Proofreader/Editor: Kaima, Hwarang
Vick Procter. He was a talented, greedy, young director, who’d swept countless awards, including the one for the Best Director two years in a row. He had established new box-office records and broke those again, with his own works. He was the most famous upcoming director.
This year’s movie that everyone’s been focusing on, ‘Real’, was of thriller-action genre. A genius geek who graduated from MIT but lives like a crook, coincidently touches a secret organization’s confidential information and ends up getting chased by them. This was the basic story line. Mason’s role was that of a gloomy killer who tries to kill the protagonist.
A killer who dies in the hands of a nerd that had never even held a gun. Mason thought that, for a movie titled ‘Real,’ it wasn’t all that realistic.
“You met the director in the restroom?”
Tony asked, opening his eyes widely.
“Did you greet him well? What did you say?”
Mason didn’t know what to say to Tony who was looking at him with full of expectations but decided to be honest.
“…..I told him that I don’t sleep with men anymore.”
“What, why? Why did you say that?”
Tony was aghast and Mason moaned quietly.
“Just…. I don't know either.”
Mason ignored Tony’s eyes full of question marks and glanced at Chase and the director who were discussing the script.
He made a mistake; since Vick Procter has made a bunch of box-office hits, Mason had imagined that he would be an old director. The director seemed like he was in Noah’s age group. He looked maybe thirty, and he was young and unique.
“Hey, Haley!”
The director, who was talking to Chase about something, summoned Mason. Tony grabbed Mason and hurried to him.
“Hey… Here, pose something holding this.”
“…..”
Mason caught the gun that was thrown at him and stared at it. Desert Eagle. The weight was a little lighter than he knew. Is this a model gun? Pose something holding a gun? They were asking for such a weird thing. Of course, for fifty thousand dollars, he would do this anytime.
Mason effortlessly unlocked the safety guard of the gun and pointed it around holding with both of his hands. “Wow!” Chase sounded a little surprised, looking at Mason’s sharp moves.
“Whoa…. Did you practice? The movement of your hands loading the gun looked pretty good. Try to shoot with one hand.”
The director made it sound like it was just fiddling around. Mason frowned put down the gun and said, “I can’t shoot this with one hand”.
“Why can’t you?”
Are you kidding? Doesn’t everyone know that if you shoot Desert Eagle with one hand, your shoulder will pop out? No, it might not be a common knowledge among regular people, but don’t you have to study a little bit about guns if they were gonna come out in the movie? Mason didn’t answer and just stared at him. The director seemed to understand and waved his hands.
“Who cares about what’s real? This is not even a real gun. Hurry and use it with a single hand.”
‘Can’t you do it like this? Loading while you are holding it in your mouth?’ The director giggled and Mason looked at him for a while and slowly pointed the gun to his head using only one hand.
Tap. The tip of the gun touched the director’s forehead, and Mason asked.
“Like this?”
He put on dull act, and the director was startled. Tony rushed to Mason’s side and grabbed his cuffs. “Hey, what…” –the director stopped Tony, who was trying to apologize, and shook his head.
“No. Don’t hold it straight. Try to turn your wrist. Yes, to that side.”
The director told Mason to shoot the gun horizontally.
“………….”
If I shoot it like this, my aim would be bad because of the shock absorption and my wrist will fly to my face! Mason held in his scream and did whatever he was told to do. If they told me to do this holding a real and not a model gun, I would have shot this guy for real.
“Hm. Hm.”
The director grinned looking at Mason holding the gun. “Have you used a gun before, Haley?” Chase’s voice revealed that it was totally unexpected.
“Your form doesn’t look so bad.”
Mason laughed, hiding his decaying mood. It was amazing that Chase could deduce his experience with guns, just looking at his unrealistic poses. The director pondered on something for a while.
He said, “Haley, hold that again with both of your hands. The target is…. that.”
After Mason held the gun with his right hand and supported it with his left, the target that he pointed at was Melisa, who was sitting on her chair with legs crossed, and whining about the heat. The director’s lips twitched as if tingling to say to shoot right away.
“That’s funny. Somehow, this looks more realistic and–, strong?”
The director marveled at Mason who's aura got sharper by holding the gun with both hands, properly trained on a target.
“But is there a scene like this?”
“I don’t think I saw anything like this on the script”. He asked what kind of rehearsal was this, and the director smiled saying, “No, I just wanted to see you do it”.
“….Really?” Mason said and smiled back. What is this, son of a bitch? Mason felt his old boss, Beretta from Zii, who was a total freak and this guy are very similar.
“The real thing is this. –Hey!”
The director called out for someone from the props side. A man hurriedly came running carrying a big bag.
“Should I start now?”
The man asked carefully putting down the bag and wiping his sweat. The director shook his head.
“No. Teach him how to assemble it.”
“Huh?”
“I want to film the bust shot all at once using Haley.”
The model is unexpectedly okay. –The man looked surprised, and Mason chuckled at the gun case that the man put down.
“Do you use a real gun while filming?”
“Who cares? It’s not like we are really aiming at a person. A person’s sharpness is different depending on whether they are holding a real gun or a fake one.”
The director smiled indifferently. “What are you waiting for? Teach him!” The man frowned at the director.
“Th, this is not a pistol that a civilian can learn easily. A sniper rifle is a very sensitive thing.”
Wasn’t it a common knowledge that people don’t usually disassemble or assemble a rifle, the man complained. The director shook his hands at him and called Gloria and an assistant director to prepare for the shoot.
“It’s not like you know a lot yourself. You are a civilian too. Were you in the military? – Don’t complain before you even teach him. This shot is prettier in whatever way I look at it.”
The director said so holding both of his thumbs and index fingers in the shape of a screen. The man hesitated, wanting to say something more, but the director waved his hands and cut him short. The set moved quickly.
“Ah, that frigging, son of a bitch-“
The man, who was left with Mason, cursed and looked him over as if there was no way this would work.
“Have you even touched a gun before? Not the ones used on a set, a real gun.”
The man asked arrogantly, and Mason smiled bitterly and stared at the gun bag that the man had put down.
“….. Not really. I never had a chance to use a real gun before.”
Blaser MOD 93 LRS2 Tactical. That was the name of the gun inside the bag.
“This is MOD 93 LRS2 Tactical, from Blaser. Have you seen this before? It has been used in quite a lot of movies.”
“All guns look the same to me.”
He answered vaguely, and the man sighed, ‘Of course!’
Blaser MOD 93 LRS2 Tactical. Effective range 900 m, weight with a scope 5.45 Kg. It was a straight-pull bolt action style gun. It was a pretty good model, but not commonly used in combat. It had a strange shape and the popular opinion was that, it was a little uncomfortable. To Mason, –he pretty liked it. It wasn’t sensitive for aiming, but had a high safety rate and with that kind of accuracy rate, it could come handy. Honestly saying, this gun was too much to kill a nerd, who only exercised he had was when he was clicking a mouse in his room.
The man blabbered on everything he knew about the gun, while teaching Mason, how to assemble the gun. ‘Mr. Lusk didn’t really know about this, right?’ The man ended his sentence with that, every time he finished a story about a gun.
Mason patiently listened to his story. He couldn’t stand him, taking forever to assemble a gun. His hands were clumsy and so, some of the parts were about to break, but Mason didn’t have to care about that.
I can earn the fifty grand, so easily; Mason halfheartedly listened to him and yawned.
“–Get it, now?”
Four or five minutes have passed with him struggling with the gun. The man wiped the sweat on his forehead and asked, and Mason said, “I think I understand” and smiled. The man rolled his eyes, as if to say, ‘like you’d know anything’.
“Watch it one more time. I’ll dissemble it again.”
The man started to dissemble the gun, still sweating. If his subordinates had been like that, Mason would’ve smacked on the back of their heads, until it made a hole. Of course, this guy would never have passed the Zii entrance examination.
Mason looked around while the man was dissembling the gun, sweating a lot. He made eye contact with Melisa, who was watching him. She noticeably frowned and said, “Oh my, I think they are done with getting ready. Let’s start the shooting,” in a loud voice.
“Ah, no, wait! I only showed him how, only once.”
The man, who had been teaching him about the gun, was in a panic, but the director, who had been loitering around with a bored face, came running back excitedly. He asked with a child-like spark in his eyes.
“You’ve already learnt how to use this? Wow, Haley! –How was it? You think you can handle it?”
“Not sure. Not yet… I think it’s hard to do it, in such a short notice.”
Mason paused a little and the director’s face fell.
“Re…ally? ….I guess the shoot will take longer, after all.”
Gloria, who was walking around, heard the director and glimpsed around, looking for Tony.
“Tony? Did you book a hotel? I think it’s for the best to book it, right now.”
Tony, who had been putting a drink in an icebox for Mason said, “Really?” and nonchalantly took out his phone. Mason raised his hand.
“Wait. I’ll give it a try, at least once.”
Mason thought it’s a waste to drag this for two days when the work can be done in a single day. Mason said so, while putting his hands up, and the director’s face brightened. However, the man in charge of the props frowned.
“I told you, you can’t do it just by watching the demo once.”
“I don’t think I can do it well either…. But you’ve explained it to me so well that I think I’d remember some.”
Mason wondered, how much he’ll need to do, to look like a pretty good amateur. They’d all probably think it was weird, if he did too well, wouldn’t they? Should he make some mistakes? Of course, nothing will happen even if they thought it was weird, but still it’ll be for the best to go unnoticed.
“They are wasting the film.”
Melisa, who had put on her sunglasses while walking over, said and the prop man sighed like he agreed. The location of the shoot was on the rooftop of a building nearby. They were already done getting prepared, so Mason soon ended up standing in front of the camera.
“First, let’s rehearse it a few times.”
The director sat on his chair, holding the script. Mason had thought that he was just a fluttering freak but looking at him now, poised like that, he had to revise his previous opinions.
“So, after you assemble the gun, aim at something and bang! Just shoot once, in that direction.”
“You see the target?” He asked, and Mason stared at the scope that the director was pointing to and asked, “Do I really have to shoot?”
“Yes, you need to shoot for real.”
He nodded his head like 'you need to know how to do all those things to make a good scene.' Mason sighed lightly and started to assemble the gun in front of everyone.
It was pretty bothersome to pretend to be bad at something, in which you are actually good. Mason acted like he was stuttering, and the prop man mumbled the order of the parts.
This was so boring. Mason clumsily assembled the gun and took a very long time to look through the scope, and aimed at the target, using the gun sight and acted as if to pull the trigger.
When he raised his head, the director looked unsatisfied and said.
“Hm…. Can’t you do it faster?”
“You can only do that much?” The director sounded disappointed, and Melisa, standing on his side mocked, “Director, don’t you know who he is? Haley Lusk! Why don’t you just split the scenes?”
“If it’s sleeping with men, you can do it faster than anyone, can’t you?”
She was smiling, when Mason glanced at her.
“Oh my, look at that fierce look!”
Mason indifferently considered the fuss she was making and noticed that everyone around her closed their mouths with perplexed faces. She was scarily pretty and had huge breasts, but nobody in the set seem to like her. That usually didn’t happen, unless if you had a ready bad personality. Mason ignored her and asked the director.
“Should I give it a try, one more time?”
The director seemed to consider it a bit.
“First, let’s give it a shot few more times and if it really doesn’t work out, let’s film the hand and face shots, separately.”
Melisa smirked and told the director, “I’m telling you, it’ll be a waste of time.” People around her seemed to dislike her, but Melisa was completely oblivious, which made him pity her. Haley’s image had been like that too, and hers wasn’t any lower than that.
Mason assembled the gun that the prop man had hardly dissembled. He assembled it a little faster this time, but the director still looked a little dissatisfied and shouted to repeat it once more.
Clang, clang, clang! Mason assembled the gun faster than before. He thought this was pretty good for an amateur, but when he looked up, the director sighed. And before Mason tried to say anything, he shook his fingers, meaning to do it again.
Mason frowned a bit and assembled the gun, even faster, for the fourth time. And again when he raised his head, the director was frowning at him.
“…..”
“…. Should I do it even faster?”
Mason asked looking around, and the director blinked and said, “Yes, do it faster.” Mason wondered, where was the limit for a good amateur and dissembled the gun, before putting it down. He hesitated and looked up.
“……”
Mason, who had unconsciously dissembled the gun at his usual pace, realized that the surroundings had gone quiet and moaned inside. Everyone was staring at him like, ‘who’s this son of a bitch?’ and the prop man’s eyes were bulging so much that, they might pop out. Melisa was trying to say something, but Chase blocked her mouth with his hands.
Among the staffs looking at him with surprise, only the director was staring at him with flame in his eyes.
“Haley. –Faster.”
He said, firmly. Mason quietly stared at him and scratched his cheek. He put his head down and started to assemble the gun again. Clank, clank, a barrel, a magazine, a pistol grip, a delta ring, an upper receiver, an alignment pin, an upper cover, a lower receiver… after he finished the assembly, in the right order, he even aimed at the target outside the window, and when he tried to lift his head, he heard the director’s voice whispering.
“No, just pull the trigger.”
‘Pull the trigger’. Mason inhaled deeply and stopped his breath, out of habit, and took an aim. Pull the trigger? They probably blocked the roads, as soon as they started to film, but it’s still a rehearsal. It doesn’t make sense to pull the trigger, towards the road. He placed his index finger on the trigger and frowned, but only for a moment.
There was a bird passing through the telescopic lens, and Mason pulled the trigger as if he got bewitched.
Bang-!
The bird flew higher up, with few of its feather dropped, and Mason let go of the breath he had been holding. This time when he lifted his head, and made an eye contact with the director, he was making a strange face. The director squinted and said, “Hm” and smiled.
“–Cut-!”
Cut? Mason lifted his head up, a little higher, when he heard the director, and the staffs behind the camera started to breathe again. It was at that moment he realized that, the camera they were holding had the red light on.
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Awesome skill!
Continue to Part 3
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