Remembrance of shootouts past

  A Tour. Again, the memory sparked a rea that lit up others;

  Trauma medkit. Quickclot. Israeli bandage. Chest seal. CAT and RAT tours. Epinephrine. And other more improvised devices ahods.

  He started to set it ba the table.

  “Don’t rush it,” Angel said. “Remember, you have to experiehe memories here for the Spirit to remember. Take your time and really put yourself there.”

  Gradie ran his mind over the rough new memory until it blended with his imagination, creating daydreams that pyed out with familiar faces.

  Liightening a tour on his arm. Luke’s leg shot to shit and Gradie dealing with the wound in the back of the SUV, sirens wailing. Gradie alone, a bullet in his gut, trying to get the needle in.

  Then, unprompted, dreamlike;

  Sam with a sug chest wound, shirt torn open, him fumbling with the package.

  “Alright dude, damn,” Nova said, almost a whisper. Gradie froze.

  “ you see in my head?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I got a skimmer on you. Lets me know how you’re processing—”

  “You see my thoughts?”

  “Kinda,” Nova said sheepishly. Gradie groaned. It was Lucy all ain.

  “Don’t get all self-scious,” said Philip, voice crag in the loudspeaker. “These guys spend all day looking at other people’s memories. pletely desensitized.”

  “Do you want to stop, Gradie?” Lindsey said. Her was so ued, so genuine. His anger and embarrassment died in its cool waters, and he was ashamed of his own weakness.

  “No, I’m fihanks. Let’s keep going.”

  Gradie set the tour oable, and this time the memory, though faded at the edges, still held its shape in his mind as daydreams. Would that be enough?

  “All right! It’s all you, bro!” Nova said with ahusiasm that Gradie suspected was an attempt to hide his own guilt. Gradie picked up the earbuds,

  s, alerts, sound dampening, tapping his table in code at a restaurant, analyzing toue sounds from across a crowded room, voice reition, EP direg him through a darkened warehouse,

  Then the phone,

  GPS, encrypted system, key fob spoofer, RFID ser, magspoofer, ATAK, Geiger ter, bug detector, and on and on…

  Another set of keys, Toyota logo, pstic cats-head self-defeool and grocery store membership cards on the ring,

  Native vehicle, defensive and bat driving, pit maneuver, trolled collisions and injury avoidaealing a car unnoticed from a parking lot, driving a sedan through a dirt lot, pistol in one hand—

  A voice came over the loudspeaker, quieter thahers, as if distant from whatever passed as a microphone iherworld.

  “Sorry to keep yall waiting. Where do you want me?”

  Gradie matched the voice to a face, and his heart jumped.

  “All right, time for a little test,” Nova said. “When yood and ready, pick up any gun you feel like, and step through this door.”

  A portion of the shelves swung open, and another pin door waited behind it. Gradie set the keys down and marched to the door in long strides and grabbed a Knights Armament SR-15 off the shelf.

  Fire seleanipution, sight alig, tactical reload, low ready, flinch response, firing from a vehicle, engaging targets in a Malds, clearing rooms in an apartment and seeing muzzle fsh burst out of a closet…

  “Fuck yes.” Gradie squeezed the rifle in his hands and bounced on his feet.

  “Ok then, killer,” Angel said. “Step outside, please.”

  Gradie held the gun at low ready, turhe knob and kicked it open and came out sing for targets.

  The sunlight was blinding. When his eyes adjusted, it looked like any suburban street he had ever seen. Wood minate sides and brick faces over close-cut wns and cars packed in the driveways and along the street. Police sirens wailed down the road, and the SUV sat there waiting for him like a glossy bck apparition.

  The earted with a sound that lit up supercharged 5.3L V8 in his memory. A familiar face smiled at him from the driver’s seat just before disappearing behind a rising pne of mirror tint. Gradie’s heart jumped again.

  “Cops ing up the road, bro,” Nova said calmly, his voiow ing from all around. “Yonna take fire from one of the houses. Return fire, get in, e whatever window you feel like, cover Sam’s exit when you stop, and then we’ll run through some other shit just to make sure the memory’s maintained.” He said it like it was no big deal, but the sun gring off the SUV, the wind on his skin and the smell of gunpowder with it, made it impossible fradie to remind himself that nothing here could hurt him.

  “You said I’m gonna take fire from where?”

  Bullets skipped off the ground and gunshots bounced off the house faces and driveways. Gradie brought the rifle up in a reflex and fired off five rounds in semi-auto at a window a few houses down, where he had seen the fsh in his peripherals. Only immediately afterwards did he realize it felt like something he had dohousand times.

  “Good shit bro!” Nova yelled.

  OOOOHHHHNNNNNN

  Sam y on the horn and Gradie threw the door open and slid into the ter seat.

  “Moving!” she yelled, and Gradie braced himself with one hand on the seat in a pletely mindless reflex. The SUV barreled forward and the door smmed shut.

  “Reload.” Philip’s voice came out of the radio. Gradie reached down reflexively and found a mag pouow strapped to his chest. The memories came after the motion, and he didn’t realize what had happened until the bolt was already sliding closed and the was boung on the floorboard.

  “Good,” said Philip, with the least enthusiasm possible.

  “Left!” Sam yelled and Gradie saw himself brace against the seat again for a sharp left turn, for a moment unsure if it was memory or happening in the present. As she barreled down the street, he realized that here, there was little difference.

  “Behind us!” Sam yelled.

  Someone leaned out of the side of the cop car behind them in a very non-LEO way a loose a burst of full-auto fire. Bullets smacked into the exteriss of the back hatch. Gradie slid the interior slot open and pressed a button in the wall. The exterior window eased open a his rifle barrel through the slot.

  He braced himself with his hip against the wheel well and a foot in the rubber stomp built into the floorboards and opened fire.

  The guy leaning out of the car dropped his rifle and fell out of the window as rounds sparked off the door frame and shattered the windshield. Gradie pivoted and put two trolled bursts into the driver's side. The car swerved and crashed into a parked tru the road with a satisfying ch.

  “All right, good shit. Let’s speed it up,” Nova said. The world dimmed and they were swerving downwards through a parking garage. From the slice of downtown skylihat glowed between the dark pnes of t, Gradie khey were at least ten stories up.

  “Uh-oh!” Sam said, in a tohat made Gradie picture her “actally” spilling a drink in someone’s p. Before he could wonder if Nova could see that far into his head, the SUV came to a sudden and violent stop.

  He flew through the air and smmed into the door.

  What the Spirit knows and what the Self knows are two different things, but the best Hardworlders know how to get the most out of both. ime, Gradies newfound "knowledge" is put to the test, and he learns that somethings hurt worse than gunshots. episode: Simucra and Shots Fired