There are three “common” spaces between mine and Lavish’s Bunkers: the Medical Bay, the Armory and the Shooting Range, and the Sustainability Sector (which include things like generators, food storage, and shared livestock).

In the armory, there are enough firearms to waste half the moon. It’s nearly four times the size of the Arboretum and meant to supply a full army battalion with a years’ worth of arms. Contrast that with the less-than-spectacular Shooting Range—which is little more than a 200-meter-long room built out of concrete and sand.

Before my parents were kidnapped by the Ruthless, I had only been in the Shooting Range a handful of times. My Dad liked to shoot at targets whenever he was frustrated, or when he wanted to hang out with Lavish’s dad alone. No matter how often I begged, he never let me shoot with him. He used to say that not knowing how to fire a weapon was a privilege.

Back then, I thought it was the most unfair thing in the world.

Anyways, after months of begging, I guess I must have worn him down, because on my tenth birthday, he finally caved and took me to the Shooting Range. He even built me a custom BB gun out of old rifle parts.

I remember studying his hands as he showed me how to press the buttstock into my shoulder to reduce recoil, and how quickly he could clip up a piece of target paper before sending it down the range with the built-in system of strings and pullies.

For ten whole minutes before we began shooting, I basked in the wonder marksmanship, admiring the dichotomy of something that was equally brutal and precise.

One gunshot was all it took to shatter that illusion.

It wasn’t that I was scared. Rather, it was that the booming noise of the exploding gunpowder had ripped into my eardrums like a dagger. I remember screaming, falling to the floor, clutching my ears, and praying to whatever deity would listen that I wouldn’t end up deaf.

It was so horrible, that I didn’t go into the Shooting Range again for several years.

Now, when Lavish and I line up at our marks, I make sure that I’ve got a pair of noise-cancelling headphones fitted snugly over my ears. The headphones are of my own creation—a knob on the side can reduce or amplify the percentage of noise that enters my ears.

I fix the headphones to 90% reduction as Lavish loads up his weapon of choice—a small sub-machine blaster that he made out of spare parts from the armory. It’s got just about every kind of tactical attachment you could ever dream of hooked up to it. Laser sights, mufflers, a retractable scope—it’s practically a full artillery in one compact weapon.

Lavish sends a target 40 meters down the range and aims his gun up at the center. He squeezes the trigger, and a steady stream of bullets spew out. They make contact right in the dead center of the target.

Lavish looks very pleased with himself as he reels the target back in. I turn down my headphones, just enough to hear him gloat.

“Man, those R-Zombs aren’t going to know what hit ‘em!” Lavish says, grinning wildly.

“You act like we’re going to hunt them for sport.” I roll my eyes, loading up a magazine. “Plus, this-,” I tap his cluster of gunshot holes on the target, “-isn’t even impressive.”

“Don’t be jealous that I’m the superior marksman, Rekill,” Lavish teases.

“I’ll show you superior,” I retort.

I pull out my personal weapon of choice—my father’s pistol. It’s a classic Colt handgun, and even though it’s a little outdated when put up against Lavish’s crazy Frankenstein weapons, I wouldn’t want to shoot with anything else. The Colt is reliable, and it sits in my grip like it was designed for my hands alone. That’s all I can ask for.

And really, between the shooter and the gun—the shooter’s always going to be your bottom line. The most elite firearms in the world are worthless in the hands of a novice.

I grab my own target paper and a small piece of rope from the ranges’ supply box. I tie up my target to the clip and begin sending it down the range.

“What the hell…” Lavish trails off.

I smile. “I’ve been working on a new party trick. I think you’ll like it.”

I watch my target pass the fifty-meter mark. Then, the one hundred. Finally, I bring it to a stop just a few yards shy of the maximum possible distance. I switch back on my noise-cancelling headphones.

I raise my gun and peer through the sight. I don’t have any fancy lasers attached to the Colt or anything—I find that attachments usually distract me. Regardless, there’s almost no point in using the sight at this point anyways—the rope that I used to tie up the target is near-invisible at 175 meters away.

Slowly, I squeeze the trigger.

BANG!

Smoke curls into the air from the barrel of the Colt as the target falls to the floor. I turn off my noise cancelling gear.

“You did not just shoot clean through a single rope from nearly 200 meters away,” Lavish gawks.

“Can your laser sight do that?” I ask.

“Jesus, man. You’re something else, you know that?” Lavish shakes his head.

We shoot for the better half of the hour until Lavish decides that he’s done being one-upped by me. I hang my headphones around my neck as we rack our weapons and pack away our spare ammunition.

Lavish sighs. “Feel any more confident for what we’re about to do?”

“No,” I say, the hint of a sarcastic laugh leaving me.

“Good. Me neither.”

It’s hard to remind myself that we’re not kids anymore. That if we see a Ruthless, things aren’t going to pan out the same way they did last time.

“Lavish,” I say, “can you come with me to my workroom? I want to show you something.”

“Another party trick?” Lavish asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”