Handsome Rob Assassin by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward [Ward, Blaze]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knotted Road Press

19

Tactical Combat Simulator. A game as old as professional law enforcement officers that expected to shoot people regularly.

Hogan’s Alley, named after some obscure place back on lost Earth, before the Interstellar Age.

Dark. Cooler than Rob expected. He figured that was so you didn’t work up a hard sweat.

Evening or night in a medium-sized, sleepy city. The kind that didn’t have glazings of neon and random pedestrians out for pickled shark at two in the morning.

Concrete under his feet. Granite facing and bricks, broken up occasionally by glass windows on store fronts.

Smell of something weird in the air. Wasn’t poison or a soporific, at least none Rob knew.

“You’ll progress down the main street, sir,” the man explained. “Then turn into the second alley on the right and then exit via a door at the end. You watched Mel do it earlier?”

“I did,” Rob confirmed.

“Good enough,” the man nodded. “I’ll close the door. Five seconds later the range will go live. Good luck.”

Live. What an interesting term.

Most places went active.

Live suggested that the bad guy turrets shooting back also had full-powered weapons.

How realistic did you want this to get, Tanaka? How risky?

Rob waited for the door to close and drew his pistol as it locked. The other goon had waited here, since it was the straightest line to the alley.

You moved down the sidewalk, engaging things as they popped out.

Rob heard the chime and sprinted across the intersection before anything moved.

If nothing else, all the weapons would have to recalibrate.

Sure enough, movement drew his eye and barrel. Man in a rough hat and gun in his hand projected onto a slide-out backdrop. Most of them looked like that. The man controlling the range had several options for what each encounter was.

Rob put a shot through the target’s heart and slammed his butt into a corner where a store doorway recessed a little.

Across the way, another door opened and a figure emerged. Female. Non-combatant.

Rob nodded and scanned the two upper stories and the roof across the way. Assassins liked rooftops.

Nobody popped up.

Rob emerged at a soft jog and stayed close to the building.

A man emerged from the first alley in front of him. Right handed holding a pistol, which meant he had to rotate all the way across his body in order to shoot.

Rob put one into the manikin’s hand, then walked the pulses up the arm, with the fourth one hitting the side of the head.

The manikin nearly exploded, cotton batting flying everywhere.

Rob moved.

Glance up. Shadow.

Someone drawn to look out a window at the sound of beam fire. Usually a suicidal mistake, but not always.

Rob tracked and aimed. Old man holding a glass bottle in one hand rather than a gun. Nearly drew fire anyway.

In a real situation, it might be a Molotov cocktail, or a bottle of acid. Or Rob might put a shot into the sill just to make it explode and drive the target back where he’d be safer inside.

Rob moved.

Sound of a vehicle. Sliding on repulsors but moving too slow for a car headed to work.

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