The next day, we got to wear our police uniforms and hats and practice shooting guns at the firing range with another squadron, the one that we had run with the day before. Apparently it was the first time a group other than Captain Tackleberry's squadron had been able to access the range, and I was a bit pumped. I'd never shot a handgun before.

I was pretty surprised that we were immediately given revolvers in the supply room. Upon entering the range, Captain Callahan showed us how quickly she could fire off a shot and hit the person-shaped target right in the center of the chest. Most of us didn't realize she'd shoot so quickly and we jumped at the sound when the gun went off.

We were then each handed a bullet and Callahan instructed us how to load and cock the weapon. Ace somehow ended up next to me and I watched him slide the bullet right into the chamber without paying attention to Callahan. When I looked at him, rather impressed with the quick way he was able to pick up this lesson, he smiled at me.

It was then that Harris handed each of us ear muffs to muffle the sound, yet instructed us not to put them on yet, being as Captain Callahan was still instructing us. Rather than give Ace ear muffs, he shot him a dirty look and walked on. I was appalled. What was his problem, anyway?

"Now, you always keep the safety on your gun until you are ready to fire," Callahan explained as she paced in front of the recruits with her revolver, the men's focus of course not extending above her chest. "Even if the firearm has its safety on, never aim it at someone. Always aim it in a safe direction. Use common sense, people."

It was then that we were told to face the targets and stand in our designated spots. Ace stood next to me, smiling to himself. Callahan moved to a spot behind us.

"You may put on your ear muffs now and commence firing," Callahan announced, and the first shots rang out before I could put my ear muffs on.

Rather than shoot right away, I glanced in the direction of Ace, who looked bored.

"Hey, Carnegie, pick a place for me to hit," he said.

I squinted down at the targets. "How about in the Adam's apple?"

He gave me a solemn nod and aimed the revolver. In less than a second he fired the weapon and I could see far in the distance a hole right in the center of the neck of the target where the Adam's apple would have been.

"I take it you have past experience with guns," I said, still pretty amazed. I heard someone sigh behind me, most likely because I hadn't yet fired. We were supposed to be taking turns but this new information about Ace was pretty interesting.

"Yep," he replied. "This is nothing. I can shoot any target, anywhere, with any gun."

"Is that why you want to be a cop?"

"Huh?" he suddenly said, looking confused.

"Well, you're here at the police academy," I explained.

"Oh, right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, that's why."

He gave me a little nod and moved to the back of the line as I fired off a pitiful shot somewhere outside of the target and jumped from the sharp sound. I must've hit dirt because I saw a little cloud of dust spring up from somewhere behind the target.

The next time I was to fire again, Ace was again beside me.

"You missed the target last time by a long shot," he said, looking a bit cocky yet oddly playful.

"Yeah, well, I've never done this before," I responded.

"I can give you some pointers," he offered, moving into my little shooting box up behind me. "Hold your gun up. Keep both eyes open the whole time. When you hold the grip, don't squeeze it real tight. Center the grip in your palm. That's right."

Now he was touching my hand, moving my fingers to curve around the grip.

"Keep your fingers high and snug up against the bore," he continued to explain, pushing my hand upwards on the gun. "It'll give you more control."

Ha. The first time I'd shot the gun I had it in a death grip.

"Now, this is actually a revolver, so you don't want to lay your hand on the cylinder," he explained. "Put your thumb on the bore parallel to it so that you—"

"And what the hell do you think you're doing?" Harris suddenly boomed from behind us. Ace flashed him a look of annoyance. Lowering the gun, I spoke up.

"He's showing me how to hold—"

Harris lifted an impatient hand to stop me from continuing, and turned to Ace.

"Oh, are you an instructor here now?" Harris asked him in a teasing voice, his baton under an arm.

"Apparently I'm more of one than you are," Ace shot back coolly. This comment enraged Harris.

"If it were up to me," Harris growled, "you wouldn't be able to come within 500 yards of this campus without being arrested. You have no right being here."

"It's the mayor's choice," Ace replied, "and anyone is eligible—even me."

"Eligible my ass. As you're well-aware, mayors are not exactly trustworthy."

I listened to the conversation, utterly confused. Apparently these two had a past.

"That goes for cops too, mole," Ace shot back, eyes narrowed. "Or do you need Lassard to remind you again?"

Harris's face was pure poison. He lifted his baton in the air, his face darkening, knuckles white as he held his choice of weapon.

"Why I oughta—"

"Let me take care of this," Callahan suddenly butted in, pushing Harris and Ace out of my little shooting cubicle and standing beside me. Eventually she explained the shooting process well enough that I hit the target—though not exactly where I had been aiming. Gut shots were good, right?

Of course I was now dying to know what Ace was talking about. After I was done shooting and had gone to the back of the line, Ace was standing there, a knowing look on his face.

"What were you talking about with Harris being a mole?" I asked him quietly.

"You hadn't heard?" he replied with astonishment. "Six or seven years ago there was a gang committing all kinds of robberies in Harris's precinct. No one could catch them because it seemed they were being tipped off ahead of time. Turns out, Harris himself was the mole. He revealed every step of his department's plans to the mastermind of the operation—the mayor.*"

He watched me carefully as he finished up, and smiled when I looked surprised.

"I honestly hadn't heard about all that, but now that you mention it, I do remember a bit about Mayor Thompson's involvement in a scandal."

"That was the very one," he said matter-of-factly in his New Englander accent. "Harris is incompetent but since he's captain of his precinct, all the commissioner can do is shift him around and try to keep him away from the real jobs so he doesn't screw things up."

As Ace finished his tirade, Norris, who was standing in front of us, turned around, a look of interest on his face.

"How do you know all this, buddy?" he asked Ace. Ace didn't skip a beat, already prepared for the question.

"Let's just say that while you were praying for your first pubic hairs to grow, I was reading The Daily Metropolitan that I subscribed to with my weekly paycheck."

"I thought that was you, Dad," Norris shot sarcastically, alluding to the rather sizable age gap between him and the decades-older man. "If you already have a job, what are you doing here?"

"I know you're trying to be funny, kid," Ace replied, totally unfazed, "but to be funny you first gotta be taken seriously."

"What are you talking about?" Norris said, his face twisted with confusion. While he stood there blinking in the sun waiting for Ace to reply, Ace looked around the line that had formed by the target range. Revolvers shot off in a continual barrage, their firings echoing against the hillside. Behind us was a flat parking lot where the blue police academy buses parked, and there was a fire hydrant about twenty or so feet behind the firing range. Screwed onto the fire hydrant was a hose that ran across the parking lot towards the police academy pool. I wondered if the fire hydrant water was currently being used to fill the pool, as summer was just beginning. I couldn't know by sound alone; the constant gunfire against the hillside made any kind of splashing sound impossible to hear.

"You're an amateur, that's what I'm saying," Ace remarked to Norris. At this, Ace turned to face me again.

"It seems like Harris has something against you," I said to Ace. "How do you know him?"

Ace cracked a smile before responding.

"Back when all those robberies were going on in Harris's precinct, my fur shop was robbed," he said matter-of-factly.

"That explains why you don't like him, but why does he—"

"I wasn't finished," he cut in. "That day—Harris was on stakeout—right in front of the damn building. He claimed to have missed seeing the robbery and the guys got away with just about everything. I never got my inventory back and had to close my business a month or two later. I think he was in on it. I mean, how can a police captain be that useless without some underlying motive for it? After the robbery, he actually had the gall to keep a piece of fur on the antenna of his car—a $100 fox tail from my shop."

"Huh."

"Anyway, when I approached him about the robbery and grabbed that fur off of his antenna, he arrested me for a whole slew of bogus charges. He did it just to save face, making me look like an asshole in the process, an asshole who deserved to have his store robbed. Needless to say, I was out of business about a week after that. I lost everything."

Wow. So Harris was always trying to capitalize on other people's misfortunes. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, being as I had personally watched him attempt to discredit Lassard and Cadet Wayne in an attempt to make himself look better. Not only that, but he had lied to Sergeant Hooks and had had messy run-ins with both Tackleberry and Jones. No wonder everyone hated him!

"What do you mean, I'm an amateur?" Norris suddenly blurted, having been stuck on that thought while Ace was explaining to me his past with Harris. Bordeaux had also turned around by this point but was simply listening to the exchange. Ace turned to him with a mischievous grin, the anger over his telling me of his past misfortunes now dissipated.

"You got this mouth that yaps and yaps but you got no way of makin' things happen," Ace answered.

"You don't know me—" Norris began, but was cut off.

"You got no balls, kiddo. News gets around. Your pranks aren't impressing nobody."

Now Bordeaux and Beaner were facing towards the conversation and had heard the last part. Now Norris had something to prove. I wondered if Ace and Brookstone's conversation involved her telling him about Norris. It was certainly possible, being that Ace wasn't in our squadron yet knew Norris's business.

"What are you talking about?" Norris challenged. "Just yesterday I had Beaner here lay a tack on Harris's chair while he—"

"Like I said, you're an amateur," Ace repeated, his arms crossed in front of him. "That's grade school stuff. Remember that prank yesterday on Harris—the PA? Now that was a prime prank."

"It was," Norris replied, "but if the officer's walkie-talkie hadn't then gone off, he would've been in deep sh—"

"That wasn't his walkie-talkie," Ace interrupted. "The guy's a born mimic."

My jaw dropped. I hadn't even considered that Jones had also imitated the sound of walkie-talkie static. It was a very convenient time to receive a radio transmission. And besides, none of the other officers at the officer's table had received the transmissions. First the dog sounds, then the shattering glass, and now the walkie-talkie static. Jones's ability to imitate noises was uncanny. It all made complete sense.

"And how would you know that?" Norris replied in a voice of disbelief. "He's not your squadron leader."

"Trust me," Ace responded confidently. "My buddy Flash—he knows all about it—lost a fight because of Sgt. Jones and his noises.*"

"Just 'cause you know a guy who knows a good prankster doesn't make you one," Norris muttered in a rather stupid tone.

"I've played all sorts of pranks on people—exploding cigars, disappearing money, you name it. I can even make priceless crap disappear from armored trucks Houdini-style… if I wanted to. You, on the other hand, got a mouth but nothing to back it up."

"You don't know me. You're in another squadron—you don't even—"

"News gets around, kid. You got your little inner circle here, but to really impress the chicks, you gotta do something no one else will do. Put your neck on the line, you know? This juvenile stuff doesn't fly with chicks like Brookstone."

Beaner and Bordeaux tried to chuckle nervously, but Norris flashed them a look of irritation and they quieted down. Now Norris was getting a bit fed up. The class clown was not supposed to be picked on. He put his finger in Ace's face.

"When did you talk to Brookstone?" Norris looked confused for a second, and then apparently he remembered the two of them talking in the cafeteria, for he now looked angry. "Screw you, bud—"

"You wanna pull a prank on Harris—a good one?" Ace suddenly offered. "Prove to me that you got balls?"

"Why not?"

"I got a real good idea if you want to get Harris and call yourself a man of action. You any good with a gun?"

*this, as well as most of the backstory here, is from PA6

By the way, if you'd take the time to leave some feedback, I'd really appreciate it! Proctor's in the next chapters!