Kira pushed herself up from the floor of her kill box. The shock simulating a hip-shattering hit had forced her down on one knee, and she stretched her right leg to relieve the tightness and pain. Two hours and six matches into the session, it was clear Diana mourned the dead by pushing the living to the edge of physical endurance. Kira’s gait rolled a little as she made her way back to the judge’s table.
Her trainer’s voice came over the earpiece. “So, what happened there?”
Kira tossed her spent brass into the case bin. “I was too slow.” She picked a fresh round from the ammunition rack, loaded her pistol, and closed the action with a soft click. “The mech was ahead of me, so I should have gone with point-to-aim instead of waiting for sight alignment.”
“Very good. Same settings. Let’s try that again.”
Kira holstered her pistol and took her place beside the mech.
In addition to setting the shock factor at more than twice the normal training value, Diana had cranked the mech’s performance so high it responded like a professional gunfighter in top form. So far this morning, Kira had yet to inflict more than a superficial hit, while the mech had sent simulated rounds through most of her vital organs, leg bones, and spine. At least it hadn’t killed her outright yet.
Kira walked to the start point and stood back-to-back with the mech. Marching to the cadence of the recorded ward’s voice, she entered the kill box well off the strikeline, turned, drew, and fired. The kick from the recoil hit at almost the same instant as the sting on her shoulder from the mech’s shot. Her mechanical opponent staggered, but didn’t fall. After building to a crescendo of scalding pain, the burn in her shoulder subsided.
God damn. This is getting old.
Diana asked for Kira’s self-critique and supplied a few points of her own. Kira asked for dispensation to get a drink of water, Diana granted it, and Kira pulled a bottle from the cooler under the judge’s table. Diana called her back before she’d gulped down even half the liquid.
Kira set aside the water bottle and reloaded her weapon. She ached from the hits she’d taken, and there were undoubtedly more to come. Yet, she took her position and waited for the simulation to resume. All too soon, the recorded voice rang out.
The session became a blur of pain and frustration. She wanted to quit. She wanted Diana to let up. Neither one was going to happen. It was just barely possible she’d keep her job after walking off the field in a snit, but Diana would forever regard her as a person who folded under pressure.
She altered her route to the kill box, focused on the speed of her draw, and made the fastest turns she could manage. Again and again, the mech defeated her, and the suit punished her with a painful jolt.
When the clock showed noon, Diana announced they’d work through lunch, although she did allow Kira to devour two protein bars and wash them down with a bottle of energy drink before resuming the session.
The day’s eighteenth match left Kira doubled over in the kill box, trying to mitigate the pain of a simulated gutshot. When the burning sensation finally stopped, Diana rattled off about boot placement and rotation timing or some damn thing. Kira half listened to the instruction, said something noncommittal in response, and walked back to the judge’s table when Diana told her to jog. At the table, she flung her spent brass in the general direction of the case bin, jammed a fresh cartridge into her gun, and shoved the weapon into her holster. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, waiting for the recorded ward’s voice. In the earpiece, Diana admonished her to “straighten up.” Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.
On command, Kira marched down the field with the mech, stood at the start point, took her ten paces to the kill box, turned, and prepared to fire.
Agony blossomed in her chest—a fatal hit. She dropped the gun and wrapped her arms around herself, desperate to reduce the pain. Her vision blurred, she squeezed her eyes shut, and the torment continued.
When the shock finally stopped, she was down on all fours.
Diana’s voice came through the earpiece. “So, what just happened?”
Several pithy replies popped into Kira’s head, but she remained silent.
Diana’s voice again, still calm. “Say again? I didn’t quite catch it.”
Kira trusted herself to whisper. “I lost.”
“Say it again.”
Kira let anger flow into her voice. “I said, ‘I lost!’”
“Again.”
Despite the lingering pain, Kira rose to her feet and shouted toward the control cab. “I. Fucking. Lost. OK?”
“What happens when you lose?”
Diana’s voice contained the faintest flicker of something gentle. Compassion? Sadness? A vision interrupted Kira’s search for a smart-ass response: her body, crumpled like a discarded gum wrapper in the kill box, with a dark stain spreading around it as her life bled away through a nine-millimeter hole in her chest.
Kira hung her head and spoke just loud enough for the throat mic to pick it up. “I die. When I lose, I can die.”
This time, the voice in her ear held the tiniest bit of warmth. “So, what keeps you alive?”
Letting her voice go flat, Kira gave the expected reply. “Fast walks, fast draws, and straight shots.”
After a long silence, Diana spoke. “OK. That’s enough for today. Put the gear away, police your brass, give me three slow laps, and meet me in Conference Room F.”
Kira hesitated at the door to the conference room. What was she walking into? The door’s tiny window revealed Diana at the room’s worktable, focused on her data pad. Kira opened the door and dropped into the opposite seat. Diana remained engrossed in whatever she was reading.
Hunger gnawed at Kira’s stomach. The air conditioner kicked on and poured cold air from the ceiling. The shock suit and uniform, soaked with sweat from the session, grew clammy and stank. As the chill settled in, knots formed in Kira’s abused muscles, and her body began to quiver.
Diana wrote something on the pad with a stylus, tapped the device a few times, and then wrote something else. Kira moved her chair, scraping its legs across the tile floor, and planted her elbows on the table with a thud.
Diana ignored her.
The air conditioner kept pouring out cold air, and Kira’s legs stuck to the chair’s cooling plastic through her sweat-drenched pants. Her jaw began to tremble. Soon, her teeth would be chattering. What was Diana still so mad about?
The stony silence dragged on, punctuated only by the occasional tap on the data pad.
She wasn’t going to let Diana end things like this, if that’s what this was about. If Diana wanted to assign Kira to another trainer, there had to be some kind of discussion. Kira’s voice nearly cracked as she spoke. “Look, Diana, I know I’m supposed to shoot first. OK? I get it. You can let it go.”
Diana looked up, as if noticing Kira for the first time. She put the data pad on the table, sat back in her chair, and studied Kira over steepled fingers. “It’s not what you know that keeps you alive, baby girl.” She paused and sharpened her focus. “It’s what you can remember at the right time.”
Kira sagged into her chair. “God damn it, Diana. I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t be sorry. Be better.”
Kira hung her head. She wanted to cry, but she wasn’t going to. Not where Diana could see.
Her trainer’s voice remained cold. “I’m going to a funeral this weekend. I can’t afford to screw up another Saturday by going to yours.”
Kira’s stomach knotted with more than hunger. “Do you really think I’m that bad?”
“Not when you’re paying attention. Not when you’re on it.” Diana held up the data pad and pointed to a graph of Kira’s performance. “Do you know you got faster later in the day? At least when you weren’t screwing around and throwing a tantrum.”
Kira looked at the floor.
“Aside from that, you kept improving.” Diana put the pad down and faced Kira. “So, baby girl, what’s the
lesson?”
Kira looked down at her hands. That hid the anger in her face, but not her voice. “Shoot first or die.”
Diana relaxed and sat back. “That’s right. Never forget they’re shooting at you, too. When you aim, settle for good, because waiting for perfect can kill you.”
Kira kept her head down. “I knew what I needed to do when we started. Believe it or not, nearly bleeding to death did make an impression.”
Diana snorted. “It’s too easy to treat that as a one-off and go back to old habits.” She tapped the data pad. “Now, though—I think you know it in your bones.”
The knot in Kira’s stomach loosened.
Ever so slightly, Diana’s tone softened. “Listen, everyone knows you’re the Queen of the Waiting Room. I love that. The company loves that. A win where your opponent takes the door is a risk-free win, and we’ll take as many of those as we can get. But”—Diana folded the pad open again—“you have to back that up with performance on the field. I’ve scheduled some time tomorrow morning with a physical therapist. You’ve got a catch when you rotate right, and I want them to look at it. Then I want Ross to work with you on draw speed in the afternoon. I’ve got Firing Point Seven reserved. Work on shooting from both the right and the left. It may be time to use that.”
She punched her data pad, and Kira’s handset chirped in acknowledgment.
Diana continued. “I sent you the full schedule. There’s a bunch of firing range work with specialists to get you built back up, then we go into the simulator. I hope you don’t have plans for the weekend.”
“I was going to go to the funeral.”
“I allowed for that.”
Kira made a face and sighed.
A note of irritation crept into Diana’s voice. “They’re only giving us five days to get you ready for a fitness assessment. We’re stretched thin, and losing Gary makes it worse. It’s another two months before we get any new graduates.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Now that the Review Board closed the investigation, they want you back on the field.”
“So, I’m clear?” Why hadn’t Diana told her that before now?
“Yes, you’re clear. They’ve looked at Jenkins’s report and chosen not to go forward. From what I can tell, Jenkins tried to convince them you waited to fire so Hernandez could hit you in the outer thigh and give you an excuse to miss. Instead, Hernandez either double-crossed you or botched the shot. It’s plausible, given the evidence.”
“Then how come I’m in the clear?”
“No motive. Even with open access to your financials, he can’t show a payoff. He pushed the idea you did it so the Hernandez kids wouldn’t be orphans, but apparently the Review Board didn’t find that credible.”
That was good for the case, but what did it say about her?
Diana wrapped up. “No evidence of prematch communication, and the fact you nearly died does weigh in your favor.”
“At least I got something for all that blood.”
Diana looked disgusted rather than amused. “See that you don’t need it again. Jenkins may close this one out, but he’ll be watching you. Go clean up and get some rest.”
“He can watch all he wants. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You say that like it matters.” Kira stared, but Diana just shrugged. “He thinks you’ve escaped this time, but he’ll be looking for the chance to snag you again. Don’t give it to him.”
“OK.”
The briefing should have been over, but Diana clearly wasn’t ready to end it. She pressed her hands together and fixed her gaze on Kira. “I understand what you were trying to do. You shifted your aim from his chest to his shoulder because you didn’t want to kill him.”
Kira kept her face blank.
Diana studied Kira for a few seconds before she resumed. “Understand you don’t have that luxury. That’s part of what today was about, too.”
Kira responded with the smallest of nods.
Diana shook her head. “Dismissed.”
Kira left. When the briefing room door shut behind her, she allowed herself a sigh of relief. Getting back into Diana’s good graces would be a long-term project.
Staying alive long enough for it to happen might be the hard part.
Kira entered the Gunslinger’s Lounge and stopped to savor the smells of old leather, polished wood, and strong beverages. Just a quick drink to relax, maybe some nachos on the side, and then home to pack her lunch and sleep. Leave it to Diana to assume 6:30 a.m. was a perfectly normal time for a physical therapy appointment.
Kira picked a booth and found herself facing a vid screen showing a replay of Gary’s last match. He stumbled a little coming out of the turn, taking an extra second or so to stabilize and orient himself before he drew. By the time Gary’s weapon cleared his holster, his opponent had already drawn a solid bead on him. Gary fired when his hands came together at midbody; a desperation shot. Slow motion showed his muzzle flashing a few tenths of a second before his opponent’s bullet struck. Gary staggered as the projectile buried itself in his abdomen. Across the field, his opponent twisted in agony as Gary’s round tore into his lower chest. Both fell to the pseudograss, but the motion sensors gave the match to the citizen.
The screen split, showing the activity in both kill boxes. Diana was useful—calming Gary, handing implements to the EMT, and assisting the technician to do what could be done for the wound. The citizen’s second mostly sat by helplessly, repeating, “You’re going to make it,” until it became irritating. The scrolling text said Gary died later that night, after surgery failed to halt the blood loss from a damaged kidney. The citizen was still hospitalized, but expected to recover.
A shout pulled Kira away from the video. “Hey, Jack’s in a bleed-off!”
People gathered in front of the big screen over the bar. Some of the sets on the wall changed to show the match and the sound came on. The screen’s left-right split displayed Jack Basinger, a gunslinger in the orange-and-blue colors of Consolidated Trust, on one side and a citizen in beige on the other.
Jack tore his tunic, using it to improvise patches for the holes in the front and back of his upper chest. His second and an EMT stood nearby, poised to help, but waited for a request from Jack. A few feet back, the ward watched the group, his stun rifle slung over his shoulder and his hands on his transponder. If either the second or the EMT touched Jack, the ward would key the transponder and the system would treat the touch as if it were a fall.
On the opposite side of the screen, the other EMT and the citizen’s second positioned themselves near their man, with their assigned ward watching over them. The citizen gasped and shifted as he tried to position his hands to stop the fluids escaping from an abdominal wound. The second, dressed in a Guild freelancer’s black-and-white, responded to the crisis by kneeling low and counseling his client. Only the sweat on the second’s brow, rendering his dark skin unnaturally shiny in the field lights, betrayed the intensity of his concern. The field mic either wasn’t picking up what he was saying, or the vid producer wasn’t running it.
A shout came from the crowd in front of the bar. “C’mon, Jack! You can outlast that dirtbag.”
On the screen, Jack shifted his stance and adjusted his grip on the front chest patch. He wavered.
Another voice came from the crowd. “Jack’s got the worst of it. He’s not going to make it.”
“I’ve got a hundred that says he will.”
“You’re on!”
“One-seventy says you’re full of shit!”
“Put your money down. I say Jack stands through.”
The bartenders found themselves pressed into service as bookies, accepting cash and the markers that identified the bets from the surrounding crowd. The group grew in size and enthusiasm, some shouting for Jack, others for the citizen. Nearly every screen displayed the match.
At the table next to her, a gunfighter from Hounsfield & Associates watched the nearest screen with wild eyes. He shouted and
pounded on the table as if it were the final minutes of a soccer game instead of a life or death struggle.
Kira stared around the room. People stood throughout the Lounge, cheering or booing with each shift in either contestant’s fortune. Acting as if this couldn’t be them or someone they knew as soon as tomorrow.
“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” Had she said that out loud? The noise level made the question irrelevant.
The pounding and shouting became louder as both combatants began to sway. Kira paid her bill and fled through the main door, leaving half her drink and an untouched order of nachos behind.
Chapter 20
Kira’s gut burns, sweat soaks through her uniform, and her heart races. Her stomach demands the chance to throw up, but that seems like a bad idea. At least until she gets this shot off.
The motion sensor keeps Niles in place, but he’s turned his shoulder toward her and uses his arms to cover his head.
Kira pushes through the pain and comes upright into a range-perfect two-handed shooting stance. She tries to align the sights. Instead of a gentle figure eight motion, the aiming dots jerk and wobble with each new twinge from her abdomen or tremor in her arms. It will be pure luck if she hits him at all, much less in a vital area. Sticky warmth spreads down her thigh and touches her calf.
She lowers her arms and braces herself on her knees. Her mouth is dry, the uniform clings to her skin, and she shivers. The gun feels awkward in her hand, as if it’s suddenly become too big and too heavy. She smells like a raw steak starting to go bad.
The commentary plays in her head.
“Stan, this should be an easy shot for one of the Guild’s most accurate marksmen. I wonder what the problem is.”
“Niles is getting the benefit of that hit. That wound isn’t going to get any better, so if she can’t get a shot off now, she’s finished.”
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