Ravensdagger_Kittypunk_Cyberpunk_Kitrpg

Chapter Forty-Two — Shot Grouping

Chapter Forty-Two — Shot Grouping "My range is the best around, it's single-proprietor, and I take a great deal of pride in keeping it clean and in tip-top," Clemus said as he walked Sharp and I towards the main shooting gallery. "Which leads me to being a smidge curious, you see?""Curious about what, Mister Clemus?" Sharp asked. She was walking next to the older gentleman. He wasn't moving fast, relying on an old wooden cane to help with every step."Oh, the usual. What's a young lady like yourself doing here?"Sharp shrugged. "I need to learn how to use a gun properly. Uh. For self-defence and stuff. You know. It's scary being a girl in some places."Clemus nodded along. "Do you know how to handle a firearm?""Not really?" Sharp said."Tell him that you've heard that he's the best. That he was a legend back in Paris.""B-but I heard that you were the best to teach that kind of stuff. That you were a legend in, uh, Paris?"Clemus didn't even have a hitch in his step, but he did change directions ever so slightly. "Let's get you set up. Now, don't worry, the cameras are mostly for show. Got them set up to turn off at the flick of a switch."He led us into the range. Being a converted barn, the interior was rather sparse. Wooden walls, with several metallic racks and parts of what might have been a feeding system mounted to the ceiling. There were some rooms to the back with padlocked sliding doors. The place smelled like hay and gunpowder, but it was almost impeccably clean.The business side of the barn had several stalls, likely meant to hold... cows or something. I wasn't a country girl. They had wooden sides and a small counter at the front with a pair of wooden panels serving as covers that could be removed to give the shooter a nice view downrange."Do you have hearing protection?" Clemus asked."Yup!" Sharp said. She stepped into the third stall as he pointed it out and set the duffle we'd brought down. Opening it, she pulled out the guns within and placed them on the counter, along with all of the munitions we'd brought."Well, you came prepared. Now, I'm not a very curious kind of man. That's what's kept me alive all this time, I think, but I've got to wonder about the cat.""Oh, uh, she's... a service animal.""I see," he said. There was a twinkle in his eyes before he lowered his bushy brows and I couldn't see them anymore. "Well, that's something then. Let's see if you can't plink a few rounds into the twenty over there, hmm?"Sharp started with the handgun, though what she started with was her choice. I think she picked it because it was the least intimidating.Clemus watched as she fumbled with the magazine, slipping rounds into it one at a time with some mild difficulty, then she loaded it in. She'd seen movies here and there, and maybe a game or two, so it didn't take her too long to figure out how to rack the gun.The safety took longer.And then she aimed down the sights, closed one eye, bit the tip of her tongue, and missed her first shot by about a mile.Sharp squeaked at the noise and almost dropped the gun."Hmm," Clemus said. "Now, having watched you a little, I think you might need a little... polite coaching. Let's start by actually putting that hearing protection on, yes? It's nice to have it on hand, but better to have it on your head. Heh!""Oh. Right. What about you?""Hmm? Oh, I have hearing aids already," he said. "I already hear a buzzing like one of those old CRTs in my head, can't make it much worse now. Good, get those muffs on. Hmm, now, let's work on that stance."Clemus stood nearby, never approaching or touching Sharp except to use the end of his cane to poke her arms up a little and then tap the side of her handgun to make sure her grip was steady. I watched and listened as he told her to keep both eyes open and her tongue in her mouth.He was smiling through the entire thing, and I think instructing Sharp was genuinely amusing.Sharp took a few more shots, emptying the magazine before Clemus had her shift to the shotgun, then the rifle.He nodded along and had her switch back to the start. "There's some value in plinking with the same gun all day. There's more in switching it around. You get complacent and familiar otherwise."This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.Clemus didn't stick around for too much longer. He nodded a few times when Sharp finally reloaded the handgun without fumbling it and put three out of seven shots into the target. At twenty metres that was... well, it wasn't good but it wasn't terrible. The target was stationary and so was Sharp, and she had plenty of time to aim between shots.Still, the initial improvement was noticeable and fast. There was a base level of competency with using guns that didn't take years to achieve. A few hours of shooting and nearly anyone could be 'good enough.'Mastery would take years, at a minimum, but I wasn't looking for Sharp to be a master."This is kind of nice," Sharp said. "But I think my hand's going to be sore, and my shoulder." She rubbed between her neck and shoulder, over her clavicle."That's normal. Keep in mind that on the job, you're rarely going to find yourself emptying magazine after magazine. Most jobs only require three shots.""Three?" she asked."One to kill, the next to make sure, and the third because redundancy is never a bad idea."Sharp giggled, as if I was telling her a joke. Silly girl.The shooting continued. We had only brought a hundred or so rounds but that was fine. Once she was down to her last quarter or so, I was going to have her slow down and focus on actually aiming each round.Learning the feel for the shooting was important, of course, but there was no point in shooting without hitting. So I planned on having her switch her focus eventually.Sharp was not that bad. An hour in and she was clearly getting comfortable with the three guns. I noticed that she seemed to prefer the handgun, which was entirely fair.A small, concealable weapon was ideal for the kind of work that I did. Rifles could be nice, but they were very situational, and in this day and age, it was best to set up a rifle on a device that let you aim and fire it from afar, which required a whole different set of aiming skills.Still, knowing how to shoot a rifle and shotgun couldn't hurt. Getting a hang of the different ballistics was useful, at the very least.We were interrupted as someone came in. A young woman, with a long all-black bag. She was tall, with long, mussed up hair tied in a dirty ponytail, and was wearing the kind of clothes I'd expect to see on someone out for a mid-afternoon jog.The girl was bobbing her head to the beat of some music we couldn't hear, and I noticed that the inside of her ears had the tell-tale marks of having some cybernetics plugged in.Sharp was momentarily distracted, but a quick meow had her refocusing on the target.The girl stared for a moment, chuckled as Sharp put three quick rounds into the dirt next to the target, then she casually pulled out the parts to a long rifle and assembled them.A minute later she was installed at the first stall, the little barrier wall removed so that she could lay down on a blanket on the floor.In the distance, about a kilometre out, a small plate moved up on a metal arm. It was about the size of a person's head.The girl shot, and the plate fell, only to rise back up a moment later.Sharp stared until she remembered that she was here for a reason and she continued to shoot, taking her time between shots.The girl continued to fire, and I noticed that every dozen or so shots the target's size would become smaller. Eventually she was hitting a target suspended on a piece of string that was about the size of a ping-pong ball. I could barely make out the metal arm holding it in place, let alone the chartreuse target.Sharp eventually ran out of ammo, and we decided to call it a day. A good, productive day. "I got a Combat level," Sharp muttered."Well done!" I said. That was good progress!On the way out, Sharp paused to stare at the sharpshooter girl.I bit her ankle when I noticed that she was mostly focused on the girl's legs and the way they moved with the recoil of her rifle.The idiot was going to die at the first honeypot she ran into, I swear.

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Chapter Forty-Three — Gun Expert

Chapter Forty-Three — Gun Expert "Okay!" Sharp said the moment we were back home. She raised her arms over her head and stretched hard until her limbs shook. "That was kind of fun! Plus now, I'm basically a gun expert, right?"I snorted. "Hardly," I said. Then I was distracted as I had to greet my cats. Cyanide ran up for nuzzles and Mercury skittered into the room only to linger by the entrance to stare, wide-eyed, as if he'd never seen anyone before.Arsenic strutted in confidently a few moments later. "Mother, I'm hungry," he said in lieu of any appropriate sort of greeting.I sighed. "Sharp, check on the feeder. And give everyone who asks a snack.""Okay!" Sharp said. I was happy to see that she got along well with the cats. Cyanide abandoned purring against my side to instead dart after Sharp as she headed for the kitchen and the locked cabinet with the cat snacks.I wasn't sure what I would do if Sharp wasn't a cat person, or mistreated my babies. Probably kill her, which would make me feel quite awful all said and done, but I didn't have to consider it now. Sharp was smiling as she gave Arsenic a treat, then she bent down and scooped Mercury up. The big lug went floppy as she hugged him close and then cradled him like a baby to give him a snack more directly.I nodded. She was good with the cats, and that said much about her, I decided."Don't get too comfortable. The day's still early."Sharp's shoulders slumped. "Not more exercise," she said.I chuckled darkly. "No. That can wait until tomorrow, I think. We don't want to push you to the point of straining anything. Instead, we need to scope out the location for our job. We're on a relatively short timetable here.""Oh, right!" Sharp said. "Do I need to change?"I nodded. "Get some plain clothes. Matching, clothes that... you know what, I'll help you pick it out. We'll be putting it into that duffel, so go put the guns back in their place, but keep the handgun out."It took a bit, but soon we had a partial change of clothes for her. Just a second pair of shoes-big work boots-and a jacket that she could throw on that had a hood. A scarf to cover her lower face and a pair of heap non-prescription glasses from my wardrobe made up the rest of her outfit. All stuff that was ease to store."Let's find you a holster for that handgun," I said. "You're pretty thin... Lower your pants a little.""Weird thing to ask someone," Sharp said as we entered my office and she set down the clothes next to the bag we were going to use.I shook my head then carefully judged the distance for a hop that landed me right on the edge of a cabinet. "In here. There are a few holsters. There's one that's worn as a sort of belt. It's a front holster. A little strange, but most pat-downs don't check the lower waist and if you're wearing a baggy shirt or sweater, then your gun is always within easy reach."Sharp opened the right drawer and then fumbled through half a dozen holsters before finding the right one. It took a bit of fiddling, and some adjusting (her waist was narrower than mine had been) before she had the holster in place. She checked the safety on the handgun we'd picked out and slid it into place."Do a few squats, some jumping jacks, then touch your toes," I instructed.Sharp did as I asked, only pausing once to tighten the strap and change how it sat. "Nice! This is kinda comfy, I guess? It presses into my tummy, right over my bladder when I bend over double.""Can you live with that?" I asked."Yeah. It wouldn't be comfortable long-term, but it's not that bad.""Good. Now, remove the gun, and its magazine. We're going to fill one with fake bullets. Yes, there's such a thing as fake rounds. They weigh the same.""Okay... why?" she asked, which was rather sensible."Because you're going to practice drawing the gun a few dozen times. Draw, flick the safety off, then aim. I want it down as a single, smooth motion. Which isn't going to happen with just ten minute's practice, but it's better than nothing."If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.It took another hour before we were ready to go. By then, I'd gotten Sharp to hide a small pocket knife in one pocket and another in an ankle holster, just in case.Being so armed was also a risk, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She wasn't the only one to gear up. I had her help me into a little kitty vest. It was an off-white, with cute little flowers on it.I'd bought it for Cyanide, but when I dressed her in it she just flopped onto her side and refused to move. In any case, it fit me, even if it was a little large.The idea wasn't so much safety as it was to draw the eye away from what I looked like as a cat. People would remember the vest far more than the cat within. Also, it was a little nippy outside."Are we ready?" Sharp asked."I think so," I said. "Well, as ready as we can be, given the timeframe.""You're the one that picked out this job so soon," Sharp said.I rolled my eyes, but she did have a point. I could spend another couple of months training Sharp into... well, perhaps not someone entirely competent, but closer. The issue was... well, I hadn't gotten many increases in my skills since we left the more dangerous Boston Two. I suspected quite strongly that growth would only occur through long practice, short bursts of danger, novel experiences, and by overcoming challenges."Come on, daylight's burning."I said goodbye to the cats, all but Belladonna whom I'd only caught a few glimpses of recently, and then we were off again. I did turn on the TV for Cyanide, who said she liked the noises it made. That was interesting, because I could recall her staring at the screen before, but I didn't know she actually enjoyed it.Maybe I'd see if she couldn't figure out the remote? Or I could get some animal-cybernetics for her? There were some augmentations available for pets. Things like games mounted to the eyes and biometric scanners so that a pet-owner could monitor their little companion's health from afar with a decent degree of precision.It was all rather expensive, and I suspected that for the price paid, the quality was lower than the same kind of equipment for humans, but... well, that was maybe fine.Having something like that myself might be my only way to interact with the wider world. I'd have to see what I could buy and then tinker up.I did have a Tech skill that was wallowing. What would happen when it reached the first perk level? There was a lot of potential there!I let my mind wander as Sharp left the block and we took an unsecured bus out of town and towards Boston Two. We climbed off before making it into the city and the hellscape of traffic at the boundaries.With just my head poking out of Sharp's neck, I scanned the road. Sharp knew more or less where we were going, but still needed some directions here and there.Eventually, however, we made it to the right spot."Let's find a place for you to change," I said.The best place for that turned out to be a gas station, which wasn't ideal, but it was good enough. Sharp and I both changed, then we were off again.Twenty minutes later, after cutting across an empty construction site and through a couple of dodgy alleys, we had made it close to the space we were scoping out. I could do more of this next bit myself, but Sharp had to learn."Just walk casually by. Scan the place from the corner of your eye as you move by, but mostly, try to get a feel for the place," I instructed.The warehouse was a single-floor, all-grey space. It was cinderblocks with nothing covering them on the exterior, with no obvious windows. The entire facility was built like a large C, with the centre just barely large enough for a semi-trailer to park in.There was a fence all around, with barbed wire atop it, but it was the cheap old stuff, not modern razor wire, and it was rusted all over. The fence itself was little more than a standard chain link fence.It looked very much like a normal, boring warehouse facility.So why in the world were there three armed guys hanging out by the front?"We might have to drop this job. It's too hot," I said.

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