Read Online The Tejano Conflict by Steve Perry - Free Book Online Page B

face.”
    â€œDon’t. If you do have to shoot him later, I’ll have to erase those records; it’s a lot of trouble.”
    â€“ – – – – –
    At the range, Gunny recharged the new toy’s triple-stack magazine with thirty-six rounds of practice loads. The pistol was a 4.4mm Mead Caseless semiauto, ultrahigh-velocity. It had a ten-centimeter barrel, and it was a tack-driver with combat-match ammo. It would keep them in a five-centimeter circle at fifty meters all day long, if you didn’t sneeze when you pulled the trigger. She had tuned the capacitors to competition grade, polished the action so it was as slippery as No-Frik lube, installed aftermarket springs and a D-steel button-rifled barrel. She’d put five hundred rounds through it without a misfire, and it was as good a handgun as you could find anywhere. It should be, it had cost her enough.
    So far, she had cut almost a quarter second off her best shoot times, and that might be enough so she could finally take Rags . . .
    Think of the devil.
    â€œGunny. I see you found a way to spend your money. I must be paying you too much.”
    â€œLike hell. I had to save up for months to get this.”
    She handed him the Mead.
    He ejected the magazine, then the chambered round, inspected the weapon.
    â€œNice. Carbon-fiber grips, but not custom-fitted?”
    â€œAh might have to shoot with my weak hand. Or lend it to somebody in a hurry.”
    He nodded. He handed it back to her.
    She reloaded the piece. “You come to play?”
    He patted his own holstered sidearm, a Willis 4.4 double-stack thirty-rounder. Until recently, that’s the same model Gunny had carried. “Got practice rounds loaded. You want me to give you a head start?”
    â€œFuck you.”
    He grinned. “Set ’em up.”
    Gunny waved her hand back and forth over the reader, and the range’s computer lit the scenario. Four attackers each, and judged on time and placement of the rounds. If you got the same score for hits, then it went to the clock to determine the winner.
    In a straight, slow-timed target match, Gunny would beat Rags all day every day. But when things heated up, something in his wiring gave him an advantage. It was like he could read the future; he anticipated random movement and shot where the target was going to be. Gunny had never seen anybody else who could do that the way he did.
    Sometimes it wasn’t by much that he got her. A quarter second here, eighth there. If the new piece could help her shave that much off her time? Maybe she could beat him. Or at least play him to a draw.
    As goals went, it wasn’t so much, but it was at the top of Gunny’s list.
    â€œReady?”
    â€œAnytime.”
    They both had holstered their weapons. Gunny took a deep breath. “Go!” she told the computer.
    Four men with carbines popped into electronic reality in front of her five meters away. She pulled her pistol, a smooth, fast move, practiced tens of thousands of times, and started shooting, one round each,
pop-pop-pop-pop!
    Her four attackers fell, each of them head-shot. That felt clean; it was a good run—
    The computer’s counter lit up downrange. Same score on the hits, but—
    The son of a bitch beat her: 0.127ths of a second. A fast blink.
    Fuck!
    She holstered the pistol and waved her hand over the reader.
    â€“ – – – – –
    The People hunted by sight and scent, and though Kay couldn’t see the bear, she could smell him. It was distinctive, the odor, potent, and tracking him would not be a problem if what looked like threatening rain held off. Rain cleared the air, held the scent close to the ground, made it harder to locate. Her nostrils worked fine, but The People were sight-hunters more than sniffers.
    That would just make it more of a challenge, which was the point, was it not?
    Kay stepped into the forest and opened up her senses to