Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 40 - Mad Scientist (Patreon)

I hate some of the things I’ve had to do. But that’s how the world works. There’s only so much room at the top, and if you want to be the one in charge, someone has to fall.

Nora Lancaster

As soon as I was out of Bourbon Street, I stepped into a corner convenience store – deactivating the surveillance camera inside – and headed straight for the bathroom. Upon my entry, the attendant didn’t even look up from her hand-held screen. I didn’t blame her. The pay was minimal, and whoever owned the shop got exactly what they paid for.

When I reached the bathroom, the door slid open to reveal a cesspool of filth. In the wilderness, I’d been in all sorts of terrible situations, but that bathroom had to rank at the top of my list. Not only did it look as if it hadn’t been cleaned in months – no excuse for that, considering it could be done with the press of a button – but the level of filth far exceeded the bounds of normality. Why anyone would smear human waste across one of the walls was a mystery.

Thankfully, I wasn’t there to use the facilities. Instead, after throwing down a towel I’d kept in my arsenal implant, I stripped down and changed into my infiltration suit, adding some mundane clothing on top of it. Then, I changed my appearance with Mimic before leaving the bathroom – and the towel I’d thrown onto the floor – behind. As I moved through the small store, I reactivated the camera and left, looking entirely different from when I entered. The clerk still never looked up.

As I moved through the sparse crowd of pedestrians walking along the side of the street, I dwelled on what I’d discovered beneath Heaven and Hell. All those people, caged like animals, all because the owner – I still didn’t know his name – wanted to liquidate his assets before fleeing the city. Did that make it my fault? After all, I’d spent months feeding the fires of war between the tribes, which had, in turn, driven the citizens to flee Nova City. So, in a way, I was to blame for everything that happened after that, wasn’t I?

No.

I refused to shoulder that burden. Even if I believed I was at fault, I couldn’t be held accountable for the evil actions of others. Ultimately, it was the system of oppression itself – and the people who supported it – that was to blame. It had built the city upon corruption and enslavement, so it had only ever been a matter of time before it all crumbled. I’d just given the situation a little push.

Of course, that didn’t completely exonerate me for my actions. I knew that, without the things I’d done, those people would still be alive. But I also suspected that it would only be a temporary stay of execution. They’d died because they were weak and keeping them alive was inconvenient to their master. They weren’t even worth delaying his escape so he could sell them.

I shook my head, seething at the injustice of it all.

At least the owner was dead, now. That was comforting, as were his screams of pain after I removed his legs with a couple of well-placed shots.

My path took me toward the edge of the Garden. I didn’t dare ride the monorail, and my hoverbike would attract far too much attention. So, I walked. Fortunately, I only had to travel for a few miles before I found myself standing before what was colloquially known as the Laboratory. The name was drawn from its owner, the Mad Scientist, Edgar Russo. I hated using the nickname – it felt like I was giving his reputation too much power – but as far as I knew, he’d earned it.

The area around the building was almost completely deserted, aside from a few dust heads and other addicts who’d taken up residence in the abandoned buildings. Being on the edge of the district, the area looked more like Algiers than the rest of the Garden. The structures were only a dozen stories tall, and they bore the signs of gross neglect. Everywhere I looked, I saw crumbling concrete covered in inartful graffiti. People, thin, bruised, and insensate, huddled in the shadowy corners or gathered around burning barrels cooking unidentifiable meat. If the people of Algiers were dead-eyed and apathetic, then these fringe dwellers were almost all wild-eyed, dirty, and pitiful.

It was a fine distinction between one and the other, but it was plain enough that I immediately noticed the differences.

I slipped into an abandoned building that had a clear sightline of the Laboratory and started my climb to the roof. Inside was more of the same – dirty, damaged, and devoid of anything that might be mistaken for hope – and the denizens didn’t even look up at my passing. Before long, I made it to the roof and settled down to study my target.

Almost immediately, I saw that this building would be a tough nut to crack. The Mad Scientist hadn’t skimped on the security, with cameras, drones, and robotic guards in abundance. And there were some people, too, though I hesitated to think of them as such. Most were equipped with copious cybernetics – not an uncommon sight in Nova City – but they all seemed misshapen and lacked any symmetry at all. One guard had a mechanical arm that looked bigger than the rest of his body, while another had a dozen cybernetic legs in place of the normal two. I even saw one whose entire head seemed to have been replaced by a cybernetic with nine glowing red eyes and a tangle of exposed wires.

That was how the Mad Scientist worked. He didn’t care about aesthetics or preserving a person’s humanity. For him, the only thing that mattered was functionality. Or the pursuit of it, at least. According to rumor, he’d try just about anything at least once, regardless of how insane or horrifying the result might be.

And now he had Heather.

There was no telling what he might have done with her – or to her – and I suspected that I didn’t have the time for proper surveillance. According to the owner of Heaven and Hell, she’d been sold only a few days before, which meant that I had a limited window before Russo started experimenting on her. In fact, there was every chance that I was already too late.

I needed to act, and subtlety wasn’t really in the cards.

And if I was honest, I didn’t mind that so much. For some reason, the Mad Scientist’s actions had evoked a deep sense of disgust that exceeded what I felt about most of the injustices that ran so rampant within Nova City. It wasn’t enough to just rescue Heather. I wanted him to die. To suffer. And I wanted to destroy everything he’d worked for.

With that in mind, I summoned my Pulsar and, kneeling on that roof in the middle of the night, took aim at the lopsided cyborg with the huge mechanical arm. I activated Empowered Shot, waited two seconds, then fired. His chest exploded in a shower of charred flesh, melted metal, and boiling blood.

Even as I aimed at the spider-legged mook, the compound erupted in activity. The drones swarmed, and the cameras swiveled in my direction. I fired again, tearing a hole in the woman’s chest just like I had with her partner. Like that, I continued my assault, killing each of the guards with a single shot apiece.

But they didn’t stand idle. Four were dead before they homed in on my location, and when they did, a hail of gunfire came in my direction. I ducked behind the lip of the roof, banking on their weapons’ inability to go through solid concrete. I was right. But my location was blown, so I crawled toward the middle of the roof before rising and taking off at a sprint that took me to the other side of the building.

I leaped, clearing thirty feet with ease before crashing through the neighboring building’s window. I hit shoulder first, protecting my exposed face with my arms. The glass would have ripped a normal person to shreds, but it was completely incapable of getting through my Infiltration suit, much less my Sheath. When I hit the floor, I did so with a roll that that brought me back to my feet, and I continued my sprint, regaining my speed in only a couple of steps.

I practically flew down the hall until I reached my next destination.  I reared back and aimed a front kick at the door of an apartment, caving it in. But it took another two kicks before I completely dislodged it. Expected, considering that it was obviously reinforced, but still annoying. Predictably, the room was empty; the buildings were almost completely abandoned, and this one was no different. So, I moved to the window and, after seeing that my calculations had been spot on, took aim at the compound once again.

The view wasn’t as pristine as it had been on the roof, but it was still good enough that I had a clear shot at seven guards. I took aim at the biggest of the bunch – a mook with enormous claws in place of hands – activated my ability, and after the requisite two seconds, fired. My Pulsar was a top-of-the-line weapon, and it was backed up by the significant modifiers that came with my skills and class. So, the results were predictable.

I tore through them like they were nothing, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the guards retreated into the main building. It was six stories tall, so it looked squat compared to the rest of the district. But it still had a sizable footprint.

With a grimace, I stowed my Pulsar in my arsenal implant. I’d hoped to kill a few more of the guards before I went in, but they’d reacted more quickly than I had expected. It was fine, though. If nothing else, I was confident in my abilities. So, I quickly exited the room and climbed down to the ground floor before leaving the building behind. As I stepped into the street, I summoned my R-14 assault rifle and brought it to my shoulder.

The area had gone completely quiet. Even the addicts and bums had fled at the sound of my sniper rifle, so the street was eerily deserted. Good. At least they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire, though I couldn’t help but wonder if getting gunned down was preferable to the sad excuse they called a life.

Of course, I knew the answer to that. I didn’t know them, and as such, I couldn’t comprehend their struggles. For all I knew, they’d consciously chosen intransience and addiction. Perhaps they preferred that to living in a city hellbent on beating them down and enslaving them.

Or maybe they were just as pitiful as they seemed.

In any case, who was I to judge? Their lives were their own, and it wasn’t as if they were hurting anyone but themselves. On that count, I could certainly sympathize; after all, I’d made a few self-destructive choices of my own.

In any case, I flared Observation as I crossed the street and approached the compound. When I got close enough, I got to work on the cameras. Using Misthack, I overwhelmed their meager defenses and shut them off. It was a temporary measure, but it was enough. For the drones, I didn’t even bother with Misthack. Instead I just shot them. They were meant to be durable, but they couldn’t stand against a burst of superheated plasma rounds from my R-14. Soon enough, the exterior of the building was clear, and I found myself approaching the front door.

When I got there, I saw that it was made from some durable alloy I couldn’t identify, and it had been reinforced to the point that I knew I couldn’t quickly breach it. So, I tried to use Misthack, and for the first time in quite a while, I was rebuffed. The Mad Scientist, it seemed, took security seriously enough that he’d invested in quite a Mistwall. Given enough time, perhaps I could have bypassed it, but I could recognize it as the work of hours, rather than minutes, and I didn’t think I had that much time.

So, I went with my backup plan.

When my [Mistrunning] abilities didn’t work, explosives would pick up the slack. To that end, I retrieved a few shaped charges from my arsenal implant and carefully positioned them on the edge of the door. Then, I retreated a dozen or so yards where I crouched behind the big-armed mook’s corpse before pressing a button on the detonator. The explosion was somewhat muted – a characteristic of the compound I’d used – but it did its job remarkably well, blowing a series of holes in the door.

The moment the explosion went off, I charged forward, aiming a front kick at the door. It flew inward, and I heard a cry of pain as the door flattened someone, but I didn’t stop moving forward. My R-14 spat superheated plasma, burning holes in the two other cyborg guards in the hall. Once they were dead, I kicked the door away to reveal a third, killing her with a well-placed plasma round to the head.

Looking around, I saw that the building’s lobby was otherwise deserted, but there was a camera focused in my direction. I raised my weapon and shot it, disdaining subtlety entirely as I stalked forward. As I progressed through the compound, I saw that it was mostly deserted, aside from a cyborg here or there. But when I reached the second floor, I found that it was populated with horrors.

Everywhere I looked, I saw the misshapen humanoid forms of wildlings. Naked, thin to the point of malnutrition, and with elongated limbs, the creatures would have been intimidating if it weren’t for the fact that they were all unconscious. And most of them had been dismembered, at least to some degree. A missing hand here. A stub of a leg there. There was even one that looked like he’d had his face peeled off.

I felt bile rise in my throat, and I barely suppressed the need to vomit.

I had seen a lot of death and destruction in my short life, but nothing really compared to what I saw laid out before me.

Russo’s moniker seemed even more appropriate than ever before. Mad Scientist, indeed.

For a moment, I considered leaving them as they were. Some had been butchered so thoroughly that even if they woke up, they would pose little threat to me. However, my training pushed me into a different decision, and I began the arduous process of exterminating them. As I stowed my rifle in my arsenal implant and summoned my nano-bladed sword, I told myself that my actions were merciful.

I almost even believed it.

But with every throat I cut, I hated myself a little more. These people – or what had once been people – had done nothing wrong. They were victims, albeit a different sort than was usual for Nova City. Instead of being preyed on by other human beings – or even aliens – they’d been victimized by the Mist itself. And rather than try to help them, we, as a species, had chosen to simply ignore the problem and look at them as something lesser.

It was right there in the name.

They weren’t human beings. They were wildlings.

One after another, my blade flashed, and I ended their suffering. And that distinction didn’t make it any easier to stomach.

By the time I’d finished that detestable task, my anger had mounted, and my hatred of the so-called Mad Scientist had reached new heights. So, I continued to the next floor, which had clearly been the living quarters for the cyborgs. There was even one room that was a bit larger than the others that I figured was where Russo himself slept. But I found no other people, though there were cameras aplenty.

I destroyed them all, mostly out of pique rather than because I wanted to conceal my movements. He already knew I was coming for him, after all.

The fourth floor was used for storage, and it contained crate after crate of medical equipment, cybernetics, and weapons. I left them where they were, intending to come back for them once I’d dealt with Russo and found Heather. The other two levels were more of the same, leaving only the sub-levels to worry about.

So, that’s where I went, keeping my R-14 at the ready as I descended one floor after another until I finally reached a blast door.

I didn’t have any explosives that were powerful enough to take it down but limited enough not to bring the building down with it. So, I used Misthack instead. The defenses were substantial, but I now had time to overcome them. So, I set about doing just that, conquering one puzzle after the next until, an hour later, I’d gained access. With that done, I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

When I did, I heard a sound I never expected to hear.

Applause.

“Oh, that was impressive!” came a mild voice. “Very, very impressive! The way you just went through my toys…bravo!”