Two Mercs: Part Nine

"Look down the sight. Rest the barrel on your other arm if you have to." Emily adjusted the grip she had on her pistol, looking down its length at the row of rats hanging from a tree branch. The animals were squirming as they tried to escape the rope holding them in mid-air, making aiming a little difficult, and she closed an eye as she pulled the trigger. She'd lifted her pistol slightly as she fired, the bullet blasting a hole through the target rat's skull instead of its torso, and Dave quietly tutted. "Keep the pistol level next time."
Nodding Emily took a step to the right, bringing up the pistol and taking aim at the second rat in line. Its frantic squirming had set it swaying and Emily turned her head to glance at Dave, lowering the pistol and straightening from her braced stance.
"Wouldn't it be better if they were completely immobilised?"
"No. It's practice for when you actually need to use your weapon. Someone sees you raise that they won't be standing still."
"Fine."
Moving back into a comfortable stance Emily bought up the pistol and, after a few deep breaths, fired again. This time the rat was struck directly in the torso, almost destroyed by the impact, and flecks of its blood coated the tips of grass behind it.
"Good shot. Well done."

They eventually left the lonely tree behind, the remains of the thirty-two rats carefully scattered around it as food for the other wildlife, and drove back over the Great Ringroad into London's low-city. Emily had to admit that the killing of the rats had given her a sense of power, and could see how the power over life consumed people. She could recognise now that it had consumed Mr Kerwynn, how it had driven him to prey upon those working the clubs of the up-city, and vowed to herself never to let become the same. Making their way along the road towards Bexleyheath Emily turned off, passing under a sky-road and heading south-west.
"Where we going Em?"
The young woman was silent for a moment, hunched forward so she could concentrate on the road signs as they were passed, before leaning back in her seat when another sky-road became visible ahead.
"A friend's." Dave merely raised an eyebrow and turned to face Emily, the tension in the van increasing until she glanced back at him. "It's a mod-surgery, like a body-shaper's but it does cybernetics instead."
"Why?"
Emily took a hand from the wheel and tapped the connector inserted into her wrist, turning her attention back to the road.
"The idea we had of using the drones to sweep the maintenance network was a good one but it stretched me to the limits. I need better hardware and control software if I'm to control those drones in Watford."
Dave shook his head and then deliberately turned to watch the low-city go past.
"It's an interesting idea but it won't work. Mainly because you'll be in the back of the van and vulnerable while I'll be somewhere else."
Pressing down hard on the brake pedal, ignoring the sound of everything in the back of the van falling out of place, Emily took her hands from the wheel and fully turned to face Dave.
"Why do you want me to use a gun so much?"
"Because that's how you survive!" Grabbing at the knife Emily still wore Dave scowled as she twisted to keep it from his reach. "A knife isn't going to help when your opponent is at the other end of a hall with a gun or wearing armour thick enough to take a knife thrust and still not have it touch flesh. When we finish this job for Mr Shadow, as we've both agreed, you can do whatever but for now..."
Dave trailed off, slumping back in his seat, and Emily warily extended a hand towards him, hurriedly withdrawing it when he glanced at her.
"What happened?"
"Toni was a childhood friend, another Bexleyheathen. Like most gangs we get our ammunition from Watford, either by collecting it from there or having it dropped off. In my last year as part of the gang the Metallics were being slow in delivering and I was sent to personally collect it. Like you she was a knife fighter, extremely good with her blades, and was adept at sneaking about without being caught."
"She went with you?"
"I didn't even know until I spotted her being chased along a street. Three shots, two to the chest and one to a knee, took her down. They returned her to us about a month later, a bunch of them escorting her right up to our front gate, and then one of them just shot her in the head."
Emily sat there listening to Dave and shook her head when he paused, using that as a chance to interject.
"She wasn't just a childhood friend. You loved her."

---

The van pulled up outside the flat as afternoon became evening. Leaving Emily to reorganise its interior Dave made his way up to the room. The lighting worked when he flicked the switch, a grin swiftly passing onto and then from his face, and he glanced around the space he lived in for nearly 20 years. He could see the changes that Emily had made since moving in, just as Toni had changed things in the small room he'd lived in while at the 'heathens' base. He didn't have anything of Toni's, the scramble after her execution had left her space empty of everything, but he wished now he had, especially after what Emily had said.

Turning as Emily eventually entered the flat, with hair dishevelled and face reddened, Dave moved to stand by the windows, staring out at the street.
"Shall we go shooting again tomorrow?"
He glanced at Emily in surprise when she spoke and shook his head slightly.
"If you want to go to your friend's mod-surgery then you can go. I'm sure I'll find something to do here."
"You sure? I understand that you're trying to help and I get why."
Dave laughed, a bitterness in the sound, and half-turned, becoming silhouetted in profile by the neon outside.
"We've been in this situation before. Only a couple of days ago in fact."
"Then we should just go to Watford and finish the job Mr Shadow has set us. I'll go to an internet cafe and get the info he was supposed to forward us. Then we'll deal with this factory."