Chapter 489
Chapter 489
Long before the Ravage Contamination overtook the city, which later became known as Dead City, Mick was just an ordinary survivor. He was awakened from stasis like thousands of other people in the city, and his quest for survival began.
At first, he wasn’t much different from any other survivor. He fought mutants and scoured the city for supplies, surviving day after day. Then everything changed when he was given a unique mission. When he completed it, he was rewarded with an extraordinary skill called Fabrication.
This skill allowed him to invent various kinds of devices. To advance Fabrication, he needed to tinker with different mechanisms, combine resources, create makeshift gadgets of his own design, and so on. All these actions advanced the skill, and when it reached a new level, he could mentally access a special kind of store called Infinite Forge, where he could obtain various blueprints.
Each blueprint cost a certain number of skill points, depending on its rank and rarity. Upon purchasing the blueprint for a specific device, his mind simply memorized it. Then he only needed to collect all the necessary resources, and at his command, the System could create that specific device.
So Fabrication basically worked similarly to the machine called the Fabricator that survivors used to create various things. But the difference was that, thanks to that skill, Mick could essentially create new things out of thin air. Also, all those inventions were extraordinary, much more powerful than anything survivors could create using their fabricators.
At some point, Mick learned that Fabrication was truly unique. At first, he interacted with a lot of other survivors, so he quickly learned that none of the people he encountered had such a skill, nor had they ever heard of anybody else who had it. That was when he realized how rare the skill was. He was probably the only one in the city with such an incredible ability. The blueprints available in Infinite Forge could not be obtained anywhere else, making them truly unique.
As soon as he realized that, Mick knew he should keep his mouth shut about his skill from that point onward. If word got out that he was able to invent unique, powerful weapons and devices of all kinds and it reached the wrong people, it would bring him nothing but trouble.
By that point, several factions had formed in the city, all competing for dominance. He knew that if any of them learned about his skill, they would imprison him and make him work for them nonstop. The weapons and devices he could invent were truly unique, so whatever faction got its hands on him would gain a definite advantage over the others.
So he realized he had to establish a base somewhere outside the city, far out of sight. Since he had already told too many people about his incredible skill, it was only a matter of time before word reached one of the factions. He knew he had to work fast.
From that point on, he became incredibly busy. He soon established a small temporary base in the city from which he operated. He was the very first survivor in the city to invent a helicopter. He used it to fly over the outskirts of the city, examining the landscape of the Scarlands.
At some point, he chose a particularly large chasm as a potential location for what would eventually become his main base. The place was about two hours away by helicopter, meaning it was far enough that the chances of somebody discovering it were slim to none. He planned to build his base at the bottom of the chasm, hiding it from plain sight.
After that, he set about scavenging the city for resources and bringing them to the chasm. It was wide enough to let the helicopter descend all the way to the bottom, where he piled up large amounts of materials. To keep his activities secret from the other survivors, he always parked the helicopter some distance from the city and traveled to it by off-road vehicle.
It took him some time, but eventually, he finished building his base. It was deep underground and had all kinds of devices and machines, as well as plenty of stored resources.
He also managed to establish several additional outposts throughout the city. Naturally, they were much smaller and far less advanced than his main one. He mostly used them as temporary refuges when he wanted to stay in the city overnight.
At one point, he invented a teleporter. This device allowed him to travel between fixed points, basically functioning only within a network of linked teleporters. He couldn’t use a teleporter to jump to any location he wanted, only to another linked one.
So he built two such teleporters: one in his main base and another in one of his secondary bases in the city. Even a single teleporter required a ridiculous amount of rare resources to construct, but the ability to travel instantly between the city and his main base was totally worth the expense.
He continued to work on his main base, making it more and more advanced. Now that he could travel there instantly from the city, transporting resources became much easier, increasing the rate at which the main base developed.
Then, at some point, the Ravage came into the city. It quickly spread throughout the streets, smothering them in organic matter. Panic overwhelmed the survivors. Nobody knew what the Ravage actually was or how to destroy it. It was intent on consuming the whole city, and nobody knew how to stop it from spreading.
Everything they had worked so hard to build was going to be wiped out, and nobody could do anything about it. Some people tried to escape the city, while others desperately kept trying to destroy the Ravage, but without much success.
Mick was the only one who remained largely unconcerned. The idea of bringing survivors back to his main lair never even crossed his mind. By that point, he had long since grown used to being alone and, in fact, preferred it that way.
Besides, while his main base was highly advanced, it was never meant to be a place where a large group of people could live. He had built it with a single occupant in mind: himself. He had never intended for it to be a sanctuary for other survivors. Therefore, it wasn’t that large, and every room and corridor had its own purpose. There wasn’t a single room that didn’t serve one.
More importantly, by that point, most of the survivors in the city had aligned themselves with one of the factions. There were hardly any survivors left who still made it on their own. All of them belonged to one faction or another, and each faction had its own base, which was essentially a stronghold.
Because of that, Mick felt no obligation to intervene. As far as he was concerned, that made their survival their leaders’ responsibility, not his.
As the Ravage continued to infest the city, something happened that Mick had failed to anticipate: the teleporter was destroyed by the ravagespawn.
By that time, it had become extremely hard to get out of the city, as nearly every street was smothered in organic matter, which immediately spawned hordes of monsters whenever it sensed the presence of survivors.
His helicopter was parked outside the city. Previously, before the appearance of the Ravage, getting to his aircraft posed little trouble. But now such a trip could be suicide.
Soon after, huge walls were erected around the city, trapping those who were still alive inside.
Mick had a small base inside the subway, so he began to construct a teleporter, which he hoped to use to get back to his main base. Before he could finish it, the ones who called themselves the Spartans showed up. They took all his equipment and brought it to their primitive, makeshift base, which they had established in the underground cavern below the subway system.
From there on, the events roughly matched what the Commander had already told Jake. The Spartans forced Mick to work in the tech lab, making him invent various weapons and devices for them.
Most of the things Mick invented turned out either useless or unable to work as intended. The reason for this was the lack of proper resources.
Sure, Mick had learned a lot of blueprints by that point, but to create a functional device, a certain amount of specific resources was needed. If the amount was reduced, or if some of the required rare resources were replaced with lesser substitutes, the System still allowed Mick to attempt to create the device, but there was no guarantee that the assembly would be successful or, if it was, that the device would work as intended.
So since there were hardly any resources in the subway, let alone in the city above, most of the devices Mick created for the Spartans were failures.
Owen, who was the Commander’s second-in-command, didn’t agree with the leader’s way of thinking. He insisted they should let Mick focus on finishing his teleporter rather than making him create useless or potentially faulty devices. The Commander remained unmoved, however, unwilling to accept his second-in-command’s point of view.
That was why, at some point, Owen attempted to rebel against the Commander. Owen already had a small number of followers by then, so they decided to overthrow him. Owen wasn’t trying to plunge the group into infighting, though. He wanted a clean overthrow, one man removed from power without any bloodshed if possible.
However, his plans were quickly discovered, and the rebellion was crushed before it could truly begin. Unlike Owen, the Commander was harsh toward those who turned against him, killing all those who had supported Owen.
As for Owen himself, the Commander wasn’t sure what to do with him. He didn’t exile him as he claimed to Jake. Instead, he locked him up in one of the rooms in the tech lab, where he intended to keep him until he came up with a proper punishment.
After some time, Mick eventually finished creating the teleporter. But, as was the case with most of the devices he had created for the Spartans, it didn’t work as intended. Sure, it could still teleport whoever used it, but the destination wasn’t Mick’s main base.
When Jake learned where the teleporter Mick had invented led to, he was so surprised that he even stopped reading his memories with Mind Reader.
For a moment, he just stared at the being before him, half man, half metal spider.
Since entering the room, Jake hadn’t said a word. Unlike the Spartans and D, Mick’s memories had not been locked away, and Jake had spent the last minute silently examining them with Mind Reader.
“Are you done yet?” Mick asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’re viewing my memories, Jake.”
“How do you know that?”
“The brain chip in my head tells me whenever someone tries to access them,” Mick said. “It just informed me that you stopped.”
“Then why aren’t your memories locked? Silvia told me you invented tech to protect the Spartans from D’s mind-reading ability. Why aren’t you using it on yourself?”
“Because I have nothing to hide from you, Jake. I knew you’d try to read my memories the moment you saw me, so I made sure they were left open. I want you to know everything. Letting you see it for yourself is much faster than me telling you.”
“I see.”
“So, my previous question still stands. Have you finished?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“I was just… surprised.”
“By what?”
“I just learned where the teleporter you built for the Spartans led.”
Mick’s lips curved into a sly smile. “Ah, I see you’ve reached the most interesting part of the story. Please continue. You’re about to find out how Owen turned into D.”
And Jake resumed reading Mick’s memories from the point where he had stopped.