Mistrunner - Chapter 13 - Raiders

Stupidity and overconfidence cost us more lives than anything else. Entire generations had been raised on games, and they all thought that their familiarity with similar systems would give them an advantage in the new world. And in a few cases, they were right. In so many others, reality soon asserted itself. Death followed.

Jeremiah Braddock III

I sat across from Britt, trying not to let my discomfort show. But every bump in the road jostled me and threatened to throw me across the vehicle’s cramped cabin. I clutched a nylon strap to keep myself in place, but all that managed to do was make me swing around like some kind of primate. To distract myself from how silly I must’ve looked, I studied my companions.

Britt was tall, thin, and pretty, if in a severe kind of way. Her skin was dark, but in an entirely different hue than my soft brown, and her hair, which had been shaved on one side, was straight and glossy. She had a pair of red chevrons painted on her cheeks, and her dark eyes seemed to take in everything. In addition to her rifle, which seemed a bit less technically advanced than the one in my Arsenal Implant, she carried a tomahawk at her hip. Finally, her left arm was entirely cybernetic and covered in gleaming strips of metal.

“Nice cyberware,” I said, speaking up so Britt could hear me over the drone of the gasoline engine. Having never left Nova City, where all of the vehicles ran on Mist, I’d never encountered anything that ran on fossil fuels.

“You like it?” asked Britt, flexing her mechanical fingers. “I can crush rocks with this bad boy. More importantly, it’s got a stability enhancer. Makes aiming much easier.”

I could see that. In my experience, I was much more accurate when I could rest my rifle on a bipod, but that wasn’t always possible, especially in the heat of battle.

I nodded. “Makes sense,” I said.

“So, you’re the boss’s daughter or something?” she asked.

“Niece,” I said.

“What the hell are you doing out here, then?” Britt asked. “You should be cozied up in some tower, going to all the best schools. Not out here in the Raider territory.”

“Raider territory?”

“Bandits,” she said. “That’s why we usually don’t send convoys out without at least twenty guards. We’re light, even with the boss along for the ride. So, I hope you can hold your own, rich girl.”

“I’m not rich.”

“Yeah? With how fast that Arsenal Implant activated, I’d put it at least at Mark III. Maybe better,” she said. “And that kind of thing costs a lot of money. Couple that with the fact that you’re the boss’s daughter –”

“Niece.”

“Whatever. He raised you, didn’t he?” Britt said, and, suddenly, I started to understand that Britt knew far more about me than she’d let on. Had everything been a set-up? “Makes no difference, really. The boss is the richest guy I ever heard of, and it looks like you’re his pet project. So, by proxy, you’re a rich girl.”

“Big words, Britt,” said one of the other guards with a chuckle. He was huge – at least as big as Nora, with similarly bulging muscles. The difference was that the entire left side of his face was encased in metal. “Proxy. I like it.”

“Shut up, Clay,” Britt growled. “Or I might just hesitate when you need me to save your life. Again. Besides, it was five letters. If that’s a big word to you…”

“Or she might decide to kick your ass,” said the last person in the passenger compartment. He was slimmer than both Britt and Clay, with cybernetic legs that clicked on the metal floor every time he moved. Two other guards were in the front seats, and another pair were atop the transport, where they were manning a pair of turrets.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Slick,” said Clay, waggling his eyebrow. “Did I tell you about this one time when I got into a fight with this chick down in Apalachicola? We were at this bar, you see? And we were both three sheets to the wind. Well, I said somethin’ stupid, and –”

“And she kicked your ass,” Britt said. “So, a normal day for you.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Clay. “But before I knew it, she had me pinned down in the middle of that bar. And then, out of nowhere, she shoved her tongue down my throat. We did it right then and there, and wasn’t nobody there who could stop us, neither. Best sex I ever had.”

“Gross,” I muttered.

“You’re such a pig, Clay,” Britt spat.

“What?” he asked, spreading his hands wide. “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong! She was the aggressor! I just wanted a good tussle!”

“Still gross,” I said.

“I have to agree with the rich girl,” said Britt. She looked at me, held up her closed fist, and said, “Girl power.”

“This is not what I expected this to –”

An explosion interrupted my statement, and an instant later, the side of the transport disintegrated into a fiery ball, taking Britt and Slick with it. I didn’t have time to react before the transport was sent spinning through the air, and I saw Clay get thrown free. I only avoided that fate because of the death grip I had on the nylon strap.

A few seconds later, the vehicle slid to a stop on its side, and I fell atop what was left of Britt. The woman wasn’t just dead. Half her body had been vaporized right down to her metal skeleton. Slick had gotten it even worse, and all that was left of him was a single metal foot, which had somehow dug into the floor.

The world spun as I tried to reorient myself. Shaking my head, I pushed myself to my knees and promptly vomited all over Britt’s bisected corpse. My ears were ringing, but over that, I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire.

So. Much. Gunfire.

It felt like I’d suddenly found myself in a warzone, which, as someone who’d spent her whole life in Nova City, where life was cheap and nobody really cared who lived or died, it should have been easy for me to accept. But this was different than a few errant gunshots or a blitz from the Enforcers. It was ongoing and far more urgent than anything I’d ever experienced.

Without the Combat Focus that came from my [Combat Utility] skill, I probably would have frozen up, then and there. If that had happened, I have no doubt that I would have ended up just like Britt. As it was, though, I took a few deep breaths before taking stock of my situation. And it didn’t look good.

The vehicle had been turned over on its side, and because of the way it had been bent out of shape by whatever had destroyed its entire side, the door in the back looked like it wasn’t going to open anytime soon. Still, I rose unsteadily to my feet and stumbled in that direction. Harnessing every bit of my admittedly pitiful strength, I aimed a front kick at what looked like its weakest point. I was rewarded with a sharp pain in my foot, but the door remained firmly entrenched.

Another nearby explosion shook me to my core, and the vehicle rang like a bell. It wasn’t a direct hit, but it wasn’t really a miss either. Panic overwhelmed my thoughts, and I sank to my haunches, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth as I expected the next shot to rectify that mistake.

It didn’t come.

And more importantly, my Combat Focus started putting in the real work, dragging me from the quagmire of terror that had engulfed me. My breathing slowed. My stomach unclenched. And most importantly, my thoughts cleared. I slapped myself in the face, muttering, “C’mon, Mira. You’re better than this. Get it the fuck together.”

Another deep breath, and I started to think. How was I going to get myself out of that death trap? The door was jammed shut, which completed the compartment’s status as an unadorned metal box.

What assets did I have at my disposal?

I had my rifle, but I felt certain that I couldn’t get a round through the thick plating that covered the vehicle’s door. And even if I could, what would such a small hole accomplish? No – the rifle was out.

Next came my scattergun. By nature, it was intended as an anti-personnel weapon, right? It would do nothing to the door and even less to the walls.

“Why couldn’t I get a freaking rocket launcher?” I mumbled to myself.

But what about Ferdinand II? I had some explosive rounds, didn’t I? Wasn’t that precisely what I needed? I was a bit ashamed that I hadn’t thought of that a little sooner, but in my defense, thinking clearly while gunfire and explosions filled the air wasn’t exactly easy. And I was pretty sure I had at least a mild concussion.

Oh, and the dead bodies. That only a couple of minutes before had been walking, talking, and joking people. Yeah – not the best environment for critical thinking. Still, I ended up finding the right strategy, didn’t I? That had to count for something.

Summoning Ferdinand II from my Arsenal Implant, I flipped the wrist-sized cylinder open and dumped the old rounds out. After the fight with the alligator, I’d loaded it with armor-piercing rounds, hoping that if I ran into another of the enormous reptiles, I could make quick work of it. And sure, those rounds might punch a hole or two through the vehicle’s armor, but I didn’t see how that would get me free. So, I slipped the old bullets into my pocket before summoning the explosive tipped rounds and slipping them into the cylinder. A moment later, I backed all the way to the other side of the compartment – which was only about ten feet – and took aim.

Then, I thought better of it.

Even if everything went perfectly, I wouldn’t escape such an explosion unscathed. I needed cover. And sadly, there wasn’t much of that lying around. Just a corpse that had been bisected by an explosion and a metal foot. None of that would help me out much, would it? Still, I swallowed my revulsion and dragged Britt’s body – or the half that was left – and used it as a makeshift riot shield. I took aim and fired.

The resulting explosion threw me against the wall with enough force that I felt a couple of ribs break. For a few seconds, the panic returned as I felt iron bands wrapping themselves around my chest, preventing me from breathing. Then, after only a few more seconds, my Combat Focus reasserted itself, and I realized that I’d just had the breath knocked out of me. More, I could tell that my Pain Tolerance had definitely taken the edge off of my broken ribs.

But I’d survived. And what’s more, there was a hole in the door just big enough that I thought I could slither through it. What was left of Britt hadn’t been so fortunate, and I realized that I was holding onto a strip of her combat vest, from which an unidentifiable piece of blackened flesh was clinging. I dropped it in disgust, then immediately felt guilty about it. Not that long ago, she’d been a human being. Now? Little more than a charred pile of flesh.

I’d always been under the impression that life was cheap in Nova City. It seemed even cheaper in the outside world.

I couldn’t let myself get distracted, though. So, pushing Britt’s fate to the back of my mind, I refocused and made my way to the hole. It was taller than it was wide, so I had to contort myself to fit through. That, in turn, made the pain from my broken ribs flare up. By the time I tumbled out into the open air, I did so with all the grace of a fish on dry land. I lay there for a long moment, my ears still ringing and my body feeling like I’d just pulled double duty as Nora’s punching bag.

I wasn’t doing so great is my point. But I didn’t have time to wallow in my pain; I had to act, and fast. Otherwise, I’d end up just like my brief companions. Climbing to my knees, I levered myself to my feet and took stock of the situation.

Chaos reigned all around me. Everywhere I looked, there was fire. The battle had done quite a number on the heavily forested area through which we’d been traveling. Trees lay on their side, their trunks splintered and broken. The concrete that had been the road hadn’t fared much better, and it was pockmarked with craters and divots. But to my surprise, the transport trucks in the center of the convoy had been unaffected. It only took a cursory glance to figure out why; around each one was a barely visible dome of blue light. Energy shields, and top grade ones, too.

Beyond those vehicles was my uncle’s transport, though he was nowhere to be seen – which scared me. Without him, there was no way I could fight off the attackers.

Speaking of which – they were everywhere. Wearing roughspun clothing with armor stitched together from beast hides, the bandits looked entirely feral. Some sported cybernetics, but most were pure, home-grown human beings. Armed with ancient-looking rifles and bladed weapons that looked like they’d been cobbled together from scrap, each one cut a fearsome – if primitive – figure.

Thankfully, they hadn’t noticed me yet. Or not so thankfully, considering that, judging by the flickering energy shield, they were on the verge of breaking through. I couldn’t let that happen. So, I stowed Ferdinand II back in my Arsenal Implant and summoned my rifle. Reconfiguring it into the sniper mode, I knelt down on one knee. Then, I took aim.

Without any more hesitation, I fired.

An unlucky bandit’s chest exploded into a fountain of blood, gore, and bone. I barely saw it. Whether I was in shock or my Combat Focuswas more effective than I expected, I smoothly shifted my focus to the next bandit, who was busy wailing on the shield with what looked to be a buzzsaw blade attached to a metal pipe. It even spun.

But with me sixty yards away, it didn’t matter. I squeezed the trigger again, and the bullet took him just below the collarbone. On its way out, it obliterated most of his spine. And I shifted to the next target. Then the next. I took out six of them before they even knew I was there.

All good things must come to an end, though, and I’d never expected to kill them all without being noticed. When they did, there were more than a dozen of them left, and I’d pissed every single one of them off. The shields forgotten, most of them charged at me. The ones who had firearms took aim, and I ducked behind the overturned armored personnel carrier.

Taking a moment to reload, I reconfigured my weapon back into assault rifle mode. Then, keeping the personnel carrier between me and the charging horde of bandits, I retreated into the forest. Leaping over an overturned pine tree, I slid to a stop about twenty yards away from the road. From the cover of the tree, I took aim.

A second or two later, the first bandits charged into view. Upon closer inspection, the woman was even more feral than I’d first thought. Dirty, with matted hair, she was covered in blue tattoos and dressed in armor that looked like it had been made from an alligator. Upon her head was a horned helmet, and she carried a rifle that looked like it was at least a century old.

I must’ve been a little too exposed, because she noticed me straight away. In a split second, she raised that rifle and fired, the bullets thudding into the tree and sending splinters flying into the air. I resisted the urge to duck and squeezed the trigger, sending a flurry of three-round bursts downrange. The first burst missed, pinging off the overturned vehicle, but the second and third ripped her to shreds. One round tore her arm from her shoulder, showing just how powerful my Kicker really was.

And I would need it, because the moment the woman fell, she was replaced by a handful of other bandits. I laid into them without mercy, cutting them down like they were paper targets.

Paper targets that sent fountains of gore into the air. And screams. Can’t forget those. Not even if I wanted to. Which I very much wish I could.

Yeah – not the best analogy.

Either way, I was so focused on my targets that I didn’t even notice the pair of bandits who’d snuck up behind me. Not until I saw a club coming at me out of the corner of my eye, and by then, it was far too late for me to completely avoid it. Still, I tried to dive away, and I received another shot to the ribs for my trouble. I went skidding across the forest floor, my rifle tumbling from my grip along the way.

I gasped in agony as I collided with another tree. It felt as if someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the side, over and over again without mercy. I lay there, my breathing coming by way of shallow, ragged gasps. I was going to die. There was nothing else for it.

A chuckle filled the air, and I looked up to see the most hideous person I’d ever seen in my entire life. To this day, I have no idea if they were male or female; gender seemed unimportant next to the sheer ugliness on display. If they had a single tooth in their mouth, I would have been incredibly surprised. Lesions and sores dotted their face, and their stringy body was covered with so much dirt and mud that I could scarcely identify their skin tone.

“What’s we gots here?” they said, reaching down to pick up my Kicker. “Fancy, fancy toy, yes it is. I’s makes good use o’ this’n, yes I will. I dun –”

They never finished their statement.  While they’d been inspecting my rifle, I hadn’t been idle. Using those brief seconds, I’d summoned my scattergun and fired, all in one motion. An arc of lightning flashed out of the barrel, frying the monstrous bandit where they stood. I didn’t care. I fired again. And again. I kept firing until they were little more than smoking remnants and the cannister that held the weapon’s ammunition was empty.

I tossed it aside and summoned my pistol, pointing it at the big man who’d been lagging a bit behind. He’d still caught the edges of the scattergun’s issue, and he’d barely had time to climb twitchily to his feet. He raised his hand.

I didn’t care.

I fired. He exploded. And I was showered with gore.

I didn’t care about that, either.

At that moment, covered in blood and barely able to stand the pain coursing through my body, the only thing I really cared about was staying alive.