Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 61 - Discovery (Patreon)

I didn’t want to do it. My hand was forced. I can’t let defiance stand. They helped her – knowingly or unknowingly – and they refused to make it right. Now, everyone knows the price of standing against me. Sometimes, examples must be made in order to show others the consequences of making the wrong choices.

Nora Lancaster

“What…what do you think happened here?” asked Patrick, his hand covering the lower part of his face. Maybe it was an attempt to cover the smell, but it just as easily could’ve been an expression of shock. After all, the pile of bodies before us warranted either reaction.

I’d seen a lot of death since my Awakening. I had even killed quite a few and was responsible for even more. But nothing could compare to the pile of rotting meat that had once been a group of living, breathing human beings. The visceral nature of it shook me right down to the core of who I was, and even if I hadn’t recently experienced an epiphany about my own actions, seeing the mound of corpses would have been a wakeup call. It was impossible to look upon it and remain blind to the human suffering I’d caused.

At one point, I’d toyed with the idea that I’d acted evilly in the past. But this display of casual murder represented a clear distinction between what I’d done and true wickedness. It made me want to vomit.

But even more, it reaffirmed my resolution to be better in the future, lest I somehow descend to a level where callously killing hundreds – or probably thousands – of people seemed like a valid path. It seemed impossible that I might one day go down that road, but whoever had killed all those people probably thought the same thing. It wasn’t just one step. It was a descent of inches. Hundreds of little decisions. Thousands of tiny moments. Each driving you further toward depravity until you look around and recognize that you’ve reached hell. And that you have become a monster meant for that setting.

“I don’t know,” I admitted in a whisper. But I intended to find out. To that end, I turned and began an exploration of the tunnel. It took a couple of minutes, but I eventually found a security terminal. When I jacked in, I had no difficulty using Mistwalkto bypass the defenses and infiltrate the system. It was so much easier when I had a hardwired connection than when I was forced to use Misthack, and it wasn’t long before a web of security cameras, inactive auto-turrets, and other various defenses were exposed to my mind.

I ignored the defenses – most had been damaged to the point of inoperability – zeroing in on the security logs. In seconds, I gathered the appropriate video feeds and set about perusing them. With my Mind attribute, the Hand of God, and my [Mistrunning] skill, I could process the information extremely quickly, so it didn’t take more than a few minutes before I had a good picture of what had happened.

Predictably, it was the Specters.

I had been betrayed. I wasn’t sure exactly what had passed between Nora and Gunther, but from the few stray bits of conversation I heard on the security feeds, it was clear that he’d revealed many of my secrets. Chief among them was that I’d cooperated with the Nats, and Nora had chosen to make an example of them.

It wasn’t really targeted at me. She likely didn’t think I’d use the same route back into the city. Perhaps she didn’t think I’d ever return. Either way, that wasn’t the point. Instead, she’d approached the Nats expecting some sort of compensation.

It made sense, too. After all, she couldn’t really attack Gunther. He was too powerful. And I hadn’t associated with any other organizations. Besides, the Nats were loners. They’d never cultivated alliances with the other tribes. Finally, they were weak enough that the Specters could easily defeat them.

I watched as the fight broke out, and it was a massacre. After the Specters killed Gavin Paulson – the tribe’s leader – as well as his warriors, they spread out through the Underground, murdering anyone they saw. A few escaped, but not as many as I might’ve hoped. In the end, the Specters stripped the bodies and area of anything valuable, piled the corpses into the heap I’d just seen, and left.

Some of the Operators were clearly disgusted, but a disturbing number took glee in their abhorrent actions. For her part, Nora only participated in the first stage, leaving the extermination of the rest of the tribe to her underlings.

Before, I’d had trouble connecting the woman I thought I knew with the sort of person who could betray my uncle. But watching her on those security feeds, any doubts I might’ve harbored dissipated into nothing. She wasn’t just the enemy. She was actively evil.

Of course, I wasn’t so blind that I believed she was alone in her nature. I was certain that my uncle had done similar things in the past. But there was a difference between ephemeral suggestions masquerading as knowledge and visual evidence. The former fostered doubt. The latter engendered certainty.

“What do you see?” asked Patrick. “Who did this?”

“Nora,” was my dispassionate answer. “She killed them all.”

“W-what? Why?”

I shook my head. “She needed to make an example,” I explained. “The tribes, they exist in a delicate balance. I…I upset that balance by weakening the Specters, and they needed to make a big splash if they were going to maintain their place and keep the others from pouncing on a perceived weakness.”

“I…I don’t…why these people, though?”

“Because I passed through,” I said. “I used this route out of and back into the city. But that was just an excuse. She probably didn’t even think I’d return this way. This wasn’t for me. It was for everyone else.”

“So…what do we do?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” I answered. “I mean, most of those people would have just been dumped into the swamp anyway. That’s probably what’ll happen anyway. Once people figure out that the Nats are gone, another group will move in here. They’ll toss the bodies and…and I don’t know, Patrick. I don’t think it matters.”

“You don’t think what matters?”

“Anything? I don’t know,” I said, loosening my grip on some of the emotions rampaging through my mind. I was angry. Disappointed. Horrified. And a hundred other variations of the same feelings. “I just don’t know, Patrick. This wasn’t my fault. I know it wasn’t. I didn’t kill those people. But they wouldn’t be dead without me. It’s…it’s a heavy feeling, and I don’t know…I don’t have a clue how to deal with it.”

Patrick looked away, but he didn’t say anything. For some reason, that made me even angrier.

“What? No stories this time? No sage advice? Nothing from Remy?” I demanded.

“No.”

“Seriously? Nothing?” I spat.

“I don’t think Remy ever saw anything like this,” he said, his barely audible. If it weren’t for the passive component of Observation boosting my senses, I wasn’t sure if I’d have even heard him.

“No. He didn’t,” I said, some of the fire dissipating from my tone. I knew it wasn’t Patrick’s fault. I was just so angry. At Nora. At the situation. At Nova City in general. It just wasn’t fair that these people had paid for my sins. For something they had nothing to do with. “I don’t think many people have.”

After that, the conversation lapsed into silence. Neither of us really knew how to confront our emotions or the scene we’d just witnessed, so it was easier to simply move on. The journey through the Underground tunnels was accompanied by an oppressive silence, and to distract myself from my roiling thoughts, I focused intently on Observation. Nora might not have considered the former Nats’ base to be terribly important, but I found it unlikely that she would have left it completely abandoned.

For a while, I found nothing. However, as I followed the path to the exit, I stumbled upon a simple motion sensor. When I dove into its underlying system, I discovered that it would only trip if it sensed something larger than a child. It didn’t take much effort for me to follow the threads of its connection to other, similar systems throughout the tunnels and chambers that made up the Underground.

I deactivated them all, though I looped the connection so that the receiver wouldn’t be alerted to a problem. More, that tether allowed me to pinpoint the location of whoever was monitoring the web of sensors. I marked them on my map, fully intending to take ruthless revenge on the people who’d killed the men, women, and children in the corpse pile I’d encountered.

But then I thought better of it.

Right now, we needed to get to the Bazaar, unload the haul of Rift Shards we’d mined, and use the resulting funds to buy a ship. Everything else would come later.

I still intended to kill Nora. Not even the personal growth that had been forced upon me in the Rift could do anything to derail that mission. But in my mind, it felt almost like an afterthought. An item on my to-do list that needed to be checked off before I could move on with my life.

A marked change from when my revenge was the driving force behind every decision, but as difficult as it was to keep myself from returning to bad habits, I knew it was necessary. I had seen the person I could become, and I wanted to avoid that fate at all costs.

So, not wanting to alert anyone to our presence, I donned a disguise by embracing Mimic, and led Patrick, who was cloaked in his own camouflaging skill, out of the tunnels and to the huge, concrete viaduct that cut through the Garden. I didn’t see the monitors, but I knew they were nearby, likely beneath a holographic display that masked their presence. Still, I trusted my disguise as well as Stealth to keep me hidden, largely because it had never failed me before.

It also helped that I figured the watchers were dependent on their web of sensors to alert them to any activity. It would have been so easy to just pop into their midst and kill them all. But I restrained my murderous impulses, focusing on what was really important.

And as we climbed the sloped sides of the viaduct to the ladder that would lead us to the street above, we remained undetected. It was possible that they were merely putting on a show of ignorance, but I was familiar enough with the Specters to know how unlikely that strategy was. They were the strong, and if they did manage to see through our stealthy abilities, we would appear weak. Doubtless, they would have attacked, intending to add a couple of fresh bodies to the corpse pile.

That didn’t happen, though, and we reached the street without issue. Once there, I took a moment to look around, taking in the familiar confines of the city. Structurally, it was the same as ever, with giant megabuildings dominating the skyline. However, for the first time in my memory, I found myself feeling completely alone on the streets of Nova City.

There were no pedestrians in evidence. No homeless men or women begging for loose credits. No addicts sprawled in the alleys. And certainly no exhausted people trudging to and from dead end jobs that expected them to sacrifice everything while giving them next to nothing.

“Eerie,” said Patrick, noticing the same thing.

For months, the citizens of Nova City had been in the midst of a mass exodus. And it seemed that, while we were gone, it had finally reached that critical point where the city felt empty.  I knew that, in some of the busier parts of the city, people would be in greater evidence – the Nats had chosen their base specifically because it was less populated and didn’t infringe on anyone else’s territory. But it had never been so abandoned.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, either.

On the one hand, I hated Nova City and its oppressive policies that forced the bulk of its citizenry to scramble for whatever scraps happened to fall from the higher platforms. That part of me applauded the people for breaking their chains and fleeing the city. But the more realistic part of me couldn’t escape the reality that most of those people had fled right into the jaws of the wilderness. The vast majority probably never reached their destinations. Instead, they were almost assuredly consumed by the various threats so ubiquitous in the wild places of the world.

I wasn’t certain which fate was preferable.

It didn’t really matter, though. The die had been cast, and nothing I could do would change the course of events. I could only do what I’d come to do and go on with my life.

To that end, Patrick and I found an abandoned alley, where I summoned my Cutter. Once mounted, we set off through the city. As we did, I couldn’t help but note that the tribal conflict hadn’t abated during our time outside the city. If anything, its intensity had only increased, and it was rare that we passed a side street that didn’t show the evidence of a city at war.

Operators swaggered around, looking like they were itching for a fight. Roadblocks abounded, forcing us to take alternate routes. Fires burned, sending thick, dark clouds of smoke billowing into the atmosphere. And the sound of gunfire and explosions – some distant, but others disturbingly close – filled the air.

A few times, groups of Operators tried to stop us, but the Cutter was quick and maneuverable enough that such attempts were destined for failure. Still, some of the angry gunmen tried to take potshots at us. A few came distressingly close to hitting the mark. They probably wouldn’t been more than an inconvenience for me, but for Patrick, they would have been far more impactful.

Eventually, we reached the ramp connecting the Garden to Bywater, and after reaching the other platform, we saw the other consequence of the tribal war. The Enforcers were out in great numbers. Ostensibly, they seemed intent on leveraging their presence toward keeping the peace, but I saw the truth. They were just another tribe, and more than once, I saw their brutality on blatant display.

Nobody stopped a group of Enforcers when they gunned down a young girl who’d been running down the street. Perhaps she’d robbed someone. Or maybe she just liked to run. Either way, the Enforcers took it as an opportunity to exercise their more murderous tendencies. My bias could have been showing, but I thought they looked like they were playing a game to see who could shoot her first.

I didn’t see how it ended, but I couldn’t imagine it would be a good outcome for the young girl. More, I couldn’t help but see the parallels between her path and my own life. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d been that girl, sprinting through the streets after stealing a pair of boots.

I saw more than a few such scenes as we raced through the streets, but at some point, I just stopped paying attention. I couldn’t save them. And I knew that dwelling on such things would send me down a dark path. So, I closed myself off to it.

Patrick clearly didn’t have the ability to ignore his nature, and I felt his arms tighten each time he saw injustice playing out in front of him. I felt sorry for him, but I was also proud that my companion still had the capacity for empathy. So many people who’d seen the things he had seen would have long since descended into cold cynicism. I had, at least to some degree, so I knew how easy it could be.

At some point, the Dome came into view, and we pulled to a stop before the plaza depicting statues of humanity’s various deities, all with their gazes cast skyward as they worshipped the incoming aliens. It was disgusting.

But I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on it.

So, we dismounted the Cutter and hurried through the square and into the huge, domed building that housed the access point for the Bazaar. The area was mostly deserted, but there were still enough people around that it almost felt normal. I knew it wasn’t.

“Don’t look, but we’ve picked up a tail,” I whispered to Patrick, keeping my eyes trained forward. “Six Operators, dressed in cheap knockoff suits. All armed with pistols.”

When I had first noticed the group, I’d thought they were just normal civilians. However, those cheap suits couldn’t disguise the bulky cybernetics that eschewed sleek, compact design, exchanging it for raw power. Once they got my attention, I flared Observation and saw their shifting eyes and constant attention for what it was. They were following us.

And there was only one reason that would be the case: we’d been recognized somehow.

“What do we do?” Patrick asked, his voice quivering slightly with fear.

“Keep going. Get into the Bazaar,” I said. “Hopefully, you have enough shards to buy a ship.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I’ll deal with the situation.”

That’s when I noticed three other groups closing in on us. I recognized a few of them, too. How could I not? I’d seen them often enough.

But one, in particular, caught my eye. Real leather suit. A wide-brimmed hat. Ridiculous boots. Suddenly, I didn’t question how I’d been recognized. Gunther had always been able to see through my various skills, after all.

“Go. Now,” I spat.

To his credit, Patrick didn’t hesitate. Instead, he immediately accelerated into a flat-out sprint. Meanwhile, I wheeled around, summoning my R-14 and sending a few bursts of fire at the closest groups. At the same time, I sprinted to the side, taking cover behind a bulky bench.

Glancing in Patrick’s direction, I saw him turn a corner, and I breathed a sigh of relief. So long as they hadn’t stationed anyone at the Bazaar node itself, he would be fine. I just had to take care of the threats so they couldn’t attack his body while his awareness was in the space station miles above the surface.

“Nice to see you again, Gunther!” I yelled. “I always knew you’d turn on me.”

Gunther shouted back, “Nothing personal. It’s just business, girl. Now, surrender, and we’ll leave your little friend alone. If you fight back, Dierdre here will tear him apart one limb at a time.”