Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 28 - Disaster Artist (Patreon)

I’m not looking for a fight, but I can’t back down. No one respects our strength anymore, and they think they can take whatever they want from us. The moment I let anything slide is the moment I start losing control of the Specters. And I won’t let that happen. Not after everything I’ve sacrificed.

Nora Lancaster

Biloxi’s defenses weren’t nearly as impressive as Mobile’s, but they still represented a significant hurdle for my return to the town. It was a good thing that, in the week since I’d first entered the town, I’d spent quite a bit of time on reconnaissance. Fortunately, it didn’t look like anything I couldn’t handle.

Still, I needed to get in range without being seen before I could worry about that. So, I veered off the cracked but otherwise well-maintained road, dismissing my Cutter before heading into a copse of dense trees. With Observation enhancing my senses and ensuring I wasn’t ambushed by some ambitious predator, I made quick time through the woods, reaching the tree line only twenty minutes later.

The wall loomed a few hundreds away, and even if it was only fifteen feet high, it would still slow me down. A shimmering, blue Mist shield encircled the town, and a plethora of cameras studded the wall. Drones and guards patrolled the area, ensuring a third line of defense. To a novice, it might have looked impregnable.

But I was no novice.

I embraced Stealth as I crept forward. Camouflage, which was a passive ability that made me blend into my surroundings, also shrouded my approach. The ability wasn’t nearly as effective in the city as it was in the wilderness, and I often forgot its effects. But all of my passive abilities were invaluable, even if I sometimes took them for granted.

The terrain outside of the city was characterized by knee-high grass and a smattering of trees, which I used to full advantage as I moved ever closer to the wall. When I was only twenty yards away, I crouched low to the ground and waited. Soon enough, a pair of guards – both women – strode into view. They were dressed in the dark blue uniforms that marked them as Blue Epoch’s employees, and both held standard-issue assault rifles. Idly, I wondered if they were even powerful enough to penetrate the combination of my Sheath and Infiltration suit.

I didn’t intend to find out. I already got shot often enough as it was without seeking it out for testing purposes.

Instead, I embraced my Misthack ability, and a menu appeared on my HUD:

Initiate Misthack? [Yes] or [No]

I chose the affirmative option, resulting in the familiar swarm of numbers and puzzles that represented a person’s defenses. In the beginning, my Misthack technique could best be described as blundering forward and overwhelming anything that stood in my way. There was still an element of that present in my current efforts. However, I’d developed a somewhat lighter touch that allowed me to pull back if the defenses looked too stalwart. It was a necessary change; otherwise, I’d have run the risk of enduring the backlash every time I even peeked at someone’s defenses. I’d paid the price for that before, and I’d worked extremely diligently to correct my clumsy approach.

Thankfully, the first guard’s defenses didn’t look very advanced – few people invested in a proper Mistwall, instead relying on their interface’s native defenses – so I immediately pushed into the familiar puzzles, unlocking one node after another until I got access to the guard’s system. Once I did, another menu flashed on my HUD:

Misthack Successful. Options:

· Reboot System

· Overcharge

· Disable Cybernetics

· Upload Ghost

If I chose Reboot System, the guard would have briefly lost her connection to her interface. In the right situation, that could be an extremely powerful attack that would disrupt any skills and abilities. But it wasn’t the right choice in this instance.  Neither was Overcharge, which would agitate the Mist in her system, stunning her in the process. Again, it was a very powerful – if situational – ability. I’d used an unrefined version of it to help my uncle defeat the giant that had led the attack on our caravan just outside of Mobile, and that was before I’d had any training at all. Now, it would be absolutely devastating. Of course, it required a second or two to initiate the Misthack and overcome any defenses, but it was still very useful.

Disable Cybernetics was similar and would prove devastating against anyone who’d invested heavily in their cybernetics. Usually, those sorts of people leaned on their mechanical parts, and losing access to them would, at the very least, disrupt them. It also lasted for almost fifteen seconds, and I couldn’t suppress a grin as I thought about all the damage I could do in that amount of time.

But it still wasn’t right for what I wanted to accomplish. So, I chose the fourth option: Upload Ghost. When I did, another menu appeared on my HUD:

Upload Ghost. Options:

· Time Bomb

· Seizure

· Confusion

· Blind

Time Bombwas the best option if I wanted to disable an entire platoon. Or as I had back in Mobile, everyone in a building. But it didn’t work very quickly, and it would make it extremely obvious that someone had infiltrated the town. I didn’t want to leave any footprints, so I considered the next option, Seizure.

Like the name suggested, using it would cause a period of time characterized by uncontrollable spasms. It was somewhat mitigated by an individual’s Mist attribute, but when I’d tested it on Patrick – who’d reluctantly agreed to be my guinea pig – it had been extraordinarily difficult to shake off. A nice weapon for my arsenal of Ghosts, but it wasn’t appropriate. If the guards suddenly started seizing in the middle of their patrol, it would undoubtedly raise some red flags. The same was true of Blind, which was as appropriately named as Seizure.

Which was why I had planned to use Confusion. So, I selected the appropriate option. The moment it took effect, the guard stopped in her tracks. The other, noticing that her companion had stopped, turned and asked, “What is it? See something?”

The other guard looked around, confused and muttering, “Uh…”

That’s when I completed the process on the second guard, and even from so far away, I could see the glassy-eyed expression on her face. Moments later, the pair wandered away in random directions. That was the beauty of Confusion. It didn’t do anything as overt as causing seizures or blindness, but it did just what its name suggested. In a few minutes, when the two guards recovered from the Ghost, they would be unable to remember what they were doing or why they had chosen to do it. In the meantime, they’d have wandered well off their patrol path.

With that done, I crept forward, targeting the drones and cameras, one by one, until I had disabled them all. The cameras just shut down, but the drones’ safety protocols meant that they used their backup power to land safely. That was all the easy part, though. The more difficult part of the plan required me to somehow get past the Mist shield.

But I was prepared for that, too, which was why I had chosen my ingress point very carefully. Once I got within a foot of the wall – and the Mist shield that shimmered only a few inches from it – I cast my awareness out, finding a security terminal in a building just on the other side of the wall. It stretched my range to its very limits, but I quickly initiated a Misthack. This time, the defenses were significant, but because of my advancements in Mind as well as the modifiers that had come with my {Mistrunner} class, I managed to overwhelm the terminal’s Mistwall. Then, I shut the system off.

The shield in that sector winked out, and I wasted no time before leaping as high as I could. The wall was only fifteen feet tall, but I still barely managed to catch the edge and haul myself over. Even as my feet hit the ground on the other side, the shield reactivated.

That was the problem with using Misthack. It gave me access, but whatever I changes I forced upon the system would be limited in both scope and duration. Even most Ghosts were short-term effects. If I’d used Mistwalk instead, the changes would have been more or less permanent, at least until someone else came along and corrected whatever alterations I’d made. Even so, it took the Mist shield a few seconds to cycle, which had been barely enough time for me to scale the wall.

Anyone without a significantly inflated Constitution attribute would have stood no chance of making it in time. That ruled out people like Helen Stone, my former [Mistwalking] instructor. She was skilled when it came to what she did, but she’d never worked too hard on her physical attributes.

That was the difference between a real {Mistrunner}and those who’d merely claimed the name. I wasn’t nearly as limited.

Once I got my bearings, I rushed along the edge of the building, and I quickly passed into the town’s slums. I kept to the shadows, well aware of how much I’d stick out if someone saw through my Stealth. Fortunately, it was a very powerful ability that I’d spent quite a lot of time training, so most people – especially in a backwater town like Biloxi – were woefully incapable of penetrating through it. Still, I kept my wits about me, avoiding people as I slowly made my way across the town.

Night had long since fallen, and Blue Epoch had never invested much money in keeping the slums well-lit. So, my way was clear all the way to the coast – or more importantly, the lattice they used to grow and harvest the kelp.

I still wasn’t completely sure how it all worked. Calvin had tried to impress me with an explanation, but he’d been manic from ingesting too much dust, so it had been a bit garbled. Even so, I knew the lattice had something to do with concentrating the Mist so that the kelp would grow more quickly. It pulled double-duty by acting as a platform from which the workers could harvest the valuable red seaweed.

A little down the coast, I saw the steady lights of the ships. As I suspected, none of them were seaworthy. Instead, they were cemented in place and used just like stationary buildings. People liked the novelty, though. Some, like the Palace where I’d first met Calvin, were completely dedicated to gambling. But others were devoted to hedonistic pursuits not unlike Bourbon Street.  There was even a ship that functioned as an arena for prize fighting like the Emporium back in Nova City.

Perhaps Calvin was on one of those ships, high out of his mind and entirely unaware that I was about to ruin his life. Well, more than I already had. Being a drug addicted junkie was one thing. Some few people could manage that kind of life well enough to keep their heads above water. I didn’t think Calvin had the self-restraint to do that, but I’d been wrong about people before. Nora came to mind, but I suppressed the wave of anger that came with that line of thinking. But in Calvin’s case, even if he did manage to live with – or against all odds, overcome – the addiction I’d maneuvered him into, he wouldn’t go much further. That was the point of what I was about to do, after all.

Corporations like Blue Epoch would overlook a lot of things, but that was contingent upon a person’s usefulness. So, when Calvin proved himself a failure, his fall would be abrupt and swift.

Even for the affluent, life was brutal.

I sighed. I didn’t want to think about Calvin. Or what I’d done to him. He wasn’t such a bad guy. More blind than anything. But he was between me and my revenge, and I couldn’t allow anything to stand in my way. He was but one more sacrifice on the altar of my vengeance. I made it willingly and without hesitation or doubt.

Glancing from right to left, I searched the street for anyone who might see me. Aside for a parked hovercar almost a block away, there was no one. That wasn’t unsurprising. It was the middle of a shift, which meant that anyone in the area was already focused on their work.

I darted forward, crossing the street in a second before ducking into an alley beside one of the buildings where the kelp was packaged for shipment. It was a huge warehouse, protected by drones and cameras. There was a guard, but during my reconnaissance, I had confirmed that he rarely left his office. From there, he could jack straight into the security terminal and keep an eye on everything.

Unless someone disabled his cameras, of course. Which I did. I also targeted a single drone that was in my way, bringing it down just like I had the ones hovering over the outer wall. So long as I remained focused and paid attention, nothing in Biloxi could bar my way.

Once the automated defenses were down, I continued along the side of the building until I reached another intersection. There were no streets in this area, only narrow paths that were just wide enough to accommodate the exo-suits – which were yellow and moved with the stiffness of low-quality cybernetics – they used to move the heavy pallets of kelp. None were in view, so I quickly moved on, maintaining my caution along the way. I was forced to wait a few times as the heavy, mechanical exo-suits stomped by, but the workers manning them were only focused on doing their jobs. Most never even looked my way, and the couple who did were thwarted by my still-active Stealth ability.

I lost count of the number of drones and cameras I disabled, but for the first few minutes, I was wary of a response. After all, if I’d been in charge of that security station, I would certainly have investigated a string of cameras going dark – even if only for a half-minute. I had a plan for that, but I never had to use it. Apparently, the guard was either lazy or incompetent. Probably both, judging by the standards I’d observed. Enforcers, they definitely were not.

Eventually, I reached my destination – the beach. From a distance, the lattice looked like a grid of wires. However, up close, I saw that those wires were at least four-feet across, and they loomed a dozen feet over the water, supported by thick, metallic pillars. Workers trudged through the area, lowering giant claw-like apparatuses into the water. When they pulled them up, they were loaded with red kelp, which the workers soon removed from the extractor and piled onto the waiting pallets, where they waited until someone in an exo-suit came to retrieve it.

I’d studied the process, and I knew that, for the most part, the workers didn’t even look at the water. So, I wasted no more time before wading into the sea. The warm water lapped against my thighs as I continued forward. Eventually, I was forced to swim. Like that, I covered the few dozen yards out to the first pillar. I could feel the density of the ambient Mist increase the further I went. It wasn’t painful, but I couldn’t deny that it was at least mildly uncomfortable. It reminded me of the outer edges of the Dead Zone.

I knew that the area was completely protected from the denizens of the sea, but my memories of the man o’ war were still strong. So, my heart raced as I swam from one pillar to the next until, at last, I reached my destination.

This column was a good deal larger than the others, and I knew from my research that it was one of the hubs that controlled the Mist gathering function associated with the lattice. It only governed a relatively small portion of the overall structure, but it was enough for what I intended. The only problem was that it only had two terminals that could get me into the system. One was atop the lattice, where I would doubtless be seen. The other was underwater.

I took a deep breath, then slipped under the waves. The moment I looked down, I saw a forest of glowing, red kelp. Red energy danced from one frond to another, arcing between them like electricity. Going down there was out of the question; I still didn’t know what exactly would happen if I did, but I’d heard from Calvin that it was dangerous. Thankfully, I didn’t have to chance it, because I quickly located the panel that was my goal.

I flipped over and kicked down a half-dozen yards and grabbed ahold of the handle. When I turned it, the latch released and the small door swung open to reveal a terminal. I could hold my breath for a while – far longer than most people – but I didn’t want to waste any time. So, I quickly extracted the black-and-gold cord from my wrist and thrust the end into the terminal’s port.

A familiar message flashed on my HUD:

Secure Terminal: [Enter Password] or [Mistwalk]

I chose the latter and was immediately confronted by an elaborate puzzle that was far more complicated than most defenses. It didn’t matter. I spent most of my spare time training my Mind by completing one puzzle after another. I’d even graduated to creating my own and letting an A.I. try to break through. I never succeeded in thwarting the artificial intelligence, but it was great training. Whatever the case, the terminal’s defenses soon fell before me, giving me access to the lattice.

It took a few minutes for me to find the appropriate section – after all, it was an unfamiliar system – but once I did find it, I wasted no more time before tripling the Mist condensing function.  Immediately, I felt the Mist stir, which told me that the job was done. Now, I just had to get out without being seen.

The excess Mist would almost assuredly kill the kelp in that section. And even if it didn’t, it would mutate. Either way, it would completely ruin an entire crop and shut down harvesting in that section for weeks while they let the Mist normalize. That would cost Blue Epoch hundreds of thousand of credits. Perhaps even millions. But more importantly, it would get their attention. If everything worked properly, they would send someone to investigate, and when they did, they would discover that Calvin was a junkie. The blame would land squarely on his shoulders, and, if he was lucky, he would go home in disgrace. If he was unlucky, Blue Epoch might make an example of him.

Regardless of which outcome presented itself, his mother, who’d gotten him the job in the first place, would shoulder some of the blame as well. Humiliated and brought low in the eyes of her employer, her star would dim, giving Mia Salvatore the chance to rise.

And all it took was ruining one man’s life.

I wanted to believe it was worth it, but niggling doubts crept through my mind. As I swam toward the shore, I squashed them mercilessly. I would ruin the lives of a hundred Calvins if it meant I could get my revenge.