Chapter 68: Closest Thing To An Inheritor
-Ding!
{
Centralized Resource Exchange and Distribution Interface Terminal (C.R.E.D.I.T.)
TOTAL DUE: 23,520 Credits.
...
Firearm Customization Invoice
Platform: Knight’s Armament SR-25 Carbine
Factory Configuration:
14.5" Barrel
7.62×51mm NATO
Direct Impingement
Semi-Automatic
Factory firearm verified.
...
Requested Modifications...
Barrel Assembly
Remove: Factory 14.5" Chrome-Lined Barrel
Install: 14.5" Heavy Contour Match Barrel
Caliber Conversion: 6.5 Creedmoor
Parts Cost: 1,200 Credits
Installation: 150 Credits
...
Trigger Assembly
Remove: Factory Two-Stage Trigger
Install: Geissele Super Select-Fire (SSF) Trigger Group
Part Cost: 600 Credits
Installation: 75 Credits
...
Fire Control Group
Install: Automatic Fire Control Conversion
Configuration: Safe / Semi / Automatic
Includes: Automatic Sear Assembly, Modified Bolt Carrier Group, Selector Replacement
Parts Cost: 750 Credits
Installation: 450 Credits
...
Buttstock Replacement
Install: Magpul SL-S
Part Cost: 120 Credits
Installation: 30 Credits
...
Charging Handle
Install: Radian Raptor-SD Ambidextrous Charging Handle
Part Cost: 180 Credits
Installation: 30 Credits
...
Magazine Well
Install: Strike Industries Enhanced Magazine Well
Part Cost: 75 Credits
Installation: 30 Credits
...
Weapon Light
Install: SureFire M640DF Turbo Scout Light Pro
Part Cost: 540 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Sling
Install: Blue Force Gear Vickers Combat Applications Sling
Part Cost: 120 Credits
...
Primary Optic
Install: Vortex Razor HD Gen III 1-10x24 FFP
Configuration: Spuhr ISMS Mount
Parts Cost: 4,350 Credits
Installation: 75 Credits
...
Offset Optic
Install: Aimpoint ACRO P-2
Parts Cost: 1,050 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Muzzle Device & Suppressor
Install: SureFire SOCOM65-RC2 Suppressor
Configuration: SureFire SF3P Flash Hider Mount
Part Cost: 2,025 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Precision Assembly
Includes: Complete Rifle Disassembly, Headspacing, Gas System Tuning, Trigger Calibration, Final Zero Verification.
Labor Cost: 750 Credits
...
Subtotal: 12,735 Credits
...
...
Firearm Customization Invoice...
Platform: SIG Sauer MCX Spear LT
Factory Configuration:
11.5" Barrel
7.62×39mm
Short-Stroke Gas Piston
Semi-Automatic
Factory firearm verified.
...
Requested Modifications...
Trigger Assembly
Install: Geissele MCX SSA M4 Curve Trigger
Part Cost: 525 Credits
Installation: 75 Credits
...
Weapon Light
Install: SureFire M640DF Turbo Scout Light Pro
Configuration: ModButton Lite Remote Switch Integration
Part Cost: 675 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Sling
Install: Blue Force Gear Vickers Combat Applications Sling
Part Cost: 120 Credits
...
Primary Optic
Install: EOTech EXPS3-0 Holographic Weapon Sight
Parts Cost: 1,125 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Magnifier
Install: EOTech G33 3x Magnifier
Configuration: Switch-to-Side (STS) Mount
Parts Cost: 975 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Muzzle Device & Suppressor
Install: SIG Sauer SLX762-QD Suppressor
Configuration: Clutch-LOK QD Flash Hider
Part Cost: 1,800 Credits
Installation: 150 Credits
...
Precision Assembly
Includes: Complete Rifle Disassembly, Piston System Inspection, Trigger Calibration, Optic Alignment.
Labor Cost: 450 Credits
...
Subtotal: 6,030 Credits
...
...
Firearm Customization Invoice
Platform: Genesis Arms Gen-12
Factory Configuration:
10.5" Barrel
12 Gauge (2.75" & 3" Chamber)
Short-Recoil Operation
Semi-Automatic
Factory firearm verified.
...
Requested Modifications...
Trigger Assembly
Install: Geissele Super 3 Gun (S3G) Trigger
Part Cost: 360 Credits
Installation: 75 Credits
...
Weapon Light
Install: SureFire M640DF Turbo Scout Light Pro
Part Cost: 540 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Sling
Install: Blue Force Gear Vickers Combat Applications Sling
Part Cost: 120 Credits
...
Primary Optic
Install: Aimpoint Micro T-2
Configuration: Scalarworks LEAP/01 Mount (Lower Third Co-Witness)
Parts Cost: 1,350 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Muzzle Device & Suppressor
Install: JK Armament 195 SGX 12-Gauge Tactical Suppressor
Configuration: JK Factory Choke Replacement Mount
Part Cost: 1,725 Credits
Installation: 45 Credits
...
Precision Assembly
Includes: Complete Firearm Disassembly, Recoil System Tuning for High-Brass/Buckshot, Trigger Calibration.
Labor Cost: 450 Credits
...
Subtotal: 4,755 Credits
...
TOTAL DUE: 23,520 Credits
}
And I confirmed it without batting an eye, and watched twenty-three thousand five hundred and twenty Credits walk straight out of my balance, which was about a hundred and seventeen Infected worth of work, and worth every single one of them.
Besides, compared to how the two hundred thousand my own rifle had cost, twenty-three thousand wasn’t even worth mentioning in the same breath.
The rifles came out of Inventory one at a time onto the coffee table while Nora sat forward on the opposite sofa with both hands on her knees and her brown eyes going wider by the second, ponytail hanging out the back of that navy cap of hers, doing an outstanding impression of a kid who had just been walked into the toy aisle.
Nia’s father sat beside her in his white coat with his hands folded in his lap, watching the table with the round-rimmed glasses catching the light.
Behind me, the kitchen stayed quiet.
Kara hadn’t come out of it since I’d walked out, and I hadn’t gone back in.
"Alright, I have your weapons ready..." I said, "As they say, the weapon doesn’t make the man... but a good one sure as shit helps."
I picked up the SR-25 and held it out across the table.
"This one’s yours, kid."
Nora took it with both hands and immediately discovered that the rifle was heavier than it looked, and her whole body adjusted around it while she stood up, faced the balcony, and brought it into her shoulder, all five foot two of her, cheek down on the stock like she’d been practicing the motion in a mirror.
"Fourteen-and-a-half-inch match barrel, 6.5 Creedmoor, select fire, twenty-round mags," I said, leaning back into the sofa. "If you can master it... I’ll have my gun."
Nora’s head came up off the stock so fast the cap nearly went with it.
"...Your gun?"
"Deal?"
"Yeah, no," Nia called over from the bar without lifting her green eyes off Kara’s laptop, "... the second she touches that trigger on auto... yeah, I’m not dying from friendly fire."
"Nobody asked you!"
"Somebody’s gotta be the adult here, munchkin~"
Nora aimed the mag-less rifle at her instead, which Nia did not so much as glance at, and then Nora looked down at the thing in her hands again.
"Wait..." Her eyebrows came together under the brim of the cap. "This looks exactly like yours."
"It is exactly like mine."
"Then what makes yours special?"
I opened my mouth to answer that and then just sat there for a second, because there was no way to say it that made me sound like a serious person.
"...Mine cheats."
"Cheats how?"
"The scope does my job for me," I admitted. "Range, drop, wind, my own barrel’s temper, all of it is calculated live... Then it puts a dot on the scope where the bullet is actually going to land... I don’t need aim, kid. I just gotta put the dot on the thing and pull. Forty-eight thousand Credits for the scope, forty-two for the computer doin’ my job..."
Nora’s mouth had come open.
"Then the suppressor, which is another seventy grand of the same nonsense. Thirty decibels for three shots, then it needs a breather. Yours is a genuinely excellent can, and it is still a rifle... the whole block’s gonna find out that you pulled the trigger. Mine’s... barely a whisper."
"That’s..." Nora did the arithmetic on her fingers, gave up on her fingers, and stared at me. "How much is your gun?"
"Two hundred and twenty-six thousand, three hundred and nine."
"How much was ours... collectively?"
"Twenty-three thousand five hundred and twenty..." I tilted my head.
"NIKKI."
"Yeah."
"That’s..." her mouth gaped. "That’s ten of ours!"
"That’s eleven hundred and thirty-one Infected," I corrected with a shit-eating grin, "... and about fifty-five thousand of it went on a laser."
"A laser?!"
"An augmented reality target designator. Paints me an aiming line only I can see... through the compatible eyewear."
"...Which you have."
"N-no," I said, with all the dignity I had left. "It’s sold separately."
Nia’s laugh cracked across the living room like a gunshot.
"Point is..." I pushed straight through it while Nora folded up giggling into her own new rifle, "... strip the system parts off mine and what’s left is the exact gun in your hands. Same barrel, same trigger, same everything. It’s not a better rifle, kid... I just unlocked real-life pay-to-win... And if you can master the rifle in your hands, I’ll let you have the one in mine. You’re the closest thing I got to an inheritor, kid..."
She stopped giggling at that and looked down at it differently.
While I set the Gen-12 on the table and slid it across to her.
"That one’s your sister’s. Give it to her later."
Nora’s eyes went to the kitchen doorway for about half a second, and then came back to me, and she didn’t say a single word about it as she sat back down on the sofa, took the shotgun and set it carefully across her lap.
[Smart kid...]
For Nia’s father, I already had something in the Inventory.
I put the Spear down on the coffee table next, muzzle away from everybody, and left it lying there.
Nobody picked it up, because we all understood who that was for.
I tactfully moved on without commenting on it.
"And this," I said, pulling the very first gun I had put an Enhanced Universal Suppressor on, "... is yours, Doc."
The tan 1301 came out of Inventory with the six-inch can still riding the muzzle in matching tan, and I held it out to a man whose hands spent their entire working life doing the exact opposite of what I was handing him.
Nia’s father took it slowly, the way you take something you don’t know how to hold.
"Seven in the tube, one in the chamber," I said. "Point in general direction, pull the trigger, and repeat; it does the rest. And that can on the end is the same tech as mine... thirty decibels, three shells, then it needs fifteen seconds. Five seconds if you only fire once... You get the math right?"
"That thing has the first reward the System ever gave me," I added. "Take care of her."
He turned it over once in his hands and looked at it through the round glasses for a long moment, and when he finally spoke, it came out quiet enough that I had to lean in.
"I’ve never fired one."
"Nia’ll walk you through it in an hour."
He nodded at that, still looking at the shotgun, and I was already halfway to standing up when he spoke again.
"Bring her back."
I stopped.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the shotgun in his hands, sharp green eyes exactly like his daughter’s fixed somewhere in the middle of it.
An aging surgeon in a white coat who had spent his week in a cell trying to save a woman nobody could save, who’d asked me what about you while I shoved him into a Cybertruck with a Tank digging through the ground straight at us.
But he was also the man who had cast the very first vote in that parliament this morning for the plan that ends with two camps of living people in the dirt, and me going alone to do it.
Because it was the plan that kept his daughter safe.
"Promise..." I said.
He nodded once, and that was the end of it.
The ammo came next, and I didn’t bother announcing that line by line.
-Ding!
{
Munitions Order Complete.
TOTAL DUE: 9,140 Credits
}
Buckshot for both shotguns, the heaviest-hitting loads on the menu, because the armor those things below grow under the skin eats anything polite.
The hottest 7.62×39 they made for the Spear.
And a small mountain for Nora, twenty loaded mags and six thousand rounds of 6.5 Creedmoor stacked into the corner of the living room.
In theory, everybody else in this group could top up off any dead cop or gun store in the country, and there wasn’t a person in this entire nation shooting 6.5 Creedmoor except competition nerds and men with too much money.
"So where’s Leo?" I asked, standing up. "Don’t tell me he locked himself in his room like some angsty teenager..."
"He’s on the roof..." Nora said, and her voice had gone smaller. "He’s still mad... and you can’t blame him for that..."
I swear I tried to hold that scoff in. I really did.
"Nia, teach them how to operate the guns... after that, we’re leaving. I’ll be on the roof..."
Nia raised one hand off the bar in acknowledgment without ever lifting her eyes from the laptop, while Tikki sat right between her and the laptop, back resting on Nia, not even bothering to turn around and look.
While I picked the Spear up off the coffee table by its sling, put it over my shoulder, and walked out through the glass, onto the cold balcony toward the roof ladder.
[Can’t let that fester...]