Joel Kulseth (aviatorshades) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2017-01-09 22:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2020 [01] january, jane rusten, joel kulseth, kāne van dale |
Who: Joel Kulseth, Jane Rusten, and Kāne Van Dale
Where: The Powder Room
What: Joel, Jane and Kāne do one last survey.
When: 1/3/20, morning
The Powder Room (and yes, Joel had lost the argument against that name), after months of preparation and talking it all out between the APD and the Army, was finally ready to open it’s doors. Officially they had decided on January 4th, but as the trio who had spearheaded a lot of the work, Joel, Kāne, and Jane had set up one final walk through of their new shooting range before it was official official. “Morning,” Joel greeted, pushing his aviators up onto his head as he met the other two at the front doors. Jane nodded at Joel and then to Kāne, grunting her hello’s. Even though he’d had a lot of input, Joel hadn’t actually seen much of the building itself in over a month. Not since Jane had taken it upon herself to work on it. “You got any kind of warnings for me before we go in?” He directed at his partner, eyebrows raised, but otherwise he was sporting a pretty straight face. Jane handed Joel a large coffee from the carrier she held from the Doughnut Hole and then pressed another to Kāne’s waiting palm and got a mumbled thanks in response. She took her own coffee out of the carrier and sipped it idly, taking her sweet time before answering her partner’s question. Now that he was chief, she didn’t get to mess with him as much as she used to so when the opportunity presented itself, no matter how small, Jane liked to take advantage. “What d’ya mean?” She asked, her eyebrow raised in a mirror image to Joel’s. “You wanted a fully stocked bar in there, right? Because of how well alcohol and firearms go together?” Jane knew she probably shouldn’t press her luck with the jokes, seeing as she had gotten her way with the range’s name and all, but she was only human. “And grenades,” Kāne supplied between sips of coffee, the corners of his mouth twitching with a smirk. “Never know when you'll need to take out a nest, so might as well get the public trained on how to safely use those.” Jane gave Kāne a wink and fingerguns in agreement. Joel held back a sigh, and fought his own smirk. He wasn’t going to let Jane or Kāne know that their jokes were even remotely entertaining to him, not yet. “Might as well stock rocket launchers too,” he responded neutrally. “And flame throwers. The citizens of Austin probably need those also.” He juggled his coffee to his other hand, then unlocked the main door and swung it open for the other two. Kāne let Jane go in before him, lingering back as he could easily see over both of them. “Training with those is going to do a hell of a number on the place, though.” Joel locked up the door behind them, then leveled a look at his companions. “You two are responsible for those trainings, by the way. I’m not getting an arm blown off.” “Oh my fucking God, if only,” Jane replied wistfully. Even though they were just joshing around, getting her hands on heavy artillery like that would be like a dream come true. Mowing down a field of shufflers like Ellen Goddamn Ripley would be super badass, however impractical. Jane felt along the wall and after a moment’s scramble, flicked the light switch. Even though she’d blown smoke up Joel’s ass about all the huge, crazy improvements she’d done in her intense cleaning spree, she had only spruced the place up a little bit. The bare bones of the structure made it easy, as did Joel and Kāne’s initial work on the place. When it came down to it, the three of them had made The Powder Room a clean, secure space for people looking to learn a little about defending themselves in a controlled teaching environment. Jane didn’t know how much of a teacher she’d shape up to be but she was willing to put in the time if it meant making Austin a safer place. “Tada,” Jane deadpanned, sweeping an arm to the room. The lobby was professional looking, if a bit spartan, but Jane figured it was a shooting range, not a tea shop. The lobby lead to a hallway and beyond that, the separate civilian and armed forces/APD range. Utilitarian as The Powder Room looked, anyone could see how much work they had put into the place. Even though her monotone may have given the impression she was less than enthused, Jane was secretly very pleased with the place and her part in it. “Not bad at all.” Kāne knew they'd all been working hard on the shooting range in their own ways, and the work showed. It looked professional, clean, and ready for action. There was a lot of good work they could do there, especially for the public. He wasn't sure how much interest the place would have, but he hoped both civilians and those more used to handling weapons professionally would find it a useful space to go. “I’d say we did pretty well, considering our combined interior decorating skills.” Joel nodded, taking a drink of his coffee. “No one would take us seriously with throw pillows in the corners, anyway,” he said wryly, then took the initiative to lead them down the hallway to the ranges. The part of the building he was really curious about. It had taken minimal construction, but still, he wanted to be sure a divider wouldn’t fall on anyone. “Did those rules get posted?” There was a separate set for each range, varying just a little because of the assumed experience level of those utilizing it. “They were supposed to get brought over a couple days ago.” That’s what Joel had been relegated to because of his schedule - organizing supplies, rather than really get his hands dirty. Jane nodded. “Yep,” she nodded, following Joel to the ranges. Barring any unforeseen issues or minor, cosmetic details, Jane thought they were pretty much set to open the next day. She opened the door of the civilian range first, allowing the boys to enter behind her. She jutted her chin toward the signage. “They’re posted multiple times in each range,” Jane said. “And are clear enough that even the biggest boneheads couldn’t miss it.” Or, at least, Jane hoped as much. Even though they were certain they had all their ducks in a row for the opening, you could never really account for people’s stupidity around firearms. Still, Jane felt confident that they had done their homework and crossed all the “T’s” and dotted all the “i’s” possible to make this a safe place for everyone. “Now,” Jane said, moving through the range to where they kept the supplies. She rummaged around a large cabinet until she found what she was looking for. “All the regular paper targets came in and will totally do the job but did we decide where we stood on the walker targets?” Jane held two of the five shuffler targets, one in each hand, for the two men to inspect. “I can’t tell if it’s in bad taste or not. I think we should keep ‘em and let people decide what they feel like shooting at but I’ll let you two make the final decision.” “I think it's good to leave it up to the individual,” Kāne said after a moment of looking at the targets. “Have the option available for them, but the final decision is theirs.” Perhaps it was not in the best taste, but he also thought there was a potential for catharsis. So many people had experienced trauma thanks to the zombies roaming the world, and this was a way they could shoot at something representing them without any danger to themselves. “Besides, what’s the point if we can’t have a sense of humor about some of this shit?” Joel threw out rhetorically, taking the zombie target off of Jane’s hands to get a better look at it. It was a pretty inaccurate rendering, but it wasn’t worth taking themselves too seriously. “It’s probably way shittier to shoot at outlines of actual people,” Jane reasoned. She shrugged. Leaving the decision up to the customers left them in the clear. The less skin off her ass, the better. “How much digging did you do to find these, Rusten?” He raised his eyebrows at his partner, having heard nothing about her methods of supply gathering up to that point. “Don’t tell me, you bribed a tech to create ‘em in one of those programs for you, didn’t you?” Joel handed the paper back, then took a better look at the range proper. He moved into one of the stalls and pressed his palms against the wood of the shelf, testing the durability. There wasn’t so much as a wiggle, which was good. “How dare you, sir,” Jane replied. A beat passed before she grinned. “Santos, actually, from transit. He’s a pretty decent artist. So if that cop thing doesn’t work out for him, which it might not since his arrest record sucks ass, he could always make some dough doing this.” She nodded at the shuffler targets before shoving them back into the supply cabinet. She grimaced at Joel and Kāne. “Had to trade him my office chair. It’s the only one in the bullpen with lumbar support and all it’s original cushioning. I miss her. Her name was Sally.” She sighed and then jabbed an accusatory finger in their direction. Joel called on his neutral cop face to keep himself from laughing at Jane. “So I hope you two can appreciate the sacrifices I’ve made in the name of our little venture.” She made a face. “Santos’ chair had about a hundred years worth of farts trapped in it. This shooting range better pan out.” “I can requisition you a new chair, Rusten,” Joel deadpanned. “You can pass the piece of crap chair on to the rookies.” He never pulled strings, but Jane had done enough for the range to make him feel like getting her a chair that was actually worth something wasn’t a misuse of resources. “Unless it’s just about having something to bitch about, then you can keep it.” He smirked, hitting the button to run the mechanism for the targets. It whirred and brought the clip forward without stalling, which meant that the wiring wasn’t shit. “I can always find something to bitch about,” Jane said, glad that Joel was feeling generous. She wasn’t about to turn down a new chair; she’d been putting in a lot of extra hours lately on her different projects and small added comfort during her 9-5 job would be more than welcome. “So yeah, requisition away.” No doubt they probably had a few thank you’s to write up to the everyone who’d had a hand in helping bring his idea to reality. Jane looked around the Powder Room, feeling like they’d hit all the marks they’d set out to accomplish when they decided to do this thing. With her other positions in the force and on the council, there was a lot more politics and morality involved and therefore whenever she had a quote unquote “achievement”, it almost always had an equal and opposite negative reaction somewhere down the line. With this place, she could see how much they had done; the physical evidence of their accomplishments were right at her fingertips. It was nice to have an overt win sometimes. “So what do you say, fellas? You think we’re ready for the grand opening?” “I think we are,” Kāne agreed with a nod, taking one more glance around the space before turning his gaze back to his two cohorts in making The Powder Room a reality. It had been a lot of work, but they'd done it and knew it would lead to good things down the road. It was there for the people of Austin, for training and learning that was now necessary for survival. “All we can do is open up shop and see how it goes.” “Yeah. We’re as ready as we’re going to get,” Joel agreed as he set the target back in place and stepped away, back towards the entrance they had come in. “We can go ahead and finish up the walk through, but I don’t think there’s anything that needs any more attention before we open up the doors.” He wasn’t quite smiling, but his pride in the work they had done was pretty obvious. He took one more look around before he took the lead to check the rest of the space. Setting it up was probably the easy part. Making sure it ran successfully was going to take some work, but between both departments, and with their continued involvement, Joel was feeling optimistic about the odds. |