20:24 <tom> The bolt goes back; out flies the smoking case. Corporal William Goreman frowns, throws it forward. There's a clack of metal striking metal, and it hangs before feeding the next round into the chamber. It's no good. He gets up off the grass and hefts the blocky rifle, pops out the magazine, clears the chamber. 20:24 <tom> "Every ten rounds, like fucking clockwork." 20:24 <tom> It's not a magazine issue. The feed lips are fine, and that's an easy one to fix with some pliers and a vice anyhow. 20:25 <tom> But it's not the extractor, either. There's no scrape-marks on it, so it can't be catching anything. 20:25 <tom> Furious, Bob sets the rifle back down on its bipod and fetches a cigarette. He struggles back through the high grass to his truck and leans against the cab while he smokes, surveying the lonely headlands abutting the farmhouse from his vantage point at the dead-center of the basin formed by the hills' flanks. 20:25 <tom> He thumps the back of his head against the passenger-side of the cab. It's clearly a feed issue. Come on, Goreman, work the problem. That's what she always used to say. 20:26 <tom> The cardboard box of gleaming .308 brass is mostly empty now, wet from being out in the bed of the pickup overnight. Whatever, this is a stress test. He'll take the empty magazine in one hand and thumb in the fresh cartridges with the other. 20:26 <tom> He gets back down in the grass and crawls up to the rifle, snaps in the reloaded magazine, squints through the scope until he can get a fix on the crosshairs hanging over the distant metal target. The rangefinder on his ODIN boxes the metal square, gives a readout. Six hundred and three meters. Wind speed... just under five miles per hour, northwest. He squeezes the trigger and has time to 20:26 <tom> think before the bullet hits. 20:26 <tom> The clue is the regularity of the malfunctions. 20:27 <tom> There must be something wrong with how the cartridges are feeding, but it's not a magazine issue. He works the bolt. 20:27 <tom> She's on the street. Her whole life's fallen to pieces around her. All that's left fits in a frayed plastic bag at her feet, and even that's not safe. 20:27 <tom> She's cold. She's hungry. What could she possibly be thinking, looking up at herself in the mouth of the alley? 20:27 <tom> That's it. 20:27 <tom> The end. 20:27 <tom> No moral. 20:28 <tom> You're dead, and no one cares. 20:28 <tom> It takes a second for him to master himself. A second turns into a minute, then minutes. He makes himself breathe, chokes on it. 20:28 <tom> How could she do that? 20:28 <tom> The slug shatter against the target, and the decimal on the rangefinder fluctuates while the steel plate wobbles. 20:29 <tom> Fuck this shit. They're all just killers too. They're no better. No one is being saved. He's the same killer, doing killer's work, only now he answers to a Simon Petrikov looking motherfucker. He's been patting himself on the back for helping a gang in another pointless fucking turf war. 20:29 <tom> No, it's cool bro! Doesn't count as a person, because I said so! You stupid fuck, you're an it to us! They'll sell you to Mike Lindell to rip out your gold and stuffing to make pillows for guys who don't watch the NFL anymore! And you just turn around and do her like that? Do yourself like that? 20:29 <tom> Christ, why's it hurt so bad? The bolt reciprocates, kicks out the cartridge, picks up the next. 20:29 <tom> What'd you expect, you fuckhead? What, you gonna cry about it? Like you did in front of the girl before Inchcape? You're a fucking joke, bro. Only reason they aren't snickering yet is 'cus they're embarrassed for you. That'll wear out soon enough. 20:30 <tom> How many of 'em pop off their double, realize they can't pick up the pieces anyway, and fuck off? 20:30 <tom> He sighs, slowly, and tries to recenter himself. 20:30 <tom> You're gettin' worked up for nothing, man. Nothing's changed. The mission hasn't changed. They're not all killers. There's people worth saving, and Rolf. 20:30 <tom> He gives the plate another hit, and this time it keels over backwards into the grass. He spends a few more bullets trying to flip the heavy steel target on its legs, in vain. 20:31 <tom> The bolt hangs on the tenth round. It's infuriating. Not crippling enough to warrant scrapping the damn thing, but he can't fob this off on his colleague, the small woman with the fake teeth. 20:31 <tom> It's so fucked. How could someone do that? What kind of sick freaks... He'll find 'em, he'll get them back for her. Can't be too hard to find, they're just some gunrunner fucks out of Buenos Aires, yeah? That's not just the beers talking. Speaking of, as long as we're here... 20:31 <tom> Beer goes in, sadness goes out. He tosses the bottle downrange. Let's try close-in shooting. He still has a whole case left. 20:31 <tom> The bottle evaporates in a dazzling spray of crystal powder. His shoulder's getting sore- the recoil's quite a bit stronger than the SVD even with a smaller cartridge, a necessary sacrifice to bring down weight and size. 20:31 <tom> He rubs his shoulder after getting a nasty kick. Improper posture, stupid, a rookie's mistake. Not like the video games, is it, Bill? No ma'am. He squeezes his eyes shut and rests his cheek on the rifle until all the air has evacuated his lungs. Yeah, no, it's way worse. The shitty toddlers on Live don't carry drop guns to Nuketown. 20:32 <tom> The neck of the next bottle is launched airborne by the force of the slug shattering its body. The bolt hangs on the tenth round. 20:32 <tom> He should've gone to Leavenworth. She should've had the guts to kill him in Boston, after he flipped the lock. That would've solved a lot of his problems. 20:32 <tom> He should've gone to Leavenworth. She should've had the guts to kill him in Boston, after he flipped the lock. That would've solved a lot of his problems. 20:32 <tom> The answer is obvious. The magazine well is misaligned. 20:32 <tom> There's nothing he can do, anyway. He'll just die if he tries. Hell, he'll probably die if he doesn't. He can't save them. He can't save Mari. He can't even fucking save himself. 20:33 <tom> The symptoms all fit. The bolt must be wedging the magazine forward with each motion, pushing it off-axis with each round chambered, finally resulting in a hang at the bottom of the mag. He sabotaged the rifle the moment he cut out the bottom of the lower receiver a millimeter too far forward. 20:33 <tom> So, what's his endgame, just cash out after making a buck? Sorry about your daughter getting vanished by the Night Creeper and he keeps sending you pictures, dude, you're own your own. His skin crawls. 20:33 <tom> He stands, shoulders the rifle. It really needs the bipod for precision shots, and the monstrous kick will be far worse like this. But he's drunk by now, so he doesn't give a shit. He knocks out the empty magazine with the fresh one. 20:33 <tom> There's a rotting stump, which holds together for the first few rounds only to erupt in a fountain of mulch and dismayed, scattered ants by the fourth. Beyond are a few discarded cinderblocks, overgrown with moss, that crumble in sequence as his crosshair passes over them like a biblical judgment. 20:33 <tom> He'll have to start over from the beginning. 20:34 <tom> Fuck it, dude, you're only good at the one thing. That's the only reason they put up with you, dog! What do you think's gonna happen when they open up that crypt? You aren't gonna have a conversation, bro, they're going to want you on the flamethrower. They're gonna want dragon's breath. 20:34 <tom> A decade in the Army and the best accelerant mix he can get his hands on burns almost five hundred degrees cooler than what Min- Willie can make with five seconds and a knife. All it costs is blood, her blood, that you pretty fucking much encouraged her to serve chilled to the scariest motherfuckers in the north of England. 20:34 <tom> You've fucking killed her too, idiot. Just you wait and see. 20:34 <tom> He loads an empty magazine with incendiary tracers. It's not quite dark enough that they'll light up the whole of the valley. 20:35 <tom> There's some old wooden pallets overgrown with nettles. They get a generous dose of magnesium and strontium, and smolder through the night despite scattered showers. Draculas beware. 20:35 <tom> Suzie sure was pretty. Wonder how she got turned. Wonder how long before the maneater schtick got old, became routine. Does she resent having to live like that? Does she enjoy it? How long do you have to have a breakdown before it just becomes your personality? 20:35 <tom> It's not too much of a drag. He can use everything but the lower receiver on the next one, just swap out the parts, so he can get started with some of the spare receiver blocks when he gets back to the Greybox. The barrels aren't a trouble, really, with Badawi's connections. It's just wasted effort, is all. 20:35 <tom> He's sober by the time the sun comes up. It's cloudy, so he doesn't watch the sunrise like an embarrassing memechimp. He packs up the rifle in its case, gets in the rental truck, and leaves.