Mistunner 2 - Chapter 49 - Purpose (Patreon)

Money. Power. I wonder what any of it even means when I’m surrounded by so much hate.

Nora Lancaster

The next day, Patrick and I continued our trek through the wilderness. Thankfully, we weren’t assaulted by any new threats, and we even shared a pleasant meal on a cliff overlooking a series of wide ravines that looked like some enormous giant had raked its claws across the landscape. Perhaps they had, but if that was the case, it had happened long ago, considering the thick vines snaking down the edge of the cliffs. Flitting around the small ponds that had formed at the bottom of the ravines were flashing blue lights that I recognized as Mistflies. Overcast as it was, the sight was strangely comforting, and it reminded me of the advice Jorge had given me what felt like a lifetime before.

Back then, when faced with a similar scene, he’d told me to enjoy what beauty I could find in the world. At the time, he’d probably meant it to counterbalance all the horrors I would see, but after everything I’d been through, it served a different purpose. It was so easy to look at the Mist as evil, but the reality wasn’t quite so simple. Certainly, the onset of the Mist had resulted in billions of deaths, and it had irrevocably changed the world. However, it wasn’t malicious. It was more like a force of nature, and blaming it for the transformation of the Earth and its inhabitants was akin to hating a hurricane for flooding a city.

That wasn’t to say that the situation wasn’t frustrating. It was. But it wasn’t evil.

Never was that more obvious than when confronted by the beauty that came with it. Like the Mistflies. Or the skills I’d been given. Even the more daunting wildlife had a certain allure.

Thinking about it did beg the question of what I would have been doing if the world hadn’t been upended. What would I have become if I’d lived in a world like the one my uncle had known? The few stories he’d shared told me just how different things were back then, so it was difficult to know. However, one thing he’d made clear was that it was a far safer and more peaceful place, so I probably wouldn’t have been a fighter.

Without that, what was I? I’d once cultivated a variety of interests, but ever since my training had begun, I’d steadily left them behind. And then, when my world was torn into a million pieces, I hadn’t even considered focusing on anything else. When I wasn’t actively working toward achieving my goals, I was training. Or sleeping. There really wasn’t anything else in my life.

Except Patrick, but that was complicated enough without it becoming some kind of defining characteristic. I liked him well enough, and our relationship had grown closer than ever before. He was there for me in a way nobody else ever had been – except maybe Jo, but the two situations were so different that it was hard to even compare them.

That night, Patrick and I were forced to make camp under an old bridge. It seemed structurally sound, and below it, I saw evidence of old train tracks. It wasn’t perfect, but given the distinct lack of standing buildings in the area, it was the best we could hope to find. And I wasn’t willing to camp out in the open, mostly because, before night fell, I had seen dark clouds on the horizon.

Sure enough, only twenty minutes after we’d made camp, a thunderstorm began. The rain fell in sheets even as furious bolts of lightning filled the air, followed by deafening claps of thunder.

Growing up in Nova, I didn’t experience a real thunderstorm until I’d left the city. Certainly, Nova had its share of rain, but it wasn’t a natural phenomenon. Instead, it was a product of the city’s climate control system, and the rain was intended to wash the streets clean. Outside, though, things were very different and much more dangerous.

Once, after seeing a bolt of lightning leave a melted crater almost five yards wide, I’d asked my uncle how people had survived such storms before the Initialization. That’s when I’d discovered that, like most everything else, thunderstorms fed off of ambient Mist, which made them far more potent. In the first few months after the Initialization, such storms had killed almost as many people as the mutating wildlife. However, the discovery of Mist shields had served to cut those numbers down considerably; still, in some of the less-protected settlements, the dangers of such storms were still very real.

Thankfully, hiding under a bridge or in a fallen building was often enough protection. That wasn’t always the case, though.

“Storms are much worse south of here,” Patrick said, unwrapping a ration bar as he sat on his portable cot. The pair we’d brought weren’t that comfortable, but sleeping on even a thin mattress was much better than doing so on the hard ground.

His statement drew me from my thoughts, and I asked, “How so?”

“More common,” he said. “If you don’t have a decent Mist shield, you’re probably going to die, too. I asked Remy about it once, and he said it was because of ambient Mist levels. The more there is, the worse things get.”

“Kind of like a dead zone,” I said.

He shrugged. “A few hundred miles south, and everything’s a dead zone,” he said. “There are still areas that are even worse, too. Apparently, that’s why there are more cities up here. The Mist is mostly tame. But in other parts of the world, things start getting really weird. There’s an area across the ocean where nobody lives. Like, it’s a whole continent of wildlings and mutated beasts.”

“Really?” I asked.

“A lot of Rifts there, too,” he stated. “Remy only went there once, and it was to transport some heavy hitters as close to the Rift as he could. He said these were the best of the best. As strong as your uncle, from what he told me. But they never came out. After that, he came back here and settled down with my mom. Said it was a lot safer to do local runs.”

“Interesting,” I said.

And it was. An entire continent of unexplored Rifts? It sounded incredibly dangerous, but it also sounded kind of exciting. What else was out there? I often thought about the wider galaxy, but I rarely even considered the fact that I’d only explored the tiniest portion of my own world.

It was such a shame, too. Sure, there was plenty of danger out there, but it was also exciting. And that danger was often accompanied by commensurate beauty. I thought back to the dragon’s skeleton I’d seen in the center of the battlefield where I’d faced off against the onslaught of mutated wildlings. What would it be like to face something like that? To see it in all its glory?

And maybe to fight it?

I wasn’t some unrepentant battle junky, but I couldn’t deny that there was a certain joy in facing a terribly strong opponent and coming out on top. I’d felt it after fighting my first beast, even if it had been nestled in heart-pounding terror, and I’d felt it during the battle against the mutated wildlings as well. Perhaps I was going insane. Or maybe I’d just latched onto the one thing I could point to as a defining characteristic.

After all, being good at something brings a joy all its own. And I was very good at fighting. Not the best, mind you, but very good nonetheless.

“What do you like to do?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“I mean, like, for fun,” I said, the question punctuated by another flash of lightning followed by a thunderclap.

He shrugged, saying, “I don’t know. Not much room for fun lately.”

“Before, then,” I prompted, leaning forward. Our cots were arranged parallel to one another, with the Mistlamp between us.

For a moment, he didn’t respond, but after a couple of seconds, he said, “I used to like to draw. My mom used to get me real sketchbooks. Like, with paper and everything. I would draw birds and other animals around the house. But that was before she…before she died. I kept a couple of those sketchbooks, but they were destroyed along with the Jitterbug. I…I didn’t bother trying to replace them.”

“Oh.”

I knew I’d brought up a sensitive subject. Not surprising, considering his past. But wasn’t that the case with everyone? I had my issues, and so did he. So did everybody. Either way, I was a little surprised that his mother would give him something as valuable as a sketchbook with real paper. Such things weren’t common, not only because the materials were expensive to come by, but also because they just didn’t serve much purpose. Anything that could be done on paper could be accomplished on a tablet or a screen. Using actual paper was a luxury that most people neither wanted nor could afford.

“What about you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “That’s a good question,” I stated. “I used to like reading. And there are a couple of bands I follow.”

“Like Leviathan.”

“Right. Like Leviathan,” I said. “But the older I get, the less any of that seems to matter.”

“You say that like you’re some old lady,” he said with a slight chuckle. “You’re not even twenty yet.”

“I feel a lot older,” I replied. And that was true. The weight of my own expectations and the mission I’d taken upon my shoulders was heavy enough to make me feel like a cynical, old crone.

“What else?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Oh, come on – there’s got to be something,” he said. “Let’s say you finish all of this. Like, tomorrow, you wake up and all your goals have been accomplished. What do you do?”

“I…I don’t know.”

But I did. His mention of the unexplored and inhospitable wilderness had sparked a fire in my imagination, and the only answer that made any sense was to say that I wanted to explore and discover new things. I wanted to fight new and dangerous enemies. And most of all, I wanted to see things nobody else got to see.

I’d taken those things for granted, but in my short life, I’d already experienced a lot more than most, and that set me apart. It made me feel special.

“I want to explore, I guess,” I said. “Go out and see everything this world has to offer. I’m strong enough to survive most places. And once I’m done on Earth, I want to see the rest of the universe.”

Perhaps in doing so, I would discover some new civilization that had managed to avoid the rot that pervaded Nova City. Probably not, which was why I preferred the wilderness. Sure, it was dangerous, but it was also straightforward. A monster might try to kill me, but it would never attempt to capture and enslave anyone. That made all the difference, at least as far as I was concerned.

“Is there room for a partner in all that?” he asked, casting a sly grin in my direction.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. “So long as you can keep up.”

After that, the storm’s fury increased to the point where we couldn’t even hear one another, so it wasn’t long before I went to sleep. However, it was difficult to keep a smile from creeping across my face as I thought about the conversation. It proved that Patrick wanted to stick with me, and that was a comforting thought.

The next morning, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and as I ate another ration bar, I groaned, “Ugh. This is going to be miserable.”

“We could just stay here for the day,” Patrick suggested. “It’s not like we’re on a schedule.”

But we were. I’d wanted to get out of Nova for a while, but I still had my plans. And now, I was even more eager to finish what I’d started so Patrick and I could start planning for what came next. Already, my imagination was running wild with all the adventures we would experience, all the new and exciting things we might find.

As those thoughts raced through my mind, I was well aware that they would prove inaccurate. It wouldn’t be easy, and I felt certain that there would be plenty of days laced with complaints. More, I knew just how alien some of those thoughts were. Since the fall of Mobile, optimism and excitement had been left behind, so it felt a little strange to be looking forward to something that wasn’t related to my quest for revenge.

But I liked it.

“Better to just go,” I said. “The sooner we hit that Rift, the sooner we can start exploring the world, right?”

He gave me another one of his winning smiles before he ran his hand through his curly blonde hair. Then, he said, “You’re serious about that?”

“You weren’t?”

“Oh, I definitely am – it’s just a little surprising coming from you,” he said. “Haven’t seen you really smile in a long time. It’s nice.”

“Uh…”

“It’s also adorable how you have no idea how to respond to a compliment.”

“Shut up,” I said, turning away. I heard a light chuckle, but I ignored it as I folded my cot in on itself and stored it away. It was on the edge of what my arsenal implant could handle, but it fit alright. Soon enough, Patrick had done the same, and we set off once again.

The trip continued to be uneventful until I felt the Mist levels begin to rise. Soon enough, we’d reached the edge of the dead zone, which happened to coincide with our arrival at an abandoned and ruined city. Or town, really. None of the buildings were more than seven or eight stories tall, and there were only a couple of them that even managed that feat. The rest were fairly short and squat, suggesting that it had never been a metropolis.

It didn’t take Observation to tell that none of the buildings were architecturally sound, either. Everywhere I looked, walls had fallen into piles of rubble, and none of the structures I could see were even remotely close to maintaining even a semblance of structural integrity.

Not that it mattered. In the event we were forced to stay inside the dead zone, I’d make a more thorough search. For now, I was more interested in the wildlife.

Curiously, though, the entire area was dead silent. There were no animals in sight. No birds chirping. No insects flying around. Nothing.

And that definitely put my guard up.

“Follow me, but try not to make any noise,” I whispered. “Use your skill if you can.”

Patrick nodded, and I summoned my assault rifle while dismissing the hoverbike. Using it in the dead zone was possible, if only barely, but I wasn’t comfortable with the noise. The thing wasn’t loud, but in that desolate area, I knew the sound would carry. No – it was better to go on foot.

So, hefting my rifle, I advanced, passing into the dead zone proper. Immediately, the familiar tingles I’d felt in the last dead zone returned, telling me that the ambient Mist levels had skyrocketed. Following behind me, Patrick let out a subdued gasp, which drew my glare. He held his hands up and mouthed an apology. I just shook my head. Apparently, his version of quiet meant gasping at every little change in Mist levels.

I stepped forward, quickly crossing the rubble strewn street to hug one of the crumbling buildings. Like that, we crossed the town, using the buildings for cover when we could and moving as quickly as the terrain allowed. Over the next few hours, we made decent time, but I came to a sudden halt when I finally heard a noise that didn’t originate from us.

It was a slight buzzing sound, barely perceptible, even with Observation. But it was definitely there. Curious, I pushed forward until the sound became clearer. Then, I pointed to a nearby pile of rubble, then at Patrick. The meaning was clear. I wanted him to stay behind while I scouted it out.

For a moment, I thought he was going to argue or refuse, but he surprised me by doing precisely what I’d asked. I did notice that he’d drawn his sleek, black-and-gold pistol, though. Hopefully, he was ready to use it.

Pushing Patrick out of mind, I focused on the task at hand. Darting forward on silent feet as I engaged Stealth, I turned down a narrow alley that I hoped would lead me to my quarry. To my dismay, a collapsing wall had piled the rubble high, blocking my path. Undeterred, I retreated and found another route. I could have climbed over that first obstruction, and probably easily, but I didn’t want to take the chance of falling rocks alerting whatever was making that noise.

It took me a few more tries to find an unblocked path, but I didn’t allow the mounting frustration to push me into a mistake. I’d already made plenty of those, and I knew I needed to change that pattern if I hoped to survive. Eventually, my search bore fruit, and I found a mostly unobstructed path. It required me to get on my hands and knees and crawl, but that wasn’t so onerous.

Gradually, I crept forward, careful to maintain my silence, and after a few more turns, I found myself approaching the head of an alley. Beyond, I could see an open space, and in the distance, I saw an enormous structure that reminded me of the Emporium back in Nova. It wasn’t really a match – the details were all wrong – but the general style remained the same. An arena of some sort, I reasoned.

However, its sheer size beggared belief. The Emporium was huge, but this was a true monument to excess. And what’s more, it didn’t seem to match the town itself. I reasoned that even if the entire population of such a town were to pile into that arena, there would still be room left over.

In any case, the sight of that enormous building could only occupy my mind for so long, and soon enough, I turned my attention back to the buzzing sound. Or rather, the originator of said noise.

Channeling my inner-Patrick, I couldn’t suppress a gasp of my own.