Mistrunner - Chapter 27 - The Next Phase of Training

Our world, even before the Initialization, had a long history of slavery. Whether it was the African slave trade, the Jewish people being enslaved by the Egyptians, or the more modern example of slavery-via-incarceration, it has been a part of humanity since the very beginning. However, the wider universe’s version of enslavement is far more insidious. It is the tyranny of the strong, where the sin of weakness is punished with virtual slavery. I will die before it happens to me.

Jeremiah Braddock III

My convalescence took two weeks, and I spent much of that time with Jo and her group of closest friends. She didn’t have many, but those she did have were like family to her. And as tight as we had grown, I knew I could never compete with that kind of bond. I’d been living in Mobile for quite some time, now – more than a year – but most of the time, I still felt like a stranger in a strange land, an intruder. At heart, I was still a Nova City girl. Nothing could take that away from me.

Part of it was because, though I’d been living in Mobile for a while, I’d never really become a part of the population. Instead, because of my constant training, I was kept somewhat apart. My only real interaction with the rest of the town’s residents came from my infrequent outings with Jo. Or from what I saw in the Dewdrop Inn’s common room. So, as much as I enjoyed the opportunity to take a little break – that I very much needed – the morning when I was to resume my training found me eager to get on with it.

I sat next to Jeremiah, eating breakfast as he explained what I could expect. In addition to engaging in the next phase of my normal training, I would also receive much more detailed instruction in wilderness survival. He listed them off, saying, “Tracking. Foraging. Navigation. Stealth. These are all necessary if you’re going to survive. To that end, you and Jorge will be spending a lot of time outside the walls. Sometimes days at a time.”

“What about my other training?” I asked around a mouthful of gravy-covered biscuit. The dish was something of a specialty of the Dewdrop Inn, consisting of a creamy, white sausage gravy over fluffy biscuits. It had quickly become one of my favorites, and anytime it was served, I ended up stuffing myself until I could barely move. Luckily, my increased Constitution meant an increased metabolism as well, so everything would get processed well before I got down to training.

“Oh, we’re not letting up there,” he said. “You’re going to continue to the next phase of your firearms training, get further instruction into various weapons, and, of course, an extended course in explosives.”

I couldn’t help but grin. I really did love a good explosion. But then again, what girl didn’t?

“And finally, I’ve found you a Mistwalking tutor,” he said. “It was incredibly expensive to get her to come here, but I think it’ll be worth it for you.”

My grin widened. Mistwalking. I’d already gotten a small taste of what it entailed, and I couldn’t help but wonder what else might be possible. Of course, all the most popular programs on the entertainment network featured at least one hacker character who spent his or her time typing away at a keyboard, but with my skill, that wouldn’t be necessary.

“I see you’re looking forward to it.”

I nodded. “I like learning new stuff,” I said.

“No lingering issues from what happened at the farm?” was his next question.

I shook my head. “Not really,” I said, and against all odds, it was the truth. My ordeal at the farm had been horrific. I’d very nearly been killed. But once I had a little distance from the action, and my body had had a chance to come down from the adrenaline high, I’d realized that, as bad as it was, I didn’t feel nearly as guilty about it as I might have expected. Obviously, I wished I could have saved those farmers, and I’d had more than a couple of dreams about people being ripped apart by that powerful mini-gun. But those issues didn’t really persist into consciousness.

Was that normal? Probably not. No – definitely not, which made me think that my Combat Focus was keeping me from becoming mired in post-traumatic stress. But I wasn’t going to question a good thing.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked my uncle.

“Shoot.”

“How rare is that [Combat Utility] skill?” I asked.

He ran his hand over his bald head and let out a sigh. “That’s a complicated question,” he stated. “Do you know how most skills are earned?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“Hard work,” he said. Seeing my confusion, he went on, “Take that [Firearms] skill, for example. Most people who get that have spent years training with those weapons until the system judges that they’ve earned the skill. You got it at Tier-0. They would get it at Tier-1.”

“Oh,” I said. “What about my skills? Where did they come from?”

“A painful and tedious process where someone with the skill uses specialized equipment to make a copy,” he said. “Your [Combat Utility] came from me. And to answer your question, yes – it is extraordinarily rare. It might even be unique.”

“R-really?”

“Really,” he said, giving me a crooked half-smile. “I’ve told you before, Mirabelle – I wanted you to have every advantage I could give you. That skill, even though it’s not as flashy as some, will help see you through. I can promise you that.”

Seeing as how he had the skill – and was, in fact, probably the only person who could provide the information I wanted – I asked, “Does it help you deal with…you know…everything?”

“It does,” he said. “Before the Initialization, I had my own issues with PTSD. I’d spent so much time in warzones that I had a hard time in normal society. I spent more time in therapy than I care to admit. But once I got that skill? The issues just faded away. If I think about them, they’re still there, but it’s an academic sort of knowledge instead of something that really affects me.”

“Did my other skills come from you?” I asked.

“Only [Firearms],” he said. “Though mine was a bit different. More focused. You might get there eventually, but for now, it’s best if you’re a bit more well-rounded.”

“And you mentioned before that skills can evolve?” I asked, taking advantage of his talkative mood. Jeremiah rarely explained things when I asked questions, usually saying that I would find the answers when I needed them. So, I was more than willing to push for answers when he seemed uncharacteristically willing to give them.

He nodded. “Most definitely,” he said. “Or did you think it’ll all just plateau when you reach Tier-5 with your skills?”

“Uh…”

“Provided you’ve satisfied the requirements, your skills will have the opportunity to evolve,” he said. “For instance, [Firearms] might become [Rifles], which in turn might turn into [Sniping]. Or any number of other, branching paths, depending on your actions.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing that the world was a lot bigger than I thought it was. The bonuses from leveling my [Firearms] skill were already pretty impressive, but I had a suspicion that an evolved skill would make it look weak in comparison. Perhaps that was why my uncle could do some of the things he could do.

I couldn’t help but remember the giant holes he’d blown into the giant bandit who’d attacked us on my second day out of Nova City. My own shots had done nothing, and the only reason I’d been able to contribute at all was because of [Mistrunner] skills.

“Alright. Enough talk,” Jeremiah said, standing up. “We’ve got work to do. Over the next six months, we’re going to continue to mold you into a proper warrior.”

I quickly stuffed another half-biscuit into my mouth before following out of the inn, where we were met by another man who introduced himself to me as Jorge. I’d briefly met him before when we’d first arrived in Mobile, but we had never exchanged any words. He was a lean, swarthy man who wore his dark hair long. My uncle left me to his care, and he immediately led me out of the city and to the surrounding wilderness.

Once there, Jorge introduced me to woodcraft as well as basic survival training. I admit that I was a little jumpy, and considering how many times I’d encountered monstrous wildlife, I thought it was an appropriate response to being outside the gates. Still, I paid close attention while he explained which plants were edible and which ones might poison me. On top of that, he gave me some rudimentary instruction on tracking and the construction of temporary shelter.

Finally, he said, “Now, we get to the fun part. You have the [Stealth] skill, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Show me,” he said, leaning against a tree.

I mentally activated the Camouflage ability, which drew a laugh. I crossed my arms and demanded, “It’s low level, okay? It doesn’t seem to work.”

“Si.  Si,” he said, nodding along. “At your level of mastery, you need to give it a little help.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“What would you do if you wanted to hide from someone and you didn’t have the skill?” he asked.

“Uh…find a bush or something?” I asked.

“Show me.”

I looked around the woods and, after spying a likely hiding place, planted myself behind some underbrush.

“Good, good,” he said. “Now, use the ability.”

I did, and I felt something happen. On top of that, my HUD reacted the ability’s activation by overlaying a small icon over my instructor’s head. It looked like an eye, but it was blinking red, which I figured probably wasn’t the best sign. Then, when he glanced away, the eye stopped blinking.

“What the…”

The moment I muttered the two words, the icon started blinking again. So, it seemed safe to assume that it was an indicator of how well hidden I was. My KOI had read my skill, then applied an appropriate visual aid to help me maintain stealth. Later, I would read in my manual that the eye being open meant that I couldn’t hide from Jorge. If it had been closed, I would have been hidden. Suddenly, my [Stealth] skill seemed a lot more powerful than it had before.

“Your skill does not hide you,” he said. “It only enhances your actions. At higher levels, it may do more. Come – we will play a game.”

After that, I was forced into the most anxiety-inducing game of hide and seek imaginable. No matter what I did, no matter where I hid, Jorge always found me. However, when he did, he always pointed out what I did wrong. A broken stick that gave away my trail here. A slight indentation where I’d stepped in soft mud there. A thousand other little things that I could have avoided.

When we were finished for the day, he made me show off my skills at building a shelter, and after that, had me forage for our dinner. My shelter was little more than a lean-to, and my foraged meal was only a few meager mushrooms, but it drove home the lessons of the day. That night, I slept in the woods.

Or at least, I tried to. Every rustle in the bushes, every chirp of a cricket, and each cry of a bird jolted me awake. It was not a restful night, and in the morning, we did it all over again. I spent the next week like that, getting a crash course in wilderness survival. Thankfully, my increased Mind attribute helped me to retain information, and my Constitution gave me incredible control over my body. So, I took to the lessons well.

On my seventh night, Jorge asked me to follow him into a nearby meadow. When we got there, I gasped at the sight before me.

A rainbow of lights danced through the air, flitting this way and that around a massive buck. When the lights drew close to the majestic creature, I saw the glint of metal on his antlers.

“Whoa,” I muttered.

Beside me, Jorge said, “Remember this.”

“What? Why?” I asked, still entranced by the creature in the meadow.

“You will fight beasts,” he said. “Fearsome creatures that have been mutated by the Mist. But for every monster, there is something like that buck. Or those mistflies. There is horror in this world, but there is beauty as well. Remember that.”

“I…I will,” I said.

After that, we stayed at the edge of the meadow and watched until the buck bounded away. As I watched the thing slip into the woods, I thought about Jorge’s words. My uncle was adamant that the Initialization was the worst thing that could have happened to humanity, and in a lot of ways, he was right. But there was good there, too. You just had to know where to look. That was how I interpreted the encounter and Jorge’s reminder.

In any case, it wasn’t long before we returned to town and the rest of my training resumed. True to my uncle’s word, my firearms, close-quarters combat, and explosives instruction built on what I’d already learned. For firearms, I graduated into scenario training where I would be given an objective and told to accomplish it. Usually, it boiled down to different ways to conduct an assault, but sometimes, I used some of my other skills to get creative. My instructor didn’t like that, but I didn’t care; if he didn’t want me to hack the drones, he should’ve made that one of the rules of engagement.

For close-quarters combat, I was finally introduced to a wide variety of weapons. And I had to admit that there was something viscerally exciting about bashing a dummy to death with a club or truncheon. Ultimately, though I did find a certain affinity for my bladed weapons, my heart remained with my various firearms.

The highlight of any day was always my explosives training, though. It was especially entertaining when we went outside the town walls for practical applications. More than once, I found my arm going numb from continuously lobbing grenades on the range that had been prepared for that purpose. Even then, it was difficult to wipe the smile from my face.

What can I say? I like blowing stuff up.

Strangely, my least favorite part of training wasn’t the difficult and brutal survival course. Nor was it getting beaten by one of the amigos with a stick when I didn’t use proper form in one of my melee drills. And I could easily ignore my fuming firearms instructor’s ire. No – the one person – and subsequently, the training – I hated more than anyone else was my Mist instructor, Helen Stone.

She was a pretty woman who had clearly been raised with a silver spoon up her ass, and she made no secrets about how much better than me she thought she was. But even with my simmering hatred for the woman, I couldn’t deny that the training was fruitful.

Many of her lessons were theoretical, and I learned more than I ever thought possible about the various types of systems I could infiltrate, either through Misthack or the hardwired Mistwalk. I was surprised to learn that, with many of these systems, if I approached them in the wrong way, there would be retaliation from the system in question. Apparently, it wasn’t possible to just brute force everything, which was what I’d been doing so far.

With my ever-growing Mind attribute fueling my learning speed, I memorized everything the woman taught me, and over the six month period, I managed to earn her tolerance. Respect, even if it was grudging, would have been too much to ask. Not that I cared about what that detestable woman thought of me. As far as I was concerned, she could just go die in a fire, so long as I learned what I needed to learn.

Finally, I spent time with Kimiko, learning about how to treat various wounds. A lot of it went over my head – I had no academic foundation in medicine, after all – but the practical experience certainly helped. I hoped that if – no, when – I was injured in battle again that I would be able to put that newfound knowledge to good use.

So it went for six long months. I won’t say that I was eager the entire time, but overall, I did enjoy learning new things and honing my existing skills.

At the end of that six month period, my uncle, who had been mostly absent from Mobile, returned, and Nora came with him. Inside the Dewdrop Inn, she reached across the table and ruffled my hair, saying, “You filled out a bit. Training suits you, huh?”

I pulled away, annoyed at her habit of messing with my hair. But it didn’t last, and I smiled shyly, saying, “I guess so.”

“Good,” Jeremiah said. “Hopefully, you can put it to good use. You’ve got another test in front of you, but this time, it’s a bit more proactive. What do you say? Are you ready?”

“I…I guess so?” I said, still a little leery about any more tests. After what had happened during the last one, I thought that was understandable.

“Don’t worry,” he said, reading my expression. He’d always known what I was thinking. “This won’t go like last time. In fact, if everything goes how we expect it to, you won’t fire a shot.”

I was skeptical, but I said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”