“What about inside?” Krysty asked.
“Different kind of sec man. We’re more of a presence in here to remind our guests to behave. Day patrols on the mall interior are on a light duty roster. Most of our hard labor comes after dark, both on the inside after people start drinking and the outside when the muties get restless. More often than not, people on the inside of Freedom have no clue there’s a problem outdoors, and that’s the way we want to keep it.”
“How does the night shift break down?” J.B. asked as all of them stepped into former mall loading dock that had been taken over with targets, tumbling mats and exercise equipment. A few sealed wooden cases of weapons could be seen in a corner, locked up in a fenced-in area. Some of Rollins’s regular sec squad were working out.
“If you work days, the shift is longer ’cause there’s lower stress. Work nights, you can go from eight to four in the morning, or from midnight to eight. There’s some overlap. That’s on purpose since it falls at the same time we tend to have the most problems. Stickie activity usually hits between midnight and 200 a.m., although they’ve been known to come earlier and try again later.”
Ryan leaned against a rack of barbells. “Okay, here’s the way we’re going to do this,” he said. “We’ll all stay on the night shift with patrolling and training. I don’t give a rip for day duty if the action always comes after sunset. Give us a few days to get acclimated, meet your men and we’ll try playing school. J.B. here can talk hardware. I’m on tactics with J.B. Jak over there might not look like much, but he’s the finest hand-to-hand fighter I’ve ever known. All of us have been involved in close-combat fights with stickies before and survived, so it’s not impossible. Stickies might be scary to some, but they’re also triple stupe. Usually you can outsmart them.”
“What’s standard armament for your sec men?” J.B. asked.
“M-16 long blasters. M-16 A-2s to be exact.”
“Chambered to take 5.56 mm rounds?”
“Right.”
The M-16 was the traditional weapon of the smart sec man or hired mercies. The effective range of the now classic Army blaster was just under 350 yards. The weapon could be fired in four modes on single shot, semiauto, automatic or full cycle. Capable of firing close to a thousand rounds of ammunition per minute, keeping an M-16 on full cycle would empty a full 30-round magazine in under two seconds.
“Got a few extras of the M-16 if you want them, but there’s not much ammo. We’re lacking in that department. Haven’t gotten a new supply in months.”
“Which explains why the blaster-and-ammo store we went to earlier had been closed,” Ryan said.
“We had to confiscate his stores. The man was paid, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Been meaning to ask you, Dr. Wyethwhy do you keep carrying around a target pistol? We could fix you up with an autoblaster with no problem,” Rollins remarked.
Mildred hefted the ZKR 551 6-shot Czech revolver and sighted an imaginary target as she replied, “I’ve always been a believer in staying with what you know, and I know this revolver. Know how it feels, know how it shoots. I can draw, aim and fire without even thinking and hit my target time and time again with this blaster. Switch to something new, even with an increased bullet capacity, and by the time I learn it as well as I know this gun, I’d probably be dead.”
“I see. Very well, the”
Mildred wasn’t finished. “I like simplicity. The double-action revolver is a self-loading design, allowing the operator to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder simultaneously, and then release the hammer with one trigger pull. Or if I choose, I can thumb-cock this baby like an old single-action revolver. And I always know how many bullets I have. With an auto, you have to count.”
“Not if you have enough clips.”
“Outside, extra ammo isn’t usually an option. A revolver is easy to operate. The ammo in the chamber is clearly visible and never, ever misfires. If a shell jams, you just keep pulling the trigger and rotate the cylinder to the next shell. If you keep trying to blast away with an automatic, you have to stop, eject and remove the dud by hand,” she said as she replaced the blaster in her holster.