Mistrunner - Chapter 33 - Making a Move (Patreon)

Some people need goals. A destination that keeps them trudging toward the horizon. For me, that goal has always wavered between revenge, survival, and, in the end, giving Mirabelle the means to escape the Earth’s inevitable destiny.

Jeremiah Braddock III

The next morning, I awoke to see rays of sunlight peeking between the curtains that guarded Erica’s windows. Dust motes danced in the light, giving the atmosphere an ethereal cast. I lay there for a while, my head propped up with one arm, just watching the ballet play out before me. But eventually, a blinking icon at the edge of my HUD pulled me out of my reverie.

I mentally selected it, and a note I’d left for myself the night before reminded me that I had a task awaiting me. So, with a barely audible groan, I dragged myself out of Erica’s bed, which had proved to be surprisingly comfortable, and stood up. That’s when I realized my egregious error from the night before, when I hadn’t bothered undressing or showering before getting into bed.

“Ugh,” I said, stretching my top out and giving a sniff, an action that almost made me gag.

I suspected that everything else was just as ripe, though I didn’t have the courage to verify my suspicions. Instead, I quickly stripped the bed down, undressed, and tossed everything into a pile. After that, I found Erica’s bathroom, where I was happy to discover a brick of scented soap. Seeing that, I wasted no time before hopping into the shower.

“Oh, crap!” I squealed, hopping right back out after I’d turned the water on. Instead of the expected stream of warm water, it was ice cold – a surprising turn of events, given that I’d never encountered such a thing back in Nova. Nor had it been a problem in Mobile, which, despite its rustic aesthetic, at least had modern facilities.  There was no such luck in Bayou La Batre, which was as rustic a village as existed.

With another groan, I fiddled with the twin knobs until, at last, the water turned blessedly lukewarm. With that taken care of, I jumped back in and gave myself a vigorous scrubbing. All the previous day’s grime – and more than a little blood from my kills – was sloughed off and drained away, as if none of it had ever happened.

When I finished, I stepped back out of the shower – barely avoiding slipping and falling on the slick, tile floor, and only then because of my enhanced attributes which allowed me to catch myself on a nearby towel rack – and dried off. That’s when I caught sight of my naked body in the mirror.

The evidence of my previous battles was apparent. There was a long, jagged scar along my ribs, a few puckered marks where I’d been shot in my shoulder and legs. And, though I hadn’t realized it, I’d picked up a fresh wound on my hip. It was a thin, half-healed cut, and it wouldn’t be a problem because of my Regeneration, but it did serve to highlight the necessity for me to pay better attention. With Pain Tolerancebeing what it was, there was every chance that I’d pick up a wound that could turn lethal without even knowing it. Yet one more thing to add to the list.

Shaking my head, I went searching for some clothes. Erica was taller than me, but I figured I could make do with some of her things. Of course, I had plenty of clothing in my Arsenal Implant, but I couldn’t use any of it and maintain the façade I’d built. I hoped to finish my mission soon, but I wasn’t reckless enough to take the chance that I might be discovered. Luckily, I found a pair of long cargo shorts, a blue tank top emblazoned with some logo I didn’t recognize, and some clean underwear that fit reasonably well.

After dressing, I set off to discover a means of washing Erica’s sheets. And my clothes. Erica seemed nice enough, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate me plundering her wardrobe. Or given that I’d saved her life, maybe she wouldn’t mind. Either way, I wasn’t going to put it to the test.

Fortune favored me, and I found a fairly modern ion-washer in the back of the small house. The machine was Mist powered, so I was familiar with its operation. Back home, the ion-washers only took thirty seconds to clean an entire load of clothes, but this one took almost ten minutes, during which I took the time to go over my plans.

My first order of business was to head back out to the forest and recover the discarded boar spear and the bow I’d dropped during the fight. I also intended to do a bit more hunting, perhaps even bagging one of the boar we’d been hunting. After all, it didn’t hurt to build a little goodwill with the townspeople, and nothing would do that better than providing a thousand pounds or more of good meat.

Once I finished with that task, I hoped to spend the night scouting the main building again. I thought I had a good idea of the comings and goings, but I wanted to verify what I’d seen by observing for at least another night. My uncle had always preached patience, and I endeavored to exemplify that trait.

My planning session was interrupted when I heard a knock at the door. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had Ferdinand II in my hand. Maybe I wasn’t nearly as relaxed as I thought I was. Probably for the best, considering that, for all that it appeared to be a standard village, Bayou La Batre was still enemy territory.

“Who is it?” I called, already crossing the small house to approach the front door at an angle.

“Uh…it’s Hadley,” came the answer.

“What do you want?” I demanded, sliding against the wall next to the door. If someone kicked it in, I wouldn’t get caught in the rush. Instead, being off to the side, I would be free to do what I needed to do. I tightened my grip.

“I…c-can you open the door, please?” he asked, his voice sounding like it had lost some of its bravado from the day before. “I just want to talk, okay? And I think I have an offer for you.”

“What kind of offer?”

“The kind I can’t shout through a door,” he said, a note of annoyance invading his tone. “C’mon. Just let me in. I won’t hurt you.”

Him? Hurt me? He was, at best, a Tier-3, and I could tell from his physique that he hadn’t exactly pushed himself to his limits. Sure, he could be dangerous to someone with only one skill slot, but anyone else could probably give him a run for his money. Even if I was the Tier-1 Hunter I’d pretended to be, I didn’t think he would pose much of a problem. That, more than anything, drove me to open the door and allow him inside. Pointedly, I hid the pistol behind my back; it wouldn’t make my draw much faster than just dismissing it and relying on my Arsenal Implant, but I liked the way it felt in my hand.

He looked much the same as he had the day before – all messy blonde hair, wiry muscle, and undeserved swagger. He wore a pair of tan cargo pants, metal-toed boots that I was a bit ashamed to say I really, really liked, and a utility vest. No shirt. Like a weirdo. To call it an eclectic outfit would have been an understatement, and that was coming from a girl who had grown up in the Garden, where fashion had long ago descended into ridiculousness.

Hadley straightened his vest and strode inside like he owned the place. After I shut the door behind him, I crossed my arms and said, “Okay. Talk.”

“Really? Aren’t you gonna offer me a drink? Maybe make polite conversation?” he asked.

“What do you want?” I asked, doing my best to maintain an even tone. “You said you have an offer?”

“Maybe my offer is to bring you into the family,” he said. “You know, the old-fashioned way.”

He waggled his eyebrows at me. I gave him a flat stare, and he relented, “Fine.  Fine. Just having a little fun. My offer is simple. You take me back with you.”

“Back? Where?”

“I’m not stupid,” he said. “And I have a skill that helps me out. I know you’re not what you’re pretending to be.”

“W-what?” I asked, my heart jumping into my throat. “I’m…I don’t…”

He held up his hands, saying, “It’s fine. I’m not going to tell on you. Not unless you make me.”

“What skill?” I asked.

“It’s called [None-of-Your-Goddamn Business],” he said with a smug smirk. “Seriously? I’m not an idiot, Mira. Or whatever your real name is. I’m not going to tell you my skills. Just trust that I can tell you’re not some Tier-1 with a [Hunting] skill. You’re at least Tier-3. Maybe higher. I can’t get a handle on it, but I know you’re not what you’re pretending to be. Which leaves us with a problem. But my Momma always said that every problem is just an opportunity, and I think this qualifies.”

I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed a lot more articulate than he had during our first meeting. Perhaps he, too, had been playing a role all along. Given the enmity his father obviously held for him, that probably wasn’t a terrible idea.

But that aside, there was still the very real problem that he knew my secret. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of how deep it went, but he knew enough to get me into a lot of trouble. I was prepared for the worst. In fact, I’d been paying attention to the guards and any other potential combatants ever since I’d arrived in Bayou La Batre, so I thought I had good picture of the threat. However, that didn’t mean I liked my chances against an entire town’s worth of people. Or what I’d have to become if I wanted to escape with my life. I didn’t fancy the notion of killing hundreds of people, regardless of whether or not it was necessary.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Like I said, I figure there’s only one reason someone with your skills would come here,” he said. “You came from one of the other towns nearby, probably gathering information. Maybe assassination. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just want out. This town, it’s on its way out. In a few months, it’ll be wiped off the face of the Earth. I’m sure of it.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, fishing for more information.

“Logic,” Hadley stated. “I can see the writing on the wall. Those outsiders, they’re going to figure it out sooner or later. They’ll decide to cut out the middleman and deal directly with the shrimpers. When they do that, they won’t need Momma or anybody else in Bayou La Batre. And the worst part is that the shrimpers will probably go right along with it because they’d be better off. Only reason it ain’t already happened is ‘cause Momma’s got ‘em wrapped around her little finger.”

I thought about it for a second. It made sense, so long as the situation was as he described. I’d have to verify it, so my plans really hadn’t changed, but I was prepared to believe him on a provisional basis.

“Okay, let’s say I believe you,” I said. “And just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that I can give you what you want. What are you offering?”

“That wasn’t enough?” he asked, clearly misjudging the value of his information.

“Not even close,” I said. I saw his eyes flick toward the door, and, in the space of an instant, I had Ferdinand II aimed at his head. “Nuh-uh-uh. Let’s not get any ideas here, alright? Ferdinand here is kind of jumpy. He hasn’t gotten to let loose in a few days.”

“Ferdinand?”

I waggled my gun at him.

“Wait, you named your gun Ferdinand?” he asked, his brow scrunching in surprise. “Really?”

“Ferdinand II, actually,” I said. “He has a noble lineage. So, back to our little transaction. I want information. As much as you can give me on the main building’s layout. I want to know where security terminals are. I want to know about the guards. I want to know about those drones that are always flying around. Everything.”

He looked conflicted as he asked, “Are you going to kill my mom?”

I shook my head, saying, “No. Not if I can help it. That’s not my job.”

“Fine,” he said. “I can get you a schematic of the building, and I’ll mark points of interest for you. Will that work?”

I nodded, then snagged a blank nano-chip from my Arsenal Implant. As I handed it over, I said, “Put everything on that. Now, sit still. I have to do something before you leave.”

“W-what?” he asked, taking the chip.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I opened the NuSkin flap on my wrist and dragged the retractable cord out. After that, I grabbed Hadley’s head, tilted it to the side, and inserted the end into the port on the side of his neck. Hadley’s muscles seized up as my skill went to work. A message flashed across my HUD:

Personal Interface (Hadley Lafontaine). Presence Detected. Defenses Found. Initiate Mistwalk? [Yes] or [No]

I selected the affirmative option, then went to work on the complex set of puzzles that guarded his system. There were forty-two of them, all arranged in a constellation of nodes. The outer band, which was comprised of twenty-eight points, were easily bypassed by solving a series of puzzles that were rendered trivial by my increased Mind attribute as well as all the practice I’d put into training myself. However, the remaining fourteen were markedly more difficult, requiring an intense level of concentration my previous usage of the skill had yet to require. In a lot of ways, the challenge was invigorating, and each one I solved sent a jolt of mental energy coursing through my brain. Finally, I broke through the last barrier, and Hadley’s system opened up to me.

That’s when I enacted my plan, inserting a harmless, flashing red icon that would appear at the top of his HUD. His optical implant wasn’t as complex as my KOI, probably due to the fact that he didn’t have a [Cybernetic Interface]skill. Instead, he had to rely on something far less invasive. Luckily, that meant it was easy to trick via the access given to me by my [Mistwalking]skill.

During my training with Helen, my Mist instructor, I had learned that a good Mistrunner – her label for what she did, not mine – wasn’t defined by the systems she could infiltrate. Instead, according to her, the quality of a Mistrunner was determined by the Ghosts she had at her disposal. Ghosts, I’d gone on to learn, were programs designed to do specific things. From completely destroying an entire system to causing it to glitch randomly, there were as many Ghosts as there were nanites in the air. Because they were all unique to their creators, un-sharable and unable to be copied.

That meant that I’d had to learn to create some basic ones myself. The result was a small collection of mostly harmless ghosts, the one exception being a veritable time bomb that would detonate a person’s cybernetics after a certain amount of time had passed. I didn’t think that was appropriate, given that I didn’t want to kill Hadley. I just wanted him to know that I could. The threat was the point.

Thus, I infected his system with a harmless Ghost that caused an ominous blinking light in his HUD. I called it the Red Herring.

I pulled my consciousness away from his system and retracted my access cord back into my wrist. Then, I slapped him across the face, which brought him back to the land of the living.

“W-what? What did you do? Oh, God – what does that light mean?!” he half-screamed, his voice quivering with panic. I almost laughed at how high-pitched it had gotten.

“That’s my insurance,” I said. “Do you know what a Mistrunner is, Hadley?”

He shook his head.

“Not surprising,” I stated, putting Ferdinand II away in my Arsenal Implant. His eyes went wide when the weapon disappeared, and I could practically read his thoughts as he wondered just how much he’d underestimated me. “A Mistrunner is, for all intents and purposes, your worst fucking nightmare. An extremely rare skill, it lets me slide right into your system and do whatever I want. I can take things out. I can put things in. I can even read your history.”

“T-that’s not…that’s not possible.”

He looked so terrified that I wondered if he was going to wet himself. If he did, I’d have to clean it up, lest I have to explain to Erica why her floor had been coated with urine. I didn’t look forward to that conversation.

“I assure you that it most definitely is,” I said. “That little red light in the upper, right-hand corner of your HUD will serve as a reminder. If you do something I don’t like, if you go and tell your mother what I am…well, let’s just say you’ll have a very, very bad day. So will whoever has to clean up your brain matter after your skull explodes.”

“Y-you can’t do that.”

“I can,” I said. “And I will. So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get me that information I need. In the meantime, I’m going to do what I’d already planned to do today. I’ll find you tonight, and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do after that.”

“Uh…”

I slapped him again, just for good measure. It felt pretty good, I have to admit, but it also made me feel a bit like a bully. After all, he had no defense against me if I chose to hurt him. And even less from his perspective, given that he thought I could explode his head with a thought. It was a little disturbing how addictive that kind of power was. Did that make me a sociopath? I hoped not.

“Got me?” I asked, pushing past those thoughts.

“I…uh…I understand,” he said.

“Good,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. He flinched. Maybe I had overdone it. “Now, run along. And try to act natural.”

He nodded, then, after a couple of awkward seconds, left the house. I couldn’t help but notice that whatever confidence he’d had was completely gone, and he looked a lot like a scurrying rodent.

Never mind that, I thought. I still had a lot to do.

So, after letting the nano-washer finish, I was pleased to find that it was very effective. The bedding was spotless, and my clothing from the day before was only slightly stained. So, I redressed, made the bed, then left on my spear-hunting expedition. The guards at the gate recognized me quickly enough and waved me through, and once I was out in the woods, I stretched my constitution attribute to its limit, sprinting through the forest. It was more of a workout than I expected, largely because the vegetation was so dense, but I made great progress, covering the ground in less than a third of the time it had taken Erica and me to cover the same distance the day before.

Predictably, when I reached the site of the fight against the cat, it had been picked clean by scavengers. However, the boar spear remained where I had dropped it. It was in pristine condition, too. The bow wasn’t so lucky, and its string had snapped. Not surprising, considering the bow wasn’t meant to remain strung.

Still, I gathered the bow and spear before setting off toward where I expected the boars to be. Sadly, even after a few hours of searching, I didn’t find anything, so I turned back. By the time I returned to the village, the sun had already passed its zenith. Checking the time on my HUD, I was a little surprised to see that it was mid-afternoon.

After that, I went back to Erica’s house, where I took one look at my poor attempt at rabbit stew and promptly ate one of my ration bars. It was supposed to taste like banana, but given that I’d actually had one of the fruits, I could see how far off the artificial flavoring really was. Still, it was filling. And it wasn’t a mess of congealed fat and sketchy-looking vegetables. So, it had that going for it, at least.

With my belly full, I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the village. I thought of it as reconnaissance, but the reality was that I was just sightseeing. I was particularly interested in the shrimp boats that had just returned from a day of fishing, especially when I saw that one of them had a large gash along the side of its hull. Apparently, there were monstrous, mutated animals in the sea as well as on land.

I sat on a nearby beach and watched as they pulled into port and started unloading the mounds of shrimp that were their catch. In Nova City, such a haul would have been worth a fortune, which told me all I really needed to know about how valuable a town like Bayou La Batre – or rather, the men and women who were experienced shrimpers – were. It lent credence to Hadley’s supposition that, eventually, whoever was buying up all the shrimp would just cut out the middleman and take the town over.

As the sun set, I wondered if any of these towns would survive the Integration that was coming. My uncle had been sparse with details – I suspected he was more ignorant than he let on – but I knew that something big was coming. Something that would change the face of the Earth just as much as the Initialization had. I had a hard time believing Bayou La Batre, or any villages like it, would make it through such a tribulation.

I sat there well after night had fallen, my mind completely wrapped in speculation concerning the years to come. I was so engrossed in my own thoughts that I never saw the assassin aiming a dagger at my back.