On my 13th birthday my Grandfather, Norris Pottinger, took me out to the shed behind his house and opened an old wooden box. I had seen the box whenever I went out to grab a rake or snoop around looking for Playboys or whatever but I had never opened it. I knew it was from the Rebellion and we weren't supposed to bother him about it.

  Inside the box was this gun.  He told me it was one of only 5,000 revolvers issued by The Royal Armory in 2117 and the last powder firearm in production before the discovery of pulse tech. He said it was special, a left-hand modification with gyro stabilizers and a flash suppressor. He lost his right arm in the Battle of Stary Oskol so he paid an engineer three packs of Blackwaters to modify it for his other hand. The gun was a reminder, he told me, of how things were before the war, when Men created things.

  He died a few years later and left me that box in his will. Every once in a while I take it out and oil it, clean the barrel and try to avoid knocking the gyros out of place. Just in case. I have never fired it, I don't think I ever will, but I want it to be ready if it happens again. Just in case.