Changeling

Nestra was informed she was temporarily between positions by mail. From HR. Scrolling down the long list of superfluous bullshit, she noticed she would be paid her full salary without overtime bonus for the duration. This meant it was a paid holiday. It also meant that they were not angry at her, just probably wondering what they should do with someone who triggered diplomatic crises by breathing.

“It’s not fair. I also solve them. Speaking of…”

It had been a while since she’d gone to the range for some good old shotgun practice.

“But I don’t have the time aaaaaah.”

There was simply too much to do, and now three forms to do it in. She decided to go anyway. Gleam speed meant she could do it quickly. With a flick of her visor, Nestra booked a lane in the nearest precinct. Driving there with a full box of shells on the passenger seat of her roadster proved just as cathartic as she’d hoped for. She was let in with only a few glances, though few gleams favored firearms. Free Agents booking facilities for training was a common occurrence in a city where you couldn’t throw a form in triplicate without hitting an agency manager. While she calmly went through the motions, her mind raced.

Her den was no longer secure.

It was sad to say, but there were just too many threads linking her to that place. The techs who’d picked up the dearly departed Daniels from her floor were not dependable. Any of them could reach out to foreign agents to sell her location for a tidy sum. She knew Threshold would make them regret it for sure, but there were two important factors she, as a cop, couldn’t forget.

One, justice was punitive, not preventative. She would still be utterly fucked.

Two, most criminals were confident they’d get away with it because they were just too smart to get caught. Right until they were caught.

But that was sunk cost fallacy. She was just being careless and that was unacceptable. With a sigh, Nestra focused on her shooting for the next hour. When she came out, she decided to bite the bullet. Flipping her visor, she sent her first message.

“Hey Gorge. I need help with something. Could we meet?”

***

The Palladian kitchen remained the spot where the family socialized. After ten years apart, only one thing had changed.

Dad had become good at cooking.

“This is good!” she announced to the entire table, scarfing down a salmon bagel.

Her mom looked at her with some concern. Dad had retreated to his slices of bacon, being the least adventurous member of the family when it came to eating food. That was something Nestra would never get.

“The last time I was this ravenous, I was expecting your sister” her mom said with the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

“Hmmm,” Nestra replied, not sure how to broach the subject.

It was Helena who gave the appropriate answer.

“Yeah, maybe pray for Riel’s return first? It’s far more likely to happen.”

“Helena,” Mom warned.

The teen poked an innocent piece of broccoli in sullen silence. She was still grounded.

“You’re going to be late for school,” mom continued, though she still gave her a refill of orange juice.

“I can drive her,” Nestra offered.

“Not this time. We have something we’d like to discuss with you first, Nes. If you don’t mind. Helena, hurry up.”

Helena grumbled something that might have been English before it got processed by her teenage frontal lobe. Nestra gave her a banana as a gesture of peace. Helena dejectedly refused.

“I’m off, I’m off.”

“Just get a passing grade and you can return to your axe wielding ways,” Mom chided. “You are a smart girl, Helena. I do not believe for a single second that you couldn’t understand genetics.”

“It’s bullshit.”

Mom had the kind and patient smile that came with experience.

“You are frustrated, which makes you angry. I get it. But biology is not a person; it’s knowledge. Don’t be personally offended by knowledge.”

“I can help, if you want,” dad said. “I had good grades in science.”

But he flunked literature, Nestra knew. Hard.

“I also read your textbook. I am certain I can get you through the process.”

Helena relented with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

“Fiiiine. Tonight.”

“I will pick you up,” her father said.

Helena nodded on her way out, trudging along with zombified enthusiasm. The poor void human barely qualified as sapient before 10 AM.

Now that she was gone, Nestra finished the original discussion.

“Sorry mom. Don’t count on me for grandchildren, at least not for a while. Isn’t Ulysses about to get married or something? Shouldn’t he be the focus of your quest for grandkids?”

“It is progressing,” Dad replied like he was talking about a landscaping project.

Her big brother wasn’t here which was just as well. He had his own apartment deeper into the city so he and his Sheila could get some intimacy. Nestra had exchanged maybe two words with the tart and she wasn’t sure she could recognize her in a crowd, to be honest.

“So what did you two want to talk about?”

Nestra grabbed her cup of cappuccino. Dad was really good at brewing it. Mom exchanged a glance with dad that probably meant ‘back me up on this’.

“To reiterate, you’re an adult and we trust you. I have seen you grow at insane speed as a gleam and I couldn’t be more proud. It’s just that sometimes, I think you might be going… too fast. You will have decades to catch up, Nestra. Nobody said you had to be a C-class now.”

She sighed.

“Look. We heard that you engaged in risky behavior again,” she gently chided.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nestra deadpanned.

“I am talking about suggesting and then fighting in a duel with a lizardman! You did very well, of course, but I understand he was C-class. Nestra, this is very dangerous. A spear through the eye and no armor can save your life. We agreed that you would be very careful. This isn’t my idea of safety. There is a fine line between challenging yourself and taking unnecessary risks, and I feel that you have crossed it.”

“Still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nestra replied, her face that of an amateur poker player.

“Nestra.”

“She signed the paper,” her dad said. “She is merely respecting the rules, darling.”

“What paper? Oh, the confidentiality one. Really? Nes, we are a founding family. We were part of the first foray into the bridge world!”

Nestra shook her head.

“I am not discussing my day.”

“Clytemnestra Palladian,” her mom warned.

“She is respecting the rule,” her father said, completely missing the point, bless his ass.

“Fine. Fine! Hypothetically, if during the time you were absent, you had taken unnecessary risks that would very clearly contradict the agreement we have on taking things slow, one you agreed with, I would be very annoyed. If I keep being very annoyed, access to our house’s high D-class portals for training purposes will be severely restricted. Do I make myself clear?”

Nestra knew when to stop pushing.

“I have not taken risks outside of a controlled environment with at least one powerful B-class around to protect me. This I can tell you,” she said.

And it was true. Technically.

“I’m not being reckless. I was under supervision. And I am not acting alone.”

“I wish I could believe you,” Mom said.

“Do not doubt me,” Nestra replied very seriously. “Do not accuse me of lying.”

Her mom sighed.

“I’m sorry honey. That was unfair of me. I don’t mean that you would lie, only that you wouldn’t see danger until it’s too late… I suppose… My only option is to accelerate your training. You are raiding far more than most people your age anyway. Very well.”

“Have you followed the political news?” Dad abruptly asked.

Neither Mom nor Nestra were surprised by the non sequitur.

“You mean Hunnigan’s success?”

“He was confirmed as Councillor of the Interior.”

Nestra whistled. It was one of the top three cabinet positions along with treasury and legal.

“Wait, he gets control of the police?”

“I would not be so concerned about the police, Nestra. You are not a member anymore,” Dad reminded her.

“Oh uh. Hey, that's details. I’m still under him, hierarchy-wise.”

“I would be more concerned about what he intends to do to the guilds. You lead one, remember?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Oh. Yeah.”

“The council’s home page mentions ‘sweeping changes’ to be announced very soon, but the major guild leaders have not been invited to talk. Do you understand what that means?”

“He’s going after them? I mean, after us?”

“It means there is going to be a clash,” Dad patiently explained. “A roundtable call for negotiations would have led to a lot of grumbling. Unilateral decisions mean conflict.”

“Won’t the mayor intervene?” Nestra asked, then she realized she was being stupid.

“He wants Hunnigan to fuck things up,” she finished, answering her own question.

“You should expect some trouble in the coming days, if you intend to raid.”

“I do. I’m raiding with Helena’s classmates at noon.”

Her parents exchanged a glance she couldn’t read.

“Just keep an eye open. Your responsibility as a guild leader includes being aware of the political environment you operate in.”

Nestra looked at her dad like he was the alien.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You are being disrespectful,” her mom said, but her father smiled, disarming the situation.

“It’s not because you’re bad at something that it can’t be learned at all. Just keep your eyes open and expect a confrontation.”

“Will do.”

***

Nestra finished her pizza, the bounty for landing yet another sewer portal world. What was it with the portal making godly entity and fucking tunnels? Was it because Threshold had more holes than a Swiss cheese vault? Outrageous. Annoyed, she surveyed her den.

She’d have to start packing in two weeks. It was sad but it was necessary in order to make reaching her more difficult. Her eyes went to her datasheet where a list of portals in Threshold’s immediate wilderness waited, the next step in getting stronger. Her masked gleam phone beeped at the same time as her cucumbers finished getting peeled by her cooking robot. Cucumber slices were such a great palate cleanser! The secret phone beeping was concerning though. It was a call.

“Dammit who calls these days,” she complained, the very embodiment of hypocrisy.

Nestra switched to her true body — pizza landed better in the human one.

“Hello, Miss Lindstrom,” she greeted in a polite voice.

“It’s General Lindstrom when someone might be listening, and I hope you do not grow comfortable making me wait, Crescent?”

“Sorry I was eating.”

“Why am I not surprised? I am calling you for two reasons. First, are you aware that Hunnigan is now Councilor for the Interior?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“He has announced his wish to cancel the ‘masked’ program in his campaign for ‘accountability’. If someone gives you shit, do me a favor and don’t hurt them. We’re going to deal with things on our end but it takes time to do it without violence.”

“Understood.”

“But do not let them unmask you either.”

“That would go against the ‘don’t hurt them’ directive. But I get you, don’t worry.”

“Excellent. My second question is this: how confident are you that you could infiltrate lizardmen lines?”

Nestra gave the question around a quarter of second of consideration.

“Extremely confident.”

Ragnarok huffed.

“And now I am concerned. I know you can use shadows to some extent, but the lizardmen have many earth and nature affinity members. Their detection skills are second to none on a purely magical level.”

“For reasons I am not comfortable sharing, I am confident that I could infiltrate their territory.”

She knew where this was going. Another meeting with Argent Ephis might not be out of the question after all.

“Very well. The phone is secure but I have to ask, is there anyone in your vicinity that could be listening in?”

“Negative, I’m home alone.”

“Very well. As you know, around seventy kilometers separate our bridge portal from the lizardman world’s portal.”

Nestra considered pulling the ‘I haven’t seen you inside the portal world’ strategy on Ragnarok and decided this was one of her shittier ideas.

“Okay.”

“No human has ever crossed it. It is currently guarded by a rotation of three lizard A-class warriors taking turns to defend it, with the other two capable of providing reinforcements should the first one be engaged. The oldest of them is Night Cloud, one of the survivors of Riel’s last spell. I do not need to tell you that she is no pushover.”

“Oh.”

That meant she had been an A-class seventy years before.

“Shinran and I plan to give the tribes who attacked us by surprise a little visit before they scatter again — or head back through the portal. This will draw the A-class’ attention. We are presented with a unique opportunity to infiltrate the unguarded gate.”

“This feels immensely risky.”

Ragnarok chuckled.

“And it is, but the operation doesn’t even require you to reveal your presence. You just need to take some measurements then you’re out. Are you confident you could survive?”

Nestra considered her options. That felt risky if and only if the portal was tightly guarded, but from what she’d perceived from lizardmen culture so far, they didn’t feel like the kind of people to build complex fortifications. It would really be up to the number of B-class left behind, really, and if they had questions for her.

“I’m not sure, but I also think if it’s too risky, I’ll just retreat without an attempt.”

“That is all I can ask. The data isn’t worth the lives of our people. Only act if you think it is wise.”

“Alright. I’m definitely interested. When?”

“Six days from now. We don’t want to wait too much. There would be hazard pay as well regardless of your success. And a bonus if you can get us recon data for the bridge portal encampment. A million and a half total.”

Riel’s butter-basted buttcheeks.

“I’m in. That is, I can try. Get the gizmos ready.”

“I’ll contact you again soon. We are still determining the optimal time to strike, and if we should warn our Carved Tusk ‘allies’. Don’t get arrested before it happens.”

“I promise to do my best.”

***

Nestra knew there was trouble the moment she climbed down from her bike. This C-class portal world had popped up in a large transformer building at the back of a large office. Nestra had been hoping to acquire some resistances but, from the look of the suited aug, it wouldn’t be happening. The usual civil servant looked like she’d swallowed a lemon as she stood next to another woman in a beige ensemble. Three police gleams in white suits hung back with stubble on their jaws and coffee in their hands. Jumbo-sized. The light of the portal shone on the dull asphalt. Someone had parked three meters away from the edge — typical Thresholder behavior.

“Good day,” Beige Suit said with a smile as fake as her eyelashes. “Would you happen to be Crescent?”

What was it with some people having to ask the obvious? At least lawyers and cops did it for the record.

“Yes?” Nestra replied, holding back the urge to say ‘No I’m Riel reborn out to walk my hamster.’ Truly she had matured.

“My name is Ellen Stewart with the Interior. I have come to inform you that the Mask program was abolished in an effort to curb wanton behavior and lack of accountability among city raiders. I invite you to register properly, a formality I can help you through right away. Otherwise, I’m afraid your status as a raider is now illegal.”

Nestra tilted her head to the side, pretending to give the woman some consideration.

The three police gleams were all C-class and obviously capable. They gave her wary glances but it was more the ‘Please God let me sit for five minutes’, pleading, sheepish wariness than the finger on the trigger cop response she sometimes saw in colleagues. They were not here for her.

“The Masked Gleam program is part of the army. You cannot dismantle something you have no jurisdiction over.”

The woman’s smile didn’t waver. Nestra was pretty sure she knew what would come next.

“Portal attribution is our prerogative. Until you register properly as a lawful raider, you will not raid, regardless of your status.”

“You are correct. I cannot raid within the city.”

Nestra turned to the cops. Two of them nodded. The third searched for the universe’s truth at the bottom of his empty cup. Those guys were here to handle the portal in case she refused. And she just had.

“Good luck people,” she said.

Cup guy groaned. His neighbor gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder before rising from her seat.

There was nothing else Nestra wanted to do, so she turned back to her bike. She wasn’t even angry at the awkward power grab. It was a wide world outside of the walls, one where she could raid freely. Hunnigan was pushing as hard and fast as he could to test his limits, perhaps even stun the guilds into inaction through sheer audacity. It wasn’t a bad idea, tactically speaking, but it was forgetting two important things. One, the guilds were much more united than he assumed because although they competed sometimes fiercely, they still talked. It was a game for the first gens. In fact, it was the same game they’d always played because the old no longer retired. Second, the raiders didn’t need the city. The city needed the raiders. At any point in time, Threshold was a couple of hours away from the first breaches, and two days away from the apocalypse. Nestra was absolutely confident that Hunnigan would be reminded of this very soon. She just hoped the citizens of Threshold wouldn’t be the ones left on the pavement. Like last time with the breaches. And the time before in Fifteen. And… yeah.

Yeah.

When she left, Beige Suit was still smiling.

***

Nestra smashed her sword against the thick black limb. The blow was so powerful she was sent flying, landing in brambles that made her Skin prick her out of annoyance. Blood spurted from the thick wound she’d left behind though. The void-reinforced sword had cut through the shell and the steel-hard muscles underneath. Arterial blood sprayed the ground, the limbs of the guardian contracting in a revolting dance.

“You’re so ugly,” Nestra informed it.

The guardian looked somewhere between a tree, an octopus, and a trash compactor with a beak that could crush granite (Nestra had tested it). It was dark on the dark background of the gloomy woods that formed this world. It was also a perfect matchup for Nestra: a creature that relied on darkness and its own resilience to pick teams apart. She didn’t recognize its species. What she recognized was that it was the perfect raider killer capable of catching the frontliner, killing them through their armor while retreating, then ambushing again. Rinse and repeat.

“Just your bad luck that you found me.”

The main body quivered then opened, revealing red, bulbous flesh underneath the armored shell. Oh yea, and it had disruption too. Nestra winced. She shoved two fingers into her ear holes. At the same time, she aimed at the vulnerable flesh without pointing a finger this time as her control had improved.

The beast screeched. Its call peeled the bark from nearby trees. A fluttering storm of dead leaves obfuscated its shape but Nestra had already placed the potential dot on some sort of organ. She charged forward just as she released the bolt. The powerful blast hit something really important from the abominable cry of agony that followed. Nestra was already in, weaving her way through flailing tentacles. She charged her next skill. Arcane strike filled her with power in this moment of focus. It was time to finish this.

The beak fell open with a last spasm. The creature collapsed. Power rushed into Nestra.

It was dead.

“Huh.”

She’d won. A bit anticlimactic but whatever. At least it meant that a proficient archer backed by a decent team would have felled the beast if they were smart about it. She shivered when she felt her resilience improved. By now, both power and resilience were at the limit of what her current body could accommodate. She would have to increase rank to grow physically stronger, now that it was really necessary. As usual, her magical abilities lagged behind though. It wasn’t really her fault. The portals in and around Threshold had a dearth of spellcasters.

Nestra approached the body and found the core in the pulped remains of the beast’s chest. It tasted jerky and chaotic with a thick shadowy aftertaste. And blackcurrant. Definitely on the weird end of the taste spectrum.

Nestra tilted her head. Her ringing ears were doing much better. She was also picking the scents of the forest better over the metallic tang of blood. Sensory resistances had improved as well. It had been the only one still lagging behind, at a weak C-class level.

A noise. Nestra looked up, wary. Something dark, ominous, and comfortably tubular floated through the canopy to her side. It was eating a large worm.

“Oh now you show up?”

Sashimi lazily swam away, having contributed nothing of value, as usual, yet still making off with tens of thousands of mana-rich calories down her gullet. Whatever. Nestra had what she wanted.

This world had definitely been a good haul. She grabbed the stones and precious wood on the exit altar before leaving through the portal. Immediately, the damp fog of the portal world was replaced by the crisp cold of Threshold’s late December. Daylight filtered through a light smattering of short trees, their thick leaves yellow and damaged. Threshold’s walls could be seen far to the left. More importantly, Nestra wasn’t alone. By the time her visitors noticed her, she had already determined from the ambient mana that no one was at her back. Her hand left the handle of her sword.

Six raiders stood around the fallen form of her bike, undamaged but clearly pushed down by one of the idiots. They were clearly bazaar from the eclectic collection of gear they wore: old pieces of discarded equipment that often made their way beyond the wall to be sold at affordable prices in the shanty town’s expansive marketplace. Most bazaar raiders were not banished Thresholders, but enclavers and illegals looking for a legit way in so there was a wide gap in ethics and capabilities between teams. This one looked encouraging: it had women in it, their gear was clean, the team balanced, and they instinctively covered each other when she approached them. Surprisingly they had guns, which showed mental flexibility.

Still couldn’t let this go completely though.

“Which one of you ass clowns touched my ride?”

Three C-class, three experienced D-class. Not a bad team.

“So this is kind of our territory,” a D-class mage started.

Nestra identified her as ‘the mouthy one’. To be fair, bazaar people had to defend their territory so Nestra couldn’t really be mad.

“That’s nice. Let me see if you could have taken the guardian.”

Nestra used momentum to move in. Before the group could react, she was between two shield guys. She grabbed and pinched their noses.

“And you’re dead.”

“Hey!”

“Ow…”

Nestra found a shotgun and a pistol aimed at her, but the group seemed split. The obvious leader, a C-class spearman with wind, pushed the shotgun down.

“Alright alright, let’s all calm down.”

“You should be grateful I saved your lives. This was a strong, non-repeating C-class. The ambush guardian would have killed at least one of you fuckers,” she informed them. “Now, the question is, are you going to attempt a shakedown?”

Emphasis on attempt. As far as Nestra understood, teams frequently ambushed teams at a portal’s exit when they were the most vulnerable. It didn’t look like those people would. The energy had gone out of them.

“No, we’re not going to try anything, Miss Crescent. We’re just surprised you would raid out here with the riff raff aye?” The leader said with a disarming smile.

Nestra shrugged.

“Then I’m out, been a long day.”

She easily righted her bike, then she hesitated.

Nothing was forcing her to be a dick about the whole thing.

“I spotted a weak C-class around two kilometers south, beyond the bend. Won’t take you long to find it if you jump a bit,” she informed the leader.

He nodded.

“Right. Thanks.”

Nestra left, giddy, and only thinking about one thing: they’d recognized her. She was famous beyond the walls! Unfortunately, her glee only lasted until she was home where her beeping visor informed her that she had missed a great many notifications. A quick check confirmed it wasn’t anything life-threatening so she decided to handle them in chronological order. The first was a news article that immediately informed her about what was going on.

“Councillor Hunnigan implements a sweeping reform.

“Elected after the expansion zone fiasco, Councillor Hunnigan today announced the implementation of new measures to combat what he describes as ‘a wanton disregard for Threshold’s safety’ on the part of guild and raiders. The first of this measure is the formation of an emergency fund under the leadership of the Interior dedicated to the restoration and repair of the consequences of tide and kaiju attacks, as well as the compensation of those who have suffered losses. This fund will be financed by an increase in 3% of the tax on portal profits.”

Holy shit, way to kick the hornet’s nest. The tax had remained at 30% since the creation of the city, and had so far resisted attempts to stir it in one direction or the other. There were very few exceptions to that rule and then only for small amounts. Even Nestra’s shitty portals still got taxed nowadays.

“In addition to the increased financial burden, guilds will now also be responsible for the breaches in defined control sectors, with each portal and pieces of land attributed according to specific rules.”

Nestra checked and yes, the original text was part of her alert feed. At a quick glance, repeating portals were the responsibility of the guild assigned to them (nothing new) but in case a team wasn’t assigned, then the previous team to clear that portal was still responsible for keeping an eye on it. In addition, breaches of undetected portals would be the responsibility of the guild whose headquarters was the closest to the location of the portal. The guild would be legally and financially responsible for any damage incurred during the breach.

It was madness. What was Hunnigan thinking? Raiders still risked their lives fighting, and they would be held responsible for the city’s failure to catch a stray portal in their neighborhood? Also, any damage meant that if someone missed a spell and burnt down a car, it would be billed to their guild. Fighting monsters was hard enough for most people and now the government wanted them to be bankrupt by a missed shot? Insanity.

“Wait, shit, am I switching sides?”

Had her life of privilege blinded her to the struggle of the baselines?

Nah it was the government that had lost its collective marbles. This was going to hurt the corpo guilds’ bottom lines but smaller guilds would be bled dry. And they didn’t have the funds to recover from a mistake.

What was Hunnigan thinking? Was he expecting to get a massive pushback so he could go back to his voters and say ‘See I did what I could be the establishment fought me off’, or was he just stupid?

The article then mentioned an ‘altered’ schedule for portal clearing. When Nestra checked her guild account, she realized the city had assigned her three portal clears the next day. That was nonsense. What was going on? She continued reading, increasingly nonplussed.

“Hunnigan’s measures have been criticized by fellow Councilwoman Andersen who denounced a ‘blatant overreach of power that challenges not one, but two seats: legal and financial’. Andersen vowed to have the measures blocked in court immediately.”

Nestra was pretty sure it wouldn’t even get there.

“The Syndicate of Guilds vowed a strong response. Reports indicate an emergency summit will be held tomorrow. All major guilds are expected to participate.”

Yeah. That. Nestra shook her head before checking her personal messages. There was one from her dad.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Be sure to show up. Do not wear armor.”

Huh? What was Father on about? Only guild heads and other Important People would be invited. But the next message was an invitation to join said emergency meeting the next day at 9AM sharp inside the Gidung arcology. She was ‘cordially invited’ yadda yadda yadda to discuss the current events. Why? She was just —

“Oh wait shit I am a guild leader.”