Mistrunner 3 - Chapter 47 - An Important Mission (Patreon)

War is inevitable, now. Maybe it always was. I don’t know. It just feels like, somewhere along the line, we failed, and now we’re just waiting to be buried by the consequences of our failures.

Patrick Ward

Upon returning to Fortune, I had a few days to myself while Alistaris gathered the means to get me inside Olympus. I had already established that I wasn’t capable of bypassing the Pacificians’ defenses, so my ingress was wholly in his hands. I just hoped it wouldn’t take him long to make good on his promises.

In the meantime, I would get some much-needed rest. I’d spent weeks running from one crisis to another, without much downtime in between. And even when I wasn’t fighting for my life, I was occupied with surveillance. The only break I’d had was the night I’d spent in the fairy tale city with Patrick, but even then, I was more than a little preoccupied with what had been going on.

So, the morning after I’d returned to Fortune, I found myself lying abed and wishing I never had to leave. Yet, circumstances conspired to rob me of my contentment when Patrick stirred and sat up. I complained, begging him to stay, but he said, “Can’t. As much as I want to spend the morning with you – and I really, really do – I’m going to have to take a rain check.”

“You make it sound like you missed a reservation at a fancy restaurant or something,” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m on the verge of a breakthrough with the Mist circuits,” he said. “The key to getting them to play nice with the more mundane circuits was this really rare element that only comes from dead zones. And even then, the conditions have to be just right for the specific mutation to –”

“Metals don’t mutate. That’s a biology term. With rocks and minerals, it’s metamorphism.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“It is. I read it somewhere,” I persisted.

“Ah, somewhere. The most reliable and verifiable source known to mankind,” he said loftily as he leaned in and kissed me. When he pulled away, he said, “I’ll be free tomorrow, okay? The next day at the latest. Then we can do something special.”

I grinned. “Like what?” I asked eagerly.

He shrugged. “I’ll think of something,” he said, and I believed him. Patrick had plenty of flaws, but commitment to keeping the spark of our relationship wasn’t one of them. He always went above and beyond. By comparison, my own attempts at romantic overtures usually fell flat. For whatever reason, I just didn’t think like that, even if I sometimes wished I could.

“What if I think of something first?” I asked.

“All the better,” he said. “But honestly, I’d be happy just relaxing on a beach somewhere with you. You know, I have a new brew I’ve been researching on the local intranet. They use –”

“Uh…”

“If you really loved me, you’d try it,” he said.

“Is that the gauge we’re using?” I asked. “Because that doesn’t seem fair.”

“Ouch. My beers are not that bad, are they? There was that one you said you liked. You know, back in Australia.”

“I said it was tolerable, not that I liked it.”

“Same thing.”

“It really isn’t, Pick.”

“Well, you’ll like this one. I have a good feeling. I just need to let the yeast ferment. The key is to add a few grams of powdered Rift shards. You know, for a little extra kick. And…wait, where are you going?”

I’d already slipped out of bed and was walking toward the shower. I looked back over my shoulder and said, “No, no. Keep going. I’m totally listening.”

Then, I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Using Observation, I heard him say, “It’s not that bad…”

But it really was. Patrick was a great partner, but as much as he enjoyed brewing various beers and ales, he’d never had the knack needed to create something that wasn’t overtly terrible. Every now and then, he’d come up with a tolerable brew, but I attributed that to the law of averages more than talent.

Once I’d showered – all the while lamenting the fact that he hadn’t joined me, even I knew how awkward that could get – I stepped out of the bathroom and started getting dressed. By that point, Patrick had already dressed and had headed into the galley, where he was cooking something that admittedly smelled delicious. I followed my nose and found a pile of bacon waiting on me. I tried to sneak a slice, but he slapped my hand with a spatula, saying, “Wait for me to finish.”

I rolled my eyes and considered simply going ahead. My attributes were high enough that I could steal a few slices without him even knowing. Probably. And even if he saw, he’d only be a little cross. It wouldn’t be a big deal.

But I refrained, waiting until he finished scrambling a few eggs and toasting some bread. He’d somehow acquired fresh butter, too, which made all the difference in the world.

As he set the plate in front of me, I said, “This reminds me of the Dewdrop Inn back in Mobile.”

“It reminds me of my mom,” he said. “She always said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.”

“Sounds like a wise woman,” I said, gesturing with a half-eaten slice of bacon. “But I’m a bit biased. All my favorite foods are breakfast. Except for gumbo. The real stuff, too. And jambalaya. Do you know how hard it is to find anyone who can cook that properly around here?”

“Impossible, probably.”

“I’ve been all over the world, and I haven’t found anyone who could make it like they did back home. I’d even take that synthetic stuff they had back in Nova.”

In truth, I missed it more than I wanted to admit. But that might’ve been more about the nostalgia than the taste. I went on, “There was this diner back in the Garden. Terrible place that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a hundred years. You know, the sort of place the Enforcers would shut down if they’d really cared about protecting the populace. Anyway, my uncle used to take me there every weekend. They made this cheap burger. The kind where it’s all synthetic meat and faux bread. But there was this stuff they called tiger sauce that made it the best burger I’ve ever had.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, no – it’s true. I’d give anything to get another one of those burgers. And the milkshakes? Oh my God, Pick. I would spend all week looking forward to those milkshakes,” I said.

“My mom used to make this tofu lasagna. Objectively terrible stuff. Like, if you’ve tasted cardboard, you might get an idea what it was like,” Patrick said wistfully. “But she tried so hard. Like, she’d spend hours on it, hand-cutting the pasta, making the sauce – you know, the works. I wish I could go back and have one more lasagna dinner. I wish…I wish you could’ve met her. She would have liked you.”

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I just reached across the table and gripped his free hand. We stayed like that for a few moments before letting go. After that, our meal progressed in silence without any nostalgic trips down memory lane.

Sometimes, I forgot that my story, while a bit bombastic, wasn’t really all that unique. I wasn’t the only one who’d lost people. Everyone had. Even Cyrilla, who’d spent most of her life trying to play it safe, had lost her brother. How many others out there had experienced similar losses?

Was that the real reason I’d agreed to fight Alistaris’s war?

Maybe.

Once we’d finished our meals, I bid Patrick goodbye, and he set off to work on his project. That left me once again alone. I was used to it. In fact, I often preferred solitude. But for the moment, I wished Patrick would have stuck around, at least for a little while. I wasn’t typically clingy, but I just didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts.

Of course, we don’t always get what we want, and soon, my mind went to the impending fight. Once Alistaris came through with his promise, I’d have to head into Olympus and rescue Caden, Cyrilla’s brother. And I knew I’d have to help anyone else I found, too. Otherwise, they’d end up as collateral damage.

Or worse.

I had seen what that looked like, and I had no interest in being responsible – even if it was only through inaction – for that happening to anyone else.

But that meant that I had a battle ahead of me. So, given that I’d used almost all my explosives in the lunar base – along with a lot of my other supplies – I decided that I needed to restock. Some of it, I could only get via the Bazaar. Fortunately, using the Leviathan’s communication system, I could put in an order for more ammunition. I did so, leaving a message for Gala that I was okay, but I didn’t dare say anything else because I knew just how easily those messages could be hijacked.

It was why I usually preferred to do my business face-to-face. An ammunition restock wasn’t enough to get anyone’s attention, but if I started sending long messages, the wrong sorts of people might start to notice. After that, it wouldn’t be long before my actions started having consequences for my acquaintances and friends in the Bazaar.

Once that was done, I finished dressing, using my auto-styler to put my hair in a tight braid, and set off into Fortune. I caught one of the automated rickshaws, which took me to one of the local markets. Once there, I quickly found my way to a vendor who dealt in various chemicals.

I probably could have found an arms dealer, but I preferred making my own explosives. For one, they always seemed to work better like that, and for another, I didn’t want to raise any alarms. Most of the materials I needed were fairly innocuous, so as long as I was careful – and cycled through a couple of identities as I went from one vendor to the next – I could avoid any undue attention.

Throughout the day, I found myself loitering near other shoppers and listening in on their conversations.

“You seen it, right? What could even do that?” asked a tall, slender man who looked as if he’d missed more than a few meals.

“It’s the government, man,” his friend, who was a short, corpulent man, said. “It’s always the government.”

“You think the council blew up the moon?”

“Not that government, Ricky. I’m talkin’ about the real government. The ones really in charge. They been doin’ it for years. They control everything.”

Ricky shook his head and said, “That’s dumb.”

“Yeah, keep your head in the sand. I heard…”

That wasn’t the only time I’d heard a conversation concerning my exploits on the moon. Most people were terrified, but there were probably just as many who were just confused. But no one seemed to have guessed that the entire situation had begun in their city. Even now, the Pacificians were still operating out of their local headquarters. I was tempted to go in, guns blazing, but I held back, largely because I knew it wouldn’t do much good.

No - I would keep going the way I was going while I waited on Alistaris to come through.

As the day went on, I continued gathering supplies. I bought a crate full of rations from one vendor, a few drums of necessary chemicals from various shops, and some little metal balls that would make for perfect grenade housings from a metalworking operation in the center of the city. In the end, I barely spent a few thousand credits, but I bought enough materials to build hundreds of grenades and quite a few larger demolition charges. I had all of it sent to Cyrilla’s workshop, where Patrick would store it away and bring it to the Leviathan. My own arsenal implant was far too small for that job, and I had no interest in making multiple trips across the city.

So, with my shopping done, I stopped by a nearby bar, mostly just to get the lay of the land. There, I listened to gossip while drinking a surprisingly decent beer. When the serving girl brought my second mug to me, I asked, “You brew this locally?”

“Yeah. Old Kev does. He calls it his masterpiece,” she said.

“Well, it’s definitely good.”

Once she was gone, I finished my beer, paid, and set off toward the door. Along the way, I had an idea, though, so as soon as I hit the sidewalk outside, I took a right turn and headed toward a nearby alley. When I reached it, I ducked inside and, after making certain that no one was looking, activated Stealth.

Secure in my concealment, I strode down the alley, turning when I reached the corner of the bar. Then, I sprang to a half-open window, which I pushed ajar and slipped inside the apartment above the tavern. It didn’t take me long to search the place, and I soon found a sizable notebook filled with various ale recipes. Flipping through it, I only understood half of what I read, but that didn’t matter.

It wasn’t for me, after all.

I didn’t have the heart to simply steal the book. Instead, I spent a few minutes taking careful still shots of the pages, which I sequestered in a corner of my interface usually reserved for sensitive and dangerous material. Odd, that it had most recently held files detailing the Pacificians’ horrific practices, and now it was home to a bunch of brewing recipes.

With that done, I replaced the book and retreated, not dropping Stealth until I’d reached the alley. Then, I let it fall away and headed back out to the street. It was a trivial use of my abilities, but I still felt it was worth it.

In any case, I wasn’t finished.

Over the next few hours, I hunted down some more materials. This time, I wasn’t concerned with various chemicals that, when combined, made for powerful explosives. Instead, I was gathering the makings of something that was arguably more important. Once I was finished, I headed back to the Leviathan where I got to work.

I’d only just finished when Patrick returned.

He looked exhausted, but I hoped that my efforts would brighten his day. So, without preamble, I announced, “I got something for you.”

As I stepped close, holding the gift I’d spent so much time on behind my back, he said, “Huh? What? Mira, I –”

Grinning, I thrust the present into his chest, saying, “Here. Open it. Now.”

“Um…alright?” he said, obviously surprised. I usually wasn’t much of a gift-giver, so his surprise was probably warranted.

In any case, he opened the box – I hadn’t had the chance to wrap it – and looked inside. He reached in and retrieved a book. Its cover was wooden, without embellishment; that had been the most difficult component to source, but I’d found a local craftsman who whipped it together in only half an hour. Then, I’d gone to a bookbinder – the only one in the city – and paid a small fortune to get the woman to put it together.

“What is this?” he asked, flipping open the book. The paper had been more expensive even than the bookbinder’s services, but at least it hadn’t been difficult to find. “Is this your handwriting?”

“It is,” I confirmed. That had been the most tedious part of the project, but I’d managed it all the same.

“Are these…these are beer recipes,” he said, flipping through the pages. “Where did you get this?”

“I made it,” I said.

“No, but where did the…I mean…”

“Do you like it?” I asked. “I just thought…you know, you do so much for me. I almost never get you gifts or take you anywhere special. So, when the opportunity to…uh…acquire these recipes presented itself, I thought of you.”

“I…I don’t know what to say…”

“Say you’ll follow these recipes instead of the ones you usually use,” I said.

“Oof. Low blow.”

“Just callin’ it like I see it,” was my smiling reply.

“Seriously, Mira…this is…I can’t imagine a better gift. Thank you,” he said, shaking his head. “Really. Thank you. I wish…I wish I could stick around, but I’m just here to grab a quick nap before heading back to work.”

“I figured.”

Indeed, Patrick barely took any time to himself, and when he did, it didn’t last long. He was just as dedicated to his project as I was to my own. That was probably why we worked so well together.

The rest of the night went by without much fanfare, and the next morning, I awoke to an empty bed. That was fine. Patrick had his project, and I had work to do as well. So, after eating a breakfast of oat porridge, I spent the next few hours training. After that, I started building bombs.

Or grenades.

Same difference, really.

Whatever the case, I was an old hand at the process, but I still used my well-trained focus to good effect as I built one grenade after another. Some were simple fragmentation grenades, but I also built flashbangs, smoke bombs, and a half-dozen other varieties meant to solve very specific problems.

It was almost meditative, building bombs, and like that, time flew by until I realized that day had passed well into night. Once again, I went to bed alone.