Mistrunner - Chapter 24 - Real World Experience

I have killed thousands of people. Some deserved it. Others decidedly did not. All were, at least in my mind at the time, justified. But it does beg the question – why do I get to decide? What makes me special? I can kill, and I do it extremely well. But as I’ve proved, time and time again throughout my life, my judgement is extremely fallible. And yet, I hold so many lives in the palms of my hands. It is not fair, but then again, life never has been. The Initialization, for all its power, couldn’t change that.

Jeremiah Braddock III

My heart beat out of my chest. My breath came in ragged gasps. And my mind went blank. For the first few steps, panic overwhelmed me as I raced through the corn stalks. It only lasted a few seconds, though, before Combat Focus came into play, forcing me into rational thought. Behind me, I could hear my pursuers bearing down on me. I continued to run, putting distance between us until, at last, I broke free of the forest of corn. Luckily, no one was waiting for me.

My head swiveled to the left and right, taking stock of my situation. Due to my conditioning and relatively inflated stats, I’d managed to create some distance between my pursuers and my position. However, I knew that wouldn’t last long. There were only so many ways I could go, and anyone with half a brain could have followed the path I’d cut through the corn stalks. While I was skeptical that these people possessed much in the way of critical thinking skills, they could certainly follow the relatively straight line of my retreat.

In front of me, the wall loomed. It was at least twenty feet high and constructed of concrete slabs. There were seams every few feet, but I wasn’t certain if the shallow crevices would offer much in the way of handholds. Still, with my options being what they were, I had little choice but to give it a try.

There was only one problem, though, and it presented itself the moment I tried to begin my ascent. Whether it was adrenaline, my Pain Resistance ability, or some combination of the two, I’d almost forgotten that I’d been shot, and more than once. My thigh was on fire, my left arm hung limp and was coated in blood, and the grazing wound I’d taken on my shoulder added enough pain to the mix that climbing the wall had started to look like an impossibility.

In the distance, I heard more shouts. I had no idea how much time I had before the group of raiders caught up with me. When they did, I’d be dead. Or worse. I wasn’t so sheltered that I didn’t know just how precarious my position was; I was young, reasonably pretty, and, because of my wounds, vulnerable. Whatever potential I had would count for nothing if they caught me. The very best I could hope for was a quick death. Or torture. The worst didn’t bear thinking about.

Gritting my teeth, I shunted the pain off to the back of my mind and resumed my efforts to climb the wall. And to my surprise, my arms and legs actually worked. Even if it came with a considerable degree of agony – and God, it hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced – I managed the climb, and far more quickly than I could have expected.

Was it my nearly superhuman attributes that had allowed it? My abilities? The so-called hell month where I’d been forced to learn how to push pain and fatigue to the side and continue moving forward? I don’t know, but whatever it was, it allowed me to reach the top just in time.

As I straddled the top of the wall, my pursuers burst into view. An instant later, gunshots rang out across the farm. Thankfully, their aim was terrible, and every one of their shots thudded into the concrete wall. Given the volume of gunfire, I couldn’t point to anything but luck as to why I didn’t receive another gunshot wound.

Without further hesitation, I slipped from the top of the thick wall. At first, I tried to hang from the edge and drop to the other side, but my hands were slippery with blood. And due to blood loss, I found myself increasingly exhausted. The result was that my plan never came to fruition, and I soon found myself tumbling to the ground below.

I screamed in agony as I landed on the ground, my fall cushioned by a thick carpet of fallen leaves. For a few seconds, I clutched my arm, rolling around in unbelievable pain. After a minute or so that the rational part of my brain told me I couldn’t afford to lose, the pain faded to a dull ache. Knowing that my escape was only half-finished, I pushed myself to my feet. As I ran, slipping into the surrounding woods, my head pounded, and my body felt lethargic. But I kept going because I didn’t have a choice. It would take the raiders some time to circle around, but when they did, my trail wouldn’t be difficult to follow. Not with the trail of blood I was leaving behind.

I needed a plan, and stumbling through the woods really didn’t qualify.

Okay, so first things first, I needed to find somewhere safe I could hole up and heal. I had medical supplies in my Arsenal Implant, but using them would take time. And though I’d stretched a decent lead from my pursuers, I had no illusions about how long it would take them to find me.

With that in mind, I glanced at my mini-map, and with a thought, zoomed it out as far as it could go. My immediate surroundings were detailed, but the further the map was from my position, the hazier things got until, about two-hundred yards away, the area was clouded. Whether it was luck or the fact that the area played host to thousands of streams and creeks, it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.

The creek was little more than a shallow ditch cutting through the forest, but I hoped it would go on for miles. Stanching the blood flow as well as I could by awkwardly applying a couple of tourniquets – which, regardless of what I’d seen on the entertainment channels, was agonizingly painful. It wasn’t a permanent solution, and if I left them on for too long, things would get bad. But in my situation, where a trail of blood would give away my position, it was the best I could do.

So, that taken care of, I began to make my way toward the stream. As I went, I took special care not to brush against any of the trees or foliage – a difficulty, given how thick the vegetation was. Eventually, I reached the stream, and I was just as unimpressed as I’d expected to be. A few inches deep and only a couple of yards wide, it barely qualified as a stream at all. But it was running water, which was all I really needed at that point.

So, planting myself in the center of the tiny waterway, I turned north and followed it for about an hour. As I did, my arm started going numb, and the pain, free of the effects of adrenaline, began to mount. After another hour, I judged that I’d gotten far enough away, and I left the stream behind.

The area had once been settled, as evidenced by the ruins I passed along the way. Some had clearly been houses, but little remained other than foundations and a stray wall, and even those were covered in vegetation to the point that they were barely recognizable. Still, there were some buildings that had survived better than others, and I soon found my way to what looked like it had once been a church.

Made of red-and-brown brick, one of the walls had collapsed. The roof was barely hanging on, and a spire at the top bore a rotted, wooden cross. Most of the old religions were still around, and there were a couple of churches in Nova City. However, the Initialization had definitely affected the various faiths. For my part, I’d never really given any of it much thought; growing up the way I had, I hadn’t been exposed to that kind of thing. Whatever the case, if God existed, I didn’t think he would mind me taking shelter in one of his ruined churches.

Besides, given how weak I felt, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. So, on unsteady legs, I stumbled into the church and collapsed in a corner that provided the most shelter. For a while, I just sat there, staring straight ahead as I caught my breath. I might have even passed out for a few minutes.

Finally, after some interminable amount of time, I regained enough of my wits to do something about my injuries. So, I painfully stripped off my shirt, leaving me in nothing but a black sports bra up top, and inspected the wounds. Thankfully, one of the bullets had barely grazed my shoulder. It had taken a decent chunk of flesh with it, but aside from the pain, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Okay – so it hurt like crazy, but with all my other injuries, it felt little worse than a bee sting. Still, I cleaned it, then, after retrieving my medical kit from my Arsenal Implant, applied a foam bandage that hugged my shoulder like a second skin. Not only would it release antibiotics, but it would also hasten the healing process. That, combined with my Regeneration ability, would make quick work of the wound.

The others were far worse.

The wound in my arm was the most troubling. The bullet had torn most of my bicep away, which made the whole arm practically useless. I could only hope that the combination of my abilities and the advanced medical kit would keep me from experiencing permanent damage. While I could always have the arm replaced with a cybernetic equivalent, I wanted to keep my original parts as long as possible.

I hissed as I smeared healing ointment on the wound; called NuFlesh, it was specifically designed to regrow muscle and skin. Hopefully, it would work quickly. After that, I applied a foam bandage.

After that, I turned to the wound in my thigh. Unlike the others, the bullet hadn’t just passed through, which meant that it was still embedded in my flesh. Not ideal, but I’d had a little training in wound management, so I was confident in fishing the thing out. I’d have to be cognizant of blood loss, but my medical kit was well-stocked with everything I would need. So, I wasted no time in retrieving a pair of forceps from the kit and getting to work.

Pain was a funny thing. With all the adrenaline of battle coursing through my veins, it was easily ignored. But in that ruined church, with a pair of gleaming forceps buried in the flesh of my thigh, it hit me much harder than before. Without my abilities and training, I never could have borne it. Even with my advantages, tears streamed freely down my cheeks, and I had to bite down on the handle of my knife, lest I fill the air with my screams.

Still, I managed to retrieve the bullet, which had thankfully remained intact, and dressed my wound before passing out.

I awoke sometime after dark, and to a cacophony of noise. Outside of my hell month, I’d never really spent much time in the wilderness after dark, and during that month, it had been all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, so I hadn’t really noticed how loud it could get. As I sat there in that church, I had no such inhibitions on my awareness.

All around me, the shrill chirps of crickets were punctuated by the deep, basso croaks of frogs. As a city girl, I was well used to a lack of peace and quiet, but there was a marked difference between the sounds of the forest and the urban noises I’d experienced back in Nova City.

After inspecting my wounds and finding that they’d actually healed considerably during my bout of unconsciousness, I pushed myself to my feet. My arm still wasn’t mobile, but I was happy that my wounded leg could nearly bear my weight. Not for the first time, I marveled at the power of my skills, abilities, and equipment. In my place, a normal person would have probably died. But here I was, only hours after being shot three times, and I felt confident that I could make a full recovery in a week or so. And I would be functional in only a few more hours.

But with that knowledge came a host of questions and a need to make a real plan.

My first thought was to make my way back to Mobile and warn the others there. Once Milo and his amigos knew what was going on, they would make quick work of the bandits. It was the obvious and smart course of action.

Still, as I sat back down to rest and recover, I hesitated.

Was it all a test? Had my uncle known what I would find at that farm? And if so, how would he expect me to react? What would he want me to do?

Those were all good questions, and they were relevant enough. But even more relevant was a simmering anger clawing its way to the forefront of my mind. The bandits had shot me. They’d tried to kill me. And I’d been forced to run away. That didn’t sit well. After all my training, after all the advantages I’d been afforded, retreat had been my only option.

But now?

It occurred to me that I was almost perfectly suited to hunting them.

Was that what Jeremiah would want me to do? I thought so. After all, he’d continuously preached the importance of self-reliance to me. He wanted me to survive on my own, not run to someone stronger the moment I encountered some difficulty. More than that, I knew that, were Jeremiah to be faced with the same situation, he would take care of it himself.

Could I do it, though?

On the one hand, I didn’t consider myself a killer. I had been forced to do it, and on more than one occasion, but it wasn’t as if I reveled in the act. It was a necessary part of life, an inescapable facet of the world in which I lived, and I’d slowly grown to accept that. Or maybe it was just my Combat Focus influencing me. I’d long suspected that it smoothed those sorts of things out.

Besides, those raiders had probably killed the farmers, hadn’t they? Innocent people who only wanted to grow food and help the people back in town. That, as much as anything, skewed my decision towards hunting down the bandits.

With that decided, I set my mind to creating a passable plan of assault. First, I would need to take a day or two to heal. After that, reconnaissance. The rest of the plan would have to wait until after I knew what I was dealing with. But for now? Now, I needed to rest. Relax. Heal.

So, I gathered my medical supplies and carefully placed everything back in the kit; it was just a black box containing various implements, vials, and tubes. I suspected it had cost my uncle almost as much as any of the rest of my equipment, and I could see why. Without it, I never would have survived. And that goal, more than anything, was my uncle’s guiding light.

After putting the kit back into my Arsenal Implant, I retrieved some rations and a bottle of water. I had enough supplies for a couple of weeks, but after that, I would be forced to forage. I could do it. I’d had some rudimentary instruction on wilderness survival. But the last thing I wanted was to survive off of nuts, berries, and mushrooms.

For the next two days, I stayed in that church, resting and recovering. To stave off boredom, I spent most of that time training with the number and logic puzzles. I could engage with that program for hours at a time, so it was an effective and useful way to fill my time. However, in the back of my mind, my anger continued to simmer. So, by the time I judged myself ready to leave, my frustration had mounted to such a degree that I was almost eager to attack the bandits.

With that occupying my mind, I left the church behind and set off back the way I’d come.