Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 42 - A Public Service (Patreon)

Loyalty means nothing to these people. I’ve given them everything they could ever want, and yet, they still dare to disagree. I will have to make some examples.

Nora Lancaster

I stared down at Heather’s mutated corpse, wondering how things had come to this. Even when I looked at her misshapen form, all I could see was the woman who’d tried so hard to be my friend. To support me. To help me. And I had abandoned her just as I’d abandoned everything else that wasn’t my quest for revenge. I’d accepted that as the necessary cost of my vengeance, but for the first time since I’d begun my journey, I found myself wondering if I’d made the right choices.

I could have done things differently. I could have turned the other cheek, to borrow a colloquialism popular among those who still clung to the notion that there was a God and that he actually cared about them. Such a belief seemed silly to me, given the state of the world, but the fervor of their belief was unassailable. But were they right about leaving the past where it belonged? It felt so counterintuitive. If someone wronged you, you didn’t just ignore it. That was how you ended up dead or enslaved. Instead, you fought back. You took from them what they intended to take from you. Corpses posed no threat, after all.

But looking down at Heather, I knew that wasn’t true. She was dead, and before that, she’d lost whatever made her the person she’d been. But even so, my inability to protect her, my refusal to save her – it haunted me like nothing had since my uncle’s death. Because of my choices, she was gone.

I felt tears falling down my cheeks and a lump building in my throat.

More than that, though, rage had begun to wrap itself around my heart, burning everything else away. I knew it was dangerous, leaving it to spread unchecked, but in that moment, I just didn’t care. I hated the world. I hated the man who’d experimented on Heather. I hated Nora, for enslaving her in the first place. But most of all, I hated Nova City for setting the stage where such things were possible.

I slung my blade to the side, sending a splatter of blood against the wall, then turned my attention to the man who’d sequestered himself behind the Mist shield. He thought he was safe, the idiot. He didn’t know that nowhere was safe from my wrath.

I stalked down the hall, my sword held in a death grip as I glared at the closest object of my ire. I couldn’t kill Nora. Not yet. And I couldn’t destroy the city any more than I could change the world. Perhaps one day, but those goals were so far off as to be nonexistent.

But I could kill the detestable man behind the curtain of blue energy.

He thought he was safe.

Against my monumental anger, the very concept of safety was laughably weak. And I was grimly eager to show him the error of his ways.

One step. Then two. My feet barely made a sound, but they left bloody imprints with every step I took.

The lights flickered as the Mist swirled around me. The man said something, grinning like a moron. He had no idea how vulnerable he was.

He thought he was safe.

I intended to show him otherwise.

The distance between us shrank with every bloody step, but my eyes never wavered. I reached out, searching for the controls of the Mist shield, and I found them only a moment later. How could I not, with them blazing in my senses? I dove in, unsurprised to find substantial defenses before me.  Mist shields were usually like that, and this one was even better protected than most.

It didn’t matter.

I’d spent years honing my mind. Countless hours developing the ability to overwhelm such defenses. Hundreds of nodes bloomed before my mind’s eye, each one glittering with the potential to stop me. But potential is not reality, and I fell upon them like an avalanche, unstoppable and undeterred.

He thought he was safe.

My will would not be denied as I sought to show him how wrong he was.

In moments, the first few fell. A few seconds more, and I’d begun to carve a path through those defenses, solving puzzles and equations with unprecedented rapidity. I had never been so focused. I had never worked so quickly. Seconds turned into almost a minute, and then, as the last node was crushed beneath my will, the system was laid bare before me.

He thought he was safe.

He was not.

I deactivated the Mist shield. He screamed. I was undeterred by his terror.

Using Engage, I covered the distance between us. My sword flashed, a blur of silver and blue followed by a red mist, and his arm fell to the ground. I didn’t hear the impact over his screams of pain and fear. My sword flashed again, and the other arm fell as well.

I was reminded of how I’d dismantled Ashleigh, the Red Terror of the Emporium. But she had been a warrior and worthy of at least a modicum of respect. The man before me was neither, and I swung my sword again, slicing through his left leg at the knee.

He fell with an agonized screech.

Only minutes before, he’d thought he was safe.

Now, he knew that death was coming.

But it wouldn’t come quickly.

No – he needed to suffer. Once, I might have hesitated to torture someone. It was useless as an information-gathering tool, often resulting in the victim telling the torturer whatever it took to get them to stop. Truth was irrelevant, and so, whatever information that came as a result was useless. No – torture didn’t work for that.

But what it did do was make me feel like justice was being done. It wasn’t. I was self-aware enough to know that it was a barbaric practice. I just didn’t care. Not in that moment, at least. I wanted him to suffer, so suffer he did.

I took him apart, one inch at a time, slicing bits and pieces off with grim determination. It wasn’t satisfying. I knew I’d end up regretting it. I should have just killed him and been done with it. But I needed to make him hurt. I wanted him to feel what I’d felt. That hopelessness that had suffused my very being when I realized what had happened to Heather. What I had let happen to her.

I thought she was safe. I thought she would be fine until I got around to helping her. She hadn’t been.

I hacked and slashed, each cut precise and well-measured. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but rather the result of years of practice and untold hours of training.

By the time I’d finished, there was nothing left of the man. Just a pile of bloody flesh.

It made me want to vomit.

I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. Nor was I ashamed, which was probably what my actions warranted. Instead, I just felt numb in a way I’d never really felt before.

I stood there for a long time, just staring down at the pile of meat I’d created. Then, without further deliberation, I planted one of my demolition charges inside the room. It was the same sort I’d used to such great effect in the Silos, and I placed a half dozen of them throughout the sub-level before moving up to the ground floor and repeating my actions. I didn’t bother with the other floors. There was no point, and somewhere in the back of my mind, past the numb fury, I acknowledged that the demolition charges were expensive to make.

Once I was sure I had planted enough explosives to bring the building down, I left the building and retreated a few hundred yards down the street. Thankfully, there were no pedestrians about. Even the addicts avoided the area, lest they find themselves captured and used as one of the Russo’s experiments, so it was as deserted as any place I could have hoped to find.

Then, without further ado, I retrieved the detonator from my arsenal implant and pressed the appropriate button. I watched as a massive explosion rocked the building. Fire erupted from the first-floor windows, and the ground shook. Even as the building crumbled in on itself, sending billowing dust out into the street, I never looked away.

Not until it had become a pile of broken rubble, at least. In a way, it reminded me of the building’s owner, only instead of bits of flesh and pools of blood, the building had become a collection of bricks, cement, and dust, broken down to its base components.

Satisfied but far from happy, I summoned, then mounted my Cutter and left it all behind me. As I sped through the Garden’s streets, I couldn’t help but remember the part I’d played in all of it. Not only had I put off saving Heather, which resulted in her being sold to the Mad Scientist, but I couldn’t forget that everything had started the moment my uncle had given me the Tier-7 Nexus Implant. If I’d never taken it, would he still be alive? Would Heather? I didn’t know, but my deluded state of self-pity suggested as much.

I rejected it, of course. How could I not? Rationally, I knew I shouldn’t hold myself accountable for the actions of others. But sometimes, reason doesn’t really fit the way we want it to. As a result, my guilt lingered in the back of my mind. It wasn’t enough to derail my plans. I was too committed for that. But I couldn’t dismiss it outright, either.

Perhaps it would drive me to make better choices in the future.

The trip back to my compound went by in a blur. Vaguely, I noticed the fighting in the streets, but I avoided it easily. Otherwise, I didn’t pay much attention to any of it. Instead, my mind remained mired in the day’s events, images of Heather’s naked and mutated corpses dominating my thoughts.

So it happened that I pulled up to the back of the lot, disabled the holographic display that camouflaged the entrance to the tunnel, and slipped inside. Once I was safely ensconced in the basement, I dismounted and dismissed my hoverbike before heading upstairs.

I didn’t stop at the apartment I shared with Patrick. Instead, I kept going until I reached the roof, where I sat staring up at the Garden. Hands on my knees as I leaned against an air conditioning duct, I lost myself in thought for the next few hours.  I would’ve sat there for longer, except Patrick interrupted my introspection by sitting next to me.

For a long few minutes, he didn’t say anything. I knew he wanted to ask questions, but I appreciated his restraint. He knew me well enough to understand that I’d talk about it when I was good and ready.

Which I did, almost an hour later when I said, “I think we need to get out of Nova for a little while.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“I…I went to rescue Heather,” I said. “I mentioned her, right?”

“Once or twice,” Patrick said. “She was your uncle’s…partner, wasn’t she?”

I nodded, wiping my eyes. I hadn’t even realized that the tears had started again. Then, I told him exactly what had happened. When I started explaining the situation, I’d intended to keep some things to myself, but before I knew it, I was telling him the whole story. I didn’t hold anything back, and in some ways, it felt right. In others, it made me feel more vulnerable than I’d ever felt before.

But I knew I needed to tell someone, and Patrick was all I had.

At some point, I found myself leaning into him. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and he pulled me closer. There, I wept – truly and deeply, without trying to hold it back. It didn’t make me feel better, but it was necessary all the same.

“I didn’t…she wasn’t my favorite person,” I muttered. “For the longest time, I resented her because she…because she had my uncle’s attention. It was only right before I left that I realized just how petty I’d been. She just wanted what was best for me. She wanted to be my friend. And…and I rejected her, thoroughly and without any real reason for it.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said, holding me close.

“But it is. It is my fault because I could have saved her,” I said. “If I’d have gone after her the day I found out where she was, she would be here right now. You…you would have liked her, I think. She was nice, just like you.”

“You couldn’t have predicted what happened,” he said.

“I know that. But knowing it doesn’t really help,” was my response. Then, I pulled away, wiping my eyes.  I sniffed loudly before saying, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…this isn’t something you should have to worry about.”

“It’s not –”

“But what I wanted to say is that we need to get out of Nova,” I stated, changing the subject. “And I think I know where we can go. If you want to, I mean. You might want to stay here.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“While I’ve been snooping around, I found out that there’s another dead zone a few hundred miles north of here,” I said. “Maybe a little further. I’ve got coordinates, so we should be able to find it pretty easily.”

“And what are we going to do with a dead zone?”

“I figure there’s probably a Rift somewhere inside,” I explained. “We could go in, gather some shards, and then come back. By then, some of the heat will have died down, and it’ll be time to finish this thing off.”

In truth, I could have probably done that at any moment. I’d already destroyed the pillars that were keeping the Specters aloft, so it wouldn’t be difficult to bring them crashing down. However, the spiked shipments of bio-enhancers hadn’t had a chance to truly do their work. I wasn’t afraid of Nora – not really. Rather, it was about taking from her the one thing she valued above all else – her strength. And that required time.

With all my other tasks finished, I didn’t want to just sit around and train. So, running a Rift was just the sort of thing I needed to keep me occupied. Of course, part of it was that I didn’t want to stick around the city – not after what I’d just experienced. I needed to get away, and this was the perfect excuse.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Patrick said. “I’m not…I don’t do as well out there as you do. And a Rift…”

“Is incredibly dangerous, I know,” I said. “But if you want to gain levels, it’s the best you’re going to find. Besides, you haven’t heard the best part.”

“Uh…what?”

I grinned at him – an expression I really didn’t feel – and said, “Well, Rifts means Rift Shards, which means tons of credits. And I was thinking, once we’re done here in Nova, there’s nothing keeping us here. We could go up to the Bazaar and get a ship. It’ll probably cost everything we loot, but I’m sure Gala can point us towards something we can afford. Think about it – you and me, going from town to town and seeing what the world has to offer.”

“And you would…be happy with that?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea, honestly,” I said. “I just know there’s nothing left for me here in Nova. Not after I take care of Nora. Too many bad memories, maybe. I don’t know. I just think there has to be somewhere better, right? It can’t all be like this.”

“I…I don’t know…”

“But that’s for later,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. I wiped more tears away. “For now, we just need to get out of here for a little while. I don’t care where we go, but I think the Rift is as good a place as any to lie low for a little while.”

I knew that I’d pushed things too far too quickly, and as a result, even the Mad Scientist had been paying attention. I hadn’t forgotten that he’d known who I was and what I was doing. So, getting out of Nova City for a little while seemed like the smart choice.

Plus, I just didn’t want to look at the place anymore. Not for a while, at least.

“Please.”

Patrick didn’t answer for a few seconds, then sighed before saying, “Fine. I’ll go. But we play it safe, okay?”

“Always,” I said, knowing I would do no such thing. Sure, I’d probably take fewer chances if I had Patrick tagging along, but I still wasn’t the type to flee from danger. Not without good reason.

“Good,” I said, throwing my arms around him. “That’s good. I didn’t want to go without you.”

“Would you have?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter because you’ve already agreed. But for now…there’s something I’ve been wanting to do…”

“What are –”

I interrupted him with a kiss. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Patrick, but I knew that, for at least one night, I didn’t want to be alone. And judging by his response, I felt positive that we were on the same page.