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I was surprised enough just to see him. But even more stunned by the long black rifle he held cradled against his shoulder.
“Ummm… welcome back?” I just didn’t know what else to say.
“Thanks. Now be a peach and get behind us.”
Joshua already had the tripod set up near the open window on the other side of my bedroom. As he pinned the curtains back, Cole was busy screwing something into the end of his rifle, while simultaneously adjusting a bunch of knobs. The weapon was sleek and dark and hopelessly complicated. But it looked absolutely deadly.
“W—What’s going on?”
Cole pointed. Somewhere out in the hallway, a silvery-blue light was flashing at regular intervals.
“Silent alarm tripped. Someone bypassed the—”
“Cole. Get over here.”
Joshua was staring through the mounted camera now, which was obviously not a camera at all. His normally pleasant voice was all business. There was no room for anything else.
“Go to sector two, bravo.”
Cole lifted the rifle with such swift, practiced ease it seemed an extension of his giant arm. He flipped the lens-cap from a foot-long scope and placed his eye right up against it.
“He’s behind that slight rise there,” Joshua said evenly. “See him?”
A tension-filled moment passed.
“Yes,” Cole grunted. “Contact.” He adjusted something on the top of his rifle. “Looks like one-point-five mils.”
“Check level,” said Joshua. “Check parallax.”
I was utterly bewildered. They may as well have been speaking a different language! Silently I maneuvered behind them, keeping my head down because it just seemed right.
“Ready,” said Cole. “Wind call?”
Perched behind the tripod, Joshua’s jaw tightened. “Left, point four.”
The room was silent now, except for the distinct sound of Cole turning knobs.
Click…click…click…
“Spotters up.”
Smoothly, almost imperceptibly, Cole exhaled.
“Send it,” said Joshua.
The rifle crack resounded loudly in the confines of the bedroom. Even so, it made far less noise than I thought it would.
The same couldn’t be said for the poor bastard outside.
“AIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!”
In all my life, I’d never heard screams like that. They were too high-pitched. Too inhuman. They seemed otherworldly.
“Jesus,” Joshua swore. “Did you just blow his kneecap off?”
“Sure sounds like it,” Cole grunted.
The screams continued, winding up and down through octaves no man — unless he were a heavy metal singer — could normally reach.
