Mike carefully pried apart a wooden mold and freed an object resembling the frame of a revolver. He inspected it with the light for voids and cracks, and seemed satisfied. He placed it next to the other parts on the assembly bench, with a row of finished products further down. Nadja entered the room, sipping coffee and looking interested.

  “I see you are still not telling me what this is?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up until I was confident it would work. I think I finally got it.” Mike said calmly.

  “Good, I was starting to worry why you were spending so much of my money. I thought maybe you were spending a lot of mine on a gift, some form of…clothing.” She said, looking disappointed.

  “Why would I spend your money on clothing?” Mike asked.

  “You have. I checked receipts, very expensive fabric. I thought perhaps bulletproof vest, but you don’t hide that in CNC machine.”

  “Before you get excited about a new Kevlar prom dress, let me show you what it’s for. Apparently spider silk is expensive and difficult to get, and all I could find is a fashion company that makes spider silk cloth. Limited run, rather rare fashion promotion. I was originally going to use Spiderwire fishing line, but apparently they’re full of shit, and it’s just plastic with a lot of spider implications on the packaging to make it seem like spider silk.” He said, holding up a patch of brownish gold fabric. “But this is the real deal. Mixed with some carbon fiber sheeting and alternated, soaked with a slightly modified resin blend, I’ve come up with a plastic strong enough for firearm parts. Barrel and springs included. I went back to the drawing board, copying an old 1700s Pepperbox design with no coil springs or screws. THIS is part of the Recluse. That will go through a metal detector, disassemble and fit into a modified shoe sole, and can be re-assembled in about 30 seconds with no tools. It’s even rifled with a bit of titanium alloy.”

  “Titanium, for metal detectors?” she asked skeptically.

  “Little known fact, Metal detectors don’t pick up pure titanium for shit. The little bit of Titanium cobalt in these plastic cased bullets won’t set them off, and neither will a very thin barrel liner. How thick of a barrel liner, is a matter of how sensitive the detectors are, and how much titanium determined the power we can put through this. Just needs testing."

  “Titanium surgical screws set off detectors.” She reminded.

  “Medical implants are never just pure titanium, that’s why they trip them. These rounds may not shoot through a high quality bulletproof vest, but a headshot would be very lethal."

  “So sad. No armor piercing plastic bullets?” she pouted.

  “Nadja, honey. Plastic bullets suck, and my whole gun gimmick and the reason my normal little 22 round will cut through armor at all, is because of the magnesium propellant case. The whole damn round is almost solid metal. That’s a problem for metal detectors. But after 3 failures and some little changes.” He said, showing the already assembled ones. “We have some ammo to play with and 6 Recluse revolvers, and this one is just for blowing up.”

  “You are going to blow up your new gun?” she asked.

  Tanner passed Yuri as he headed out the door. Looking rushed and halting his progress.

  “Yuri, can we talk?” she asked.

  “I prefer no.” he shrugged. “I have date with attractive blonde.”

  “Okay, good for you, but can you spare 5 minutes?” she asked, as he rolled his eyes and checked his watch.

  “Five minutes.” He said, leaning on the wall.

  “Is Rowan dangerous?” she asked.

  “Everyone here is dangerous. I am dangerous. You are dangerous.”

  “I mean, he only seems to talk to you, he has stalker vibes, and I don’t trust him. Unfortunately, he’s the only one here with money, and a HATE that. But none of us can get a day job, we’re all wanted, and without his funding we’re kinda dead in the water. I can’t help but feel like he’s expecting something for his money, out of me.”

  “Honest opinion. He is annoying creep. I have connections, money can be made with some...illegal effort. Use his money now, and if he cuts us off, we work around.” he shrugged.

  “Damnit dude, I don’t wanna be hired killers just to afford guns and I don’t wanna turn on our own group, if we can’t trust each other not to kill each other, than we have no chance here. Don’t tell Alex, but I still think we can help Mike. He'll never be the same and I won't go back with him...but he saved my life twice and pulled me out of the dark, and now that Nadja has him pulled into it, I can’t just let him die in there. He’ll never be MY Mike again, but if we kill her, at least he can be free, and we can see if there’s anything left to save. Maybe even lead.”

  “That’s where I disagree. There is nothing to save. Killing him would be mercy rather than being her slave, and he would kill us for her. You want to free Mike? Put a bullet in his head. None of us can get close, but he would not kill you if you did. That is your best gift to him. The gift of freedom. Death. With Nadja’s most potent weapon eliminated, she could be stopped. Do not live in dreams, and die for them. Rowan is whiny bitch with deep pockets, let him cry and pay for things, when he stops, we make our own money. Alexander is good man, he loves you, don’t lose someone real over preacher who is too lost to help. Kill Mike, then we kill Nadja, You do fine. Survive. Now, I must go. I have a date, and if I disappoint her, I will not get my treat. Best to enjoy what can be had, rather than live in the past and try to save a dead man’s soul. Nobody leaves Nadja. She either kills you or throws you away like me. Mike is too valuable to lose for her. She has a way of getting what she wants.” Yuri said, patting her head and making his leave with a bag and the subtle reveal of electrical cable cutters under his hand, clanking off his silver rings.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Please tell me you’re not murdering your date.” Tanner yelled.

  “No. Different job.” He hollered back.

  “Promise you’re not using the cutters on your date!” she insisted. “We have a rule about who we kill and transparency within the group!”

  “Cutters are for… Not-so-legal, but paying electrician gig. I promise I’m not killing anyone, unless unexpected self-defense. Not likely. Stop worrying.” He insisted back.

  "Oh, I'm gonna worry." she pouted.

  Mike stood back with a piece of string and the gun in a vise, pointed into the woods at a vest on a log.

  “Testing consecutively more powerful loads in Plastic revolver, in 3,2,1…” he finished by pulling the string. The gun made a very anemic little puff as he approached the bench and moved the vise, rotating it to a mark on the table for the next round.

  “Not very impressive.” She scowled.

  “I’m ramping it up gradually. Don’t get your princess panties in a twist, if we blow the gun up on the first shot, all we learned is that I spent a week making a sacrificial gun to prove that it doesn’t work with whatever power that was. It’s an 8 shot gun. We got 8 different rounds, all we gotta do is get through the vest before the gun breaks and then find out where it broke and if that’s fixable. He said pulling the string again, repeating the process until round 6. He pulled the string again, and the gun made an unsettling jump, now looking less than ideal as smoke wafted from the slightly bulged top.

  “Shame.” She sighed.

  “Shame hell, it lasted longer than I hoped for. Now we know 550 foot-pounds kills the gun. And unfortunately, the cylinder split open. So there’s no way to beef that up.” He said, forcefully prying the cylinder open. “Though not as bad of a failure as I expected. I think the gun might still work with one chamber missing.” He said writing down his notes and reloading the remaining 7, returning to his string distance and firing off the other 7 without a problem, the gun jamming as it got to the cracked spot where number 8 breached. “I’ll be damned…and since I’m with you, I probably already am damned. So 500 seems to be the safe limit, I’ll dial them to 450 just to be safe, A little less for subsonic rounds, since these skinny shells are not going to hold the full 450 with a big tungsten round to keep it slowed down. We’re still in 5.7mm territory.” He said inspecting the vest and noticing the holes.

  “And that’s a level 2 Kevlar vest, with most of the hotter rounds going through. I’ll take it. Aim for the head anyway, but at least we know if we have to take body shots at 30 feet, this will do the job nicely on anything shy of level 3”

  “Michel, you always tease with the twists and turns, but you never fail to amaze me in the end. A fully functional plastic revolver that will hide in a fucking shoe. I assume you will be testing all night?” she asked

  “Oh absolutely. But don’t look so disappointed, I know I spend a lot of time doing what you ask me to, and working myself long hours, but it’s date night, and I promised you earlier a night out. This only changes one little detail.” He said, handing her a slip of paper. She looked confused.

  “Tickets to a music show I’ve never heard of. Michael, you don’t even like this kind of music.”

  “Exactly. I absolutely fucking hate pop music. That’s why it’s going to be so much fun. Get your fancy black corset.” He grinned, a strange glimmer in his eye.

  Tanner woke from a nap, her phone buzzing and a strange number appearing. She hesitantly picked it up.

  “Birch…catering service.” She answered.

  “Um, this might be a dead end, but I had to call.” Said a deep and troubled voice. “I’ve been calling everyone on this phone. Is this Tanner?” he asked as she went silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m calling about Caleb Gram. I’m his brother. Your number was on the phone when they gave us his belongings…after the…murder.”

  “FUCK!” she silently mouthed. “No, this is Jill… I don’t know any Tanner, but I met your brother, he…seemed like a nice guy.” she bluffed.

  “I just. There are a lot of things that didn’t add up, and I didn’t know if I should talk to the cops or if they would believe me. I thought maybe one of his friends could answer some things for me. I’m in a really dark place and losing my mind here. Everyone’s saying my little brother was some kind of cult killer, and it just doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you. You don’t even know me. I should leave this to a professional, a private investigator or something.”

  “NO! I mean… I dated a private investigator; they take your money and then feed you bullshit. It’s a whole scam. You can’t trust their information. Now is a bad time for me, but maybe we could just talk in person and clarify some things.”

  “Yea. That would be good. I’m Gabe. Gabe Gram.”

  “Jill…Smith. She said, rolling her eyes at her own stupidity. “Let me text you later, we can get coffee and hopefully clarify some things.”

  “I’d love that. Caleb was such a lone wolf, I feel like I barely know him. I trust a friend of his, over the news any day. Means a lot. I’ll let you go, Jill. You have a great night.” He said hanging up.

  “You did what?” Alexander asked, as Tanner stood frustrated and confused.

  “I…I just agreed to meet and talk to him.” She argued.

  “What strange impulse leads you to believe this was a good idea?” Alexander argued, “You answer the call of a dead man’s brother who perished in your war, to clarify some mysterious questions he may have?”

  “He was going to hire a private investigator, Alex. He sounded pretty messed up. Do we want some alcoholic ex-cop, fired for shady shit and working as a private dick, snooping around Caleb’s last known residence and associates, which is HERE and US?”

  “Damn the ill-fortuned bullshit. So your plan is to do what, exactly?” he asked.

  “I dunno. Just give some closure and help the guy find peace so he doesn’t dig into our illegal killer club. I’ll just tell him what he wants to hear, and say Caleb was a great guy and in a better place now. I gotta do something. He’s already interested in answers, and ghosting him just fuels the bad theories. I’ll handle it.”

  “Handle it discreetly and, armed with caution. If you need me, I shall be in the distance, with a scope…on a ridiculously long olive Dijon rifle.” Alexander sighed.