Half a month later.
Heywood at noon in the middle of sumr. The sun ca down like a freshly heated blade.
On a street near Cannon Square, a newly opened shop had put up an awning considerably thicker than its neighbors required. A neon sign — red background, white text — glowed in the full daylight:
GUNFIRE CHILDREN'S CLINIC
The na carried a deliberate, perverse contradiction. It suggested a place that repaired people the way you'd repair a broken toy, while simultaneously announcing its commitnt to firepower without any apology.
Vito stood in the doorway with a cloth in his hand, casually polishing an Ajax assault rifle on display in the window. The rifle had been matte-blacked end to end, with a pink unicorn painted on the stock — Vito's personal addition. A knowledgeable gun person looking at this weapon would lose several minutes of their life. It looked like an Ajax. It was functionally sothing else entirely. It had been modified from the muzzle to the buffer tube and everywhere between.
"Vito. Is this price tag a mistake?"
Gloria Martinez leaned out from behind the front desk. She'd put on a fitted white dical dust coat. Her face still carried so of the pallor of soone recently recovered, but her eyes were sharp and focused. She was holding a laser calibration instrunt, running an adjustnt on a newly disassembled cyberware surgery table.
As a forr senior employee of REO dical, her professional skills had not been touched by what her family had gone through. Vito had given her half the technical authority over this shop. She wasn't staffing the front desk. She was the chief surgeon.
"No mistake."
Vito didn't turn around. He straightened the unicorn rifle in its display position.
"That one's for the corporate types who think their lives are worth the premium. If the price doesn't scare them off, they've earned the right to carry it."
The gun in question was an Arasaka JKE-X2 Kenshin pistol. Compact, understated, an Arasaka engineer's point of pride — one of the most advanced and lethal compact handguns on the market. Vito's modified version was tagged at the equivalent of sixteen standard units of the sa model.
"You are genuinely sothing." Gloria sighed, but the corners of her mouth disagreed with her tone. She entered a command sequence into the surgery table. The diagnostic program's blue light ca on imdiately. "The Trauma Team decommissioned surgery arm is calibrated. Precision is up 0.5% from factory spec. Your approach to modifications is consistently surprising."
"Just making used equipnt work the way it should."
Vito shrugged.
His stats were maxed across the board, but lately he'd found himself drawn to the violent end of modification work. The delicate dical maintenance he left entirely to Gloria.
Jackie ca in carrying a potted cactus and put it on the counter.
"Congratulations, mano. The little shop is open. Though the na." He looked up at the sign. "Gunfire Children's Clinic. Sounds like a ga kids our age used to play, except people actually die."
Vito and Jackie embraced.
"Get in here and drink an ice cold Coke. You rode the Kusanagi in this heat?"
Gloria handed Jackie a Coke.
"Yeah. I'm honestly surprised I'm still alive. Thank you, Mrs. Martinez. How are you feeling?"
Gloria waved off the formality.
"Much better. Thank you for asking."
"Mom! Vito!"
David appeared in the doorway at full speed, face full of energy.
"I'm not late, am I? Training's almost done. These last few days have been team integration work."
Several months of intensive training had made him considerably more solid. He'd grown taller too. He still had his mother's REO dical jacket on.
"Right on ti. Jackie's already here. Co in and have sothing cold."
Vito waved him in.
"So this is the legendary weapons specialist."
Rebecca walked in behind David, chewing gum, looking Vito up and down with the professional assessnt of soone who was absolutely going to have opinions. Vito noticed she was carrying a weapon case that was almost as tall as she was.
David looked slightly pained.
"Rebecca, this is Vito."
Rebecca dropped the weapon case on the floor. The impact was considerable. Then she walked directly toward the display window.
"These weapons look like they might be interesting. Is there a back catalog?"
Vito smiled. He snapped his fingers.
Clunk.
A chanical sound. Two retractable turrets extended from beside the roller door. Each one was mounted with a Militech Type-31 heavy machine gun. The barrels had been widened to seventeen milliters and loaded with Vito's custom armor-piercing explosive rounds. Each one was the size of a small cannon.
"Sothing like this. Can't do a solo reload in a combat environnt, but it doesn't co up often. By the ti the magazine runs empty there won't be anyone left standing to worry about."
The turrets had the effect of stopping the room entirely. Jackie stared. Rebecca nearly inhaled her gum. Gloria turned back to her surgery table with the tired smile of a person who had accepted that she would never fully understand why a cyberware clinic needed artillery emplacents.
"mano. I didn't walk into the wrong building? This is definitely not a Militech underground installation?"
Rebecca recovered first.
"Do you have high-power pistols? And can you do modifications on mine?"
Vito spotted a custor and opened the weapon case.
"Absolutely. Two specially modified high-power Constitutional Arms Liberty pistols in the cabinet — I'll put my hand up that they hit harder than what Yorinobu Arasaka carries. For your personal weapon, tell your requirents. Maine's squad gets a discount."
He looked at the small, compact, gum-chewing young woman who reached approximately his waist.
"Children's discount. Half price."
Rebecca went red.
"I am not a child! I am furious!"
She snatched a pistol from the cabinet and marched to the shooting range. Ten minutes later she ca back and lowered herself into a seat next to the others, looking at Vito with a very specific expression.
"Vito~. Were you serious about the children's half price?"
Vito laughed.
"I was joking. I don't actually sell weapons to minors. But you're the first custor to walk through this door today, which ans fifty percent off everything."
"Yes! Thank you so much, Vito~!"
She hopped over next to David and brandished the pistol at him.
"David! I told you this would work out. This place fixes people and sells weapons. I'm extrely in favor of this establishnt."
Jackie raised his beer and announced it to the room.
"Didn't I say it? Vito, this place is going to be where the crew cos. To the Gunfire Children's Clinic!"
Gloria watched from behind the surgery table: David laughing the way a healthy person laughs, Jackie and Vito throwing good-natured insults at each other, Rebecca already calling soone from Maine's squad with her free hand and the new pistol in the other.
She allowed herself a quiet smile.
In a city this relentlessly insane, a mont as small and ordinary as this one might be the most expensive thing available.
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