Mistrunner - Chapter 23 - A Little Test

Consequence. It is the only thing keeping humanity in check. Before the Initialization, breaking the law meant arrest, a trial, and incarceration. After, though? For the longest time, the worst parts of human nature were allowed free reign, and the whole planet suffered for it.

Jeremiah Braddock

The next morning, I arose, looking forward to the day ahead of me. But I was also incredibly anxious. After all, I had a test ahead of me, and I had no idea what to expect. More, I didn’t know how my uncle might react if I failed. Would he abandon me?  Would he stop training me? Would I have to go back to the beginning and repeat the training I’d already received? It was all a mystery to me, but as far as I was concerned, the only way to ensure that I had a way forward was to pass the test, whatever it might entail.

Simple, right?

Probably not, but it was the best I could come up with. So, after taking care of my morning ablutions, I donned my normal black fatigues and headed downstairs. As I did so, I inspected my status:

Name: Mirabelle Lisa Braddock

Class: N/A (Requirements Not Met)

Level: 3 (79%)

Constitution: 13/31

Mind: 16/31

Mist: 8/31

Skills: 7/7

· Cybernetic Interface (Tier 2) – 11%

o Bonuses Applied: None

o Slots Unlocked: 3

· Firearms (Tier 1) – 91%

o Bonuses Applied:

§ 5% Firearms Damage

§ 2% Reload Speed

§ 2% Firearms Accuracy

· Close-Quarters Combat (Tier 1) – 9%

o Bonuses Applied:

§ 5% Melee Damage

§ 2% Melee Accuracy

§ 2% Melee Speed

· Stealth Operations (Tier 0) – 8%

o Abilities:

§ Camouflage (F)

· Combat Utility (Tier 2) – 35%

o Abilities:

§ Triage (F)

§ Basic Explosives Handling (F)

§ Combat Focus (E)

§ Pain Tolerance (E)

§ Resistance (F)

§ Foraging (F)

§ Improvisation (F)

§ Regeneration (E)

· Mistwalking (Tier 0) – 32%

o Bonuses Applied:

§ 5% Misthack Speed

§ 5% Mistwalk Speed

o Abilities:

§ Mistwalk (F)

§ Misthack (F)

§ Mistwall (F)

· Spycraft (Tier 0) – 37%

o Abilities

§ Disguise

§ Deception

I felt a wave of satisfaction when I looked at how I’d improved. Ever since my Awakening, I’d found the cycle of training and improvement to be incredibly addictive. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I lived to see those numbers go up, but it was definitely part of what kept me engaged.

Since the last time I had looked, I had gained an attribute point in both Mind and Mist, probably due to my use of my Mist abilities during my infiltration of the tenement and the Tiger’s compound. But on top of that, I’d also made some progress in my lesser-used skills, gaining a few percentage points in [Combat Utility], [Spycraft], [Close-Quarters Combat], and [Stealth Operations]. Not bad progress, considering that I’d let my training lapse over the previous couple of days. Hopefully, it would be enough to see me through the test.

With a small smile on my face, I descended the steps and found my uncle and two of the amigos – Potbelly and Stupid Hat – waiting for me. At some point, I fully intended to learn their names, but for now, the monikers I’d given them was just easier. Besides, it had gotten to the point where, if I were to ask now, I would have to admit that I’d spent months with them as my instructors, and I’d never bothered to learn their real names. And that was just too embarrassing to consider.

Thankfully, there hadn’t been any instances where I needed to get their attention. And if one came up, I felt confident that I could get by with, “Hey, you!” or something like that. Yeah – probably not. But if I wanted to delude myself, I had that right.

In any case, I soon joined them at the scrubbed wooden table, sliding onto one of the bench seats. After that, Jo approached and, with a knowing nod, set a plate containing a couple of links of sausage, a biscuit, and a pile of scrambled eggs in front of me. “Thanks,” I said.

“No,” was her meaningful response. “Thank you.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. I’d regaled Jo with the tale of my exploits the day before, and, once she got over her fear, had started to look at me a lot differently. Like I was a hero or something. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and more than once, I’d regretted telling her anything.

I mean – I understood why she looked at me like that. I’d basically saved her, if in a roundabout way. With the threat of exposure – or more likely, the very real demonstration that I could get to him whenever I wanted to – hanging over Jack, I felt certain that he would keep the Tigers away from Jo and the Dewdrop. And if they still came, I would make them regret it. I’d already infiltrated their compound, so it wouldn’t take much to change my tactics from reconnaissance to assassination. Not that I wanted to, of course. But they didn’t need to know that, did they?

After giving her a tight smile, I dug in. As I ate, my uncle said, “Seems like there might be a story there.”

“Nope,” I said between mouthfuls of fluffy eggs. “I’m just that good of a friend.”

“Suppose this has nothing to do with you walking down the street the other day covered in blood, huh?” was his response.

I almost choked on my eggs. “W-what? No. I didn’t –”

He cut his eyes at me, saying, “Don’t lie. Just…you didn’t kill anybody that matters, did you?”

“Uh…no?”

“Is that a question?”

“Maybe?”

He let out a long-suffering sigh before saying, “Just tell me what happened, Mirabelle.”

I knew how little patience Jeremiah had for liars, so I just laid it all out there. I was confident that I’d done the right thing, even if it had gotten a lot messier than I’d anticipated. When I finished, I said, “And I’d do it again. Jack was a dick, and he deserved what he got.”

“And the man you killed?”

“Him too,” I said with confidence.

To my surprise, my uncle gave a shrug, saying, “If you’re convinced you did the right thing, then I won’t chastise you for it. I will, however, reiterate that you need to be careful. You have no idea the time, money, and effort that has gone into training you.”

“I get it,” I said. “But if I see someone in trouble, I’m going to help.”

“Then you’re going to be one busy girl,” he said. “Because we’re all in trouble. Every last one of us. You need to learn to pick your battles. Sure, you say it worked out. This Jack guy is cowed. But what happens when he comes up light? Are his superiors in the Tigers going to replace him? Then, we’re back to square one. Or worse, what if he calls your bluff?”

“He won’t.”

“Probably not, but what if he does?” Jeremiah persisted.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I’ll do what I said I’d do.”

“And in the meantime? You already told him you were there on Jo’s behalf,” Jeremiah stated. “You scared him, sure. But did you go too far? Did you put his back up? Did you force him to do something he might have otherwise avoided? Like attack this inn?”

“I…I don’t know…”

Truthfully, I hadn’t thought through all the consequences of my actions. In fact, I’d assumed that everything was going to work out precisely how I’d dictated to Jack. The threat of exposure would keep him in line. I was sure of it.

“You did the right thing,” Jeremiah said, his voice softer. “But I’m trying to make you understand that, sometimes, doing the right thing is actually more harmful than doing nothing. I don’t think this is one of those instances, but you need to be aware of how your actions might have unintended consequences.”

“I…okay,” I said. “I’ll try to do better.”

“Good. That’s all I can ask,” my uncle responded. “Now finish your meal. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

During the conversation, I’d managed to push the test out of my mind. That lasted right up until he’d mentioned my upcoming “big day”. So, I finished my meal in silence, then followed my uncle and the two amigos out of the inn and to a roofless all-terrain vehicle waiting on the street. Predictably, the last amigo was sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going?” I asked, hopping into the back seat.

“Escort mission,” Jeremiah said. “We’re headed to one of our farms a little north of here. Once we get there, we’re dropping you off. It’s your job to make sure their crop gets back here safely.”

“What?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about –”

“This is what you’ve been training for,” he said. “It’s a nine-mile trip. You should be fine.”

I sighed, knowing good and well that he wasn’t going to let me off the hook. But then again, I didn’t really want him to. I had been training hard, and I felt confident that he wouldn’t put me into a situation where I would be overwhelmed.

Or maybe that was blind hope.

A memory of a giant alligator dominated my thoughts; back then, I’d been woefully underprepared to face that monster. And yet, Jeremiah had pitted me against it, albeit after he’d crippled the thing. The fact remained, though, that he had few issues with sending me into an overwhelming situation. Doubtless, that was how he expected me to grow.

But I had come through that, hadn’t I? I could do so again.

I thought about everything I’d learned, trying to come up with some kind of plan for protecting the people I was supposed to escort. However, I had no idea about the details, and until I discovered the route or the participants, it would be impossible to create a workable plan. So, with that in mind, I watched my surroundings.

We skirted the river as we went north, weaving between ruined buildings and piles of rubble. Some of them looked fresh, but others appeared to have been there for months, or even years. The vehicle was made for such rough terrain, so it had no difficulty traversing our route.

Then, as we turned, I saw something truly awe-inspiring.

In the distance, there was a huge bridge, held aloft by waist-thick cables. Some of them had been snapped, but others remained.

“Are we supposed to cross that thing?” I asked.

My uncle laughed. “That would be suicide,” he said. “That thing hasn’t been safe for half a century. God knows how it’s still there.”

In the river, below the bridge, I caught sight of something that looked suspiciously like a giant tentacle cutting through the water. “I’m guessing that part of the river isn’t safe, either,” I reasoned.

“Definitely not,” Jeremiah said. “It’s home to a river kraken. Believe me – you don’t want to mess with that thing.”

“Uh…good to know,” I said. Potbelly, who was sitting beside me, chuckled at my obvious apprehension, and I wanted to punch him in his stupid, fat stomach. I seethed as we continued going, turning to the west once we reached the base of the bridge. Up close, I saw that the concrete was crumbling, and the cables were in even worse condition than I’d thought. My uncle was right – it would be the height of stupidity to try crossing.

Jeremiah said, “Stop the jeep.”

The driver, Slim, complied, and my uncle directed me to get out. I looked around. This stretch of terrain didn’t look much different than any other, save that there was an old sign that seemed to have survived. It was constructed of a piece of wood stretched between two brick pillars, though the sign itself was covered in some sort of thick ivy. Kudzu, my uncle had called it.

He approached, ripping the vines away to reveal faded paint. Even with it exposed, I had to get a lot closer to read what it said. The only word I could make out was “Africatown,” whatever that meant. I asked my uncle, and he just shook his head.

“You don’t know much about our history,” he said. “Before the Initialization, people sometimes treated others differently according to the color of their skin. People like us, we got the worst of it.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Tribalism, mostly. Bigotry. Stupidity. Take your pick, Mirabelle,” he said. “But that’s not important. With everyone struggling to survive, that kind of thing slowly fell by the wayside, replaced by other prejudices. That’s not why I brought you here, though. This place, it was called Africatown because it was the last known entry point for African slaves. It was illegal by that point, and it happened more than a century before I was even born.  Your ancestors escaped that fate and settled right here. Generations later, I was born.”

“So…we were slaves?” I asked.

“They were,” he said. “But they broke free. They created a life for themselves. A place they could call home. You come from survivors.”

“Why are you showing me this? And I know it’s not for the history lesson,” I said. I felt confident that he’d only told me enough to get his point across.

“Don’t let their sacrifices go to waste, Mirabelle,” he said. “I know this probably isn’t going to affect you. You’ve lived a life sequestered from the realities of your ancestry. So did I, for the most part. By the time I was born, things were a lot better. Not perfect, mind you. There was still plenty of bigotry flowing around. But if you don’t take anything else from seeing this place, let it be this: we will never be slaves again. Not because of our race. Not because of our species. And certainly not because some corporate asshole wants us to work in some factory so he can impress his own overlord.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, not knowing how else to respond to his miniature tirade.

He shook his head. “That really didn’t have the effect I wanted it to, did it?” Jeremiah asked.

“Uh…I guess?” I answered. “I get it, though. Mostly.”

In truth, I didn’t really feel any connection with the people who’d lived in Africatown two centuries before. I could feel sympathy for what they had to go through – and I did – but I didn’t really have any basis by which I could relate.

“I guess that’ll have to do,” he said. “C’mon. We’ve got a little ways to go.”

With that, we returned to the jeep and continued along our route, eventually turning off the road and following a narrow path through the woods. We traveled north for about twenty more minutes until, at last, we reached an intimidating wall of concrete. The path led us to a fortified gate, which was guarded by a pair of Operators, one of which carried a bow, while the other was armed with a clunky-looking rifle.

After a brief exchange between my uncle and the bow-wielding guard, the gate swung open to reveal a massive field of swaying stalks. After visiting one of the Silos back home, I recognized it as corn. It stretched as far as I could see, and in the distance was a low-slung concrete bunker. Drones floated through the fields, misting the crops.

“Mirabelle,” my uncle said. “This is Alpha Farm. You’re meeting with Caleb. He’s the head of security around here.”

“You’re not going to introduce me?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nope,” was his reply. “You need to learn to stand on your own two feet, so this is where we’ll part ways. I probably won’t be in Mobile when you get back, but I’ve already arranged the rest of your training.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said. “What if I fail?”

“You won’t,” he said. “This is a simple job. You only have to protect the shipment on the way back. You’ll have plenty of help, too. Relax and rely on your training.”

I nodded, then got out of the jeep. Before long, the vehicle had backed out of the gate, turned around, and sped off. I was watching the retreat so intently that I reacted poorly when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

With a move drilled into me by my melee combat instructor, I grabbed the offending hand, twisted, and drew Ferdinand II from my Arsenal Implant. I had the barrel against a man’s head before I even realized what I was doing.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa – easy now, killer,” he said, his voice strained from the pressure I was putting on his wrist. “I come in peace!”

“Crap. Sorry,” I said, pulling away. I kept Ferdinand II out, though. This man was a stranger, and I had no idea of his intentions. “Caleb?”

“In the flesh,” he said, rubbing his wrist. “You move pretty good.”

“Thanks?”

“Here. Follow me,” he said. “We’ve been waiting on you.”

With that, he set off down the path through the field at a light jog. I followed, pointedly keeping Ferdinand II out. I didn’t know precisely why; I just knew that something was prickling at the back of my mind. Something wrong.

It was only when we approached the bunker that I got my answer. A dozen men and women stood around, none of which seemed to be farmers. It might’ve been the heavy armaments. Or the clothes. It might’ve even been the way they held themselves. But I was looking at a group of Operators.

I barely had time to react before they opened fire, filling the air with one round after another. I took one in the arm. Another in the thigh. And another grazed my shoulder before I managed to dive away into the corn stalks. I was up and running in half a second, heedless of my injuries.

Behind me, the fake “Caleb” shouted, “Get her! She came with the Wraith! If she gets away, we’re done!”

I didn’t stick around to hear anything else. Instead, I plunged headlong through the forest of cornstalks, using every attribute point of my Constitution to propel me faster than my pursuers. And all the while, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was the test. Or had something gone terribly wrong? Either way, a seething anger had begun to build in my chest. They’d attacked me for no reason, and with the intent to kill. If I’d been any slower, they would have succeeded, too.

But they’d made a mistake, hadn’t they? They hadn’t finished the job. And now, I was just pissed off enough to give them a very bad day.