Authors: Nick Kelly
The bear tilted his head. "Sir?"
"How much ta see that list?" His grin broadened.
The bear blinked. Otherwise, he stood still as a statue. "The information is confidential, Mr. Caliber, a security measure. You understand."
Cat nodded again. "Sure thing, an' I respect you fer doin' yer job. Just, you know, as a favor, maybe explain to everyone else on there whatever it was about me that made you hesitant the second you saw me. I'd like 'em ta know who else is in the game."
"I will discuss it with Madam DuPree, sir." His white-gloved hand clenched the small book as though it was a priceless treasure. "The lounge is there." He nodded his head.
"Yer a good find, Dudley DeBruin. Your past military experience and more recent cybernetic surgery really make a good combination in a protector. Hell, there aren’t many folks, artificial or otherwise, who can boast receivin’ the Soldier’s Medal. Yer a rare breed. If you ever want ta expand yer portfolio, look me up." Cat had already paid Will to do background checks on all the security staff at the Hotel. With a smile, he headed toward the lounge.
Dudley huffed something undeterminable through his beard as he reached for the comm. His eyes remained fixed on the man called Catwalk while he called upstairs to inform his employer of her guest.
Cat stepped into the familiar lounge, noticing that the bartender and waitress were the same as the last time he'd visited Delilah. Exhaling the tension of squaring off with the oversized doorman, he lit a cigarette. Dudley was big, tough. He reminded Cat of Data, the Enforcer on his cop squad back in DC, except Dudley could put together a sentence without squeezing a trigger. Data was on full-auto all the time.
He whipped his view over his shoulder without meaning to, but the cadence of the heels on the floor was undeniable. Approaching from the far end of the lobby was Delilah, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, cascading onto the leather jacket as red as her lips. As if determined to ruin the moment, the bear named Dudley stepped to her side and shared a brief conversation with her.
The cleaner returned his gaze forward, drawing in more of the cigarette and shaking his head. He couldn’t pick up on the conversation, but the quick exit of the doorman indicated he wasn’t happy with Delilah’s approval of her gritty guest. He heard her heels and felt her coming closer.
"Good eve, Cat" she said. Her low, throaty voice held a welcoming tone.
He stood as she drew near, bowing slightly and extending a hand to the open chair near him. "Whatever you do, don’t blame the poor man. If I was Dudley, I wouldn't trust me anywhere near you either, beautiful."
She surprised him with a quick kiss on his cheek before she sat down. "He's very good at his job."
“Yeah, he reminds me of an’ old colleague.” Cat looked back out to see the form of Dudley watching them both. His inhuman eyes met those of the decorated war veteran.
"I believe you were going to assist me with my weaponry skills."
Her words were a sudden splash of reason, moving attention back away from the doorman. “Yeah…”
She breathed the words, "I am glad to see you."
The grin split his lips before he could stop it. "I'm glad you're here, Delilah. I kinda wish we had all night ta splash down some drinks an’ wax nostalgic." He smirked stupidly, her presence grabbing some of the strings that controlled him. "Alas, we've got 15 minutes before our appointment at Trigger Happy Jack's Indoor Range."
Her hazel green eyes lit with a touch of mischief. "Trigger Happy Jack's. I can hardly wait."
"I hope you don't mind. I brought the bike."
Her smile showed perfect white teeth, offset by glistening red lips. "I hoped you would."
The bike slipped to a controlled halt. This ride had been more restrained than their last, though Cat was tempted to drive faster at the slightest contact with his passenger. They had refrained from any overpass jumping or facing oncoming traffic, maintaining a speed under 140 kmph and only executing a handful of multiple lane changes. It was easy to tell that Delilah was still nervous when they finally parked. “Well, here we are."
The neon purple of Trigger Happy Jack's Indoor Range was visible for a hundred meters. It was a flamboyant call to any gun lover who might stumble into its radiance. The parking lot was riddled with potholes, and the paint on every wall within sight was faded and peeling, but the neon displayed as brightly as a dozen spotlights.
Delilah refrained from sharing whatever comment she might have made.
"They're not all this tacky, mind you,” he chuckled. "Most are worse."
She couldn't help but laugh softly. "If you say so."
Cat locked their helmets to the motorcycle, grabbing the cases for their weapons. He armed the bike as they walked towards the establishment. The windows and walls were reinforced with grid-sensitive lasers, but the doorway opened automatically. There was little surprise to that set-up once the couple entered the lobby. Guns of every shape and age covered the walls, most aimed at the doorway. At the far end of the sanitized white lobby stood an unkempt man almost as hulking as the protective doorman, Dudley. His skin bore a metallic sheen, and his shoulder-length, black hair was peppered with grey. He wore a faded camouflage shirt and olive drab pants. His right arm was cybernetic with a mount at the elbow. Right now, that mount bore an artificial hand, though that may just as easily have been an auto-rifle depending on his mood.
"Catwalk,” he bellowed in a deep voice. "Damn good to see you, boy!"
Without meaning to, Cat brought his hand protectively to the small of Delilah's back. "Hey, Jack, how's biz?"
"Better every time you enter the door, and,” the older man paused, "who is this delightful vixen you've delivered to the Eden of Ammunition?"
Cat leaned closer to Delilah, his voice almost inaudible even at that proximity. "He's gonna do the tongue thing. It's not real, don't worry."
From beneath long dark lashes, Delilah studied the man who Cat called Jack. She leaned slightly into the support of Cat's hand on her back. She lifted her gaze to Jack's eyes and then down again.
"Oh, one of those," she barely murmured.
“This," he replied cheerfully, "is my friend De...Donna. Donna MacMurray."
Jack rounded the counter, his arms extended in an attempt to hug his new guests. As he emerged from the comfort of the counter, it was obvious each of his legs had a similar brace to that of his arm. If he chose, he could be a walking arsenal with a few selective additions.
“Welcome to the Crown Jewel of Artillery, the Shiny Buckle in the gun belt of life, the pinnacle of all that is and ever has been shells, explosives ordinance and anything otherwise associated with gunpowder, projectile expulsion and mayhem-inducing technology.” Jack bowed deeply, and when he stood back to his full height, he extended his tongue, licking one eyebrow and then the other.
"Good eve," she said simply, with a polite smile. If his behavior had fazed her at all, she maintained the ultimate poker face.
Cat stepped between the two of them, reluctantly letting go of his brief contact with the model. "Jack," he said with an exaggerated degree of surprise, looking at the shopkeeper's legs, "when did you switch out the left leg? That's unbelievable! I thought yer old lady forbid it."
Jacks' gaze turned toward Cat instead of Delilah, the revelation of his marriage darkening the skies of his evening. “Aye,” the veteran growled, "She saw my reasoning as I told you she would."
"You mean you just did it and came home with the surgery?"
Jack looked positively admonished for nearly thirty seconds before they both burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. The shopkeeper slapped Cat squarely on the shoulder and then added, "How many rounds do you need today, Boy?"
Catwalk's gaze was on Delilah with an undercurrent of relief. Her eyes were on him before he looked at her. They passed a silent acknowledgement between them. "Y'know, I hadn't thought that through." He leaned closer to her, "Hey, Red, extend yer arms."
"Like this?" Her face soured a bit at the sudden outpouring of aliases.
"Like yer gettin’ cuffed,” he said, tilting his head. "Been cuffed before?"
Her cheeks reddened. "I have no arrest record."
He gripped her forearms, squeezing slightly. Leaning forward, he whispered to her, "That is SO not what I asked." Turning his gaze over his shoulder, he released her arms. "100 rounds of 9mm, Jack, an’ 200 rounds a’ 11mm."
The veteran shopkeeper placed several boxes on the countertop. "Bill your usual, I assume, Catwalk?"
Cat simply nodded, grabbing the boxes off of the counter. He turned to Delilah. "Ready ta squeeze off a few rounds?"
“Lead the way,” she replied with a fire behind her eyes.
The couple entered the solitude of the shooting range, lane after empty lane prepped for target practice. They walked past several uniform lanes before stopping. Catwalk extended a pair of noise canceling earphones to the out-of-place beauty. The dampening earphones were simple and functional, if not delicate. Cat removed his jacket, revealing a tight black tank top. Some of the scars of his surgery were evident, covering the skin across his shoulder blades. His legs were covered with a light camouflaged grey and black pair of pants. He checked his midnight-black hair, ensuring it was pulled back into its tight ponytail as he loaded the Glock. He followed by loading a series of the ammunition into a handgun he pulled from his belt.
Delilah slipped the earphones on, studying Cat as he went through his preparations. Her fringed leather jacket was laid aside. She wore a designer brand maroon tank top, beneath it, tight jeans and a glistening silver belt. A silver choker graced her throat and simple hoop earrings were now hidden by the earphones. She stepped closer to watch him load the Glock.
Cat's eyes were focused, loading round after round into the handgun. Her scent was inviting something wild within him. "I am so not looking up right now, because if I do, I will be as useful to you as a holographic crash test dummy."
"Please continue. I am here to learn, O Wise One." There was laughter in her voice and genuine interest. "How soon can I do that?"
He handed her a cartridge. "Done already, Donna."
She took the cartridge and looked at him sideways. "Donna. Right."
He looked at her and shrugged with a guilty look. "I didn't want to tell him who you really were an' well, Shockit, I'm not the best at aliases on the spot."
"It's fun to have an alias. Who knows, I might use it elsewhere. So, like this?" She held the cartridge as if to load it into the gun.
His pistol was pointed toward the floor as he loaded it and shifted the safety off. "Here's the deal, Delilah. You have a dual-action only pistol, so as you shoot, the next round will automatically load into the chamber. That means when you pull the trigger, you pull it again for another bullet to fire."
She nodded, listening carefully.
“That means two things. First of all, you don’t have to advance the chamber so you can fire faster.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“Don’t play Russian Roulette with it.” He winked.
He pulled the chamber back, loading the first round. "I was grabbing your arms to see how long I thought you could fire before you got fatigued." His gaze turned away from her to the paper target some 20 meters away.
"Ah, that makes sense,” she nodded.
Cat fired a single shot at the target, a two-dimensional silhouette of a human, its circles scoring higher and higher as they drew tighter. Despite the protective earphones, Delilah flinched. Pausing a second between shots, he fired several more, his body hardly moving.
He set the pistol down, clicking the safety back in place. With the press of a button, he moved the target closer on its automatic track. From a few meters away, each of them could make out the groupings of his shots. Two would have missed. The other six entered anywhere from the left collarbone to the left ear of the target.
Cat leaned back to address her, "I told you I'm a horrible shot."
She pushed the right earphone aside and looked at him. "Could have fooled me," she said amiably. She looked back at the target.
He scoffed. "Alright, let's see how you do, killer queen."
“Sure,” she patted her pants. “Would you hold my comm? I’m waiting on a call, but I don’t think it would help me in the middle of this shooting thing.”
“Of course,” he grinned. “Like I could deny you anything.”
She flashed the signature grin he’d seen on billboards and vid-feeds for years. Earphone back in place, Delilah stood with legs apart, able to balance on the high-heeled boots without a thought. She held the gun straight ahead of her in her right hand, her left hand grasping her right wrist, and slowly aimed at the target. Her finger squeezed, and she flinched again. Her brow furrowed.
Catwalk pressed the button to advance the target. As it neared, the bullet hole was evident, a clear miss above the target's left shoulder. "Alright, yer on the right track. Hell, you hit the target." He pushed the button to send the target back to the 20-meter mark. "Do this for me,” he instructed, moving so that his form was pressed against hers from behind. "I want you to aim for his left hip, right at the base of his ribcage, above his thigh. Will you do that for me?"
Her breath caught. "Yes." She aimed the gun toward the target's left hip.
“Good. Then, after you pull the trigger, take a breath, exhale and fire the exact same shot...until you're out of ammo. Ok?"
She nodded and forced herself to focus on the target. She squeezed the trigger. She squeezed it again. The shots rang, one after another.
The lengths of their thighs were touching, and the majority of her back was in contact with his chest. She leaned into him harder than she had to, and Cat drank in the intoxication of her. A sheer layer of cursory fabric separated them from intimate touch. He lost count of the shots she fired. She squeezed the trigger again. A nearly silent “click” was the only answer. Delilah, before she even knew, had squeezed out twelve rounds of lead.