Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 39 - Cages (Patreon)

Loose ends can’t be left hanging. As terrible as it can sometimes be, they must be trimmed, or else the whole thing will unravel. Heather was one of those loose ends, and though I wanted to keep her around, I knew it wouldn’t work out well. So, I did what I had to do. Still, it keeps me up at night.

Nora Lancaster

I crawled across the floor until I reached the end of the bar. Then, I poked my head out, took aim, and fired. My R-14 spat three bursts of superheated plasma that tore through the group of mooks who were still shooting at the last place they saw me. The others reacted quickly to my reappearance, but they weren’t fast enough to keep me from decimating their ranks. Before long, the sound of gunfire ceased, and there was nothing left but a series of corpses, all smoking from where my assault rifle’s plasma rounds had burned holes in their chests.

That was the advantage of the R-14. It didn’t matter if they were wearing protective gear or had subdermal armor. Nothing readily available in the Garden could stand up to the weapon’s power. Sure, there were some elites that could take a shot and keep on coming, but they were rare enough that I had yet to run into any of them. I was certain that the Enforcers’ better gear could handle it, too – especially the higher-ranked Banshees – but it had been some time since I’d picked a fight with any of them.

The weapon was far from infallible, but it was more than enough to deal with a group of random mooks.  And that’s precisely what I’d done, laying waste to the men and women who’d attacked me for the simple sin of asking a question.

And that didn’t bode well for Heather’s fate.

After all, if she was just another dancer, they wouldn’t have attacked. The fact that they had was troubling, and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what I would find if I kept searching. Not that I considered giving up. Now that I’d committed to rescuing her, I wouldn’t stop until I found the woman. Even if that meant confronting something I’d have preferred not to see.

With that in mind, I pushed myself back to my feet and searched the club for any survivors. There weren’t any. The club’s dancers, servers, and other entertainers had all fled, and my attackers were all dead. The club itself had survived mostly intact, save for the bar, which had been ripped to shreds by the hail of gunfire meant for me. Even the man I’d left alive in hopes I could question him had caught a few strays from the mooks’ poorly aimed barrage.  My own shots were unerring, which meant that most of the club had survived intact.

Devoid of dancers as well as patrons, it made for an eerie sight, though. The lights were still flashing. The music was still thumping. And the holographic displays featuring impossibly beautiful – and wholly naked – people showed nary a flicker. But without people, the club was a depressing sight.

I swept my weapon around as I searched for any stragglers, but I found nothing of note. So, I headed toward a door in the back of the club. When I reached it, it slid open to reveal a hallway. With slow, confident steps, I pushed forward, sweeping my weapon back and forth as I searched for anyone left in the building. Like that, I cleared the first level, which contained a storage room, an office, and a dressing area for the entertainers. No one was present, so I kept moving until I reached a stairwell.

One set of stairs led up, presumably to a set of apartments for the workers. After all, they all had slave implants, and I was fairly certain that none of them would be allowed off the premises. That meant the owner – whoever they were – would be forced to house them. Some slave owners treated their property well, looking at them as investments. Or expensive commodities. Others saw them as disposable pieces of equipment – or worse, as toys – that would require frequent replacement. The latter was far more common.

Judging by what I found after mounting the stairs suggested that the owner of Heaven and Hell belonged to that second group. The apartments were cramped, and I could tell that each of them housed three or four people. Moreover, I found plenty of evidence of drug use as well, which tracked with everything I expected to see. After all, for someone with a slave implant, the only way to get through the days was if they’d been rendered insensate by various inebriants. Some used dust. Others used glitter. Alcohol was common, too. And there were a half-dozen other popular drugs in evidence.

But there were no people.

It looked as if they’d all just left without even gathering their things. Given the time, most had probably been working downstairs. However, there were almost assuredly some that weren’t. Or there should have been.

My stomach twisted as I continued my search, but I found nothing noteworthy. Nothing to suggest where the people had gone. And certainly nothing to hint at where Heather was. I cleared the apartments before heading back downstairs.

I knew I didn’t have much time left. None of the Garden’s various tribes had claimed Bourbon Street, but they would all protect it. It wouldn’t be long before someone responded to what I’d done in the club, and I needed to be gone when the swarm of Operators started to arrive. But first, I needed to check the basement.

Gradually, I crept down the steps, keeping my assault rifle ready just in case. It was a good thing, too, because the moment I reached the bottom of the stairs and the door to the cellar slid open, someone took a shot at me. A gunshot rang out, echoing through the enclosed space before the sound of a shattered concrete wall came from behind me. The shooter had missed, and badly, but I wasn’t going to give them the chance to try again. So, I slipped into the room, identified that the target was crouched behind some sort of cage, then fired.

Only their foot was sticking out, so that’s where I’d aimed. The R-14’s superheated plasma round completely destroyed the appendage, burning and ripping through it with a combination of intense heat and kinetic force. The owner of that foot cried out, flailing as they cried out in agony. I was on the figure – a man, I noted – in an instant, kicking his pistol away.

I aimed down the barrel of my own weapon, saying, “Shut up, or the next one’s taking your head off. You got me?”

The man nodded, tears leaking down his pudgy cheeks as I got a better look at him. And I was unimpressed. He was short, stubby, and round, with an ill-fitting but expensive-looking suit, shoes that shined like polished glass, and earrings in both ears. His hair – what was left of it, at least – had been slicked back and held in place by some unknown substance, giving him an altogether shifty appearance.

“You’re the owner, I guess,” I said, noticing that he wore a series of gold chains around his neck as well. He wore his collared shirt unbuttoned down to reveal a mat of chest hair.

“I…I don’t…y-you shot me…”

“And I’ll shoot you again if you don’t answer my questions,” I spat. Before I’d even laid eyes on the man, I’d hated everything he stood for. Even if it had become fairly common practice, the idea of enslaving people was abhorrent, and he’d taken advantage of it as much as anyone else in Nova City. But looking at him, my disdain rose to new heights. I knew it was unfair to judge people based on their appearance, but I couldn’t help but think that his greasy look was appropriate for the sort of man he’d proved himself to be.

Tears streamed down his face – and rightly so; losing a foot couldn’t have been pleasant – as he sobbed uncontrollably. I stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach, growling, “Focus, asshole!”

“W-what do you want?” he managed between the tears.

“You had a woman here,” I said. “Name of Heather. Where is she?”

“I…I don’t know…anybody by that name…”

“Wrong answer,” I said, taking aim at his other foot. He screamed, but I paid it no mind. Instead, I shot him again, obliterating another appendage. “Heather. Blonde. Pretty. Probably came here around…”

That’s when I noticed the room’s contents. I’d been so hyper-focused on the man beneath me that I hadn’t even paid attention to anything else. I’d just catalogued that there were no other threats, then moved on. But now, I saw it.

Or them.

Cages. Rows of them, lining the walls, and stacked one atop the other. There must’ve been thirty of them. And some of them had occupants, though none of them moved. That told me all I needed to know about their status. Dead or comatose, every single one of them. I focused on Observation, looking closer.

There, a rising chest. A twitch. A shift. Most were alive, but they were unconscious. Probably drugged, considering the noise I’d made. If they’d just been sleeping, the gunshots would’ve doubtless woken them up. But there were a few that looked like they might’ve been dead, too.

“What the…what’s going on here?” I demanded, stepping forward and pressing the barrel of my rifle against the man’s forehead.

“I..I remember…the one you’re talking about…”

“And?” I spat.

“She’s…she’s gone,” he said. “I…uh…I sold her. To Edgar…Edgar Russo.”

My heart jumped into my throat. Edgar Russo was widely known throughout the district for his reputation as something of a mad scientist. Sometimes, that worked out – I had heard about him eking quite a bit of power out of some pretty low-quality cybernetics – but other times, it was less successful, resulting in death or…worse. There were skeletons in his closet, and everyone knew it. The only reason nobody had done anything about it was because he’d done plenty of favors for various tribes. In return, they’d protected him.

“What was he planning on doing?” I asked.

“I…I don’t know,” he whined. I shifted, and he screamed, “I swear! I don’t know! I just couldn’t move everyone, so I needed to liquidate!”

“What are you talking about? Why are all these people in cages?”

“I…I can’t take them with me,” he said. “So, I’ve been selling them, a little at a time. Stocking up on credits before…before I get out. You m-must have seen…you have to know everybody’s leaving…”

That’s when I shot him in the face.

Rationally, I knew that enslaving people often involved buying and selling human beings, but for some reason, hearing him talking about liquidating his assets – which were people – still set me off. And I was unable to stop myself from ending him.

In any case, I’d gotten the information I needed. Heather had been sold to Edgar Russo. I knew where he was, too, so it wouldn’t be difficult for me to find him. But in the meantime, I needed to figure out what to do with the people in the cages.

That’s when I realized there wasn’t anything I could do. They were either dead or drugged into unconsciousness. If I could wake them up, maybe I could lead them to freedom. But even that was a dicey prospect, largely because I knew I’d probably have to fight my way out. With how long I’d been in the building, there was almost no chance the place wasn’t at least surrounded. Likely, they were already upstairs, and it was only a matter of time before I had to deal with them.

“Fuck,” I muttered, looking around.

I couldn’t take them with me, so I had no choice but to leave them behind to whatever future fate had in store for them. More slavery, no doubt. It made me sick. But there wasn’t anything else to be done, unless I wanted to put them out of their misery, and I wasn’t so far gone that I could force myself down that road.

With a sigh and a shake of my head, I tore my eyes from the caged people – presumably, they were packaged for transport, like animals – and turned back to the exit. Soon enough, I found myself numbly climbing the stairs until I reached the ground floor. Predictably, there were two Operators standing on the other side of the stairwell’s door.

Immediately, I cast my senses out, latching onto the first presence.

Initiate Misthack? [Yes] or [No]

I chose the affirmative option, then read the resulting notification that appeared on my HUD:

Misthack Successful. Options:

· Reboot System

· Overcharge

· Disable Cybernetics

· Upload Ghost

I chose the fourth option, which in turn brought up another menu:

Upload Ghost. Options:

· Time Bomb

· Seizure

· Confusion

· Blind

· Chain Stun

The fifth Ghost available to me was one I’d been working on for quite a while. It had started out as a less lethal variation of Time Bomb, but it had quickly evolved into something more expansive. I’d kept the spreading effect, but I’d removed the incubation period. That required me to dial the lethality down, but that was okay – that had always been my intention.

In any case, the Ghost had been far more complicated than I’d expected, and it had taken months to get it just right. However, I couldn’t have been happier with the result. I selected it, then charged through the door, my last remaining nano-bladed knife at the ready. I’d lost the other during my first trip into a Silo, and I hadn’t had the chance to go to the Bazaar to replace it.

The first mook had already locked up, his every muscle contracting under the effect of Chain Stun, and I wasted no time before burying my knife in his temple. The Ghost jumped to the man on the other side of the door, and watched as Chain Stun took hold, shocking him with charged Mist even as he reached for the pistol at his hip. His muscles locked up, and I ended him much the same way I’d taken out the first. Then, I moved on, tracking the Ghost as it jumped from one Operator to the next, killing them as they were rendered helpless.

Chain Stundidn’t care about walls or other barriers. Perhaps it might’ve been stopped by a Mist shield, but there were none of those in Heaven and Hell. So, the Operators who’d infested the club while I’d searched for Heather were completely incapable of resisting it. And as a result, they couldn’t even put up a fight as I swept through the building.

Anyone else might’ve had difficulty keeping up with the Ghost – after all, it only stunned someone for a second or two – but with my heightened Constitution, I had no problem. Before long, I killed my way through the club proper, not stopping until the leader – a Tier-4, though a weak one – fell before my blade. She was only stunned for a fraction of a second, but that was all I’d needed.

It was a massacre, but after what I had seen, I wasn’t in a merciful mood. Rationally, I knew the Operators weren’t responsible for what the club’s owner had done to those people. But that didn’t matter. All I really cared about was that I was angry and frustrated at my inability to help them, and those Operators made for convenient targets to quell my anger.

Of course, the threat didn’t end inside the club. There were more Operators outside. But after killing fourteen men and women – not even counting the owner, who was more like a greasy cockroach than an actual person – I was tired of killing helpless people. So, I activated Stealth and waited until someone opened the door before slipping out behind them. In seconds, I was gone.

But my search wasn’t finished. I still hadn’t accomplished my goal. Heather was still out there, enslaved by one of the worst people in the city. And I needed to rescue her.

Thankfully, I knew precisely where she was. Unfortunately, getting to the so-called Mad Scientist was going to be a lot more difficult than infiltrating an unguarded club like Heaven and Hell. He would have active and passive defenses – probably dozens of dangerous Operators – and that wasn’t even considering Russo himself. I’d never met him, but I knew the stories. He might’ve had no qualms about experimenting on other people, but he was just as free with testing things out on himself.

It would be a challenge, but I felt I was up to it. I just had to keep my anger in check, lest I make costly mistakes.

And with Heather’s life on the line, I couldn’t afford that. So, with those things in mind, I set off through the crowd of Bourbon Street, heading toward the edge of the Garden where I knew Russo’s compound was located. Once I got there, I’d get in, kill everyone who got in my way, and rescue Heather.

It would be sloppy, but it was the best I could do on such short notice.