Remembrance of shootouts past
A Tourniquet. Again, the memory sparked a chain reaction that lit up others;
Trauma medkit. Quickclot. Israeli bandage. Chest seal. CAT and RAT tourniquets. Epinephrine. And other more improvised devices and methods.
He started to set it back on the table.
“Don’t rush it,” Angel said. “Remember, you have to experience the memories here for the Spirit to remember. Take your time and really put yourself there.”
Gradie ran his mind over the rough new memory until it blended with his imagination, creating daydreams that played out with familiar faces.
Lindsey tightening a tourniquet on his arm. Luke’s leg shot to shit and Gradie dealing with the wound in the back of the SUV, sirens wailing. Gradie alone, a bullet in his gut, trying to get the needle in.
Then, unprompted, dreamlike;
Sam with a sucking chest wound, shirt torn open, him fumbling with the package.
“Alright dude, damn,” Nova said, almost a whisper. Gradie froze.
“Can you see in my head?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I got a skimmer on you. Lets me know how you’re processing—”
“You can see my thoughts?”
“Kinda,” Nova said sheepishly. Gradie groaned. It was Lucy all over again.
“Don’t get all self-conscious,” said Philip, voice cracking in the loudspeaker. “These guys spend all day looking at other people’s memories. Completely desensitized.”
“Do you want to stop, Gradie?” Lindsey said. Her concern was so unexpected, so genuine. His anger and embarrassment died in its cool waters, and he was ashamed of his own weakness.
“No, I’m fine thanks. Let’s keep going.”
Gradie set the tourniquet on the table, and this time the memory, though faded at the edges, still held its shape in his mind as daydreams. Would that be enough?
“All right! It’s all you, bro!” Nova said with an enthusiasm that Gradie suspected was an attempt to hide his own guilt. Gradie picked up the earbuds,
Comms, alerts, sound dampening, tapping his table in code at a restaurant, analyzing touchtone sounds from across a crowded room, voice recognition, EP directing him through a darkened warehouse,
Then the phone,
GPS, encrypted system, key fob spoofer, RFID scanner, magspoofer, ATAK, Geiger counter, bug detector, and on and on…
Another set of keys, Toyota logo, plastic cats-head self-defense tool and grocery store membership cards on the ring,
Native vehicle, defensive and combat driving, pit maneuver, controlled collisions and injury avoidance, stealing a car unnoticed from a parking lot, driving a sedan through a dirt lot, pistol in one hand—
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A voice came over the loudspeaker, quieter than the others, as if distant from whatever passed as a microphone in the Otherworld.
“Sorry to keep yall waiting. Where do you want me?”
Gradie matched the voice to a face, and his heart jumped.
“All right, time for a little test,” Nova said. “When you’re good and ready, pick up any gun you feel like, and step through this door.”
A portion of the shelves swung open, and another plain door waited behind it. Gradie set the keys down and marched to the door in long strides and grabbed a Knights Armament SR-15 off the shelf.
Fire selector manipulation, sight alignment, tactical reload, low ready, flinch response, firing from a vehicle, engaging targets in a McDonalds, clearing rooms in an apartment and seeing muzzle flash burst out of a closet…
“Fuck yes.” Gradie squeezed the rifle in his hands and bounced on his feet.
“Ok then, killer,” Angel said. “Step outside, please.”
Gradie held the gun at low ready, turned the knob and kicked it open and came out scanning for targets.
The sunlight was blinding. When his eyes adjusted, it looked like any suburban street he had ever seen. Wood laminate sides and brick faces over close-cut lawns and cars packed in the driveways and along the street. Police sirens wailed down the road, and the SUV sat there waiting for him like a glossy black apparition.
The engine started with a sound that lit up supercharged 5.3L V8 in his memory. A familiar face smiled at him from the driver’s seat just before disappearing behind a rising plane of mirror tint. Gradie’s heart jumped again.
“Cops coming up the road, bro,” Nova said calmly, his voice now coming from all around. “You’re gonna take fire from one of the houses. Return fire, get in, engage out whatever window you feel like, cover Sam’s exit when you stop, and then we’ll run through some other shit just to make sure the memory’s maintained.” He said it like it was no big deal, but the sun glaring off the SUV, the wind on his skin and the smell of gunpowder with it, made it impossible for Gradie to remind himself that nothing here could hurt him.
“You said I’m gonna take fire from where?”
Bullets skipped off the ground and gunshots bounced off the house faces and driveways. Gradie brought the rifle up in a reflex and fired off five rounds in semi-auto at a window a few houses down, where he had seen the flash in his peripherals. Only immediately afterwards did he realize it felt like something he had done a thousand times.
“Good shit bro!” Nova yelled.
OOOOHHHHNNNNNN
Sam lay on the horn and Gradie threw the door open and slid into the center seat.
“Moving!” she yelled, and Gradie braced himself with one hand on the seat in a completely mindless reflex. The SUV barreled forward and the door slammed shut.
“Reload.” Philip’s voice came out of the radio. Gradie reached down reflexively and found a mag pouch now strapped to his chest. The memories came after the motion, and he didn’t realize what had happened until the bolt was already sliding closed and the other mag was bouncing on the floorboard.
“Good,” said Philip, with the least enthusiasm possible.
“Left!” Sam yelled and Gradie saw himself brace against the seat again for a sharp left turn, for a moment unsure if it was memory or happening in the present. As she barreled down the next street, he realized that here, there was little difference.
“Behind us!” Sam yelled.
Someone leaned out of the side of the cop car behind them in a very non-LEO way and let loose a burst of full-auto fire. Bullets smacked into the exterior glass of the back hatch. Gradie slid the interior slot open and pressed a button in the wall. The exterior window eased open and he put his rifle barrel through the slot.
He braced himself with his hip against the wheel well and a foot in the rubber stomp built into the floorboards and opened fire.
The guy leaning out of the car dropped his rifle and fell out of the window as rounds sparked off the door frame and shattered the windshield. Gradie pivoted and put two controlled bursts into the driver's side. The car swerved and crashed into a parked truck on the road with a satisfying crunch.
“All right, good shit. Let’s speed it up,” Nova said. The world dimmed and they were swerving downwards through a parking garage. From the slice of downtown skyline that glowed between the dark planes of cement, Gradie knew they were at least ten stories up.
“Uh-oh!” Sam said, in a tone that made Gradie picture her “accidentally” spilling a drink in someone’s lap. Before he could wonder if Nova could see that far into his head, the SUV came to a sudden and violent stop.
He flew through the air and slammed into the door.