Changeling

(42)

The recruiter smelled the blood in the water. It was that pivotal instant when the fear of the unknown overwhelmed the hope for the future. The young man in front of her didn’t have perfect grades. His track record in the raider exam hadn’t been too good — half of it because of another outshining him, half of it due to bad luck. He was good but not that good, and the poor performance had sunk his confidence.

He wasn’t prime raider material but he could be part of the solid core of support that made them shine, and she would be getting it for peanuts. Every A-profile striker needed competent line-holders like him. It would be up to the guild to grow his confidence again.

“It might not be the best offer you could get here,” she said softly, a kind smile conveying her concern.

She was an aug, but with minimal implants, and they were non invasive. She was beautiful and more mature, a guide, someone harmless yet full of wisdom. He could definitely get a better offer, especially from larger guilds. He wouldn’t do too badly as a freelancer either, but there were already seventeen guilds that had closed applications and it was barely 11AM. He knew it. Time was not on his side.

“You can always have a look around, it’s just that I can’t guarantee we won’t take someone in the meanwhile.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…”

He winced.

“It’s really not much.”

“I’m sorry. This is just the standard salary scale for someone of your profile. As I said before, our guild offers very competitive raises after only three months…”

She sat back to let him stew, fiddling with a half-filled coffee cup. She knew she already had him. Some people just needed a moment to digest their own expectations. That was fine. She just wanted him to hurry a little. She needed another support mage at all costs to offset letting that pink-haired girl going to Bright Security instead. The guildmaster would have her head otherwise. Maybe she could get —

A commotion outside made her frown. What was going on? The booth was partly soundproof for the calm it offered, so she shouldn’t have been bothered.

The door slammed open.

“You can’t!” a voice said.

But the person could. The woman who entered was the most obvious gleam the recruiter had ever seen. She was more than two meters high, the horns on her stylized mask scraping the ceiling while two abyssal eyes glared at her. It was even more impressive because those windows into the void had no iris and yet the recruiter could still tell they were aimed at her. Animalistic instincts told her to run but she silenced them. It wouldn’t help.

The only reason the recruiter didn’t go into full panic was the Threshold-made bodysuit and the very obvious ID pinned to it. Otherwise, she might have believed this was a monster.

“Thissss interview is over. The Blue Dancers license is hereby revoked. You will vacate the booth within the next ten minutessss.”

It didn’t sound like a suggestion.

“What?” the young man said.

“Excuse me?” the recruiter replied.

“Hey!” the guard interjected.

The security gleam made for the tall woman’s forearm. The next instant, he was pinned against the wall by the throat. The woman wasn’t even looking at him.

He was C-class.

“Asssaulting a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. Misdemeanor. Up to one year in prison. Up to 15,000 credits in fine,” she hissed.

The security guard raised both hands in surrender. She dropped him.

“Contractual breach: Threshold labor law, section six: a guild may not offer contractual terms that pushes compensation below the city’s Raider Sustainability Index.”

“It does not,” the recruiter insisted through her fear. Cold sweat made her shirt clammy. This could cost her her job.

“Monitoring AI’s checked your terms and the subject’s student debts. The city…”

She leaned forward until their eyes were level. It was a vertiginous drop.

“...disagreessss.”

The giant raider pushed a finger in her chest. It was painful, like being poked with a crowbar.

“Out. Now.”

“We will object to this arbitrary decision!”

“Feel free. Out. I will not… asssssk again.”

This time, the recruiter knew the stress on ‘ask’ was intentional. With all the dignity she could muster, she gathered her coat to depart.

Now she had to call her boss to explain his recruiting team had been chased out of the convention. They might not be allowed inside again. She had nobody to deflect the blame to since it was her project from beginning to end. It might be her looking for a job soon.

***

Back in the room, the giant raider faced the young recruit. He looked a little lost.

“Those who don’t know their worth are prey,” she said. “Raiders are not prey. We are hunterssss.”

The young man breathed deep. He slammed the rest of his coffee, then stood up, grabbing his printed resume back.

“Well, back to it, I guess.”

***

Nestra felt better after having manhandled that low rung goon who thought he could intimidate an agent of the mighty government, and also an Aszhii. The fool! She almost wanted someone to try her for real. She hadn’t pushed anyone through a wall yet, but the day was young. After all, one could not spell defenestrate without Nestra!

She still kind of wanted a real fight. And she was getting hungry, in the mana hunger kind of way. Just mana food wasn’t cutting it. She needed the real deal. A week without hunting was far too long!

A whiff of something familiar got her attention. Her eyes widened. She moved through the vapors of mana left by nervous raiders with a lack of control to find a large group of teenagers who looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but here. They walked from booth to booth under the supervision of a gleam teacher with a stern attitude who, incidentally, also looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. Nestra walked by. One of the students spun, revealing Helena’s dark eyes. Nestra winked.

Helena smiled which made her the class’ only happy person. Nestra wondered what she was doing here. Probably some school outing to impart the importance of good preparation and instill that lingering existential dread the teens might not have gotten from the state of the world so they could contemplate their young adult years of job hunting and shiver in fright. Nestra winced under the mask. It was behind her now, and besides, it had lasted only long enough for her to get accepted in the police academy.

“Booth 36. A negotiation is getting heated. Can you go have a look?”

Nestra turned and shook her shoulders. Maybe this time she’d get to fight.

***

“SUFFER!” Valerian screamed.

The snail creatures wriggled in agony. Electrical arcs scoured the rocky ground, leaving glassy tracks behind. Nestra waited for the monsters to exhaust their attacks before moving in. She easily sliced through their heads while smaller arcs sought her flesh. It barely even tingled.

The battle was over in a moment. Valerian breathed hard. It was still difficult for him to cast the spell, though Nestra had to admit that for a control spell at that level, a new one at that, it was remarkably effective. She let Valerian know.

“Thanks. I think I got it now. It took a while for me to get into the right mindset when casting it so it would work at full power. I mean, the glyphs themselves were easy to arrange.”

“I thought they would be complex?”

“Not really. Pain receptor activation is easy. It’s the pain management side that’s complicated. We’ve had a lot of time to research body magic over the years so we can actually do a lot. You don’t use sigils?”

“No.”

“Wow. Free form. Pretty impressive. Soooo…”

He waved at the dead thunder snails.

“Wanna eat those? I know French people do.”

“It’s the consistency they seek. Otherwise it just tastesssss like garlic butter. The antennae are valuable, and so are the shells. I’ll harvest those and we can sell them.”

“Ok. We should get a porter company to do the harvesting for us.”

“This world is not valuable enough.”

She waved at the cavern they were in.

“No ore. The water is amazingly pure but nothing Threshold’s filtration can’t achieve. That’s why this repeating world is in low demand.”

“Any specific reason why you picked it?”

Nestra wanted to say electricity resistance but she preferred to keep that one secret.

“The guardian has a core. I want it.”

“It would be valuable indeed.”

It would mostly be a long overdue snack.

“There is one more thing,” Valerian said. “I’m making tremendous progress recently. My family has noticed.”

Nestra nodded. Honestly, Valerian was a little late considering the family he was in, but perhaps it was related to the fact he hadn’t found his path until recently. The art of progression for raiders wasn’t fully understood yet. It was generally agreed, for example, that in order to progress to C-class and form a physical core, a user had to have unlocked at least one of their affinities and worked hard but as far as how it worked exactly, nobody was sure. Humans grew stronger with time and practice, faster if they raided. The rest varied from person to person. Mana types could play a role. Talent and hard work definitely did. Mankind’s understanding of mana was still in its infancy.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Congratulations,” Nestra said with conviction.

She was glad to see that other people were progressing fast as well. Helena was the prime example but others were moving forward. She was pretty sure her dad was approaching A-class quickly as well.

And Sashimi too. She was so big already. More food for Nestra!

***

Nestra remained very proud about her success against Shinoda. She categorically refused to come down from her pedestal for a grand total of four days. By then, some of her so-called friends were trying to drag her down kicking and screaming with completely irrational arguments such as ‘You already told me’ or ‘I was there’ or ‘yes yes okay can we move on’ and some other trite bullshit. Only Sereth showed understanding, and he recounted a few other times he’d outwitted someone without removing his disguise. The way he did it was with little people he’d made out of cookie dough (they ended up very tasty) who played roles that were recognizable from history books. Nestra got the impression Sereth had grown up in some sort of Imperial court with a great number of children, and where competition for survival matched that of the fiercest jungle. Her boasting streak ended when her mom found her in Aunt Claire’s hotel lobby.

“Mom! I did a thing!”

Nestra was glad she’d found a new person to share her glory, but her hopes were dashed when she saw the face of her mother, and in there, she found only fury.

“Someone blew up your house? And you didn’t deem it important to tell me?!”

“Uh oh.”

“CLYTEMNESTRA PALLADIAN.”

Nestra’s flight was immediately interrupted. She didn’t really want to run away in the middle of a stunned fancy hall but the prey and small child part of her brain had taken over. Curse her refined instincts.

“It’s fine! I wasn’t there!”

“An assassination attempt on my child!”

“Intimidation only! I swear it’s fine! I only lost a Home-Chef BaiHua Deluxe cooking robot of the latest model and my knives. And some mana-rich Mexican beans. Dammit.”

“Our homes, burnt! Our territory, violated! My daughter… SILENT!”

“I am so sorry awwww...”

Deborah Palladian was the most angry Nestra had ever seen her. The temperature dropped to freezing and she was handily dragged out to a waiting car.

The ride home was very awkward.

***

Mom grounded Nestra. It was difficult grounding a mature adult, Nestra thought, but the fact remained that Deborah Palladian didn’t need to be influential, or a powerful raider, or indeed have the law on her side to be obeyed. It was sufficient that Deborah Palladian was Nestra’s mom and quite angry. Fortunately, Nestra found herself between positions at the moment according to her visor.

It came as an email from Kim herself, along with a personal promise to talk about it over dinner. Essentially, Kim had been unofficially placed in charge of Ito’s position which Nestra gathered was unusual. Standard practice when a department went through a shitstorm was to get a talented outsider — usually a dedicated problem solver — to clean house, then get moved after two years. The fact the finance department was a sanctum of hermetic financial knowledge was probably a factor. Sliding the imminent promotion onto Kim’s lap was another. The mayor was up for reelection soon, and though it looked like he would snatch a fourth mandate, this fiasco was best left forgotten. Along with the promotion came a reshuffling of the department. Kim had approved Nestra’s reassignment to Special Affairs under Ilar, not that she had much of a choice. Nestra being part of IA was a temporary assignment anyway.

Now, Nestra was a special agent! It sounded fancy and it was. The job came with a higher salary as well as a slew of benefits including an interesting clearance. Training would be arranged very soon. In the meanwhile, Nestra had some time she intended to dedicate to raiding. There were three major resistances she hadn’t managed to develop at all yet: sensory, toxins, and cold. Sereth knew and he was looking for a cold portal, but for toxins, Nestra already knew where to go. It would be another illegal raid. The resistance situation led her to a realization, however.

The Aszhii had no weakness.

Most monsters could be defeated with specific strategies, or they were specifically sensitive to a type of mana. Not so for her. The only real issue she had was that she was an alien and alone, so she could always be swarmed or identified and tracked down, but otherwise the only way to defeat an Aszhii was to pile on and hope teamwork could defeat incredible martial might and a drive for excellence and constant battle. It was… a daunting prospect. As far as she could tell, Aszhii were loners and possibly eccentric as well, if Sereth was any indication. What happened if they got pissed off though, as a species? If they could create their own passages as Sereth claimed, did it mean no place was safe from an Aszhii war party?

What if they found Earth worth playing with? A team of Aszhii could land and kill every A-class raider on the planet as a threat before leaving, rendering mankind bereft of its best fighters.

She had to learn more about the Aszhii. Right now, the only people she cared about were all on Earth so seeing the place thrashed didn’t sound appealing at all.

“Nestraaaaa!”

Helena rushed in the room with a mischievous smile.

“Come to see the prisoner?” Nestra drawled in her best bandit queen voice.

“Mother has come to inform you that dinner shall be ready forthwith, and that father has prepared his best Tajine.”

“Oooh! And speaking of slow cooking, how was the job circus?”

“Meh!”

Helena shrugged.

“Not wired?”

“We just say limp. It’s mostly for people who don’t have connections yet. Or to scare us, maybe? I don’t need to worry too much about it but it’s good to make contact with other guilds anyway. What were you doing there?”

“I was a glorified bouncer. It was heaps of fun. I got to escort two guilds to the door for shitty contracts.”

“Outrageous. I wish I could have seen it.”

“How’s school otherwise?”

“Good! I got a lot more popular since people figured out I’m an absolute beast in the portal worlds. Like no shit, I don’t have to hold back in there so what did they expect? I still can remember the team looking in awe when I dismembered our first guardian. Hah!”

Nestra nodded. Helena looked better. Now that her chronic pain was managed, she’d filled out a bit too since her appetite had recovered.

“I think one of my teachers kind of guessed this wasn’t my first time, but with our family, it could have been anyone bringing me as an extra for a low level raid. Anyways. We sneaky raiding more?”

“Actually, Crescent is legit now so I can just legally raid a place and secretly bring you. I think it’s possible. I’m going to ask my boss. She knows who I am…”

“What? Really? Are you in danger?” Helena erupted, alarmed.

“Hey, she doesn’t know what I am. She thinks I’m some kind of secret gleam that uses transformation powers.”

“Oh, oh good…” Helena said.

Nestra could tell she had more to say, but Helena was hesitating.

“What?”

“So… could you tell mom and dad?”

“Helena…”

“Why not? We could raid like a family! Brother dear could even get off your ass!”

“Ragnarok doesn’t know what I am, probably because she’s not aware gray demons are a thing…”

Nestra moved forward to explain. It was a bit complicated.

“Ragnarok hasn’t seen me without a mask. People who don’t know me haven’t seen my skin, because if they do, and if one of them has access to the Pandora database, they can figure out what I am. I’m already taking huge risks having so many people aware of my identity. The only reason knowledge about the gray demons isn’t more spread is because the thought of having a monster randomly showing up in portal worlds and thrashing the world’s best team is not just scary: we, I mean, humans can’t do shit about it. I can’t take the risk, Helena. I can’t have mom figure it out. They’re first gen. Just imagine…”

“Yea… yeah, ok.”

“Maybe when I’m strong enough to leave the planet. I’ll tell them before I go.”

“But then it will be too late! Also you’re leaving? When?”

“Not any time soon you little twerp, relax. And I’ll return. I care about all of you.”

“Fiiiiine.”

Mom picked this moment to ask them why they were still out. Nestra didn’t have the heart to tell Helena that with void mana eating her, Nestra had to find a way to save her. Even if it meant sharing her precious Kero Nuts.

***

With her boasting spree doused, the next important item on Nestra’s list was to find a new home.

There wasn’t any real problem with the previous one. It was just that her lack of outrage at its partial destruction only went to show she didn’t care about the place that much, and now that she’d figured it out, it bothered her on a fundamental level. Aunt Claire owned the place. She’d left it for Nestra to use as a favor, and Nestra was so buried in her pain and resentment that she’d never really asked herself what she wanted from life. The home was a place to sleep and hide in, and her stuff was there, but it wasn’t hers. Not in the visceral way she now realized she wanted.

Also, she could afford it. Crescent money plus the settlement meant she could at least get a down payment for an okay place. A call with Aunt Claire sorted everything out.

“It’s alright, dearie. I needed a break anyway. Renovating that posh den will provide a nice distraction. Hell, I might keep it for myself after all. I’m getting tired of sleeping in the compound.”

“Is that why you spend so much time at hotels?” Nestra asked. “Finding the presence of the others a bit stifling?”

“No, I just love to have sex in a luxurious setting.”

“Forget I asked.”

The thing was, when Nestra thought about her ideal spot, the only thing she could think of was Sereth’s place.

It was weird, but it made her feel… at home. Cozy. The very tall ceiling, the open space, yet all of this secure in a single contained domain just resonated with her on a fundamental level. Luckily, she knew how to get it and not just easily, but at rock bottom prices too. The city also didn’t care where people lived so long as it was up to norms.

She bought a warehouse slightly out of the way for roughly 120,000 credits. It was slightly smaller than Sereth’s own. The lack of large drone bays and the distance from major transport hubs made the place undesirable. The real estate company didn’t even bother to check her profile; they were just delighted to see that asset go. Threshold’s population was still converging into arcologies with the birth rate too low to compensate for now, so the edge of the city remained cheap. Once this was done, Nestra dished out another fifty thousand credits for renovation and security, plus a little bit more for furniture. It took two weeks to finish everything, mostly the security aspect. Threshold companies worked fast. Corpo competition meant that productivity and efficiency were pushed to the max.

Nestra had a security console and a host of sensors and alarm systems on the outside. On the inside, there were no cameras for obvious reasons but there was a last defensive measure. On top of that, she got cleaning bots and a sound-activated reactive AI. The kitchen and bathroom covered the back side of the warehouse. She had her resting and storage space on the right, couches and her coffee machine on the left, and the front had workout equipment as well as an armory. Having piled on all of her belongings, Nestra decided that she needed something more: some decorations. The place lacked some life.

It took her a long time browsing the internet to find something suitable: wall panels with vines growing on them. The good thing was that they barely required anything, so she could leave them for days and nothing would happen. The bad thing was that they required sunlight to survive, but that was easily fixed with special lighting.

Add a few swords and her weapon lockers and there, she was done. The warehouse was vast and a little empty but that just made her feel more relaxed. It was well lit. There were vine paths crawling to the ceiling. She had her food and weapons and quite a few pillows as well. There was a TV if she didn’t want to use her visor. There was a reading alcove. All that she liked doing alone was there.

Sereth was the first to be invited. She wasn’t sure why she’d picked him. Probably because she wanted an Aszhii opinion. It was obviously a strong opinion because he froze in the doorway.

Nestra waited, then waited as his gaze went to the vines. He smiled wistfully.

“Seth?”

“It is nothing. Just… impressive. The vines are a very nice touch. How did you get them?”

“I’ll send you a link. Is everything alright? Is there a problem with my place?”

“Not at all. Very cozy, I like it. You will understand my feelings much later. If you were looking for my approval, you have it. This is a very nice den.”

“Thanks.”

“I have to ask though, what is that strange robot on the pillar in the center? What a strange dome and is that… a gun?”

“Oh, Gorge found it for me! It’s a decommissioned navy point defense robot.”

“What? Why?”

“So I can use my visor and the external cameras to fire at intruders really quickly, either inside or outside! It can aim well and pierce through walls. It would even give a B-class pause. The theoretical range is 2km, easy, but I reckon it won’t get through more than two other warehouses before getting stopped.”

“You have a naval gun in your living room?”

“Well no it was performance locked for civilian use so the rate of fire is only 600 20mm tungsten rounds per minute but hey, anything it can’t pulp would probably be something I can’t stop anyway. I think I can chew through a combat walker, at least.”

Seth kept quiet for a little while, which was frustrating because Nestra’s chicken soup was done and she wanted him to sit down at her table.

“I wonder if all human-born Aszhii will be like you.”

“That didn’t sound like a compliment. No soup for you.”

“I recant.”

***

Nestra entered her mind palace for the first time in a while. The main hall still looked like a castle’s reception room but it was darker in a more soothing way, with a high lunar light descending on the pedestal where her human core ought to be. It remained desperately empty. She made for the planetarium.

Where once there were a few small orbs, now globes as large as she was danced an intricate waltz around the ignited sun of her true core, over the lake of her mana reserves. They’d all grown tremendously since she’d last been here, yet she still remained at the lower end of her class, or at least that is the impression she got. That was fine for now since she needed some time to get used to her progress. Her priorities lie elsewhere.

The tethers between the orbs were ethereal bonds that represented her innate Aszhii abilities. She didn’t think that she had the power to add more yet. She still had momentum to teleport, precision to strike true, passe-muraille to go through walls, immovable to block blows, and danger sense. Her picks were that of a warrior and infiltrator, or maybe even an assassin though she wasn’t that. The fact it took so long to develop those tethers made her wonder exactly how much those early choices determined how an Aszhii would grow. She didn’t regret her path. It was mere curiosity.

Maybe Sereth could tell her more.

Nestra left that room without worry. She had just gotten to C-rank. There was no rush since she was merely discovering some of her abilities. The false cores were next, one for electricity, one for shadows. The shadow one remained atrophic despite her best efforts which wasn’t unexpected. Interestingly, the electricity core looked like a pulsating steel ball bearing scoured by sparks while the shadow core was a slightly tattered yarn ball made of a material that swallowed the light. She wondered if she would get the third soon.

The final room was that of resistances, and there were a lot more now, with room for more exotic expansions at the back. Nestra’s mind showed them as shields and armor sets. Shields were for elemental mana resistance, and armor represented physical resistance. The bone and blunt damage armor was pretty elaborate in an old knight sort of way, but scale armor representing her skin was basic and the sensory armor, a helmet, remained minimal. Those would need some work. The electricity and heat shields hung on the wall like mighty slabs, one showing plasma arcs and the other glowing softly red. Interestingly, there were no radiation or mental mana shields and there would never be, according to Sereth. The reason was that radiation fed the Aszhii. Even flossing with uranium wouldn’t do anything to her. As for the mental resistance, the Aszhii mind apparently read very alien to those rare users who worked with their brains, or at least they did when the mask came down. Sereth had indicated it was almost always fatal.

Nestra remembered how her Skin broke geometry every time it fed. If that could make people uncomfortable, then a deep dive in an Aszhii mind might make things considerably worse.

Nestra thought it was weird. She felt perfectly normal, so why would touching her mind cause anguish? She was a very relaxed person.

Sereth’s revelation hinted that humans also had mental users, yet Nestra had never heard of them. That meant they were either extraordinarily rare or government-controlled. Or controlling the government. Now that was a thought.

Nah Shinran would never tolerate it. But maybe in some smaller enclaves…

Nestra recentered, and her mind focused on the greenish shield dripping with violet liquid. Very clear image. This was her resistance to toxins and it was garbage, which she was going to remedy next.

A part of her felt under pressure. She absolutely needed to get stronger just in case something happened, maybe not her identity revealed but Helena getting into trouble or something that would require more strength than just that of a C-class. It was bound to happen at some point. Another part remembered that she’d only be a user for a bit over three months? Fuck, time had gone by fast and she’d done so much, always feeling under pressure. Her need to grow strong quickly conflicted with her desire to explore everything, fight everything, taste everything. It was frustrating.

Well, at least she could start with toxins.

***

Giant ants congregated over the fallen form of a scout. Its powerful pheromones screamed at them that there was an intruder to kill, something that they needed to hunt. The trail led deeper under the thick canopy of the primeval forest, below massive boughs covered in creeping vines and colorful fruits. Smaller insects skittered when they moved through, the only sound that of scraping legs.

A shadow fell among them.

The foe was fast, and it killed a warrior on the spot. The rest of the group converged on the invader, but it slipped away from them. The ants were not very inventive in the way they fought: corner, bite, overwhelm. They were, however, very good at working together. The foe was equally good at fighting groups. One by one and once with a burst of electricity, the intruder dispatched all of the warriors as they faced it, and the acid spitter as they tried to get some ground. There were no wounded ants left behind to spread the smell of an enemy, because it left nothing alive. Once it was done killing them the outsider used a clean wipe to remove ichor from its blade, then it was gone, and so was the scent. An instant later, a small vial shattered near the pile of corpses, spreading a sickeningly strong stench of peppermint.

The next patrol didn’t fare much better.

She was learning.