Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 68 - Terror

I know she’s coming. And after what she did to those people – more than a thousand dead, most without so much as a scratch – the terror has reached a fever pitch. I know I’m safe. I know she won’t kill me. But still…the fear remains.

Nora Lancaster

The R-14 spat fire as I kicked off the ground and flew through the air. I landed half-a-dozen feet away in a roll that ended with me behind one of the concrete columns that supported the roof. An instant later, a hundred bullets followed in my wake, thudding into the ground and sending puffs of dust and shattered concrete spewing into the air. My own shots hit a blue Mist shield that was so well-powered that it had become almost solid.

I peeked out from behind cover, hoping to see that my most recent salvo had had some effect, but as powerful as the R-14 could be, it still suffered from the limitations inherent in its design. As an assault rifle meant for versatility, it was good at a lot of things. It had solid range, good damage, and a decent rate of fire. However, being good at all those facets of combat meant it couldn’t excel at any one thing.

So, the Mist shield – which was sturdier than any I’d seen so far – remained annoyingly intact and frustratingly unwavering. To make matters worse, it did nothing to prevent the Operators it was protecting from throwing out one barrage of gunfire after another. Sort of like a two-way mirror, it was permeable from their side while being completely impenetrable from mine.

Fortunately, it didn’t form a complete circle. Instead, it took the form of a convex semi-circle, which meant that, while I couldn’t simply go through it, going around might be possible. Of course, that brought with it a host of other problems, not least that doing so would force me to cross forty feet of open ground while they tried to pepper me with bullets.

I could take a few hits. I knew that because I’d experienced it. However, neither my subdermal sheath nor my infiltration suit had really had enough time for complete repair, and my defenses would unravel very quickly under a hail of gunfire. To make matters even worse, my Misthackability was still blocked, meaning that I couldn’t simply deactivate the Mist shield or let one of my Ghosts do the heavy lifting.

No – if I was going to get to Nora, which seemed increasingly less likely, I needed to get around the Mist shield, kill the Operators the hard way, and then move on to whatever other defenses Nora had set up.

Because I knew this was just the first layer. If I knew her at all – and I thought I did, by now – she would throw every Operator at her disposal at me. That way, even if I did make it through, I’d be exhausted and probably injured, which would make me that much easier to defeat.

Hiding behind that pillar, for the very first time, I seriously considered retreat. I’d already set enough demolition charges to bring the building down. So, I could accomplish my goal from more than a mile away, if it came down to it. All I had to do was head back the way I’d come, and there was nothing Nora could do to stop me.

Sure, getting through the Operators on the first floor would be difficult now that they’d doubtless been alerted to my intrusion, but I felt confident that I could make it through, even if I probably couldn’t do so unscathed. I would survive, though. I didn’t doubt that for a second.

But I dismissed that plan before it even had a chance to take root. Not because it was doomed to failure. Rather, because it wouldn’t give me what I needed.

I wanted to watch Nora die by my hand. I wanted to see the life leave her eyes. But more than anything else, I needed to ask her why she had thrown everything away. I wanted to demand an explanation.

And then, I needed to put her down like the traitorous dog she’d proven herself to be.

Anything else, and I wouldn’t get the closure necessary for me to move on. I was often beset by self-delusion, and I knew good and well that I was a very different person than my innermost thoughts might indicate. But I did know myself well enough to recognize that I’d never be able to live my life with any sort of peace of mind if I didn’t see Nora die.

So, even if retreat was probably the smartest option, I couldn’t stomach the idea for more than a second.

That didn’t mean I had to attack the problem like an idiot, though. And I knew precisely how to get around the issue.

Unsurprisingly, it came down to one world: explosions.

No – I didn’t intend to bring the building down prematurely. Instead, I reached into my arsenal implant and retrieved a pair of rough orbs. One was a fragmentation grenade, while the other was a flashbang, which was the first one I sent sailing through the air. However, the fragmentation grenade followed only a moment later, though on a different trajectory.

The flashbang hit the Mist shield and exploded in a cacophony of sound and light; the shield was great at stopping projectiles of all sorts, but it did nothing to stop the wave of sensory input that came from the flashbang. I didn’t even need to look to know that the Operators behind the shield had been stunned.

So, they never saw the fragmentation grenade fly up and over the Mist shield, carom off the ceiling, and land directly behind them.

It exploded a moment later, sending an eruption of fire, force, and shrapnel to shred through them. That’s when I darted out of cover and raced down the corridor in their direction. Using every point of my Constitution to speed me on my way, I covered the forty feet in less than a second. Then, I leaped, kicked off the side wall, and vaulted over the Mist shield. Twisting in mid-air so I landed facing the Operators, I opened fire.

My fragmentation grenade had wrought havoc in their ranks, but these were Nora’s elite underlings, so none of them were mortally wounded. That had never been the point. Instead, I just wanted to shock and distract them, and the combination of the two grenades had done that job with aplomb.

The R-14 barked, sending a half-dozen bursts of fire at the grouped Operators. A couple reacted to the gunfire by throwing themselves to the concrete floor, but it only required a minute adjustment of my aim to take them out. In only a few seconds, the entire group were riddled with burning holes. Most were already dead, but a couple managed to survive. Calmly, I reloaded, then finished the job.

The entire process had taken less than thirty seconds.

Once again jamming a fresh magazine into the R-14, I moved on. I didn’t have room in my arsenal implant to accommodate any loot I might acquire from the Operators, so I left their bodies alone. This wasn’t about gaining equipment or wealth. I only had one intention – kill Nora and get my revenge. With my goal so close, every other impulse was easily ignored.

The top floor of the megabuilding had once played host to an entire village worth of people. Thousands of them, all bearing some level of loyalty to my uncle. If somebody wanted to, they could live their entire lives without ever leaving the floor. Only the virtual reality addicts ever took it that far, but most ordinary people’s lives revolved around the community they’d built.

Sure, those who held down jobs outside of the megabuilding went to work – usually at one of the factories in Algiers or the silos from which the Garden District had derived its name – but otherwise, they only left on special occasions. I’d been like that, only venturing into the city in order to attend classes at the city-mandated school.

But now? The stalls in the central market were empty, both of goods as well as their proprietors. Most of the apartments, once playing host to thousands of people, were vacant and had been stripped of anything valuable. The megabuilding had become a ghost town.

And it was my fault.

I’d set the stage for all those people to pick up anything they could carry with them and flee into the wilderness. Perhaps some had made it to other settlements. A few might’ve even gotten so far as one of the major cities. But most had either died or were enslaved by their unscrupulous escorts.

Could all of that be laid at my feet? Was I at fault? No. Not really. But I’d put it all into motion, so some of the blame had to fall on my shoulders.

Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were better off. A life lived in the isolation of a megabuilding didn’t seem like much of a life to me. And to make matters worse, Nova City itself had intentionally been cut off from the rest of the world. Sure, the elites up in the higher districts were far less isolated, but as far as I was concerned, they didn’t really count. They were practically a different species, and I couldn’t be bothered thinking about their fate.

Gradually, I crept down the corridor, and along the way, I encountered a half-dozen other Mist shield protected choke points. In each case, I attacked them the same way I’d taken down the first, which worked well enough. However, I encountered a bit of a snag on the seventh instance of my implementation of the strategy.

The first difference I noticed was that they were far more powerful than the mooks I’d killed so far. Part of that was because I recognized a couple of them as once belonging to my uncle’s elite inner circle. None were suited for leadership, but they were some of the best warriors the Specters could put on the field – which meant that Jeremiah had subsidized their development to the point where he’d made sure they were equipped with expensive weapons and powerful cybernetics.

This extended to the Mist shield they were using as cover, because unlike the others, its protection reached the ceiling. Perhaps one or more of them had some sort of skill to augment it. Or maybe it was just higher quality. I had no idea, but it presented a problem in that my previously established strategy was suddenly useless.

I needed to adjust.

Fortunately, my progression through the floor’s corridors meant that I had a few extra options at my disposal. I’d yet to use any of them because there was no point in fixing a strategy that was working, but now that necessity had forced my hand, I was eager to mix things up.

Or maybe I was just excited because I was getting close to the penthouse where I hoped to find Nora.

Thankfully, I’d continued to make copious use of Stealth, so the mooks behind the shield never noticed me before I ducked behind a corner to figure out exactly how I wanted to approach them. They obviously knew I was coming, but without specifics, that information was mostly useless except to put them on guard. As far as I could see, I had two options.

First, I could go through the air ducts. When I took a moment to inspect them, I found that they were only barely wide enough to accommodate the width of my shoulders. It only took the memory of my recent foray into the waste pipes before I firmly established that as Plan B.

Plan A was more attractive anyway, if only because it satisfied a childish need for a dramatic entrance.

So, with that in mind, I checked to make sure that Stealthwas still active, crouched, and stepped into the hall. I kept close to the wall, my form partially hidden by a couple of vending machines stocked with cheap, minimally nutritious foods as I crept forward. The whole time, I kept my eyes trained on the mooks barring my way, but even though they were alert, none of them seemed capable of seeing through my Stealth – so long as I didn’t make any mistakes.

Or move too quickly.

Or linger in the open.

These were elites. Men and women who’d earned their position via a mountain of bodies. If anyone was going to see through Stealth, they were the best candidates. But I had little choice but to trust the ability that had yet to really fail me. Like that, I slipped ever closer to the Mist shield, but when I got close enough that I could hear the mooks’ panicked conversation, I slowed to a stop.

“…should’ve left when I had the chance. Cece offered me a spot in her crew. Good pay, too. And all the boys I could handle…”

“Keep it in your pants, Tate. This ain’t the time.”

“Just sayin’,” the woman muttered, her voice a bit petulant. She had one cybernetic hand and metal plate around one fake eye. Carrying an automatic shotgun sporting an enormous cannister of ammunition, she would be deadly in close quarters. “This whole thing should never’ve happened.”

“The boss –”

“Is a fucking idiot,” Tate spat. I could hear the tremble in her voice. She was terrified. I could see the telltale signs that she wasn’t the only one, either. All of her companions were afraid, too. And who could blame them? I knew they had the ability to communicate with one another, so this group was well aware that I’d been picking off their fellows, one group after another. Soon enough, I’d add them to the list. “Everything was fine when the Wraith was in charge. You know it. I know it. Even Nora knows it. She’s just too stubborn to admit a goddamn mistake.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” mumbled one of the others.

Tate shook her head. “She ain’t so tough. Not no more. I don’t know what happened, but I’ve seen her,” she said. “She ain’t the woman she used to be.”

That was definitely good to know. Clearly, the sabotage of Nora’s bio-enhancers had borne some fruit. Not that it mattered. Not now, so late in the game. Even if she was at full strength, it couldn’t change my plan. I’d come too far. I had sacrificed too many. If she’d somehow resisted my manipulation and maintained the full scope of her power, then so be it. I’d just have to figure something out.

In any case, using the resulting conversation to mask my passage, I covered that last couple of feet before entering one of the apartments. The moment the door opened and closed, the mooks reacted with predictable gunfire. However, by that point, I was already safe within the apartment. Eventually, they’d make it through, but not before I had moved on to the next part of my plan.

Even as they bombarded the door with various forms of gunfire, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the fact that they could’ve simply opened it the same way I had. But that would require them to leave the safety of their Mist shield, which none of them seemed eager to do.

I moved through the apartment, entering the bathroom. Then, I stepped into the shower. The domicile was unoccupied, so there wasn’t enough power to provoke a response from the automated system. That felt odd to me – as did stepping into a shower fully clothed – but I put the abnormality out of my mind as I reached into my arsenal implant and retrieved a series of shaped demolition charges.

Unlike the ones I’d scattered throughout the building, this was a new design I’d only recently developed. Instead of a simple, black cube packed full of a powerfully explosive compound, the shaped charge took the form of a simple and incredibly narrow tube that was filled with a comparatively weak explosive.

It would never bring down a building, no matter how much I used. But it could do wonders on a door. Or, in this case, a concrete wall.

I stretched the string out, unraveling it from a spool I’d built to ease the charge’s application. The pattern I chose was a simple rectangle about the size of a closet door. Then, I made an X pattern in the center of the rectangle.

With that done, I retreated just outside the bathroom door. Meanwhile, the gunfire still hadn’t ceased, and, as a result, the apartment’s main door teetered on the verge of collapse. It didn’t matter, though.

Because I was ready.

Holding the detonator I’d paired with the shaped charges, I flipped a switch to arm the explosives, then pressed a button. A muffled boom shook the walls, and dust filled the air. But I didn’t hesitate or let myself be distracted. Instead, I raced through the bathroom doorway, R-14 at the ready, and dashed past the destroyed shower to dive through the opening I’d just created.

Suddenly, I was among the Operators, firing my assault rifle in controlled bursts that tore through their defenses. My first salvo only killed two – mostly because I managed headshots – while the rest remained in the fight. But they were surprised, most were injured in one way or another, and they were ill-prepared for the fury I brought with me.

Still, it wasn’t long before someone knocked the R-14 from my hands. I didn’t let that deter me as I yanked Ferdinand II from its holster and fired every round in his cannister. Each shot found a home somewhere in an enemy’s body, but these Operators were all incredibly durable.

It would take far more than a few armor piercing rounds to put them down for good.

Luckily, I had brought plenty of other weapons to the party.

But I only needed one.

With Ferdinand II spent, I drew my nano-bladed sword and went to work. My technique wasn’t flashy. In fact, my usually precise strikes were little more than brutal hacks as I dismantled the wounded and still-shocked Operators. In the process, I took a couple of shots to my torso. One – from Tate, unsurprisingly – tore through my defenses to take a chunk out of my side while another bullet went through my infiltration suit as well as my subdermal sheath, only stopping when it hit my femur. Fortunately, its velocity had dissipated enough that it didn’t break the bone, but by the time I’d finished putting them down, every step sent a jolt of agony up my leg.

But I was still operable, even if I was a little worse for wear. The shotgun blast hadn’t hit anything vital, at least. In that respect, I was lucky.

The same couldn’t be said for my enemies, who had all been steadily dismembered – that was the only way to be sure the threat was ended – and I was covered in enough viscera that I felt like I’d just stepped out of a furious rainstorm. Of blood.

I’d made it, though. Now, I just had another fifty yards of corridor before I could finally get my revenge.  Or as I kept telling myself, before I could check that box and move on with my life.

Again, my self-awareness wouldn’t let me believe that, though. Not completely. Sure, I wanted to move on. But I needed to kill Nora. There was a marked difference between those two things.

As I limped forward, having retrieved my R-14 and reloaded my weapons, I encountered no more resistance. The way was completely clear to the penthouse. And what’s more, I soon discovered that the door was open, inviting me in.

At first, I suspected a trap, but no matter how I looked at it, I found nothing.

So, after exhausting my ability to detect any deterrents, I stepped into the penthouse.

“So. You’re here. At last,” said Nora, who was sitting on the couch, completely at ease. Or that was how she seemed. However, I knew her well enough to recognize that she was terrified. Anxious. But confident. She gestured to the other couch, saying, “Have a seat. It’s time you and I came to an understanding.”