Rocky Road

[Suji]

The jeep bumped and rattled uncomfortably. Suji was sitting in the front seat next to their (rather silent) driver; a woman with a hardened gaze and with skin that seemed stretched too tightly over her bones. In the back seat sat Aubrey, their escort, and a YPM official who was travelling with him. The escort was a older man, Indian by the looks of it, and wearing a slightly thread-bare suit.

The other YPM member was a man about the same age, but shorter. He kept looking around nervously, and Suji noticed that his hand never strayed far from the holster of his dracon gun. Suji didn't like working with jumpy people, but thankfully their escort didn't seem to share unease -- or at least not all of it. So far it looked like he trusted them to get him, and the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, to the drop off safely.

Initially, the three Animorphs had been able to fly most of the way to the pick up location, where the two YPM Controllers and the jeep were waiting. There hadn't been much to see on the way over in the way of wild life. Houses that had been in the area (they were somewhere in the Pennsylvania suburbs) had been destroyed, caved in. There were no cars on the road, which was falling apart, with the asphalt cracked and completely disconnected in some places. It was eerie how destitute the area was.

"Don't be fooled," Casse had warned them, spreading out a map on a table and circling the area with a red marker. "All this is Taxxon territory. Flying in will be easy, driving out... well, you'll need to be prepared."

It reminded Suji back to her first big mission, the one with Luce. There she'd ended up trapped in a Taxxon hole after their mission had gone sour. She'd been cocky, too full of herself. Now, she kept her eyes peeled and her dracon gun out. She wasn't the best shot, and she'd gotten rusty since leaving, but she used to be pretty good. The best part about shooting Taxxons was that it only really took on hit on their bloated bodies. Not only did they burst open like giant pus bags, but their comrades had a tendency to turn and finished them off -- in big slurping gulps.

"I d-don't see anything," the official said.

"You won't," Suji responded. For a second, she thought she heard a rumbling that wasn't just from the engine or the rough, broken road terrain. She gripped her dracon gun tighter.

[Aubrey]

Aubrey had squished herself uncomfortably against the car door, staring intently out of the window at the desolate landscape. YPM members always seemed to set the Animorph off a bit--she couldn't understand why someone would willingly--willingly--let some slimy slug into their brain and let it control them. Even if these slimy slugs were, supposedly, on their side. It'd never felt right to her, especially back in Los Angeles as she'd watched Matt date Tess, one of the Los Angeles YPM. She couldn't imagine how he could look into that girl's eyes and not feel odd that a Yeerk was staring back as well.

Aubrey's uneasiness about this situation was also aggravated by the prospect of coming across a Taxxon. She'd only ever heard of the monstrous aliens in rumors; supposedly they were big, giant creatures with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth used just for chewing, and creepy jello-like, gooey eyes. Not to mention that they resembled centipedes, and one of Aubrey's worst memories was being caught on a spider web, spun around in webbing as a moth, and hearing the thundering thump thump thump of hundreds--it seemed like hundreds--of centipede legs. An involuntary shudder crept down her spine. Not fun.

The sound of talking drew Aubrey out of her thoughts, and she turned her head. It was the official, who looked fairly jittery, his hand constantly gliding over the Dracon beam he held. Probably hasn't seen Taxxons before, either. At that point the wheels hit a particularly nasty pothole, and the jeep jumped up abruptly and then landed. Aubrey gripped one of the plastic handles on the side of the door, and then glanced over at the driver. The sooner they could get out of this place, the better.

[Suji]

Suji was trying to be as alert as possible. She could count on one hand the amount of time she'd spent driving (or being driven) around in a car since the war began. Hell, she'd probably been on spaceships just as often. Part of her had grown not to like it, in a way. She felt so close to the ground, as opposed to soaring over everything as her vulture. That sensation probably wouldn't have bothered her too terribly much, if she wasn't positive that the ground beneath them was crawling with cannibalistic centipede-aliens.

Suddenly, the jeep lurched, swerving hard to the left. If Suji hadn't buckled herself in, she might have gone completely over the low door. The jeep was completely open-air otherwise; more visibility and better for shooting. The driver, Samatha, had a grim look on her face, and her eyes were wide. Reaching down, she shifted the jeep's gears, and Suji felt the jeep spur faster. Sam's eyes briefly met Suji's as she was looking back at the road they were not not driving on.

"There was a pit dug under the road ahead of us. I could see the dirt moving." Suji looked back over to the spot; only if she strained her eyes could she make out what Samatha was talking about. She flicked her Dracon gun up to one of the higher settings. Now that they were off what had passed for the road, the ride was even bumpier than before.

"There!" Samatha yelled, and Suji turned to look. On the opposite side of them, away from the road, a couple Taxxon had suddenly burst from the ground. Suji moved to fire on them, but shooting around Samatha was outside of her skill range. She unclicked her seatbelt and stood up, swaying a bit as her legs compensated for the jolts from the road. And she was leveling her sights on one of the Taxxons, it suddenly burst at the seams, spilling guts everywhere.

Suji turned to see the YPM official with his Dracon gun raised. His hands were shaking, and he looked back up at her, expression fearful.

[Drake]

Escar907 moved his briefcase a little closer when the jeep swerved off the road. He held it tight to his side and firmed his grip on the handle he was handcuffed to. The handcuffs were a good deterrent against petty theft, but it would be next to useless if the taxxons caught them. A bite or two wold be all it took to free his documents from their secure location.

But he doubted the taxxons would be interested in the documents...

Escar took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in order to keep himself calm. There would be no sense in letting himself become over-worried. Although the bumpy road and his host's screams were not aiding in his attempts.

Granted, his host's screams were of panic, not of defiance, but they were annoying nonetheless.

"Relax," he finally said to the YPM controller next to him who seemed all jittery. "We got morphers with us. They probably deal with taxxons all the time." Escar just hoped his assumptions were correct.

[Aubrey]

Aubrey's fingers curled tighter around the edge of the door as the jeep swerved. Her lips were pressed into a thin line of concentration, blonde hair whipping against her face. There was a knot of anticipation in the pit of her stomach, and her palm was resting against the dracon beam that laid in her lap. There had been surprisingly few times that Aubrey had needed to use a dracon beam so far, but she knew her way around one when the time came for it.

The road had become much rougher, and Aubrey was bouncing slightly up and down in her seat as she scanned the run-down surroundings. "There!" the driver's sudden shout jolted Aubrey's attention over to where the Taxxon were, and she swallowed hard. Unbuckling herself, Aubrey braced her knee against the car and attempted to level her dracon beam on one of the two Taxxons that were racing towards them. Before she could even think about pulling the trigger, the YPM official had leaned over, aimed with both hands, and shot. The weapon screeched in Aubrey's ear, and she winced, throwing up one of her hands to cover her ear.

At the same time she looked over to where the shot had gone; it had landed. The Taxxon ruptured, and its guts slithered out. As if the sight of that wasn't gross enough, the second Taxxon galloped to a halt and a deep shudder ran through its whole body. It seemed frozen for a moment, shuddering again, before it immediately turned back and hastened over to its fallen comrade. Its large body twisted downward and--before it became to far away to see--Aubrey watched it begin gulping down the steamy pile of guts its comrade had spilled. Aubrey gagged and cupped her mouth with her free hand, feeling a bit of her breakfast come back up. Lovely.

Further ahead, another couple of Taxxon emerged from the shifting ground. Immediately they began heading towards the jeep, galloping swiftly on their needle-like centipede legs. The driver cursed under her breath and jerked the jeep in a direction that would avoid the two aliens. Another Taxxon emerged nearby as well, and the driver pressed harder on the gas. The jeep jumped forward, wheels kicking up a swirling cloud of dirt behind them.

[Suji]

Standing like she was, Suji felt like she wasn't so much in a car as on a surfboard... a surfboard going at least 40 mile per hour over rough terrain. A hard bump had her half colliding with the back of her seat, almost falling over. She leaned against it heavily, trying to reduce her jostling. She fired her Dracon beam at one of the Taxxons, and watched the cracked soil in front of it burn, scorched black. Her second shot took off one of its legs, but the creature seemed to have plenty to spare.

Suddenly there was a sound to the right, close, and Suji turned that way. The ground here spewed a small handful of the centipede creatures too, and she quickly began firing. Their escort still seemed relatively calm, and the YPM official was actually panicking less now that there was something visible to shoot at. They were taking down a few of the aliens, but more poured out along each side.

Almost as if...

"Stop! They're herding us into a tr-"

Whether Samantha heard her or not, she must have figured it out at the same time: she slammed one foot down on the clutch, and the other on the brakes. It was too late though, and Suji saw the rut a second before the jeep dove into it. The dirt was looser here, gave way under the jeep's front tires. Suji was immediately sent rocketing forward from the sudden stop, flying through the air before hitting the ground. She felt at least two ribs crack on impact, but at least it wasn't her neck -- if Samantha hadn't braked at the last moment, it probably would have been.

Behind her, the jeep's back-end didn't stop rising. The car flipped, severely bending the support bars where a canvas top might have otherwise gone. The car turned again, rolling on its side, and then came to halt. She barely registered any of this; she was winded, still paralyzed from the abrupt pain. God I hope no one's dead, was the first thought she could form, once enough parts of her brain stopped rolling around in her skull.

[Drake]

The more taxxons that appeared, the harder it was for Escar 907 to keep his composure. When the dracon beams started shooting all around him, staying calm was about all he could do lest he destroy the marksmens' concentration. Not to mention he had no dracon weapon of his own to shoot. Just a pistol tucked under his arm with limited ammunition.

But when the jeep started to flip, you would have had to be unconscious not to loose your cool.

Escar's face flew forward and landed by his knees before being jerked back again. Luckily he was buckled and there was an open space between the seats in front of him or else his face would have smashed into something for sure. When he looked up and saw the ground coming down to meet them, he put his head down by his knees again. This time voluntarily.

<<We're going to die! We're going to die!>> his host, Thomas, kept screaming.

<<Hold yourself together. We are not going to->> His words were cut off abruptly when he saw an upside down wall of taxxons rushing the vehicle. Escar hurriedly reached up to unbuckle his seat belt. For the first time he felt that he clunky suitcase dangling from his wrist was seriously threatening his life.

[Aubrey]

Aubrey leaned forward, over the short edge of the jeep. She steadied her arms against it, closing one eye and trying to center her shaky aim on at least one of the many Taxxon heading towards them. For one split second the centipede alien was within view, and Aubrey's finger pulled on the dracon beam's trigger. The shot missed, striking the ground nearby the Taxxon and spraying up some dust. Aubrey adjusted her aim and shot again, this time slicing across one of the Taxxon's back and causing it to stumble and fall. A couple of its comrades stopped to feast, but as they did, more of the Taxxons popped up from the ground and continued on the chase.

Sweat dusted Aubrey's face, and she bit her lip in concentration. She was so focused on attempting to hit the Taxxons--because the last thing she wanted was for them to catch up to them--when the jeep hit a rut and the car's back pitched upward. Aubrey, having unbuckled her seat-belt previously, was immediately flung out of the jeep. The dracon beam she had been holding flew from her hand, and her world spun. Then, suddenly, her body hit the ground and all the air was knocked out of her. Aubrey had thrown out her arm to brace herself against the impact, and as she hit the ground the bone broke and twisted.

White hot pain exploded from her arm downwards, and Aubrey let out a breathless cry. Dark spots swirled across her vision, and she blinked rapidly to clear the confusion from her head. What had happened? Where was she? Why did everything hurt so damn much...? A groan escaped from her lips, her thoughts still swirling in a confused mess. It felt important that she not sit here, dazed. Urgent. And then she remembered what the overturned jeep meant--the Taxxons were coming. Aubrey's head spun, as any attempt at movement brought a thick wave of nausea to her stomach, and the pain of her broken shoulder and arm pulsed throughout her whole body. There was an easy way out of it, and it was the only thing she could think of. She closed her eyes. Morph. Morph.

Wiry brown hair began to sprout all across her body, growing thicker and thicker with each second. Her fingers and toes began melting into hooves, her face elongating and nose growing wetter and wider. Muscle and fat filled in beneath her skin as hard horns formed at each side of her head, growing thicker and bigger as her eyes slid further away. A few minutes later the morph was finished; Aubrey struggled to her feet--her arm and shoulder bones fixed by the morph--and stood her full height as the African Cape Buffalo. Aubrey's heart was already racing as she caught sight of the large amount of Taxxons heading their way. The Cape Buffalo wanted to run, but she steeled herself and looked at the overturned Jeep.

<<Is everyone alright??>>

[Suji]

Suji was just recovering when she heard Aubrey's thoughtspeak. She was still too winded to respond, but with a groan and a wince she was able to push herself to her feet. The skin of her arms had practically been shredded by the rocky ground, strips of skin hung from her elbows. All things aside though, it was relatively minimal damage considering.

She fired a few shots at the Taxxons that were approaching fastest. Morph or don't, this is your last chance to decide. There were definitely advantages to fighting at range with the Dragon guns, but pretty soon the fight would be on top of them. Suji closed her eyes and brought up a morph in her mind that had always been associated with mixed emotions.

Her hair began to turn white, like she was suddenly becoming an old woman. Then the rest of her body followed suit. A tail shot out from her spine and she fell onto all fours, all the while her bones creaking as they realigned. Sinewy, heavy muscle formed around her torso and limbs as her face became a snout.

At last she was a fully grown African male lion, her fur bright white from some freak genetic mishap. As much as this morph had a sorted past for her, Suji loved it. The lion felt no fear, knew only that it and its territory were being threatened. The morph was strong and fast and deadly.

Suji loped to the overturned truck to she Samantha helping the two YPM Controllers from the wreck. She'd had her seatbelt on and seemed relatively uninjured.

<<Aubrey, do you think you could turn our ride right side up? Samantha, will this thing run if she does? Things are about to get really interesting really quick.>>

[Drake]

<<Is everyone alright??>>

<<Of course we aren't alright! Why would we be alright? We just flipped over in a jeep with a swarm of taxxons rushing in to eat us. Why did I let you talk me into this? I knew this was a suicide mission. Why oh why did I let you talk me into this?>>

<<Shut up Thomas. You aren't helping.>> Escar kept his host under total control as he made his way out from under the car wreck. It wasn't easy with all of Thomas's panic instincts kicking in. If it wasn't for Escar, Thomas would probably be running for the hills by now. Where more than likely there were even more taxxons.

<<Aubrey, do you think you could turn our ride right side up? Samantha, will this thing run if she does? Things are about to get really interesting really quick.>>

As Escar stood up, he made every effort to ignore the impending doom of the nearby taxxons and looked at the car. At this point the water buffalo and silvery-maned lion didn't even phase him. "The damage looks mostly cosmetic," he offered. His host's second girlfriend in high school had been a mechanic, but that hardly made himself an expert.

"Looks that way," Samantha agreed. "But there's only one way to be sure. If we can get it flipped, I can check it out."

Escar wasn't sure they had time for that, but he moved to a spot where he would be out of the way nonetheless. The taxxons were close enough now that there would be no more ignoring them. Escar pulled his desert eagle out from its holster with his free hand. He had nine rounds to defend himself with. He had better make them count.

[Aubrey]

The Cape Buffalo's mind was uneasy, and Aubrey found herself pacing in short steps back and forth. The animal's regular habitat usually contained dense thickets and lots of coverage, and it didn't appreciate being so exposed, especially with something dangerous and predatory heading straight towards it.

A spot of white caught Aubrey's attention, and she swung her head over to see Suji morphing into her lion morph. The Cape Buffalo flared its nostrils, but Aubrey kept herself calm. The Taxxons were almost upon them, and some instinctual bout between predator and prey was not good. It didn't help that Aubrey's nerves were on edge at this point, and that she would have liked nothing more than to listen to the morph's instinct to just run.

<<Aubrey, do you think you could turn our ride right side up?>> Suji asked. Aubrey trotted over from where she had initially landed, seeing that the three others in the jeep had gotten out alright, then gave the jeep a look-over.

<<I'm... I'm not really sure. I can definitely try it,>> Her thought-speak didn't sound too confident, but there was a glimmer of optimism. If she was able to push the jeep back on its wheels, they had a better chance of being able to get away from the horde of Taxxons descending on them. Aubrey twisted her head back and felt her heart jump. <<Oh god... I think we have some company, I'll need you guys to keep them really busy.>> A couple of the Taxxons were in range now, their jaws open and showing the many rows of razor-sharp. She glanced over at Escar, handling his normal gun. <<If you're brave enough to run further out, I think my dracon beam landed some feet away.>>

Going against everything instinct told her to do, Aubrey turned her back to the Taxxons and quickly approached the car. The YPM official, having escaped the confines of the car, was kneeling down by the overturned vehicle and clutching his dracon beam. His face had a mixture of irritation and fright on it, but he looked well enough. <<You might want to move, you're not going to want to be near the car right now,>> Aubrey said to the man, watching him stare at her then rise to his feet, walking towards the others.

Bracing her hooves on the hardened dirt, Aubrey nuzzled the front of the car. The hood of the jeep had been crumpled somewhat in the initial flip, but Escar seemed to think that it was viable. Huffing, Aubrey dipped her head lower and placed the top of her head--where the heavy, hardened horns of her morph sprouted from--and heaved forward with all the might a 2,000 pound Cape Buffalo could muster. As she did, she felt the jeep move slightly.

[Suji]

The lion eyed both the humans and the Cape Buffalo; Cape Buffalo was dangerous prey, but a more likely dietary option than the two-legged creatures. A human on foot was certainly easier to catch, and kill, though. But the animal wasn't hungry: there was work to be done, which included fending off other predators.

Turning the jeep was going to take a little while. Suji was picturing them finally getting it running again in her mind, but being so surrounded by Taxxons that they were just overtaken trying to drive out. At best Aubrey and Suji could clear a way out with their morphs, but that wouldn't exactly leave them in a great position, especially because they would need to demorph before morphing birds or anything that could reasonably escape.

Suji turned and spotted the Dracon gun Aubrey mentioned. Her back legs coiled and she launched herself. With two pounces she was on the weapon, and she swiped it with one big paw, it half slid, half bounces against the ground towards the group. A Taxxon directly to her right exploded, and Suji's ears flicked back, pinpointing where shrieking shot had come from. <<Thanks Samantha.>>

"I don't have any morphs for this -- I'm purely espionage and escape!" The older Animorph shouted back, then added, "And I know how a lot about cars, but that's it!" There was a small edge of panic in her voice, but it was expertly buried. It was almost like she was confessing to them, asking for their forgiveness. Cassie had assigned Samantha for a reason though, and Suji would have taken someone that could take care of their get-away vehicle over another animal duking it out over here any day.

<<We need a driver, and you're a good shot, just keep it up.>> Suji didn't have time to say much else. A Taxxon approached her flank, and Suji immediately lurched her body to the side, avoiding the razor-sharp teeth as they swiped downwards at her. As its body passed by, she extended her claws and ripped its torso open. The flesh parted like wet tissue paper.

That was the "nice" part about fighting Taxxons. They weren't hard to take down, and one-on-one they certainly weren't as dangerous as Hork Bajir. The bad thing about Taxxons, of course, was that they made up for lack of individual prowess with numbers. If you got overwhelmed by a group of them, they wouldn't exactly slit your throat and be done with it, like a Hork Bajir Controller, either. Being eaten alive was anything but a quick fate.

Slowly, Suji released control over the lion's instincts. It knew its body better than she did, knew how to fight. She guided it enough to move in a loose circle around the overturned jeep, but other than that, the lion did the rest.

[Drake]

Blam!

Escar's arm felt like it was going to get blown out of its socket.

Blam! Blam!

Three shots, one hit. A small hole appeared in the approaching taxxon, but it didn't even seem to slow it down. But thankfully the taxxon right next to the one he shot slowed it down for him.

While it was stopped to eat its brethren, Escar took the time to take careful aim. Blam! Now that one would get eaten as well.

In the few seconds he had boughten himself, he crouched down and searched for where that dracon beam had landed. He had seen it land nearby out of the corner of his eye. "There you are," he mumbled, spotting it about ten feet away.

He made a mad dash to reach the beam weapon. Escar reached down to grab it with his free hand, but the briefcase got in the way. It made him fumble. Just as his fingers were wrapping around it, a taxxon had reached him.

Its gaping jaws loomed over him and arched down toward his head. He closed his eyes and crouched down out of fear.

Blam!

Escar felt a shower of guts land on him, then risked a peek. Beyond his smoking gun pointing into the air he saw a dead taxxon with a hole in its head. A dead taxxon that was now falling down on top on him.

"Help!" he yelled as the taxxon's body pinned him to the ground. He still had his weapons, but it would be difficult to use them, especially if the other taxxons swarmed the body that was on top of him. And matted into his hair, for that matter.

[Aubrey]

Aubrey was tuning everything else out. She had to, or else she would lose herself to the rising panic in her body. The Taxxons close by were making audible noises--some mixture of terrifying grunts and slobbering howls--and the Cape Buffalo wanted to turn around and challenge them. They were too close, they were encroaching on the Cape Buffalo and not taking heed. Every instinct told her to turn around and do something. Instead, Aubrey was forcing every muscle and every fiber of her body into pushing the jeep over. The dirt beneath her hooves kept crumbling with each heave, however, loosening a tiny bit of the leverage she had gained each time.

The jeep itself was perhaps a foot or so off of the ground. Aubrey stamped her hooves down harder on the ground, adjusting herself so that some of the weight was spread across her strong shoulder, and pushed harder. A frustrated grunt sounded from deep within her throat. The jeep gave a metallic creak in response, and Aubrey gained another few inches up off of the ground. Sweat had begun to slick the Cape Buffalo's hide, and Aubrey felt her muscles screaming for rest. Not now, not yet. I have to get this up, I have to.

Would she get it over in time? The Cape Buffalo's ears twitched with the sounds of the battle, with the sounds of hundreds of Taxxons descending upon that one spot. Ready to devour their fallen comrades, ready to devour the poor little humans and their animal helpers. The stench of it all enveloped the small area that the Animorphs and YPM were defending; Aubrey tried not to inhale, but the aromas struck her--the stench of blood, of guts, of death. It was beginning to make her sick, and then in one moment of lost concentration, the jeep fell back to the ground with a heavy THUD.

<<NO! Shit!!>> Aubrey screamed, and in a moment of uncontrolled rage, rammed the jeep's front end. The metal punched inward from the impact, and Aubrey was suddenly not sure if she had screwed the jeep up even worse than it was. Her nostrils flared in panic, and she stood absolutely still for a moment of shock. When had she ever lost control? I need to focus. Just a minor setback. Even as she tried reassuring herself, she could see that the Taxxons were swarming closer. Those that died were devoured swiftly by their hungry comrades before more filled the space they had left.

Aubrey lowered her head once more, backing up a couple paces, before springing forward and pushing. The jeep rattled and lifted up a couple inches off the ground, dirt falling from it. She had to make this work.

[Suji]

Samantha was already running towards their pinned escort. <<No! Cover fire! Stay by the jeep!>> Suji shouted, bounding over a Taxxon that rushed at her on her way towards the fallen Controller. The lion was an excellent jumper, but the Taxxon saw the move coming. It twisted around and reared back further on its needly legs, and its mouth left a long gash across her stomach. She was lucky it didn't disembowel her.

Landing with less grace than she'd have liked, Suji continued over. She risked a glance at Aubrey when the other Animorph cursed: she didn't seem to be having a lot of luck with the jeep. How much time? How much time could Suji give her, before deciding they needed a new plan? Every second their situation became more and more dangerous. Between their three shooters and Suji's morph they were keeping the majority of the Taxxons at bay, but they would get tired. Aiming accuracy would decrease; she'd get slower. The Taxxons, on the other hand, would just keep coming.

<<Aubrey, can you do it?>> Suji asked the girl privately. Her tone was quiet, almost gentle. She knew Aubrey would try her best, and she knew Aubrey would trust her call. She'd proven that back in Dallas, even when Suji wouldn't have blamed her for disobeying "orders." <<If you can't, tell me. We'll switch tactics.>> Suji wished she could help. Between the two of them, she figured they could get the thing righted; Aubrey just needed something strong to help pull on the other side, and the big cat's claws could probably hook onto something long enough to do that.

As it was, she had an escort to save. Suji sliced through another Taxxon to get to him. When she did finally reach the Controller, it was hard to even tell where he was under all the Taxxon goo. Using both front paws, she attempted to roll the Taxxon body off of him. Instead, her paws sunk into its body, giving her no leverage. Afraid to use her claws on the exposed parts of his torso to pull him out, Suji looked around for another idea. Either Samantha or the other Controller was doing a good job buying her a little time.

<<I've got you,>> Suji said, noticing the briefcase. She "grabbed" the spot where the handcuff met the handled the best she could, and jumped backwards, pulling him out from under the alien body. She knew it wouldn't exactly tickle, and she thought she might have heard a pop as his shoulder dislocated. Luckily, she doubted he was shooting with the arm attached to the briefcase anyway.