They exited the love nest and Blaine found the first real discrepancy between the virtual game and the real one--bright sunlight didn't make him want to squint. They were standing in a hotel lobby, its polished marble floors gleaming beneath the impossibly clean light. Equally impossible, within moments of the door closing behind him it opened again and two more people came out, brushing past him quickly. Where had they come from? He stepped aside and looked after a statuesque woman in a gray uniform like his followed by a smaller woman in a black bikini just like Katya's. Oh, the bedroom must have been instanced, he realized, an area that existed simultaneously for multiple users. Katya watched him with a playful smirk until he stepped out, falling in step beside him on soft bare feet.

"Oh, don't you need clothing?" he asked as they walked.

"Clothing and other accessories are down the street," she explained. "There's a mall down there. This is the Dallas server, but the shopping areas are still instanced for a few hundred people at a time so it won't ever be too crowded."

That was convenient, Blaine thought, a quality of life improvement he could appreciate. As they wove through the lobby he began to notice just how massive some of these players were. Thick-set men and amazonian women towered in various forms of juggernaut armor, carrying thick breaching shields on their backs or hefting LMGs, grenade launchers, even sleek energy weapons. In contrast, smaller players quick-footed through this forest of muscle and ceramic, wearing minimalist clothing, carrying submachine guns and light carbines.

It was clear–average people were definitely uncommon. Between his stats and his drab newbie uniform he felt painfully out of place. Beside him Katya didn't seem to have a care in the world, practically naked in her bikini.

Don't let them see you blink. They're just gamers, just like you. Come on, you've done this for real.

Setting his sights on the mall he made a mental note to ask Katya about the stats later.

"How do I get more guns?" he asked. "Not that you aren't awesome, but are all those guns like you?"

"They are," the blonde said, skipping quickly past a vent in the street as steam billowed up around her. "Don't worry, it's not hard. Right now you're a Copper ranked player, which means you can only do pistol matches. At Silver rank you can contract with a second weapon and wear light armor."

A second weapon... "So, two guns? At the same time?"

Katya may have chuckled, but the street noise drowned out the sound of amusement. "At the same time if you like. Guns don't have sexual preferences like you humans. Most players pick a multifunctional primary unless they already have a team role in mind by then."

Two girls. Katya was incredible by herself, but a second girl? The groups of people he saw walking around made more sense now. Those weren't clans, they were meisters followed by their weapons. Some of those groups were... really fucking big. Now he was second-guessing his stat points again. Had he capped himself without realizing it? Not much he could do about it now. If he restarted the game he might lose Katya, and that wasn't an option. Focus on the present. The mall was just up ahead.

Shopping wasn't Blaine's passion. He knew what he liked, liked what he knew, and didn't want to waste time browsing gear he couldn't afford. He only had a starting balance of a thousand credits, and regardless of the local economy, gear was always expensive. At the outfitter's he quickly chose a hip holster for Katya and a few mag pouches, with a heavy web belt to hold it all up. Simple and practical, not a penny wasted on flash or frills.

When he saw the price of extra mags, though, his stomach dropped. "Good grief, two thousand credits for a 15-round mag?"

"I'm a very good gun," Katya said, dusting imaginary dust from her minimalist top. "There are 10-round mags for only a hundred credits," she added, softening slightly. "But I'm a good gun, and I come standard with a very good caliber and capacity already. My upgrades are a little more expensive, but you have a better foundation than a 1911 with only seven rounds, or a revolver with no options at all." She smirked proudly. "The devs had to work in a price for quality somewhere."

Well. That made sense, he thought reluctantly, as he watched his credit account dwindle to double digits. He had everything he needed to get started--even the ammo--but if he didn't pick the game up quickly he would be resorting to going through couch cushions looking for change.

"Don't worry about the money so much," Katya said as they headed towards the ranges. "Even if you don't win right away you'll still be rewarded for kills, and there's no price to enter. Just don't drop my magazines during the matches and the only thing you'll be losing is the cost of ammo."

Blaine grunted assent. He'd bought standard ball rounds, nothing fancy. The clerk had pointed out that none of his opponents would be wearing body armor at this rank, and proper shot placement was more important than hollow points or penetration. That was fine with him. A clear head and a straight shot was far more important than the latest gear. Quantity trumped quality, so he was lugging nearly a thousand rounds down to the practice hall. It had been a while since he'd done any serious shooting.

A group of meisters came down the sidewalk towards them, a hulking mass of weapons and armor. Katya slipped behind him to make room. Her soft fingers hooked into his belt. That touch was a bit surprising. When she came back to his side she didn't let go, which surprised him more.

It wasn't a casual caress, her grip felt unconsciously tight as though she was grounding herself or scared of something. He glanced back over his shoulder at the group, but there didn't seem to be anything unusual about them. She pulled away as she realized his confusion, cheeks pink with embarassment.

He decided to cover the awkward moment with a question. "So does aiming work as well as... everything else in the game?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She shot him a grateful smile. "It should be. Part of the reason for such an intimate contracting process is full-body calibration. The dive helmet is constantly mapping your nervous system, and when we... connected... the game was able to calibrate more precisely. If you were a good shot in real life, the skills should translate seamlessly."

That was an interesting detail, Blaine thought as they pushed open the doors and entered the main practice hall lobby, the walls lined with helpful posters about trigger pull and sight alignment. For some reason the developers had also seen fit to include the need for eye and ear protection–as if the game couldn't adjust noise levels–but he put them on without a fuss and entered the range with Katya in tow.

The room echoed with gunfire, a cheerful cacophony of sharp cracks and booming echoes. People were lined up at their lanes, cheerfully blasting away with everything from coach guns to one of those weird laser rifles. Blaine watched the bright particle beam melt a target with some amusement before finding his own lane. He patted the bench invitingly, and Katya glowed before vanishing from his side and appearing beneath his fingers.

"You have good trigger control," she said softly into his ear as he dropped the mag and began to load up. "I must confess, when you first tested me in the armory... unfff, I haven't been handled like that in a while."

That surprised him. He slid the filled magazine into the weapon and racked the slide, smooth as butter. "Why's that? I thought you were new like me."

A silence. He glanced down. Katya's vibrant tone seemed to shrink and wilt, he could imagine her human form quailing. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, her tone brittle and rushed. "I didn't mean to trick you. You're not my first contract."

He clicked off the safety and spent a few moments playing with the sight alignment while he chewed over her words... but more than that, her tone. Was he missing something? What was making her so upset? He didn't think he'd said anything wrong. "What do you mean?" he asked at last, lowering her to point at the ground.

"I'm sorry!" she repeated quickly, panic now creeping into her disembodied voice. "I didn't mean to trick you. If you want a virgin gun you can return to the armory. Don't worry, you aren't forced to use me if you don't want me. New batches don't drop very often anymore, but as a new player you'll get--"

He drowned out the rest of her words in a single rolling crescendo of shots. Hot lead snarled downrange as fast as he could realign the sights, a satisfying tang of burned powder in his nostrils. The paper target shivered under the onslaught.

"You're MY fucking gun," he snarled, not bothering to keep his voice low. Someone glanced at him suspiciously from the next cubicle, but Blaine didn't give a damn, strangers meant nothing to him. "Mine, you hear me? I'm happy with you, and you were happy with me. If you want to leave, leave, I won't tie you to the bed, but you're a good gun and a pretty girl and you're mine."

His hands, steady as steel through the firing, now shook as he dropped out her magazine. Katya had fallen silent, whether from fright or anger or something else he couldn't tell. He began to reload, fumbling rounds everywhere. His finger slipped and a round popped forward, rolling onto the range ahead of him with a cheerful clink. He cursed under his breath and didn't try to retrieve it, ramming the mag home again and focusing on the paper target. It hung silently, mocking his frustration.

Blaine pulled the trigger twice. Breathed. And sent two more. He forced himself to send controlled pairs downrange. Bits of paper flew out as the target's center slowly disappeared.

Reloading again, he put this mag into the target's head. His hands were calming down now and he could get the bullets into the mag without dropping them. More shots. Drills, drills, drills. Everything he could think of, every trick he'd learned in twenty years of military law enforcement. Controlled pairs. Double taps Mozambique drills One-handed reloading. Off-hand shooting.

Katya performed flawlessly. She didn't falter, didn't jam, didn't hesitate. Her action was smooth as silk, stripping rounds one at a time. He had to fabricate malfunctions just so he could run through clearing drills. Each time she responded cleanly.

Damn, she was a fine pistol.

By the time he was through his ammo he was entirely calm again, though his thumbs ached from forcing rounds into magazines and his ears were ringing despite the hearing protection. He reloaded Katya a final time, dropped his last two boxes of ammo into a pouch, and sat down on the bench.

For a moment he just sat there, running his fingers over her heated slide.

"You're mine," he said at last, softening his voice. "I don't care about your past. If you're a good gun then you're my good gun. And I'll take care of you. Understand?"

She didn't reply. Blaine sighed and stood up, dropping off his earpro and eyepro at the front desk before walking out. The street outside was still buzzing with activity. It seemed to be late afternoon–if the game tracked such things–and Blaine decided he needed a break. He started walking down the sidewalk. Several buildings offered distractions, lounges and bars and nightclubs, but he wasn't interested in distractions. He was calm, drained, and satisfied all at once. He had things to process. The motel across the street seemed like a good place to sit and think. He checked in, his remaining credits just barely enough to cover a room, and took the elevator up to the third floor. The room was tiny, just a bed, table, and chair. He settled down into the chair and unlaced his boots. His feet didn't hurt, he noticed absently, that was nice. No break in period for boots.

His hands were streaked in carbon. Poor Katya must be absolutely filthy after all that shooting. He unloaded her and disassembled the weapon in a few practiced motions, laying out her barrel and spring and slide on the table. He didn't have any cleaning rags so he pulled off his own tee shirt and started using it to scrub her down. Sure enough, the garment was covered in gunk by the time he finished up. He didn't have any oil for her slide so he'd have to make that a priority before he fired her again. Putting her back together, he ran another functions check and set her back down on the table.

A soft blue light bloomed on the bed, and his pistol vanished. Katya appeared, seated cross-legged on the bed. Her head was bowed, her blonde hair spilling around like a curtain. For a moment she didn't speak, just sat staring at her hands, twisting them nervously in her lap. When she finally looked up her green eyes were shimmering with emotion.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should have told you sooner."

"Apology accepted, now stop apologizing," Blaine said gently. "I meant what I said. I don't care about your past."

Her gaze searched his face and she bit her lip before smiling–a nervous, tentative expression, but hopeful. "I've had other meisters before who didn't like that," she admitted. "I haven't had very good luck so far. They use me till they find a virgin gun. Then they leave me behind."

Blaine's chest tightened. "I'm not exactly in stock condition either," he said gruffly. "But I make do. You'll have to settle for me, I'm afraid."

She giggled weakly and took his hand in both of hers, squeezing. "I promise, Blaine, I'll never let you down." Her voice grew stronger. "Thank you."

He nodded, squeezing back. "I'm going to log out now. Tomorrow we're going to start playing the game, so be ready okay? See if you can find a bottle of oil or something while I'm gone. I'd like to hit the ground running."

Katya laughed softly, her green eyes sparkling. "Yes Meister."

He grinned, despite himself. Yes Meister. A man could get used to that. Before he could get distracted again he settled back in his chair, touched his temple, and found the logout button.