Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 18 - Run and Gun (Patreon)

When Jeremiah took Mira away, I got a taste of being in charge. When I spoke, people had to listen. I had the entire tribe at my disposal. However, it wasn’t long until I realized how hollow my authority was. With Jeremiah looming over me, I would never be anything but a henchwoman.

Nora Lancaster

I leaned forward, accelerating as I descended along the curved ramp. The centrifugal force of my passage pressed against me, but I urged the hoverbike to go faster as I wove in and out of the sparse traffic. I had no clue as to the identity of my attackers, but they were out for blood. More, they didn’t seem to care who knew it or if any bystanders were hurt. Hammering that home, they continued to fire, their bullets filling the slower hovercars with holes. One – a small, compact thing that could only accommodate one passenger – slammed into the ramp’s barricade, flipping over the rampart and sailing over the edge. Soon, it would find a home in the swamp below.

I pushed the bike to greater speeds, but I didn’t leave them completely behind. I probably could have – after all, the Cutter was far and away more advanced than any other hoverbike in the city – but I chose to string them along. In the past, I might’ve been worried about the bystanders who were caught between us, but those sorts of concerns had been discarded the moment I’d vowed my revenge. I knew there would be collateral damage, and I’d accepted it as the price of my vengeance.

Down and down we spiraled until, at last, I burst forth from the ramp and into Algiers. The streets were largely empty of other vehicles, but there were still plenty of other obstructions. Trash, discarded furniture, and the gutted skeletons of old hover cars abounded, but I deftly wove between them, maneuvering the hoverbike with precision. My pursuers had little difficulty following, even taking a few moments to aim a couple of extra shots at me.

They missed, the bullets thudding into a nearby derelict of a building, sending masonry and mortar misting into the air. I jerked the handlebars to the side, and the hoverbike’s inertia took it into a slide as I accelerated down another street, narrowly avoiding a pedestrian along the way. The gunmen followed, spraying more bullets in my direction and riddling that same pedestrian full of holes. I gritted my teeth in annoyance. I was willing to sacrifice innocents if it meant getting what I wanted, but what my pursuers were doing was just pointless.

I continued along, barreling through Algiers as I twisted and turned, always a single step ahead of them. Just far enough away that they couldn’t reliably take me out, but not so far that they lost sight.

As I went, I rolled my shoulder. My Sheath, combined with the M11 Infiltration Suit, had prevented the bullet from penetrating, which meant that I’d only received a bruise. It was the first time I’d tested them out, and I had to admit that I was happy with their combined performance. Of course, I’d have preferred not to get shot at all, but if nothing else, my experiences had taught me that you couldn’t always avoid danger. Sometimes, like was the case with the gunmen following me, it popped up out of nowhere. I could only prepare as best I could and hope it was enough to seem me through.

In this instance, it was, but I knew that wouldn’t always be true. I needed to continue my training and put myself so far ahead of my enemies that they couldn’t dream of hurting me. But even that was a futile hope, given what had happened to my uncle. He’d been at the top of the heap, and even he hadn’t been untouchable. No one was.

Finally, after a few more minutes, I slowed my bike, letting my pursuers catch up. When they were in range, I leapt to my feet, balancing on the seat, and jumped towards one of the buildings that lined the street. As I did so, I dismissed the bike. Even as it dissipated into motes of Mist, I kicked off the building, drew my nano-sword from the sheath on my back, and rocketed toward the first of the gunmen.

She was wearing a helmet, but judging by the skintight leather suit she wore, I could confidently say that she was female. It didn’t matter, especially when my sword arced out. She tried to dodge by jerking the bike to the side, but she was too slow. The blade sliced through her neck without even a hint of resistance.

I hit the ground with a roll, drawing Ferdinand II from my hip as I found my feet. The other gunman had been lagging a bit behind the first, so he was just passing me by. I took aim and fired. Ferdinand II’s issue took the hoverbike in the Mist engine, and after a tiny series of subdued explosions that sounded like popping balloons, it slid out of control and into a wall. The rider was thrown free, and he went tumbling down the sidewalk until skidding to a stop twenty yards away.

I rolled my shoulders, holstering Ferdinand II and sheathing my blade in quick succession. Then, I drew my new rifle from my Arsenal Implant. The R-14’s grip felt good in my hands as I brought the stock to my shoulder and advanced on the writhing man. He was tall – probably a few inches over six feet – and rangy. Wearing a leather jacket studded with metal rivets and a pair of ripped denim jeans, he looked little different from a thousand other Operators I’d seen in Nova City. I didn’t see any visible cybernetics, but that didn’t really tell me anything. After all, my own hand was indistinguishable from the real thing, and I knew it didn’t cost that much to repeat that feat. So, I approached with caution, heel-to-toe, aiming down the sight, just like I’d been taught.

I needn’t have bothered. When I reached the man and kicked him over onto his back, I saw that his face had taken the brunt of the accident. It looked like ground meat – bloody, raw, and hanging off his skull in ragged strips. The eye on that side of his face had been ripped free, and the other was wet with tears.

“Who are you?” I growled, stepping back so that he couldn’t surprise me with a quick attack. I’d learned that lesson from one of the Amigos, and it wasn’t one I would soon forget. “Why did you attack me?!”

He didn’t answer, save for an agonized groan. I wasn’t surprised. In addition to his shredded face, one of his shoulders had clearly been ripped out of its socket, and elsewhere on his body, there were bulges jutting out in all the wrong places and at all the wrong angles. I was no doctor, but it seemed that he’d suffered a series of compound fractures. Likely, he’d have to replace at least one leg with a cybernetic, lest he lose his mobility.

But that was assuming I let him live, which really wasn’t in the cards. It was one thing to let some mook like the would-be slaver survive; it was something else entirely to leave an enemy like the gunman behind. After all, he’d already proven that he could get the drop on me, and if that bullet had been just a few inches up, he might’ve gotten me in the head where all I had was my Sheath to protect me.

No - he was already dead. He just wasn’t aware of it yet.

If I was going to get anything out of him, though, I was going to have to waste a few resources. So, I retrieved a med-hypo from my Arsenal Implant and, after kneeling next to him, jabbed it into his least injured arm. It discharged its payload with a pneumatic hiss, and the effect was almost immediate. As he visibly relaxed, I kept my weapon aimed at his head.

He coughed.

“Feeling better?” I asked nonchalantly.

“W-who are you…”

“You attacked me, remember?” I said, but the question told me almost everything I needed to know. He had no idea who I was, which meant that he hadn’t meant to attack me, specifically. Instead, he and his partner had likely seen a lone woman on a hoverbike and thought to take their chances. The attack had come when it had because the Enforcers had better things to do than worry about people in a place like Algiers. Or on the ramp leading down into the slum.

“I didn’t mean…we didn’t…”

He coughed again, and over the next few minutes, I got the story out of him. He was an unaffiliated Operator who was just trying to make a living. The fact that he had a hoverbike of his own told me that he’d been moderately successful, too. Until he’d met me, of course.

After I’d gotten his story, I took aim with the R-14. It barked, and a moment later, his head exploded in a conflagration of superheated plasma that went on to tear an eight-inch-deep crater in the pavement below. The weapon was much more powerful than the Kicker had ever been, but that single shot had cost almost as much as an entire magazine of the Kicker’s rounds.

I grimaced at the cost, but I knew it was unavoidable. These two mooks might have been low-leveled and comparatively powerless, but that wouldn’t always be the case. After all, I’d already seen how ineffective my weaponry was against even a mid-tier Banshee. If I came up against someone with any real power or skill, I’d need all the advanced weapons I could get.

Shrugging, I set about looting the bodies. I didn’t find anything of much worth, but one of the hoverbikes had survived mostly intact. It was a low-quality thing – not nearly on par with my Cutter – but it was still worth enough that I refused to leave it behind. However, it was also paired to the woman I’d beheaded. So, leaning over it, I pulled the black-and-gold cord from my cybernetic wrist and connected to it.

The defenses were laughable, and I bypassed them in only a handful of seconds. Once I did, the bike’s interface was open to me. Only a few moments later, and it was mine. So, after retrieving the cord and letting it slip back into my wrist, I mounted the bike and started it up. The Mist engine came alive with a hum, and then I was off.

The trip back to my headquarters was unsurprisingly uneventful. Most of the people in Algiers were far too dejected and beaten down to try anything. Still, the brief encounter with the two would-be bandits had driven home the necessity for me to keep my wits about me. If they had been a little more powerful – or if I’d have had a few less advantages – I might not have survived. More than anything, it made me grateful for my Infiltration Suit and the Sheath beneath my skin.

Of course, it was also a reminder that Nova City was full of desperate people who would do just about anything to get ahead. As I pulled around to the back of my building, I mentally triggered a concealed entrance. The lot rumbled slightly, then the ground split into a pair of doors that slid open to reveal a ramp that led down into my basement. I never slowed, and before long, I was sliding to a stop in my expansive training area. The doors had already closed, and the holographic display that kept it hidden had reactivated.

To my surprise, Patrick was already down there, and he was busy running through the pistol course. I watched as he moved from one station to the next, stopping only long enough to fill the targets full of holes. It brought back memories; after all, I’d repeatedly run a similar course during the first few months of my training back in Mobile.

When he noticed that I’d arrived, his training drew to a close and he canceled the program. After that, he headed in my direction. The basement was almost two-hundred yards long, so it took him a moment to reach me. When he did, he looked at my new hoverbike and asked, “Uh…where did that come from?”

“Some mooks tried to jump me on the ramp between here and the Garden,” I answered. “They didn’t make it.”

“What? Why?”

“Why did I kill them? Or why did they jump me?” I asked.

“Both?” was his slightly exasperated reply.

“Well, they attacked me because they wanted my stuff,” I answered. “It happens. People around here are desperate, Patrick. Most of the major tribes steer clear of that kind of thing – too much risk because you never really know who you’re attacking – but independents aren’t so picky. As far as why I killed them, I would think that’s obvious.”

“You couldn’t have let them live?”

“No.”

“But –”

I cut him off, saying, “Look, Patrick. I know you’re not as comfortable with this kind of thing as I am. I get that, and I actually like that about you. But when somebody attacks me, I can’t afford to hesitate before putting them down. That’s how people end up dead.”

In truth, I probably should have killed Metal-Neck, the guy who’d tried to sell the refugees into slavery when we’d first made it to Nova City. I also shouldn’t have let Squirrel live. But neither of them really posed much of a threat to me, so I’d chosen to leave them with their lives. Even then, on more than one night, I’d found myself lying awake and wondering if I should go back and rectify the error. In the meantime, I’d resolved not to make that mistake again.

“Seems like it might be a slippery slope,” he said. “Where do we draw the line?”

“At people trying to kill me,” I said.

“What about people intending to kill you? Are we going to preemptively attack them?” he asked.

“Probably. That’s kind of why I’m here,” I said. “Revenge at all costs. No hesitation. No quarter. I told you that when you decided to come with me, Patrick.”

Indeed, I had. Obviously, he had thought I’d compromise, but that was because he didn’t really know me. Sure, he saw what I’d shown him, but he had no idea what kind of training I had been through. He didn’t know how many people I’d already killed. And he certainly had no idea how many I intended to add to that total.

Some, I would directly kill. Others might be caught in the crossfire. I didn’t care. Every other concern paled next to making everyone who’d had a hand in my uncle’s murder pay for what they had done.

“Fine.”

“What? No more arguments?” I asked.

“Would it do any good?” was his responding question.

“No.”

“Then, fine,” he reiterated. “I’m not an idiot, Mira. I can recognize when I’m fighting a losing battle. Besides, in case you forget, I lost someone, too. And I’m just as invested in this as you are. I’m here to support you, not be your conscience. So, this is the last time you’ll hear me complaining about that kind of thing.”

At that moment, I hated the way he looked at me. I’d seen the same thing when people looked at my uncle. They weren’t just afraid. It was more than that. Like I was a lost cause, that I just wasn’t worth the debate. But there was fear there, too, and plenty of it. I knew what he was thinking. What if he stepped out of line? Would I put him down, too? When it came to the path of revenge, there wasn’t room for alliance or friendship. Only tools to be used.

“I won’t kill people unless I have to,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he said, but his tone was noncommittal.

“Really. I won’t,” I reiterated. “But I can’t let up. I have to keep pushing forward, Patrick. This is all I have.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then said, “I get it. I’m…I’m going back upstairs. I need to study before I go to Dr. Montague’s tomorrow.”

I sighed, but I didn’t stop him. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t know how to convince him that I wasn’t some emotionless murderer. I just didn’t have a choice, and I desperately wanted him to understand that.

Soon, I found myself alone and wondering if I really was on the right path. After all, there was nothing really keeping me in Nova City. Patrick and I could leave the city any time we wanted, and we could figure things out from there. With our skills, it wouldn’t even be difficult to make a living.

But the moment that thought crossed my mind, I remembered my uncle’s disembodied head. That, in turn, was followed by a memory of Nora’s smiling face. He’d given her everything she had, and she’d repaid that act with betrayal. No – this wasn’t something I could leave behind. I needed to see it through, else I would never forgive myself.

So, with that in mind, I crossed the basement to set a new training program up. Then, I loaded my various weapons with practice ammunition before slapping the restrictive Mist shackles on my wrists. Once I felt my attributes fade down to almost nothing, I started working my way through my training, pushing myself harder than I ever had before.

For some people, those doubts, brief though they were, might have derailed their plans. But for me? They served as a reminder that I couldn’t let myself waver. I needed to be strong, lest I veer off course. I couldn’t let myself waver. I refused.

So, I trained.

In the back of my mind, I think I realized that it was as much to keep me from thinking about the implications of my decisions as it was to actually improve. But it was easy to ignore those quiet whispers.