Gideon's POV
The soft click of the trigger was almost lost beneath the simulated muzzle flash that sparked from the silver model. Fifty meters downrange, a clean ten-ring hole appeared dead center in the heart of the human-shaped target.
I did not move.
From my position behind her, I could see the exact line of her shoulders, the controlled stillness of her arms after the final correction, the way her breath had paused at the precise moment of the shot.
For a fraction of a second the present overlaid the past so completely that the underground range seemed to thin around us.
The industrial lights, the painted lanes, the distant dummies with their dark stains—all of it receded. The woman standing in the dark-green uniform was Chloe as she had been years ago: focused, quiet,
