Moody watched her as Rowena took her order at the door and sat down to eat, following her every move with the crosshairs of his scope. This wasn't the first time he'd watched her; he watched and he listened and he waited for that call, and that had been part of his routine for almost as long as Rowena had lived in that building. Enough time to adjust his appearance, prepare his hobby talks, his taste in music. All to get closer to her, all to be near her at all times. He was a perfectionist by trade; it hadn't been hard to get close to her friend, insecure as she was. Patricia Walker. Too easy. As was his old habit, he adjusted his aim for her head when he had a clear line of sight, whispering "Hold. Hold. Hold." to himself. Line up the perfect shot. Wait for the signal.
His phone rang, setting off the bluetoothed headset in his left ear. Without disturbing the rifle, he tapped the "talk" button with his free hand.
"Listening."
"Do you have a shot on Gabriel?" the other voice asked.
"Positive."
"Green."
Matthew Moody fired.
There's no such thing as bulletproof; somebody always has a bigger bullet. In this case, Moody had taken no chances; his rifle was chambered in .338 Lapua, which was ridiculous overkill for close-range shooting, but it did go through the reinforced window. On the other hand, the adhesive reinforcement sheets were designed to offer as much protection as practical. They couldn't stop the bullet, but they deflected it. Before Rowena heard the BANG!, she saw the hole in the wall behind her. Without conscious thought, she let her legs give out, dropped to the ground and rolled towards the next wall. She didn't know that this was unnecessary; Moody was already packing up. Then, she did something stupid - she looked up. She saw Moody on his way down. Then she did something terminally stupid and unnecessary and right: she grabbed her holster and leather coat, then went after him.
By the time she cleared the building, people were already standing around dialing 911. Rowena ignored them; instead, she looked up, and made out Moody as he ran over the rooftops, doing his darndest to get away. She kept running, following him on the streets and alleys while surfing the crowds. He was fast, yes, but he had to take jumps and scale obstacles ever so often; she was gaining, and eventually he'd have to pick a building to come down and stick to it. A sidelong glance revealed another runner on the rooftop; a girl, about her age or so, following on the other side of the road. Moody took a corner, changing direction, and Rowena continued her chase, her breath settling into a comfortable running rhythm. The guy wasn't bad, but she was great, and she knew it...she spared a glance at the other girl, who would have to give up the chase; she'd have to jump two streets to take the turn, or...
Holy shit, Rowena thought. Nobody can jump that far.
It had taken all of a second, but the girl hadn't just jumped the street - she'd gone straight over the intersection, as if gravity was less law and more kind suggestion. Rowena's eyes darted back to Moody, who disappeared into a roof access door. She rushed after him, slammed the apartment complex door open and took the staircase upward. She saw Moody dash down the same stairs, and for a second their looks met.
Catch me, if you can.
He jumped the last bit of rail onto the fourth floor, getting a solid five second lead on Rowena. His escape route was preplanned to perfection; the elevator would go down to the basement parking garage without a hitch, but the access door from the staircase was conveniently locked. It was so simple for him: he just had to get into the elevator car, press "G" and grin. He rounded the last corner only to hear a gunshot; when he looked, he saw that girl, with a smoking gun in her hand and a grin - his grin, the one he'd earned! - on her face. He went for his 1911, but she didn't attack him; instead, she darted out of a window that she'd apparently broken on the way in, and he had little time to assess this little tidbit before he saw that she'd shot the elevator's control panel to hell. Time for Plan B - Moody turned around and fired his gun at Rowena, who deftly dodged the shot and took cover behind the next wall. The next shot smashed through just above her - drywall, Rowena recognised slightly late before she rolled back into the open, her Five-seveN spitting fire at Moody, who'd gone for the desperation move of getting into the elevator. After all, there was still a good chance that he could make it through the escape hatch, but at the moment, Rowena's fire prevented him from moving toward it. He took a few blind shots at her, but Rowena was pissed off enough to ignore his imprecise fire, silently rushing towards the elevator door. Moody fired his last bullet, with the slide locking back; Rowena whirled into the elevator door, only to see him stab out against her with a knife in his other hand.
She fired, center mass, two shots. The knife missed. She didn't.
The gunfight had taken all of fifteen seconds, and now Rowena was there all alone, looking at the first boy in this town that she'd thought was kinda okay and her first kill - both the same guy. She heard noise behind her; without turning around, she aimed her gun backwards, causing screams and the sound of people getting the hell away. There was neither panic nor elation, just cold routine as she grabbed her cellphone and hammered the "Oh shit!" speeddial.
"Simmons."
"I just killed a guy..."
"Lose the body, get out, call me again."
Sound advice.
With police sirens in the background, she kicked open the elevator's bottom escape hatch and dumped Moody's body into it, watching his lifeless form fall into darkness for a moment. She holstered the gun, then went off towards the broken window - maybe a fire escape? She looked out and only saw sheer facade below; worse, two cop cars were closing in, lights flashing. She heard a knock and turned to look upwards, spotting the girl from before hanging from the next floor's window upside down and holding out her arms towards Rowena.
"Trust me," she said, a sparkle in her green eyes.
Rowena grabbed her hands; the girl hauled her upwards, almost catapulting her upwards onto the roof. Rowena held on to the edge as it passed, let gravity take its toll by banging her against the facade one last time, then pulled herself up. With a brief glance downward, she saw that the girl was gone; undaunted, she started to sprint towards the next rooftop, skipping over chasms and clotheslines and small antennas as if she was filming an application video for the Olympic hurdling team. After three blocks, she took a vacant-looking fire escape, skipped the stairs down - careful not to touch anything with her hands - and finally landed on solid ground. Now desperate to look less suspicious, she took off her coat and wrapped the gun in it, then walked over to a small backyard shed; with a few deft moves and a set of mini-picks in her small emergency kit strapped to the inside of her left thigh, she picked the padlock and hid the small bundle of coat and weapon behind a stash of gardening tools.
By the time she hit the main road, Rowena had straightened both hair and dress, looking for all the world like an innocent (if well-built) girl rather than a junior war machine. True to Mark's advice, she raised the cellphone - the only thing she'd grabbed from the coat - and dialed his number again.
"What now?" she asked as she heard him pick up.
"Where are you?"
Rowena checked the street signs, feeling a bit lost. "Washington and Bethune."
"...alright. Any dirty gear on you?"
"No, stashed it."
"Remember where, we'll pick it up later. For now, I want you to go South on Washington until you hit Perry. Go West, you should be right at Pier 48. What are you wearing?"
"The dress."
"Okay. Just go there, they'll take care of you. And lose the phone, now."
He hung up on her again; per procedure, she activated the virus program on the phone, then dumped it into the next trash bin. The phone's internal memory was already wiped by the time it hit the stale cheeseburger inside; a minute after Rowena had dumped it, it started to smolder as its internal components fused together into a single piece of slag. She wandered down the streets trying very hard not to be cold and miserable - pure assassin's survival instinct: don't be memorable. She held it together well enough that nobody paid any serious attention to her, but at the Pier the wind was too strong for her summer dress; it bit in her eyes, and this was as good a moment as any to shed a tear, but she left it at that. She realized that Mark hadn't told her who to talk to, so she looked at the security checkpoint and tried to work up the moxie to talk to someone.
Somebody draped a wool coat over her shoulders; she flung her head to the side, fully expecting to see Mark, but instead there was a woman, perhaps just 30 or so, with warm dark eyes and firebrand hair. Before Rowena could protest, she was being dragged off towards an idling car parked nearby.
"Sensible clothing, dear," the woman said, her voice sacharine. "It's windy and blood's hard to wash out of silk. I'm Molly. We have a mutual friend."
"Did he..."
"Yep. Now don't worry about it, you did everything right. Would you like some hot chocolate?"
Rowena answered in the affirmative.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 12
Rowena's eyes flew open; sunlight flooded her world until her eyes adjusted, slowly allowing the silhouette next to her to come into focus. Mark was sitting on a chair next to her bed, the .22 lazily sprawled on his lap.
"I think you need an alarm system," he said, matter-of-fact-ly. "I mean, a siren, a dog, potato chips on the floor - something like that."
"Still trying to teach me?" she said, rising from beneath the blanket - and reaching for the .45 she'd stashed under it.
"I'm still your teacher. Unless you just wanted to get some sleep before you skip town..."
"No. I'm staying."
"Good. Then get dressed, something nice. It's Sunday, after all."
He rose from the chair and made his way over to the kitchen, intent on fixing coffee. Rowena drew the Colt from under the blanket and stashed it in the nightstand, then darted off towards the bathroom.
-------------
Despite Rowena's protests to the contrary, Mark declared her pale blue dress "pretty"; Rowena found that she had an easier time getting her mind off yesterday's adventures by exploiting the full range of clothing available to her. It was one of those rare, delicate things intended for springtime in Milano, baring some back while keeping a strong lock on her chest, and the hemline settled just a bit above her knees. Accounting for NYC's rather colder climate, she matched it with a cream-colored cardigan and a pair of pennyloafers. There was but one further concession to practicality, a long leather coat that would cover her entire dress when closed; there was little else that could fight off the windchill quite like it.
Of course, it also provided a convenient way for Rowena to hide her shoulder holster.
To Rowena's surprise, the car did not head East or South; instead Mark took her over the George Washington Bridge, weaving through the usual heavy traffic with an air of effortlessness that only came to the Big Apple's long-term residents. After spending a month on Manhattan and Staten Island, even the trace amounts of nature in Fort Lee were a welcome change for Brandon's daughter; she soaked up the green and the brown with her big hazel eyes. New Jersey - the Garden State; Rowena had heard that, quite ironically, New Jersey was home to the largest number of Superfund sites, contaminated land that required intervention from the government to get cleaned up. Probably not the right location for a spontaneous picnic.
The car pulled to a stop on a gravel driveway next to a rickety wooden building; Rowena surveyed the landscape and spotted nothing besides the road they'd come on and an impossibly white fence in the distance. Slowly, Rowena's grey matter began to put the puzzle together: this was a church, and if it hadn't been for the light shining through one of the windows, she would've called it abandoned. Behind her, Mark opened the trunk of his car and dropped his coat into it, beckoning to Rowena to do the same. She did, then followed Mark's gaze and let the gun follow the coat. The Enforcer nodded, then withdrew a duffel bag, closed the trunk and locked it. Out here, the wind wasn't as harsh as in the city, more of a slight chill that danced over her skin. With no coat or Kevlar vest, she felt a bit lonely and vulnerable; alive.
They entered, Mark leading the way; Rowena couldn't make out the faint trace of his body armor beneath the shirt, and began to seriously contemplate the possibility that he'd come here completely unarmed. Inside, the wood panelling had given way to the ravages of time, and the pews were empty; the light she'd seen from outside came from a bewildering array of candles gathered around the cross. This particular Jesus looked all the more suffering from the decay of the statue, but there was dignity in his features, and she recalled a stray line from a poem.
Bloodied, but unbowed.
"Where's the priest?" she asked.
"He'll be along shortly," he replied, dipped his hand into the holy water and made the sign of the cross. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
With a heavy sigh, Mark moved through the pews and approached the cross; before he reached it, he fell to one knee and bowed his head. Rowena held her breath and listened as he whispered.
Peccantem me quotidie, et non me poenitentem,
Timor mortis conturbat me
Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio.
Miserere mei, Deus, et salva me.
Salva nos, Rowena thought, though she didn't care to repeat the prayer. Behind her, the door opened to admit a young man with fire-red hair; a quick glance revealed that he wore the collar, so she figured that he was the third man of this party and bowed her head respectfully.
"Hello, Marcus," the young priest called out; Mark rose in response and walked towards him, embracing him with a smile. "I see you've brought a friend."
"Yes, a student of mine. Introduce yourself, kid."
The priest turned to her; she shook his outstretched hand.
"Rowena Logan."
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Father Tallkirk. Has Marcus been gentle with you?"
"Not at all."
"It's good to know he hasn't gone soft, then. Do you know why we're here?"
"It's Sunday."
"Your sense of timing is excellent. Yes, that would be the day where people go to church. This is a church, we are people, all proceeds according to His plan."
"Tallkirk's Umbrella," Mark added by way of explanation. "I saved his life back in 93, he's been saving my soul ever since. I brought him into the fold last year."
"Terrifying as it is, even secret agents need someone to tell them that they're doing alright. Not that Marcus ever confesses..."
"Then why are we here?" Rowena asked, raising an eyebrow.
"To bask in His glory, of course. And so that I can take this" - Tallkirk grabbed the duffel from Mark and slung it over his shoulder - "and take it to the people who need it."
"What's in the bag?"
"You haven't told her?" Tallkirk asked Mark, who shrugged. "It's not my place to say. Until next week," the priest added, then walked back out the way he came. A small gust of wind blew in through a broken window, making the candles flicker, and Marcus stole another longing look at the cross.
"What's the lesson today?" Rowena asked. Mark ripped himself from the sight of the statue and turned to face her, some sort of emotion playing under the surface of his skin.
"It gets to you," he said, and that was that.
As they walked out, Rowena let her shoes drift over the wooden floor, almost stripping them off a few times but thinking better of it. Tallkirk was gone as silently as he'd come, leaving the two of them alone.
"A man could disappear here," she said.
"They'd never find him," Mark replied. "But we have work to do."
"Today?"
"I thought we'd cover some more close combat, but...I don't know. Doesn't have to be right now. Anything on your mind, kid?"
"...is that a swing set?"
She wandered off, pennyloafers clicking over the gravel as she approached a small playground behind the church. She thought it rather macabre that the whole thing was just to the other side of a cemetery, but it didn't matter to her; detachededly curious, she stepped onto the playground and sat down on the swing, making the old chains creak as they remembered how to move. Mark followed, his eyes darting around for danger he knew wasn't there until he settled down on the swing next to Rowena, straining both chains and frame close to the limits of their endurance.
"Deep revelations?" he asked.
"Just enjoying the quiet for a bit," she said, swinging a bit. "We had one like that in Rome. Less rust, though."
"I can't believe 'nox managed to cram playtime into your schedule."
"I hated the swing at home, though."
"Hm?"
"...I fell off. Broke my arm."
Mark laughed out loud. Rowena frowned and punched him in the side; he got up from his swing and circled around the set, looking over towards the church and the car.
"That's not funny."
"I'm just not seeing it. I imagine you shouted at the ground, told your arm to unbreak itself, pronto. I've been there, I'm like Jackie Chan when it comes to broken bones. I did it all and every time I can't wait to get moving again."
"But I'm ambidexterous. I could write, I could shoot...but that damn swing."
"So you got back on it and tamed the bronco?"
"Nope. I got home one day and the swing set was gone."
"...so you're making peace here?"
"In a sense. Heh, you know..."
"Yeah?"
"Would you mind giving me a push?"
"That's your father's job, kid."
"...just do it. Please."
For a few more swings, Rowena felt young.
-----------------
It was noon when Rowena got back to her loft; she locked the door behind her, kicked off the loafers and sauntered over to the kitchen countertop, picking a takeaway menu from the fridge as she passed. Mmh, Albanian, she thought as she browsed the offerings. Her left hand shot out towards the remote, switching the entertainment center to radio mode. After a few seconds, the heavy thumps of R&B filled the room; Rowena roller her eyes, then slipped the remote's buttons toward the next channel, pausing when she hit some acid jazz that struck her fancy. She dialed down the volume, then picked up the phone and dialed the number on the menu. It felt like she hadn't eaten well for a week, and she fully intended to correct this oversight.
On the rooftop opposite her loft, there was a man. No, there was a man, and he had a rifle. Carefully, he aimed the gun at the only window of Rowena's loft, then flicked a switch. A small LED flickered to life, signifying that an invisible laser beam was now bouncing off the glass. In sync with that, a small digital recorder started its work.
This was going to be one of those days for Matt Moody.
"I think you need an alarm system," he said, matter-of-fact-ly. "I mean, a siren, a dog, potato chips on the floor - something like that."
"Still trying to teach me?" she said, rising from beneath the blanket - and reaching for the .45 she'd stashed under it.
"I'm still your teacher. Unless you just wanted to get some sleep before you skip town..."
"No. I'm staying."
"Good. Then get dressed, something nice. It's Sunday, after all."
He rose from the chair and made his way over to the kitchen, intent on fixing coffee. Rowena drew the Colt from under the blanket and stashed it in the nightstand, then darted off towards the bathroom.
-------------
Despite Rowena's protests to the contrary, Mark declared her pale blue dress "pretty"; Rowena found that she had an easier time getting her mind off yesterday's adventures by exploiting the full range of clothing available to her. It was one of those rare, delicate things intended for springtime in Milano, baring some back while keeping a strong lock on her chest, and the hemline settled just a bit above her knees. Accounting for NYC's rather colder climate, she matched it with a cream-colored cardigan and a pair of pennyloafers. There was but one further concession to practicality, a long leather coat that would cover her entire dress when closed; there was little else that could fight off the windchill quite like it.
Of course, it also provided a convenient way for Rowena to hide her shoulder holster.
To Rowena's surprise, the car did not head East or South; instead Mark took her over the George Washington Bridge, weaving through the usual heavy traffic with an air of effortlessness that only came to the Big Apple's long-term residents. After spending a month on Manhattan and Staten Island, even the trace amounts of nature in Fort Lee were a welcome change for Brandon's daughter; she soaked up the green and the brown with her big hazel eyes. New Jersey - the Garden State; Rowena had heard that, quite ironically, New Jersey was home to the largest number of Superfund sites, contaminated land that required intervention from the government to get cleaned up. Probably not the right location for a spontaneous picnic.
The car pulled to a stop on a gravel driveway next to a rickety wooden building; Rowena surveyed the landscape and spotted nothing besides the road they'd come on and an impossibly white fence in the distance. Slowly, Rowena's grey matter began to put the puzzle together: this was a church, and if it hadn't been for the light shining through one of the windows, she would've called it abandoned. Behind her, Mark opened the trunk of his car and dropped his coat into it, beckoning to Rowena to do the same. She did, then followed Mark's gaze and let the gun follow the coat. The Enforcer nodded, then withdrew a duffel bag, closed the trunk and locked it. Out here, the wind wasn't as harsh as in the city, more of a slight chill that danced over her skin. With no coat or Kevlar vest, she felt a bit lonely and vulnerable; alive.
They entered, Mark leading the way; Rowena couldn't make out the faint trace of his body armor beneath the shirt, and began to seriously contemplate the possibility that he'd come here completely unarmed. Inside, the wood panelling had given way to the ravages of time, and the pews were empty; the light she'd seen from outside came from a bewildering array of candles gathered around the cross. This particular Jesus looked all the more suffering from the decay of the statue, but there was dignity in his features, and she recalled a stray line from a poem.
Bloodied, but unbowed.
"Where's the priest?" she asked.
"He'll be along shortly," he replied, dipped his hand into the holy water and made the sign of the cross. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."
With a heavy sigh, Mark moved through the pews and approached the cross; before he reached it, he fell to one knee and bowed his head. Rowena held her breath and listened as he whispered.
Peccantem me quotidie, et non me poenitentem,
Timor mortis conturbat me
Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio.
Miserere mei, Deus, et salva me.
Salva nos, Rowena thought, though she didn't care to repeat the prayer. Behind her, the door opened to admit a young man with fire-red hair; a quick glance revealed that he wore the collar, so she figured that he was the third man of this party and bowed her head respectfully.
"Hello, Marcus," the young priest called out; Mark rose in response and walked towards him, embracing him with a smile. "I see you've brought a friend."
"Yes, a student of mine. Introduce yourself, kid."
The priest turned to her; she shook his outstretched hand.
"Rowena Logan."
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Father Tallkirk. Has Marcus been gentle with you?"
"Not at all."
"It's good to know he hasn't gone soft, then. Do you know why we're here?"
"It's Sunday."
"Your sense of timing is excellent. Yes, that would be the day where people go to church. This is a church, we are people, all proceeds according to His plan."
"Tallkirk's Umbrella," Mark added by way of explanation. "I saved his life back in 93, he's been saving my soul ever since. I brought him into the fold last year."
"Terrifying as it is, even secret agents need someone to tell them that they're doing alright. Not that Marcus ever confesses..."
"Then why are we here?" Rowena asked, raising an eyebrow.
"To bask in His glory, of course. And so that I can take this" - Tallkirk grabbed the duffel from Mark and slung it over his shoulder - "and take it to the people who need it."
"What's in the bag?"
"You haven't told her?" Tallkirk asked Mark, who shrugged. "It's not my place to say. Until next week," the priest added, then walked back out the way he came. A small gust of wind blew in through a broken window, making the candles flicker, and Marcus stole another longing look at the cross.
"What's the lesson today?" Rowena asked. Mark ripped himself from the sight of the statue and turned to face her, some sort of emotion playing under the surface of his skin.
"It gets to you," he said, and that was that.
As they walked out, Rowena let her shoes drift over the wooden floor, almost stripping them off a few times but thinking better of it. Tallkirk was gone as silently as he'd come, leaving the two of them alone.
"A man could disappear here," she said.
"They'd never find him," Mark replied. "But we have work to do."
"Today?"
"I thought we'd cover some more close combat, but...I don't know. Doesn't have to be right now. Anything on your mind, kid?"
"...is that a swing set?"
She wandered off, pennyloafers clicking over the gravel as she approached a small playground behind the church. She thought it rather macabre that the whole thing was just to the other side of a cemetery, but it didn't matter to her; detachededly curious, she stepped onto the playground and sat down on the swing, making the old chains creak as they remembered how to move. Mark followed, his eyes darting around for danger he knew wasn't there until he settled down on the swing next to Rowena, straining both chains and frame close to the limits of their endurance.
"Deep revelations?" he asked.
"Just enjoying the quiet for a bit," she said, swinging a bit. "We had one like that in Rome. Less rust, though."
"I can't believe 'nox managed to cram playtime into your schedule."
"I hated the swing at home, though."
"Hm?"
"...I fell off. Broke my arm."
Mark laughed out loud. Rowena frowned and punched him in the side; he got up from his swing and circled around the set, looking over towards the church and the car.
"That's not funny."
"I'm just not seeing it. I imagine you shouted at the ground, told your arm to unbreak itself, pronto. I've been there, I'm like Jackie Chan when it comes to broken bones. I did it all and every time I can't wait to get moving again."
"But I'm ambidexterous. I could write, I could shoot...but that damn swing."
"So you got back on it and tamed the bronco?"
"Nope. I got home one day and the swing set was gone."
"...so you're making peace here?"
"In a sense. Heh, you know..."
"Yeah?"
"Would you mind giving me a push?"
"That's your father's job, kid."
"...just do it. Please."
For a few more swings, Rowena felt young.
-----------------
It was noon when Rowena got back to her loft; she locked the door behind her, kicked off the loafers and sauntered over to the kitchen countertop, picking a takeaway menu from the fridge as she passed. Mmh, Albanian, she thought as she browsed the offerings. Her left hand shot out towards the remote, switching the entertainment center to radio mode. After a few seconds, the heavy thumps of R&B filled the room; Rowena roller her eyes, then slipped the remote's buttons toward the next channel, pausing when she hit some acid jazz that struck her fancy. She dialed down the volume, then picked up the phone and dialed the number on the menu. It felt like she hadn't eaten well for a week, and she fully intended to correct this oversight.
On the rooftop opposite her loft, there was a man. No, there was a man, and he had a rifle. Carefully, he aimed the gun at the only window of Rowena's loft, then flicked a switch. A small LED flickered to life, signifying that an invisible laser beam was now bouncing off the glass. In sync with that, a small digital recorder started its work.
This was going to be one of those days for Matt Moody.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 11
It took all of five minutes for Rowena to clear her head and start thinking. By her own actions, she was proving this man - this monster - right; she felt frighteningly rational as she packed her stuff and began to consider her exit strategy. She bent her head around some notions that she thought should have come to a clear-thinking person right away, such as ratting out Mark to the police and getting into Witness Protection; heck, she was a model case for child endangerment, or even abuse. What kind of father would raise his daughter on a steady diet of combat training?
Wait.
She couldn't do that...no, she could do that, she could find a way, but she didn't want to. This was the family curse, it seemed: Having to choose. Speaking of which...Rowena grabbed the lockbox from under her bed and sorted through the small arsenal Mark had left her. It was pretty basic, but it would do to protect her from trouble for now. Her eyes focussed on the Ruger; almost absent-mindedly, she screwed the suppressor onto the gun, loaded it and chambered a round, then aimed the gun down at the window, imagining someone trying to hurt her. The sights swam slightly before her eyes. Look at the target, she thought, almost whispering to herself.
This was power.
The door creaked open; Rowena spun around on instinct, only stopping the reflex when she made out Trish's horrified face. For a second, she kept the gun up, not sure whether to get rid of the problem right there - Damn you, Simmons! -, but finally she forced the gun down.
"...Faye?"
"This really isn't a good time, Trish."
"I heard you shouting," Trish said by way of explanation for her presence, but her attention was obviously drawn to the open lockbox on the bed. Rowena had regained her bearings and walked over to the door, then closed it. Trish's head shot around, and there was that fear again - she was now in a closed room, and between her and the door there was a teenage girl with a suppressed firearm. "...I'm not gonna tell," Trish said, on the verge of panic.
"Huh? Oh, the gun. Not for you. Look," Rowena said, clicking the magazine free from the gun and pocketing it, "all safe."
"One in the chamber."
Rowena sheepishly cleared the chamber.
"I'm as nervous as you are, okay? I'm in a fucked-up situation here, and...how'd you know that?"
"Daddy was a cop," Trish said, still monosyllabic and almost scared out of wits. "Caught me playing with his Colt once. Got the big talk."
"You're safe, Trish. I'm not a psychopath, I'm not suicidal, I'm just getting the fuck out of here and I need to be prepared."
"Who are you?"
Rowena dumped the .22 into the lockbox and turned to Trish.
"I'm just a lost little girl."
"Right, and your uncle is a manager?" Trish's right hand rose to her head, and she slicked back some errant hair while drawing in breath to calm her raging heart. "Who are you? What do you do?"
"I'm not a killer."
"I don't...Faye, I wasn't even asking that!" She sat down on the bed, brushing away one of the 1911s that inched closer to her. "But you've got a fake ID and a room full of guns! I think I have a right to know."
"I don't know, really, I don't know anymore. I'm sorry you got pulled into this."
"When you came back...there was...blood on your uncle's shirt."
"Yes."
"And...you came in from the East."
"What are you getting at?"
Rowena noted with faint detachment that the entertainment center was now set up on the desk, which was a pity since she was about to leave; but it sufficed for Trish to flip it on and switch it to the local news. The scene was brightly lit, as filmed from a shaky chopper with a telephoto lens.
"...while firefighters are still trying to get the blaze under control as the New York Navy Yard continues to burn. The police have yet to issue a statement, but the entire area from the Yard to the Manhattan Bridge has been closed off for the night..."
"How's that?" Trish asked while she slowly regained her confidence. "Did he do this, Faye? Was he there?"
"...we were both there. I was driving."
"God. God! I...did you..."
"No! Just driving. And...he's not my uncle."
"Dammit! I should've...I should've known, I usually trust my creep alert. You have to get out. I'll, I guess I'll call you a taxi, okay?"
"I'm...thank you, Trish. For, like, everything. But no." Rowena walked over towards the bed and sat down next to Trish, then began to sort the guns back into the lockbox. "I'm not going to kill you."
"I think you said that already."
"Bears repeating," Rowena added. "I'm just trying to figure this out. I came here because I wanted to. I'm working with him because I wanted to. I don't think I'm insane, but then again, how would I know?"
"I'd know," Trish said. "I should know, anyway. '95, my...my friend, she died. I checked myself in the week after. Still can't bear being near knives."
"Knives?"
She rolled back the sleeve on her shirt, exposing a deep scar running over her left wrist.
"I called 911 right after I did it," Trish explained. "I wasn't cutting myself regularly or anything, I just wanted to make a salad and then I slipped a bit, and then...I just thought, This is going to take a deeper cut."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm officially too stupid to kill myself," she said, adding a nervous laugh. "So they had me on antidepressants for six weeks and I screamed myself hoarse because they wouldn't let me out. Therapy sucks. When I did get out, my Dad just gave me the deed on this block because he knew I'd never get a normal job. So I did the whole 'hippie latecomer' thing, weed, acid, mushrooms, all the good stuff. Dropped too much LSD, and went right back into the psych ward. And what was the first thing I did when Daddy sprung me? I bought a fucking bar."
"...wow."
"I'm sorry, I...I just babble when I'm scared. You see, sweetheart, you're the sanest person in this room. I'm just a stupid addict slash 'quitter' who likes to surround herself with temptation, and I'm all freaking out here while you sit there and are the eye of the fucking storm."
"Ataraxia. Part of the family curse."
"Ata-what?"
"Ata-ra-xia. Old greek, from the stoics. It means 'freedom from worry'. I think I'm headed there. My Dad has it, nothing ever fazes him. Ever. I still get upset over a lot of stuff, but it doesn't last long. It's like I...I just freak out for a bit, and then I move on."
"Then you can stop worrying about being insane, or a psycho killer or anything, right?"
"I wish. What do you think the shouting match was about?"
"I...I don't know, really, but I think that's good. I mean, you're thinking about it, how far gone can you be?"
"True. I just wish I knew what the right thing was."
"That's on my wish list, too. But, you know, all things considered...rather you than your not-uncle."
"Thanks for the moral support."
"Any time. By the way...I'm firing you. Sorry."
"Fair enough."
"It's just, you're either leaving, or..."
"Getting into the business," Rowena said. The two of them got up, and Rowena escorted Trish to the door.
"So," Trish asked, "are you staying, Faye?" Rowena pondered that for a bit, then finally cocked her head to the side. "I'm not leaving," she said. Trish smiled, then turned to walk down the stairs. "Rowena," Brandon's daughter said, and Trish froze in her step. "My name is Rowena."
In reply, Trish merely nodded and walked away. Rowena closed the door and locked it, then went back to the bed and threw herself onto it. Time to sleep.
Wait.
She couldn't do that...no, she could do that, she could find a way, but she didn't want to. This was the family curse, it seemed: Having to choose. Speaking of which...Rowena grabbed the lockbox from under her bed and sorted through the small arsenal Mark had left her. It was pretty basic, but it would do to protect her from trouble for now. Her eyes focussed on the Ruger; almost absent-mindedly, she screwed the suppressor onto the gun, loaded it and chambered a round, then aimed the gun down at the window, imagining someone trying to hurt her. The sights swam slightly before her eyes. Look at the target, she thought, almost whispering to herself.
This was power.
The door creaked open; Rowena spun around on instinct, only stopping the reflex when she made out Trish's horrified face. For a second, she kept the gun up, not sure whether to get rid of the problem right there - Damn you, Simmons! -, but finally she forced the gun down.
"...Faye?"
"This really isn't a good time, Trish."
"I heard you shouting," Trish said by way of explanation for her presence, but her attention was obviously drawn to the open lockbox on the bed. Rowena had regained her bearings and walked over to the door, then closed it. Trish's head shot around, and there was that fear again - she was now in a closed room, and between her and the door there was a teenage girl with a suppressed firearm. "...I'm not gonna tell," Trish said, on the verge of panic.
"Huh? Oh, the gun. Not for you. Look," Rowena said, clicking the magazine free from the gun and pocketing it, "all safe."
"One in the chamber."
Rowena sheepishly cleared the chamber.
"I'm as nervous as you are, okay? I'm in a fucked-up situation here, and...how'd you know that?"
"Daddy was a cop," Trish said, still monosyllabic and almost scared out of wits. "Caught me playing with his Colt once. Got the big talk."
"You're safe, Trish. I'm not a psychopath, I'm not suicidal, I'm just getting the fuck out of here and I need to be prepared."
"Who are you?"
Rowena dumped the .22 into the lockbox and turned to Trish.
"I'm just a lost little girl."
"Right, and your uncle is a manager?" Trish's right hand rose to her head, and she slicked back some errant hair while drawing in breath to calm her raging heart. "Who are you? What do you do?"
"I'm not a killer."
"I don't...Faye, I wasn't even asking that!" She sat down on the bed, brushing away one of the 1911s that inched closer to her. "But you've got a fake ID and a room full of guns! I think I have a right to know."
"I don't know, really, I don't know anymore. I'm sorry you got pulled into this."
"When you came back...there was...blood on your uncle's shirt."
"Yes."
"And...you came in from the East."
"What are you getting at?"
Rowena noted with faint detachment that the entertainment center was now set up on the desk, which was a pity since she was about to leave; but it sufficed for Trish to flip it on and switch it to the local news. The scene was brightly lit, as filmed from a shaky chopper with a telephoto lens.
"...while firefighters are still trying to get the blaze under control as the New York Navy Yard continues to burn. The police have yet to issue a statement, but the entire area from the Yard to the Manhattan Bridge has been closed off for the night..."
"How's that?" Trish asked while she slowly regained her confidence. "Did he do this, Faye? Was he there?"
"...we were both there. I was driving."
"God. God! I...did you..."
"No! Just driving. And...he's not my uncle."
"Dammit! I should've...I should've known, I usually trust my creep alert. You have to get out. I'll, I guess I'll call you a taxi, okay?"
"I'm...thank you, Trish. For, like, everything. But no." Rowena walked over towards the bed and sat down next to Trish, then began to sort the guns back into the lockbox. "I'm not going to kill you."
"I think you said that already."
"Bears repeating," Rowena added. "I'm just trying to figure this out. I came here because I wanted to. I'm working with him because I wanted to. I don't think I'm insane, but then again, how would I know?"
"I'd know," Trish said. "I should know, anyway. '95, my...my friend, she died. I checked myself in the week after. Still can't bear being near knives."
"Knives?"
She rolled back the sleeve on her shirt, exposing a deep scar running over her left wrist.
"I called 911 right after I did it," Trish explained. "I wasn't cutting myself regularly or anything, I just wanted to make a salad and then I slipped a bit, and then...I just thought, This is going to take a deeper cut."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm officially too stupid to kill myself," she said, adding a nervous laugh. "So they had me on antidepressants for six weeks and I screamed myself hoarse because they wouldn't let me out. Therapy sucks. When I did get out, my Dad just gave me the deed on this block because he knew I'd never get a normal job. So I did the whole 'hippie latecomer' thing, weed, acid, mushrooms, all the good stuff. Dropped too much LSD, and went right back into the psych ward. And what was the first thing I did when Daddy sprung me? I bought a fucking bar."
"...wow."
"I'm sorry, I...I just babble when I'm scared. You see, sweetheart, you're the sanest person in this room. I'm just a stupid addict slash 'quitter' who likes to surround herself with temptation, and I'm all freaking out here while you sit there and are the eye of the fucking storm."
"Ataraxia. Part of the family curse."
"Ata-what?"
"Ata-ra-xia. Old greek, from the stoics. It means 'freedom from worry'. I think I'm headed there. My Dad has it, nothing ever fazes him. Ever. I still get upset over a lot of stuff, but it doesn't last long. It's like I...I just freak out for a bit, and then I move on."
"Then you can stop worrying about being insane, or a psycho killer or anything, right?"
"I wish. What do you think the shouting match was about?"
"I...I don't know, really, but I think that's good. I mean, you're thinking about it, how far gone can you be?"
"True. I just wish I knew what the right thing was."
"That's on my wish list, too. But, you know, all things considered...rather you than your not-uncle."
"Thanks for the moral support."
"Any time. By the way...I'm firing you. Sorry."
"Fair enough."
"It's just, you're either leaving, or..."
"Getting into the business," Rowena said. The two of them got up, and Rowena escorted Trish to the door.
"So," Trish asked, "are you staying, Faye?" Rowena pondered that for a bit, then finally cocked her head to the side. "I'm not leaving," she said. Trish smiled, then turned to walk down the stairs. "Rowena," Brandon's daughter said, and Trish froze in her step. "My name is Rowena."
In reply, Trish merely nodded and walked away. Rowena closed the door and locked it, then went back to the bed and threw herself onto it. Time to sleep.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 10
From a strategic point of view, Mark should have driven to the Staten Island facility, where there was less chance of them being noticed - and where Mark would have an easier time restraining Rowena, should it come out that he’d pushed her too far. But that was his turf, and he figured bringing Rowena “home” would be better for her. His trail bisected Manhattan, rolling from the bridge down to the Meatpacking District, ducking and weaving through the evening traffic while Rowena just held on.
Mark stashed the bike in another alley and walked towards the apartment house; he had to keep Rowena ahead of him and occasionally use his presence to prevent her from wandering off. To an outside observer, nothing seemed to be amiss, but Mark could read the cues from her gait. Several times, she seemed to tense up and prepare to twitch away to the side, eventually running away from Mark to another kind of darkness. In this respect, Mark fancied himself her professional conscience, reinforcing her impulse to keep herself steady.
Rowena wrapped her arms around her chest to fight the cold of a New York City night, then almost recoiled when she saw the little stains of blood she was leaving. It was good that she went into the building first, because Mark’s glance to the side revealed Trish standing at the next corner, puffing a cigarette and staring straight back at Mark. There was no way to tell if she could see any details from there, but she didn’t look happy.
Mark followed Rowena up the stairs and began to run corpse disposal scenarios in his head.
Once inside the loft, Rowena darted for the bathroom; Mark grabbed a trash bag and dumped his coat into it - under the harsh light here, it was obvious that the coat’s front and sleeves were splattered with hundreds of little blood droplets, and the inside had brushed up against the vest. Mark went for the “cleaning” kit and deployed some dropsheet, then began to systematically strip clothing and gear. The truth was that he’d lost sight of Adam for a bit in the shootout, so when it was time to kill the Yakuza, one of them had been too close for a clean gunshot. Mark was forced to doubletap Bob with his USP, and then he got Adam in the jugular with his combat knife - a quick, if messy solution. He was wearing the results, literally, so when he had finally identified and bagged everything bloody, the only thing left was his pants and underwear.
Rowena was luckier by virtue of only grabbing some blood from Mark’s vest. Washing her hands wasn’t so bad, really; at first, she felt like she had to laugh when she remembered MacBeth and muttered “Out, damned spot!”, but nothing really happened with that. It washed off, just like grease or paint. She even scrubbed her fingernails, but in the end she just called it quits after getting clean water for a minute and moved on to her shirt. There was some blood on it, but it hadn’t moved on to any other parts of her clothes yet. She stripped it off, walked out and dumped the shirt into the trash bag Mark was holding out just for that purpose. After Mark sealed the bag with a roll of duck tape, he grabbed a chair and sat down, while Rowena just threw herself onto the bed and turned onto her back to stare at the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked. It was a stupid question, he knew, but he had to start somewhere.
“I’m not screaming...”
“Most people think they’ll scream or faint or just go straight insane when they’re in the thick of it like that. I’ve never seen it happen,” he said in a lecturing tone, as if the whole thing was a carefully prepared speech. “Ever heard about PTSD? Soldiers get it all the time, if you believe the TV. But even they don’t run away screaming. It’s the little things that fuck you up. Paranoia, unexplained fears, that nagging feeling in the back of your head whenever you look at the waste of wars waged with indecision.”
“...”
“We've been gifted with the ruthlessness we need to fight, and you will be able to carry on even if it feels like you're dying inside. We are the killers, the warriors, the soldiers. This is your legacy.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Why, because humans are basically decent? You didn’t grow up in a bomb shelter with rainbow elves blowing sugar up your ass, kid. ‘nox must’ve clued you in soon.”
Mark dragged the chair to Rowena’s bed and sat down again.
“How did you get blooded?”
---
The first thing she remembered. Brandon’s face, grim and determined. He was carrying her while red lights flashed all around them, the klaxons nearly deafening her. She heard him fire his handgun and clung to him ever closer; his left arm pulled her in tight, as if the blanket he was carrying her in could protect her from all the evil around them.
There was red all over him when they got out of that place.
---
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Rowena finally said.
"Perhaps he even got his own hands dirty for that, just to show you how it's done."
"Fuck you." Rowena scrambled off the bed and closed in on Mark, who granted her the psychological height advantage by remaining seated. "Goddammit, you're just a psycho like the rest of them."
"Perhaps we just know what's necessary."
"Necessary? Are you trying to fucking bullshit me? You just run around having your twisted little fun while everybody else gets sucked into the crossfire. You're not the tiniest fucking shred better than the Shop..."
There was a sliver of pain in Rowena's knee, but she was on the ground before she could contemplate it fully.
He just kicked out my knee, she realized. She felt his weight on her back, almost crushing her delicate body, then his arm wrapped around her neck in something that could have become a sleeper hold given half a chance.
"There are about 40,000 cops in this city, give or take a couple," Mark said, his voice brutally even. "If I put my mind to fucking you up - how many do you think it would take to save you?"
"Ten..."
"To beat me up? Sure, if they can find me. But at that point I've already done whatever I want to do to you. Wake up, kid. You're not safe. Not from me, not from the Shop, not from anyone who really wants to hurt you and the people you care about. You are the only one who can protect yourself, and no amount of denial is going to change that."
"Let me go."
"No. What are you going to do about it?"
Rowena did the first thing that came to her mind; she arched up her leg and tried to kick Mark, but between the stress, not seeing anything and her still-lacking mobility, nothing came of it.
"What would you do," Mark said, ignoring her squirming, "if the people who want you dead won't play fair, ever? If they keep using your compassion against you, if they can get away with everything you let them do? Are you going to scream for someone else to take them down, or are you going to do what you came here for and learn how to fight back on their terms?"
Finally, he eased his grip and got off her, letting her get back up.
"You don't have to like me, kid. It might even help if you hate me and everything that I stand for. But you know that what I want to teach you is important. Yes, we kill people. We kill a lot of them and a good couple of them probably don't deserve it. But if that is what it takes, I'll do it. And trust me, you will, too. Is it worth it? I don't know, but do you think the Shop will just call it quits when we say 'Stop the conspiracy, I want to get off' ?"
"Out," she finally said. "Get the fuck out."
"I'll be back tomorrow," Mark said. "If you're still here then, we'll continue where we left off."
He walked out of the loft with the garbage back, leaving Rowena behind without any evidence of the night's slaughter. She could hear his footsteps, well-paced and even, descending the stairs. Then, the front door squeaked; after a bit, the motorcycle howled to life and began to fade into the distance.
The loft's door was still slightly ajar, as if to say that it wasn't done letting people walk out of this place.
Mark stashed the bike in another alley and walked towards the apartment house; he had to keep Rowena ahead of him and occasionally use his presence to prevent her from wandering off. To an outside observer, nothing seemed to be amiss, but Mark could read the cues from her gait. Several times, she seemed to tense up and prepare to twitch away to the side, eventually running away from Mark to another kind of darkness. In this respect, Mark fancied himself her professional conscience, reinforcing her impulse to keep herself steady.
Rowena wrapped her arms around her chest to fight the cold of a New York City night, then almost recoiled when she saw the little stains of blood she was leaving. It was good that she went into the building first, because Mark’s glance to the side revealed Trish standing at the next corner, puffing a cigarette and staring straight back at Mark. There was no way to tell if she could see any details from there, but she didn’t look happy.
Mark followed Rowena up the stairs and began to run corpse disposal scenarios in his head.
Once inside the loft, Rowena darted for the bathroom; Mark grabbed a trash bag and dumped his coat into it - under the harsh light here, it was obvious that the coat’s front and sleeves were splattered with hundreds of little blood droplets, and the inside had brushed up against the vest. Mark went for the “cleaning” kit and deployed some dropsheet, then began to systematically strip clothing and gear. The truth was that he’d lost sight of Adam for a bit in the shootout, so when it was time to kill the Yakuza, one of them had been too close for a clean gunshot. Mark was forced to doubletap Bob with his USP, and then he got Adam in the jugular with his combat knife - a quick, if messy solution. He was wearing the results, literally, so when he had finally identified and bagged everything bloody, the only thing left was his pants and underwear.
Rowena was luckier by virtue of only grabbing some blood from Mark’s vest. Washing her hands wasn’t so bad, really; at first, she felt like she had to laugh when she remembered MacBeth and muttered “Out, damned spot!”, but nothing really happened with that. It washed off, just like grease or paint. She even scrubbed her fingernails, but in the end she just called it quits after getting clean water for a minute and moved on to her shirt. There was some blood on it, but it hadn’t moved on to any other parts of her clothes yet. She stripped it off, walked out and dumped the shirt into the trash bag Mark was holding out just for that purpose. After Mark sealed the bag with a roll of duck tape, he grabbed a chair and sat down, while Rowena just threw herself onto the bed and turned onto her back to stare at the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked. It was a stupid question, he knew, but he had to start somewhere.
“I’m not screaming...”
“Most people think they’ll scream or faint or just go straight insane when they’re in the thick of it like that. I’ve never seen it happen,” he said in a lecturing tone, as if the whole thing was a carefully prepared speech. “Ever heard about PTSD? Soldiers get it all the time, if you believe the TV. But even they don’t run away screaming. It’s the little things that fuck you up. Paranoia, unexplained fears, that nagging feeling in the back of your head whenever you look at the waste of wars waged with indecision.”
“...”
“We've been gifted with the ruthlessness we need to fight, and you will be able to carry on even if it feels like you're dying inside. We are the killers, the warriors, the soldiers. This is your legacy.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Why, because humans are basically decent? You didn’t grow up in a bomb shelter with rainbow elves blowing sugar up your ass, kid. ‘nox must’ve clued you in soon.”
Mark dragged the chair to Rowena’s bed and sat down again.
“How did you get blooded?”
---
The first thing she remembered. Brandon’s face, grim and determined. He was carrying her while red lights flashed all around them, the klaxons nearly deafening her. She heard him fire his handgun and clung to him ever closer; his left arm pulled her in tight, as if the blanket he was carrying her in could protect her from all the evil around them.
There was red all over him when they got out of that place.
---
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Rowena finally said.
"Perhaps he even got his own hands dirty for that, just to show you how it's done."
"Fuck you." Rowena scrambled off the bed and closed in on Mark, who granted her the psychological height advantage by remaining seated. "Goddammit, you're just a psycho like the rest of them."
"Perhaps we just know what's necessary."
"Necessary? Are you trying to fucking bullshit me? You just run around having your twisted little fun while everybody else gets sucked into the crossfire. You're not the tiniest fucking shred better than the Shop..."
There was a sliver of pain in Rowena's knee, but she was on the ground before she could contemplate it fully.
He just kicked out my knee, she realized. She felt his weight on her back, almost crushing her delicate body, then his arm wrapped around her neck in something that could have become a sleeper hold given half a chance.
"There are about 40,000 cops in this city, give or take a couple," Mark said, his voice brutally even. "If I put my mind to fucking you up - how many do you think it would take to save you?"
"Ten..."
"To beat me up? Sure, if they can find me. But at that point I've already done whatever I want to do to you. Wake up, kid. You're not safe. Not from me, not from the Shop, not from anyone who really wants to hurt you and the people you care about. You are the only one who can protect yourself, and no amount of denial is going to change that."
"Let me go."
"No. What are you going to do about it?"
Rowena did the first thing that came to her mind; she arched up her leg and tried to kick Mark, but between the stress, not seeing anything and her still-lacking mobility, nothing came of it.
"What would you do," Mark said, ignoring her squirming, "if the people who want you dead won't play fair, ever? If they keep using your compassion against you, if they can get away with everything you let them do? Are you going to scream for someone else to take them down, or are you going to do what you came here for and learn how to fight back on their terms?"
Finally, he eased his grip and got off her, letting her get back up.
"You don't have to like me, kid. It might even help if you hate me and everything that I stand for. But you know that what I want to teach you is important. Yes, we kill people. We kill a lot of them and a good couple of them probably don't deserve it. But if that is what it takes, I'll do it. And trust me, you will, too. Is it worth it? I don't know, but do you think the Shop will just call it quits when we say 'Stop the conspiracy, I want to get off' ?"
"Out," she finally said. "Get the fuck out."
"I'll be back tomorrow," Mark said. "If you're still here then, we'll continue where we left off."
He walked out of the loft with the garbage back, leaving Rowena behind without any evidence of the night's slaughter. She could hear his footsteps, well-paced and even, descending the stairs. Then, the front door squeaked; after a bit, the motorcycle howled to life and began to fade into the distance.
The loft's door was still slightly ajar, as if to say that it wasn't done letting people walk out of this place.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 9
Outside the bar, Rowena came to a stop and surveyed the scene. No Mark to be seen; this time she really did curse out loud - “Motherfucking little bastard assh...” - well, she cursed out loud, and a lot. Her ears guided her eyes towards the roar of a V8 tearing down the street, and what came to a halt a few meters away from her did indeed bear some passing resemblance to an inconspicious car. It was a goddamn Audi RS 4 in drab grey, she realized, and then the driver’s window lowered and Mark poked his head out.
“Get in!”
Rowena hauled herself into the car and onto the back seat; her eyes met with those of a young man of Asian heritage. A short look at the shotgun position up front revealed a second person of roughly equivalent physical configuration.
“Introductions, then,” Mark began. “Adam, Bob, this is Carla. Carla, these are Adam and Bob.”
Codenames, Rowena thought; she suppressed a groan. “Who’s who?”
All three guys laughed; Rowena decided that the guy up front should be Adam, if only for easy reference.
“Why’d we pick up a newbie?” Bob asked, loading a magazine into his handgun.
“Trainee,” Mark replied. “She needs experience, we need a getaway driver.”
“Can you drive, girl?” Adam spat out, not looking at her.
“...yeah,” Rowena semi-flubbed.
“Congratulations, Carla,” Mark said. “You’re the backup.”
“Back then, we had experienced drivers for this,” Adam said.
“Everybody has to start somewhere,” Mark retorted. “Besides, we’ve got your guys as backup. We go in there, do our job right, we’ll head home at the speed limit and stop at all the red lights.”
“Oh, you’re lucky, Carla,” Bob finally threw in as he racked the slide. “Your boss is putting on the soft rock, he’ll fuck you gently. You sure you don’t wanna blood her?”
“Positive,” Mark replied.
Rowena leaned back and evaluated her options. Bailing out of the car was steadily rising in her favor...
A few minutes later, Mark stopped the car in a small, dank alley smack in the middle of a Bronx industrial compound; a large, illuminated warehouse stood about fifty meters away from them, and the three professionals all grabbed their gear and got out of the car. Rowena followed suit, watched Adam and Bob walk into the light carrying a metal suitcase each, then turned to Mark.
“You son of a bitch!”
“I’ll thank you not to insult my mother,” the Enforcer said, drawing a Bizon-3 SMG from under his coat. “You take the driver’s seat, wait for us. If we’re not back in five, get the fuck out and lose the car.”
In Mark’s world, that passed for a detailed explanation. For Rowena, it just meant doing what he said and watching him walk off loaded with guns. He and the Asians were now closing in on the location. Out of the darkness, a guard emerged, telling them off, but then Adam’s suitcase spat fire - it took Rowena a moment to realise that she’d just seen her first actual murder, and the experience was strangely unaffecting. The gunshots rang through her head, but it felt hollow.
Then, suddenly, there was a ton of hollowness.
The guys were now spitting automatic fire, Mark from his SMG and the Asians from their respective suitcases - Rowena recognised the weapon from something John Done had showed her: these were camouflaged MP5Ks. They entered the warehouse, and there was more gunfire, more screams, and the flashes of light that played off the windows set into the wall above mixing in with the oppressive fluorescent lighting. It was loud, even from a distance and behind the car windows, but then it was over in a flash, and there was blessed silence for a bit.
Two more gunshots, loud and clear. After handling one for a few hours, Rowena recognised the sound of a .45 when she heard it.
Finally, one figure jogged back out, carrying a large duffel bag. She recognised Mark from his coat and the reflection of the light’s glare on his ballistic sunglasses. She yanked the ignition just as she heard police klaxons coming to life nearby; meanwhile, Mark closed the distance, briefly opened the rear door to dump the duffel, then darted towards the passenger’s side and took the shotgun position.
“Drive,” he said.
“...okay.” Rowena reached for the shift and reflexively wanted to push it forward to D, then realized that there was no D on it. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I can’t drive stick. I mean, I know, I tried, I just can't do it.”
“Then you’ll learn. Found the gas and brakes?”
The klaxons closed in.
“Yes, yes, I have them!”
“Good, press the other pedal.”
“Got it!”
Mark grabbed the stick and put it into first gear.
“Do it."
A police car pulled to a stop a few meters in front of them; Rowena worked the pedals, but all she got was a good old-fashioned stall.
"Shit!" she shouted, but Mark grabbed her hand and forced it onto the keys.
"You try again," he said, then got out of the car and jumped the hood toward the cop car, tackling the first officer just as he was trying to get out of the car. The second cop knew the value of the weapon he was driving and put the car into reverse, dragging Mark with him until the Enforcer pulled the passenger door open and jumped in.
Rowena kept trying to start the car, but it just wouldn't budge. This was just like Milano all over again, but that day Done had just switched her to an automatic and called it a day. It wasn't so hard, she kept telling herself, she just had to ease off on the clutch and slowly put weight onto the throttle until it started moving; heck, once it was moving, Done had said, things became much easier.
"Come on!" she pleaded with the car, stalling again.
In the meantime, Mark and the cop had entered into the very definition of close-quarters combat; the cop had a gun out, which complicated things for the Enforcer - he could've won this with his USP, but he wasn't in the business of killing cops. The car finally bumped into a metal post, smacking the cop's arm into the dashboard; Mark capitalized on the opening and gave him a good whack against the side of his head. The cop slumped over almost without delay, hanging from his seatbelt with his head on the wheel and the horn blaring. Mark got out just in time to watch more cop cars pulling closer; he raised the Bizon and started laying down suppressive fire while he headed back towards the Audi.
Rowena took a deep breath, turned the ignition, then just sat there for a second and felt the car, heard the engine purr. She zoned out and steadied her trembling hands.
"Please," she said, her voice low and even. She eased off the clutch and lightfooted the throttle.
The car lurched forward and kept rolling.
“Woah!” Rowena shouted as she grabbed the steering wheel and bashed it to the side, pulling the car into a slow turn. It came up beside Mark, who was busy keeping the cops down. She pulled up to him, careful not to stop again, and picked up more speed; Mark had to jog to get up to the car, yanked the passenger door open and took his place with a smile on his face.
“Nice work. Now, next lesson. Use the clutch again and go to second gear...” Mark lowered the window on his side, then opened up fire with his Bizon on another closing cop car; it didn’t get hit, but it swerved off the road and allowed Rowena to head for the compound’s exit. She fumbled around a bit, but eventually she did the switch and stepped on the gas again, picking up speed.
“Now, the engine RPM is critical,” Mark added, his next burst heading backward to discourage pursuit. “You’ve got the red back here, where you don’t wanna go. Hear how the engine growls? You're past 3000, you should shift up again.”
Rowena went to third, slowly but without slipping.
“Good girl!” Mark said, pulling his body back in. “Keep picking up speed.”
“There’s a gate ahead,” Rowena said, slightly panicked as her attention returned to the road.
“You’re driving the master key, kid. Brace yourself...”
The A-Team couldn’t have done it better; Rowena smashed the car through the gate, saw the curve just ahead and stepped on the brakes, powersliding the car into the curve with some help from the heavy rear end. However, her perfect maneuver was somewhat marred when she worked the clutch too quickly, stalling the engine.
“Shit!”
“We’ll just start over, we’ve got time,” Mark said, leaned back out of the window and fired again. “Restart, first gear, shift up.”
Rowena did just that, and within a few seconds the car was moving again. This time, the road was clear and straight, so Rowena slowly shifted up to fourth gear and settled the Audi into a comfortable cruising speed. The cops were sticking to the compound, but a few unmarked SUVs followed at a distance.
“Explanation, now!” Rowena demanded.
“Adam and Bob won’t be joining us,” Mark said, nonchalently pressing a button marked “1” on a small remote. In the distance behind them, the warehouse went up in a small fireball. “Tsk, tsk. I think those kerosene tanks weren’t up to code.”
“What did we just do?”
“The cartels are trying to get more of their junk into town. Well, there’s not gonna be any oxidado dealing on my watch.”
“Huh?”
“You know, crack? But worse.”
“And the Asians?”
“Japanese. Yakuza don’t like competition when they push,” Mark explained while reloading the Bizon-3 on his lap.
“Yes, but why did you kill them?”
“They would have taken the drugs and sold them. Besides, the Triads love fucking with the Yakuza, and they pay well...”
“What about the mafia?”
“Down here? What kinda shithole city do you take this for?”
Rowena’s retort was cut off by a burst of firepower ripping the rear window to shreds.
“Oh, there’s the backup,” Mark said, climbing onto the back seats.
“If we crash, the drugs burn. They can’t be that stupid.”
“They know we know they want the drugs.”
“So it’s like a peace offer? We toss the drugs, they leave us alone?”
“You’re catching on, kid. Keep weaving as long as you can. Oh, and take a left there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Manhatten Bridge, lower level. Just follow the signs, can’t miss it.”
The Audi hammered past a sign while Mark set to work on the duffel.
“That sign there said the bridge was out.”
“Yeah, they’re renovating the lower level. Another walkway or some shit like that, don’t ask me why they had to close the road.”
“Uh, there’s a roadblock ahead...”
“Master key,” Mark replied cooly while another burst of firepower splashed down the side of the car, putting a very concerning hole through the dashboard. “That’s okay, it’s a tough car,” Mark said, sounding like he almost believed that.
Rowena didn’t even bother replying; instead, she devoted her focus to ramming the car through another obstacle. By now, her ears were totally focussed on listening to the engine, and with a deft move she downshifted for a sharp curve without thinking about it. The car screamed around the curve and took some guiderail with it - Rowena gritted her teeth and yanked the wheel once more, cursing that the AWD wasn't really as helpful as she'd thought. Finally, the car jumped a small bump and dropped onto the lower level of the Manhatten Bridge, blissfully empty of its usual traffic. Behind them, another SUV came rushing, with a Yakuza hanging out of the passenger window with an MP5K.
“Comfortable with the controls now?” Mark asked and threw the duffel aside.
“I think I got it now, yeah.”
“Good.” Mark ripped away a blanket, and the next thing Rowena heard was the sound of an M249's bolt being closed. "Just keep her steady.”
Mark bashed away the last remnants of the rear window, then propped the bipod on the windowframe, giving himself a clear field of fire. Even with a bipod, there wasn’t much accuracy to be had in a driving car, but he just started firing and poured fire into the car behind them. The whole massacre showed up in the rear view mirror, and it was so painful to watch that Rowena wished the car would just explode; instead, it careened out of control and crashed through the guiderails, ending up as a total wreck - but it didn’t blow up, and there wasn’t even any fire.
This was not especially merciful (except to the CSI guys), because she was pretty sure that Mark had totally wasted everyone in the passenger cabin.
“Stop here,” Mark said as he secured the weapon; the car pulled to a stop just past the bridge and Rowena spotted another SUV following them over the bridge. Mark dumped the duffel out of the car, stowed the machinegun and climbed back to the passenger's seat. “Okay, drive.”
Sure enough, the SUV stopped to pick up the duffel instead of following them further.
“Did we just give these guys what they wanted?”
“I don’t think they’ll enjoy it for long.”
“There’s no cops to arrest them.”
“Who’s talking about cops, kid?”
Mark held up the remote detonator with a grin.
“You’ll note it has two buttons,” he said, then pressed “2”. Another, smaller explosion went off behind them, incinerating the Yakuza SUV and everyone in it.
Shortly thereafter, the Audi disappeared into the East River while Mark led Rowena into an alley; sure enough, one of Fade’s psi-punks was waiting for them with a motorcycle and disappeared into the night before Mark had properly seated himself and started the engine.
“You look like you need a ride, kid.”
Rowena nodded silently, then climbed onto the back and held on to Mark as he pulled out onto the street. With his coat flapping in the wind, Rowena’s hands found purchase on his body armor. It was slick with blood, but from the lack of holes, Rowena inferred that it was not Mark’s. Things were snapping into focus for her at a rapid clip now; how she’d just helped this man kill more than a dozen people, and how she didn’t feel anything right now.
John Done had told her that humans were predators. Now she believed it, too.
“Get in!”
Rowena hauled herself into the car and onto the back seat; her eyes met with those of a young man of Asian heritage. A short look at the shotgun position up front revealed a second person of roughly equivalent physical configuration.
“Introductions, then,” Mark began. “Adam, Bob, this is Carla. Carla, these are Adam and Bob.”
Codenames, Rowena thought; she suppressed a groan. “Who’s who?”
All three guys laughed; Rowena decided that the guy up front should be Adam, if only for easy reference.
“Why’d we pick up a newbie?” Bob asked, loading a magazine into his handgun.
“Trainee,” Mark replied. “She needs experience, we need a getaway driver.”
“Can you drive, girl?” Adam spat out, not looking at her.
“...yeah,” Rowena semi-flubbed.
“Congratulations, Carla,” Mark said. “You’re the backup.”
“Back then, we had experienced drivers for this,” Adam said.
“Everybody has to start somewhere,” Mark retorted. “Besides, we’ve got your guys as backup. We go in there, do our job right, we’ll head home at the speed limit and stop at all the red lights.”
“Oh, you’re lucky, Carla,” Bob finally threw in as he racked the slide. “Your boss is putting on the soft rock, he’ll fuck you gently. You sure you don’t wanna blood her?”
“Positive,” Mark replied.
Rowena leaned back and evaluated her options. Bailing out of the car was steadily rising in her favor...
A few minutes later, Mark stopped the car in a small, dank alley smack in the middle of a Bronx industrial compound; a large, illuminated warehouse stood about fifty meters away from them, and the three professionals all grabbed their gear and got out of the car. Rowena followed suit, watched Adam and Bob walk into the light carrying a metal suitcase each, then turned to Mark.
“You son of a bitch!”
“I’ll thank you not to insult my mother,” the Enforcer said, drawing a Bizon-3 SMG from under his coat. “You take the driver’s seat, wait for us. If we’re not back in five, get the fuck out and lose the car.”
In Mark’s world, that passed for a detailed explanation. For Rowena, it just meant doing what he said and watching him walk off loaded with guns. He and the Asians were now closing in on the location. Out of the darkness, a guard emerged, telling them off, but then Adam’s suitcase spat fire - it took Rowena a moment to realise that she’d just seen her first actual murder, and the experience was strangely unaffecting. The gunshots rang through her head, but it felt hollow.
Then, suddenly, there was a ton of hollowness.
The guys were now spitting automatic fire, Mark from his SMG and the Asians from their respective suitcases - Rowena recognised the weapon from something John Done had showed her: these were camouflaged MP5Ks. They entered the warehouse, and there was more gunfire, more screams, and the flashes of light that played off the windows set into the wall above mixing in with the oppressive fluorescent lighting. It was loud, even from a distance and behind the car windows, but then it was over in a flash, and there was blessed silence for a bit.
Two more gunshots, loud and clear. After handling one for a few hours, Rowena recognised the sound of a .45 when she heard it.
Finally, one figure jogged back out, carrying a large duffel bag. She recognised Mark from his coat and the reflection of the light’s glare on his ballistic sunglasses. She yanked the ignition just as she heard police klaxons coming to life nearby; meanwhile, Mark closed the distance, briefly opened the rear door to dump the duffel, then darted towards the passenger’s side and took the shotgun position.
“Drive,” he said.
“...okay.” Rowena reached for the shift and reflexively wanted to push it forward to D, then realized that there was no D on it. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I can’t drive stick. I mean, I know, I tried, I just can't do it.”
“Then you’ll learn. Found the gas and brakes?”
The klaxons closed in.
“Yes, yes, I have them!”
“Good, press the other pedal.”
“Got it!”
Mark grabbed the stick and put it into first gear.
“Do it."
A police car pulled to a stop a few meters in front of them; Rowena worked the pedals, but all she got was a good old-fashioned stall.
"Shit!" she shouted, but Mark grabbed her hand and forced it onto the keys.
"You try again," he said, then got out of the car and jumped the hood toward the cop car, tackling the first officer just as he was trying to get out of the car. The second cop knew the value of the weapon he was driving and put the car into reverse, dragging Mark with him until the Enforcer pulled the passenger door open and jumped in.
Rowena kept trying to start the car, but it just wouldn't budge. This was just like Milano all over again, but that day Done had just switched her to an automatic and called it a day. It wasn't so hard, she kept telling herself, she just had to ease off on the clutch and slowly put weight onto the throttle until it started moving; heck, once it was moving, Done had said, things became much easier.
"Come on!" she pleaded with the car, stalling again.
In the meantime, Mark and the cop had entered into the very definition of close-quarters combat; the cop had a gun out, which complicated things for the Enforcer - he could've won this with his USP, but he wasn't in the business of killing cops. The car finally bumped into a metal post, smacking the cop's arm into the dashboard; Mark capitalized on the opening and gave him a good whack against the side of his head. The cop slumped over almost without delay, hanging from his seatbelt with his head on the wheel and the horn blaring. Mark got out just in time to watch more cop cars pulling closer; he raised the Bizon and started laying down suppressive fire while he headed back towards the Audi.
Rowena took a deep breath, turned the ignition, then just sat there for a second and felt the car, heard the engine purr. She zoned out and steadied her trembling hands.
"Please," she said, her voice low and even. She eased off the clutch and lightfooted the throttle.
The car lurched forward and kept rolling.
“Woah!” Rowena shouted as she grabbed the steering wheel and bashed it to the side, pulling the car into a slow turn. It came up beside Mark, who was busy keeping the cops down. She pulled up to him, careful not to stop again, and picked up more speed; Mark had to jog to get up to the car, yanked the passenger door open and took his place with a smile on his face.
“Nice work. Now, next lesson. Use the clutch again and go to second gear...” Mark lowered the window on his side, then opened up fire with his Bizon on another closing cop car; it didn’t get hit, but it swerved off the road and allowed Rowena to head for the compound’s exit. She fumbled around a bit, but eventually she did the switch and stepped on the gas again, picking up speed.
“Now, the engine RPM is critical,” Mark added, his next burst heading backward to discourage pursuit. “You’ve got the red back here, where you don’t wanna go. Hear how the engine growls? You're past 3000, you should shift up again.”
Rowena went to third, slowly but without slipping.
“Good girl!” Mark said, pulling his body back in. “Keep picking up speed.”
“There’s a gate ahead,” Rowena said, slightly panicked as her attention returned to the road.
“You’re driving the master key, kid. Brace yourself...”
The A-Team couldn’t have done it better; Rowena smashed the car through the gate, saw the curve just ahead and stepped on the brakes, powersliding the car into the curve with some help from the heavy rear end. However, her perfect maneuver was somewhat marred when she worked the clutch too quickly, stalling the engine.
“Shit!”
“We’ll just start over, we’ve got time,” Mark said, leaned back out of the window and fired again. “Restart, first gear, shift up.”
Rowena did just that, and within a few seconds the car was moving again. This time, the road was clear and straight, so Rowena slowly shifted up to fourth gear and settled the Audi into a comfortable cruising speed. The cops were sticking to the compound, but a few unmarked SUVs followed at a distance.
“Explanation, now!” Rowena demanded.
“Adam and Bob won’t be joining us,” Mark said, nonchalently pressing a button marked “1” on a small remote. In the distance behind them, the warehouse went up in a small fireball. “Tsk, tsk. I think those kerosene tanks weren’t up to code.”
“What did we just do?”
“The cartels are trying to get more of their junk into town. Well, there’s not gonna be any oxidado dealing on my watch.”
“Huh?”
“You know, crack? But worse.”
“And the Asians?”
“Japanese. Yakuza don’t like competition when they push,” Mark explained while reloading the Bizon-3 on his lap.
“Yes, but why did you kill them?”
“They would have taken the drugs and sold them. Besides, the Triads love fucking with the Yakuza, and they pay well...”
“What about the mafia?”
“Down here? What kinda shithole city do you take this for?”
Rowena’s retort was cut off by a burst of firepower ripping the rear window to shreds.
“Oh, there’s the backup,” Mark said, climbing onto the back seats.
“If we crash, the drugs burn. They can’t be that stupid.”
“They know we know they want the drugs.”
“So it’s like a peace offer? We toss the drugs, they leave us alone?”
“You’re catching on, kid. Keep weaving as long as you can. Oh, and take a left there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Manhatten Bridge, lower level. Just follow the signs, can’t miss it.”
The Audi hammered past a sign while Mark set to work on the duffel.
“That sign there said the bridge was out.”
“Yeah, they’re renovating the lower level. Another walkway or some shit like that, don’t ask me why they had to close the road.”
“Uh, there’s a roadblock ahead...”
“Master key,” Mark replied cooly while another burst of firepower splashed down the side of the car, putting a very concerning hole through the dashboard. “That’s okay, it’s a tough car,” Mark said, sounding like he almost believed that.
Rowena didn’t even bother replying; instead, she devoted her focus to ramming the car through another obstacle. By now, her ears were totally focussed on listening to the engine, and with a deft move she downshifted for a sharp curve without thinking about it. The car screamed around the curve and took some guiderail with it - Rowena gritted her teeth and yanked the wheel once more, cursing that the AWD wasn't really as helpful as she'd thought. Finally, the car jumped a small bump and dropped onto the lower level of the Manhatten Bridge, blissfully empty of its usual traffic. Behind them, another SUV came rushing, with a Yakuza hanging out of the passenger window with an MP5K.
“Comfortable with the controls now?” Mark asked and threw the duffel aside.
“I think I got it now, yeah.”
“Good.” Mark ripped away a blanket, and the next thing Rowena heard was the sound of an M249's bolt being closed. "Just keep her steady.”
Mark bashed away the last remnants of the rear window, then propped the bipod on the windowframe, giving himself a clear field of fire. Even with a bipod, there wasn’t much accuracy to be had in a driving car, but he just started firing and poured fire into the car behind them. The whole massacre showed up in the rear view mirror, and it was so painful to watch that Rowena wished the car would just explode; instead, it careened out of control and crashed through the guiderails, ending up as a total wreck - but it didn’t blow up, and there wasn’t even any fire.
This was not especially merciful (except to the CSI guys), because she was pretty sure that Mark had totally wasted everyone in the passenger cabin.
“Stop here,” Mark said as he secured the weapon; the car pulled to a stop just past the bridge and Rowena spotted another SUV following them over the bridge. Mark dumped the duffel out of the car, stowed the machinegun and climbed back to the passenger's seat. “Okay, drive.”
Sure enough, the SUV stopped to pick up the duffel instead of following them further.
“Did we just give these guys what they wanted?”
“I don’t think they’ll enjoy it for long.”
“There’s no cops to arrest them.”
“Who’s talking about cops, kid?”
Mark held up the remote detonator with a grin.
“You’ll note it has two buttons,” he said, then pressed “2”. Another, smaller explosion went off behind them, incinerating the Yakuza SUV and everyone in it.
Shortly thereafter, the Audi disappeared into the East River while Mark led Rowena into an alley; sure enough, one of Fade’s psi-punks was waiting for them with a motorcycle and disappeared into the night before Mark had properly seated himself and started the engine.
“You look like you need a ride, kid.”
Rowena nodded silently, then climbed onto the back and held on to Mark as he pulled out onto the street. With his coat flapping in the wind, Rowena’s hands found purchase on his body armor. It was slick with blood, but from the lack of holes, Rowena inferred that it was not Mark’s. Things were snapping into focus for her at a rapid clip now; how she’d just helped this man kill more than a dozen people, and how she didn’t feel anything right now.
John Done had told her that humans were predators. Now she believed it, too.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 8
Trish was glad to see Rowena show up for work, but couldn’t resist mock-throwing a spoon at her; Rowena nodded with a sheepish smile and went to work. That is, what few pieces of work were left to do; Rowena knew from previous experience that the weekday workload was heaviest at the beginning and the end, and she’d already missed out on one half of the real backbreaking labor of that night. The bar was fully stocked with people undergoing paradigm shifts towards drunkards, but the rest of the tables was conspiciously empty, and soon enough Trish brought up the topic Rowena was dreading.
“How about some of that piano?”
In Rowena’s fantasy, there was a small, personal hell for Mark Simmons; she unconsciously brushed her right hand against the countertop and felt it sting again.
***
BANG!
Rowena realized that she had closed her eyes in shock at the muzzle blast from the USP in her hand. After getting the hang of Mark’s stance with the .22, she had foolishly asked to try it with his .45, and although she blamed herself for that question, she couldn’t entirely dismiss Mark’s complicity; come to think of it, he’d worn a rather large smile on his face when he said “Go ahead” and handed her the weapon.
She tried again, this time with a double tap, but then her eyes shut again and when she looked, the pattern was a disaster.
“You’re afraid of the gun.”
“It’s breaking my wrist.”
“Well, usually I would repeat my ‘Deathgrip’ lecture here, but I think this is futile. You’re a girl.”
“Perhaps I should grab my skirt, get a perm and take Home Economy, then.”
“Kid, this is just where the HMS Feminism gets crunched against the rough cliffs of physics. The technique is not your problem. Your lack of strength and mass is.”
“Gee, that’s reassuring.”
“This is not fixable. Unless you want to end up looking like Valentina...”
Rowena fired another shot. It hurt, it really did, no matter how much she wanted to keep the gun steady, the shot was nothing but a white-hot flash of pain crawling up into her elbow, and although fatigue took some of the blame, she finally secured the weapon and laid it down. Mark was right; this wasn’t going to happen.
“I bet it works in Weaver, though,” he said after some deliberation.
“Do we use Weaver in this house?”
“Fuck yeah. When I have cover and guys backing me up, I go Weaver. The funky shit is strictly worst case.” He noted her puzzled look and nodded contendly. “’course, I get the worst case 9 times out of 10.”
Rowena raised the USP again, readied it, then let off a quick series from her Weaver stance. This group was much tighter, albeit not quite as good as the .22.
“What’s up with the double-tap?”
“That’s the USP’s character flaw, kid. The trigger reset is pretty long. Suits an old man like me just fine.”
Rowena emptied the rest of the magazine into the target.
“I could get used to it, I guess,” she finally said.
“Your primary weapon should be what you’re comfortable with, something you just point and shoot. I guess something like a .38, or a 9mm Police...”
“...or my 5.7...”
“...or the 5.7, yes,” Mark conceded grudgingly. “You know it, get another one and be happy evermore. But the stopping power sucks, the caliber is exotic and I wouldn’t bet my life on it working if I had to pull it out of the muck. That’s what your backup gun is for. Big, reliable manstopper.”
“Something like this.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
***
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why the hell had she agreed to take up training with that monster handgun? Her entire arm was hurting, but her fingers were totally messed up; she was glad that she could hold the glasses, but to her tortured fingers, playing piano would be more demanding than open heart surgery.
“I can’t,” she said. “Slammed my fingers in the door.”
“Ouch! I did that when we renovated #4 last year, it hurt like a motherfucker.”
“Language, miss,” he called out.
Rowena fixed that “he” with the paranoid eye of a secret agent and the predatory eye of a girl with hormones. He was a guy, too much facial hair to be called a boy yet not filling out his suit enough to deserve the title man. He had an unhealthy fascination with combining an earthy jacket and pants combo with a black dress shirt and a bolo tie, looking for all the world like a fashionable attempt at “emo cowboy”.
“Relax, Matt,” Trish began. “She’s old enough.”
Matt turned to Rowena. “You must have taken growth-retarding drugs.”
“I’ve got an unhealthy fascination with explosives, too.”
“Ah, it’s good to meet another disciple of Sonoda.”
“Likewise.”
“...waaah?” went Trish, whose knowledge of pop culture did not stretch quite that far.
“Not important. Forgot my manners...I’m Matt Moody.”
“Ro...Faye Rollins,” Rowena struggled to blurt out as she shook his hand. She wasn’t smitten with him, and she would have killed anyone making that claim, but damn, this guy had the deepest blue eyes ever.
“Rofaye, is that French?”
“Huh? Oh, no,” Rowena giggled, her brain fast at work to cover for her mouth. “My Dad used to call me Ro...like the Ensign. I’m just Faye.”
“Okay, I got that one,” Trish said. “Hip factor restored.”
“You’re thinking of a hip replacement, Trish,” Matt shot back.
Funny, too.
“When Matt isn’t working on his Improv, he runs a PR firm around the block.”
“Shill, eh?” Rowena spat at him.
“The most legitimate form of male prostitution,” Matt agreed. “But it pays well, and I try to keep my head down in the finances and tech while I let the interns come up with the puns and color schemes.”
Rowena’s cellphone began to vibrate in her pocket. Not now, she thought, goddammit, not now.
“So, you’re new in town?” Matt asked.
“Yep. Just got here last month.”
“Where’d you live before?”
Before Rowena could be tripped up thinking of a convincing lie for that, her cellphone went off again. With an apologetic smile, she wandered off towards the small kitchen entrance and took the call.
“Two minutes,” Mark’s voice said. “Meet me out front.”
Then he hung up, and Rowena really, really wished she could just shout out a string of curses. Instead, she dumped the apron and rushed towards Trish.
“I have to go.”
“What? You just got here,” Trish remarked, trying to come across as if the whole thing was a joke.
“Just dock the pay, I didn’t really do anything...”
“Faye. This isn’t about the money.” Trish raised herself into ‘speechify’ position. “This is about you being reliable.”
“I don’t...I can’t let this go. I’m really sorry.”
Whether by accident or subconscious way of explanation, Rowena brushed her jacket to the side a bit. It wasn’t enough to show anything except the beginning of her holster strap.
Trish understood, somehow.
“Go,” she finally said. Rowena nodded, then rushed off.
“They all break your heart, don’t they?” Matt remarked as he watched Rowena speed off towards the exit. “In their own little ways.”
“How do you think I got so old?” Trish replied.
“How about some of that piano?”
In Rowena’s fantasy, there was a small, personal hell for Mark Simmons; she unconsciously brushed her right hand against the countertop and felt it sting again.
***
BANG!
Rowena realized that she had closed her eyes in shock at the muzzle blast from the USP in her hand. After getting the hang of Mark’s stance with the .22, she had foolishly asked to try it with his .45, and although she blamed herself for that question, she couldn’t entirely dismiss Mark’s complicity; come to think of it, he’d worn a rather large smile on his face when he said “Go ahead” and handed her the weapon.
She tried again, this time with a double tap, but then her eyes shut again and when she looked, the pattern was a disaster.
“You’re afraid of the gun.”
“It’s breaking my wrist.”
“Well, usually I would repeat my ‘Deathgrip’ lecture here, but I think this is futile. You’re a girl.”
“Perhaps I should grab my skirt, get a perm and take Home Economy, then.”
“Kid, this is just where the HMS Feminism gets crunched against the rough cliffs of physics. The technique is not your problem. Your lack of strength and mass is.”
“Gee, that’s reassuring.”
“This is not fixable. Unless you want to end up looking like Valentina...”
Rowena fired another shot. It hurt, it really did, no matter how much she wanted to keep the gun steady, the shot was nothing but a white-hot flash of pain crawling up into her elbow, and although fatigue took some of the blame, she finally secured the weapon and laid it down. Mark was right; this wasn’t going to happen.
“I bet it works in Weaver, though,” he said after some deliberation.
“Do we use Weaver in this house?”
“Fuck yeah. When I have cover and guys backing me up, I go Weaver. The funky shit is strictly worst case.” He noted her puzzled look and nodded contendly. “’course, I get the worst case 9 times out of 10.”
Rowena raised the USP again, readied it, then let off a quick series from her Weaver stance. This group was much tighter, albeit not quite as good as the .22.
“What’s up with the double-tap?”
“That’s the USP’s character flaw, kid. The trigger reset is pretty long. Suits an old man like me just fine.”
Rowena emptied the rest of the magazine into the target.
“I could get used to it, I guess,” she finally said.
“Your primary weapon should be what you’re comfortable with, something you just point and shoot. I guess something like a .38, or a 9mm Police...”
“...or my 5.7...”
“...or the 5.7, yes,” Mark conceded grudgingly. “You know it, get another one and be happy evermore. But the stopping power sucks, the caliber is exotic and I wouldn’t bet my life on it working if I had to pull it out of the muck. That’s what your backup gun is for. Big, reliable manstopper.”
“Something like this.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
***
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why the hell had she agreed to take up training with that monster handgun? Her entire arm was hurting, but her fingers were totally messed up; she was glad that she could hold the glasses, but to her tortured fingers, playing piano would be more demanding than open heart surgery.
“I can’t,” she said. “Slammed my fingers in the door.”
“Ouch! I did that when we renovated #4 last year, it hurt like a motherfucker.”
“Language, miss,” he called out.
Rowena fixed that “he” with the paranoid eye of a secret agent and the predatory eye of a girl with hormones. He was a guy, too much facial hair to be called a boy yet not filling out his suit enough to deserve the title man. He had an unhealthy fascination with combining an earthy jacket and pants combo with a black dress shirt and a bolo tie, looking for all the world like a fashionable attempt at “emo cowboy”.
“Relax, Matt,” Trish began. “She’s old enough.”
Matt turned to Rowena. “You must have taken growth-retarding drugs.”
“I’ve got an unhealthy fascination with explosives, too.”
“Ah, it’s good to meet another disciple of Sonoda.”
“Likewise.”
“...waaah?” went Trish, whose knowledge of pop culture did not stretch quite that far.
“Not important. Forgot my manners...I’m Matt Moody.”
“Ro...Faye Rollins,” Rowena struggled to blurt out as she shook his hand. She wasn’t smitten with him, and she would have killed anyone making that claim, but damn, this guy had the deepest blue eyes ever.
“Rofaye, is that French?”
“Huh? Oh, no,” Rowena giggled, her brain fast at work to cover for her mouth. “My Dad used to call me Ro...like the Ensign. I’m just Faye.”
“Okay, I got that one,” Trish said. “Hip factor restored.”
“You’re thinking of a hip replacement, Trish,” Matt shot back.
Funny, too.
“When Matt isn’t working on his Improv, he runs a PR firm around the block.”
“Shill, eh?” Rowena spat at him.
“The most legitimate form of male prostitution,” Matt agreed. “But it pays well, and I try to keep my head down in the finances and tech while I let the interns come up with the puns and color schemes.”
Rowena’s cellphone began to vibrate in her pocket. Not now, she thought, goddammit, not now.
“So, you’re new in town?” Matt asked.
“Yep. Just got here last month.”
“Where’d you live before?”
Before Rowena could be tripped up thinking of a convincing lie for that, her cellphone went off again. With an apologetic smile, she wandered off towards the small kitchen entrance and took the call.
“Two minutes,” Mark’s voice said. “Meet me out front.”
Then he hung up, and Rowena really, really wished she could just shout out a string of curses. Instead, she dumped the apron and rushed towards Trish.
“I have to go.”
“What? You just got here,” Trish remarked, trying to come across as if the whole thing was a joke.
“Just dock the pay, I didn’t really do anything...”
“Faye. This isn’t about the money.” Trish raised herself into ‘speechify’ position. “This is about you being reliable.”
“I don’t...I can’t let this go. I’m really sorry.”
Whether by accident or subconscious way of explanation, Rowena brushed her jacket to the side a bit. It wasn’t enough to show anything except the beginning of her holster strap.
Trish understood, somehow.
“Go,” she finally said. Rowena nodded, then rushed off.
“They all break your heart, don’t they?” Matt remarked as he watched Rowena speed off towards the exit. “In their own little ways.”
“How do you think I got so old?” Trish replied.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Childhood's End - Chapter 7
After receiving the gun, Rowena went for a quick shower, but her eyes never left the weapon. There was meaning in it, she was certain of that, but what exactly it meant eluded her. She entertained some pragmatic explanations - Mark had already told her his opinion of her Five-seveN -, but the symbolism was almost as clear.
Her sidearm was a weapon of self-defense. The .22? That was the weapon of an assassin.
After dressing in her street clothes, she heard faint thuds echo from across the sublevel and went to investigate; her steps traced a way from the dojo to the firing range, where Mark was busy ripping paper targets to shreds. The noise was bearable behind the armored glass wall that seperated the range from the rest of the facility, so Rowena didn't think it strange that she could sneak up on her teacher. For a moment, she contemplated knocking on the glass, but then she decided that it wasn't a good idea to startle someone with a loaded firearm and leaned back to watch him spray lead at targets 20 meters away.
It was bleedingly obvious that Mark's firing stance would have seen him wash out of any professional training course. First off, he was firing with two guns, which in itself was one of those effort/gain scenarios Rowena wasn't too sure of yet. He was also anything but straight - one could almost describe his stance as hunched over, and his arms were crooked. She soon realized that the position of Mark's body made it impossible for him to use the sights, which baffled her until she forced her focus onto the targets.
With the whole deck stacked against him, he was actually hitting.
Granted, Rowena soon noticed, the accuracy left something to be desired; Mark could've probably nailed a perfect score in a proper stance, but this way most of his lead ended up in the 8s and 9s, with only a few bullseyes. Finally, he was done and secured his USPs, then turned around to face her, wearing a smile and ballistic sunglasses. He walked towards the door, then undid the electronic lock and let her onto the range.
"Ready to start shooting?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Glasses and plugs are over there on the table, I brought a brick of ammo for your .22 from the armory."
He wasn't exaggerating in the least. Rowena found herself staring at what had to be about 500 rounds of .22 bullets for the Ruger.
"Let's see your stance, first,” he said, then took a step back to let her use the range.
Rowena raised her gun into a classical Weaver stance and aimed down the sights, slowly aligning them with the target ahead of her.
“Not quite it. Spread your feet our more. Make sure your strong arm is straight. Keep the sights level.” Rowena adjusted her stance as Mark said, then recentered her aim; if her gun had been loaded, she would’ve been ready for an easy bullseye.
“Okay. And then?”
“Then you get killed.”
The stance melted as Rowena rolled her eyes and whipped around to face Mark, barely remembering to lower the gun first.
“For the love of God, Simmons. Can't you be straight with me one fucking time?”
“I can’t teach you new stuff if you keep forgetting the old lessons, kid. What’d I teach you about standing still?”
“...a still fighter is a dead fighter,” Rowena said, exhaling a deep breath of frustration.
“Exactly. What were you doing?”
“Standing still.”
“And a still fighter...”
“...is a dead fighter.”
Mark nodded.
“Repetition is the way to learn. Now, when I learned to shoot, I went Weaver, too.”
“Yes, but...”
“Let me finish. Back then, everybody was teaching Weaver. It’s a good stance - for the range. Out there, not so much.”
“Then I suppose you want me to go Quasimodo and spray like you?”
“Exactly,” Mark said with a grin. “You’ll get there. But let’s take this from the top." He walked up to her, effortless spun her around to face the targets again, and then began to adjust her stance in earnest. "First off, you need a really strong grip, like you’re trying to crush a grapefruit...”
Needless to say, Rowena was late for work that day.
Her sidearm was a weapon of self-defense. The .22? That was the weapon of an assassin.
After dressing in her street clothes, she heard faint thuds echo from across the sublevel and went to investigate; her steps traced a way from the dojo to the firing range, where Mark was busy ripping paper targets to shreds. The noise was bearable behind the armored glass wall that seperated the range from the rest of the facility, so Rowena didn't think it strange that she could sneak up on her teacher. For a moment, she contemplated knocking on the glass, but then she decided that it wasn't a good idea to startle someone with a loaded firearm and leaned back to watch him spray lead at targets 20 meters away.
It was bleedingly obvious that Mark's firing stance would have seen him wash out of any professional training course. First off, he was firing with two guns, which in itself was one of those effort/gain scenarios Rowena wasn't too sure of yet. He was also anything but straight - one could almost describe his stance as hunched over, and his arms were crooked. She soon realized that the position of Mark's body made it impossible for him to use the sights, which baffled her until she forced her focus onto the targets.
With the whole deck stacked against him, he was actually hitting.
Granted, Rowena soon noticed, the accuracy left something to be desired; Mark could've probably nailed a perfect score in a proper stance, but this way most of his lead ended up in the 8s and 9s, with only a few bullseyes. Finally, he was done and secured his USPs, then turned around to face her, wearing a smile and ballistic sunglasses. He walked towards the door, then undid the electronic lock and let her onto the range.
"Ready to start shooting?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Glasses and plugs are over there on the table, I brought a brick of ammo for your .22 from the armory."
He wasn't exaggerating in the least. Rowena found herself staring at what had to be about 500 rounds of .22 bullets for the Ruger.
"Let's see your stance, first,” he said, then took a step back to let her use the range.
Rowena raised her gun into a classical Weaver stance and aimed down the sights, slowly aligning them with the target ahead of her.
“Not quite it. Spread your feet our more. Make sure your strong arm is straight. Keep the sights level.” Rowena adjusted her stance as Mark said, then recentered her aim; if her gun had been loaded, she would’ve been ready for an easy bullseye.
“Okay. And then?”
“Then you get killed.”
The stance melted as Rowena rolled her eyes and whipped around to face Mark, barely remembering to lower the gun first.
“For the love of God, Simmons. Can't you be straight with me one fucking time?”
“I can’t teach you new stuff if you keep forgetting the old lessons, kid. What’d I teach you about standing still?”
“...a still fighter is a dead fighter,” Rowena said, exhaling a deep breath of frustration.
“Exactly. What were you doing?”
“Standing still.”
“And a still fighter...”
“...is a dead fighter.”
Mark nodded.
“Repetition is the way to learn. Now, when I learned to shoot, I went Weaver, too.”
“Yes, but...”
“Let me finish. Back then, everybody was teaching Weaver. It’s a good stance - for the range. Out there, not so much.”
“Then I suppose you want me to go Quasimodo and spray like you?”
“Exactly,” Mark said with a grin. “You’ll get there. But let’s take this from the top." He walked up to her, effortless spun her around to face the targets again, and then began to adjust her stance in earnest. "First off, you need a really strong grip, like you’re trying to crush a grapefruit...”
Needless to say, Rowena was late for work that day.
Land Warrior II
The Situation
By the 2010s, the long-forecast technological “jump” upwards that was the Land Warrior program was nothing but a cruel joke. Although bits and pieces of the original specifications had been implemented, the overall concept had proven itself to be unfeasible. No other element of the program embodied this problem quite as well as the OICW - after going through more than 20 years of development with a multi-year gap through cancellation and restart, its eventual arrival was seen as “too little, too late”. The OICW suffered from several crippling problems: The electronics/optics package was too large and fragile, the grenade launcher - intended as the weapon’s primary firing mode - did not make up for its lack of power with its accuracy (though it was, admittedly, much more precise than prior weapon systems), and the Kinetic Energy component - i.e., the underslung rifle - ended up being a noisy carbine strapped to a hefty chunk of weight with limited utility. On their own, both of the weapon components were clearly worthwhile, but the combination suffered from simply being too heavy and bulky for an unaugmented soldier to use comfortably. Accordingly, the project - already once cancelled at the turn of the millenium - suffered its final defeat. Still, this left the US Army in an unenviable position of being forced to maintain their cache of M16-derived weapons. The most modern of these was the M4A3, improved over the original version mainly through addition of a lightweight electronics package to interface with Land Warrior and including the H&K-redesigned action as standard. The 5.56mm ammunition in use with them was adequate to the job, but concerns over terminal performance had long lingered, ever since the round was first introduced. During several large-scale missions, soldiers had witnessed their opponents take multiple hits before dying, and the recurring threat of snipers left the men on the ground asking for a weapon with greater range and knockdown power. The debate became a political issue, and the US Army played its hand right, getting additional Congressional funding to “reequip our soldiers for the demands of the new battlefield”. In a sort of happy accident, the changeover to a caseless round - which had long been planned, to increase firing rates and the amount of ammunition a soldier could carry - fell together with the search for a stronger caliber.
In this climate, Land Warrior II made its first splash, starting with the weapon it was designed around - the M30.
Development Begins
Strapped for ideas, the US Army began to reconsider the Advanced Combat Rifle concept it had floated in the 90s. The objective back then had been an increase of 100% in accuracy over the then-current M16, but this was hard to archieve in a combat firearm. Instead, higher lethality was the new objective. Flechette ammunition -as used in the Steyr ACR - was highly accurate and good at piercing armor, but the actual damage was determined to be lacking. During the SCIMTR trials, a similar concept - metal flechettes fired at high velocty, albeit from an automatic shotgun - had been shelved because the projectiles passed through targets too easily, leaving relatively small wound channels and overpenetrating regularly. Trials with ACR-style ammunition revealed similar problems, though with less severity. Duplex ammunition was dismissed out of hand, as it delivered an even smaller “payload” than the current ammunition and could not be easily redesigned for more armor-piercing performance. The weapon that found the most favor was H&K’s G11 design, which used caseless ammunition to archieve a high RPM of approximately 2000 rounds per minute in three-shot burst mode. However, this concept was still based upon higher accuracy archieved through salvo fire, and had been developed in response to fighting conditions that were almost 50 years in the past by now. In a way, the idea of caseless ammunition was almost secondary; the US Army had determined that it needed a completely new caliber, and with new manufacturing lines, it seemed natural to make the jump towards caseless ammunition at the same time. Thus, the crash project for new bullets began in 2023.
Building A Better Bullet
The new bullet design ended up as the M716 Caseless, Caliber .260 (NATO Designation: 6.6mm Caseless). Unlikely earlier designs, the cartridge had what was labelled a “reverse” case - the bullet itself had a hollow space inside which was filled with gunpowder. Previously, designers had consider this aerodynamically unsound, but careful tweaking of bullet shape and twist rate soon revealed a stable configuration which used the vertex generated by the cavity’s presence as part of its spin stabilization, thereby archieving a very flat trajectory. The tip of the bullet featured a semi-jacketed exposed core licensed from Russian designers; the UN begrudgingly agreed to soften the Hague Convention to allow military use of some types of expanding bullets. Initial tests were cause for optimism as the bullets combined superb armor-piercing capability through its hard penetrator core with large wounds via the expanding aluminum jacket, although there were some overpenetration issues with unarmored targets. Unlike prior attempts at caseless ammunition, the M716 kept a round profile, and although this worsened stacking efficiency some, it was determined that this was not a serious problem. Minor changes and tweaks to the design went on until 2025, when the ammunition was declared satisfactory and tooling for mass production began. The final design weighed 10% less than the 5.56mm, but offered 30% more range and was deemed to have equivalent knockdown power to the bigger 7.62x51mm NATO round. At the same time, the first test versions of the M30 were taking shape.
The Rifle Grows
The M30 - by necessity - picked up several design elements of the G11, but it was clear from the beginning that it had to fulfill very different objectives. The smooth 3-round burst was an impressive, but superfluous feature, especially as concerns over heat development within the chamber gained new relevancy. While the M30 was expected to stand up to some amount of continuous automatic fire, using a three-shot burst as substitute for single shots was clearly too hard a requirement on the whole rifle to keep them in field service. Thus, the floating construction of the G11 was abandoned for a more traditional design where the weapon recoiled fully after each shot. The ammunition feed was also problematic - the magazine had been designed to lie on top of the weapon, similar to the G11 or FN P90 mechanism, but this made reloading while prone ungainly. In 2026, a newly redesigned feed system was tested. The mechanically complex arrangement could still feed from the front, but the magazine well could now swivel to the side and downward, allowing the magazine to be stuck into the side. Concerns over weapon balance came up, which required the inclusion of a small counter-weight to swivel with the magazine well component. The M30 was already looking dangerously overweight at this point, but the designers pressed on - and ended up adding even more weight and complexity with additional gearing below the chamber. With that, the weapon could now accept magazine feed from the front and side positions, as well as belted ammunition from the side. As the weapon was already homing in on 10 pounds unloaded, it was now pitched as “Automatic Weapon”, able to fill both assault rifle as well as SAW roles. The Army liked the flexibility, but the weight would have to come down - unless soldiers could be made to carry more.
No More BDU
Starting from 2017, research into electroactive polymers had yielded true “artificial muscles”. The military potential was obvious, but no concise concept was presented and developed until Land Warrior II included the ABA - Active Battle Armor - as one of its premier components. The ABA was realized as a two-part system; the undersuit was a skin-tight unitard that provided climate control, medical monitoring as well as simple strength augmentation through polymer muscles. The augmentation was a relatively simple negative feedback loop, a stiff layer of material that sensed the user’s movement through minute pressure changes and changed shape to follow. Hands and feet were left unprotected simple because the system could not archieve the required precision for fine dexterity, but it did help with eliminating “jitters” and handling large loads, both by augmenting the user’s own musculature and by automatically spreading the carried weight throughout the body. This was then worn under a second layer, which provided additional armor - utilizing shear thickening fluid, which allowed flexible, light armor to harden against impact -, mounting hardpoints for gear as well as electronics subsystems and power generation. Although the main armor was only marginally stronger than the Land Warrior equivalent, the polymer suit itself provided some protection as well as being able to spread impacts without taking irreversible damage itself. Power was provided by a small fuel cell charging an array of ultracaps. Total power loss was still a serious problem, and so the whole system had to work roughly within the same weight class as the unpowered Land Warrior. Owing to a flap that allowed soldiers to eliminate bodily waste without taking off the undersuit, it was also jokingly referred to as “union suit”; several initial complaints charged that the undersuit was too visible, while also discouraging underwear. This problem was largely considered solved when the armor panels that covered the legs were revised into armored pants that covered more vulnerable areas and could be taken off as one piece; at this point, the weight penalty this incurred was considered acceptable.
The electronics were considerably revised from Land Warrior. Embedded devices now offered enough calculating power for the Army’s needs while drawing dramatically less electricity than a stripped-down PC. A large part of the concept was the new helmet, a fully-integrated affair that covered the entire head, but provided the wearer with a wide field of view through a large Lexan visor. Together with an intelligent sound management system that could amplify or dampen noise as needed, the user could actually be more aware in the helmet than without, raising troop acceptance considerably after initial testing. The helmet provided full climate control like the main suit and included an unobstrusive, minimal HUD. Radio communication was simplified considerably through automatic selection between cellular or point-to-point transmission, transparent encryption and voice-recognition software, which was also used to control some of the suit’s advanced functions - although the main design objective had been to reduce controls as far as possible in favor of an intuitive “The suit supports natural movement” interface, some functionality was not easily accessible this way. Among other things, the soldier could use the voice interface to lock the undersuit in a static position, to support accurate firing or to immobilize a broken limb. Mapping tools and GPS were also considerably simplified from their first implentation in Land Warrior. The HUD could also display external video feeds, making a dedicated night-vision device obsolete - mission-specific optics could simply be mounted on the helmet and relay video as needed. Rear-mounted cameras became a favored configuration, as many soldiers would occasionally switch to rear view to cover their backs. This was quickly formalized as tactical doctrine and credited with the survival of 5 Army soldiers in a rebel ambush near Kabul. Of course, with a fully integrated suit to cover the whole body, NBC protection was easy to archieve in relative comfort for the wearer, and the US Army became the first military to possess an operational unit under permanent MOPP Level 3.
Testing was officially declared finished in 2027, allowing the Army to seriously consider and develop the M30 weapon system again.
The M30 Matures
With the first operational ABAs delivered to weapons testing at Yuma Proving Grounds, the weapon could be properly fired without a rest. This revealed some additional minor issues with the emergency ejection port - although a caseless weapon does not eject cases, the port was needed to remove duds, but on several occasions allowed mud into the mechanism. The port was subsequently redesigned to eject downward, which proved to be easier to seal correctly. By contrast, the complex feed system worked just fine, though one of the testers memorably labelled it “The Devil’s Swiss Clock” on the first major teardown. Field strips just included cleaning the chamber and barrel, with much of the mechanism only requiring platoon-level maintenance after 100,000 rounds - thus freeing up lots of soldiers at the price of more involved semi-regular maintenance by specialists. The bodyshell included another electronics pack for linking the weapon to the ABA systems, as well as molded iron sights with a Tokiro rail for optics attachment. A factory-zeroed multi-mode laser sight was also included in the main body, clearing up the underbarrel mounting point for one of several weapons modules - these included a close-combat package with tactical flashlight and automatic shotgun, a side-by-side 20mm / 40mm grenade launcher combo or a crowd control microwave “pain gun”. The entire loaded package came in at 16 pounds, which was acceptable for carry with ABA. The M30 also proved its mettle in the SAW role with the belt feed option, with the heavy standard barrel standing up to relatively “short” bursts of automatic fire well, though the lack of a quick-change option seriously limited utility in the sustained fire role. The remaining complaints concerned ergonomic details as well as proper compatibility with the ABAs and held back the final adaption of the weapon until 2031.
Operational Use And Changes
The first M30s were fired in combat during the second Kinshasa unrests in 2034. Since the same incident also showed the first operational use of Land Warrior II units alongside conventional Army units, direct comparisons in performance were inevitable. The M30 outranged the M4A3s and received high ranks in perceived lethality and soldier confidence, though critics charged that the comparison was unfair without issuing ABAs to the M4 users. In any event, the M4s were still highly mobile and preferred for CQB situations. M30 users with the close combat module also engaged in house fighting and regarded the slight loss of maneuverability as a good deal in exchange for monstrous short-range stopping power and improved protection. Kinshasa also saw the use of personal drones, both airborne and thrown reconaissance units, to gain a tactical edge. All in all, Land Warrior II was a success, but the Army took an unexpected hit - the advanced equipment was regarded as a strong Force Multiplier, and experimental three-man squads were put together and proved themselves in combat. Further experiments showed that even two-man teams were now feasible, and the resulting restructuring led to the three-man squad structure becoming prevalent. Instead of the old “diamond”, squads now operated as simply Left, Right, Sweep, replacing the Point element with drones and advanced recon technology. Dynamic entry situations were deemphasized in favor of said drones, which allowed soldiers to scout out a situation and reconfigure their position as needed. This brought a certain rank flexibility into the squad as the “leader” position rotated between whatever squad element was emphasized in the specific situation. This “allowed” the Army to scale its forces down considerably and shape it into the lean war machine of the 2040s.
By the 2010s, the long-forecast technological “jump” upwards that was the Land Warrior program was nothing but a cruel joke. Although bits and pieces of the original specifications had been implemented, the overall concept had proven itself to be unfeasible. No other element of the program embodied this problem quite as well as the OICW - after going through more than 20 years of development with a multi-year gap through cancellation and restart, its eventual arrival was seen as “too little, too late”. The OICW suffered from several crippling problems: The electronics/optics package was too large and fragile, the grenade launcher - intended as the weapon’s primary firing mode - did not make up for its lack of power with its accuracy (though it was, admittedly, much more precise than prior weapon systems), and the Kinetic Energy component - i.e., the underslung rifle - ended up being a noisy carbine strapped to a hefty chunk of weight with limited utility. On their own, both of the weapon components were clearly worthwhile, but the combination suffered from simply being too heavy and bulky for an unaugmented soldier to use comfortably. Accordingly, the project - already once cancelled at the turn of the millenium - suffered its final defeat. Still, this left the US Army in an unenviable position of being forced to maintain their cache of M16-derived weapons. The most modern of these was the M4A3, improved over the original version mainly through addition of a lightweight electronics package to interface with Land Warrior and including the H&K-redesigned action as standard. The 5.56mm ammunition in use with them was adequate to the job, but concerns over terminal performance had long lingered, ever since the round was first introduced. During several large-scale missions, soldiers had witnessed their opponents take multiple hits before dying, and the recurring threat of snipers left the men on the ground asking for a weapon with greater range and knockdown power. The debate became a political issue, and the US Army played its hand right, getting additional Congressional funding to “reequip our soldiers for the demands of the new battlefield”. In a sort of happy accident, the changeover to a caseless round - which had long been planned, to increase firing rates and the amount of ammunition a soldier could carry - fell together with the search for a stronger caliber.
In this climate, Land Warrior II made its first splash, starting with the weapon it was designed around - the M30.
Development Begins
Strapped for ideas, the US Army began to reconsider the Advanced Combat Rifle concept it had floated in the 90s. The objective back then had been an increase of 100% in accuracy over the then-current M16, but this was hard to archieve in a combat firearm. Instead, higher lethality was the new objective. Flechette ammunition -as used in the Steyr ACR - was highly accurate and good at piercing armor, but the actual damage was determined to be lacking. During the SCIMTR trials, a similar concept - metal flechettes fired at high velocty, albeit from an automatic shotgun - had been shelved because the projectiles passed through targets too easily, leaving relatively small wound channels and overpenetrating regularly. Trials with ACR-style ammunition revealed similar problems, though with less severity. Duplex ammunition was dismissed out of hand, as it delivered an even smaller “payload” than the current ammunition and could not be easily redesigned for more armor-piercing performance. The weapon that found the most favor was H&K’s G11 design, which used caseless ammunition to archieve a high RPM of approximately 2000 rounds per minute in three-shot burst mode. However, this concept was still based upon higher accuracy archieved through salvo fire, and had been developed in response to fighting conditions that were almost 50 years in the past by now. In a way, the idea of caseless ammunition was almost secondary; the US Army had determined that it needed a completely new caliber, and with new manufacturing lines, it seemed natural to make the jump towards caseless ammunition at the same time. Thus, the crash project for new bullets began in 2023.
Building A Better Bullet
The new bullet design ended up as the M716 Caseless, Caliber .260 (NATO Designation: 6.6mm Caseless). Unlikely earlier designs, the cartridge had what was labelled a “reverse” case - the bullet itself had a hollow space inside which was filled with gunpowder. Previously, designers had consider this aerodynamically unsound, but careful tweaking of bullet shape and twist rate soon revealed a stable configuration which used the vertex generated by the cavity’s presence as part of its spin stabilization, thereby archieving a very flat trajectory. The tip of the bullet featured a semi-jacketed exposed core licensed from Russian designers; the UN begrudgingly agreed to soften the Hague Convention to allow military use of some types of expanding bullets. Initial tests were cause for optimism as the bullets combined superb armor-piercing capability through its hard penetrator core with large wounds via the expanding aluminum jacket, although there were some overpenetration issues with unarmored targets. Unlike prior attempts at caseless ammunition, the M716 kept a round profile, and although this worsened stacking efficiency some, it was determined that this was not a serious problem. Minor changes and tweaks to the design went on until 2025, when the ammunition was declared satisfactory and tooling for mass production began. The final design weighed 10% less than the 5.56mm, but offered 30% more range and was deemed to have equivalent knockdown power to the bigger 7.62x51mm NATO round. At the same time, the first test versions of the M30 were taking shape.
The Rifle Grows
The M30 - by necessity - picked up several design elements of the G11, but it was clear from the beginning that it had to fulfill very different objectives. The smooth 3-round burst was an impressive, but superfluous feature, especially as concerns over heat development within the chamber gained new relevancy. While the M30 was expected to stand up to some amount of continuous automatic fire, using a three-shot burst as substitute for single shots was clearly too hard a requirement on the whole rifle to keep them in field service. Thus, the floating construction of the G11 was abandoned for a more traditional design where the weapon recoiled fully after each shot. The ammunition feed was also problematic - the magazine had been designed to lie on top of the weapon, similar to the G11 or FN P90 mechanism, but this made reloading while prone ungainly. In 2026, a newly redesigned feed system was tested. The mechanically complex arrangement could still feed from the front, but the magazine well could now swivel to the side and downward, allowing the magazine to be stuck into the side. Concerns over weapon balance came up, which required the inclusion of a small counter-weight to swivel with the magazine well component. The M30 was already looking dangerously overweight at this point, but the designers pressed on - and ended up adding even more weight and complexity with additional gearing below the chamber. With that, the weapon could now accept magazine feed from the front and side positions, as well as belted ammunition from the side. As the weapon was already homing in on 10 pounds unloaded, it was now pitched as “Automatic Weapon”, able to fill both assault rifle as well as SAW roles. The Army liked the flexibility, but the weight would have to come down - unless soldiers could be made to carry more.
No More BDU
Starting from 2017, research into electroactive polymers had yielded true “artificial muscles”. The military potential was obvious, but no concise concept was presented and developed until Land Warrior II included the ABA - Active Battle Armor - as one of its premier components. The ABA was realized as a two-part system; the undersuit was a skin-tight unitard that provided climate control, medical monitoring as well as simple strength augmentation through polymer muscles. The augmentation was a relatively simple negative feedback loop, a stiff layer of material that sensed the user’s movement through minute pressure changes and changed shape to follow. Hands and feet were left unprotected simple because the system could not archieve the required precision for fine dexterity, but it did help with eliminating “jitters” and handling large loads, both by augmenting the user’s own musculature and by automatically spreading the carried weight throughout the body. This was then worn under a second layer, which provided additional armor - utilizing shear thickening fluid, which allowed flexible, light armor to harden against impact -, mounting hardpoints for gear as well as electronics subsystems and power generation. Although the main armor was only marginally stronger than the Land Warrior equivalent, the polymer suit itself provided some protection as well as being able to spread impacts without taking irreversible damage itself. Power was provided by a small fuel cell charging an array of ultracaps. Total power loss was still a serious problem, and so the whole system had to work roughly within the same weight class as the unpowered Land Warrior. Owing to a flap that allowed soldiers to eliminate bodily waste without taking off the undersuit, it was also jokingly referred to as “union suit”; several initial complaints charged that the undersuit was too visible, while also discouraging underwear. This problem was largely considered solved when the armor panels that covered the legs were revised into armored pants that covered more vulnerable areas and could be taken off as one piece; at this point, the weight penalty this incurred was considered acceptable.
The electronics were considerably revised from Land Warrior. Embedded devices now offered enough calculating power for the Army’s needs while drawing dramatically less electricity than a stripped-down PC. A large part of the concept was the new helmet, a fully-integrated affair that covered the entire head, but provided the wearer with a wide field of view through a large Lexan visor. Together with an intelligent sound management system that could amplify or dampen noise as needed, the user could actually be more aware in the helmet than without, raising troop acceptance considerably after initial testing. The helmet provided full climate control like the main suit and included an unobstrusive, minimal HUD. Radio communication was simplified considerably through automatic selection between cellular or point-to-point transmission, transparent encryption and voice-recognition software, which was also used to control some of the suit’s advanced functions - although the main design objective had been to reduce controls as far as possible in favor of an intuitive “The suit supports natural movement” interface, some functionality was not easily accessible this way. Among other things, the soldier could use the voice interface to lock the undersuit in a static position, to support accurate firing or to immobilize a broken limb. Mapping tools and GPS were also considerably simplified from their first implentation in Land Warrior. The HUD could also display external video feeds, making a dedicated night-vision device obsolete - mission-specific optics could simply be mounted on the helmet and relay video as needed. Rear-mounted cameras became a favored configuration, as many soldiers would occasionally switch to rear view to cover their backs. This was quickly formalized as tactical doctrine and credited with the survival of 5 Army soldiers in a rebel ambush near Kabul. Of course, with a fully integrated suit to cover the whole body, NBC protection was easy to archieve in relative comfort for the wearer, and the US Army became the first military to possess an operational unit under permanent MOPP Level 3.
Testing was officially declared finished in 2027, allowing the Army to seriously consider and develop the M30 weapon system again.
The M30 Matures
With the first operational ABAs delivered to weapons testing at Yuma Proving Grounds, the weapon could be properly fired without a rest. This revealed some additional minor issues with the emergency ejection port - although a caseless weapon does not eject cases, the port was needed to remove duds, but on several occasions allowed mud into the mechanism. The port was subsequently redesigned to eject downward, which proved to be easier to seal correctly. By contrast, the complex feed system worked just fine, though one of the testers memorably labelled it “The Devil’s Swiss Clock” on the first major teardown. Field strips just included cleaning the chamber and barrel, with much of the mechanism only requiring platoon-level maintenance after 100,000 rounds - thus freeing up lots of soldiers at the price of more involved semi-regular maintenance by specialists. The bodyshell included another electronics pack for linking the weapon to the ABA systems, as well as molded iron sights with a Tokiro rail for optics attachment. A factory-zeroed multi-mode laser sight was also included in the main body, clearing up the underbarrel mounting point for one of several weapons modules - these included a close-combat package with tactical flashlight and automatic shotgun, a side-by-side 20mm / 40mm grenade launcher combo or a crowd control microwave “pain gun”. The entire loaded package came in at 16 pounds, which was acceptable for carry with ABA. The M30 also proved its mettle in the SAW role with the belt feed option, with the heavy standard barrel standing up to relatively “short” bursts of automatic fire well, though the lack of a quick-change option seriously limited utility in the sustained fire role. The remaining complaints concerned ergonomic details as well as proper compatibility with the ABAs and held back the final adaption of the weapon until 2031.
Operational Use And Changes
The first M30s were fired in combat during the second Kinshasa unrests in 2034. Since the same incident also showed the first operational use of Land Warrior II units alongside conventional Army units, direct comparisons in performance were inevitable. The M30 outranged the M4A3s and received high ranks in perceived lethality and soldier confidence, though critics charged that the comparison was unfair without issuing ABAs to the M4 users. In any event, the M4s were still highly mobile and preferred for CQB situations. M30 users with the close combat module also engaged in house fighting and regarded the slight loss of maneuverability as a good deal in exchange for monstrous short-range stopping power and improved protection. Kinshasa also saw the use of personal drones, both airborne and thrown reconaissance units, to gain a tactical edge. All in all, Land Warrior II was a success, but the Army took an unexpected hit - the advanced equipment was regarded as a strong Force Multiplier, and experimental three-man squads were put together and proved themselves in combat. Further experiments showed that even two-man teams were now feasible, and the resulting restructuring led to the three-man squad structure becoming prevalent. Instead of the old “diamond”, squads now operated as simply Left, Right, Sweep, replacing the Point element with drones and advanced recon technology. Dynamic entry situations were deemphasized in favor of said drones, which allowed soldiers to scout out a situation and reconfigure their position as needed. This brought a certain rank flexibility into the squad as the “leader” position rotated between whatever squad element was emphasized in the specific situation. This “allowed” the Army to scale its forces down considerably and shape it into the lean war machine of the 2040s.
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