Changeling

2.8

The first thing Nestra did when she woke up was remove a piece of mushroom from her nostril. The second was to realize she had a terrible migraine.

“Ow ow ow.”

So damn stupid. She should have paid more attention to her prize instead of just plopping them on a pan and assume they were all the same species because they mostly looked the same. She’d been sloppy. She could have died! The anger at her own foolishness needled her as she stood in the living room to hunt the nearest glass of water. As she did so, she felt something new, something hard to describe.

Nestra knew how to use mana, though not well. Rich families like her own often let their children draw power from low quality mana stones just so that they could get used to manipulating it before they awakened. The Palladians were no exception. Coating her blade was the most effective use of her weak reserves for now, but in essence, it implied sending mana through her conduits and into a suitable blade, though stronger users could just use anything. The new ability she felt was different. It felt linked to her physical body, like the ability to know where her hands were at all times. Hesitantly, she called upon it before her dehydrated brain could catch up to her.

She was propelled forward at great speed. The sudden jump took her completely off guard and she smacked head first into her kitchen door before she could recover.

***

Nestra walked in and breathed the sweet, nice scent of freshly baked pastry. It was warm and buttery and really, really inviting. Seth was behind the counter, tapping on a datasheet. He seemed old fashioned like that. Most coffee shops relied on drones but the man baked everything on site and he manned the counter himself. Nestra expected his unorthodox approach to spook off those who wanted to be left alone but, to her surprise, the place was packed on a weekday. Not just that. Delivery drones waited outside by the window.

The tall, gangly man smiled when he saw her. It lit up his whole face from thoughtful to genuinely happy. The unfettered emotion made Nestra’s head spin.

“Hello hello! You are Nestra, I remember. My dessert pleased you enough to return, I see.”

“Of course. I have a great memory for faces. Names, not so much. Ah, but what can I do for you today?”

“I was supposed to meet a friend…”

An old couple left hand in hand, freeing a spot near the back.

“Looks like you’re in luck,” Seth said. “Flat White?”

“Yes.”

“I suggest my cardamom roll. There’s a fresh batch coming up soon.”

“Is this why the delivery drones are waiting?”

“Yes!” Seth replied with naked pride. “My creations are having a ton of success! The baking robots really make it easy to experiment with various ingredients, you know? I could spend HOURS in the kitchen just trying stuff.”

“Nestra!” a voice said from behind.

She turned to see Stib walking in with a wan smile. The shorter girl had lost some weight and there were shadows under her eyes like fresh bruises, a weight on her shoulders that made her stoop a bit though the smile seemed genuine. Nestra returned it.

And then she faced Seth again.

It was like someone had opened the blinds and now she knew for sure that, the first time they’d met, Seth had not been flirting. It was like looking at the sun. Seth was transformed. He was sublimed. He was a romantic figure of a genius artist lounging casually against the counter, velvety brown eyes burning from an inner passion. He put the datasheet down and caressed his chin with an elegant finger. Stib blinked and her eyes followed the flexing muscles of his forearm. He caught her staring. She blushed.

“Why hello there, and welcome to the Sunflour. What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, uh, ah, I’m…”

“Should I leave you two alone?” Nestra asked half seriously.

“Oh no no no no sorry,” Stib protested.

Seth chuckled knowingly. Seth took their orders under Nestra’s vigilant glare, staying tame the whole time. The pair sat down in the recently freed spot to talk while they waited for their coffees.

“So… how have you been doing?” Stib awkwardly asked while Nestra was still considering her approach.

“Well enough. Been busy with training.”

“Oh? Really? Ah, hm, I wanted to apologize for cutting contact. I told you you should be more active and here I am, closing myself.”

“It’s fine,” Nestra dismissed with a wave of her hand. “Look, we both know I have trouble relating to people. It’s a problem when I’m trying to be social but the advantage is that the deaths of our people didn’t hurt me the way it hurt you. So, I get it. Did the Stibbons rally around their wayward daughter?”

“Yeah,” Stib chuckled. “They did it. I got a firm offer to work on drone support for the Blue River guild and… I’m gonna take it.”

“Good idea.”

“So… it’s really finished. MaxSec, I mean. Everything’s closed. After so long it feels really weird.”

Nestra shrugged. She was over it. Her main purpose for joining had always been to prove that she was worth it in her eyes, that nature had made a mistake in giving less than it had given her siblings. Now she had cool demon powers and a Nestracave and access to really delicious sesame jellyfish salad so the world was more in balance. And money. Of course, part of her serenity was due to a lack of interaction with hierarchical superiors and gleams in general but hey, she’d take it.

“It was just… such a long chapter of my life, you know? And I feel like it was closed without my consent. I wasn’t ready to move on…” Stib continued.

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Nestra nodded to show her support.

“Sometimes I envy your mental resilience,” Stib finished with a bitter tone, though she dulled the barb with a wink.

“It’s easy to accept unfairness when you believe life’s been repeatedly unfair,” Nestra wisely explained.

“I’m not sure this is a healthy approach.”

“Like for you this is a violation of the reality of your life, all you believed has now collapsed and your life is in shambles… but for me that’s just a Monday.”

“Holy shit, Nes.”

“But don’t worry! You can just roll with the punches. Like I was actually mentally readying myself to being crippled for life since, you know, I can’t install augs without going crazy.”

“Nestra…”

“Look, I even had a list of handicaps I could accept without killing myself. I was ok with losing a limb but not full paralysis, you see? It’s all about… hmm… accepting that you’re not in control and that life might just decide to fuck you over and the only thing you can control is your reactions to it.”

Stib’s face was a mask of mesmerized horror. A student nearby removed his visor.

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“Jesus fucking Christ, lady.”

“Not helping?” Nestra asked. “Damn, sorry, guess it doesn’t work for everybody?”

“I can’t tell if you need a hug, therapy, or all of the above,” Stib forced out.

“Sorry. Anyway.”

Seth took this moment to bring them their order along with a ‘enjoy’ as sweet as honey. Damn but could that bastard be suave when he wanted. That made Nestra extra suspicious so she glared at his back until he parried her silent accusation with a disarming shrug. She got the meaning.

So what?

“Tsk.”

“This roll is so good!”

“It seems Seth is getting popular.”

“Seth, huh? By the way, what did you decide in the end?”

Nestra explained her unchanged plan to assist with fifteen’s resurrection. She still wanted to get at the assholes who had killed part of her team, though she didn’t share this with Stib.

“No way, that’s too dangerous!”

“It is dangerous,” Nestra allowed.

“Not like that. The weapons and augs that the gangs had, they’re still there. Not all of it was destroyed because it never is. I bet they’ll resurface over the coming weeks in, well, hold ups and robberies. You’re going to come in fresh-faced with your light vest and catch depleted uranium.”

“Relax, we’re here to keep an ear to the ground, not to go after hardcore criminals.”

“If you come across an armed robbery, will you cower and wait?” Stib asked with a pointed look.

“You forget, fifteen is a fucking dumpster fire of a place. The only things worth robbing will be Gidung supply depots and those won’t be my problem. I doubt someone would pull out a walker weapon to steal from a food stand.”

“I’m just worried about your safety. In groups of two? Shit I wouldn’t walk in that cesspit in less than a squad of five with gleams on call. I hope you don’t get jumped on.”

“I can’t let it go, Stib.”

The short drone operator searched her expression. She passed a hand through her red hair and sighed. Nestra noticed that the nails were chewed to the nub. She thought Stib had shaken off the habit. The past week must have been really trying.

“You mean… their death?”

“Just how callous it all is. I want to know who pulled the trigger on providing the gangs with weapons. Doesn’t matter if I’m not spearheading the investigation because that’s not my skill set anyway. I need to be there.”

“Just watch out for those civvies. You can’t trust them.”

Nestra chuckled.

“What?”

“My aunt and you, you’re really on opposite ends of the spectrum. She’s advised me to look into de-escalation.”

“Sure. Learn what you can to make sure things go smoothly. Just keep your hand on the handle. You got gear?”

“I made a requisition list and it seems it’s been accepted. I’ll have an electric disabler, pepper spray, a sedative needle gun…”

“Ok ok you can take down an entire street. What about surveillance?”

“Don’t think there are cameras.”

“You know what I mean. Drones. look, I’ll soup up something for you. You can’t just walk through two alleys and find yourself boxed in. I’ll set up a program so you have your eyes in the sky and it’s easy to operate. I can do it. I’ve had ideas… Not as good as a dedicated operator of course…”

“Honestly, Stib, I’ll take what you get me.”

“Alright. Yeah. Ok, so, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Do you… think I’m ready to date again? I mean, now?”

Nestra blinked at the non sequitur. Where the hell was this coming from?

“You want me, the aromantic person, to tell you if you should date? Sure as long as you feel good about it? Why?”

“The, hm, Seth, he left me his details.”

Stib waved her napkin, upon which that smarmy flirter had left a number. The rogue stood there selling a Victoria Sponge to a dignified old lady with pointed questions, the very image of innocent competence.

“He’s kind of smooth…” Stib dreamily said.

“Well go for it, I can promise you I won’t compete.”

“Thanks Nestra, you’re a dear.”

***

Nestra was flush. Well not really, but on her way to be. The lizard skin was sold, as were the vials in record time. She was now over twelve thousand credits richer. Twelve. Thousand. Credits. In two nights. And that was just for risking her life doing something she loved anyway. She could buy anything, she thought, munching a piece of fruit marinated in honey. Like cream maybe. But more seriously, she had an issue.

Her armor no longer fit.

Her demon self was now taller than her human self by two whole centimeters. The difference shouldn’t have mattered but her armor set was such a tight, custom-made fit that she couldn’t properly operate in them. And that wasn’t the only issue. The demon’s arms were longer and a little thicker. Every piece of gear barely fit and they also limited her range of movement. What she needed was something to wear. Something to protect her. Gorge had an answer for her.

Entry-level, standard issue armor for teenager D-class running their first gauntlets: five thousand creds.

Armor set suited for a woman her size?

Thirty-nine thousand.

It didn’t even look good! Not to mention, it was likely she would keep growing for a while so her purchase would only be worth it for a little while. So far, Nestra had only drawn on her reserves once to buy Gorge’s stuff. Right now, she knew she wasn’t raising too many flags with HQ and the AIs they used to track suspicious behavior. Even if they did track her, all they would see would be her going to weird places on a whore bike in the dead of night, nothing too suspicious. Her Nestracave only had training equipment, some couches to chill and a freezer containing some monster meat. They would assume she was selling herself for money and using it to buy mana food. Her records would show she had a mana addiction of sorts, justifying everything. She had layers of protection between herself and the truth. Someone who kept digging would find enough to satisfy them at every level.

This changed if she suddenly withdrew enough cash to buy a second car. There could be questions. She would bet money Kim had her under AI surveillance. The woman was far too professional to forget basic precautions, especially when Nestra was supposed to work against Gidung’s interests. Corpos’ influence ran as deep as their pockets.

She would have to use different defensive measures. She picked her burner.

“Can you get me potions? The flesh-mending kind.”

“Sure but only D-grade. Five hundred a vial. They’re not great though.”

“Nice to see you care. I’ll take four and five bullets as well. And an antidote if you have any.”

“I’ll need some time to get a general purpose antidote. Don’t have a price yet either. I’ll take the fee off your balance. Want the rest on a chit?”

“Yes.”

“Will do. And there was something else. Can I call?”

“Okay?”

Gorge usually disliked calling. For some reason, using voice chat made him less of an asshole because he didn’t get into Nestra’s face that much. He was still a raging bastard though.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t what’s up me bitch. I’m your elder.”

“Whatever.”

“You and respect. Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. Look, you’re more or less a gleam, right?”

“Less but I can manage.”

“But can you pass off as one?”

“No. Don’t even got the eyes.”

“More like a unique quirk then? Don’t tell me. Anyway, I don’t know where you’re raiding but if you want more choice and better prices, there is a solution. In fact, it might profit both of us.”

“Do tell?”

“You could go dark horse.”

Nestra slumped into her couch. In demon form, the leather texture felt strange against her skin. Too sticky. Just like Gorge’s proposal. Dark horses, or masked anonymous gleams, were more a thing in spicy fiction but they did exist in real life as well.

“You’re kidding right? This isn’t a vid.”

“No, I’m serious. This really happens. There are over two hundred masked gleams in Threshold right now.”

“Losers and idiots. There’s no good reason to go dark horse. It’s a shit assignment.”

“There are at least two C-tier masked operatives right now.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. You go mask, you can get a license to purchase stuff from Threshold’s armory. You also get to sell your goodies on the open market. Hell, you could even raid legally on top of… what you’ve been doing so far.”

Nestra considered the proposal.

Masking was a way for individual gleams to register as raiders for the city council without revealing their identities. There were even provisions so that only AIs would know of their civilian identities, and it took extraordinary circumstances for law enforcement to demand to know who they really were. Usually, suspicions of felony. The purpose was to allow corpo gleams to contribute to the city and be compensated for it. Sometimes, individual gleams from rival factions would cooperate using that system to protect themselves from publicity.

The thing was, it was completely stupid. Most high-profile gleams could simply not disappear for days on end without their families learning of it. It meant that the only people who did it were idiots no one wanted to bring on a raid or schemers needing ad-hoc coverage for an operation or two. Popular vids dramatized masks to make them seem much cooler than they really were. Like anonymous dark horses stealing the show from powerful guilds. Romance ones were especially fond of the mask plus female protagonist trope. The reality was usually disappointing.

Gorge’s proposition had merit, however.

“I don’t have the abilities to pass the exam just yet.”

The truth was that Nestra had, in fact, the abilities to pass a D-class exam if barely, except for mana reserves. Hers were simply too low for now.

D-class classification was simple enough. One first had to display superhuman capabilities in terms of speed, reflexes, endurance, and power. Then one had to prove a rudimentary control of mana, which Nestra didn’t have enough juice to complete quite yet. The last one was combat. She was rather confident about that last part.

D-class gleams basically used mana to enhance themselves. That was the bare minimum to become a raider. She knew that other paths, like crafters, used different prerequisites. That wasn’t relevant to her.

A C-class gleam could use at least one affinity and they formed the beginning of a physical core. Nestra wasn’t too familiar with that since it had been far away when she’d left the gleam ecosystem. B-class gleams started with a complete core and at least one of their body parts was so infused with mana it became ‘exotic material’ even at rest.

Aunt Claire said that A-class completely reforged their bodies when they ‘ascended’. They were rumored to be immortal. They were a select few so far. Ascensions were still reported in international news.

That was still very far away for Nestra, assuming she had the potential to grow that much.

“If you can’t do it at all it’s fine. If you can, though, we may be able to help. See, I’m sure you’re a busy bee, yeah? And maybe not the best negotiator in town. And by that I mean you fucking suck.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“I can be charming when I’m not dealing with a pissant brat. And I do business with my balls and my brains, kid, not my feelings. Anyway, if you can get masked, we can handle business for you at no fee provided you let us buy a thing or two in your name, if you know what I mean.”

“Best way to get flagged, asshole.”

“I’m not talking about recreational drugs. More like antitoxins that work on dregs like yours truly. Lots of kids out there who can’t get them unless they suck up to gleam families. Ya know, the kind of deal that leaves them as retainers for life. There’s profit to be made and we can even be nice about it.”

“Sure. Whatever. That sounds good. I get the final call on what we buy.”

“Of course, we’ll need your ID to validate any deal in any case. Just keep it in mind.”

“Hmm.”

“Think about it. Legal raids. The marketplace. You can even attend conventions in a mask and look at those nice gleams frolicking and sucking each other’s dicks for social success. All good stuff, yeah? Delivery in progress. See ya next time and don’t fucking die on me you rabid golden goose.”

He hung up.

Was it too risky to go through testing in case they had secret ways to detect anomalies? Or was it too risky to go on without potions, defensive gear, knowledge and other resources? She needed data. More specifically, she needed to know how aware humanity was of her kind if indeed there was a kind. There was a specific way to do it.

The Pandora database.

While most guilds had their own knowledge base, including techniques and strategies, mankind had united enough to form a single, unified list of creatures. She knew the genus names of most dokkaebis she was facing because of extracts from Pandora. It was updated and managed by Gestalt, an Austrian A-class information broker for the good of all mankind.

It was also rather restricted.

Fortunately, she knew someone who had access to it. She had to try, but later. First, there was the question of tonight's raid. She had food preservation bags, a cooler. She was ready and eager.