Mistrunner 3 - Chapter 35 - Failure (Patreon)

Morality is the privilege of the powerful.

Patrick Ward

After Alistaris gave me a little more information on my target, I escorted him out of the Leviathan. To my surprise, a ship landed a moment later. It was small – maybe twenty or thirty feet long – sleek, and shaped like a bullet with wings. Looking at it, it was easy to imagine that it was a craft specialized for stealth and speed.

As Alistaris climbed aboard, I called out, “Remember your part of the bargain. If those people end up dead, our next meeting won’t be so pleasant.”

He looked back and said, “You think that was pleasant? You did shoot me.”

“I stand by what I said,” I stated. He and his people might be incredibly powerful – far more so than I was – but I’d already proven that I could infiltrate their facilities and cause all sorts of havoc. If he didn’t hold up his end of the deal and save those people, I intended to find out just how much chaos I could cause. Perhaps I couldn’t kill them all – debatable, given that I had never really gotten serious with Alistaris or his team of invisible warriors – but I could certainly throw a wrench into their operations.

He just shook his head. “I keep my promises, Miss Braddock,” he stated. Then, without another word, he climbed the rest of the way into the cockpit. Even as the door slid shut and the ramp retracted, the ship rose into the air and faded away. I could still sense it – barely – but I had flare Observation at its maximum power to do so. Soon enough, it was gone.

But I didn’t relax.

Instead, he quickly retreated into the Leviathan, sealed it shut, and began the arduous process of combing the systems for hostile Ghosts. And I found plenty. Alistaris hadn’t spent his time idling about; instead, he’d planted thirteen Ghosts, each intended to track whatever happened within the Leviathan. Most were only surface level, which meant that he knew I’d find them. However, there were two buried so deep that I almost missed them. I crushed them all with ruthless efficiency before starting again from the top.

Like that, I spent the next six hours. Repeatedly scanning the systems probably wasn’t necessary. I felt reasonably certain that I’d gotten all of the trackers. However, reasonably certain just wasn’t good enough. By the seventh hour, my repeated scans – each one going deeper than the last – bore fruit when I found the last tracker.

I unraveled it, then continued on for another few hours. I didn’t find anything else, though. Finally, once I was absolutely sure that the systems were clean, I let myself relax for a few minutes. Then, I started searching for physical trackers. And I found plenty of those, too. In a lot of ways, it was a far more tedious process than combing the ship’s systems for hostile Ghosts, but I was used to tedium, and the stakes were high enough to garner the entirety of my focus.

All in all, cleaning the ship took close to an entire day, but by the time I was finished, I’d found seventeen physical trackers. Each one was a tiny, matte black plasti-steel disc that was perfect for remaining unseen. But thankfully, my Observation ability was more than up to the task.

Finally, when I was certain that I’d gotten all of Alistaris’ trackers, I slumped into the pilot’s chair, mentally exhausted. I wanted to be angry, but I also knew that he was just doing what anyone would have done in his position. Besides, I was too tired to be annoyed.

So, after piloting the ship to a new location and instituting all of my defenses, I took a shower and went to bed. After waking the next morning, I gave the ship another thorough sweep – finding nothing – before establishing my agenda. I had three things I needed to accomplish. First, I had enough information to infiltrate the Ithids’ compound and hopefully use that to gain entry into Olympus, where I could commence with my search for Cyrilla’s brother.

Second, I needed to open the packet my uncle had left for me. I knew that doing so wouldn’t take long; it was just a file, after all. But I expected it to be emotionally draining in a way nothing else would be. Barely a day went by that I didn’t think about Jeremiah, but most of those thoughts were muddled by time and distance. Suddenly confronting his final message to me was inevitably going to be emotionally draining. So, when looking at that packet, I felt a combination of anxiety, fear, dread, and anticipation that left my emotions tangled into something almost unrecognizable.

The last item on my list was to assault the E’rok Tan base of operations. I thought I was mentally prepared for what I would see there, but I also knew it would be a truly horrible experience. So, I had an overwhelming urge to put it off. I wouldn’t listen to it, of course, but that urge to procrastinate was still there.

Sighing, I established my list of priorities, then dove into my interface and, after scanning the packet Gala had given me, opened it. When I did, a video of uncle appeared.

“Hey, Mira,” the recording of Jeremiah said. “If you’re looking at this, I’m probably dead.” He ran his hand over his bald head, then sighed. “God. That’s such a cliché line. Accurate, but cliché. Anyway, I hope this finds you well after you finished your training. Maybe after you left Earth altogether. But if not…I’m sorry.”

He sighed again. I could see from the background that he’d recorded the message in his room in the Dewdrop Inn back in Mobile. Maybe he’d done so right before he’d been killed. Whatever the case, it felt like I was looking back in time.

“I know I put a lot of pressure on you. You probably hate me for it. But I hope you appreciate that it was necessary,” Jeremiah said. “This world…it’s a terrible place. Sometimes, I wonder why I’m so driven to survive. It would be so much easier to just give in. To let death ferry me off into a better world. Your mother believed in heaven. Maybe that’s where she is, now. But even if nothing happens when we die, which is far more likely than some perfect world filled with angels, it has to be better than this hell, right? But I keep fighting. I keep scratching and clawing, even though I know we’re all doomed. What does that make me? A glutton for punishment, maybe? I don’t know.”

I had never heard my uncle talk like that. The man I remembered had always been so sure of himself, so certain of his place in the world and how he intended to attack it. But this version of Jeremiah clearly had doubts. I’d always known my uncle had issues. He had been through so much, it would have been remarkable if he had come out of it psychologically unscathed.

But he’d never let that show. Not with me. As a result, the person in the video seemed almost like a different person.

“I wish I had something more to give,” he went on. “Some great secret to pass on. A final gift, maybe. But I already put everything into giving you the tools to survive. I have to trust that you’ll use those tools for their intended purpose. Survive, Mira. That’s all I care about. Survive and escape this hell. Maybe the rest of the universe is better.”

Briefly, he looked away, and when he looked back at the camera, I saw wetness gathering at the corners of his eyes. “I love you, Mira. I don’t think I ever said that enough,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “You’re so much like…you just remind me of your mother. And her father before her. I wish I could’ve been better. I wish I could have done more.”

He sniffed, then ran his hand over his head again before continuing, “I just want you to know that I did the best I could. That was always the case. I screwed up so many times, Mira. Going back to the very beginning. Before that, even. I tried to save them. I really did. But I just kept failing. Over and over. I had to…I had to watch so many people die. At times, I tried to join them. I wanted to. I just didn’t have the strength to do it myself. So….so I just kept throwing myself into danger. At the time, I was just so angry. So hopeless. I told myself I didn’t care if I lived or died. I just wanted the invaders to suffer. But looking back, I was just trying to end it. That I somehow made it through is…is…it was one of my greatest regrets.

“And the best thing that could have happened to me,” he went on. “I survived, and eventually, I found my sister. Your great, great grandmother. She was a good woman who’d given everything she had to help her family survive. Only one did. Your grandfather. I tried to help him, too. But back then, I was too weak. And he was too…he just didn’t want the life I tried to give him. He lived a mostly ordinary life that was cut short when…”

He trailed off. Then, he said, “He didn’t survive long after your mother was born. I raised her. I tried to give her every advantage. But she just wasn’t…she didn’t want it. I think I pushed her too hard. I think I tried to turn her into something she wasn’t. And because of that, she rebelled. I wanted to respect her wishes, but…I just…I wish I’d have just let her live her life on her own terms. But I couldn’t watch her throw her life way. So, I cut ties. I just…well, when she was killed, I was…I was distraught. That’s where that nickname comes from. Did you know that? I went on a rampage. I killed…hundreds of petty criminals. I didn’t know who killed your mother, but I knew the type of person they were. So, knowing I couldn’t only kill the one responsible, I just…I killed them all. They gave me the nickname after that. The Wraith. All because I…everyone else thought it was terrifying. But me? It was just a reminder that I was a failure.”

Jeremiah let out a long, drawn-out breath before continuing, “You know the rest. Or most of it. I…I didn’t intend for this to be a history lesson. I didn’t mean to burden you with my issues. But I guess it kind of fits. Don’t follow in my footsteps, Mira. I know I turned you into a killer. You’re probably good at it, too, judging by how well your training is going. But don’t let that be all you are.

“Save someone. Help people. Do what I couldn’t,” he said. “But most of all, just survive. That’s all I care about, now. Everything else…it was just…it’s all meaningless. The only thing that really matters is you surviving what’s coming.”

There was a knock at the door of his inn room, so, after once again wiping his tears away, he said, “I think that’s it, Mira. That’s all I have to say. I’m sorry I wasn’t better. I’m sorry I couldn’t…I’m sorry I can’t be there for you anymore. But I was never meant to survive. But you are. Remember that everything I put you through, I did it because I love you.”

And then the video went black before cutting off entirely. It took a few seconds after that for me to realize that tears were running down my cheeks. I had always known that my uncle was a flawed man. But I’d only gotten a few rare peaks into his vulnerabilities. He had always been my anchor. My mentor. The example of what I could one day become.

To find that he was a miserable, broken man shouldn’t have been surprising. I think I always knew. But to see it addressed so blatantly – it threw my entire world off kilter.

And on top of that, it just highlighted how much I missed him.

It also made me think about my own path. I had no doubts that, if he had somehow known what I would do in Nova, he would be disappointed, largely because I was following in his footsteps. But was that any surprise? After all, I had him as a role model. Of course I was going to take my cues from him.

I leaned back in the pilot’s chair and just stared at the ceiling. What was I supposed to do with that video message? How was I supposed to take it? It hadn’t contained any new information. Not really. Even if I didn’t think about it often, I knew my family history well enough. But those people were strangers to me. They’d had no impact on the person I had become.

It took me a few long minutes to realize that I was looking at it all wrong. That message hadn’t been for me. It was for him. How lonely must Jeremiah have been if that was the only way he felt comfortable sharing his feelings?

After a while, I shifted the video to the back of my system where it joined the Leviathan playlist my uncle had given me. I rarely listened to it anymore. Not because I didn’t still like the music – I did. Rather, every time I heard those songs, I felt guilty. And I was reminded of my uncle’s death.

But in that moment, it felt appropriate, so I queued up the playlist and just listened. I don’t know how long I sat there, but by the time I pulled myself out of the funk, my tears had run dry and I’d cycled through the songs multiple times.

“Okay. That’s enough of that,” I said aloud. “Time to get to work.”

To that end, I headed to the bathroom where I washed my face before sitting on the bed and perusing the second file I’d received. This one concerned the IIthids that had allied themselves with the Pacificians. I was pleased to see that they were not nearly as advanced as some of the other aliens I’d encountered, so I didn’t anticipate any issues with infiltrating their base. Still, I spent quite some time combing through the file and memorizing their defenses before moving on to the final item on my list.

The E’rok Tan.

The compound itself wasn’t anything special – just prefabricated, plasti-steel buildings surrounding a familiar Rift aperture – but the setting was anything but what I’d expected. It actually took me quite some time to figure out what I was looking at, and when I did, I just shook my head and muttered, “Creepy.”

On the surface, the area wasn’t much different from a hundred ruined towns I’d passed through over the years. But looking closer, I saw what looked like rusted and overgrown rail lines suspended high in the air and surrounded by various oddly shaped buildings. It wasn’t until I saw the remnants of a carousel – I had seen one back in the French Quarter of Nova City – that I pieced everything together.

It had been some sort of amusement park, abandoned since the Mist had changed the world. And the Rift – as well as the E’rok Tan base – was directly in the center.

I continued to study the map, soon finding the covered warehouse where they kept their “livestock”. I didn’t see any humans, but the labels on the map were quite clear. The thought of human beings being kept like livestock was enough to make me gag in revulsion, so I pushed it away. Hopefully, those poor people wouldn’t have to endure much longer.

After familiarizing myself with the setting, I turned to the section on the E’rok Tan themselves. They were tall, broad-shouldered creatures equipped with four arms, two legs, and jutting tusks. To me, they looked like someone had taken a boar and crossed it with a human before injecting the result with copious amounts of performance-enhancing drugs. Their bulging muscles and brutish appearance gave me the impression that I didn’t want to challenge them in a contest of physical strength.

Which was good, because I had no intention of going at them head-on. Instead, I planned to do things as quietly as possible – at least until it was time to go loud. By the time they knew I was there, they’d already be as good as dead.

Of course, that was barring any complications, which was unlikely. Plans were great and necessary, and sometimes, things went according to some predetermined strategy. As my uncle had once told me, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

He attributed the quote to some long-dead prizefighter, and I’d taken the lesson to heart. The success of any mission didn’t usually hinge on the quality of the initial plan. Instead, it was about adjusting to changing circumstances and thinking on your feet. And for better or worse, I’d had plenty of experience in adaptation. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to use that particular skill, but I’d learned that hope, for all its power, was usually the prerogative of the naïve. In the real world, blind hope got people killed.

Preparation, planning, and adaptation were far more reliable.