Changeling

3.7

3.7

Right, so, she was a prisoner here. She could break through but there was one power she knew she needed, had needed, and now there was an opportunity to get it. Nestra sat down on the ground and rested her back against a commode as old as her mom. She closed her eyes and focused. It was a familiar exercise, though she’d stopped practicing when it had become clear she didn’t have a core.

Nestra sunk into herself. Soon, she was in her mind palace. A quick visit showed she’d gained toxin resistance but little else resilience wise. Possibly a secondary gift from the assassins. What interested her were the spheres orbiting over the still shallow pool of mana.

Power was still her strongest asset, closely followed by speed. She noticed that every sphere pulsed now. They were also slightly larger and higher in the sky, fed by the death energies of her victims. She counted seven in total. Each represented an attribute: power, celerity, resilience which covered regeneration apparently, awareness, mind speed, and two basic attributes of magic: control and generation. Interestingly, mana reserves were represented by the pool of water under her feet. It was fine, that was just an image in her mind. What interested her was the bond between them and the new one she felt was ready.

While binding power and celerity had led to momentum and celerity and awareness had led to precision, the ability she needed now the most was… traversal. It was an integral part of how she would survive in this walled city where locks and bars ruled to protect mankind. Or what was left of it. With a smile, Nestra linked her awareness with mana control for what she knew was an inborn gray demon ability.

Nestra placed her hand against the wall. It was cold and unyielding, a concrete pillar holding the structure together. And then, it was not. Or rather, Nestra was no longer so unyielding, but swimming through a different substrate of reality.

And then she was outside. It was like pushing through a membrane.

She would call it passe-muraille. The walker-through-walls. Now she could avoid cameras and walls. Demon Nestra was going to get her first outing soon enough. The only thing she needed was a target.

She put on her mask and walked back to her bike and her burner phone, which had seventeen missed calls. From Gorge. The latest was from five minutes before.

He picked up before the phone could ring.

“What’s going on?”

“Shit, you don’t owe me anything and all but… it’s about the spear you sold.”

“What about it?”

“The… the buyer. They want to talk to you. They have my son.”

“Ooh. Targets.”

“What?”

“When?”

“Right goddamn now. Look, you don’t have to come. But…”

“I’m coming. But I have conditions.”

“Anything.”

“Ok, here is what I need.”

***

Gorge was pale as a ghost. He wasn’t normally half as colorful as his language but this time, the white of his skin betrayed how absolutely terrified he was. His second son sat on the driver’s seat, anxious though he hid it well. The interior of the van smelled of old leather and fresh sweat, the scent titillating human Nestra’s nose in a curious way. A part of her wondered if the benefactor would let her do it. Considering they’d not made their move yet, it seemed she would be allowed to reveal her dual nature to Gorge, at least.

She wondered what would happen if the benefactor just materialized out of thin air to kill them all but it wasn’t like she could let Gorge’s son die, and that was what was at stake here.

“Explain,” she ordered.

“Look, the guy who bought the spear, his pit fighter went mad. He knew it might happen. He made a shit ton of money in the arena thanks to that artifact we sold, but he’s also a cunt who always gets his way. So he got my son wanting to talk to you and… I imagine he wants compensation. Look, this guy, he’s mundane like us. Like me, I mean, but he got gleams working for him. And borg muscle.”

“Aug muscle.”

“For fuck’s sake. Fine. Aug muscle if you insist. Look, those guys…”

“Take and take. Meet in person with him?”

“Yeah. I’m to bring you.”

“Mind if I, ah, make it clear I’m not to be contacted?”

Gorge gave her a measuring look.

“As I said, he’s going to have muscle. If you think you can handle them, sure but… it’s gleams, Nestra, and not the nerdy researchers kind, yeah?”

“Got it. Give me the gear.”

“Here it is. Bodysuit as requested. It can expand too. But, ah, one meter ninety-five? You sure?”

“Mask?”

“Here. It will meld to your features the first time you wear it. Quite costly.”

“Take it off my tab.”

“Get my son out of this and it’s free. And you’ll have my gratitude as well.”

Gorge turned serious. He was sweating.

“I’m serious, Palladian. I may be an old cunt but I respect the deal. You don’t owe me shit. Save my boy and I’ll be on your side till Riel himself crawls back from hell to finish off the dregs.”

“I’ll do what I can. Need to get changed.”

“You, uh, change shape or something? Is that your quirk?”

Nestra smirked.

“The less you know…”

“The better. Off you go, we’re on a schedule.”

Nestra left the van, retreating inside of a deserted section of the abandoned parking lot Gorge had selected for the meeting. This was it. She pulled off her Mask. Her true form appeared.

The skin thing was good but it didn’t cover enough. Yet. Her forearms and calves were exposed, and though her body had proven resilient, her skin was too gray, too strange. Too inhuman. The bodysuit would cover every inch of skin while the mask would completely hide her features save for her eyes and hair. Even the horns would look like part of the design. She put everything on. It felt… stifling. Wrong. But also protective.

Thus anonymous, she walked back into the van.

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“Got glitches on the—”

Gorge’s face made an ‘o’ of surprise. Nestra believed it was the first time she saw the man truly shocked.

“Palladian?”

True Nestra gave him a curt nod, then she sinuously pushed herself into the tiny vehicle. Well, it wasn’t tiny, but it certainly felt cramped now.

“Go on, start the van,” Gorge said without blinking, then after the old thing started moving, he leaned forward.

“Nestra? That really you?”

Was it? Being here, seeing Gorge looking up to her with terror in his eyes and the acrid stench of his sweat, she felt peculiar. Still Nestra, though, so his question was easy to answer. She nodded in assent.

“Holy shit, I can tell why you haven’t revealed yourself yet. Don’t think I’ve seen a gleam with black eyes before. Heard about them though. Shit’s terrifying.”

He breathed out, then had one last look at her. Seeing she hadn’t jumped to tear his throat off, he recovered his focus.

“Ok, alright. Here’s the thing. The client’s name’s Rangi. Islander type. We gonna meet at his dive, a bar he uses as legit business or whatever. It will be past operating time at least. Security-wise, he got a husher type with minor augs, a borged killer with wired reflexes, and two gleams. Don’t know much about them except one of them’s rumored to be a raider and he uses a wand as a weapon.”

Nestra was familiar with wands. Mana could be channeled through them, sending powerful bolts at the enemy. It was a useful sidearm for caster-types operating on low mana. Not sure how good a hired goon would perform though.

“Shouldn’t have anything else defense-wise but there will be cameras and everything. I can’t scramble them without him thinking, you know…”

Nestra dismissed his concerns with a wave.

“Ok, so we’ll be brought before him. Act as you see fit. Rangi’s a smart guy, he will probably cut and run if things get too dicey for him. He’s a businessman smelling an affair. Just, need a reminder. Having gleams at his beck and call might have given him delusions of grandeur so he thinks he can push people around. Dumbass is just asking for it.”

Nestra nodded. She agreed. This Rangi guy was pulling at a rope to see what would drop but it was a shit idea because if the rope provided artifacts, then what would drop would most likely be a pissed off gleam. Gleams did plenty of biz on the side and a lot of it was picked up by monitoring AI but no one ever did anything. Smart people knew it wasn’t worth it, not unless it got really bad. Like human trafficking. Even then, you never dealt with the gleam. You dealt with their boss gleam and you hoped they applied discipline with a firm hand. That Rangi guy was, and she was sorry to say that, courting death. If not by her, by someone else.

It took twenty long minutes for the van to reach its destination. The bar was a nice place at the edge of a busy entertainment zone in twenty-five, a brick building she would have driven by without a care. The van parked at a good distance and Gorge made sure to deploy drones just in case someone decided to nab his other son. Nestra followed Gorge who nervously looked at her every ten steps. It was annoying. They moved around the corner until the back entrance came into view.

A colossal islander stood there with a taut suit that had to be a custom job. Tattoos covered his cheeks and chin, but when he spotted the pair, he made the same ‘o’ as Gorge had done before.

Nestra was starting to think maybe this was a mistake, that she couldn’t pass for human even without showing anything but her eyes and her hair, but she realized what was wrong when she got closer. Gorge had told her the husher was an aug, more specifically, his eyes were augments. He couldn’t see her well because they were glitching. She heard him bumble something into his ear piece, something about a scrambler.

Gorge stopped at a distance, waiting for the signal to go on. The bouncer waited for instructions with a confused frown, his optics searching around Nestra’s location. Eventually, the signal to go in was given and Nestra followed Gorge up a flight of narrow stairs. Cameras followed their progress in the cramped back of the drinking hole. Cans of beer and bottles lined the wall but upstairs, the place was clean and austere. A large security door stood at the end of a hall. Nestra noticed a maglock, reinforced steel and even a manual slit in case electronics failed. The only thing missing was a gun port. It would be easier to go through the walls and she might just do that.

The door opened without a prompt. Gorge came first, then he slid to the side to let her through. There were five people waiting for her in a spacious, cozy office and lounge. A wired goon leaned at the back with his auged arms exposed. Nestra recognized a Brightcorp security construct. Man had a gun in there. There were also two gleams on either side of the main desk, one muscle-bound girl with no affinities yet, and the wand wielder sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, actinic blue eyes following her with morbid fascination. The second to last person was Gorge’s son wearing a shock collar around his throat, near the back. Rangi himself sat enthroned behind the magnificent desk like a king holding court. A nice pseudo-cashmere suit clung to his chiseled physique. He exuded a debonair aura that complimented his cool chin tattoo and the shock collar control resting next to his hand. Very smooth. Nestra immediately hated him.

Nestra’s looted spear rested on a pedestal at the back of the room. Congealed blood still clung to its surface.

All five people displayed various degrees of unease, from concern in the gleams’ eyes to stark terror for Gorge’s kid. The boss was the first to react but Nestra barely heard him. She kept walking forward.

She wasn’t here to negotiate.

“Ah, here you are. I have called here because of issues with your—”

Nestra kept on. Rangi faltered. The gleams moved first, not least because the aug was clearly running diagnostics.

Nestra used momentum to appear between the gleams as they were standing. She struck the muscle girl in the face with an open palm. Her nose crunched painfully. She went flying.

Nestra twisted and kicked the other gleam in the face as he reached for his wand. Electricity coursed through her leg but failed to affect her. He cried in pain and collapsed backward, chair and all. Meanwhile, the first gleam collided with the confused aug just as she’d planned. Nestra took no chances. In three steps she was next to the cyborg. She drew and struck with a mana-coated blade. His severed arm went flying. She used momentum to return to the table, drew her gun, and gently shoved it against Rangi’s forehead.

The aug and muscle gleam pair finished collapsing. The wand gleam landed on the carpet with a shriek of dismay. Rangi gasped, his hand stopping near the collar’s remote.

Nestra leaned forward until the darkness of her eyes met Rangi’s own. She was pretty sure the message was coming across loud and clear. He still didn’t talk. A quick tongue wet his lip while he searched for a solution. Slowly, his goons were picking themselves up. The muscle girl glared at Nestra but the effect was ruined by her blood-soaked face.

Perhaps Nestra should say something? Yes, but why was she so reluctant to do so?

And then it hit her.

For all her little phrases and exclamations of dismay in portal worlds, she’d never really been paying attention to her words. All this time, she hadn’t been speaking English. She’d used that strange tongue the benefactor used to talk to her. And now, she had to use English in her demon form and it felt… wrong. A little demeaning. And besides, her mouth was larger, and not exactly the same shape, and her teeth were too sharp and her tongue too narrow, and this was just, ugh! Frustrating. Bah, had to force herself.

What to say?

Oh, yes.

Nestra’s voice came out with a much lower pitch yet still feminine. It was hers, but more hissy and a little guttural.

“No. Refund. Hssss.”

There.

“I see,” Rangi replied.

He looked around, calculating. Nestra shoved the barrel of her gun a little harder.

“No need! No need for things to go, ah, out of hand. It appears I have… erred in judgment. Forgive me, miss…?”

Nestra declined to introduce herself. She let him know by narrowing her eyes.

“Right. You have been… most clear, I say. I appreciate the show of restraint, yes. I will now reach for the remote to free your friend, if that is alright?”

Nestra took a step back. Without looking, she pointed her sword at the electric gleam who was slowly reaching for his wand.

“Now now, Mr Blue, there is no need to alarm our guest!” Rangi said with a politician’s smile.

“Let us just… put this whole thing behind us, yes? Good. Theeeeere we go. All free.”

“Come, boy. Come here,” Gorge whispered.

His son didn’t have to be asked twice. They left the room, though Nestra heard whispered words of assurance just behind the door. She knew she could get more money but that felt… like it would complicate matters. Better to leave now with the upper hand and her objectives accomplished. There was no need for her to utter more threats. Her appearance and manners spoke for themselves.

Actually, there was one last thing she wanted to try.

As she stepped back towards the entrance still facing the threat, she pointed two fingers towards her eyes, then two towards Rangi who raised his hands in surrender just as his muscles were picking themselves up.

“No need, you have been abundantly clear.”

Nestra left. Gorge returned to serious mode all the way out, with the bouncer giving them a wide berth. They didn’t talk when they climbed into the van, nor during the return trip. Gorge only let go of his son to grab a datasheet when they were parked.

“Right. Tracker check. Covering frequencies now.”

They waited until Gorge was satisfied there were no secret gifts on either them or his kid, then tension left him. He deflated, collapsing against the side of the van with a loud thump. He picked a flask from a side pocket then reconsidered. Only then did his attention return to Nestra.

“Hooooly shit Palladian. I thought you could, I dunno, clear easy portals with a quirky trick but… Riel, you tossed those gleams like they were children. I’ve never seen anything like it. In real life, I mean.”

Nestra didn’t want to talk in demon form. She pointed at her mask, then outside. Gorge nodded and let her go.

It was the first time her human form felt better than the demon one. Truly, that bodysuit constrained her too much.

“Ok, I’m back.”

“You did amazing out there. I owe you. I owe you big time. But I gotta ask. You’re clearly… at gleam level or something. Why? Why not just return to your family and claim your legacy?”

Nestra lifted an eyebrow. Like Gorge couldn’t see the problem?

“No, seriously. You wouldn’t be the only weird gleam in existence. I read just yesterday they’d discovered a sort of void element gleam.”

“Yeah, that’s my sister.”

“But still, I mean, that transformed appearance of yours is scary and no mistake but, you know? You could be who you always wanted to be.”

Nestra had actually not considered this.

If she were to go public, it would be clear that people would have questions and those questions would turn into invasive procedures whether she wanted to or not. It was also clear that some people would figure out she wasn’t human and that would lead to her premature death, so there had never been a real question about coming out. That would be suicide. But what if it were not? What if she could just go back to her family and be welcomed as a weird yet powerful gleam, because Gorge was right, she was very powerful. Even if Rangi’s men were garbage, at least one of them had unlocked an affinity and that took some work, and yet she’d broken them like toys. They hadn’t stood a chance.

What if she could get in the Palladian manor through the grand entrance and be welcomed by her dad? Her mom would hug her and whisper she always believed in her. Ulysses and Helena would exchange barbs over morning bagels. It would be just like old times, before she went to high school, before she was revealed as a cripple. Wouldn’t it be nice to be welcome like that?

No, not really, right? Because it would be tainted by all her memories of being swept under the carpet. Because she would be stopped at every gleam store entrance, glared at in every gleam exclusive restaurant. She’d have to justify her existence at every turn. There would be snide remarks and sideway comments. And she knew. She knew what people thought of the baseline her. The new Nestra wasn’t working harder than the old one. In fact, new Nestra was sleeping quite a lot. No, her effort, personality, the skills she’d worked hard to obtain, none of them mattered as much as having shiny eyes. And even if she could reasonably get in, she wouldn’t fit in.

And that sucked, and the world sucked as well.

“I’m who I’ve always been. That’s it.”

“Well, not like it’s any of my biz. Ok, Palladian. You’re officially my favorite dead fish.”

“Couldn’t hold it back for more than five minutes, huh?”

“I’ll make it up to you. You’ll see. Anyway, drop you off?”

“Nah, I’ll take the whore bike back. Busy day tomorrow.”

“Let me know if you need more goodies for your crusade against Gidung. We can get real spicy if you want.”

“Oh, I will.”

Nestra wanted to leave the family to themselves and she was getting tired anyway. She drove to the Nestra cave as fast as she could. Only when she was back in her own car with the autopilot on did she relax. Her visor had a few alerts so she went over those, with her priority being Stib’s drones embedded in several strategic places of District Fifteen’s hab block. They’d detected movement, a lot of it.

Nestra frowned. It was a hab block. People moved at night, right? It was probably nothing? She selected the first link, the one aiming at the center courtyard and market. There was now a pole sitting in the middle of the deserted place. On that pole sat the decapitated head of chef Old Lin, and under that was a white board with the words ‘Friend of pigs’ written in angular letters.

“Motherfucker.”