Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 12 - El Paradiso (Patreon)

Once, someone told me that the only constant is change. But I disagree, because self-interest seems pretty damned constant to me. Nobody does anything out of the goodness of their heart. They always get something out of it. It was the same with Jeremiah. He never cared about me or anyone else. He just wanted another tool.

Nora Lancaster

I awoke what felt like an instant later, but my HUD told me that almost four hours had passed. A few blinking alerts in the corner of my vision told me that I had unread notifications, so I mentally selected the first.

Cybernetic Appendage (Hand of God) – Fexura Corporation [Grade D] found. Would you like to activate? You have four (4) unused cybernetic nodes. [Yes] or [No]

I selected the affirmative option, then moved on to the next notification:

Subdermal Armor (Kinetic Sheath) – Tak-Mura Armorworks [Grade D] found. Would you like to activate? You have three (3) unused cybernetic nodes. [Yes] or [No]

Again, I selected the first option, and I felt a slight tingle across my skin. After that, I moved on to the third and final notification:

Collapsible Transport (Cutter Class) – Kyrobe Transport Conglomerate [Grade D] found. Would you like to activate? You have two (2) unused cybernetic nodes. [Yes] or [No]

Once again, I selected the affirmative option, and with my notifications out of the way, I sat up. As I did, another message flashed across my HUD, telling me that my KIOI was integrating the new cybernetics into my overall interface. I shook my head as a wave of disorientation swept through me, but it soon passed.

“Easy,” said Patrick, reaching out to grip my upper arm. I reacted on instinct, and my new cybernetic hand darted out to clamp down on his wrist. I could feel that, with only a little more pressure, I could shatter his arm. I remembered myself after only a moment, and I released him with an apology. He said, “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

“No,” I mumbled. “I need to be more aware. It won’t happen again.”

“Same on my side,” was his response.

To change the subject, I asked, “What happened to Miss Montague?”

“It’s doctor,” Patrick said. “She made that abundantly clear when I made the same mistake. Apparently, she’s got some kind of medical skill, too. It’s one of the reasons she’s so highly sought after.”

“Whatever,” I said. “She did agree to train you, though. Did you set it up?”

He nodded. “I have to come to her office once a week,” was his reply. “But…uh…she said I needed to get some new clothes first.”

“What?” I asked.  “Seriously?”

“Well, no,” he said. “She actually said that if I come around looking like a dust fiend, she won’t let me in the door. And she said she’d call the Enforcers. Apparently, they’ve got a much bigger presence in Lakeview where she works.”

“That…bitch.”

“She’s not wrong,” he said. “If we’re going to fit in in places like that, we need to look the part. You should have seen Remy when he got cleaned up. He always said that a good suit was like body armor in high society. Course, he still complained about it, but he had a whole different wardrobe for when he had to meet high class clients.”

“Whatever,” I said. I hated the notion that anyone would judge me based on my appearance, but I knew good and well that that was how the world worked. It was human nature, and railing against it was pointless. Better to simply adapt and use that to my advantage. My training had taught me that if I looked similar to the people around me, they would be far more likely to accept me. By contrast, if I was different in any way – be it skin color, my hair style, or the way I was dressed – they’d look at me with suspicion or, at the very least, interest. And given that I wanted to fly under the radar, that was counterproductive. The brief exchange had highlighted yet another issue – my wardrobe – and added another line to my increasingly longer list of things I had to do.

To distract myself, I held up my new hand. Aside from a barely visible seam about halfway up my forearm, it looked little different than my old hand. Dr. Montague had used top quality Realskin. There were even calluses and wrinkles in all the right places. I touched my new index finger to my thumb, and I was surprised to find that it was tactilely identical to my old hand. That was expected; what good would a new hand be if I couldn’t feel it? However, I also knew that there were no pain sensors, either, so I’d have to be careful with it.

“How does it feel?” asked Patrick.

“The same, mostly,” I answered. “It’s a little weird, though. Almost like the feelings are muted. Or like there’s lag.”

“Dr. Montague mentioned that,” he said. “For the next few weeks, the cybernetic will link to your nervous system. Until it finishes, you’ll have a microsecond or so of lag.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense, I guess.”

In truth, I would’ve accepted just about anything if it meant I’d have the use of my hand again. I’d tried to ignore it during the trip from Mobile to Nova City, but even if it hadn’t affected my combat abilities that much, it was still a huge loss. Now, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

“Wish I could test the subdermal sheath,” I said.

“I could stab you,” Patrick offered with a grin. His joke kind of took me by surprise, and I just stared at him for a moment before he coughed in embarrassment, saying, “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like –”

“I know,” I said. “I’m just a…I’m just a little slow right now. Effects of the anesthetic or something, I think.” I gave him a smile of my own. “I think I’ll pass on getting stabbed for now, though.”

He gave a nervous laugh. Then, he said, “I saw her inject it, though. The Sheath, I mean. So, I know it’s there.”

I didn’t need his reassurance. After all, my interface had finished with the integration of the various cybernetics, and it told me that my new subdermal sheath, which was labeled as “Armor” on my HUD, was operating at one-hundred percent integrity. I suspected that the integrity would decrease each time I took a hit. However, unless it was completely destroyed, it would utilize a trickle of my Mist to repair on its own – a process I could speed up by injecting condensed Mist via a booster. I’d bought a handful of them, but they were incredibly expensive, so even my funds wouldn’t hold up to continued usage.

Then, my mind turned to the collapsible transport, which had its own heading in my interface. When I selected it, the action opened a window in my HUD showing a slowly rotating three-dimensional model of my new hover bike. It was sleek, with an elongated nose and a stocky backside. Three Mist vents ran along the bottom, and a seat that would accommodate two people sat atop the shiny black fuselage, which was trimmed in silver accents. In short, it was probably the coolest thing I had ever seen.

The only problem was that it would definitely stand out. There was no hiding that it was an incredibly expensive bike, and that, I knew, would bring all sorts of unwanted attention. Thieves, busybodies, information mongers, and everyone else in Nova City would take notice of that beautiful bike.

Thankfully, according to Dexter, it was equipped with a solution to that problem. As a cybernetic, it was considered a part of me. That meant that my skills worked on it, too. I could only hope there wouldn’t be any problems applying Mimic to the bike. Otherwise, it would be too conspicuous to actually use.

I sat up, then swiveled to hang my legs off the elevated chair. A wave of dizziness swept through me, but I steadied myself with my hands. The new one found the surface of the bed an instant after my biological one, hammering home the issue with the lag. I’d just have to get used to it until my body acclimated to the new addition.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked, looking up at Patrick.

“I did,” he said with a small smile. “There’s a lot more to installing cybernetics than just hooking things up. But I’ve always liked putting things together. So…”

“So, the skill fits?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said.

There were few things worse than getting a skill and finding that you were ill-suited to use it. Nova City was littered with people who’d taken big, fancy skills and then failed when trying to put them to use. Getting a skill wasn’t a shortcut to power; you still had to put in a lot of work if you wanted to use it properly, and a lot of people just weren’t cut out for that kind of commitment.

But there were just as many hard workers out there who never got the chance to be anything but worker drones, trudging back and forth to their meaningless jobs as they worked to enrich someone else. Meanwhile, the people at the top thought that they were somehow better than those at the bottom, just because they’d lucked into a higher tier or generational wealth. It was disgusting.

At first, I’d labored under the illusion that my Tier-7 Nexus Implant made me better than other people. However, being brought low by a Tier-2 Amigo cured me of that assumption. In the end, my elevated tier made things easier, and it raised my ceiling, but if someone outworked me – be it in training or via gaining levels – that advantage would quickly be erased. I needed to keep that in mind if I was going to survive.

It took a few more minutes for me to steady myself, and when I did, Patrick and I stepped out of the room only to find one of the cyborgs waiting for us. “Dierdre, isn’t it?” I said, recognize the mechanical woman’s face.

“It is,” said the hulking mass of metallic parts. I couldn’t imagine what would push someone to replace the majority of their body with metal, but I didn’t want to be rude by asking. She continued, “Follow me, please. Mr. Gunderson is waiting.”

“Wait – his name is Gunther Gunderson?” I asked with a slight snicker.

Dierdre didn’t answer. Instead, she turned on her mechanical heel and marched down the hall. We followed her heavy steps through the maze of corridors until we reached an elevator, which took us to the top floor. When we exited, I couldn’t help but gape at the room before me. Or rather, the décor.

Everything was covered in rich leather, dark wood, or shelves containing hundreds of ancient books. Throughout the room were the heads of various monsters. I recognized an enormous alligator, a bear with metallic tusks, and a stag that looked strikingly similar to the one I’d seen outside of Mobile so long ago. Its antlers were metal, and I could practically feel the Mist gathering between the multitude of prongs.

In the center of the room was Gunther himself, sitting behind a massive desk made of the same polished wood that seemed so prevalent in the office. Aside from the elevator, there was only one other door in the room, and I presumed that it led to his personal living quarters.

“All fixed up, I see,” he said with a grin. He noticed that I was still looking at the stag, and as he rose from his chair, which looked like a leather-clad throne, he said, “Ah, took that buck a few years back. Found him just outside of what used to be Houston. He’d just killed a pack of wolves, so he was already wounded. Wouldn’t have been able to take him, otherwise.”

I didn’t know if he wanted me to be impressed or not, but I found the idea a little sad. The buck I’d encountered hadn’t been aggressive, so the notion of killing it just didn’t sit right with me. Of course, if it was wounded, there was every chance that it had been a mercy killing, but knowing what I knew of Gunther, I suspected that wasn’t really the case. After all, he obviously liked his trophies, and the buck made for an impressive one.

“Thank you for letting me use your facilities,” I said. “I’ll remember it.”

As I spoke, I initiated a transfer of credits, which he accepted. “Anything else I can do for you?” he asked.

“Now that you ask, I could use a few things,” I said. Then, I sent a list to him, which he took a moment to peruse.

“I can do most of this,” he said. “Where are you setting up?”

“I don’t think that’s in my best interests to reveal,” I stated. “That’s part of what I’ll be paying for.”

My intention was simple. I needed a home base, and I intended to find an appropriate space in Algiers. But with my needs being what they were, any building I chose would require significant alteration. For that, I had turned to Gunther, who had plenty of contacts. With his help, I felt like I could get what I needed – especially considering that I was willing to overpay. In the Bazaar, my wealth might’ve seemed very limited, but in a place like Algiers, it would stretch extremely far.

“I’ll put some feelers out,” he said. “I know a few people who can do what you need. I will require a finder’s fee, though.”

“Naturally,” I said. Then, I sent a communication link to him. It wasn’t secure, but it didn’t need to be, considering the purpose. Nothing sensitive would be discussed over that connection. He accepted, and after a little more small talk, Patrick and I took our leave. The cyborg escorted us from the building, and we soon found ourselves outside.

“I’m exhausted,” Patrick said.

I was too, so I said, “I know a place we can stay, I think. They don’t ask questions there, and they know better than to talk about the people staying there.”

“Sounds good,” he said.

I was tempted to summon my hover bike, but I chose not to for a couple of reasons. First, I’d never actually driven one before, so I wasn’t confident that I could do so without running into everything on the road. I felt that I could pick it up quickly, but I didn’t want to chance it. Second, I still didn’t know how it would interact with my skills and abilities, and the last thing I wanted was to summon a gleaming and obviously expensive bike in the middle of the street. I could’ve probably gotten around that by doing so in an alley or something, but even then, there might have been eyes on me. So, I decided that it would be smarter to test things out later when I could guarantee my privacy.

Patrick and I crossed the street and quickly found our way to the monorail platform. Unlike was the case with our previous trip on the elevated train, we didn’t pick up any followers. However, as the monorail approached the boundary between the platforms containing Algiers and the Garden, the passengers gained at every stop grew steadily seedier. Some were Garden residents who were going to work the night shift at one of the factories, but others were people who lived in the poorest district. And it wasn’t difficult to make that distinction. The Algiers natives were almost all dirty, their clothes were ragged, and they had a malnourished look about them. The people of the Garden weren’t exactly prosperous, but by comparison, they were practically wealthy.

But the most telling characteristic was that, one and all, the Algiers residents wore the dead-eyed expressions of people who’d truly given up. They were just going through the motions because they didn’t know what else to do.

After passing the forest of silos that gave the Garden its name, we reached the edge of the platform, and the monorail’s track dipped in a steep decline that descended into Algiers. I held on as my stomach clenched, and I was reminded of flying in the Jitterbug. Patrick was unsurprisingly unaffected, adopting a bored expression as the monorail evened out and shot off toward our destination.

Finally, we reached the appropriate platform, and we exited alongside a trio of Algiers natives. A few minutes later, we were passing the various abandoned buildings, with their broken windows and dirty facades. Patrick stared as we passed a shantytown; the hovels were sturdy enough, with brick walls and corrugated metal roofs, but they would offer little in the way of comfort. The living conditions were bad enough that I found myself appreciating life in the megabuildings of the Garden. I’d had it easy in my uncle’s penthouse, but I’d always pitied the other residents. But their lives were immeasurably better than the lives of the people who made their homes in Algiers.

Eventually, we found our way to the building that was our goal, The El Paradiso Hotel.

Its name was far grander than its reality, and it was a two-story compound of buildings that practically oozed corruption. I wasn’t unaware of the place’s reputation. Even with my sheltered upbringing, I’d heard of Algiers’ most famous no-tell motel. Everyone had. In school, a few of my classmates had even bragged that they’d lost their virginity there.

If the Garden had Bourbon Street, then Algiers had the El Pardiso Hotel. Both trafficked in sex work, but even Bourbon Street seemed high class compared to the hotel before us. There were plenty of people around. Some were clearly prostitutes. Men and women, all dressed as provocatively as possible, loitered near the street. But even as they tried to look fetching, they wore the same expressions as everyone else in Algiers. Still, there were plenty of customers who were willing to ignore it.

Interspersed with those working men and women and their customers were couples who looked around in paranoia. The El Paradiso didn’t ask questions, and being in Algiers, there was no chance of anyone from the higher platforms being recognized. So, it was a popular destination for cheating spouses who didn’t want to chance discovery at the more reputable hotels in the other districts.

I didn’t care about any of that. What I did care about was that the hotel’s owner, Big Carla, guaranteed the anonymity of her patrons, and she had the muscle to back it up. Even the Enforcers would tread lightly around her – not that they would give two shits about who was sleeping with whom.

“Uh…Mira…”

“Come on,” I said, taking his hand and dragging him across the street. “Just don’t look any of them in the eye. They’ll take that as an invitation.”

Predictably, more than a few of the prostitutes offered their services, but neither of us gave any indication that we were amenable to that sort of thing, so they quickly moved on to greener pastures. After running the gauntlet of sex workers, we entered the hotel’s office, where we were greeted by a pair of mooks. One was a woman shorter than me, while the other was a man that looked so wide, I questioned whether or not he could fit through the door.

“Let them through,” called someone from behind a plastiglass barrier. The two mooks parted, and I got my first look of Big Carla. She was a blonde woman who could generously be called stout. Less generously, she might’ve been called fat. Sitting on a chair that I didn’t envy, she asked, “What do you want? I don’t recognize either of you.”

“A room,” I said. “For the night.”

“Hmm, robbing the cradle, aren’t you?” the woman giggled, reminding me that I was wearing the face of a middle-aged woman. I blushed as I realized what she meant; Patrick was only sixteen, while I looked to be in my mid-forties. And given where we were, she’d clearly made a connection neither of us had intended.

“Uh…”

She held up her pudgy hands, saying, “No judgement, girl. You get yours where you can, I say. Regular room is fifty. A good room is a hundred. And the honeymoon suite’s one-fifty.”

“Um…what’s the difference?” I asked.

“We clean the good rooms and the suite after every guest,” she said. “The regulars only get cleaned once a week. Honeymoon suite’s got a bigger bed and comes with a bottle of real imitation champagne.”

“We’ll take one of the good rooms,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” she said, sending a transfer request. I sent her the credits, and she handed me a key. “Enjoy yourself. The young ones are fun once you get ‘em trained up a bit.”

I blushed furiously, and I knew that Patrick’s reaction wasn’t much better. Either way, we couldn’t get out of there quickly enough, and I was extremely aware of Carla’s knowing gaze following us out the door.

We quickly found our way to the appropriate room, let ourselves inside, and, at last, I let myself relax. It had been an extremely long day, and even though I wasn’t physically all that tired, I was mentally exhausted. Patrick, though, was dead on his feet, and he wasted no time in collapsing on the heart-shaped bed.

Clearly, the El Paradiso knew precisely what their rooms were being used for, and they’d steered right into it. But there was only one problem.

“Uh…there’s only one bed,” said Patrick, suddenly realizing what I’d already noticed.

I glanced at him, and we both blushed again.

“You sleep first,” I said. “Go shower first, though. I don’t want you stinking up the bed.”