“It’s possible. Hell, it’s more likely than not. It’s hard not to forget that he has practically no training. I’ve never had to deal with that. There’re just some things that they pound into you at the Academy so long you just accept that everyone knows it. But who does that? Who throws their life away?”
“He is a clueless dumbass a lot of the time,” Aurora conceded. “But he means well.”
“I can still feel him, sense him at times. Late at night, when I’m just on the cusp of falling asleep, there’s a twinge, and I just know—” BoJack confessed.
A scream ripped through the air, causing everyone to jump.
“What the hell?” Darik grumbled, quickly covering his reaction.
Yuki sat up suddenly and grabbed her head, moaning.
Everyone clustered around, trying to see if she was okay, all speaking at once. Yuki winced, pantomiming a ‘shh’ and taking short, deep breaths.
“I’m okay… I think. Oh, this is like the mother of all hangovers. Hoo.” She hung her head and used both hands to knead her neck and the base of her skull.
“What happened?” Aurora asked.
“I lost my hack and got kicked. That hasn’t happened in forever. Got too cocky, I guess. Oooh.” Her fingers dug deeper, rubbing harder.
“Here,” BoJack gently laid a hand on hers and removed them. He placed his fingers there and rubbed slowly up and down.
“Aah, yeah. That’s the stuff. I knew there was a reason we were friends, BoJack.” Yuki sighed.
“Did you get anything while you were in?” BoJack asked.
“No, that’s what sucks. Now if I try to go back, I’m locked into using that avatar. Not the worst choice, but I would need to plan. I almost always go in blind, and can adapt pretty quickly. I think this boss was power leveled by idiots playing around, trying to break in from other factions. I was overwhelmed with the power differential.”
“We’re out of Purple, so don’t worry about any of that now—we have more pressing matters. Gus went after Mengele,” Prime broke in.
Yuki sat up, breaking contact with BoJack’s hand and immediately cringed. She pointed exaggeratedly at her neck again, and he resumed.
“I don’t know where he is either. He was supposed to link the tracker to the manor and wait for us.” Aurora shrugged as Yuki looked at her.
“BoJack, do you think you could find him with this… connection, you speak of?” Anastasia asked.
Yuki carefully turned to look over her shoulder. “What’s she talking about, BoJack?”
“He’s very, very far away Yuki.”
“Is that one of your abilities? If so, why didn’t you mention it before? We could have gone after him a while ago.”
“I can’t control it. At first, I doubted I was feeling anything at all. I thought it was part of a dream until it began to be consistent. I know he’s that direction,” BoJack pointed to one of the walls.
“But how? Comms shouldn’t work over a long distance; it doesn’t make sense we all wouldn’t be connected,” Seneschal mentioned over the comms.
BoJack leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially, “I’ll tell you all, but this stays between the Crew. Agreed?”
Yuki and the others nodded, and BoJack looked around nervously.
“I bonded Gus as his mentor—”
“You did what!?!” Aurora barked.
“Hold on, let me explain…”
“You don’t have training, do you? You know how crazy dangerous that is?” Grimdark spat.
“He needed to learn! It was the fastest way.”
“And you told him the trade-offs, I’m sure,” Aurora said, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow.
“Well, no. There wasn’t really time for that…”
“And the risks of feedback?” Yuki added.
BoJack winced, baring his teeth and inhaling sharply. “Also no, but hear me out—”
“Are you kidding me? You just spent this time dressing down Gus for being irresponsible and grabbing for XP, and you’ve been doing the exact same thing? Hypocritical much?”
“Yuki, you don’t understand—”
“Oh, I think things are becoming clear. Do as I say, not as I do. Because I know better. Am I hitting the high points? You obviously don’t have kids, if you think that little gem works.”
BoJack’s countenance darkened considerably. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say things like that. You think I didn’t want to be a father?”
“Want, don’t want. What difference does it make? You took advantage of him, and he didn’t even know it. He trusted you, and you used him. Have you leveled up since then?”
“Twice.”
“Nice. I hope you enjoyed those levels. Is that why you want to help? Don’t want to let the golden goose escape?”
“I never said I wouldn’t help, but damn, Yuki. It’s a suicide mission. I wouldn’t even recommend attempting it if I didn’t know through this bond that Gus is still alive.”
“I’m not going to give you the choice!” Yuki spat, poking BoJack in the chest. “You owe him. First as his mentor, and second for not giving him the full story before he made the choice. Don’t you remember anything they taught us in those ethics classes in the Academy? Didn’t you just say they pounded something into our brains so much that you couldn’t fathom how someone could break those rules? I know sometimes they’re annoying as hell but we can’t ignore that stuff.”
“That’s partly what I was trying to help Gus understand. He hasn’t had any of that training. I just anticipated more time; this whole situation has gone sideways.” BoJack ran fingers through his hair and grabbed the back of his neck. “You think I don’t know I buggered everything up?”
“I just want to know what you’re going to do about it. Nowadays no one seems like they give a damn. But Gus is the first person in a while who has treated me like I actually have some kind of potential. So if he believes in me, I believe in him.” Yuki stared defiantly at the skeptical looks of the others. “Screw all of you guys, I’m going to find him. Go and justify your actions to yourself. Good luck with that.”
Yuki spun and stormed away.
BoJack jogged after and grabbed her arm. “Yuki, stop. Let’s talk about this.”
She turned and tried to yank her arm out of his grasp but his grip was too strong. Her face went hot and her eyes narrowed.
“Let go of me, BoJack.” Yuki’s eyes turned feral as she glared at him.
“Not until you listen to me. You need me to find him. And I never said I wouldn’t help. We just need to be smart about it. I want to help Gus as much as you do, but I don’t want to rush in without a plan.”
“I’m listening,” she said out the side of her mouth. The glare continued, but she stopped pulling against his grip and he let her go. She shook her arm, rotating it and rubbing her bicep as he continued.
“We need to figure out how to approach this. I don’t know how much you know about Mengele, but I’ve been researching him since we left Hinansho. The guy is serious bad news, Yuki. He’s first generation and everyone is scared of him. I mean, the fact he chose that name says volumes about him. He’s equal parts Jack the Ripper and Moriarty. You saw some of those experiments going on in that facility. I keep imagining Gus in a place like that and I… it’s tearing me up inside.” He swallowed back emotion and continued.
“I feel like I’m being dipped in a molten vat of anger one minute, and then a liquid nitrogen bath of guilt and helplessness in the next. I want to help, but I don’t know how we can beat someone who has had decades to hone his skills. Even if we had the whole Crew, I fear we would be outmatched.” He held his hands out in front of him, half-pleading, half-defeated.
“Then we just don’t brute force it. Not everything requires a direct attack. Come with me and let’s get this thing planned.” Yuki put an arm around his shoulder and looked at the others. “Huddle up, here’s what I think we should do…”
Chapter Eighty-One
As soon as he moved out of cover, he noticed movement to his left. Five balls of cracking plasma were heading toward him.
Slave, extrapolate his position by analyzing direction of attacks and audio feedback. Render a three-dimensional representation on my display. Use proximity markers for all attacks and codify threat levels.
As you command, came the robotic reply.
Mengele angled his trajectory for the open doorway. If he could make it to the Vault, then this would be over quickly, without surprises. Sending a quick burst of healing, he forced the skin on his feet to reconstruct. He was leaving bloody footprints which would not only show his position, but would be a liability on the smooth corridor floors beyond.
He pushed himself, but knew that he could not outpace this attack. He had never seen the need to allocate points into constitution, when his suit would make him invulnerable. There were more important abilities for someone like him. His perception allowed his display to give him an innate sense of the timing he would need. A quick feint to the left, diving, tucking and rolling, then resuming his run without losing much momentum. Two of the plasma balls collided with broken equipment and dissipated as they exploded in white flashes. The other three overshot his position and then began to reorient on him.
Tracking. He mentally filed the concept of guided Nun-Ba interactions as programmable functions into his memory to explore when he had time to ponder. Another feint misdirected another of the attacks into an upturned table. The interaction revealed that these constructs had very limited potential. They operated on the shortest trajectory. Utilizing this, he ducked to the side after breaching the doorway, then skirted the wall.
As predicted, the last of the attacks collided with the wall to the left of the doorway. All of his stat points in agility were initially placed to make him more efficient as a surgeon, as the system did not distinguish between agility and dexterity. Fortunately, raising the stat improved both. This became even more useful when later he developed his dimensional folding techniques.
The Nth were wasted on humans who just wanted to fight. There were so many opportunities that largely were wasted by becoming the world’s self-proclaimed enforcers. Neanderthals with clubs had no place in the future the Nth could offer.
Gauging the approach on his minimap, Gus was much faster, and was closing the distance between them. Agility wouldn’t help him in this open corridor. Brute force was not his forte. Precision and stealth. Misdirection and manipulation. Those were his keys to success here.
Mentally calculating a new route, he noted Gus’ footfalls in the corridor behind him just as he entered a doorway to his right. That was unfortunate. Gus would have had to clear many more rooms if he hadn’t seen his location.
Mengele weaved through the Graveyard. His affectionate term for where he stored most of his defunct equipment that had become outdated with new advances. There were enough obstructions here that any further plasma attacks would be easily avoided. This would take his pursuer on a circuitous route, but he could double back and make it to the Vault, going through labs and offices. Mengele crouched and slowed his flight as the far doors to the Graveyard were flung open.
“I know you’re in here, Mengele.”
Mengele slowed even more, but crept along the ground, moving purposefully towards the exit. If this ham-fisted rube wanted him to respond and give away his position, he was more outclassed than he knew.
“You know, you look like your head fell in the cheese dip back in 1957,” the young man taunted.
How droll. Was this supposed to get a rise out of him? Mengele smiled wryly and continued his trek. They had thought calling him Mengele was an insult too. An offhanded insult to get him to change his ways. A crude cautionary tale. But he had owned it. While he shared no relation to the actual figure, he adopted the archetype and let their imaginations fill in the gaps. When the doorway was within reach, he knew it would give away his position.
“That is accurate,” he replied before quickly darting through the door, locking it behind him. He imagined Gus being flummoxed as they all were when he responded against expectation. He knew who he was. More so than most metahumans. He had transcended even them in so many ways. He could sense that upon reviewing the data he would—
The nearby wall crashed outward, spilling shards of drywall and broken framing into the hallway in front of him. Gus was panting and shook himself. Somehow, he wasn’t naked anymore, and residual insulation and powdery chalk rolled off of him like oil, landing in a plume on the ground around him.
“Enough running. We end this now,” Gus rasped with a ragged voice.
He had been less predictable than most subjects, but the crazed look in his eyes made Mengele wary. While he couldn’t read levels directly, he had made some inferences from his experiments, based on healing times, musculature, and nerve conduction tests. He had a general idea about his physical stats, but his abilities were unclear.
He was obviously a neophyte when it came to utilizing his powers in a unified and directed fashion. Nothing coordinated in his fighting technique, which would indicate a lack of formal training. An anomaly to be sure. But was it all an act? That was the suspicion that niggled at the back of his mind. The Master knew he would be more calculating with a powerful opponent, but with someone inexperienced, he could see he had relaxed his tendency to overcompensate and had taken less precautions with Gus.
Gus charged forward with some enhanced speed ability, but it was easily avoided with his level of agility, and he sidestepped like a matador. He caught his mental *tsk tsk* and focused even more. It was only the sharpening of his attention that allowed him to see the upstart rotate and try to sweep his legs from underneath him.
A quick hop was all that was needed to let the attack glide by without connecting, but it could have if he had remained cocksure and full of himself. He danced away, gaining some distance as Gus rounded on him and swayed back and forth like a wrestler.
Instead of charging, Gus pressed forward with controlled speed. He centered himself in the smaller hallway, and did not even flinch at his attempted feints to slip to one side or another. Reaching an intersection, Mengele walked backwards. Yes, follow me Gus. Only one-hundred-eighty-two meters before I am at the Vault. Automated defenses there should be enough of a distraction to allow him to slip inside. A smile crept on his lips before he could hide it.
Gus’ eyebrows furrowed and he lunged and grappled with Mengele. He was glad he had not reformed the skin around his upper torso. Gus’ hands slid on the congealing blood that clung to his pulsing, exposed muscles, not finding purchase. He barely managed to slide out of Gus’ grip, but he could tell in his current state, Gus’ strength surpassed his own.
He blocked the blows that Gus threw at him, feeling their ferocity fully now that his suit didn’t absorb any of the kinetic force. He began to bleed more as capillaries burst and there was no skin to hold it in. Precious MP had to be funneled into healing to stop the bleeders.
Mengele had managed to keep his own feet clear of his own blood, while Gus himself became more coated in it, and had begun to lose his footing. Mengele retreated, feigning fear. Sometimes all it took was a little bait and supers lost all reason. Eager to press their advantage they would rush headfirst into the most obvious of traps. With another flash of his gray pseudo-skin, the blood rolled off of him and he stepped out of it onto the floor in front of him, entirely clean.
The meters ticked down, one-twenty-one, one-twenty, one-nineteen. At sixty meters, he should be close enough to trip biometrics. Gus loped after him, and the distance was being eaten up. Still, he was going to make it.
With a feeling of relief, Mengele stepped past the line visible only on his display. Scans began and Mengele stopped retreating. Gus paused as well, trying to ascertain what had changed. Just a little more prodding. His signature smug smile spread across his skinless face. He hoped it would still have the effect of goading Gus into attacking.
>
But maddeningly, no. He stood there contemplatively, his attention assessing the corridor. Shrugging, he turned casually and began to walk toward the Vault. Few could resist being dismissed as nothing. That should do the trick. He stopped mid-step when he heard the system announce:
Intruder detected. Scans inconclusive for authorized personnel. Evacuate this area in ten seconds, or retributive actions will be taken.
The system didn’t recognize Mengele without skin on his upper torso.
Oh shit.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Short Change Hero
“BoJack, how accurately can you pinpoint Gus?” Seneschal asked.
“I see a thin thread on my display when I turn in that direction. When I’m not looking that way, I feel an occasional tug.”
“That’s the first task. Let’s see if we can triangulate where he is. We get a reading, I travel due east two hundred miles and we take another reading and compare, then fine tune ‘til we arrive. Can you give me a heading with this thread of yours, or whatever it is you see?”
“It’s just a direction. I don’t even know for sure—”
“Aurora, can you design something that can fine tune his tracking? It’ll make this quicker if each reading is as accurate as possible.”
“I can try, I’ve never really done anything along those lines…” came the sheepish reply.
“It’s kind of hard to believe that you’re in charge of engineering, since your tracker and the scanning blocker didn’t really work out, ya know?” Harmony quipped to Aurora with a shrug.
“Not as hard as believing you’re the empath of the group, and that you’re named Harmony on top of it. Ironic, ya know?”
“Ah, daaamn!” Darik whooped, slapping a knee.
“Everyone stop it!” Anastasia rushed in between Aurora and Harmony as the mood shifted. “I’m sure we can figure something out, no need to turn on each other.”
Aurora spun and seated herself at one of the nearby tables and pulled components out of her kit. Her head bobbed as she looked at her display, pulling and swiping at the air in front of her.
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