THE WANG GUIDE TO IMPROVISED FIREARMS, VOL 2.

THE WANG GUIDE TO IMPROVISED FIREARMS, VOL 2.

Examine the text.

Ostensibly a how-to guide, it doubles as a philosophical enquiry into the subject of firearms ethics.

Headlines like 'Chapter 4: Your last chance to stay legal' and 'Chapter 7: Your Conscience and Me' immediately jump out at you.

Firearms ethics? What does it conclude?

Firearms, good. Ethics, bad.

Read the opening.

'There are times in the conduct of human affairs when it becomes necessary to Wang someone or something. This is a reality. There are, however, some preliminary considerations to disseminate...'

He substitutes the verb 'to kill' with Wang?

You would too, if your name was synonymous with Death.

Keep skimming.

'... Are you asking yourself whether you should or should not use the information in this book to build yourself a highly illegal firearm? Alas, there are many such decisional pitfalls in our world...'

Law-abiding individuals are treated with the utmost derision. If this book could Wang them all, it would.

If you spit on the law, then the Gun Saint has given you his absolution in advance.

It goes on extensively, the tone veering back and forth between sardonic hand-washing and outright murder advocacy.

I think I get the gist.

Do I have to embrace his philosophy to build the gun?

Probably not. Do you want to?

Oh, I have already embraced the philosophy of Jiqiang Wang.

Wang is the theory, and Wang is the practice.

Across time and space you feel another intelligence reaching out to you: insane, methodical, murderous.

The perfect guide for making a killing implement out of junk.

I don't know, I think I'm starting to like this Wang guy.

No, this guy's philosophy sounds abhorrent.

Then this book is not for you. Maybe stick with one of those safe, store-bought guns.

Hmm... maybe I do want to adapt this philosophy after all.

Alright, let's get to the schematics. (Go back.)

You leave the ideological content aside and turn to the diagrams.

Read the list of materials.

The instructions specify materials for a 'Six-Shot Pipe Gun With Push-Feed'.

500g hard plastic, melted down. 1 coin, 10mm diameter. 1 broomstick or wooden dowel. 1 aluminium can. Tools, glue, and plywood.

The precarity of anything resulting from these materials is self-evident.

Wait, what about bullets?

Ball bearings.

That's everything?

Yes, and it is up to you to scavenge it all.

A fair amount of this stuff is lying around the workbench in Foto 24. You have definitely seen sheets of plywood, work tools, and a broom there.

Best place to start would be Foto 24. There's got to be some of this stuff lying around there somewhere -- it's a working photo lab, after all.

That sounds like a lot of stuff.

Examine the schematics.

Dotted lines mark the edges of three dimensional objects unfolded into rectangles and curved flaps. While unintelligible, the form of the gun lurks somewhere inside those shapes.

Mathematical and yet crude, the lines display a profoundly un-sober competence.

What do the outlines make?

Two objects: the larger one is a mould that goes around the barrel and includes a crude grip, magazine well, and the outer part of the bolt-feed mechanism. The smaller object is the bolt.

The spirit of Wang reaches out to you through the pages of the book. It doesn't just want the gun to be built, but to be used. On somebody.

Got it. (Go back.)

You flip back to the treatise on why illegal guns are beautiful and necessary.

Close the book. [Leave.]

Building it will be the test of fire.

THE WANG GUIDE TO IMPROVISED FIREARMS, VOL 2.

A low-budget clandestine publication, somewhere between fanzine and paperback. The author's name is listed on the first page as 'JIQIANG WANG.'

'Machine Gun King', if your limited Tsunese serves you well.

Almost certainly a pseudonym.

Hrrm. Seems extremely dubious.

As it must be. This is a genre of literature neither written nor consumed by respectable individuals.

It consists of some sixty pages of text followed by an appendix with cut-out schematics for the body of the gun.

Sounds better than dealing with Goat Eyes.

The book seems expressly directed at people who are more comfortable with potentially deadly garage experiments than human interactions.

Not exactly how you would be best described.

Very you, in other words.

Here we go. (Start reading.)