Mistrunner - Chapte 29 - Infiltration

Every problem can’t be solved at the end of a gun. Sometimes, solutions require finesse. I have never been very good at those kinds of things.

Jeremiah Braddock III

The family resumed gathering mushrooms and other edibles, leaving me mostly to my own devices. The youngest member, whose name I learned was Ethan, kept sneaking glances at me, but I pretended not to notice. At first, I thought he was just intrigued by the prospect of meeting a stranger, but it didn’t take me long to realize that he had other things on his mind. Admittedly, I was a bit of a mess, but the combination of my ripped tee-shirt and jeans showed enough skin to excite him. His attention made me a bit uncomfortable, but it also made me question his standards. I looked – and more importantly, smelled – the part of a girl who’d been forced to flee through the wilderness, after all. How desperate must he have been if, even then, he found me attractive?

After another half hour, the trio finished their task, and the mother, Sadie, announced that they were headed back to town. She asked, “Do you want to come with us? Can’t guarantee it’ll go good for you, but you’ll be safe.”

“Safe-ish,” added the man. “There ain’t much in the way of law down in the Bayou.”

“She’ll be fine,” Sadie said. “Savannah don’t have many rules, but she’s got a soft spot for helpless girls.”

“She ain’t completely helpless,” the man, whose name was Jasper, said. My heart jumped into my throat, and concentrated on my Arsenal Implant. If things turned sour, I could have my scattergun in hand in a fraction of a second. Hopefully, the weapon’s cone of lightning would be wide enough to take them all out without killing them outright. Then, he said, “She made it all the way here from Wilmer. I made that trip when I was little, and it ain’t no walk in the park. She probably has a skill for concealment or somethin’. A waste for someone with only one slot, but it probably saved her life.”

I resisted the urge to let out a deep sigh of relief. My abilities had held strong; he thought I was a Tier-1, which meant that I was harmless to someone like him. He was only a Tier-2 himself – just like the rest of his family – which made him thoroughly average in terms of Awakened strength. But compared to the image I’d concocted? He might as well have been superhuman, especially considering my young age. Most teenagers hadn’t had time to get the most out of their attributes.

But I wasn’t most teenagers. Not only was I a Tier-7, which was, as far as I knew, uniquely powerful, but I’d spent the better part of a year-and-a-half in training. Even without weapons, I felt certain that I could rip the trio apart. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come down to that, but if it did, I wanted to happen out in the wilderness. If it did, I could stash the bodies and try to find another group of foragers.

“What’s your name?” came a barely audible voice from beside me. I turned to see Ethan looking at me expectantly. He offered me one of his mushrooms; it was huge and red, and I recognized it as edible from my lessons with Jorge. Ethan added a question, “Are you hungry?”

“Uh…n-no,” I said, still acting the part of a scared girl. He probably wanted to save me, the idiot. “I…I’m…uh…Mira.”

I didn’t see any issues with using my real name. After all, it wasn’t as if I was famous. These people – nor the people in Bayou La Batre – would have any reason to know my name. So, I had chosen not to unnecessarily complicate things.

“I’m Ethan,” he said, wiping his face with a dirty sleeve. It was then that I realized he was probably even younger than I had first judged. Barely a teenager, if I had to guess. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill him. If it came to that, I wasn’t sure if I could pull the trigger. Taking out a bunch of mooks who wanted to kill me, I could accept. Killing a thirteen-year-old kid who wanted to help me? Yeah – that wasn’t really an idea I could get behind, even if it proved necessary.

After that, my new friends and I started off towards the south. After fifteen minutes of walking, we reached a narrow footpath through the woods, which we followed for a couple of miles as it twisted and turned. As we walked, the sun dipped closer toward the horizon, and the atmosphere dimmed. The family clumped closer together, with me in the middle, with Ethan taking the lead, his shotgun at the ready. The area was clearly home to fearsome predators, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to get back to their town.

Even though I felt confident that I could handle myself, it was a tense journey. None of the trio made any effort at conversation, so the sounds were those native to the forest. A chirping bird. A few rustles in the nearby brush. The huffing and puffing of my companions’ labored breathing. All the while, I maintained the façade of an exhausted and terrified teenaged girl.

As night began to fall, we finally reached out destination in a walled town abutting a protected cove. The town itself was encircled by a rough, wooden palisade, and the buildings it protected were similarly constructed, with corrugated metal roofs. Only one of the buildings within the walls was made of concrete blocks. Comprised of a single story, it had a sizable footprint that stretched at least a hundred yards in any direction.

More than anything else, what really stuck out about the town was the smell. In the Algiers district of Nova City, there were a few seafood processing plants. In the Garden, we never got their products – those were always destined for the wealthier areas, like King’s Row – but every Nova citizen knew the smell. That’s what the entirety of Bayou La Batre smelled like.

When he noticed my crinkled nose, Ethan said, “Sorry about the smell. That’s how we feed ourselves, mostly. See those boats over there?”

I looked in the direction he’d pointed, and I saw a collection of ships, each sprouting sizable towers from their decks. From those towers stretched a series of cables, and I could see piles of sturdy netting.

“Yeah?” I said. “What are they?”

“Shrimp boats,” he said. “Momma said that I can learn the [Shrimping] skill and work on one, so long as I take the [Fishing] skill, too. When I Awaken, I mean. That’s two years from now, though.”

“This town’s always been about shrimpin’,” Jasper interjected. “My daddy was a shrimper. My daddy’s daddy was a shrimper. And before that, back before the Initialization, his daddy was, too.”

“Oh,” I said. “W-what about the sea monsters?”

It felt like a rational question to ask. Even in Nova City, we knew that going out onto the open ocean was tantamount to suicide, which was why we had always used drones. So, to discover that the residents of this tiny town had built their entire identities around doing just that was, to put it lightly, a surprise.

He barked a harsh laugh. “That’s what the skills are for, ain’t it?” he said, shouldering his shotgun. He pointed at the boats, saying, “Best shrimpers in the world, right over there. Always has been, always will be.”

Jasper had said it with such finality that I couldn’t really think of any way to respond. So, I remained silent as we approached a gap in the palisade, which was guarded by a handful of obvious operators. I couldn’t help but notice that they were all armed with new, pristine weapons that looked out of place in their grubby, little hands.

They waved us through without even asking about my identity. Apparently, newcomers weren’t a huge concern for them. Or maybe my abilities were more effective than I thought. Either way, I was soon inside the walls. The townspeople didn’t seem all that different from the ones in Mobile. They were dirtier. Skinnier. And altogether less happy. But other than that, there weren’t a ton of differences in the respective populations.

One thing I did notice was that a good portion of the town’s residents had features like Kimiko’s, with canted eyes and black hair. Later, I would learn that it was due to the area’s pre-Initialization demographics, which skewed toward immigrants from a faraway country with people of that ethnicity. Vietnam, the place was called, which meant almost nothing to me.

Of course, Nova City had plenty of people who looked similar, but nobody there really cared much about race or ethnicity. We had other, far more important things to worry about. Whatever the case, it was a noticeable difference, and given that I’d come there for information, I certainly took notice. Even the smallest details could prove to be important.

I followed the family through the town, looking around as if I was impressed. The village I’d claimed had been my home had barely been more than a couple of isolated huts before being overrun by the pack of mutated wolves, so the character I had chosen to play would have been in awe of the area. I couldn’t help but think that my acting skills were going to waste, though, because the family paid me no attention at all

Except Ethan, who kept sneaking peeks at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was almost endearing and, at first, was more than a little flattering. But I soon discovered the reason for his interest. No one in town looked like me. My skin tone set me apart as something unique. Exotic.

“Can I touch your hair?” he asked.

“W-what?” I responded, taken aback by his boldness.

He clapped his dirty hand over his mouth as if the question had slipped out all on its own. I suspected that his embarrassment was more to do with his building infatuation with me than because he thought it was a social faux pas. Whatever the case, it made me feel even more self-conscious than before. My hair had always been a touch subject, and having him focus on it made things all the worse.

But what was I going to say? I couldn’t just call him out on it. Not if I wanted to maintain the fiction of my chosen role. So, I gave him my best shy smile and said, “I-if you want to…”

He didn’t hesitate to make good on his request, reaching out with those same dirty paws and groping my braided hair. However, when his fingers brushed against it, he seemed a little disappointed, and I heard him mumble something along the lines of, “It’s just hair…”

I wanted to make a snarky comment about how I was sorry to disappoint him, but the exchange was cut off before it could even begin when Jasper said, “This is where we part ways. I hope you find something productive to do. Savannah don’t take kindly to strays who don’t earn their keep.”

“Oh…”

“We should give her someplace to stay!” suggested Ethan, and for the first time, I caught sight of something lascivious in his eyes. Something lustful. I wasn’t used to people looking at me like that, but I knew the signs well enough from how, wherever Jo went, male gazes seemed to follow. Most looked at her just like Ethan was looking at me. And suddenly, the fact that he was only thirteen didn’t seem to matter very much. “She can share my room!”

Sadie let out a snort. “As if I’d subject any girl to that,” she said. “Besides, we ain’t takin’ her in. Can’t feed her. Can’t house her. Can’t give her a job. We brought her here, and that’s enough. She’s on her own, now.”

Her lack of empathy was a little disappointing. After all, as far as they knew, I was precisely what I appeared to be – a girl who desperately needed help. That they’d chosen to cut me off wasn’t surprising, but I couldn’t help but feel a little disheartened by their actions. Still, it suited my mission just fine.

“Thank you for your help,” I said. “I…I can find my own way, I think.”

Sadie fixed her gaze on me, then jerked her head toward the big building by the water. She said, “If you need direction, head on over to Savannah’s place. She’ll get you sorted, one way or another.”

“T-thanks,” I said. Then, after a round of goodbyes, I hurried away, melting into the crowed. The whole time, I felt Ethan’s eyes boring into my back. Or maybe my backside. I didn’t want to think about which drew his interest. Instead, I wove my way through the crowd, trying to seem as unobtrusive as possible as I looked for somewhere to hole up for the night.

Fortunately, my search didn’t take long, and I soon found an abandoned building near the docks. It looked like it was barely standing, but that didn’t matter much to me. All I really cared about was getting a little privacy and security so I could rest before scouting out the town. And the building I chose was perfect for that.

As the sun made its final appearance for the day, I slipped into the building. It was two stories tall, but given its state of disrepair, there was absolutely no way I was going to go upstairs. Instead, I crept through the rooms on the first floor, making sure that it wasn’t occupied. The last thing I needed was for some dust fiend – or whatever kind of addict they had in Bayou La Batre – to interrupt my sleep, after all.

The original purpose of the building was a mystery, but I did notice some similarities between its layout and the stores back in Mobile. So, I figured that was what it had been. However, there was no way to be sure, because it had long since been picked almost entirely clean, with only half-rotted wood, a few rusty slabs of metal, and a barrel that had clearly been used to contain a fire to show that it had ever been anything but an empty shell.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and thanks to my training, sprang backward, narrowly avoiding something big. Something fast. It wasn’t until I refocused that I saw what had tried to attack me.

“A crab?” I muttered to myself.

That seemed a bit of a misnomer, because crabs weren’t supposed to be the size of a hoverbike. The thing was at least four feet wide, with claws to match. Knowing I couldn’t use my various firearms, I summoned my nano-bladed sword from my Arsenal Implant. Thus armed, I squared off against the creature.

Sure – I probably should have run away. That was the smart thing to do. There were likely plenty of other places I could hole up for the night. But I didn’t like being pushed out by an overgrown crustacean. On top of that, I suspected that the building was probably abandoned precisely because the crab was there. After all, that first attack would have probably cut me in half if I hadn’t had the advantage of my high attributes as well as my training.

Plus, I needed something to take my mind off the way Ethan had looked at me, and a fight seemed perfect for that. So, I focused on the crab, paying special attention to the metallic lining along the inner part of its claws. Doubtless, that metal was sharp.

It was one of the things I’d learned during my time under Jorge’s tutelage. Much of the world’s wildlife had been transformed by the Mist. A lot of the time, animals simply grew larger and more aggressive, but sometimes, like was the case with the crab before me, the stag with the metallic antlers, or the alligator with a metal skeleton, they adopted artificial components into their organic structure. Sort of a natural cybernetic.

Of course, I didn’t need to know all of that to recognize one, simple directive when fighting a crab – avoid the claws. Metallic or not, those things were natural weapons, especially when they were of a size to really ruin my day. So, as I faced off against the crustacean, I paid special attention to the twitching, oversized appendages.

At a stalemate, the pair of us stared at one another for a long moment. It was almost like the thing was waiting on me to make the first move, which shouldn’t have been possible for an animal like that. After all, arthropods weren’t exactly known for their intelligence or combat tactics, were they? This one seemed to buck that trend, though, waiting until my attention wavered slightly before it attacked.

Its claw darted out, almost too fast for me to track its movement, but at the last second, I managed to get my sword in the way. The edge clanged against the metal part of the claw as the crab clamped down and yanked it away. Surprised at how easily I’d been disarmed, I summoned a dagger and ducked under the crab’s next attack, charging forward and stabbing at one of its eyestalks.

It skittered backwards, and my dagger’s blade skittered along its armored carapace. But I wasn’t done. In fact, I was only just beginning. I dove back in, dipping and diving past its snapping claws as I got inside its guard. Once there, I kept up the pressure. It backed away. I followed, always attacking. Eventually, after a dozen attempted attacks, I scored my first hit.

The crab let out a hissing screech, going mad as it spun in circles. I leapt away, barely avoiding a claw that would have snapped me in two. As I watched its agonized thrashing from across the room, I came to a realization.

Even if I managed to slice its other eyestalk and blind it, my dagger – even my sword – would probably be incapable of killing it. Once, I had seen my uncle eat crab legs. It had been a rare treat, and he’d even let me try some. I’d been young enough that I couldn’t really remember the taste, but the one memory of that night that still seemed fresh was the image of him cracking those claws with a tiny, wooden mallet.

Could I do the same, but on a larger scale?

Dismissing my dagger, I retrieved the latest addition to my Arsenal Implant. It didn’t have a slot of its own; instead, I kept it next to my ammunition. In fact, I’d included it on a whim, thinking that there was nothing it could do that my blades or firearms couldn’t. I was wrong. In this situation, a tetsubo was precisely what I needed.

Long and, according to my uncle, resembling a baseball bat – whatever that was – it had a tapered grip and a series of knobs running along a fat barrel. It was a wicked weapon that was intended to take advantage of overwhelming strength. Nora, my uncle’s hulking right-hand woman, had actually come in to show me the ins and outs of using the weapon. In her hands, it was a weapon of mass destruction. In mine? It was just adequate.

I charged forward and leapt, missing the crab’s claws by barely an inch as I sailed over its head. Driven by my enhanced constitution, I twisted in the air so that I hit the wall, feet-first. Driving with my legs, I swung down with all my might, hitting the shell with every ounce of force I could muster.

The carapace cracked beneath my tetsubo’s knobby head, and I somehow managed to land atop the shell. The crab rocked and skittered about, but I maintained my balance enough to bring my weapon to bear once again.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

That was all it took before I broke through into its soft, mushy insides. But I kept going, all the same, never stopping until the monster had ceased twitching. When I finished, I was completely covered in its viscera – which was a disgusting combination of white and yellow that smelled like rotting fish.

As I climbed off the crab, I felt my shoulders sag. I was absolutely disgusting, now, and there was no way I’d be able to sneak up on anyone with the way I smelled. So, I sighed and set off to see if I could find something that passed for a shower in this village.

My search was complicated by the fact that I couldn’t very well walk around town with giant crab guts all over me, so I ended up finding a mostly secluded spot where I could hop into the brackish water and wash off as best I could. Once I was finished, I smelled slightly less like rotting crab meat – and more like disgusting water that was probably filled with all sorts of dangerous microbes – but at least I wasn’t slimy.

I headed back to my temporary abode, set my alarm for midnight, and settled down to rest. Hopefully, I wouldn’t remain in Bayou La Batre for much longer. With any luck, I could find what I needed to accomplish my mission and head back in the morning.

Yeah. Because things always went my way.

With a sigh, I curled up in the corner and tried to get as much sleep as I could.