Chapter Forty-One - In Matters of Taste

I was right, Sharp's taste in clothes was questionable at best.

It wasn't so much that she picked poor pieces. She found some nice pieces. A blouse here, some nice pants there. She had a good eye for what fit, though she did lean more towards the baggy side of things, and had a clear preference for things with many pockets, which was fine.

Techware was always in, just like jeans and black in general.

The problem came when Sharp combined things.

A nice top with nice pants sounded cute, but the top was a modern techwear piece in bright greens with orange highlights and the pants were flared out Nouveau-Disco things with tech-bedazzle.

I quickly had to set up a veto system, and guide Sharp towards not just trying on anything she thought was cute.

A good outfit was about more than its individual parts.

And a good disguise--which was what we were shopping for, and something I had to remind Sharp of rather constantly--was something that would blend in with the background and not have you stand out in any meaningful way.

I let her pick out a few things, here and there, because... well, the girl might have maybe deserved a small win, but I put my paw down on more than one glitzed out item, and I didn't care how much neon it had or how many LEDs were woven into it.

In the end, we returned to my place with a dozen large shopping bags filled with clothes.

"Did you want to stake out the place tonight?" I asked as Sharp shouldered her way in and then started to fiddle with the security system. We'd gone through the trouble of adding her as a permanent guest with return rights, and myself as another 'cat' in the system.

Obviously, I didn't have a security system that would target my own cats, that would be silly.

Cyanide ran up to greet us, and Sharp set me down. The cat gave me a sniff, then started to rub herself around me while saying her hellos, but I was mostly listening to Sharp.

"I'd like to," she said. "Should I get changed?"

"Yes, yes, hello Cyanide," I said when the cat became impossible to ignore. "Yes, you're the prettiest baby, mhm, mhm."

It was rather awkward to babytalk my baby while she was taller than me, but I did what I could.

"Mommy, Arsenic ate all the food again, and Belladonna left, and I'm hungry! I haven't eaten in forever Mommy!"

"Sharp, feed the cats," I ordered.

Sharp rolled her eyes, and a moment later I was scooped up. "I fed them before we left. And they have an automatic feeder."

"They like it better when you feed them yourself. And the auto-feeder doesn't have wet food," I said. Did she not listen to my discussion about cat food that very morning? It didn't matter. "Once you're done, we'll pick up a gun or two and go to the range. I want you armed before we head out, and before you're armed, I want to make sure you know which end of the gun goes bang."

Sharp's eyes had lit up already, and it was a wonder she wasn't squealing. "Really? I get a gun?"

This was a bad idea. "You get a gun, but only if you can learn how to handle it! I don't need you to shoot your own foot off, or fail to learn how to handle a firearm. In fact, that's the first thing we're going to look into... after you feed the cats."

Sharp ran across the house towards the kitchen, and Cyanide showed me just how much she cared by scampering after her, nails scratching the floor the entire time as she tried to catch up.

I sighed and made my way upstairs, something made far more difficult by my small stature making steps annoying.

I had a few guns hidden in my house, of course. Some here, others there. Just in case. Most, however, were in my office upstairs locked in a gun safe, because anything else would be unsafe and irresponsible.

Also, Arsenic liked to chew on things he shouldn't, and I had an irrational fear that my dumb baby would end up shooting himself somehow.

Sharp caught up to me, breathing a little heavily and still carrying the clothing bags we'd come in with. "Put those in my bedroom," I instructed. "Then come and help me with the safe."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The safe wasn't plugged into anything. I hated those easily-hackable 'modern' safes, and had gone out of my way to buy something old with a turn-dial lock. Now I regretted it a little because I could have maybe opened those fancier new ones as a cat.

Sharp entered the code and got it on her third try, then opened the safe. I had a small rack within with a few rifles, and above that some show-box-sized dividers with unloaded handguns, magazines, and boxes of ammunition.

I had another, larger safe, but that one held a few more... tactically-appropriate weapons. I'd start Sharp off with something easier to handle first. "Right... if we're hitting the range, then we'll need those ear muffs up there, yes, those. Now, grab that black bag there, the scrunched up one. It's a duffle."

Sharp did as instructed, and then I pointed out a few guns for her to pick up. "This one?" Sharp asked as she raised a rifle.

"Yes," I said.

"It's... kinda dinky?"

I gave Sharp a flat look. She was holding a lighter, wooden-stocked rifle, chambered in 22LR. It was dinky. That was the entire point of it. "And you're a dinky shooter until proven otherwise."

Sharp glanced into the safe, specifically at an anti-material rifle that just barely fit within. But she didn't complain and loaded the gun into the duffle after I showed her how to check that it was empty.

We followed with a small handgun, then a smaller break-action shotgun. I wanted to give her a wide range of experiences with different kinds of guns, and that meant trying a few things.

First, though, I'd try and see if she could hit the side of a barn. "There's a range nearby, just out of the city. We're going to have to call up another auto-taxi, but it's a nice space. I know the owner. He'll give you shit for not knowing how to handle a gun, but if you're nice and polite he might show you how to shoot straight without smacking you with his cane."

"That sounds a little abusive," Sharp said.

I shrugged as best I could. "You'll learn fast."

I had her pack up a couple of hundred rounds as well, and then get changed into something nondescript and comfortable. Jeans and a sweater. I dressed up myself. There were a few pieces of clothes here and there that I liked dressing my cats in... well, mostly Mercury. He was the only one that would allow me to dress him up. The others squirmed and protested.

I'd only ever gotten a few cute pictures of Cyanide and Arsenic with little bows on their heads.

Belladonna was right out.

That kitty would shank anyone who dressed her up... even if she would be so cute in a little vest!

Sharp helped me dress myself, which was still a little humiliating. Then she helped me put on a small cat-sized hat. It had the added benefit of covering my ears a little, which muffled noise. As far as ear protection went, it wasn't ideal, but it would do.

The auto-taxi arrived just a few minutes later, and we rushed out of the house to get in. Then it was a short, twenty-minute ride to the outskirts of the town and into the countryside proper.

The McFarlane range was once a farm, and it showed. There were a few old barns and a big farmhouse in the centre. One of these barns had the back opened up onto an old field where dirt was stacked up to the sides and a hill served as a backstop about a kilometre back.

An old man was sitting out on the front porch of the house. He barely stopped rocking as the taxi let us out and Sharp looked around curiously.

"Now, who might you be, girl?" he asked.

"Uh, hi!" Sharp said. She shifted the bag on her shoulder a little. "I'm Sharp! I was told that there was a shooting range here?"

"Hmpf, might be," he said. "You with the feds?"

"Uh... no?"

"Good, good. Getting too old for shoveling open holes in the dirt." He stood up, one knee cracking, the other was entirely made of metal. "C'mon, lemme open up the range. You're in luck, I was waiting for someone else to show up to use the place in a bit, so no harm in getting it open early."

"Oh, thanks!" Sharp said.

"Careful with that man," I warned. "He's killed more people than you've met."

I liked Clemus, he was a good sort.

***