Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Olivia never looked so embarrassed even if there were people that already knew about their relationship but nevertheless, it wasn't about the embarrassment of being in a relationship with my cousin but the embarrassment of having their relationship 'exposed' to a few strangers.

Not everyone wanted to reveal everything about them and their partner, but she quickly forgave me when I apologized and offered to make her longest shot at 1000 yards.

It wasn't even the scope of our lesson but I'd like to keep a few targets off my back even if it was trivial in a sense. Well, it would be completely trivial to me but it wasn't as trivial compared to the subject in question.

I waved Olivia off so I could get her attention, "Okay, it's gonna drop a lot more compared to when you nailed the target at 200 yards but you only got to hit it once to record it in your DOPE Card. It's very easy to compute and account for distance but the most difficult thing to compute and account for, if we remove human error since you've only been at it for a few months, is always wind."

Olivia nodded pensively as she pulled out a familiar device, "So… I always check with my kestrel?"

"What? You could but–"

"It's supposed to give me the readings, right? For the wind and whatnot..."

"It would–"

"So–"

"Not exactly."

"B-But–"

"Let me finish talking first, alright? Sure, our kestrels could always check for wind but it wouldn't tell you what the wind is over 1000 yards. Furthermore, it's not like the wind is always blowing the same way... Even if you could get data from 1000 yards away by walking to that place and going back to shoot your rifle… Chances are, it would've already shifted into something different."

Olivia nodded a few times, "R-Right… I remember you telling us that before… W-Well… H-How can I be exactly sure to hit the target every single time? Are there other calculations that I need to do or things I need to look out for?"

"You could add a lot more factors to decrease your chances of missing but that'll just slow you down even more."

"What? I thought--"

Kaley interjected, "Instead of trying to figure out whether a lake is deep or not, why don't you just jump in and find out?"

"Wouldn't I drown if–"

Kaley shook her head, "You can swim."

"B-But I need my goggles to–"

"That's not the point!"

I stood in between the two, "Hmm~ To be completely honest, you could do all the calculations you want but as hard as for me to say it, there's a limit we– and our equipment could allow us to nail our target in longer distances. But if we're talking in regards to the limit of what we and our equipment could do… like Kaley said, just go ahead and do it instead of burying your head down in calculations and making sure you never miss."

"..."

"Remember, the reason we're having this class is also to shave a few seconds for recalculation. It wouldn't seem much but a few seconds would be the equivalent of life and death in certain situations. If our targets right now are sprinters or even ferals, they wouldn't wait for you to refer to your DOPE Card, and they'll bridge the gap in no time. In a sense, this class is like doing a more advanced form of the process of elimination. Like being able to answer true AND false in a true OR false question. Get me?"

Olivia was still slightly hesitant, "B-But you two never miss… especially you… you could shoot really far and even do the drills we do blindfolded…"

"Ah. That's because I'm awesome– Ack! Kaley?! I'm awesome but I still feel pain!"

Kaley exclaimed, "That's not even a proper answer!"

"That's just the summary! D'you want me to give everyone the math here?!"

"Just say something believable!"

"It's believable! But yeah…"

Olivia turned to me as her ears perked up, "Hmm?"

"What I mean to say is that… I'm one of those guys that used to bury my head with calculations. It's fun sometimes but later on, even if it's not my style, I found out that a different approach might be necessary. The thing is, I'm afraid of failure– in our case, missing our shot, but~ if you think of it as another step to success– or hitting our target… it doesn't sound so bad, right?"

As soon as I said that, I didn't even notice that everyone was looking at me the same way Olivia was pensively staring right at my face. But after our short conversation, she didn't say much as she went on position.

Olivia was muttering a few things between her breath but as soon as we heard that short exhale, she pulled the trigger and a short ding resounded right after.

However, she didn't stop there as she ejected the spent casing and loaded another. Her hands never moved so seamlessly and we saw the same thing over and over until she ran out of bullets.

It had five bullets all-in-all but she only missed once.

Her only miss was the one from her second shot but the last three were fucking tight. Two of those shots almost overlapped with each other while the last one was only a few centimeters away.

I chuckled before I handed her a full mag, "Jesus fucking christ. Do it again."

"A-Again?"

"Yep."

Olivia just accepted the mag without saying much and Kaley was just looking at me with a faint smile. With that said, when Olivia started nailing targets from afar, she couldn't hide how happy and proud she was with her younger sister's achievement.

However, the look on Lois' face was so fucking priceless because he wanted to be the one to remove the 'shackles' in Olivia's head. But nevertheless, he was still happy that Olivia more than tripled her record though he pulled me away from my seat so he could take my place.

I whispered before I left them alone, "Relax, dude. I'm just teaching her stuff."

Lois replied with a hushed tone, "You better! I'm–"

"Yada~ Yada~ Better start practicing even more or she'll smoke ya."

"What?! She won't– Well, I wouldn't mind but– Fuck you, bro! I'm better than you!"

"Roight~ Roight~"

As time went on, everyone picked their spots to try their hand at beating their own records and trying to do it with a partner.

Kaley and I didn't even get to shoot much because the two of us were watching what everyone else was doing so that we could lead them in the right direction instead of just telling them what to do.

Sometimes, human error just couldn't be avoided entirely because the person playing the spotter might give wrong directions, or the person playing the shooter might fuck up their trigger pull, hold the wrong angle, or any other mistakes.

Furthermore, I wouldn't even get started on partner compatibility.

In a way, the people that refrained from picking their own partner compared to the ones that just picked one just to get in had better luck.

Different people had different ways to do things and sometimes, different people had also a different way of calling or labeling things that already had a technical term.

It would lead to miscommunication and such, making their class harder than what it was supposed to because of a simple compatibility issue. That was something that couldn't be fixed in a short amount of time and in the end, they just practiced on their own and were just 'partners' in name.

Time continued to pass until everyone had their fill and the drive back home was just enough of a wind-down because the sunset was beautiful.

However, it wasn't as peaceful when we got home.

It was because Artem, Katya, Bogdan, and even Mikhail who already had a custom weapon were arguing as to who gets to keep another monstrosity of a weapon our engineers produced.

With that said, a few onlookers like Ibarra and Tatiana wanted to get their hands on it as well but they decided to pass on the first prototype.

This one was led by Unc Zeidrick specifically and it involved a bit of heritage from him and my mother's side. Well, it was supposed to look more like an axe but this thing had some artistic liberties put on it.

The weapon they built was supposed to be an axe native to a tribe of Igorots in our country. It was known as the Headhunter's Axe or as the Wasay that had an axe side for decapitation and a spike on the other for piercing through armor.

However, the weapon we were looking at right now was looking a lot like a huge-ass sword than a huge-ass axe.

It could be said that it was a cross between the two because the axe-head where the socket was supposed to be was replaced by a blade a few inches longer than my katana. Its handle was even longer than most sword handles because it could definitely fit four and a half hands to provide a lot more leverage because of the weight.

To be completely honest, it was forged crudely compared to my blade but what made them fight for it wasn't how it looked badass or intimidating, it was because of the damage it did to the watermelon covered with a ceramic plate and several patches of kevlar.

'What the fuck did Unc put on it? Wait...'