BIA Ch. 21

When Isaiah had just exited the bedroom, Bran was standing by the kitchen table.

“Why is this crumpled?”

He asked, pointing at the receipt on the table.

“Oh, that. Chester crumpled it.”

“Did Chester see it?”

“Yes. But he doesn’t know you left that note. He just thinks it was from some guy I met at the club.”

Bran picked up the receipt on the table. He glanced once at the message he had written and placed it back down.

“I see.”

Isaiah had thought Bran would head straight for the front door but unexpectedly he returned to Isaiah’s bedroom.

“Where is the gun?”

“What gun?”

Isaiah, who had been blinking at the sudden question, belatedly exclaimed. Ah!

“Maybe this?”

Isaiah moved the pillow on the bed aside. Bran picked up the pistol hidden beneath the pillow, examined it and then tucked it into his jacket pocket.

“Right. What about the other guns?”

“Other guns?”

“Yes. Remember where the rest of the guns are.”

“The rest of the guns…?”

There were more? In this house? Where? Isaiah’s eyes widened.

“Okay, I understand.”

Bran nodded curtly and without a moment’s hesitation, knelt on the bedroom floor.

“It would be here.”

Bending low, he pulled a large box from under the bed mattress. Isaiah was shocked when an unexpected object appeared from such an unexpected place.

“How would you know?”

“Common sense. Remember, always keep your gun closest to the bed.”

Bran, rising from his knees, nudged the box with his foot. Understanding this meant he should open it, Isaiah knelt on the floor as Bran had done just moments before.

The box was made of wood but it had no lock, so all he had to do was lift the lid.

“Aaaha.”

Isaiah made an exaggerated grunt as he opened the box. Inside, besides five or six pistols, there were three large cases resembling fishing bags.

“What are these bags?”

Instead of answering, Bran lifted one of the cases from the box and placed it on the bed mattress. The way the mattress springs compressed suggested considerable weight. Bran unzipped the case without a second thought.

Inside the case was a sniper rifle.

“The AX series^[1], as expected.”

Bran spoke as he assembled the rifle which had been disassembled into large components.

“Now you understand why your physical strength has to be better than mine, right?”

Of course. Carrying this heavy hunk of metal around would require exceptional strength.

“Are these… all my guns?”

“They’re certainly not mine.”

Having easily assembled the rifle’s body, Bran attached the barrel and scope.

While Bran worked on the rifle, Isaiah looked inside the box. There were seven pistols in total and to Isaiah’s untrained eye, they all looked identical. He picked one up at random and was startled by its unexpected heft.

“Bran, is this different from your gun?”

“Yes. Mine is a Glock and this…”

Bran took the pistol from Isaiah’s hand and examined it.

“An M1911. Made by Wilson Combat.”

“Is it better than yours?”

“Better? The M1911 ^[2]is practically a religion in the US military. It’s outdated compared to newer models but few guns pack this much punch.”

In other words, it was brute force in a package. It punched through, smashed and killed effectively.

“Mine’s smaller than yours but it’s way heavier.”

“That’s because my magazine is made of plastic.”

“Oh, I see.”

Isaiah experimented with the pistol’s grip, turning it this way and that. No matter how he held it, it felt remarkably comfortable in his hand.

“This fits perfectly in my hand.”

“It’s yours, after all.”

Mine… my gun.

It felt strange. Even without his memories, this object felt familiar, molded to his hand. And it was a gun. Was it right to feel this connection to such a thing? Was it okay?

“Can you shoot?”

“No, I think that would be impossible.”

Isaiah quickly returned the gun he held to the box. Bran retrieved the gun Isaiah had replaced and upon confirming the magazine was empty, racked the slide and pulled the trigger.

“This is a custom gun.”

“Is it? How would you know?”

“You know by the trigger pull. The recoil is completely different.”

Bran repeatedly pulled the trigger, as if assessing the recoil’s strength.

“Wilson Combat guns aren’t usually this heavy. A WD gunsmith probably bored it up to your specifications.”

“Bored it up?”

“It’s modifying the chamber and barrel to withstand high-power ammunition. Regular ammunition is fine, but something like KTW rounds is so powerful that the barrel sometimes bursts.”

“The gun bursts because of the bullet…? Is that, a bullet?”

“It was originally designed to penetrate body armor.”

…There were even bullets that could penetrate body armor.s were truly remarkable. As Isaiah sighed, a half-exasperated look on his face, Bran, who had been examining the pistol’s empty magazine, suddenly chuckled.

“Why?”

“No, I just thought it was a fitting choice for you.”

“In what sense?”

“With pistols or rifles, customizing usually means choosing one of two things: precision or firepower.”

Bran slid the magazine back into the pistol. A crisp click, the sound of parts perfectly aligning, accompanied the empty magazine’s insertion.

“You can’t have both. Trying to achieve both often results in neither. So, snipers typically modify the barrel for precision and compensate for firepower with high-capacity magazines. But that makes the gun heavy.”

Bran offered the pistol to Isaiah, who instinctively accepted it. It felt increasingly comfortable in his hand, yet he couldn’t imagine ever getting used to its weight. However…

“It gets heavier than this?”

“Yes. Much heavier.”

If it got any heavier, how could he even hold it steady, let alone shoot? Isaiah contemplated the pistol in his hand. His thoughts must have been evident on his face, as Bran smiled and said,

“That’s why you sacrificed precision for power. To use KTW rounds. You can manage the precision yourself. And the magazine, well, there’s no need for high capacity. You only need one shot.”

Isaiah, who had been listening to Bran as if it were someone else’s story, felt a weight settle upon him at the end. He recalled the video Chester had shown him. The brutal butcher, boldly approaching his victims and ending everything with a single shot.

“No bullets, as expected.”

Bran muttered as he searched the box. His tone suggested this was anticipated.

“Really? How do you shoot a gun without bullets…? What’s that?”

Isaiah asked, looking at what Bran had just retrieved from the bottom of the box.

“This? This is called a book. Repeat after me, book.”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

Isaiah sighed and gave up. How could Bran know the history of something he, himself, didn’t?

As Bran had said, hidden beneath the pistol at the very bottom of the box was a book. A paperback with a striking cover. A yellow skull on a red background. It had been so well-read that the red had faded to a deep, almost brown. Beneath the skull, a title scrawled in thick pen.

“Slaughterhouse-Five?”

Isaiah’s involuntary exclamation drew an intrigued look from Bran.

“You seem to have liked Slaughterhouse-Five.”

“I suppose…”

Bran flipped through the pages, soon finding one folded in half. He unfolded it, seemingly reading the contents briefly, before closing the book.

“Would you mind if I borrowed this?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Isaiah replied without thinking.