by Tom Jones
The human nodded, “Alright. I’ll try that out.” Arcades opened the cabinet underneath his desk, and he pulled out a black Smith & Wesson M&P 9 2.0 handgun. The fox asked a quick question, “Do you mind the color? These come in black or tan.” The man shook his head, “Oh, no. I don’t care.” Arcades then walked over to his rack and brought the MP5SD down before collapsing the stock to make it easier to handle. The man asked another question, “Is that gonna cost me more? Shooting both of those?” The fox shook his head, “Oh, no. Ammo is the only thing that we charge to shoot something here. Both are chambered in the same caliber.” The fox looked back at the handgun he was holding, “The M&P9 could be used for home defense, but it’s kinda unstable for hunting. If I were you, I’d pick something that has a stock and a longer barrel. Handguns in my opinion are less effective for hunting purposes.” The man looked at the MP5SD, but he remembered Arcades saying that he could not legally sell the submachine gun, “Do they have something in 9mm that’s like that?”
The fox nodded, “Yeah, I’ll get that in a moment, hold on. Arcades locked the MP5SD’s bolt backwards and placed it on the desk after locking the slide back on the M&P 9 2.0. The fox moved to a different gun rack, and he removed an AR-15 chambered in 9x19mm. Arcades returned with the weapon, “This is the AR-9. It’s functionally the same as the ever-popular AR-15, but it fires 9mm instead of 5.56. It’s cheaper than alternatives such as the Sig Sauer MPX that your son pointed out earlier.” The man asked for the price of the AR-9, “How much does that one cost there? The one you just brought down?” Arcades replied, “Five hundred and fifty dollars. Also, for this one you don’t have to wait three days to pick it up after purchasing it. For the handgun, you’d have to do that.” The man asked a follow-up question, “Why?” Arcades replied, “It’s a legal thing. If it were up to me, then you wouldn’t need to do that. Heck, if it were up to me, I’d sell this MP5SD for one thousand dollars. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to do that thanks to a federal law. Those laws don’t make too much sense in my opinion.”
The man looked at the M&P 9 2.0 on the table, “Hmm… You know I’d probably rather shoot the long gun instead of that.” Arcades nodded, dropped the slide of the M&P 9, put the empty magazine back inside, and placed the handgun back into the display case, “Sure thing. How many rounds would you like to shoot? We sell one hundred rounds of 9mm for fifteen dollars.” The man shrugged, “Ehh… I guess we can do one box of that.” Arcades then said, “Alright, that’ll be fifteen dollars.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out twenty dollars, “How about this?” Arcades took the dollar bill, and he placed it in the cash register after giving the man a little under five dollars back to account for sales tax. The fox nodded, “Yeah, that’s fine.” Arcades then grabbed two pairs of off-brand Oakley SI 3.0 M Frames and two green pairs of Howard Leight Impact headsets before handing them both to the man. Arcades said, “Put those on. You want to keep your hearing, right?” The man handed one pair of the glasses to his son before he placed the electronic headset over his son’s ears. Arcades gave the man the box of ammunition once he was finished, “You can carry this, and pick out a target that you want as well. Meet me out there when you’re done.”
Arcades grabbed both the MP5SD and the AR-9 after putting on his own personal pair of Oakley SI Radar EV Path glasses and electronic earplugs, but he opened the door behind his desk before he went any further, “Hey, Jason. Can you watch the front for me while I’m out there with these guys?” Jason replied as he approached the door, “Yeah, mate. I’ve got it.” The wolf came out of the door, and he approached the counter. Arcades, still holding both weapons, approached the door to the outside, and the man was now able to see that the fox was wearing a dark polo tucked into khaki shorts, but the fox was wearing no shoes. The man asked the fox, “Say, you don’t wear shoes?” Arcades shook his head, “Nah, us anthros don’t really need them.” The man asked another question to the fox since anthros had different ear shapes than humans, “How do you guys wear hearing protection? Your ears aren’t the same as ours.” The fox pointed to his ears, “I’ve got electronic earplugs. They’re effectively the same as the headsets I gave you, but they’re more or less easier for anthros to use.” The man acknowledged the fox, “Oh, I understand.” He looked behind himself, and he could see that his son was looking at various rifle scopes on the other side of the wall, “Chris, come on.” The man’s son heard his father and hurried his way over to him.
Arcades exited the store, and he looked over to the range which he had set up outside. The fox approached one of the stations, and he placed both weapons on the wooden table. He looked at the post for the target which was about ten meters away. The fox figured that the distance would be suitable for 9mm. Arcades looked at the MP5SD, and he could see that the bolt was currently locked back. However, he noticed that the AR-9’s bolt was not locked back. The fox pulled the AR-style charging handle backwards until the lower half of the bolt catch was able to be pressed and lock the bolt back. Arcades then pushed the charging handle back into the upper receiver after the charging handle did not hold on to the bolt carrier group anymore. Hearing a door open, the fox turned around to see the man emerge with his son while carrying a paper target. When the man got closer to the fox, he asked, “You don’t have any of those targets that I’ve seen other people use? On Facebook, a lot of people shoot targets that have silhouettes of people on them.” The fox replied after briefly remembering his assault on Facility Zero, “Oh, no. We don’t believe in shooting at people, so that’s why we don’t carry any of those.”
Arcades reached out his hand to accept the target, “I’ll put that up for you.” The man handed the fox the target, “Oh, thanks. By the way, I don’t think I caught your name.” Arcades did not remember telling the man his name, so he said, “I’m Kurt Hofmeier.” The man nodded, “Kurt? My name’s Jake.” Arcades grabbed a staple gun hanging off of one of the wooden dividers, and he held the target as he pushed it up against the wooden shooting board. The fox placed nine staples in the square target before returning back to the shooting corrals. Arcades put the staple gun back where he got it, and he returned to Jake and Chris. The fox asked Jake, “Are you familiar with this type of weapon?” Jake shook his head, “Nah. I’ve actually never shot a gun before.” Arcades nodded, “Oh, there’s nothing to it. I’ll show you how it works, and it’s really easy once you get the hang of it.” The fox looked down at the two weapons and picked up the AR-9 first, “Let’s try this one first. I think it’s easier to work with.”
Jake opened the box of ammunition and looked at the 9mm rounds in the box. Arcades looked at the magazine of the AR-9, “You know how to load that yourself?” The human grabbed the magazine from off the table and inspected it, “I think I can figure it out.” Arcades stood by waiting while Jake managed to load five rounds into the AR-9. The human paused before inserting more rounds, “How many bullets does this take?” The fox did not know the magazine capacity off the top of his head, but he took a rough estimate, “I’d say about twenty. The MP5SD magazine holds thirty; that I know for sure.” Jake loaded ten rounds in total and decided to stop loading more rounds into the magazine. The human looked back over to the fox, “Alright, I think I’m ready.” Arcades walked the human through the loading process, “All you’ve gotta do now is put that magazine into the receiver. See that opening on the bottom in front of the trigger?”
Jake made sure the rounds were facing the correct direction before he inserted the magazine into the pistol-caliber carbine. The human then looked at the weapon while Arcades saw the barrel facing almost upwards and pushed the front of the barrel down with his left hand, “Make sure you keep that pointed at your target. It’s for safety reasons.” Jake realized what the fox was telling him, “Oh, whoops.” Arcades smiled and replied, “Oh, it’s alright. It may not even be loaded quite yet, but it’s important that you always consider a weapon to be loaded anyways. It helps to prevent -- unfortunate accidents.” Jake looked do
wn at his target, but he did not know what to do next. Arcades looked at the chamber of the AR-9, and he could see that it was still locked open, “Now, you need to load a round into the chamber. The AR-9 operates much like any other ArmaLite-15 platform, so you have two options from here. I’ll tell you the easy one: Do you see the button on the left side of the weapon? Press that.” Jake kept the carbine pointed in the general direction of the target as he located the bolt catch. The human found the button, but he looked up at Arcades for confirmation, “Is it this one?” The fox nodded, “Yeah, press that.”
Jake depressed the bolt catch, and he heard a somewhat loud click as the bolt carrier group was sent forwards to chamber a round. Arcades nodded his head once the human successfully loaded the weapon. Before going any further, Jake turned his head to see that his son was still standing by and watching to his left. Arcades spoke from Jake’s right, “Alright, you’re now loaded. Flip that little sliding lever next to the trigger. That’s your safety. Push it downwards to set the weapon to fire.” Jake took his eyes off the target again as he looked down at the weapon in his hands and tried to locate the safety selector. The human saw what he believed to be the switch the fox was talking about, so he pushed the lever down with his thumb. He heard a subtle click next, and Arcades heard it as well, “There you go. You’re ready to fire. Keep your finger off of the trigger before you’re ready to fire. Then, you just need to squeeze the trigger with the tip of your finger to fire. Make sure you hold it nice and tight. It may be a 9mm weapon, but you still need to have control of the weapon.”
The fox looked at Jake as he used the AR-9’s ironsights to get a visual on the target. Arcades then said, “Make sure you line up that front sight post with the rear sight. When you have it level, put what you want to shoot at on the tip of that front post. I dunno what range it’s zeroed for, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem at this distance.” Jake did not reply to the fox, but he did adjust his stance to hold the rifle more stable. The human looked at his target, and he finally squeezed the trigger after about a quarter of a minute. The weapon fired, and the round landed within the target. The human lowered the weapon’s barrel as he looked at the target, “Did I hit it?” Arcades nodded, “I believe so. How’d you like it?” Jake looked down at the weapon, but he still kept it pointed down at the target, “That was… A bit louder than I expected. Even with this headset.” The fox said, “Do you want to finish that magazine? I think you have nine rounds left.” Jake looked back over to the target, but his son spoke next, “Hey Daddy! I wanna shoot it!” Arcades looked down at the child before looking at Jake and chuckling, “Heh, somebody’s excited!” Jake still held the AR-9, “I wanna finish this magazine.” Though the human would not give his son a chance to use the AR-9, the fox subtly took the MP5SD magazine from the table and began to load some rounds into the magazine. Jake’s concentration on the target prevented him from seeing Arcades load the magazine of the submachine gun.
The human fired a shot about every half minute, and he was actively trying to hit the target directly in the center. Arcades would look up about every time the human fired to see where he was shooting, and the fox could see that Jake was landing shots within the target but not in the bullseye. The target groupings were also scattered and imprecise at best. Arcades heard the father’s son again, “When are you gonna let me shoot? Daddy!” Jake ignored his son, but Arcades finished loading fifteen rounds into the MP5SD’s magazine. The fox quietly placed the magazine back on the table next to the submachine gun, and he looked back at Jake as the human finished firing his last round. When the human fired the tenth round, the bolt of the AR-9 locked backwards. Jake went to pull the trigger again, but he noticed that not only did it feel different to pull, nothing came out the end of the gun. Jake looked at the weapon, “What’s that?” The fox replied while pointing at the open chamber, “You’re out of ammunition. This weapon is able to lock the bolt backwards when you are empty. Here, put it back on the table.” Jake looked at his target again, but he lowered the weapon before placing it on the table with the empty chamber visible to both himself and the anthro. Arcades pointed out the fact that the chamber was open, “To make sure that your weapon is empty, you can look into the chamber from here to see that no rounds are in the magazine. Then, you remove the magazine and pull that handle backwards a couple times.” The fox picked the weapon up to demonstrate the action to Jake. Arcades removed the magazine, placed it on the table, and racked the charging handle three times before setting the weapon back on the table after manually locking the bolt back again.
Arcades looked over to Jake’s son next and smiled, “How about you let Chris here use the cooler weapon?” The eight-year-old boy became excited, “I wanna shoot the cool gun!” Jake was somewhat hesitant, but he felt he could trust the fox, “You seem to know what you’re doing. Alright, you can teach my son to shoot.” Arcades nodded towards the father, “Not to worry, I’ll be making sure nothing goes wrong.” The fox looked back at the boy and used an incorrect method to describe the MP5SD, but it was a term government officials would use to refer to the MP5SD, “You ready to use the silenced machine gun?” Chris’ excitement was clearly visible, “Yeah! I wanna use the Call of Duty gun!” The fox chuckled before noticing that the boy would not be able to see over the shooting corral, “Hah… Hold on, just wait here for a moment.”
Arcades walked away, but he came back within the same minute carrying a large sandbag. Jake used his arm to direct his son out of the way while the fox placed the sandbag on the ground. Arcades did not plop the bag on the ground since he did not want to kick up dirt which would get on the two humans. Jake looked at the large sandbag before looking back at the fox and commenting on his size, “That bag looks pretty big, even for you. I wouldn’t think somebody of your size would be able to lift it.” Arcades smiled and shrugged, “Well, I wouldn’t say that’s the first time somebody had something to say about my size.” Jake realized that his comment might have sounded rather rude, “Ah, that probably wasn’t the best thing I could say.” The fox was not offended, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I may be the thinnest guy I know, but I can still get the job done.” Jake did not know what the fox had gone through one year earlier. Memories from Facility Zero suddenly flashed by the fox’s eyes, but he briefly shook his head to get the thoughts out. Once Arcades’ mind was clear again, he got down on his knees and spoke to the child with a smile, “Step right up, and we’ll get started!” The child eagerly stood on the sandbag, and he was able to see over the shooting deck. Chris looked at the two weapons sitting on the wooden shooting deck, but it was clear which weapon he found to be more interesting.
The fox handed the child the MP5SD which he was excited to get ahold of, “There you go. Pretty cool, huh?” The child was taken back by the weight of the weapon, but he was still able to hold it, “Wow! This thing is so heavy! It’s so cool in Call of Duty!” The fox smiled as he listened to the child, remembering when he used to play video games such as Call of Duty, but he wanted to make sure Chris knew how to properly hold the MP5SD before proceeding any further. Arcades sat forth and spoke, “Put your left hand on that tube there, but don’t touch that smaller tube!” Chris held the MP5SD’s foregrip, but he was curious as to why Arcades would warn him against holding the barrel itself, “Why?” Arcades replied, “That little tube gets really hot! You wouldn’t wanna touch it when it’s hot now, would ya?” As the child held the handguard, he began to play with the fire-selector switch with his right hand, “What’s this do?” Arcades saw what the child was toggling, but he was not too worried since the weapon had no rounds loaded, “Don’t touch that until later. How’s that sound?” Chris took his right hand off of the fire-selector, but the fox told him where to place his right hand instead, “Grab the handle down there. Make sure you hold on tight!” Chris grabbed the pistol grip of the weapon, but he was already touching the trigger with his index finger. Arcades commented, “Your gun’s not ready yet, so you don’t need to p
ull that trigger now.” The human child released his finger from the trigger, and he moved it back to the pistol grip.
Though there were better options at trigger discipline, Arcades decided to let the child hold the pistol grip with all five fingers. The fox noticed that Chris already held the stock up to his shoulder, but the retractable stock was still collapsed. Arcades found no reason to extend the stock since the boy seemed to already have enough trouble just holding the weapon in the first place. Arcades knew that he would have to help the child hold the weapon to continue firing it. The fox also decided that it would be best for him to load the weapon rather than Chris, so he picked the magazine up and placed it into the lower receiver of the MP5SD as the child was now struggling to keep the weapon held upright. Chris commented on the weight of the weapon again, “It’s so heavy!” Arcades scooted over while still on his knees, and he placed his hands underneath the child’s hands in order to bear some of the load for him. When the fox moved, the movement of his tail prompted Jake to take a quick look at the dirt Arcades had accumulated on the soles of his feet, and he was wondering why Arcades decided not to wear shoes. Chris immediately commented upon feeling the fox’s fur, “Wow! You’re furry!” Arcades began to laugh at the comment.