“I can’t tell. Something about her feels different, but whether that’s the emotional trauma of learning about us and seeing me fight the ghouls or if it’s because she’s fighting off something he injected into her, I don’t know. Both, maybe.”
“Sorry, man. That’s rough. Sure. You can hang here as long as you like. You know the layout. Pick a room.”
Merc nodded toward the weapons room. He could smell the scent of metal, wood, varnish, oils, cleaners, sweat, and ash—a unique blend of odors that defined the weapon smith’s space.
Acier grinned. “Working on some knives for Selena. She and Bastion are on their way over to test a set. It’s the second set I’ve made for her. The first weren’t quite tuned to the way she moves in a fight. I think this set is gonna be perfect.” He paused, listening.
Merc felt Bastion’s presence before the two walked in.
“Speak of the devil,” Acier said as Bastion and Selena came in.
“Since when am I a devil?” Bastion asked.
“Don’t worry. Merc thinks I’m a freak.”
“Well, you are,” Bastion said.
Selena elbowed Bastion. “Let me at least get my knives from Acier before you insult him.”
Acier led them deeper into the warehouse, going to the big room where he often ran simulations. “Don’t worry about horse-brains over there.” He nodded toward Bastion. “I have your knives ready. Want to give them a test run?”
“Oh yeah. Your simulations are better than the ones Liege runs at the fort.”
“I think he worries about going too hard on you, after what happened to Summer,” Acier told her.
“There’s a big difference between Summer and me: I’m a trained fighter.”
“C’est vrai,” Bastion said. “But I still wish you weren’t.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Selena replied. “I feel as worried for you as you do for me when the ghouls come.”
“So. We will get through this lesson, then. Be smart, mon amour. Remember that ghouls have a rhythm in their fighting that is identifiable. Watch for it.”
Merc was surprised by the diminutive size of the two blades on the table in the sim room. Only eight inches in length, half of which was handle, the curved hawksbill blade reminded Merc of ghoul talons. He was curious to see what Selena could do with them. Getting close enough to use short blades like that was like stepping into a meat grinder.
Also on the table was a new gun Acier had built specially for Selena. It looked like a cross between a long-barreled pistol and a short-barreled shotgun. It had a fourteen-inch, heavy-walled, cylinder-bore barrel with a bead sight and a twelve-inch pistol grip.
“You’ll get twenty- to forty-feet range with this,” Acier told Selena. “The modified magazine holds Aguila Minishell ammo, eight and one in the chamber, twelve-gauge one-and-three-quarter-inch slugs. If your aim is true, you should be able to incapacitate eight or nine ghouls. Their adrenaline is such that unless you get a heart or cranial shot in, you’re likely to just slow them down and piss them off.”
“That’s the median number of ghouls when we find a cluster,” Merc said. “Sometimes it’s fewer than that. Sometimes more.”
“You’re not going to have time to reload in a fight with the monsters,” Acier said. “So make your firepower work for you. And take two of these pistols to each fight. They’re light. Just over five pounds loaded. I can fit you with holsters for these.”
“You running the simulation with the gun and knives?” Merc asked, looking forward to seeing their newest team member in action.
“Just the knives, this go around,” Acier said. “We’ll see how she does with them—I may still have some refinements to make. She can take the shotgun back to the fort for practice. When she’s ready, we’ll put the whole show together.”
Selena palmed the knives, flipping them this way and that, getting familiar with the way they felt. She grinned at Bastion. “There are some things I miss about my old team, but we sure didn’t have an Acier.”
“Non. But he is in talks with them to revamp their tools. So they will soon be as cool as we are.”
“Ready to go?” Acier asked Selena.
“Ready.”
The lights went out. Merc felt the familiar rush of anticipation. Even though this was only a simulation, and one he wasn’t participating in, it still held lessons for him. Their training was never finished—ghouls continued to evolve. It would be a quick death to take them for granted.
When any of them were running simulations for the other, they weren’t mechanical or virtual scenarios—they were actually mental creations that looked, smelled, felt like actual fights. Sometimes, the team replayed an encounter that didn’t go well. Sometimes the simulations were amalgamations of several different encounters. Sometimes, they were entirely made up. You never knew what the sim runner was going to hit you with.
This time, Selena found herself on patrol inside Kiera’s compound. Merc thought Acier was smart in taking the opportunity to train Selena in an area that was likely to be hit. They all were tasked with protecting Liege’s daughter, and the work she was doing with women in need in her compound, so this little bit of extra exposure was brilliant.
Merc could smell the adrenaline filling Selena’s veins. Her heart was pumping faster in anticipation. That was one of the many things he liked about Acier’s simulations. He made them feel real. Selena already had her knives in her hands—a deviation from a real-life chance encounter.
Selena moved through Kiera’s compound. It was night, but tall lamps brightened the buildings. Ground lights illuminated the pathways. Mutants didn’t need light to see at night, but it didn’t hurt either.
Up ahead was a rustling in some shrubs. Selena’s focus went toward the sound.
Listen with your whole body, Selena, Acier coached her. Everyone could hear what he was telling her. Your skin feels energy before your mind registers that its source is near. Your body can feel vibrations in the ground that you don’t hear. The air moves in ways that speak to what’s near you.
Selena was tense, her body at taut attention.
Be at ease, Selena, Bastion said. Straighten. Breathe. The tension you’re carrying can fatigue you as much as an actual encounter. And when your body is so locked down, you’re not getting the signals you need to be sensitized to.
Since everyone else was piping up with their advice, Merc added his: You got this, love.
Selena squared her shoulders, stretched her neck side to side, flexed her fingers around the knives in her hands. When she moved forward next, she was still hypervigilant but more attuned with the world around her. Acier’s simulation was so powerful that even Merc forgot they were standing in his warehouse. He felt like a slacker sending one of his teammates into danger alone while he hung out and watched. His heart was pumping. The fucking ghouls had gotten close enough to shred him that night in Valle de Lágrimas—causing pain that wasn’t easily forgotten, despite how quickly he healed.
In the distance in front of Selena, a ghoul shrieked, the sound answered by one off to her right…and then by one behind her.
The hair on Merc’s neck stood up. Fuck. It was only a simulation, one of many they would run that day, but it was spectacularly real.