Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 6 - Squirrel (Patreon)

Sometimes, I wonder where I would have ended up if Jeremiah hadn’t taken me into his organization. Dead, maybe. Or perhaps I would have gone down a different path and ended up in some seedy brothel on Bourbon Street. Or worse, in a place like the El Paradiso in Algiers. I might have even been one of those dead-eyed farmers working in the Silos. Whatever the case, I would’ve been powerless. Inconsequential. He gave me the means to matter, and for that, I will always be grateful.

Nora Lancaster

It felt like I’d never left. Everywhere I looked, there were familiar sights. But for some reason, it all seemed smaller. The megabuildings that housed most of the Garden’s population still towered just as tall as ever, but they didn’t seem nearly as oppressive. The same could be said for the flashing lights, holographic displays, and neon signs that had once so thoroughly fascinated me.

Mostly, though, it was the people I found disappointing. Those hollow expressions on the factory workers’ faces, the defeated eyes of farmers, the twitchy, constantly roving attention of the so-called Operators – they all seemed like cardboard cutouts meant to represent real people. I knew that impression was a trick, that I was fooling myself so that I didn’t have to care about their plight. However, I couldn’t bring myself to overcome it.

After everything that had happened to me, their petty problems seemed so insignificant. While I had been balanced on the edge between life and death, these people had been trudging along, completely unaware that they were mere prisoners, slaves to a system that seemed hellbent on keeping their necks beneath the boots of their oppressors. And none of them were fighting back. None of them had rebelled. They were content in their drudgery. From my perspective, it was easy to hold them in contempt.

I knew it was a trap, though. Those people, as sad as their lives might be, were still people, and because of that, they were worthy of at least a modicum of respect. Still, it was difficult not to scream at the top of my lungs at how blind they all were. They couldn’t see. They didn’t know. And because of that, they would never escape.

“Where are we going?” asked Patrick, hurrying to keep up with me.

“Doctor,” I said. “I need to get my hand checked out. I just hope I have enough credits.”

Indeed, my funds were incredibly low. I had some things I could sell – notably, the Enforcers’ equipment and the Rift Shards I’d mined in the Rift – but doing so would cause issues. The equipment was probably going to be the easiest to move. And I thought I had a plan for that. At worst, I could sell the weapons piecemeal to Operators who didn’t care about their gear’s origins.

The Rift Shards were different, though. They were not only rare, but I had quite a few of them, too. I’d already decided I wouldn’t sell them until I’d talked to my uncle’s friends in the Bazaar; the aliens weren’t altogether trustworthy, but I felt that they were less likely to screw me over than Nova City’s merchants – especially the ones that had enough funds on hand to buy my Shards. My uncle had always said that there was nothing more dishonest than a salesman, and I was of a mind to heed that advice.

“I have a few if you need them,” Patrick offered.

A second later, a transfer of two-thousand credits flashed across my HUD. I accepted it, saying, “Thanks. I’ll get you back once we have a chance to sell some stuff.”

He shrugged. “The way I see it, I owe you.”

“I’ll pay you back,” I insisted, which just elicited another shrug. After that, I used a few hundred credits to hire an auto-taxi, and we gradually made our way toward our destination, which was an untethered doctor in the western portion of the Garden. After being dropped off in the general area, we had to take a few back alleys to reach an unassuming bodega situated on the ground floor of one of the megabuildings. It was an unaffiliated space that had, only a few years before, been the site of a war between three different tribes. The three-way war had escalated to the point where they’d eventually killed one another off, and the building hadn’t been nearly valuable enough for anyone else to move in and claim it. So, it remained neutral territory – one of the few such places in the Garden.

“You want to wait out here?” I asked.

Predictably, Patrick shook his head. He’d been attached to my hip ever since we’d left the refugees behind in Algiers, and I knew him well enough to see that he was terrified. Not surprising, considering that he wasn’t exactly a city boy. Likely, the place seemed incredibly chaotic to his virgin eyes.

“Alright,” I said. Then, I strode forward. I only got a few steps inside before I became aware of someone aiming a gun at me. I don’t know if it was a shift in the air, an errant noise, or just intuition, but I could practically feel the situation shift a few notches closer to danger. I held up my hands, saying, “Just here to see Erlich. I don’t want any trouble.”

A moment later, a pair of figures stepped out from between the aisles containing all the worst and cheapest nano-wave food in the city. My tastebuds rebelled at the mere thought of ingesting those horrible imitations of the real thing. I’d grown up eating the like, but in Mobile, my taste had been refined to the point where I didn’t know if I could ever go back. In fact, I would rather eat the tasteless ration bars than put imitation jambalaya in my mouth ever again.

I glanced from one figure to the next. Their features were similar enough that I suspected that they were siblings. Pale skinned, with black hair and blue eyes ringed in dark makeup, the two were so androgynous that I couldn’t determine their gender. Not that I was concerned enough to truly investigate. Male, female, or non-binary, all I cared about were the pistols in their hands.

“We don’t know you,” one said.

The other added, “And we don’t like people we don’t know.”

“Hard to make friends like that,” I said.

“We have no use for friends.”

“And friends have no use for us.”

I tried not to roll my eyes at Dumb and Dumber. Clearly, they’d practiced their schtick, probably to get under people’s skin and throw them off guard. I couldn’t let it affect me, though. As much as I wanted to just put them on the ground – not for good, mind you – I didn’t think Erlich would appreciate me beating up his guards. So, I chose a more pacifistic path.

“You point those guns at me, and I’m going to splatter the both of you across this store,” I said. “Either let me through, or tell me to run along. If it’s the second one, I’ll go in peace. But I won’t stand here and watch your bad little…whatever it is you were doing there. So, what’s it going to be?”

They stared at me like I’d just slapped them. Which, if I’m honest, I really wasn’t far from doing. Either way, I added, “And keep in mind – this is me being diplomatic. Don’t waste my time, and we won’t have a problem.”

Maybe I needed to rethink my definition of diplomacy, but in my defense, my uncle had never really covered that. Instead, he’d taught me how to kill and avoid being killed in turn. Speaking to annoying people had never been part of the curriculum. Thankfully, I was saved from making good on my promise when a voice crackled over an unseen speaker, saying, “Let her down, idiots. She’s a patient. Patients mean money. Or did you forget we’re running a business here, dumbasses?”

“But –”

“She said –”

“Enough!” came through the speaker, causing a crackle of feedback.

Dumber – or was it Dumb? I had no idea. Either way, one of the two pointed to a corner, saying, “Stairs are over there.”

I nodded, then strode forward. Patrick followed close on my heels, and I led him down one of the aisles to the indicated corner, where I found a wall bearing a multitude of shelves. I was just about to ask what I was supposed to do when the entire wall shuddered, then slid backward, revealing a staircase.

“Cool,” Patrick muttered, and I couldn’t help but agree.

Inside, the stairwell was lit by only a few flickering fluorescent bulbs, but there was plenty of illumination for me to see the auto-turret hanging in one corner. Its telltale red eye told me that it was active. I took a moment to activate Misthack and change that. A moment or two later, the red light went dark.

With that done, we quickly descended the steel staircase, switching back a couple of times as it led us deep underground. Steam periodically erupted from the pipes lining the walls, but after having lived in the drainage tunnels beneath the city, I didn’t find them that alarming. After three flights of stairs, we found ourselves facing a heavy, steel door that looked like it would have been perfectly at home in a bank vault. Not that I’d ever been inside of a bank, but I’d seen plenty in old movies. Either way, it was thick and heavy, and it looked impenetrable even if it bore plenty of signs of oxidation.

“Do we…uh…knock?” asked Patrick.

I shrugged.  Then with my good hand, I banged on the door. I might’ve used a little more strength than necessary, because it resulted in a series of resounding bangs that sounded like the ringing of the world’s largest bell.

“I’m comin’. I’m comin’. Hold your horses, you degenerates,” came another crackling voice through a still-unseen speaker. I flared Observation, but I still couldn’t find a source, which led me to believe it was probably an ability, and not a very useful one at that. Perhaps the good doctor had [Ventriloquism] or something.

After a minute or so, the huge door trembled, then slid open. It only moved a couple of inches every few seconds, almost as if it hadn’t been opened for quite some time. Whatever the case, it only took a further thirty seconds or so before we were standing face-to-face with Doctor Erlich von Hastings.

Or, as most of the Garden knew him, Squirrel.

And the name fit, too. He had the features of a rodent – narrow, watery eyes, a twitchy nose, and a mouth full of crooked teeth that I had the misfortune of seeing when he smiled broadly. He scratched his patchy beard, saying, “Don’t get many customers these days on account of that unfortunate incident back…well, never mind that. What can I do you for?”

“Uh…what incident?” asked Patrick.

“Doesn’t matter,” Squirrel said. Then, his eyes found my splinted wrist. “Oh, that. Nasty injury there. Let’s get you in here, yeah? Let Doc Erlich fix you right up.”

He turned and scurried back inside, leaving a bewildered Patrick staring at me. “I feel like he’s going to try to harvest our organs if we go in there,” he muttered. “And I’m not sure he’d have the decency to kill us before it started.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, watching the doctor. The man was slightly built, and he wore a stained white coat over a mesh shirt and faux leather shorts that were short enough to expose the vast majority of his skinny legs. Still, I said, “He’s got a decent reputation.”

That wasn’t necessarily true. He’d helped people, sure, but he’d also botched a number of treatments as well. For one, rumor said that he’d once tried his hand at installing a cybernetic arm, but he clearly had neither the knack nor the skill for it. The poor Operator had ended up getting fried the first time he tried to move it. But that shouldn’t matter that much to me; all I needed was for him to fix a couple of tendons, and if he couldn’t, then tell me the hand wasn’t salvageable. Easy.

So, I boldly strode forward.

And I very much wish I hadn’t. Not because I felt like I was in danger. Rather, because the room in which I found myself was absolutely disgusting. It was a mostly open space, lined with a few freestanding metal shelves. In one corner, there was a bare mattress that looked sported quite a few stains I didn’t want to know any more about. In another, there was a pile of trash. And in another, a commode. The centerpiece of the room was an old, outdated exam chair.

“Pardon the mess, yeah,” said the rat-faced Squirrel, hurrying to one of the shelves. “I don’t get out none too much these days. Not since the incident, at least. Never mind that, though. Let’s get that arm all fixed up.”

As he spoke, he plucked various instruments from the shelves. None of them looked sanitary, making me rethink the entire visit. Still, a simple examination shouldn’t be too dangerous, right?

I crossed the room, intending to sit in the chair, but Squirrel pulled me up short, saying, “You might not want to sit on that. It isn’t…uh…sanitary.”

That’s when I noticed the packaging, which was easily recognizable as the sort that had once contained virtual reality chips.  The plastic was scattered across the dirty floor, indicating that he’d been too eager to get at the contents to bother with throwing it in the trash pile. One and all, they portrayed lewd scenes, telling me precisely what Squirrel had been using the chair for. I suppose that, in his defense, the chair looked a lot cleaner than the mattress. If I was faced with the decision of where to experience my pornographic chips, the chair would’ve been my choice as well. Not that I would’ve gone down that road in such a disgusting place, but Squirrel didn’t seem to have many options, so who was I to judge?

Patrick seemed a lot less open-minded, and he wore his disgust in the expression on his face. I couldn’t blame him, either.

“Here,” Squirrel said, suddenly standing at my shoulder. “Hand me your hand.” He let out a little giggle at the phrasing.

I held out my arm, but when his skin touched mine, I almost pulled away. His own hands were incredibly clammy and far colder than they should’ve been. I guess that was better than if they’d been warm, considering what I had just seen. Either way, I felt the Mist swirl a bit as he bent close to my wrist until his eyes were only an inch or so away. Clearly, he was examining the damage, and I held my breath as I waited for his diagnosis.

Finally, he pulled away, saying, “I might could fix it.”

“Might?” I asked, pulling my hand away.

“Might. Fifty-fifty, I’d say,” he said. “It’s a tricky procedure. If you came to me right after it happened, it would’ve been closer to ninety-ten, but…well, the tendons have started to get used to being unattached. You’ve got some sort of self-healing ability, yeah? Well, that’s a good thing and a bad thing, you know? Good, because it’ll keep you alive. Bad because sometimes things heal all wrong. That’s what’s happening in your wrist. To fix it, I’d have to un-do all that healing, then put everything back together. Not an easy procedure.”

I shook my head, saying, “Shit.”

If I was honest, I’d expected as much. Even without the blaring red hand on the health-indicating silhouette on my HUD, my Triage ability gave me some insight into the state of my body. And when I hadn’t been ignoring it, I’d discovered that things were not ideal. Hearing that fixing it would be a fifty-fifty proposition hemmed me in and effectively removed one of my choices. As it stood, my only real option was to replace the entire hand with a cybernetic implant.

I didn’t want to. I had limited slots in my [Cybernetic Mastery] skill, and though I wasn’t using the majority of them, I had plans to change that. Now, it seemed that I was going to have to alter those plans. It wasn’t really the adjustment that I hated, but rather that the choice had been forced on me by circumstances. I had half a mind to simply hire Squirrel to do his best and let the chips fall where they may. But that was stupid, and I didn’t have room in my life for that kind of idiocy. I needed to be cold. Calculating. I needed to be logical.

And logic said to just replace the hand.

While I’d been thinking things through, Squirrel had continued explaining the issue. However, I’d stopped listening to him, so I just interrupted his babbling by asking, “How much do I owe you for the consultation?”

“You don’t want me to fix it?” he asked.

“I’m going to replace it,” I stated. “Fifty percent chance of success isn’t good enough.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” he muttered, his fingers twitching with what I assumed was anger. As he spoke, I scanned the area for any more auto-turrets, and my search was rewarded a few seconds later when I saw one half-concealed behind one of the shelves. Once again, I activated Misthackand uploaded the same Ghost I’d used with the robots that had been guarding the Rift mining operation. It went to sleep a moment later. “I guess time really is a circle, and events are destined to repeat themselves.”

His accent was all over the place. One second, he spoke like a rustic rube, and the next, he seemed almost erudite. But one thread connected everything – he was obviously crazy. That, as much as the odds of it not working had cemented my decision not to take advantage of the good doctor’s services.

“I require you to transfer all of your credits to me, please,” he said. “Otherwise, my auto-turrets will…well, you know what they do, I’m sure.”

I did, but I’d continued scanning the room, and I was fairly certain that I’d gotten them all. There had been two others in the corners, which was overkill for the size of the space. If I hadn’t deactivated them, I was sure that even I, with all my advantages would have been absolutely screwed. It was a good thing, then, that I’d been thinking ahead.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said. Leisurely, I drew my sword from my Arsenal Implant, then placed it on his neck. “By all rights, I should just cut your head off.”

I could see the concentration on his face as he tried to mentally activate the auto-turrets, but it was quickly followed by disappointment. “W-what did you do?” he whined. “My babies! What did you do?!”

“They’re just asleep,” I said. “Now – you obviously deserve a bit of punishment, don’t you think? Maybe I could cut that off that little dink you like to tug on so much.” As I spoke, I moved the nano-bladed sword down to point at his groin. I gave it a light poke, and he flinched away. “Nah – I’m not that cruel. How about this? You don’t tell anybody about me or my friend over there, and we’ll call it square.”

“H-huh?” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Wait. Yes! Yes, of course! My patients enjoy the strictest confidentiality. My lips are sealed, and –”

“You’re overdoing it,” I said. I held up a hand at about head height, saying, “You’re up here.” I lowered it to mid-torso height, adding, “And I need you down here. Okay?”

“Down here,” he said, ducking down to the appropriate height.

I rolled my eyes, wondering if he really was that stupid. Or maybe he was just terrified. Either way, it was annoying. “Whatever,” I said, withdrawing my sword and stowing it away. “We’re going now. Remember – not a word, right? Or I’ll come back. You don’t want me to come back, do you?”

“N-no! I mean…if you need a doctor, I would –”

“Patrick? C’mon,” I said, interrupting him. My decision wasn’t made on a whim. Squirrel wasn’t exactly connected, and he looked far too paranoid to spread the news of this incident. In fact, I fully expected him to lock himself in his vault and go back to doing…whatever it was he’d been doing. Besides, I’d come to him for a reason, after all. He had a reputation as a capable doctor, but he’d made so many enemies that only the desperate came to him. I was banking on that, plus the intimidation factor, to keep him in line. But even if it didn’t, he really didn’t know much about me. I wasn’t even wearing my own face.

Was it base sentimentality to keep him alive? I don’t know. But I chose to look at it as the most pragmatic choice. If I killed everyone who tried to take advantage of me, then I’d leave a trail of bodies in my wake. Eventually, someone would notice. Or perhaps I just wasn’t as comfortable with murder as I wanted to think I was.

Either way, I wasted no time before turning around and going back the way we had come. Next stop, the Bazaar. Hopefully, it would be a little more fruitful of a visit.