Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 22 - You Scratch My Back... (Patreon)

For the longest time, Jeremiah neglected the Specters. The moment he took Mira out of the city, everything else took a backseat to her training. And everyone noticed. Did he think they would be okay with that?

Nora Lancaster

The next morning, I found myself standing in my room and looking at myself in the mirror. I had already activated Mimic, so I was wearing the identity of a Tier-3 woman with black hair and features that reminded me of Kimiko. Suddenly, I thought of little Elie, the mango-loving granddaughter of the good doctor. One day, she might’ve looked similar to the face staring back at me in the mirror.

Not anymore, though. She was buried beneath a pile of rubble. She would never grow up, never become the healer she’d desperately wanted to be. That future had been stolen from her. And she wasn’t the only one. How many children would never see the future they should’ve had? How many had died in Mobile? And for what? So they could kill my uncle? It wasn’t just a waste. It was a terrible shame, and the more I thought about it, the more my path of revenge cemented itself in my mind.

I just had to keep moving forward.

I couldn’t let myself get distracted. Not by Patrick and whatever might have waited after that wonderful night in the French Quarter. No – I needed to keep my eye on the prize. I needed to remember why I’d vowed vengeance in the first place. Seeing that face in the mirror – and the memory that had come with it – was a good reminder to not lose my way, regardless of how much I might’ve wanted to.

Still, I knew I wasn’t a nun. I hadn’t taken a vow of chastity. But any relationship with Patrick would likely become a distraction for both of us. I couldn’t let that happen. Not when I’d already set everything in motion. Already, the city’s various tribes were at each other’s throats. A few more sparks, and the conflict would become a wildfire that spread far and wide throughout Nova City.

But first, I had something else that needed to be done.

That was why I was wearing a black, high-collared skirt suit cut in the same fashion I’d seen during my trips to the bazaar. The style might have been similar, but the materials were clearly inferior. It was the uniform of an underling, which I hoped would help me avoid notice as I headed into Lakeview.

Thankfully, my Mimic ability didn’t require me to fiddle with cosmetics or arrange my hair. The moment I’d activated it, my outward appearance had changed to reflect the visage of the woman whose appearance I had borrowed. It wasn’t perfect. If anyone tried to grab the long, silky hair of the illusion, they’d grasp nothing but air. But it would do for the brief excursion I had planned. Either way, once I was dressed, I was finished getting ready. So, after one more look into the mirror – it wasn’t a smart mirror; I didn’t want to chance that kind of connection – I sighed and left the bathroom.

Predictably, Patrick was already up, and when I entered the common area, he looked up with an expression of expectation on his face. He gave me a small smile and said, “Good morning. Hungry?”

I shook my head. I wanted nothing more than to just sit down and have breakfast with him. The night before had opened my eyes to how lonely I was. But I had responsibilities, and I was terrified of complicating things.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to let anyone else get close. I’d done that before, and that hadn’t ended well for anyone. A memory of Jo’s smiling face flashed in my mind, reminding me what had happened to everyone I cared about.

“I want to get this done,” I said, and I had to keep myself from visibly flinching at his disappointment. “Sorry. Another time, maybe?”

“Yeah…sure.”

I wanted to stay and explain things to him, to say something that made it all better, but the reality of the situation was that I had no clue what to say. I wasn’t a social butterfly. I wasn’t good with interpersonal relationships. Not like Jo had been. My talents lay elsewhere. So, all I could do was give him an awkward nod before leaving the room and heading down the stairs. After a few more seconds, I left the building behind as I headed toward the monorail.

I got a few curious glances along the way, but that was to be expected. It was rare for people dressed like me to head into Algiers. So, I did my best to ignore them as I covered the two blocks to the monorail platform, which I mounted without hesitation. As I went, I tried not to notice the haggard faces of the other people waiting for the train. They’d all gone way past desperate and into resignation, and I knew they weren’t alone.

What would that feel like, to simply give up? In a way, letting go and following the current would offer some degree of freedom. Perhaps those people had realized the futility of fighting against the system. Maybe they knew just how trapped they were.

The monorail arrived, dragging me away from those thoughts, and I quickly boarded before finding a spot in the back. As I did, I could feel eyes following my passage, but I didn’t let it affect me. After all, the face I was wearing was a pretty one, and a certain degree of attention was expected.

Besides, if things got out of hand, I had the tools to end any altercation in a hurry. Not that I wanted to go down that path, of course. Doing so would run the risk of derailing my day’s plans, and I just couldn’t stomach that. So, I did my best to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Fortunately, my admirers were content to watch, and even though it made me feel decidedly uncomfortable, I could appreciate that it didn’t go any further than a few leering gazes. Eventually, the monorail reached my destination in the Garden, and I quickly extracted myself from the train, leaving the oglers behind. After only a few more minutes of travel, I found my way to one of the newer megabuildings in the district.

It was the home of Serena Liu, the woman whose identity I’d taken for the day. Gunther had paid her well to stay home, and I was meant to take her place. I had no intention of making an appearance at her job – which was an upscale boutique on the north side of the Lakeview district. Instead, I only wanted to use her credentials to get onto the platform. After that, I had another destination in mind.

I waited in front of the megabuilding for almost five minutes before I saw a sleek, black hovercar pull up. My interface told me it was the one I’d ordered while riding the monorail, and it would be my ride into Lakeview.

Once I showed the driver my credentials in the form of a metallic card stamped with an identifying number, I boarded the car, and we took off. The car itself was nothing special; just a typical taxi that had been dressed up a bit. But it was necessary because the residents of Lakeview wouldn’t allow something so low-class as a monorail to enter their platform. After all, public transportation was for the poor, wasn’t it? The rich had no need of it.

I sat back and tried to look relaxed, schooling my face to placidity. However, beneath that calm exterior, my entire body was tense and ready to explode into motion. I knew I was walking into enemy territory, and I needed to be ready to do whatever was necessary should I be found out.

After ten minutes, we finally reached the base of the ramp leading up to the ascended platform that housed the Lakeview district. It was a few hundred yards higher than the Garden’s platform, which meant that not only would the residents look down on us socially, but they could do so literally as well. And that alone was enough to get my blood boiling.

The hovercar pulled to a stop at the checkpoint in front of the ramp, and the driver was approached by one Enforcer, while another gestured for me to roll down my window. I did, and he said, “Need your credential card, ma’am.”

I handed over the metallic card, and the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Enforcer used a device to scan it. It must have fed right into his interface, because a second later, he nodded and handed it back, saying, “You have a good day, ma’am.”

While I’d been checked, the driver had undergone a similar inspection. However, the Enforcers hadn’t been quite as polite. After all, he was just a driver. The identity I’d stolen was mired in the lower echelons of Lakeview society, but it still held a much higher position than that of a mere driver. Whatever the case, we were soon on our way, following the spiraling ramp up towards Lakeview. When we finally reached the top and I beheld the district’s skyline, I couldn’t contain a gasp.

It was beautiful.

The buildings were tall and sleek, made from gleaming steel and glass that glittered like crystal. There were trees lining the street and fountains at every intersection. And that was nothing compared to the people. They were all so clean. So happy. So healthy. Suddenly, I understood why there were people clamoring all over one another to be Lakeview’s lackeys.

After having left Algiers earlier that morning, I couldn’t help but compare the two populations. And on the heels of my surprise came anger, fast and hot and demanding that I do something to even the odds. A few well-placed bombs would be enough to bring Lakeview down to size, wouldn’t it?

But no.

I wasn’t there to fight a class war, was I? And even if I was, going off half-cocked was a perfect way to fail. Instead, I focused on what I needed to do. Maybe after I got my revenge, I would burn it all down.

The driver navigated to the destination I’d input upon hiring the car, and during that time, I continued to marvel at the sights. Everything was so much cleaner than in the Garden, and there seemed to be an Enforcer on every corner. However, instead of the grim-faced stoicism I was used to seeing, these men and women wore welcoming smiles. I even saw one laughing as he spoke to a resident with a small child – and she didn’t look the least bit intimidated, either.

Clearly, the relationship between the Enforcers and the population was very different in the aristocratic districts than it was in the Garden or Algiers.

Eventually, the hovercar pulled to a stop at our preordained destination. Before stepping out, I paid him and headed to a nearby café. It was a small building – only a single story, and with a smaller footprint than my own headquarters – but it was packed full of patrons. I stepped up to the door, which slid open with a hiss, and the smell of real coffee nearly knocked me down.

I’d gotten used to it in Mobile, but I hadn’t had that delectable beverage since then. And I hadn’t even realized just how much I’d missed it until I found myself standing in a line before a broad counter. Workers dressed not unlike myself scurried here and there behind the counter, making the various drinks their customers ordered. When I reached the counter, I said, “Uh…a coffee, please?”

The barista looked at me like I was an idiot before asking me to be more specific. When I clearly didn’t understand what she meant, she pointed to a sign on the wall behind her. On it were listed a hundred different kinds of coffee, from something called a café mocha to cappuccinos and everything in between. I had no idea what any of it was, so I just picked one at random.

“Uh…Americano,” I said. “With sugar.”

The girl – she probably wasn’t more than sixteen years old – rolled her eyes and went to fill my order. A couple of minutes later, she returned. Using the pad on the counter, I paid, then took my steaming beverage to one of the tables outside, where I sat and began my vigil.

I sipped the drink as I watched the building across the street. It was three stories tall, and like most of the other buildings in Lakeview, looked like a work of art that married the concepts of beauty and function, especially when bathed in the morning sunlight, which somehow seemed brighter in Lakeview.

Was it? Or did it just seem that way because of all of the glimmering buildings?

As I sat there watching the other building, I felt someone looking at me. A quick glance in the appropriate direction told me that, once again, I had picked up an admirer. This time, though, it was a handsome young man who’d probably spent more on his shoes than I had on my headquarters. He gave me a wide smile that I pretended not to notice. Hopefully, that would be enough to dissuade any further admiration.

It was less that I wasn’t interested and more that I wasn’t even wearing my own face. And I suspected that if I was, he wouldn’t have been interested. One look at my wild hair or the thin scars on my body, and he’d run away.

But then again, Patrick hadn’t run away. Instead, he’d wanted to take things further. So, maybe I wasn’t really being objective when it came to my own appearance.

Whatever the case, I didn’t have time to indulge myself with my new admirer. Thankfully, he took the hint at headed off to greener pastures. Or maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Either way, I pushed that to the back of my mind as I focused on why I’d come to Lakeview in the first place.

I sat there for almost an hour as I waited for my target to appear, and when she did, I wasted no time in following her into the building. I ended up having to Misthack a few cameras along the way – I didn’t want a record of my being there – but I eventually joined her in an elevator.

She was a tall, thin woman with stringy black hair. But I hadn’t targeted her for her looks. Rather, she was on my radar for one simple reason: her lab manufactured the bio-enhancers that had given Nora the ability to exceed her potential.

And the moment we reached her lab, I erupted into motion, pushing her into the room and slamming her against the wall. Nearby glassware shook, and a few vials nearly fell from their shelves as I summoned my nano-bladed knife from my Arsenal Implant. For this trip, because I couldn’t very well walk through Lakeview with Ferdinand II on my hip and a sword on my back, I’d changed my loadout a little, replacing my sniper rifle with my dagger and the BMAP with Ferdinand II.

I pressed the knife against her throat hard enough to draw a trickle of blood. I hissed, “Be calm, and nobody has to get hurt here. If I get one whiff of the Enforcers, you’re the first to die. Got it?”

She pressed her back against the wall, swallowing hard. “I…I understand,” she said, her voice far higher pitched than I expected. “What do you want?”

I smiled. “Nothing much,” I said, backing away to give her some room. We both knew it was a symbolic gesture; if I wanted to, I could kill her in a heartbeat, regardless of how much space was between us. “I just need to sabotage a shipment is all. I need you to do your science thing and either render it inert or, better yet, give it the opposite effect.”

As I spoke, my eyes darted around the laboratory. It looked much as I expected it to, with a handful of workstations that had a variety of scientific equipment. In the corner, there was a large safe that, judging by the way it felt, probably held Rift Shards. Likely, the scientists incorporated them into the process of creating the bio-enhancers somehow.

It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why I was there. As much as I could use a few extra credits, I had a more important task in front of me. To that end, I waited for the scientist – whose name was Mia Salvatore – to answer.

For a long few seconds, she just stared at me like I’d grown a third eye. Then, a wry smile spread across her face. Shaking her head, she stepped further into the room and grabbed a tissue from a dispenser at one of the workstations and pressed it to the small wound on her neck.

“Well?” I asked. “Can you do it? Or do I need to find someone else? Perhaps one of your coworkers?”

There were six other scientists that worked in the laboratory, but Mia was the only one who came in on her off days. So, isolating her had been easy, and that ease was why I had chosen her.

“Oh, I can do it,” she said. “But not for free.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Not money,” was her response. “I need a little favor. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”

I narrowed my eyes. That was outside the scope of my plans, but in some ways, it made things easier. So long as I could guarantee that Mia would hold up her end of the bargain, I could save some of my dwindling credits. Or given what I was asking, a lot of them.

“What do you need?”

“Not much,” she said, leaning against the workstation. “I simply need you to thin the herd a bit. Get rid of my competition.”

“Who do you want me to kill?” I asked.

“Kill? Goodness, no! I don’t want you to kill anyone,” she said. Then, as if she thought better of it, Mia added, “Or not my competitor, at least. Instead, I want you to humiliate her. To prove that she is unfit for promotion. Do that, and I will sabotage whatever you’d like me to sabotage.”

I thought about it for a second. I had a feeling that it would end up being far more complicated than I’d hoped, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I did what she asked, then we would be tied together. I’d have something to hold over her, should she balk at holding up her end of the deal. So long as I kept good records, it was safer this way than if I just paid her.

“And how do you propose I do this?” I asked.

“Have you ever heard of Biloxi?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Can’t say I have.”

“Oh, you’re going to love it,” was her response. “Sandy beaches, casinos, and a kelp harvesting operation that’s second to none. Said operation is headed up by one Calvin Kane, son of my rival, Aurelia Kane. Your job is to sabotage his operation. I don’t care how, so long as the blame falls on him. When the Blue Epoch Corporation sees that, they will lay the blame on her shoulders. After all, she was the one who got him that position in the first place. My stock will rise, and she will be humiliated.”

I sighed, but I nodded in agreement. It looked like I was leaving Nova City again. Hopefully, this time, I wouldn’t be gone for three years.