as the bus slowed somewhat. “Come on,” he stood up, grabbing onto a pole for support. “This is our stop.”
I followed him for another two blocks before we turned into what looked like a fairly unassuming gym – a brick building with a plain plastic sign over the door, the only AR elements to it being used to make the text glow. Inside was a boxing ring, a whole section of different weight machines, and some stranger equipment that I couldn’t really make sense of beyond the general idea that people might pull on parts of them to work out.
It was fairly quiet in there, but there was a common trend to all the clientele; they all looked like less professional versions of Brian. Not in terms of appearance, obviously, but if I were asked to picture a room full of guns for hire, this would be it. Faux-military outfits were in fashion, with dark clothes and combat boots in abundance.
In the ring, a wiry elf with a pristine samurai sword was demonstrating cutting techniques to a human girl with a plastic training version. As with just about everyone else in the room, her gear looked like third or fourth-hand stuff she was trying to pass off as at least second. Her cyberware was the same, with cut-off shorts showing off obviously mechanical legs.
“What is this place?” I asked Brian as we walked across the floor, surprised to see that the pair of us were drawing some appreciative glances from the wannabe street samurai.
“A lot of people in this part of town want to be Shadowrunners,” Brian said. “Everyone dreams of falling in with a good crew, hitting it big, and retiring at thirty on your ill-gotten gains. Everyone has to start somewhere. I started here, and I was lucky enough to make it rather than falling into regular merc work or one of the gangs.”
“A good place to learn to shoot,” I observed.
“My thoughts exactly.”
The counter was manned by an old dwarf in a black polo shirt that had faded to grey at the seams. Brian sauntered up to the guy as easy as you please and set down his credstick on the counter.
“We’ll have a lane downstairs.”
He was clearly putting on a bit of an act, and slightly preening in the attention the people in the gym were giving him, but the guy behind the counter was having none of it. He just ran Brian’s credstick through the machine and waved us towards a door at the back of the room.
We descended down a short narrow staircase and through into a little antechamber of sorts, with a few dozen ear defenders hanging on hooks on the wall. I’d had to hunch over on the staircase, but to my surprise they had a few oversized pairs that were designed to wrap around the back of the head, rather than the top, for people with horns.
The next door was soundproofed, and Brian made sure I’d put my ear defenders on before he opened it. Immediately, I was hit by a barrage of incredibly loud gunshots – pistols and machine guns mingling with much heavier calibre ammunition.
The range itself was mostly bare concrete, with a bored-looking gym employee watching over a dozen numbered stalls. The range itself was about twenty five metres long, and must have stretched all the way under the gym above. The targets were all synthetic paper, and were sent downrange by means of rails that began at each shooting point and ran all the way to the far wall at the other end.
Brian walked us over to an empty lane, a couple down from an elven man who was lining up shots with a shotgun that seemed almost comically oversized in his slight hands.
He took his jacket off, hanging it on a hook on the dividing wall, and with what Lisa had said earlier still fresh in my mind I couldn’t help noticing the way his cybernetic arms strained against the sleeves of his t-shirt. More noticeable than that was the way the muscles running down his back were ever bit as impressive as the artificially sculpted ones.
Inevitably, the second thing I noticed was the heavy pistol he was wearing in a shoulder holster. The same smartlinked Ares Predator he’d brought to the warehouse job, though the link was off right now.
It was pretty warm in there, so I took my jacket off as well and hoped my t-shirt didn’t smell of sweat, beer or pizza.
My own submachine gun was holstered in the same place as Brian’s, and I had a few spare magazines tucked away in the pouches that lined the inside of my jacket. Brian’s pistol was big, but my Ares Executioner was bigger, while still being roughly pistol-sized in comparison to my body.
“Alright,” Brian said. “ Quick safety brief; don’t point the weapon anywhere other than down the range. Now then, let’s see what we’re working with. I assume you know how to make that thing ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “I found the manual online and figured it out.”
To be more specific, I downloaded the manual onto dad’s computer so I can just access it whenever.
Following the instructions to the letter, I made the gun ready as Brian hooked a target onto the rail and sent it ten meters downrange. I lined up a shot at the middle of the black, vaguely-metahuman silhouette and squeezed the trigger for the first time.
I released the trigger almost immediately, but I was still shocked by a trio of staccato bangs as three bullets flew downrange. I was about to lower the gun, only for Brian to cut me off.
“Keep it up,” he said, and I hurriedly complied. “Fire off another three bursts.”
I was a lot more prepared for the noise the second time around, but it still shocked me. The gun jumped as well, with every shot. Not hard enough to overcome my grip, but enough that my hands shook just a little after the third burst.
I turned my head to look at Brian, keeping the weapon raised and pointed downrange before he nodded and gestured to the small shelf that divided the stall from the range itself. Taking his meaning, I flicked on the safety and set my gun down – making sure to keep the barrel pointed downrange.
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, before hitting the button that brought the target back to us.
To my dismay, my shots were well off from the centre of the target. They were actually almost off the edge of the black silhouette altogether, peppering the white backdrop.
“This is good,” Brian said, causing me to fix him with a disbelieving and slightly irritated look; I didn’t want to be condescended to.
“I didn’t get anywhere near the middle,” I pointed out.
“But your grouping is decent, especially for an automatic,” Brian responded, pointing at the cluster of bullet holes. “See how they’re all pretty close together? It means that your firing position is steady enough that you’re hitting the same spot every time, you just need to move that spot to where it needs to be. Keep the front and rear sights lined up on target, and don’t forget you can adjust them if you’re consistently firing off-centre.”
“Mind showing me how it’s done?” I asked, nodding at his pistol.
“No problem,” Brian smiled, like he’d been waiting for a chance to do just that. He sent the target out again, drawing his pistol and turning himself side-on to the range. He raised his right arm, and I could see the mechanical muscles sliding beneath the synthskin of his arm as he took aim. His arm was the kind of perfectly steady that only a machine can be, and his eyes were looking right down the length of it.
He fired five times in quick succession, each shot accompanied by a sharp bark and a spent casing flying out of the pistol, hitting the side of the stall before falling to the floor where it joined the pile of casings I’d left when I fired. After the fifth shot, he flicked the safety on his pistol with a thumb and brought the target back to us.
The results were, frankly, incredible. It almost looked like he’d only fired a single shot; the only addition to the target was a single, slightly irregular hole in the dead centre of the silhouette’s head.
“Okay, consider me impressed,” I said, as Brian quickly removed the magazine from his pistol, ejected an unfired round from the gun itself, placed it in the magazine with the others and reloaded the gun before tucking it away in his holster. Unlike my rote copying from the manual, there was a fluidity and speed to his movements that spoke of long practice.
“You’ll get there,” Brian said. “Although to be honest, if you really want to brush up your skills these aren’t the ones you should be focusing on.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, as Brian swapped the target out for a fresh one, sent it downrange and gestured for me to take another shot.
“Shadowrunner teams aren’t like other mercenary units. In a PMC, everyone is put through the same boot camp because they need everyone to know the same skills.”
I fired again, taking care to pay particular attention to the sights. Brian stepped up close to me, brushing his hands against my arms as he adjusted my stance. They were warm; like flesh and blood.
“But Shadowrunner teams are a lot smaller,” he continued, “and a set training routine wouldn’t work because everyone’s bringing different skills to the table. It’s about merging those different skills together to cover every eventuality, and each other’s weaknesses. That’s why Faultline made us find a decker before she’d agree to take us on.”
My gun clicked empty, the cocking handle stuck fully back. Pulling up the manual again, I moved through the routine of removing the magazine, performing a seven point check to make sure the gun was empty, and gladly accepting a magazine Brian had fished out of my jacket before loading it and depressing the working parts release catch.
“So if you want to protect yourself, learn to shoot,” Brian said. “But if you want to become a more effective part of the team, learn to hack. And I can’t teach you that in the same way I can’t teach Regent how to manage his spirits, or Bitch how to manage a gun that’s mounted on the back of a drone.”
“Makes sense,” I said, as I started to shorten the amount of time before each burst of gunfire. I felt shell casings hitting my legs as they bounced off the wall of the stall, and I could see a growing hole in the target as my shots tore out more and more of the paper. It still wasn’t in the centre, but it was a lot closer than before.
When the gun clicked empty again I set it down on the counter and hit the switch to bring the target back to us.
“I think I know just the person to ask.”