> I’m not an insecure person. Or at least, I never thought I was. But that first Rift with Mira, it opened my eyes to how far ahead of me she was. At first, I didn’t let it affect me, but after the…incident, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I was slowing her down, and unless I did something drastic to figure out my place in all of this, I would never be more than a dead weight.

Patrick Ward

After Patrick and I agreed to meet Isaac and his crew the next morning, they turned their convoy around and retreated back to their own camp. Isaac was eager to get started, but I insisted that we had some things to button up before we would be comfortable joining them. To that end, I found myself sitting on the sand and looking out over the restless ocean. Night had already fallen, and Patrick was busy grilling nearby – probably something with a disgusting origin, knowing his adventurous cooking habits. The moon cast the world in a silvery glow, which was augmented by the twinkling light of stars above.

I leaned back on my palms, digging my fingers into the sand as I looked up at the purple awning we’d attached to the fuselage. The area beneath was lit by strings of lights – actual electric lights, so they didn’t have the blue tint of a Mist lamp. A great bonfire danced merrily just beyond the awning’s boundary, and the air was filled with the sound of crashing waves.

I sat there for a while, just staring out at nothing, until Patrick’s voice broke my reverie. “Storm’s coming soon,” he said, sitting next to me. He handed me a plate of steaming meat; it smelled alright, which boded well. So, I didn’t ask after the origin of the meat.

“Yeah. Probably a big one, too,” I agreed, taking the plate. I summoned a bottle of water from my arsenal implant.

“We don’t have to do this,” Patrick said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” I said. We didn’t do anything unless we both agreed on it. Anything else was a recipe for disaster. “But you need those circuits, right?”

“I…I thought so,” he said. He took a bite from a haunch of grilled meat. “I used to, at least. I mean, you weren’t the only one with issues back then.”

Back then.

“You mean when I was an absolute mess from what happened in Nova?” I asked.

“I wasn’t much better off,” Patrick said.

I knew that much because we’d discussed it more times than I wanted to count. That was the key to working through our issues. For the longest time, I’d thought his problems were secondary to mine. Not because he was inherently less important, but rather, because his issues were.

After all, I’d killed a city.

He just felt bad because his girlfriend was stronger than him.

The two didn’t seem comparable at all. But over time, I’d realized that my thinking was incredibly reductive. It wasn’t just that I was more powerful than him. He’d known that from the very beginning. Rather, he was afraid of being left behind because he couldn’t keep up. He’d seen me taking on giant spiders and aliens – and coming out on top – while he’d struggled to merely survive. Those issues had been laid bare and exacerbated by the mind spiders’ soul spike.

As the silence stretched, I chanced a bite of my dinner, and the moment it hit my tongue, I let out of cough of surprise. When I’d recovered a moment later, I croaked, “Spicy…”

He grinned. “You like it?”

I gave him a weak thumbs up.

“Anyway, my point is that I’m over it,” he said. “I don’t need it anymore. Not like I used to.”

“But you still want it,” I reasoned.

Shrugging, he said, “I guess. I mean, it could help us both, really. If we were both in real armor, we could –”

“I’m happy with what I have,” I said.

“Come on, Mira – you haven’t really updated your equipment in almost two years,” he complained.

“I added those stabilizers to the Pulsar,” I pointed out. “And the extended drum for the BMAP, too.”

Indeed, the Mist stabilizers had cut the charge time for Empowered Shot in half, and the BMAP now held almost twice as many shots as it had in its original form. I’d intended to switch out my scattergun for something more lethal, but for a variety of reasons – mostly that there just wasn’t much out there that met my parameters, but also because our credit flow was only barely able to keep up with the Leviathan’s maintenance needs. It wouldn’t have been such a problem if I was willing to delve a few Rifts, but I’d shied away from those for a while.

He sighed and rolled his eyes before shaking his head and taking a bite of that disgustingly spicy meat. As he chewed, he gestured with his fork and said, “Fine. But this would enhance my combat capability to the point where I could probably give you a run for your money. In certain situations, I mean.”

“It would be that strong?”

I regretted it the moment I asked the question because it made the gap between us that much more prevalent. But it was an undeniable fact that any armor system that gave Patrick the ability to match me in combat was indeed powerful. We both knew just how far ahead of him I was.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said.

“No, it’s fine. You’re right.”

“It’s not fine. You know how much I need you, right? You remember what I did without you, don’t you? How lost I was? Literally and psychologically. I can’t function without you. None of this works without –”

“I know,” he said, cutting me off. “I get it.”

And I was certain that he did. After all, we’d worked through the issues over the course of hundreds of conversations. But he’d also seen what I became when he wasn’t around. More, he was well aware that I was hopeless as a pilot and navigator, and I couldn’t even begin to bring the most out of the Leviathan. He filled a role, both as my partner and as our pilot, but the last thing I wanted to tell him was to stay in his lane. He wanted to be able to take care of himself, and I couldn’t really argue for anything else. Not without getting his hackles up.

“I don’t know why we’re even talking about this,” I said. “We already agreed to do the job.”

“As if we couldn’t pick up and be on the other side of the world in a couple of days,” he said.

“But there’s no reason to do that,” I argued. “I’m onboard. You want it, too. Let’s just focus on doing what we need to do so we’re ready when they inevitably betray us.”

“You really think they will?”

“Captain Tightpants will definitely take a chance the moment my back’s turned,” I said.

“Well, you did shoot him.”

“Only a little,” I said. “And he deserved it.”

“You can’t solve every problem with shooting, Mira. We talked about this,” he pointed out.

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Rolling my eyes, I said, “Sure. Yeah. I know that. That’s what explosions are for. When shooting fails, blow stuff up.”

He laughed, and so did I – but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but recognize that I’d only been half joking. In my experience, a good explosion went a long way to solving most problems.

After I choked down the rest of my meal – Patrick watched me eagerly to make certain that I “loved” it – I set about dismantling the camp. We’d done it hundreds of times before, so it didn’t take long to take down the awning, store the hammocks, and smother the fire. In only half an hour, everything was packed away in the Levaithan’s expansive cargo bay.

We’d fully made use of it only a few times, so the space – which was bigger than the penthouse where I’d spent most of my childhood – was almost completely unoccupied. In one corner were a dozen huge crates of ammunition; I had a similar amount in my arsenal implant, which had expanded right alongside the growth of my [Cybernetic Mastery] skill, which had reached its final tier.

The other side of the cargo bay had only one occupant – a four-wheeled vehicle the size of a hovercar, but with huge, knobby tires and a sizable cannon mounted on its frame. Its official name was an ATAV – All-Terrain Assault Vehicle – but Patrick always referred to it as the Buggy. And considering that it was usually him driving it, it was his right to name it.

Other than a few piles of supplies and my weight training apparatus, the cargo bay was completely empty, which gave it a bit of a depressing feel. After all, the Leviathan – designation C-L3411S – had originally been built as a military transport ship for some galactic empire whose name I couldn’t remember. The shipwright who’d modified it had brought it to Earth’s bazaar in hopes of selling it to one of the alien forces who wanted to circumvent the quarantine. However, he hadn’t had any takers, and when Patrick had come around, the alien had been on the verge of giving up. So, seeing that the shipwright was eager to get a deal done, Patrick had gotten the ship for far less than it should’ve been worth.

The net result was that the Leviathan was likely one of the most advanced ships on the planet. She wasn’t particularly fast – relatively speaking – but she was incredibly durable, fuel efficient, and, most importantly, stealthy. Because of the modifications the shipwright had made, it was a perfect vessel for smuggling, which meant we had little trouble flying under the radar when we wanted to.

It also had the distinction of being huge, which gave us plenty of space to stretch out. Or more importantly, enough room for us to have a little bit of privacy. In addition to the cabin we shared, there was a common area where we usually ate – when we weren’t camping out on the beach – and a couple of fully-equipped bathrooms. Finally, Patrick had his workshop, and I had a room dedicated to my training.

After everything was stowed away, Patrick and I went our separate ways. He wanted to refamiliarize himself with his old schematics so that, when we got the circuits he needed, he would be ready to start putting things together. Of course, he said he needed quite a bit of other resources – metals and the like – but we had enough money that we could source raw materials fairly easily. For my part, I went to my training room.

It was a simple room – just a cube with bare walls and a steel floor – but that was just a façade. Once I was inside and the door slid shut behind me, I said, “Activate training protocol two-two-seven.”

“Affirmative,” came a robotic voice.

One of the walls shimmered, and a familiar scene came into being. Three featureless dummies faced me, and I immediately embraced my Misthack skill. In seconds, I’d torn through the first dummy’s defenses and uploaded a Ghost. Two more seconds, and I’d infected the other two. Once I did, the dummies flashed, then disappeared. A moment later, they were replaced by three more. But when I dove into the first of this group’s defenses, I found them to be slightly stouter.

That was the point of the training protocol, which had cost me almost as much as my entire arsenal, including the value of my Cutter. Each respawn would come with slightly more difficult opponents until, at some point, the dummies’ defenses would become so complex that I couldn’t overcome them.

It really wasn’t so different from the training programs I’d used before, save that even after eighteen months, I still hadn’t exhausted its capabilities. More, when I failed, I suffered the same backlash I would if my efforts were rebuffed in a real situation. So, not only did I train Misthack, but I also put my Mistwall to the test, and with each failure, it grew marginally stronger.

Over the next two hours, I forced myself through the program. The slightest slip of concentration, and my mind would be fried by the backlash. But by this point, I was well used to maintaining my focus. Still, I eventually reached the point where the defenses became far too complex, and I failed.

That’s when the backlash hit me.

“Ugh,” I spat, sinking to my knees and clutching my head in my hands. I’d had more than one doctor assure me that the backlash had no lasting consequences – other than augmenting the Mistwall ability – but as I was subjected to the blinding pain of that headache, it was easy to imagine that my brain was being irreparably damage.

It took an hour for it to pass.

I wasn’t a masochist. I didn’t seek out pain. But as far as I could tell, it was the only easy way to train my Mistwall. Sure, I could’ve found another Mistrunner to put my defenses to the test, but I didn’t know any of those. And besides, I had no intention of letting anyone take free shots at my system. Weighed against the dangers of that, a little bit of pain didn’t seem so high a price to pay.

Once I’d recovered, I said, “Protocol nine-two.”

“Affirmative,” the same robotic voice said.

A moment later, a pillar rose from the center of the room. It only stood about three feet high, which meant it was reasonably comfortable for me to stand before it, extract the black-and-gold cord of my personal link from the Hand of God, and jack into the port in the center of the column.

The second I made the connection, the familiar menu associated with my Mistwalk ability appeared on my interface. I chose to challenge the system and was immediately thrown against a set of defenses that reminded me of the aural sensor net I’d fought against outside of my second Rift. There were plenty of differences – chiefly, that I was hardwired into this set of defenses – but the difficulty was similar.

I tore through it in only a few minutes, but just like was the case with the Misthack training protocol, it was immediately followed by a more difficult version. I defeated that one as well and was confronted by a third. Then a fourth. On and on I went until three hours had passed; by that point, the defenses had grown so complex that they weren’t even represented by logic puzzles or equations. Instead, I was forced to read the symbols and glyphs directly, and though my Universal Language ability helped quite a bit, I still couldn’t really understand them. They were too alien, and they represented concepts I couldn’t hope to comprehend. However, I could still follow the patterns.

Mostly.

I made plenty of mistakes, and as a result, I was subjected to a number of miniature backlashes. However, I was still able to keep going until the defenses finally toppled. But I knew that was my limit. Still, I forged ahead, assaulting the eleventh iteration of the program.

I lasted thirty seconds before the backlash overwhelmed my mind and rendered me insensate. I only blacked out for a few minutes, and when I forced my eyes open, I was assaulted by yet another intense headache that took another hour to subside. When it did, I sat up and asked, “Score?”

“Forty-one-point-seven percent on protocol two-two-seven, making for a two-tenths of a percentage point improvement,” the voice answered. “For protocol nine-two, you reached thirteen-point-seven percent, a three-tenths of a percentage point decline from your last session. Would you like to try again?”

“Ugh. No,” I muttered. “I think I’d get a brain hemorrhage if I did.”

“Your brain is functioning at one-hundred percent efficiency,” was the program’s unhelpful reply. That was the other function that made it so valuable – not only was it equipped to train my abilities better than any other training program, but it could also monitor my vitals and, according to Dex, even enact certain protocols to ensure my survival should I overstep my abilities. I was a long way away from that kind of danger, though.

The program boasted a thousand protocols meant to train Misthack and five-hundred for Mistwalk. I’d barely scratched the surface of what it could do, but eventually, I’d reach a point where there was very real danger in failure. I hoped that my high Constitution attribute would help mitigate some of that risk, but I wasn’t sure. And there wasn’t anyone around who could guide me.

I massaged my temples, but it didn’t really provide any relief for the phantom pain that came after my training. Normally, I’d have gone straight into physical training, following it up with weapons drills – that always helped – but as late as it had gotten, I didn’t really have the time. Still, I sat down and took a moment to pull up my status. It had been quite some time since the last time I’d looked, but I didn’t expect it would have changed much. Even so, the slightest improvement would be a nice surprise.

At my command, the familiar menu appeared on my interface:

Select One:

* Status

* Skill Trees

* Certifications

* Equipment

* Conditions

* Upgrade Modules

As usual, I checked my conditions first, and I found a distinct lack of injuries. Once, walking around with broken bones, multiple contusions, and mild concussions had been commonplace for me. However, the combination of my climbing Constitution as well as playing things much more safely had pushed those days into my past.

Hopefully.

Certainly, I still got injured from time to time, but it was nothing compared to what I’d gone through during my various training missions or when I’d waged my one-woman war against the whole of Nova City. It almost felt like I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough.

Perhaps I was a masochist, after all.

I shook my head before moving on to the fun stuff.