Chapter Twenty-One
The pistol in Seven's hands quivered and slid as she tightened her grip, but no matter how she held it, underneath the illusion of humanity she wore, her fingers were too long and her claws kept slipping on the trigger. After weeks of trial and error, she decided to hold the grip, along with part of the barrel, with one hand, and pull the trigger with the other. It made the fingers in her right hand numb after firing a few shots, and it took her a while to draw, but it made for a steadier shot. Even so, at twenty feet, she missed more often than she hit, and the red bull's-eye eluded her.
The gun range, a large room cut into two areas by a row of shooting galleries, had shelf after shelf of firearms and cartridges on one side and a field of targets, mannequins with rings painted on their chests holding cardboard guns in slack arms, were scattered in a jumble on the other side. Some targets had lost limbs and heads to countless barrages of bullets, and others would've looked completely at home in a Macy's wearing khakis and a polo.
Seven heard the door slam shut behind her. She didn't even have to turn to know who it was. Steadying her aim, she took a deep breath, waited for her arms to stop shaking, and pulled the trigger. She was aiming for the chest, not the head, but the shot took one of the mannequin's ears off.
Fisher walked up to an adjacent booth and stared at the mannequin. "You only have four days left. Stop wasting time with this."
"I'm getting better," Seven said defensively. With a bit of fumbling, she ejected turned o the safety and set the smoking gun on a table. "I hit the last one in the head."
"You were aiming for the chest." He took out his own pistol and fired three quick shots. The three mannequins in the front row sprouted holes in between their eyes. "Don't try to be something you're not. You're only going to get yourself killed." Seven bristled at the comment, but she said nothing in return.
Without warning, Fisher drew a knife out of his belt and lunged at her. Out of reflex, she grabbed his wrist, twisted hard, pulled him close, and planted a knee into his gut. He staggered back, but the padding in his jacket kept the wind from going out of him.
"The gun was right there," he said. "If you were even halfway decent at handling a gun, you could've flipped the safety and shot me in the gut before I stabbed you." He put the knife away and dusted off his arm. "But your instincts told you not to use it, and they were right."
Seven clenched her jaw and picked up the gun. The barrel still felt hot to the touch, but she ignored the heat as she placed it back on a shelf. "What do you want?"
"Colson wants to see you," he said as he took a long, thin sniper rifle from the shelf. He set it on a table and looked down the barrel. "He wants to review the materials list with you."
Seven bowed and turned away. As Seven left the shooting range, she heard the loud, sharp crack of the sniper rifle, followed a heartbeat later by a dull thunk as a bullet slammed into the head of a mannequin towards the back wall.
Seven found Admin Colson in his private room, right next to Giovanni's office. His room was brightly lit, so much so that Seven had to shield her eyes when she walked in. Between the lights overhead and the screens covering all the walls, it felt like walking inside of a star.
Against one wall was a desk, which was cluttered with an assortment of crystals, geodes, and fossils. Four keyboards, each angled towards a different set of screens, rested on blocks of quartz and jade. Each crystal glowed so brightly in the ambient light that the reflections drowned out their natural color.
A huge black leather chair, curved and padded so well that it served for a bed, faced the desk. Without turning the chair, Admin Colson said, "You're right on time. Have a seat."
There were no other chairs in the room, but there was a shiny metal trunk, which held all the Admin's clothes, sitting in a corner next to the door. Seven brushed the dust off the top, sat, and waited. Colson kept typing for another five minutes, and the clacking of the mechanical keyboards echoed off the screens. A high-pitch whine from all the hard drives embedded in the walls made Seven's ears ring, but she kept her hands at her side.
"I have everything you asked for." This time, he turned the chair and faced her. A large cardboard box with a big red R on the side sat in his lap. Seven walked over to him and took the box. It felt light, and it clanked when she shook it. The tape peeled away without resistance, and the lid popped open.
Wrapped in bubble pack were four pokéballs, a pistol, a knife, a remote camera and screen, noisemakers, a gas mask, a head-sized bag of organic beef jerky, a roll of duct tape, a first aid kit, a flashlight, two bottles of water, and clips to keep everything in her waist-length hair. The pistol was custom-made for her hands, far longer in the grip, longer in the barrel, and tipped with a silencer for steadier aiming and quieter shots. The knife was a six-inch single-edged blade that was sheathed in its own grip. The blade came out at the slightest flick of her wrist and stayed straight until she pressed a button on the side.
Each pokéball had a golden R embossed onto the top half, and beneath it, in gold text, was the species of the Pokémon. Seven turned each pokéball in her hands, rubbing her claws against the sleek metal surface and thumbing the release button. In total, she had a Porygon, a Haunter, a Noctowl, and a Torkoal.
Seven cracked open the first aid kit and found three rolls of gauze, a bottle of aspirin, a needle and thread, antiseptic, bandages, and a pair of pliers. Then she tested the remote camera, tilting it and watching the screen track its movement. She also tried on the gas mask, and although it got stuffy inside, she could feel the suction grip the sides of her face without any leaks. A large plastic slit gave her full visibility throughout her horizontal range of vision, but if she wanted to see the ceiling or the floor, she had to tilt her head.
Lastly, Seven tried the flashlight. It had two settings, a low beam that couldn't even be seen amidst all the screen lights, and a high beam that smashed through their light like a hammer. She grinned and straightened her back as she thought of how much darkness she could pierce with this tiny little tool.
Seven slapped a hair clip on everything in the box and stuck it in her hair. Though they tugged back on her head, the clips held everything against the back of her head. Reaching into the mass of hair, she hunted for each item in her arsenal until she could find anything on the first try.
When she looked back at Admin Colson, she was taken aback that he was still facing her. He had an absent expression on his face that made it impossible to read his thoughts.
"Thank you," she said nervously. "Is there anything else?"
Colson didn't say a word for a minute. Then he leaned further back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling.
"You remember Seamus, right?"
Seven flinched as she remembered the gunshot and his blood seeping into her fur.
"Yes."
"He was my younger brother." Colson spun his chair around, snatched a coffee mug off of his desk, and allowed the chair to turn full circle. He took a sip as the chair jerked to a stop. "He was a college professor at Yale, for neuroscience. Got his PhD there. Anyways, he taught for a couple of years until he got a DUI. He had a BAC of .14 and drove his car off the road. He got jailed for a week, and when he got back out, he found out he no longer had a job. Nobody else wanted to take him either."
"So you invited him here?"
"Giovanni did." He took another sip and shifted in his chair. "But that's not the point. That night, when Giovanni ordered him to fake an escape, I could've asked for mercy."
"Wait, fake an escape? You mean, Seamus wasn't trying to leave?"
Colson snorted into his cup. "Of course not. Seamus would never leave, not the way they were treating him. No, Giovanni was testing you, seeing what you would do if presented an opportunity to escape. He was quite pleased with the results, by the way."
Seven leaned back against the wall, taking care not to press to hard against the screens. As she thought through that night's events, she realized what Seamus had almost said right before Giovanni shot him.
Colson tapped his mug with a fingernail. It rang with a soft, hollow plink. "I'm getting off topic again."
Seven swallowed and hesitantly met his flat, expressionless gaze. "Then what is the point?"
"Giovanni told me ahead of time he was thinking about killing him, especially if he said too much." He turned his chair, quickly typed while his chair moved, and let it swing him back around. "He told me so I could ask for him to be spared. But I didn't. I watched him die."
Sweat tickled Seven's forehead. A large bead wound its way into her right eye, making her blink. It stung and rolled down her cheek like a tear. "Why?"
"Because I don't do anyone favors, not even my own brother." He reached behind the chair and set the mug down on its side on top of a topaz the size of his fist. "I'm only doing this because Giovanni ordered me to, so don't expect any favors from me."
"What if I did you a favor?" Seven blurted out before she could consider the question. Then she added quietly, "Would you return it?"
"I don't do favors," Admin Colson repeated firmly. He folded his hands into a steeple and leaned forward, resting his chin on the points of his fingers. His eyes seemed to bore straight through the illusion she wore and through her skull, analyzing the flickers of current running through her brain, as if she were just another computer with a calculable input and output. Then he added, "But I do consider trades. Have a good day, Steven."
Recognizing the signal to leave, Seven bowed, took the box, left the clips in her hair, and quickly walked out the door. Her hair, laden with the smuggled goods, swayed side to side with each step, but the clips held. But before she made it out the door, the Admin called to her.
"Do you think that's inhuman, watching my brother die like that?"
Seven fumbled for words, but before she could begin to reply, Colson waved her away.
"Just an idle thought."
Seven rushed to her room and set the box on her bed. Thoughts tumbled over in her head, trying to process the conversation with Admin Colson. The memory of a medical appointment interrupted her.
At the operation room Seven had woken up in, Admin Celeste was staring at a wall of medical charts, and she didn't turn when the door opened.
"Your arm healed nicely," she said absently. "No permanent lesions or loss of muscle mass."
"Are you going to do the check-up?" Seven asked.
"No point. You've been stable for weeks, far earlier than I would've thought. Must be because of what you are."
Seven ground her teeth, but she said in an amiable tone, "I'll get going then, Admin Celeste." She added a quick bow after that, but the Admin didn't seem to notice.
"It'd be nice to have those guys back. It's been too quiet since they got caught." Then Celeste turned and gave her a small smile. "Try to come back in one piece this time, okay? As much fun as it was putting you back together, I'm very busy."
Changelog
10/1/18 - minor edits and tweaked Colson's character to fit better with later chapters