The Continental, New York.
Third basement level, outside the shooting range.
The range entrance was a heavy steel fire door with a small round window set into it.
Nate pushed it open and stepped inside.
A bald man sat behind the front desk wearing a black polo shirt embroidered with The Continental’s emblem, a crossed musket and key.
A tattoo ran up his neck from beneath the collar to behind his ear, the kind of design Nate associated with Eastern European prisons.
“Membership card.”
Nate handed over his Continental room key card.
The man swiped it through a reader and gave it back.
“Lane five. Need to rent a gun?”
“Not right now.”
Nate walked over to the metal table at Lane Five.
He took his pistol from its black holster, then pulled several black-and-red boxes from the cloth bundle.
He opened one.
Inside were fifty neatly arranged brass-cased 9mm Parabellum rounds.
The bald attendant came over from behind the counter carrying a staple gun for mounting targets.
“Distance?”
“Twenty meters.”
Nate settled into position with his feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, and his weight leaning slightly forward.
It was the standard shooting stance he’d seen countless times online.
His eyesight had already been good, but Eagle Eye had taken it to another level.
Looking through the red dot sight, he could make out individual printed dots on the target twenty meters away.
The dot rested directly over the center.
Steady.
No shaking.
No drift.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Nate checked the target.
Seven ring.
Not bad.
Then his expression changed.
He immediately set the gun down, bent over, and clapped both hands over his ears.
Fuck, my ears!
The helmet boosted his hearing too!
Wait.
Wasn’t a tactical helmet supposed to have hearing protection built in?
He’d assumed it did, which was exactly why he hadn’t bothered wearing earmuffs.
So even equipment from the System came with missing features.
Fantastic.
The burly white guy with a crew cut in the neighboring lane laughed.
“Indoor range, man. You trying to lose your hearing?”
Could’ve told me that before I fired.
Nate gave him an awkward smile and put on a pair of hearing protectors.
He fired again.
Bang!
Six ring, low and left.
Third shot.
Eight ring.
A steady series of gunshots followed.
After emptying the magazine, Nate shook out his hand.
Following the tutorial on his phone, he removed the magazine, pressed the slide release, and let the slide snap forward.
Then he pressed the control beside the lane.
The target traveled back toward him along the rail.
There were nineteen bullet holes scattered across the B27 target.
Some high, some low, with most drifting down and left.
One lonely shot had landed in the ten ring, though Nate suspected that had been more luck than skill.
He frowned.
His vision was already exceptionally sharp, and Eagle Eye had enhanced it even further.
From more than ten meters away, he could probably count the scars on someone’s hand.
That should have been an enormous advantage when shooting.
But it didn’t matter how perfectly he aligned the sights.
The instant he pulled the trigger, the muzzle moved.
Nate replaced the target and brought it in to ten meters.
Ten meters was a basic pistol distance.
Most firearms courses started at seven or ten.
He loaded the magazine, took his stance again, and aimed.
This time, he deliberately slowed down his trigger pull, gradually applying pressure with the tip of his finger while trying to keep the pistol perfectly still through the shot.
Bang.
Nine ring.
Second shot.
Eight.
Third.
Nine again.
Fourth.
Miss.
The bullet struck the white area in the upper-right portion of the target, at least five centimeters outside the black.
Nate stared at the hole for a moment, set the pistol down, and shook out his hand.
“Too fast.”
The interval between the last two shots had been too short.
In his previous life, he’d watched a movie called Double Tap and had tried to imitate the rapid two-shot technique from it.
He was trying to run before he’d learned to walk.
Nate loaded the magazine again, pressing the rounds in one by one.
There was something oddly relaxing about loading ammunition.
The last few rounds were a pain to push in, though, so he gave up and stopped at sixteen.
He took a deep breath and raised the pistol.
This time, after aiming, he closed his eyes.
It was a trick he’d seen a shooting instructor demonstrate online in his previous life.
Close your eyes for three seconds, open them again, and check whether your sights were still aligned with the same point.
Nate opened his eyes.
The red dot had shifted right.
His hands still weren’t steady enough.
He adjusted his grip, consciously relaxed his muscles, then closed his eyes again.
Three seconds.
He opened them.
The sight hadn’t moved.
Nate pulled the trigger.
Bang.
Nine ring.
He fired five consecutive shots.
Every round landed between the eight and nine rings.
No tens, but none missed either, and the spread had tightened from nearly half the target to an area about the size of his fist.
Nate exhaled.
He was finally starting to get a feel for it.
Then, on the very next shot, his right thumb somehow pressed down at the wrong moment.
The muzzle shifted.
The round skimmed past the edge of the target and struck the steel backstop with a sharp clang.
From the front desk came a sound suspiciously like someone trying not to laugh.
Nate didn’t turn around, but he could tell the bald attendant was watching him.
He ignored it and kept shooting.
Two hundred rounds was a fair amount of ammunition for a pistol, and Nate wasn’t in any hurry.
Between loading magazines and firing, he stayed at the range from around 3:30 until nearly five.
He changed targets several times, moving from ten meters to fifteen, then seven, then finally back out to twenty.
He tried rapid single shots.
He tried double taps.
He even tried moving while holding the pistol at an angle the way John Wick did in the movies.
Two rounds went straight into the neighboring lane.
The attendant tapped on the glass and slowly shook his head at him.
Nate abandoned that idea.
By the time he’d burned through all two hundred rounds, he brought in the last target and laid the sheets out on the table one by one.
The first target, from fifteen meters, had a massive spread.
The bullet holes looked like someone had thrown sesame seeds at the paper.
The second, from seven meters, was his best.
Most of the shots clustered between the eight and ten rings.
There was technically only one ten, and even that one sat right on the line between nine and ten.
In an actual competition, whether it counted as a ten would probably depend on the judge.
The third target covered his attempts at ten and fifteen meters, including several rapid double taps.
Those were ugly.
The two holes from each pair were often so far apart that they looked as though they’d been fired from different guns.
The fourth target was from twenty meters, his final twenty-something rounds.
By then, fatigue had set in.
His hands were starting to tremble, and the red dot traced small circles around the center.
Four rounds missed the target completely.
The rest landed between the five and nine rings.
The enhanced vision from Eagle Eye really was excellent.
From twenty meters away, Nate could see each new bullet hole the instant it appeared, which made it easy to tell what had gone wrong with each shot.
But seeing the problem and fixing it were two very different things.
There was still a wall between the two, and he couldn’t get over it yet.
Looks like I’m not naturally talented with guns.
That was fine.
He still had an empty Trait Slot.
Once he got back to his room, he could see whether there was a suitable Trait for shooting.
Nate folded the targets and stuffed them into the wastebasket beside the table.
The attendant walked over, glanced at the discarded targets, then looked at Nate.
“Want to try a different gun?”
He gestured toward the empty casings scattered across the table.
“Nah.”
Nate holstered the pistol on his right side.
The three magazines sat on his left, their pouches adjusted to an angle that felt natural to draw from.
“I wasn’t very good.”
It wasn’t false modesty.
Just a statement of fact.
The bald attendant considered that for a moment.
“For a beginner, you did fine.”
Nate reached into his bag.
“Actually, can I try this?”
He took out the throwing-knife rig and strapped it to his forearm.
“Sure. Just not here.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“Distance?”
“Fifteen meters.”
The attendant led him to a separate throwing area and set up a wooden circular target about two inches thick.
Nate stood with both hands at his sides.
He pulled the release ring with his middle finger.
A throwing knife slid out from beneath his sleeve.
Nate caught it and snapped his wrist.
The knife screamed through the air, leaving only a blur behind.
It punched straight through the wooden target without slowing and struck the steel backstop behind it with a metallic clang.
“What the fuck?!”
The attendant stared at the target with his eyes wide open.
“What the hell was that? How did you do that?”
Nate was startled too.
Nearly six times the normal power.
Was the boost really that ridiculous?
“Uh…”
He hesitated.
“Kung fu.”
The attendant’s eyes lit up.
“I knew it! That’s internal power, right? I knew those masters from the movies had to be real!”
His excitement grew with every word.
“I finally saw the real thing! You have to teach me!”
Nate gave him an awkward look.
“You probably couldn’t learn it. It takes natural talent.”
The bald man looked disappointed, but the excitement in his eyes didn’t fade at all.
“Doesn’t matter. Just seeing it was enough. Now I can tell people I’ve actually seen real kung fu.”
Nate didn’t know what to say to that.
It wasn’t kung fu.
It was basically cheating.
“I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”
The attendant nodded enthusiastically.
“The underground range is open year-round, six in the morning until two at night. I’m here every day.”
That’s one hell of a work schedule.
The attendant retrieved Nate’s throwing knife from the steel backstop and handed it back.
Nate left the range.
The cold white lights in the corridor made his eyes feel slightly dry.
When the elevator doors opened, the smell of steak drifted toward him.
The restaurant on the second floor had started serving dinner.
Nate rested a hand against the pistol at his waist.
The holster had already warmed from his body heat and molded itself against his side until it almost felt like part of him.
The three magazines on his left had a reassuring weight to them.
Together with the throwing knives strapped to his forearm, it was enough to deal with an unexpected visitor.
He’d deliberately kept those three magazines loaded.
Including the rounds in the pistol, he had seventy-six rounds in total.
Perkins.
That woman wasn’t afraid of breaking The Continental’s rules.
Four hundred thousand dollars probably wasn’t enough to tempt someone like her.
Probably.
But Nate wasn’t about to take that chance.