He raised his grizzled chin, beset by salt-and-pepper whiskers, in a sharp upturn and told her, "Nobody has called in a claim on booth twelve, so it's yours. You have a good day, ma'am."
Tasìa nodded with a smile and thanked him. She walked over to the firing range just fifteen meters away.
Am I really in some kind of danger, Modality?
—Not entirely certain, but watch your surroundings. Something tipped us off, the voice in her head replied.
She glanced about, noticing there were four other guests standing inside firing line booths spread along the facility's length. A set of gel-casted berms caught loose bullets downrange, and a second set supported a wood veneer mosaic wall backing the 18-wheeler gun shop.
On the opposite side, a steep hill climbed along the length to a curvy road leading into foothills east of the Segunda Estrella motel.
Where could this danger come from?
In the hypothetical situation that formed in her mind, someone saw Annebél toting Tasìa into the motel room, got curious, and discovered she was worth a fortune. After which, the proprietor was warned bounty hunters planned to execute a takedown—hence his heightened curiosity.
The ridge offered few advantageous angles to pop her with a tranq without Tasìa spotting the sharpshooter, but someone hugging the ground could crawl into position when her back was turned to line up a shot directed by a spotter on the motel balcony walkway.
You are letting your imagination get the best of you, T. Coming at you in broad daylight on a busy strip plays to your strengths. Anyone sent against you knows this.
A crow glided with purposeful grace over the ridgeline and swooped down at a shrub-covered spot where it disappeared from her view.
She heard a screech, and the crow abruptly flew up and disappeared.
Someone is up there right now!
Tasìa observed, frustrated at the limits of her Katy Lieds's magnification. At the distance of just over three hundred meters, she couldn't spot a cochlear implant to determine if the crow was a Nightwing.
It moved too fast to ping a signal to request a read-in.
She assumed the murder would return to Villa Marrón after Sachmilli borrowed the Huracán to take Mel back home with all due haste. Though it would be characteristic of Sachmilli to have the brood keep watch over Annebél.
— I believe it deliberately vied for your attention.
Before she could query the Modality for its reasoning, a distracting fizzing noise, accompanied by a scent more like jet fuel than gunpowder, sounded to her right where a plump fellow fired off a gyrojet rocket from a 13mm Desert Eagle Gyro-Launcher Cannon.
After a slow start, the round accelerated, cracked at a Mach 3 velocity, and slammed hard into its target.
On a booth shelf, five custom-made 13 mm rockets lined up. She knew they were custom designed—factory-made gyrojets didn't smell like jet fuel when they launched.
Neither did these appear to be precision instruments of anti-material destruction like MRI-manufactured rounds. But Lord in Heaven, have mercy on anyone ever walloped by one, though.
She understood the shooter's incentive.
Target practice with the commercial product would have been a very expensive hobby.
— Focus, Tasìa. Find his spotter, the Modality admonished.
To her left, past the Range Safety Officer platform where a brown-haired woman kept watch, none of the people milling about the motel gave off any suspicion. All were in tune to their own comings and goings with no care beyond their own circumstances.
I've got nothing.
—You are assuming they are here for you and biasing your search according to that perspective. Reverse your expectations, and you’ll see him.
In the parking lot, halfway between the range and the motel, a heavily tattooed arm poked out of the driver's-side door window of a Jeep facing away from her.
The team watched for a target on the motel grounds.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Was it Matzi they were looking for? What kind of trouble did the mobster get himself into?
Tasìa never researched her personnel beyond tests of competency and personal assessments administered by her gut instincts. This professional discretion left her genuinely surprised by Simone's backstory.
Matzi had something in store for her, Tasìa realized now, but she could only hazard a guess at what. Could it match a spook assassin who outlived her usefulness?
Tasìa frowned lopsidedly as she came upon booth twelve, given she would have to turn her back on the inferred sharpshooter. It gave her little comfort knowing she wasn't the intended target.
She needed a way to keep an eye on movement up on the ridge, but the compact mirror was back at the motel room, and she only carried her wallet at the moment without her purse or fanny pack.
She took off the Katy Lieds and switched the surface mode to mirrored reflection and set the fashionable AR ware on the shelf facing towards the parking lot before she dialed the internal camera above the left frame to sight the spot on the ridge and the right frame camera to the man in the Jeep.
Tasìa sighed.
It was the optimal solution, but she wanted to use the Katy Lieds to record her performance with the Colt 1902 .38 Sporting and break it down in spec.
As Tasìa stepped up on the boards, in a lioness growl, the RSO yelled out, "Pull down! Mags out!"
The RSO was testing if Tasìa, the new girl, knew what she was doing. Tasìa faced the target zone, pulled the magazine out, inspected the chamber for potential jam-up, and then placed it with the barrel facing the target zone and the magazine's open end facing the RSO station.
Many Range Safety Officers liked to inspect what their charges were firing at any given time.
After several seconds, she yelled, "Clear!"
At ease, Tasìa inspected the console for target types—one labeled 'flying bat skeet' intrigued her. Not today, though; she needed a basic bullseye for visual inspection.
She pulled one up to the fifty-meter mark, reloaded the repeater pistol, and tightly unloaded the magazine in a steady half-second flow.
As she hit the call button to bring her the target, Tasìa asked the Modality, How was my hold pattern?
— Displacement built into the barrel is a mere .002 millimeters, negligible and well within industry standards. At 310 meters, you handled the gun with a minute of arch deviation of .3 to the left, which would be 2.7 cm at 310 meters, disregarding all other factors.
Tasìa chuckled and responded, "Which means, for a dead-on shot, given my handicap, aim for his right eye?"
— Not the optimal professional solution recommended by trainers, which would be to practice with the exact opposite deviation until you get an internal feel to split the difference.
She had a quip readied on her tongue but heard a pair of boots stomping with a slight jank walking behind her. She stifled it and pretended to be lost in thought, reloading the .38.
The proprietor took the thirteenth booth as he fiddled with his gun—a Chiappa Rhino in .357 with a six-inch barrel. He placed the impressive piece on the shelf as he laid out his two boxes of rounds.
"Quite a big iron you got there, Slim," Tasìa called out.
He smiled a wide, tight-lipped grin and tipped his nod to her Katy Lieds.
"Keeping an eye on them, I see," he said.
"Friends of yours?" she asked in return.
"Not in the least," he said as he dialed up his target preferences on his booth's console. "Name's Teodoro, and you must be Sachmilli's Chosen One."
She gaffawed loudly and played with the magazine intake when she discovered the trigger engaged the pull locks on an empty chamber. He eyed the gun and looked away quickly.
"So you notice things, huh?" she chided.
"Quite right. Three Nightwings took up guard duty around the Segunda Estrella as of yesterday," he said, and pointed to a copse catty-cornered behind the target zone. "One sits right up there in the trees above the brambles, watching the little campout on the ridge. When you come strolling across the parking lot, it flies up, circles, and makes sure it catches your eye. So, yeah."
She readied another target, brandished the .38 Sporting, pretending she decided to change its loadout. Teodoro’s eyes lingered on the pistol for a split second longer than he intended.
Tasìa chortled.
"You know more about this gun than you are letting on, Teodoro."
He grimaced. "It came from my shop. And I gave it to my girlfriend the night we met. When I spotted it, I was wondering how it wound up in your possession."
Ready to evoke the Modality, Tasìa wasn't going to lie or soft-pedal her answer. If a confrontation was in order, it was best to provoke a response out of him now and not let a thirst for vengeance fester until a time of his place and choosing.
"I'm just getting around to checking it out after I shot her," she answered.
Teodoro wiped at his mouth, his neck muscles tensed up a moment, and then he raised his head in laughter before speaking again.
"Shot her, huh?" He questioned. "They're some things I'll miss about that gal, but I guess that's for the best. It's my damn fault for trusting her that our mutual friend is recovering back in your room."
Just as she was easing back on the Modality evocation for a moment of respite, Tasìa spotted a flash of movement in the Katy Lied's mirrored shades.
She clenched her gut, felt the sudden jolt of acrid vapor rise from her sinus cavities as she twisted around, and took aim.
Her target was a cartel cowboy with blue tattoos up his neck and arms. As he raised up, the sniper turned toward the Segunda Estrella Motel's front entrance double glass doors with a scoped rifle—an old but reliable Gerund bolt-action—in his hands, readying to shoulder it.
With his bald head in side profile from her vantage point, she shot thrice, aiming at his eye socket ridge; the three bullets smacked the base of his temple.
A muted crack repeated nine times to Tasìa's right. Teodoro sat in a squatted position, hands double-gripped on a Ruger Mark IV in 22LR with a sound suppressor bleeding smoke.
The back window of the spotter's Jeep was shattered thoroughly, and the spotter lay with his head pressed against the steering wheel and blood splayed on the front window.
Teodoro had switched out to the small-caliber gun to avoid any stray rounds landing in the motel front.
He nodded to the RSO.
"Cease-fire. Mags out, and step off. Official is on break," she yelled before sliding down the railed platform and heading towards the spotter.
"We'll take care of the cartel assholes; see to our friend there."
Matzi walked through the motel lobby double doors wearing a floral print shirt, khakis, and red gator shoes—an ensemble that undoubtedly Annebél picked out for him.
He slid on a pair of black aviator shades, grinning wide, as he stepped out on concrete, apparently unaware someone just tried to kill him.
Formal Terminology
These terms are used in official documentation, range safety protocols, or by professionals (e.g., range safety officers, instructors):
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Firing Line: The designated line where shooters stand to fire their weapons, typically marked on the ground.
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Berm: Earthen or artificial barriers (side or backstop) designed to contain bullets and prevent ricochet.
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Range Safety Officer (RSO): The individual responsible for enforcing safety rules and overseeing operations.
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Cease Fire: An official command to stop all shooting immediately, often followed by unloading and securing firearms.
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Hot Range: A range where firearms are loaded and shooting is permitted.
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Cold Range: A range where all firearms must be unloaded, with actions open, and no shooting is allowed.
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Downrange: The area beyond the firing line toward the targets, where bullets travel.
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Backstop: A structure (often a berm or steel) behind targets to catch bullets safely.
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Muzzle Discipline: The practice of keeping the firearm’s muzzle pointed in a safe direction, typically downrange.
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Action Open: The state of a firearm with its bolt, slide, or cylinder open, indicating it’s unloaded and safe.
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Range Commands: Standardized instructions like “Load and make ready,” “Fire when ready,” or “Unload and show clear.”
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Bullet Trap: A device or material (e.g., sand, rubber, or steel) designed to capture bullets at indoor ranges.
Informal Terminology
These are slang or colloquial terms you might hear among shooters, range regulars, or in casual conversation:
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Blasting: Casually shooting, often with enthusiasm (e.g., “We’re out here blasting some cans”).
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Spray and Pray: Firing rapidly without precise aim, hoping to hit the target.
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Plinking: Shooting at informal targets (e.g., tin cans, bottles) for fun, often with lighter firearms like .22s.
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Gun Nut: A (sometimes affectionate) term for someone obsessed with firearms.
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Bang Stick: Slang for a firearm, often used jokingly (e.g., “Grab your bang stick, let’s hit the range”).
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Mag Dump: Emptying an entire magazine in rapid succession, often for fun or stress relief.
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Tack Driver: A firearm or shooter that’s extremely accurate (e.g., “This rifle’s a tack driver”).
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Smoke ‘em: Encouragement to shoot quickly or aggressively (e.g., “Go on, smoke those targets”).
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Brass: Spent cartridge cases (e.g., “I’m sweeping up my brass after this”).
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Hole Puncher: A playful term for a firearm, emphasizing its role in putting holes in targets.
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Range Rat: Someone who spends a lot of time at the range, often a regular or enthusiast.
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Popping Caps: Slang for shooting, derived from older street lingo (e.g., “Just out here popping caps”).