Mistrunner - Chapter 18 - A Brief Respite

So many people refuse to understand that every great accomplishment requires incredible sacrifice. Be it time, tears, or sweat, the cost is always high. But that feeling you get when you truly accomplish something worthwhile – there’s nothing like it. That feeling alone is enough to sustain you through any number of trials or tribulations.

Jeremiah Braddock III

I had the next day to myself, so, after spending two months waking up before dawn, I had every intention of sleeping in. My body, however, refused to cooperate, and I awoke at five in the morning, just like any other day. As I lay there, I felt my stomach twisting into knots. The previous couple of months had been difficult enough, and now, I was only two days away from having the difficulty ratcheted up a few notches.

But I could take it, couldn’t I? My uncle wouldn’t let me do it if he didn’t think so, and I’d long since decided to trust his judgement. Besides, even as difficult as my training had been so far, I couldn’t say that I hadn’t enjoyed it. There was something altogether satisfying about looking at my status each night and seeing my numbers increase. That satisfaction was especially potent when it was accompanied by real world examples of my improvement. I’d gone from barely being able to complete the obstacle course to breezing through, with the only difficulty coming from my own drive to go faster. And my growth hadn’t been confined to that, either. My skills had been similarly affected, with all of them reaching Tier-1, where I saw quantifiable increases.

And I couldn’t wait to see more. It was almost enough that I found myself wishing – at least a little bit – that I could just fast forward to when I could begin my uncle’s so-called Hell Month; it would be difficult, I was sure. In fact, I suspected that it would probably stretch my resolve to the very limits. However, I also knew that when I made it to the end, I would do so as a stronger individual. And that was enough to turn my anxiety to impatience.

First, though, I had a couple of days off, and I had no idea how to use them. Still in bed, I considered continuing with my routine. After all, I didn’t want to lose any of my gains, and what’s more, I knew that stopping and starting back up often made things more difficult than if I’d just kept going. So, with a sigh, I levered myself out of bed and went to the bathroom. After taking care of my business, I caught my reflection in the mirror, and I had to admit that I liked what I saw.

For one, I’d gained weight, but not in the eating-too-much-candy kind of way. Instead, I’d filled out with enough springy muscle that I actually looked healthy for a change. My time as a runaway, brief though it had been, hadn’t been easy on my looks. When I’d left Nova City, my skin had been a bit spotty, my hair had been incredibly frizzy, and my features had been hollow. Now, though? I looked good. Better than I ever had before – probably a result of my increased constitution or the Regenerationtrait associated with [Combat Utility], which was proving to be one of my most valuable skills.

Or maybe that was just my vanity talking. Either way, a little training had done my body good, and I was eager to see what the future might hold.

After washing my face, I stepped out of the bathroom and selected something to wear. Instead of the fatigues I’d been wearing for the past two months, I chose a pair of tight, black jeans that had rips and tears in all the right places, a white tank top with a Leviathan logo on it, and a studded belt. Capping it off were the boots I’d stolen what felt like a lifetime ago. With that taken care of, I went back into the bathroom and applied a light coating of makeup and tried to arrange my hair into some semblance of order. The best I could achieve was a rough symmetry to the giant poof, which I supposed would have to do.

Dressed and ready to face the world, I headed down to the common room where Jo was serving a breakfast of eggs, grits, and bacon – all real, instead of the soy-based food we got in Nova City. That was one thing about living on the frontier: the food was light years better than what I’d grown up eating. Perhaps that had something to do with my weight gain as well.

“Aren’t you lookin’ like a million credits,” Jo said, sliding a plate in front of me as I sat down. “I’m kind of jealous. You’re going to put all the rest of us to shame.”

Unused to compliments from anyone but Heather, my uncle’s girlfriend, I fixed my eyes on the plate and said, “T-thanks. I guess.”

“Want some coffee?” she asked.

“Uh…no,” I said. “I’ve never liked it.”

“That’s because you’ve probably never had the real stuff,” she said. “Seriously. Give it a try. I can almost guarantee you’ll like it.”

“Oh…okay,” I said. “But…um…I like lots of sugar.”

“Ten-four,” she said with a grin before she disappeared across the room and behind the counter. A minute or two later, she returned with a mug of coffee, which she set down in front of me. Crossing her arms, she said, “Give it a try.”

I really didn’t like being the center of anyone’s attention, but what was I going to do? I didn’t know anywhere else to get food, and even if I did, I didn’t exactly have any credits. So, trapped as I was, I did as she asked. Lifting the cup to my mouth, I was fully prepared to make some bland comment about how it wasn’t bad, but the moment the liquid hit my tongue, my eyes widened in surprise. Swallowing it, I said, “That’s amazing! Where has this been all my life?!”

“Too expensive to import into Nova City,” came my uncle’s voice. I turned to see him standing behind me, his hands on his hips. He looked dangerous just standing there. “Don’t get used to it, because this is one of the few places in this area where it’s readily available. And that’s only because there’s a bunch of families full of real farmers attached to this town. Coffee’s not usually native to this region, but it’s amazing what someone with an actual [Horticulture]skill can accomplish.”

“Oh…right,” I said. “But…but it is really good,” I added, looking at Jo almost apologetically. Jeremiah had a way of throwing a wet blanket onto any conversation. It was one of his many faults. He also snored and talked in his sleep.

Jo rolled her eyes at my uncle, sliding onto the bench across the table from me. “So, what do you have planned today? You’re off, right? That’s what everyone’s saying.”

“Uh…everyone?”

“You’ve been running around here for two months,” Jo said, pushing her hair behind her ear. “People are going to talk about you. We’re a decent sized town, but in this area, we’re pretty close-knit. And don’t avoid my question. What do you have planned?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Explore a little? I’ve barely seen any of the town, and I thought I’d…I don’t know…see what it has to offer.”

She broke into a wide grin. “I know! I’ll be your guide,” she said. “It’ll be awesome. I could show you all the coolest places, and –”

“Don’t you have to work?” I asked. Indeed, it felt like Jo was always working the counter, and I hadn’t seen anyone else around. Of course, I knew she didn’t own the place, but it felt like she was the only one who worked there.

“I get off in an hour,” she said. “Mom takes over then.” Her face scrunched up in concentration, and she went on, “Oh. I guess you’ve never seen me when I’m not working, huh? Probably because of your weird schedule. I work the night shift and into the morning. My parents take care of things during the day.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I said, the mystery solved. “But you don’t want to spend your time off showing me around, do you?”

“Of course I do!” Jo insisted. “We’re going to be best friends. You’ll see.”

I glanced at my uncle, and he nodded. So, I said, “Okay. Sounds…uh…good, I guess. Yeah. It sounds good.”

After that, I dug into my meal, eating with reckless abandon. My uncle chuckled, saying, “Slow down. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, my mouth full. I swallowed. “I’m just used to being on a schedule.”

He sighed, then said, “Reminds me of my time in the army. It wasn’t until later that I decided to slow down and enjoy things while I could. When I got home, I had the benefit of some of the best food in the world – you know, that’s one of the things this area was known for, back then. Now, it’s like pulling teeth just to get decent gumbo.”

“We ate gumbo all the time,” I said.

“That stuff in Nova City was not real gumbo,” he stated. “Everything about it was wrong. From the soy-based protein clumps that were supposed to taste like shrimp to the roux that was just wrong enough to ruin the whole thing – it was just a bad imitation. Like store-brand Cheerios.”

“What are Cheerios?” I asked, a little confused. Some kind of anti-depressant or something?

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeremiah said. “They don’t exist anymore. My point is that as wondrous as the Initialization was – and it gave us so many things, making the impossible possible – we lost a lot, too. For instance, before that nanite swarm hit Earth, I was a half-step from being crippled. I could get around. I could live a mostly normal life. But I was constantly in pain, and all it would take was one wrong move, and I’d have been paralyzed.”

He took a mug from Jo, who’d approached without me noticing her. “Thanks,” he said. Then, he continued, “But then, the Initialization came, and not only was it suddenly easy for my back to heal back to better than it was before the injury, but it also stretched my longevity into the centuries. I’m not even middle-aged yet, and I turned one-twenty last year. So, even though so many people died – and they did – I came out ahead. Suffice it to say that I’ve got mixed feelings about the whole thing.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I could see that.”

With that, we both went silent, and I finished my meal in peace. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d gotten a brief glimpse into my uncle’s tragic past. He was a man who’d lost everything, and multiple times. I felt sorry for him, which was a little disconcerting, given that he was the pillar to which my entire life had been anchored. If he was worthy of pity, then what about the rest of us?

After finishing my meal, I waited on Jo to complete her shift. As I waited, she brought me another cup of coffee, which I gratefully accepted. Once her shift was finished, she disappeared into the back to change. She emerged about twenty minutes later, grinning and looking wholly different.

“Wow,” I said, looking her up and down. She wore a short mini-skirt, a leather bustier, and a red, studded jacket that didn’t even cover her midriff. I could only pray that I looked half as cool as her.

“Wow yourself,” she said. “Love those boots.”

“Thanks,” was my mumbled response. As confident as I was in my physical abilities, I was just as unsure when it came to social situations. In school, I’d always faded into the background where everyone just left me alone. Some of that was due to my own introverted nature, but it was also because I was Jeremiah’s niece. People were afraid of him, and through the transitive property, they were scared of me as well. That had done a number on my social prospects.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. Or tried to, at least. With my stats, she couldn’t move me if I didn’t want to be moved. “Whoa,” Jo muttered. “You’re…uh…you’re pretty strong, huh?”

“I guess. Sorry,” I said. “You caught me by surprise.”

“Well, c’mon,” she said, still grinning. “Let’s go. I have a ton of stuff I want to show you!”

And so, I followed her out of the inn, and before I knew it, we were meandering through the town. The majority of the other pedestrians didn’t seem to notice us, but every now and then, I caught someone’s eyes lingering just a little longer than absolutely necessary. When I mentioned it to Jo, she just laughed.

“Are you talking about the boys?” she asked.

“Uh…”

Now that I thought about it, most of the people who’d noticed us were male, with a smattering of girls mixed in. And almost all of them were young, somewhere around our age.

“I guess?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s good to be noticed, right? Otherwise, why would I wear this stupid jacket? It’s so freaking hot!”

I mumbled some unintelligible reply, and Jo led me into a nearby market. I stopped beside a railing for a moment to take it all in. It wasn’t so different from the markets in Nova City, save that the fashion seemed quite a bit different. Sure, Jo and I were dressed similarly to what would be expected in Nova City, but most of the people in the market wore decidedly less elaborate outfits. Tee-shirts. Jeans. Shorts. And flip-flops were the norm. Thankfully, there were enough people dressed like us that we didn’t stick out. Not too much, at least.

The other difference was the smell. Nova City had, to put it mildly, a very distinct aroma that I’d come to associate with the city. Cement and sewage, water and body odor, and a hundred other smells combined to give it its own odor. This market was different. Sure, some of the components were the same – like the body odor. But there was also the smell of sizzling meat and spices.

Finally, the goods on offer were different as well. In Nova City, everything was sleeker. More fabricated. Soulless. But here? The goods were rough and unpolished. Utilitarian. Add to that the fact that, in Nova City, such a market would’ve been bathed in neon lights and the glow of a hundred holographic displays, most of which would depict something overtly sexual, and it almost felt like I’d stepped into a different world.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jo.

“It’s just…it’s just so different,” I said. “Back in Nova, it’s just…it’s just not like this.”

“I wish I could go there,” Jo said. “But it’s almost impossible for someone like me to get into the city. Jeremiah’s guys could probably smuggle me inside, but my parents think it’s too dangerous. They’ve heard bad things about the city.”

“It’s probably worse than they know,” I responded, leaning forward against the railing. “A couple days before I left, seven innocent people were killed by the Enforcers. They’re, like, the elite peacekeepers. All because it was easier just to kill everyone than to figure out who set off a minor bomb.”

“That’s…that’s horrible,” gasped Jo.

I shrugged. “It’s life in Nova,” I said, trying to sound like it wasn’t still bothering me. It was. A lot. I’d been the cause of that explosion, and so, at least some of the blame for those innocent people’s lives rested on my shoulders. “Trust me – it’s better here.”

She snorted. “You only say that because you’re rich,” she said. She leaned over, playfully bumping against my shoulder as she said, “Most people don’t just stroll in here and get whatever they want, you know.”

“I’m not rich,” I said. “I’ve got like forty credits to my name.”

“Yeah, but Jeremiah is,” Jo said. “And that’s the same thing. C’mon.”

After that brief exchange, we set off into the market, visiting one stall after another. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t afford anything, though. When we came to a booth selling Levaithan merchandise, I almost reverted to my thieving ways. None of it was high-quality, but that didn’t really matter. Even in Nova City, finding authentic Leviathan gear meant attending one of their shows, and given that they didn’t exactly advertise on the entertainment channels, you had to travel in the right circles to even know when and where they might perform. Either way, I resisted the urge to snatch everything I could and run away.

Barely.

Okay, so I might’ve pocketed a tee-shirt, but in my defense, it wasn’t like the guy didn’t have a bunch more. If anything, I was doing him a favor by reducing his inventory costs. Or something like that. I don’t know. I wanted it, and I took it. End of story.

“Did you just take that guy’s shirt?” Jo asked after we’d gone a good distance from the booth.

“Uh…maybe?” I asked, dragging the shirt out of my Arsenal Implant. A couple of bullets came with it. “Shit,” I muttered as they clattered to the ground.

“How?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ve got an Arsenal Implant,” I said. “It’s pretty high-grade, so I can store other stuff in there, too. I usually just use it for ammo and stuff, though.”

“That is so cool,” she gushed.

“Yeah,” I said, returning her grin with one of my own. “It kind of is. I don’t – wait…is that a bookstore?”

“Um…yeah,” she said, obviously a little confused by my change of tone. “Why? Are you into books or something?”

“Do you know how rare they are?” I asked. “Like, I’ve only ever seen a handful of real books in my whole life. And you have a store full of them here?”

“Calm down – they’re just books,” Jo said.

She started to say something else, but I wasn’t hearing it. Instead, I was marching toward the store in question – one of the few that were actually housed in buildings as opposed to simple stalls. I went inside and gaped at the interior. Every wall was lined with books. “I think I’m in heaven,” I said.

As an introvert who’d spent most of my time indoors, I’d been hard-pressed to find means of occupying my time. Sure, there were games aplenty, and the shows on the entertainment feeds were always there, but sometimes, I wanted something a little more immersive. To that end, I’d taken up reading. The books came on my personal tablet, but I didn’t care all that much. The stories were what was important.

Or that’s what I thought until, on my twelfth birthday, my uncle gave me a physical book. The words were the same as what I could get on my tablet, but there was just something different about holding the book in my hands. I’d been in love from the moment I laid eyes on it, and I’d begged Jeremiah to get more of them for me. Of course, there weren’t many to be had, and by the time we’d left Nova City, I’d only added one other book to my tiny library. Both were sitting in my storage; I was afraid to take them out, lest I damage them outside of Nova’s climate-controlled atmosphere.

“Hello there, young lady,” came a gravelly voice. I looked up to see an old man standing behind the counter. With white hair, a bushy mustache, and twinkling blue eyes, he looked the part of a kindly, old shopkeeper. “If you try to steal anything, my little friend’s going to have something to say about it.”

A clunk on the counter drew my eyes to a sawed-off scattergun; as far as I could tell, it was one of the kinetic versions, which meant that it was meant to throw a good deal of damage in a wide spread. By comparison, my own scattergun was an elemental type, and it was intended more for crowd control and disrupting cybernetics. The point was that the weapon was an overt threat, and one I didn’t want to take lying down.

In an instant, Ferdinand II, loaded with explosive rounds that would rip him to shreds, was in my hand. As casually as I could, I said, “Mine’s bigger, old man.”

He fixed me with an impassive look, his fingers tapping against the stock of the scattergun. In the doorway, where she’d stopped dead in her tracks, Jo looked as if she was about to bolt. But I held firm. I felt positive that I could take the man out if he went for his weapon.

Then, he let out a laugh, breaking the tension. “Oh, that’s fantastic!” he said. “Most everyone just runs away. But you? You really wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot me, would you? No, no – don’t answer. Now, what can I do for you? I can tell from your expression that you’re a fellow book lover.”

A second later, his weapon disappeared, telling me that he had an Arsenal Implant as well. I followed suit, saying, “Yeah. This is more books than I’ve ever seen before, though. Like…where did they all come from?”

“There used to be a public library here,” he said. “I was pretty young back then, but I managed to save quite a few of the books.”

“Wait, you’re…how old are you?”

“Old enough,” the man said. “Now, tell me what kinds of books you like, and we’ll see if we can work out a deal.”

“I…um…I like the romance books,” I admitted. “The ones where…you know…people fall in love and stuff.”

“Don’t say ‘and stuff’,” he admonished. Then, he pointed to a corner of the store, saying, “Right over there. I know every book in this store, so don’t get sticky fingers, you hear?”

“I won’t,” I said, meaning it. Besides, my uncle was rich. If I really wanted some books, he’d buy them for me. I was certain of it. So, I went to the indicated corner of the store and started to peruse the stock. And I was happy to see that there were almost forty romance novels there, each with heroic men and beautiful women on the cover. I was instantly hooked.

Jo, however, wasn’t so enamored, and though she didn’t say anything, she kept fidgeting like she couldn’t wait to get out of there and do something more interesting. So, not wanting to force her to stick around when she clearly wanted to leave, I carefully replaced the books in question and told the shopkeeper that I’d be back tomorrow.

After we left the shop, we continued to browse the various stalls until I saw a pair of men harassing one of the vendors. “What’s going on over there?” I asked.

“Keep moving,” Jo said, ushering me past. “Those are the Tigers.”

“That means literally nothing to me,” I said, glancing back at the two men. Both were dressed in orange and blue outfits, which seemed to be about the worst combination of colors I’d ever seen, and one held a knife to the vendor’s throat. Part of me wanted to head back and help sort it out, but Jo urged me along. Eventually, we found the market’s exit. As we were climbing the stairs, I asked, “What was that all about? Who are those people?”

“The Tigers,” she stated. “They’re a gang. Sort of. They help contribute to the town’s defense, so nobody wants to mess with them. But…they also harass vendors and charge them for protection.”

“Ah,” I said. So, Mobile wasn’t so different from Nova City after all. Back home, gangs did the same thing. “Well, so long as they don’t mess with me…”

“Yeah, nobody’s messing with you,” she said. “Not with Jeremiah around.”

“Good to know,” I said. Then, I grinned and asked, “Where to next?”