Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 31 - Echo (Patreon)

I just want respect. Obedience. They all gave it to Jeremiah so willingly; would it be so hard to give me the same? Haven’t I earned that much?

Nora Lancaster

My arrival back at the compound in Algiers came with no fanfare. Patrick didn’t even look up from his study materials when I ascended from the basement, and I didn’t want to disturb him. Instead, I headed straight for my quarters where I quickly stripped down and hopped in the shower. I’d only been in the wilderness for about a week, but the grime clung to me like a second, horrible smelling skin. I was eager to remove it, so I wasted no time before cleaning myself thoroughly. After that, I stood beneath the cascade of scalding water as I tried to relax.

I was mostly unsuccessful.

Certainly, reaching the security of my home relieved a noticeable amount of stress. However, it wasn’t enough to truly impact my state-of-mind. From experience, I knew it would take a couple of days for the stress to dissipate, and even then, I wasn’t sure if it would ever completely go away. I had too much on my shoulders. I was juggling too many plans. And the danger of Nova City, while more subdued than that of the wilderness, was always present. One wrong move, and everything could come crashing down.

But the hot shower helped. As I stood there, my muscles slowly unkinked, and I let out a long sigh. I had come very close to the edge out there. Even though I knew there wasn’t much else I could have done – after all, those Wildlings had come out of nowhere, and even my Observation hadn’t been up to the task of detecting them – I was woefully aware that I needed to figure out how to do better. I was already cautious, but I needed to steer straight into paranoia if I was going to have any hope of survival.

Was that really the appropriate term, though? In Nova City – indeed, in the post-Initialization world – everyone was out for themselves. Betrayal lurked around every corner, and being ready for it was the height of sensibility. After all, it wasn’t really paranoia if everyone truly was out to get you. My uncle’s fate had reinforced that lesson, and it wasn’t one I could soon forget.

I stayed in the shower for almost thirty minutes after I was clean. I probably would have remained longer if I could have afforded it. For now, though, I needed to stay focused. I couldn’t let myself relax too fully, lest I lose my edge. So, I finally stepped out of the shower and wiped my hand across the foggy mirror.

I’d dropped Mimic the moment I’d gotten home, so my reflection was familiar. However, I couldn’t help but notice the addition of a few new scars. Thin, white lines that told the story of how many times I’d been injured. According to the silhouette in my HUD, I was completely healed, but I still felt some phantom pains in my ribs and knee.  I’d have to work those out during training.

After inspecting my body for any wounds that might have been hiding under the grime, I dried myself with a fluffy white towel and wrapped it around my chest. Then, I padded into my room where I put on a pair of underwear before diving into the bed. After spending a week sleeping on the hard floor of that abandoned building, it was a welcome change, and I fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I awoke refreshed and ready to enact the next piece of my plan. So, I quickly dressed, and after exchanging a terse greeting with Patrick over breakfast, I headed out to Lakeview. The trip was largely uneventful, and I met Mia Salvatore at the café across from her building. There, she confirmed that Calvin had been hung out to dry, and that she’d already been scheduled for a meeting with her boss. It was a prelude to her promotion, she was sure, and as a result, she was more than happy to hold up her end of the bargain. So, with that taken care of, I headed back into the poorer parts of the city.

I knew Mia’s sabotage of the bio-enhancers would take a little while. Nora was due a shipment in about a week, and even then, it would take a few more weeks for them to affect her. And then a couple more months to get her where I wanted her. It was a good thing that I had plenty of plans for how to use that time. To that end, I headed to the northern part of the Garden.

My destination was a comparatively small megabuilding near the edge of the district. When it came into sight, I quickly ensconced myself on an abandoned floor of the building across the street. I’d chosen it for one reason: it had clear sightlines. The fact that it was sparsely populated was just a bonus.

Settling down beside a window, I surveilled the other building, watching for guards, cameras, and other security. Normally, I wouldn’t have had to pay much attention to such things, but this building was different from the rest of the Garden in a number of ways. First, it was half the size of other megabuildings. Still a huge structure, but it looked small against the rest of the district’s skyline. It was also more luxurious, and from a distance, it looked almost like the buildings in Lakeview. However, the closer one came, the more it looked like a cheap knockoff. Which it was. But that still put it on a higher tier than almost any other building in the district.

It also had a proper name instead of just a series of numbers. The Estate. A grandiose moniker for a building that housed the sort of people who cared about that kind of thing. It was all a façade. That building as well as the people who called it home were only a little better off than most people in the Garden, but they clung to that tiny difference like it was a lifeline to a better life.

My target, Echo, resided within.

It probably would have been easy enough to just kill her. I could’ve just perched atop one of the buildings and waited for her to step out into the open. I had no doubts that my Pulsar would make quick work of her, even without Empowered Shot. But that wasn’t the plan, and for a couple of reasons.

For one, I didn’t want Nora to know that someone was hunting her and her people. As far as I knew, she was completely ignorant of my actions, and I wanted to keep it that way. After all, my goal was to tear everything down around her, both to punish the others who were complicit in the betrayal of my uncle as to see her face when she was left with nothing but the crumbling ruins of a once-mighty tribe.

For another, I didn’t want to tangle with the Enforcers. With how volatile the Garden was, I knew it would only take a small spark to reignite the war that had only just begun to wane. That would bring the Enforcers back into play, which would make the rest of my plan more difficult.

No – there was a better way to bring her down that would serve the overall plan much better.

I continued to watch for a few more hours. Even as night fell, I didn’t make a move. The building might’ve been a sad facsimile of a higher-quality structure, but one area where it hadn’t skimped was the security. There were dozens of guards and a plethora of cameras. It was also equipped with quite a few auto-turrets as well. And those were just the security assets I could observe; I was certain there were others that had flown beneath my radar.

After midnight, I decided to make my move. So, I descended from my perch, crossed the street, and circled around to the back of the megabuilding where I knew I would find the service entrance. All megabuildings – even one as heavily modified as this one – adhered to a similar layout.

As I approached, I used Misthack to deactivate the cameras and auto-turrets that guarded the back entrance, then, after connecting to the security terminal in the door, used Mistwalk to gain entrance. Just like that, I was inside. When I had first gotten my [Mistwalking]skill, I’d been surprised to find so few defenses against intrusion. However, my uncle had explained to me that it was an extremely rare skill and that guarding against it was both expensive and usually pointless. Ever since that skill had evolved into [Mistrunning], I’d found that to be doubly true; few of the defenses I’d encountered had been able to hold up under my intrusion, and Echo’s home building did nothing to buck that trend.

Still, as I crept through the back door, I kept Observationat the forefront of my mind – and it was a good thing, too. Otherwise, I would have missed the two auto-turrets at the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure if I could survive such an assault – I suspected that I had a chance, given my Infiltration suit and the Sheath beneath my skin – but even if I could, it would still result in horrific injuries. I’d seen auto-turrets in action, and the last thing I wanted was to find myself on their bad side.

I stopped just out of range and deactivated the auto-turrets with Misthack, then crept forward. Having taken the back entrance, I had access to the service elevator, but I still chose the stairs. Elevators, in my experience, could quickly turn into a death trap. Stairs were better, even if I didn’t look forward to climbing thirty flights.

Slowly, I made my way up until I reached the tenth level. If this building was laid out like all the other megabuildings, that’s where I would find the security terminal that was tied into the rest of the building’s defenses. I left the stairs behind, walking through the corridors with purpose. The décor was only a little better than what I’d expect to find in a typical megabuilding. The carpet was unstained, the paint wasn’t peeling, and the lights didn’t flicker. But it was all still made of bare concrete and steel, with little decoration to disguise the utilitarian nature of the building’s interior.

I quickly found the security terminal in an unmanned room in one corner of the building. During the day, it might’ve had a guard, but after midnight, it was completely empty. So, I wasted no time in disabling the cameras and heading inside, where I used Miswalk to gain access to the terminal.

A few puzzles – and a handful of seconds – later, I was in the system. From there, I had access to all of the building’s defenses. I deactivated the cameras, put the auto-turrets to sleep, and gave myself administrative access to all the building’s locked doors. In short, I took it over. Until the system reset in the morning, I would be in complete control.

With that out of the way, I went back to the stairs, passing only one person – a maintenance worker, by the looks of him – along the way. He didn’t even look twice at me, and even if he had, all he would see was the persona I’d adopted via Mimic. My Infiltration suit was concealed beneath much more normal clothing, so as far as he could tell, I was just another worker.

Step by step, I climbed until I reached the thirtieth floor. It wasn’t the penthouse, but it was high enough that when Echo looked out the window, she could pretend that she was above all the misery in the Garden below.

I approached the door, disabling Echo’s private security system before heading inside. The apartment was tastefully decorated, though far less opulently than I would have expected. But that was her – no-nonsense to the very end. It was why my uncle had liked her, and it was one of the traits that made her so effective at managing the tribe’s logistics. I could have almost liked her if she hadn’t been part of Nora’s betrayal.

And I knew she was. Nora could have never taken over without the support of my uncle’s four other lieutenants. So, in my mind, they were just as culpable as she was.

My anger surged, and I considered just waiting in the apartment for Echo’s return. Cutting her up into little pieces would have been just punishment for what she’d done to Jeremiah. But I suppressed my rage and focused on completing the plan.

With Observation, it didn’t take long for me to find Echo’s hidden terminal. It was concealed behind a wall panel; most people would have missed the tiny, barely visible seam in the concrete, but it was obvious to me. Getting in proved more difficult than expected, though. Even with my skills and abilities, hacking through its lock took a few minutes. But in the end, I succeeded, gaining access to her personal terminal.

Breaking its security protocols was laughable after bypassing the lock, and before I knew it, I was in. That’s when I started planting evidence. A few altered lines of code, a few thousand deposited credits, and a couple of glaringly obvious hints, and anyone who cared to look through that terminal’s files would come to the conclusion that Echo had been embezzling money from the Specters.

Of course, it was naïve to think that she hadn’t already been doing just that, but she was skilled enough to hide it from all but the most intense scrutiny. The planted evidence was far more obvious. Even a child could have followed those breadcrumbs. Or Nora.

With that done, I made sure that everything was put back into place before leaving the apartment behind. I descended the building, making a quick stop at the security terminal to retract my access before leaving the megabuilding behind. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked to the monorail; the seed had been planted. Now, all I needed to do was make sure that Nora knew where to look.

To that end, I took the monorail back to the station closest to Gunther’s Guns. Ideally, I wouldn’t have to involve him in any of my schemes, but I didn’t know a better way to get the information to Nora. Sure, an anonymous tip might have worked, but it would be taken a lot more seriously if it came from someone like Gunther.

Riding the monorail was as depressing as ever. But I did notice that there were a lot fewer passengers than even the late hour could account for. Perhaps the still simmering war between the various tribes had resulted in far more casualties than I’d expected.

Or maybe the rumors about people leaving the city in droves had been accurate. I hoped they were, because things were going to get a lot worse in the coming weeks. If I had my way, the entire city would burn, and I knew I would sleep much better at night if an exodus of civilians kept the collateral damage to a minimum.

In any case, I wouldn’t let myself be dissuaded from my path.

Eventually, the monorail reached the appropriate stop, and I jogged across the street as I made my way to Gunther’s. Like most businesses in Nova City, it never closed, and there was even a sizable crowd of customers in the lobby when I arrived. But most of the clientele weren’t Operators like I might have expected. Instead, I saw more than a few factory workers and farmers amongst the crowd. Maybe the citizens of the Garden were arming themselves against the unrest.

That was good. If that was the case, they’d only add to the chaos, which would bode well for my plans. And maybe – just maybe – they would be able to take care of themselves and survive, though that was a lesser concern.

As always, Gunther knew when I’d arrived, and he met me in the lobby. Instead of his typical leather suit, he was wearing a broad-brimmed hat studded with some kind of sharp teeth, a pair of jeans, and a long leather duster. A thick cigar was clutched between his teeth.

“Long time no see, girl,” he said. “To what do I owe this ignominious pleasure?”

“I need a favor,” I stated, glancing around the lobby. Most of the customers were in line to head back to the actual store, but there were a couple milling around. I didn’t think they were close enough to overhear, but I didn’t want to take any chances. After all, there were plenty of other skills and abilities that might echo my Observation ability’s effects. “In private.”

He nodded. “As you wish, m’lady,” he said with a wide grin and a tip of his hat. I could understand his enthusiasm; he always made money when I came around. And profit was the arms dealer’s guiding star.

I followed Gunther through his building until we reached his office, where he sat in one of his immense leather chairs. With his hunting trophies staring down at me with lifeless eyes, I explained what I wanted him to do. Once I was finished, he said, “I think I can handle it.”

“What’s the price?” I asked.

He gave me another grin. “You did so well last time, I figure we can just repeat the process,” he explained. Then, he handed me a chip, adding, “Shouldn’t be that difficult. Just kill her, and I’ll spread as much misinformation as you like.”

I sighed. It would have been easier if he’d just wanted money, but given my dwindling funds, it was probably better to exchange favors. Besides, I didn’t mind killing people for him. At worst, I was just adding to the inevitable chaos that would soon engulf the district, and that suited me just fine.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get it done.”

“I have all the confidence in the world,” he said, once again tipping his hat at me.

I knew he was probably up to something, but my plan required his participation. When the time came for him to betray me, I’d be ready, though, because I knew it was coming.