Function:_Body_Harden_100_1

***Function_Undefined***

“Frick!” Tann let out a deep sigh of frustration, “Great, now I can’t do anything for my body.”

She put down her keyboard and drunk from an energy drink. Then, she picked up a ting iron rod, “let me try with this.” She typed in a few commands on her keyboard. After a second, the iron rod started to bend down naturally like melting butter, and soon, it became complete liquefied and flowed through Tann’s fingers. Tann took out a piece of wrapping paper and a plastic pen and noted, “Well, at least I can still some minor properties.”

Tann was sitting on a bench outside the exit of a subway station with a sign that read ‘Castle Peak’. Thanks to the helpful subway staff, she was able to obtain a general city map with all the street names. She laid it flat on her lap and studied it carefully, “ Okay, I am at the Southside near the city centre. Ah, here is Castle Peak station! Where is the exit B...here it is!”

Then she took out a card from her pocket. Like an ID card, it had her photo and ‘information’ on it, but it had a black label that read, ‘North Köloñ’ and a small line of bold words, ‘The cardholder is a participant of the North Köloñ Automated Turret Project, he/she is thus allowed to obtain automatic firearms as well as any firearms that have a barrel size below 37 mm.’

“Good thing I made a copy of that guy’s card,” Tann smiled and put it back into her pocket, “he sure can’t keep any secrets.”

She stood up from the bench and looked at the rushing bots around her. Any of them could be hostile, and any of them could become that monster. Making sure that all her stuff was with her, Tann walked into the subway station.

Compared to her ‘home’, the subway system in the simulation wasn’t much different (aside from the fact that the trains simulation required tracks to run on and are powered by electric motors instead of hydrogen fusion motors). Tann quickly got herself an Octopus card, which she can program it to have infinite value.

It was peak hour when Tann board the train, the station and the trains were flooded with bots. Tann stood closely beside the emergency exit, her hand gripped firmly to the emergency handle, ready to press it down if a monster appears.

The train zoomed on a tall flyover in the middle of the buildings under the night sky, the colourful lights formed a gigantic moving picture outside the window, but Tann was in the mood to enjoy the scenery. Her eyes swung from right to left, left to right, trying to detect any oddity among the bots. Finally, lengthy train ride came to an end when the off toned speaker announced, “Next station: Reddito”.

After squeezing past layers of bots, Tann let out a sigh of relief and drank another can of Monster Energy. Then, she unfolded her map. Beside Reddito station was a large red circle that was made by Tann.

“Right opposite to the Sinclair Police Station,” Tann looked up a noticed the dull police station that seemed to be a cave carved within a concrete block.

Across the street, Tann saw a large store with a wide wooden board that was covered in bullet holes. On top of it, with thick red paint, it read ‘Alucard’s Firearms’.

“Here we are,” Tann murmured excitedly. She walked across the street and stood in front of the display windows. There were all sorts of guns on display, there was a shelf full of pistols, bundles of old fashioned bolt action hunting rifles, of course, semi-automatic (civilian version) assault rifles standing along with the window. Aside from the weapons, there were also scopes with different diameters and powers; special tracer ammo and shotgun cartages; and finally, cleaning tools. Tann looked from top to bottom, “My technology function sure is effective, no wonder they invented all these weapons within a few program years.”

Pushing open the door made of bulletproof glass, she entered the store. As expected, the inside of the store was immense. More and more guns entered Tann’s field of view, they went from plastic sub machine-guns to heavy light machine guns. Although the room was packed, all of the items were organised neatly, allowing the customer to identify each weapon type quickly.

“How may I help you Ms?” A middle-aged man sat at the counter located at the centre of the room.

In one of his hand, he held an ammo belt that hasn’t been filled with bullets yet.

“I need something for self-defence,” Tann said quickly. The man rubbed his thick and spiky beard in amusement, “I’ve got ya covered, want a gallon of pepper spray.” He brought up a huge gas can from beneath his desk.

“What can this do?” Tann asked.

“Spray in the eyes, and the guy would never try to lay them on you again,” the shopkeeper laughed, he then took out a cigar-like plastic object and put it into his mouth, “I am surprised I am enjoying kids smokes nowadays.”

Tann walked closer to him, “Probably not the spray, I have more dangerous wolfs to worry about?”

The shopkeeper blew out a smoke bubble that gave off a fruit smell, “You want a gun don’t ya?”

“Yes,” Tann replied firmly.

“All right,” the shopkeeper reached behind him and took out a small paper box from the shelf, “here, a Glock 17, should be enough for anyone who ain’t afraid of pepper spray.” He carefully opened the box and put the foam wrappings into a neat pile on his desk. A small pistol appeared from the black artificial sponge. It was entirely brown, but with its top slider in an even darker shade of brown. The shopkeeper picked out the pistol carefully, in this process, Tann could hear small clicking sounds from within the pistol.

“I know it is a…colour,” claimed the shopkeeper, he held the gun in his large hand, and spun it with his middle finger, “but lightweight and durable, here, give it a try.” He rotated the pistol so its handle was facing Tann. Tann stared at it for a second, then she took the handle, then, she swung it lightly around, feeling its weight, after that, she pulled the slider and looked at the inside of the chamber. The shopkeeper grinned proudly, “I see, you must be a woman of culture too. Don’t worry, we don’t sale scraps here, every gun here are well oiled and numbered, so if you have a problem with it, you can always come to fix it…”

“Sorry,” Tann put the gun back into its case, “I’m not here for a toy.”

“Toy?!” the shopkeeper laughed, “Then what is not a toy? I’m telling ya, the Glock 17 can do some serious damage if you use it properly…”

“Nope,” Tann replied coldly and walked away from the counter, with her eyes scanning across the other showcases, “can I try that one?”

The shopkeeper packed the Glock box and returned it to its original spot on the shelf. He exited the counter and followed to where Tann was pointing. His eyes widened a bit at what he saw, but a second later, the shock turned to amusement, “You want that old school antique? It can only hold 6 shots…”

“6 large shots with high penetration,” Tann argued firmly.

“Mate,” the shopkeeper laid out his hands, “I can get you whatever you want, but I must warn you that not all guns can be handled…the same way…especially the .500 magnum. Do you know how much knock-back that thing have?”

“I perfectly understand you,” Tann pointed at the gun again, “but I hope you can help me open the case.”

“Fine, fine,” the keeper unlocked the case and took the gun off its stand, “we had it here for quite a while as not many folks want this big iron around. Oh! I forgot this hand cannon fires special .50 cal ammo that comes in either tracer/incinerates/armour-piercing.”

“Sure,” Tann took the gun from the keeper’s hand, suddenly, she could feel the weight of that thing. She almost dropped it instantly, but she took a deep breath and held the pistol in one hand and aimed it at the corner of the room. It was in a rusty brass colour, however, its smooth long barrel could reflect lots of light, “can you get me 100 armour-piercing shots, please?”.

The shop keeper stared at her wordlessly for a second, but he quickly bent down under the showcase and pulled out a long tray of brown paper boxes, “just telling, you are…meant to hold that thing with two hands.”

“Oh…”

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“What else do you need?” the shopkeeper finished scanning all the bar codes on the quickdraw magazine boxes.

“I want an automatic AR.”

“Excuse me?”

“An automatic assault rifle.”

Before the shopkeeper could ask another word, Tann pulled out her card and blocked it in front of his eyes, “Ehhh…”

“Seen it before?” Tann smiled wickedly.

“Hold on a second,” the keeper turned around and typed a few letters onto a cube-like desktop computer, after a long pause as the ancient computer finished processing all the data, “there you are, Ivy Whitman…You are a Qchong student?! Do you know Loci Parametric?”

“Yea.”

“Do you guys work on the same project?” the keeper asked curiously.

“Not really,” said Tann.

“That’s unfortunate,” the keeper sighed sadly, “though he’ll get a human girlfriend someday.”

“What do you mean?” Tann’s curiosity overcame her annoyance, “Human?”

“Have you ever met him before,” said the keeper, he sat down on his rotatable chair, “that guy has a weird passion in machines, and he is always claiming that he will build his girlfriend…”

“Build?” Tann withdrew her card into her pocket.

“No one knows what he meant by that,” the keeper claimed, “but I do know that he got this weird mindset after getting reject by the same girl for three times in a year. By the way, please don’t tell him I told you that…”

“What’s your name?” Tann asked.

“Me? Just call me Stan,” grinned the keeper.

“Nice to meet you, Stan,” Tann’s expressions suddenly became very friendly, “I heard if I can get a discount if I know Loci.”

“Yea…but…”

“Thanks!” Tann smiled brightly, “Let me tell you a secret of mine: I am not interested in male.”

“What do you mean…”

Tann pointed behind Stan quickly, “Can you get me that rifle with the wooden butt?”

“You want the AK?!” The shopkeeper seemed extremely shocked, “What for? I remember you came into this shop asking for some self-defence weapon, that thing there is built for WAR!”

“Can you just chill and get it for me please?”

“Fine,” Stan took the gun off the shelf, “ you may have it, but, I want you to show me something…”

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“Damn it!” Tann thought as she aimed at the target board that was twenty meters away. She was wearing a large pair of ear protection and a cloudy goggle, “I can’t reduce the recoil constant in front of him!”

“On your mark!” Stan shouted at the top of his lungs, “FIRE!”

Tann pulled the trigger, and a huge force pushed against her shoulder, she tried to release the trigger, but for some reason, the recoil was so strong that she had almost lost her mind, all she could do was not letting the gun fly away from her hands.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Click!

The ammo final ran out. Tann took a deep sigh, but then she looked at the target board. It was as good as new.

“What the hell were you aiming at?” Stan spoke softly, “Its either you or there are ghosts all around this room.”

“I say ghosts.”

“NO!” this is the first time Tann got screamed at by a bot, “You are putting that thing down right NOW or you’ll get yourself killed or be killed.” Hesitantly, Tann put down the rifle.

Stan took out a pink towel and rubbed the sweat drops from his forehead, and put took out a bottle of pressured gas. He pulled charging handle and sprayed the gas into the smoking chamber to flush out the remaining gunpowder and dust, “I’m not letting you touch this thing again unless you learn some recoil control.”

“I can do the semiautomatic firing,” Tann said and took off her ear protection.

“Mate,” Stan replied annoyedly, putting the rifle back into its case, “even your first shot missed the target!”

Tann looked down at the ground without another word, at the same time Stan watched her with disappointment. He sighed and walked towards the side of the shooting range, he swiped a blank plastic card beside an electromagnetic lock and opened a long drawer, “Have a go with this.”

Tann turned to him, and realised the long iron pipe in his hands, “Is that a…”

“The good old Benelli Nova,” Stan pulled the fore-end down, slid red coloured shell cartage into the magazine loading port, and pushed the fore-end back up. In a smooth motion, he aimed at a target and fired.

BANG!

The plastic board shattered by the cloud of lead. Stan blew away the muzzle smoke and handed the Nova to Tann with four shells, “You don’t need any skill to fire this one.”

Tann rolled her eyes and loaded the shells one by one.

“Ready! Set! FIRE!”

BANG! Clack! BANG! Clack! BANG! Clack! BANG! Clack! Clack!

The firing stopped, the empty shells cases rolled on the ground in circles with smoke still coming out of them. Tann lowered the weapon and observed the result: The target board was completely destroyed.

“That’s right!” Stan clapped in congratulation, “This thing is half the price as AK but you can be sure on where you hit.”

“Thanks…” replied Tann, she looked at the gun again. Despite the simplicity of the gun, Tann hated its polymer buttstock and receiver as well as its dull black colour, “but…”

Stan seemed to notice Tann’s disgust and suggested, “We offer special colour versions, you can choose from brown, green, white, or even wood colours.”

“Is there blue?” Tann turned to him suddenly, “If there’s light blue, sure, I’ll take one with another 100 steel shots.”