Mistrunner 3 - Chapter 43 - A Question of Mist (Patreon)

There’s something so satisfying about creation. I can take a bunch of seemingly unrelated pieces and put them together to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t matter if I’m cooking, brewing beer, or building cybernetics – if I could just spend the rest of my life creating useful things, I’d be happy.

Patrick Ward

For the longest time, I just stood there and stared at the scene laid out before me. There were hundreds of pillars, each at least twenty or thirty yards wide and descending thousands of feet into a huge, circular hole that went on further than I could see. Mist danced in the air, almost visible to the naked eye as it coagulated around the pods along the surface of those cylinders. Because the pods were transparent, I could see that each one held a naked person.

After a few moments, I remembered where I was, and I shifted away from the hall’s exit, but my stare never really broke away from those people. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know why they’d been imprisoned in such a way. But the sight triggered me in a way nothing else really had. Suddenly, I remembered why I hated the aliens – not just the Pacificians – so much. I’d let that hatred dissipate a little, but it came back in full force. They were the enemy – not because of some inherent evil. Rather, they were because they were invaders, and more importantly, they were far more powerful than humanity. As such, they had no restrictions on their actions. If they chose to enslave us – or to treat us as livestock, as I’d seen in the E’rok Tan settlement – then there was no one who could oppose them.

If the situations were reversed, humanity would be no better. I knew that. Our history proved as much. However, the people of Earth had something no alien ever could. Chiefly, they were my people. I was one of them. As such, it was easy to separate everyone into two sides: them and us.

And I wanted my side to win, not because of some moral imperative, but because if we didn’t, I would fall the same as everyone else. In that way, I was just as self-interested as anyone else.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason for my mounting anger. My mind – and everyone else’s, I think – was far more complex than that. I hardly ever did anything for only one reason, and this instance was no different. That’s where morality came in. That’s where pity reared its ugly head. There were a hundred other emotions racing through my mind, but they all coalesced into a simple objective: I needed to save those people and destroy the infrastructure of their prison.

So, after taking a few deep breaths, I got close enough to the first pillar that I could use Misthack. Predictably, the security of the structure was incredibly dense, but my training had prepared me well. So, even though it took almost twenty minutes, I managed to infiltrate the system and learn a little about what was going on.

And it shocked me at how uncomplicated it was.

The basic premise was that people functioned as natural Mist accumulators – at least to a point. When I’d first Awakened, I could only hold a tiny amount of Mist, but as I’d grown more powerful – partly due to my climbing Mist attribute, but also because of my higher levels – that amount had significantly increased. When I reached the cap on what I could hold, the regeneration of my Mist stopped. However, so long as I was missing some part of my capacity, it continued until my reserves were full.

The purpose of the pods was to constantly drain the prisoners’ Mist, which was then collected and redirected by the pillars. I had no idea where it was going – that much information wasn’t contained in the prison’s system – but I resolved to find out. To that end, I disconnected my mind from that system and went searching for a security terminal, which I found only a few minutes later.

To my disappointment, though, it contained very little additional information, which meant that my investigation needed to continue. However, before it did, I located the controls for the pods and, after a little trial and error, figured out how to free one of the prisoners. I watched as a robotic arm extended from the edge of the cylinder, then plucked one of the pods from the closest pillar. Then, it set the globe on a cradle along the edge of the pillar, and a few seconds later, a hundred small tubes snaked out to connect with the cell. Finally, the tubes drained the pod, which deflated like a leaky balloon before disappearing altogether.

I’d kept my distance throughout the process, but once it was completed, I cautiously approached, only to find that the man in question was entirely unresponsive. I tried using an med-hypo on him, but he didn’t even flinch, and only a few seconds later, the life drained out of him.

I stared in shock as a claw descended from above, latched onto the body, and dragged it up and away. And just like that, there was no evidence that the man had ever even existed.

That’s when I heard footsteps coming from the hall. Without Observation, I never would’ve known anyone was headed my way, but with the ability running, I could hear them coming from hundreds of yards away. So, I retreated to the wall just to the left of the hall and, cloaked in Stealth and Camouflage, waited.

My vigil didn’t last long, and soon enough, two blonde androids strode into view. It took a moment for me to recognize that one was male while the other was female. Both wore green robes and carried rifles that looked almost as advanced as my own.

“It is probably a glitch,” said the woman, passing me by.

“Indeed. The system still has a plethora of bugs,” the man replied from beside her. “Soon, we will finish our mission and perfect the system.”

“I hope so.”

“Hope is for the weak,” the man said. “Together, we make our own hope.”

“Together,” the woman agreed.

I followed them as they went toward the cradle where I’d just watched a man die, but after investigating it for a few minutes, the woman said, “Premature harvest. The third this month.”

“Down from seven last month. Improvement.”

“Indeed,” she agreed. “Perfection is imminent. Together, we shall overcome.”

“Together,” he echoed.

A few moments later, the pair enacted some process by which the remnants of the pod were drained into the floor, then, once everything was gone, they headed back the way they’d come. That left me with a choice to make. Either I could follow them, or I could continue to explore the facility until I learned more about what was going on.

I chose the latter, largely because I had proven that I could traverse the base undetected. However, people tended to complicate things, and while the two I’d just encountered were incapable of detecting me, there was nothing to say that others within the facility would be similarly restricted. So, simple exploration seemed to be the better option.

With that in mind, I continued to search the prison, trying all the while to ignore the people within those pods. None were conscious, so at least they probably weren’t in pain, but that was a small mercy next to the reality of their imprisonment. The Mist continued to swirl around me as I spent the next few hours searching the cavernous room. However, I found nothing of note, save for another hall that led deeper into the facility.  I knew from the maps that it would loop around and connect to the yet-unexplored part of the base.

The connecting corridor was identical to the one I’d left behind, and it soon led me past a series of storage rooms. However, instead of drums filled with liquid metal, they contained complex components. If they’d been any smaller, I would have pocketed a few. However, my arsenal implant was too limited for that, so I noted the area before moving on.

Eventually, my exploration led me to an unmarked lift that descended further underground. I didn’t dare activate it on my own – I felt certain that doing so would trigger some warning within the facility’s security system – so I settled down to wait for someone else to activate it. I got what I was looking for a couple of hours later when a group of green-robed Pacificians took the lift down below.

I rode along with them, undetected.

As the lift descended, I crouched in one of the corners. There were no rails, so the Pacificians were all clustered in the center, which gave me plenty of room to wait without the danger of running into one of them.

After a few seconds, the lift sped up until it descended into an enormous cavern. If it was less than a mile long, I would have been very surprised, and it was at least twice as wide and three times as deep. In short, it was an absolutely awe-inspiring space. But what was even more shocking was the contents.

Ships.

Each one at least twice the size of the Leviathan. However, where the Leviathan was clearly meant for transport and exploration, these were obviously machines of war. Sleek and bristling with weapons, the ships were far more advanced than anything I had ever seen before. That wasn’t saying much, really, but the sight took me aback nonetheless.

As the lift continued to descend, I saw more details of what I suspected was a shipyard. There were black- and brown-robed Pacificians scurrying all around, but I couldn’t really make much sense of what they were doing. I just assumed that they were building the ships, which, for all their size, were clearly incomplete.

When the lift finally reached the shipyard floor, I discretely left it behind and found a secluded corner of the enormous chamber so I could continue my observation. However, even after a couple of hours, I hadn’t managed to gather anymore pertinent information. So, I continued on, looking for a terminal I could use to gather intelligence.

It took a while, but eventually, I found my way to what I suspected was the shipyard’s command center. It was populated by more green-robed Pacificians, which spoke to its importance. More importantly, it housed precisely the terminals I’d been searching for. So, over the next hour, I slowly made my way inside, slipping through doors behind unsuspecting androids so as not to leave any record of my passage behind.

I didn’t know if they paid attention to how many times the doors opened, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. Not when I was so deep behind enemy lines and I had an opportunity to undermine their entire operation.

Eventually, I found my way to the command structure’s operational center, where I waited for an opportunity to jack into the system. I didn’t dare use Misthack, largely because it was very limited, both in scope and in the amount of access it could give. Instead, I intended to use my personal link to infiltrate the system directly.

The only problem with that was that the Pacificians, being androids, didn’t really take many breaks. And when they did, others took their places. The whole thing operated with robotic efficiency, which made my task that much more difficult.

Still, no system is without flaws, and I merely had to wait until an opportunity presented itself. As it happened, I had to wait most of a day, which I spent crouched in a corner, my presence masked behind my abilities, before I finally got an opening.

The green-robed technician at the terminal told her colleague that she needed to refuel – which I took to mean that she was going to eat her dinner – which gave me the opportunity to creep closer, extend my personal link, and access her terminal. There were a half-dozen other technicians in the room, but because of my abilities, none of them even knew I was there. However, I knew that if I didn’t push through the terminal’s defenses with alacrity, my intrusion into the system would quickly be detected.

Thankfully, I had plenty of practice doing just that, so I bent my will to the task, and, one node at a time, the Mistwall fell before me. The puzzles – or locks, I suppose – weren’t that difficult to overcome, but that tracked with everything I had seen so far. The Pacificians hadn’t invested much time or effort in their security, and I could understand why. Their base was on the moon, and as such, it was almost entirely inaccessible to their enemies. Moreover, it took a very specific confluence of skills to infiltrate such a facility. It just so happened that I was equipped with precisely the right abilities to do just that.

And I wasn’t going to squander the opportunity.

Over the next few minutes, I toppled one lock after another until, at last, their system was laid bare before me. I didn’t take the time to read any of the files. I knew I was on the clock, so I simply downloaded as much information as I could, sequestering it in a specially-made partition of my own system, before retracting my personal link and retreating back to my corner.

The entire operation had only taken five or six minutes, but in that time, I had mined enough data to occupy months of research. Soon enough, the female Pacifician returned, and when she opened the door, I used that opportunity to leave the command center behind. Retracing my steps, I quickly found an unused storeroom where I could settle in and rest while studying the information I had just acquired.

As I ate a ration bar and sipped from a bottle of water I’d had stored in my arsenal implant, I found my mind wandering back to thoughts of Earth. I’d been gone for a while, but that wasn’t terribly abnormal. Sometimes, my various missions took weeks to complete. However, I usually kept in touch with Patrick, which was impossible given my current location. Was he worried? Or did he trust that I could handle whatever life threw my way?

Probably the latter.

He’d never shown anything but confidence in my abilities, and I didn’t think he was going to choose now to start doubting me. That was comforting, after a fashion. Sure, he was wrong. There were plenty of situations I wasn’t equipped to overcome. But his unwavering confidence in me made me want to live up to what he saw when he looked at me.

Once I’d finished eating, I took a few hours to sleep. I knew it was a risk, but I’d been going almost constantly for far too long without rest, and I knew that if I kept going like that, I’d start making serious mistakes. To ensure my safety, I used Bastion on the storage closet, trusting in the Leviathan’s built-in security systems to protect it back on Earth. And if someone managed to breach those systems, then…well, it was just a tradeoff I had to make. The ship was important, but I wasn’t going to compromise my personal safety just to keep someone from stealing it.

Over the next couple of days, I rested and recovered. I hadn’t been in any real fights since coming to the moon base, but I still hadn’t fully healed from my brief brush with the lunar atmosphere. For all my abilities and inflated attributes, I was still human, after all. And nobody could have stood before that wave of cold, radiation, and lack of air without consequences.

Maybe my uncle could have, I amended. He’d survived for some time after being beheaded, after all. Surely, he could withstand extreme temperatures and a lack of oxygen.

I still had a long way to go before I reached that level.

As I recovered, I delved into the files I stolen. At first, I had to wade through miles of irrelevant data, but eventually, I found my way to the important information. And as I read, my anger began to mount.

On the surface, the system wasn’t complicated. The prisoners I had encountered were being used as Mist accumulators so that the Pacificians had the means to empower their fleet of ships and satellites. Without them, they’d have needed literal tons of Rift shards – and not low-grade ones, either.

All those people imprisoned and eventually killed, and for what? So the Pacificians could save a bit of money? It was unconscionable.

But it was nothing compared to what I learned as I read further.

Those people weren’t just random prisoners. They’d all volunteered, after a fashion. Of course, they thought their minds would be transferred to android bodies. The reality, though, was that the low-level Pacificians I’d seen back on Earth were just copies. Mind and body. The real people were sedated and sent to the moon to become batteries for the Pacificians’ impending invasion of Earth.

What really tipped me over the edge was that the Pacificians actually were capable of following through with the promises they’d made. They could insert a human – or any other race, really – mind into an android body. That was what they’d done with the higher-leveled Pacificians like the green-robed aliens I’d seen within the facility. But they’d chosen not to, taking the easier route of making simple copies.

The reality of it made my blood boil, and if I hadn’t been determined to undermine the Pacificians before, I certainly was by the time I finished reading those files.

And now that I had all the information I needed, I started making a plan. It wouldn’t be easy, but I intended to destroy the entire facility. Then, I would take the fight to Earth. They wanted a war? Well, now they had one, even if they didn’t know it yet.