Guns A-Blazin'

"Gimme that." She snatched Johnny's Malorian back and inspected the chamber. Silverhand stroked his beard, sighing to himself. "Know damn well if it was anyone else had the balls to try and take that thing from me, they'd be out cold on the floor by now."
"Yeah, well I'd like to see you try," Alt smirked, twirling the gun by its handle. "Besides, I got a jaw of steel."
"That what we're callin' it now?"
She went through the door, blowing air out through her nose. "Pick up his rifle if being unarmed bothers you so much. Damn sure I'm not getting caught with my pa—" she stopped herself, pursing her lips and frowning.
"Poor choice of words," Silverhand stooped to pick up the rifle, hefted in his hand. "Had an affinity for these things back in my jarhead days, anyhow."
"Big toy for a big boy." Alt quipped.
"Wouldn't go that far, but it kills and kills well, just about all you can ask for from a gun—well..." he eyed the Malorian longingly. "Most guns. Now c'mon," he said, joining her at the door, rifle slung artfully over his right shoulder and cradled in his arm. "We got an escape to make."
"On that much, we can agree." They swept forward down the hallway, guns held out in front of them, Silverhand keeping watch for any signs of activity down the other end while Alt took point, leading them toward the door she remembered lead to the rest of the venue's backstage area.
"Clear." Alt said, as she finished a cursory scan of the room. Three dead men lay strewn about the place, limbs contorted and faces blank like ugly, bloodstained ragdolls. "All dead, by the look of 'em."
"Might check it out, see what they've got on 'em." Johnny suggested.
"Feel free, I'm not in the mood for sightseeing. Prefer we get out of here before whatever flatlined them comes back for us."
"That's assuming they're still alive."
Alt shrugged. "Better safe than sorry."
Silverhand made a noise like he was getting ready to speak, but the words went and died in his throat, and he stayed silent. Alt strode the length of the room, round a large table more-or-less in the centre of it. She spared only a passing glance at the corpses. "Worked here," was all she said. "Shame."
"Worked a Samurai Concert," Silverhand replied. "Knew the risks."
Alt made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "That's your problem, you know. Always got a mind to brush things off."
"Better than taking on everybody else's bullshit all the time.
Alt didn't dignify that one with a response, instead she led him across the room and through another open doorway. A line of rectangular flourescent lights lined the length of the next hall beyond, one of them broken and flickering, casing shattered where a spray of bullets had struck it. A bulky, armoured figure was slumped against the lefthand wall. It wasn't moving. One after the other, they stepped over it and moved on. The end of this hall opened up into a spacious lounge area, booths taken up by seats shaped around circular tables. Holographic joytoys gyrated and danced above them, cast from projector units set into the tabletops. Other than them, the room was empty; no hired guns, no corpses. The whole thing was a shade too quiet for Alt's liking. "Something's wrong here," she murmured. "Gunshots lighting up the place this whole time, then we walk in here and...nothing?"
"On exactly the same page. Every damn bit of instinct the jarhead brigade drilled into me's screaming out...I don't fuckin' like it, Alt." He swept the rifle around as he rotated on the spot, casting wary glances into every dark corner of the room. "You hear any—"
All at once, a chorus of shouts went up, shapes rising from behind tables and seats, crashing down from the ceiling, popping up from floor grates. Neither Alt nor Johnny waited for them to announce themselves, they just started blastin'.