Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 33 - Poking the Bear (Patreon)

Often, I find myself thinking back to Mira. I did what I could to ensure her survival, waiting until she was gone before I revealed Jeremiah’s location, but I fear it wasn’t enough. Did she die on her training mission? Or was she one of the thousands of casualties? I can’t say, and not knowing haunts me.

Nora Lancaster

As soon as I stepped into the Silo’s lowest sub-level, I felt like I was suffocating. The humidity was so thick that it was nearly solid, and a visible fog hung in the air, mingling with the ambient Mist in a way that made me stumble. I quickly caught my balance on a nearby pipe, but I jerked my hand back from the heat. Thankfully, I moved quickly enough to prevent serious burns, but it still hurt, even through the gloves of my Infiltration Suit.

I ignored it as I gathered my wits and tried to get my bearings. Looking around, I didn’t see any workers; in fact, all I saw was the ubiquitous fog and a tangle of pipes that would have put the Underground to shame. Beneath my feet was corrugated metal that hung above a giant cistern of black water. Lights flickered on and off, as if they hadn’t been maintained in a while.

After a few seconds, I let out a sigh as my body acclimated to the harsh humidity and heat, but, inwardly, I cursed my own stupidity. I should have expected it. I knew how the Silos worked, so I should have been prepared for the environment. The upper levels were little different from the climate-controlled atmosphere of the city, but the lower levels were dedicated to providing the resources to maintain the optimal growing conditions for the crops above, which meant heat and water, both in large amounts.

By the time I got my bearings, sweat was already pouring down the middle of my back; without my Infiltration Suit, it might have been troubling, but one of its features was hydration conservation. I didn’t know how it worked – probably a function of Mist – but it would somehow repurpose the sweat and reintegrate it into my body. Patrick had tried to explain it to me, but he lost me after the first minute. In any event, I didn’t need to know how things worked; I just needed to be reassured that it did. And the Infiltration Suit worked as advertised, so I had no reason to investigate its inner workings.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, but I regretted it only a moment later when my lungs were filled with hot, moist air that almost made me feel like I was drowning. And after my run-in with the man o’ war off the coast of Bayou La Batre, I knew precisely what that felt like. Irrational as it was, I felt my heart start to race as panic gripped my mind. With a force of will, I pushed it aside, focusing on the task at hand.

For this mission, I’d chosen to dress like one of the normal Silo workers, so I was wearing faded blue coveralls I’d gotten in one of the secondhand markets that dotted the Garden. It fit passably well, but it bore plenty of signs of hard use – which was perfect because it lent my role a layer of authenticity that otherwise would have been impossible. After all, nothing makes a person stick out as an imposter among manual laborers quite like perfect cleanliness.

I set out down the corrugated walkway, turning this way and that through the maze of pipes as I kept my senses unfurled, searching for passive defenses. I found none, which made sense; the lack was probably the reason the smuggler’s tunnel connected to the sub-level in the first place. Sweat poured down my face, soaking the collar of my coveralls as I sought out the spots I’d marked on the blueprints I’d downloaded from a government terminal. It wasn’t found in any of the public repositories, but those kinds of things weren’t very secure, either. So, it wasn’t difficult to break through the meager defenses, take what information I needed, and get out without leaving a trace.

As I traversed the sub-level, I retrieved a series of tiny blocks from my Arsenal Implant and left them behind in the appropriate locations before moving on to the stairs that would lead me up to the next sub-level. There, I repeated the same pattern before climbing to the Silo’s first level. It was there that I started to run into factory workers.

Like me, they wore blue coveralls and weathered faces as they tended to row after row of crops. Every now and then, a watery mist would fall from the ceiling, keeping the plants hydrated. Meanwhile, a grid not unlike the latticework I’d seen in Biloxi lined the ceiling, concentrating the Mist in such a way that it would accelerate plant growth. I felt certain that there was more to it than that, but that explanation was all I’d been given when my class had taken a field trip to the Silos a few years before I got my Nexus Implant.

Gradually, I worked my way around the room, planting more of the tiny blocks in out-of-the way places. I felt certain that my actions looked suspicious to anyone that cared to look, but none of the workers paid any attention to me. Instead, they mindlessly did their jobs, clearly checked out until they were allowed to go home. So long as I made an effort to look like I belonged, nobody would care what I was doing. I’d learned that lesson from Vana back in Mobile, and it had been reinforced by my recent trip to Biloxi.

Once I’d planted ten of the small cubes throughout the level, I climbed the stairs to the next level, where I repeated the process. Vaguely, I noted that this level contained a different sort of crop, but I didn’t really care about that. Instead, I just continued working toward the completion of my mission.

Over the next few hours, I climbed forty-two levels, leaving hundreds of the cubes behind. And not once did a single person stop me. Even the sparse Enforcer presence was completely blind before my subterfuge.

By the time I reached the top floor, it was well past midnight, and I was exhausted. Not physically – I could keep going for days if necessary. Rather, I was weighed down by the mental fatigue that came from spending hours on the edge of alarm as I infiltrated deep into the Silo. But finally, I was finished. All I needed to do was finish one last thing, get out, and then enact the last step of the plan.

So, I retraced my steps as I headed back to the smuggler’s tunnel that had been my ingress point. The return trip went much more quickly, and before long, I was stepping through the final door and back into that oppressive atmosphere of the lowest sub-level.

But this time, I had company.

Two Enforcers, one of which was kneeling down and inspecting one of the tiny, black cubes I’d left behind. The other was staring right at me with a look of surprise on his face. He started to speak, but I was already moving.

In the confines of the narrow corridors, I knew my nano-bladed sword was out of the question. I didn’t dare use my firearms for fear of raising the wrong kind of alarm. Fortunately, my nano-bladed dagger was only a thought away. It was small enough that I could still summon it at will without wasting one of my weapon slots, so even as I used Engage to dart forward, it materialized in my hand. Before the Enforcer could even bring his rifle to bear, I’d buried the dagger in his temple.

He was dead before he even knew what had happened.

As I yanked the blade out of his skull, I aimed a kick at the other Enforcer. He had just enough time to react, and he blocked my kick with a lowered forearm. Then, he rolled back, coming to his feet a couple of yards away.

I advanced, but in an instant, I found myself rocked back by a blow that was so fast I never even saw coming. I stumbled, then another blow found me. And another. I raised my arms, blocking as best I could, but I could barely even perceive the man’s attacks, much less defend against them.

I was fast. Very fast. I knew there weren’t many people – especially not some random Enforcer – who could boast similar attributes. So, it only made sense that this man’s speed wasn’t based on that; instead, he was using a skill. Perhaps his entire class was built around speed.

Fortunately, his attacks weren’t individually strong, or I never would have lasted against his barrage. Gradually, his furor began to dissipate until he backed away, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

At some point, my dagger had been knocked out of my hand to tumble down into the cistern below. So, I had no choice but to deal with this man with my bare hands.

“Was that it?” I asked, giving him a cocky smile that I didn’t really feel. The man was too fast, and his technique was sound. I wasn’t even sure if I could beat him without resorting to using my firearms, which would come with all sorts of consequences I didn’t want to think about.

But I was willing to try. If worse came to worst, I could always use Ferdinand II.

The Enforcer was clearly thinking along the same line, because, at that very moment, he reached for the pistol holstered at his waist. I jumped forward, slapping his hand aside just as his fingers tightened around the grip. His hand flew wide, and I hit it again, aiming for the nerves in his wrist. His grip loosened, and the pistol went flying, clattering against the pipes before it descended into the watery abyss below.

My strike didn’t come without consequences, though, and I soon received a blow to the jaw that left me reeling. I staggered, but quickly recovered enough to connect with a controlled uppercut. Then, I activated Combination Punch, throwing three punches in quick succession before ending with a stomp to his instep. He blocked the first attack, but could do nothing to defend against the next three. Each one hit him flush, and I felt bones crunch beneath my boot with my final attack.

He howled in pain, but I didn’t let up. Neither did he surrender easily. And over the next forty-five seconds, we exchanged blows. I blocked some. Dodged others. And took more than a few hits. But he got it worse. After the barrage of Combination Punch, he was on his back foot, and he never recovered. I ended the fight with another usage of the ability, but this time, each attack landed solidly. He fell to the ground, his face already broken and his breath coming in ragged wheezes.

I summoned my nano-bladed sword, put the tip against his head, and pressed down. It went through his skull without a hint of difficulty, ending his life without further delay. I kicked both bodies into the water where I hoped no one would think to look, then resumed my journey to a security terminal I’d passed on my way in.

I flipped it open, then retrieved my cord from the Hand of God before jacking in. In a few seconds, I’d passed the first line of defenses; there were other, deeper levels I could have accessed if I wanted to assault the system’s Mistwall, but I didn’t need to do that. Instead, I navigated to the appropriate command, then sounded the fire alarm.

Immediately, the lights flashed red and a loud klaxon resounded through the sub-level. I knew that the same could be heard throughout the Silo. Hopefully, the workers would heed the warning because that was as far as I was willing to go to push them out of harm’s way.

With that, I hurried back to the smuggler’s tunnel, which I used to leave the building. Fortunately, when I found my way to the alley, it was just as deserted as when I’d entered the tunnel. Nestled in the darkness, I changed out of the coveralls and into something less conspicuous before leaving the alley and quickly hurrying away.

Already, the Silo’s workers were pouring out the building in a great wave of dark blue. The Enforcers were trying to herd them into some semblance of order, but many of the workers had already begun to panic, making things that much more difficult.

I wanted to let them all reach safety, but I wasn’t going to hang around to make sure. Already, I could see teams of Enforcers setting up roadblocks. So, using Stealth, I slipped through the cracks in their perimeter and headed to a recent casualty of the tribal wars. The building had once been a low-quality tenement meant for Silo workers – the sort of place that had originally been designed for the factory workers in Algiers. And even when it was whole, it had made the megabuildings look high-class.

But it was no longer whole. Instead, it had been gutted by a fire that had been started by one of the tribes. Nearly everyone who called that place home had perished in the flames. No one had even batted an eyelash at the loss.

Not even me.

I didn’t care about the building’s history. Instead, I was only concerned with two things. First, its location. I needed somewhere within a mile of the Silo. It qualified, if only just. Second, it needed to be deserted, which it certainly was. Even the transient dust fiends avoided the place, and it wasn’t difficult to see why.

The air inside the blackened building still hung heavy with the smell of smoke, and I could tell that breathing those fumes would be toxic for anyone without my unique blend of attributes and abilities. But even for me, it was unpleasant. Still, it offered a level of protection nowhere else in the area could boast. The Enforcers wouldn’t even look for me inside a building filled with toxic fumes.

Once I made my way to the third floor, I set up near one of the windows facing toward the Silo. I could just see the top peeking over the roof of another building. Then, I settled in to wait.

One minutes passed. Then two.  And finally, fifteen.

I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. If the workers hadn’t gotten out by that point, then…well, then they were just destined to be collateral damage. So, resolved in my plan, I summoned the detonator from my Arsenal Implant and wasted no more time before activating it.

At first, I didn’t think anything had happened. I’d built those demolition charges myself, and I was sure that they would work. Long seconds passed, and doubt began to creep into my mind. But then, suddenly, a roar filled my ears, and I saw exactly what I was looking for. The top of the Silo had begun to crumble.

Then, a sound unlike any I’d ever heard rolled over me, followed by a cloud of dust that swept through the streets and billowed through the building’s open windows. I choked, covering my mouth as chaos erupted outside.

It was done. The Silo had been brought down.

My plan was based on a simple notion: so long as their basic needs are met, any population can be subdued. It didn’t matter if they were oppressed and exploited, as long as they had food, shelter, and a few distractions, they could be held in check. But interrupt any of those things, and people got restless. And once that happened, one of three things would happen. Either the oppressors would have to lean even more heavily on the population, the people would revolt, or they would just leave. The exodus had already begun during the tribal war between the Specters and the Cyberdogs. Now, the Enforcers were going to be added to the mix. Soon, people would flee Nova City in droves, which would, in turn, set the stage for the final phase of my plan.

First, though, I needed to finish dealing with Nora. And to do that, I had to continue to pick her organization apart, one strand after another until there was nothing left. Then, I’d take care of her. Once that was finished, I would focus on everyone else that might have had a hand in my uncle’s death.

After I was satisfied that the job was done, I gathered myself, refocused on my surroundings, and then headed down to the street below. Panic filled the streets. Enforcers were around, but they seemed just as stunned as the civilians. Meanwhile, I activated Stealth and crept past them like a ghost.

It was almost an hour before I left the dust cloud behind, but even then, most of the people I saw were staring in the direction of the downed Silo with expression of awe and horror on their faces. In some ways, I was proud of what I’d accomplished. It felt like a formidable blow against the bastards who’d killed my uncle. But I also knew that it would come with a cost. People would starve. Some would die. Many already had. All because of me.

I threw my empathy aside. In a war – and that was precisely what it was – I couldn’t afford to let my feelings get in the way of doing what I needed to do. Instead, I had to stay focused. Compassion had no place in battle.

But still, a bit of lingering regret and persistent doubt clung to the back of my mind. I could only ignore it.

“Patience,” I sighed as I turned down a dark alley where I intended to summon my Cutter. “One step at a time. Lieutenants. Then Nora. Then the aristocrats and Enforcers.”

I permitted myself a small, grim smile. The war had only just begun. Before I was finished, Nova City would be on its knees.