Chapter Forty-Eight – Rail Shooter

Chapter Forty-Eight – Rail Shooter

Samurai are separated by Tiers which classify them as follows:

Do NOT Antagonize Samurai at or above Tier 4 under ANY circumstances. They are to be considered Free Agents, Independent of any chain of command.

–Excerpt Cross PMC Samurai-Military Decorum Package, Sixth Edition, 2054

***

There was only one box left to open. It was a big sucker, maybe half a meter long and a foot wide. “This is meant to be my new gun?” I asked.

In a manner of speaking. The term ‘gun’ might be incorrect, though it does fire a projectile.

And now I was worried again. I knelt down, my awesome new coat pooling around my feet before I used both hands to snap the box open.

What greeted me had me pausing until a stupid smile touched the corners of my lips. “Myalis. Is this a railgun?”

Not exactly. It’s a magnetically assisted silent-firing bolt launcher. The projectiles fired do not break the sound barrier, and are rather heavy compared to standard ammunition.

The not-a-railgun was that same dark-blue as my back-mounting, with a faint pinkish glow coming from between two ‘forks’ that ran the length of the weapon. Everything about it was angular and sharp, from the pistol grip in its middle to the rubber padding on its shoulder rest. Even the scope above it was squared off.

I picked it up, surprised by how light it was.

At the front, just before the foregrip, were a pair of little legs in a folding mount, and the side had a box that was obviously meant to be yanked out. There was even a strap on a little spool built into the stock that unwound like one of those old-school belt buckles.

I had to stow my giddiness and get down to brass tacks. “What does this fire?” I asked.

Pick an explosive from your Esoteric Explosives Class I catalogue and for a small fee, a magazine’s worth of bolts can be produced for firing. It is currently loaded with ten silent concussion bolts.

“Oh Myalis, you do know how to get a girl off.”

There’s a catalogue for that.

I blinked. I thought about Lucy and her reaction to that news. I blinked some more. “Remind me later. Uh, what’s, um.” I tried to get my thoughts back in order. “The rate of fire and stuff?”

Sixty rounds per minute. It is not meant for rapid fire, but instead precise target-specific attacks.

“Fair enough.” I hugged my Whisper close for a moment, then sighed as I stood back up. Time was moving on.

A look around the room showed me how many things I’d failed to loot, which was just a sin. So I took a neat looking handgun from a rack and shoved it in the holster opposite my Trench Maker, then I nabbed a few magazines for it.

Finding a box full of fragmentation grenades at the back was also a treat. They even had a neat belt with pouches for them.

I could get you better for a fraction of your remaining points.

Ignoring Myalis’ jealous moaning, I kicked open the door and stepped out, I was an entirely different girl than the one that had stepped in.

I caught the eye of the soldier that had followed me, then looked up to one of the nearby mirror-windowed skyscrapers.

I had to hold back a downright goofy grin as I saw myself. In my stomach-revealing black auto-loader and my pitch-black trenchcoat I looked like the hero in a classic action flick. The huge gun strapped to my back and the cargo pants covered in explosives helped sell the look. My new eye, which allowed me to see everything so much clearer, had a slit pupil down its centre that glowed a faint pink when the light caught it just-so.

Catherine Leblanc looked like a badass.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And then, because I wasn’t paying attention, I missed a step on the rickety stairs and tumbled down ass over teakettle.