Chapter Three - Mundanity No More

I did the groceries, which felt, somehow, rather surreal in its mundanity.

Still, I needed to refill my fridge. I could vaguely recall that I was nearly broke, but that had been before landing the interview at Luna Corp as an E-ranker guard. If I passed through the same test again, I'd have the advantage of (distant, half-remembered) foreknowledge, and the much larger advantage that came with being a D-ranker.

At the local grocers, where there were six cashier booths and only two of them were manned, I got to see that advantage play out in real time. Everybody lined up in one long row, taxing the poor twenty-something behind the counter to move faster.

One person walked into the second line. A man, looking like he was in his early thirties. He had the wide stance and musculature of an Olympic athlete and the casual boredom of a frequent-flyer who knew only first class.

He flashed a little card at the free counter and the young woman behind it hastened to scan through his order. It wasn't even much, just a few simple things. They even called in a bagger to stow his things for him and thanked him profusely.

A D-ranker, treated like lesser nobility.

That was, in a way, the price to pay. D-rankers and above put their lives on the line to keep the city safe. They were the last line of defence. At least, on paper.

In reality, only a fraction of them worked as delvers or combatants.

But the risk wasn't worth the possibility of antagonising them. A C-ranker was scary, actually worthy of respect, and so someone only a step away was given some of that respect as a matter of course.

It was patently unfair in some ways, and everyone knew it, even the D-rankers.

We did it anyway.

It was better than having someone go through a meltdown.

Anyway. As a newly fledged maybe D-ranker myself, I wasn't about to complain. I'd pass my tests, get the neat little card at the same time, and then see about my future prospects.

Two days.

Well, more like one and a half.

As I walked back home, I checked my accounts and winced. I had all of six hundred dollars to my name after buying enough food for a couple of days. That wasn't much.

Still, I had a very exploitable way to make money now, and secured prospects. Bigger corps had hundreds, maybe thousands of D-rankers working for them, but they didn't usually say 'no' to more.

My concern with money was only as important as my concern with being able to earn enough to outfit myself and become stronger. My plans for the moment were vague, but there was no plan that required me to be weak.

So, seeing that, I decided to put my time to good use.

On arriving home, I put my food away, then took a deep breath and pulled the Save trigger.

I felt it click into place. Then I triggered Reload, just to be sure, and yeah, I was still standing in the same spot.

I didn't bring my physical condition back with me. At least, I didn't think so. Maybe some magical effects would linger? My gut said that wasn't the case. So, I brought back knowledge and knowledge only.

But that didn't mean that it had to only be mental knowledge that I brought back. I looked at one of the walls of my apartment.

I wasn't one for interior decorating. I'd only been here for half a year so far, and most of my furniture was picked up here and there. My room looked like the vision of a poor woman's best attempt turned wrong.

I... had to admit that I'd grown fond of a certain image. The laid back punk aesthetic just called to me. My rebellious phase was running at an all-time high when I came to Fortress ENE, and part of me wanted to be part of that subculture.

I dressed it, at least, and my apartment was decorated in it as well. My walls were covered in band posters, held in place by sticky-tape. Some techno, a lot of punk-rockers. A... a lot of women, standing on a stage, holding a guitar, or a keytar, or just a mic, and looking sweaty and mean and kind of hot.

There were posters of a few MMA fighters that I liked as well. A few of some Brazilian capoeira fighters. Also a bit sweaty.

Look, I had a type and a passion for being bad at martial arts.

When working for Luna Corp, there had been a 'dojo' not too far from the corporate headquarters that had served as a training space and gym. It was open to the public, and most of the clients were just locals, but a few employees went there. It was just conveniently placed, and low-level delvers had a lot to gain from exercise and keeping fit.

I'd only ever gone there a few times, myself, but it might be worth returning.

If I could take a few, safe, classes, then it could be a clever way to improve. They had martial arts instructors there. Mostly Jiu-Jitsu, if memory served. It wouldn't hurt to learn the theory, even if I never gained muscle memory.

I had an idea, and it wasn't a good one.

I retriggered my Save point, then got down to doing something I hated.

Research.

The Breach wasn't random. It didn't just happen. Someone had made it happen. Carefully. Deliberately. And someone was making a killing off of it.

Problem was, I wasn't high enough up the food chain to know who. Not officially. But rumours? Those were everywhere.

I'd started compiling names. The list was rough, incomplete, but it gave me a direction.

Fortress ENE was home to over a hundred guilds and at least twenty corporations, all of them circling the portals like vultures. Some were massive. Resource-rich, politically connected. Dangerous.

The Seraphs, for instance, were practically a military unit, fielding six B-rankers and two As. Serious muscle. The Chatterjacks didn't have anyone above a C, but they had a reputation for getting things done. Echo Nine was a corporate outfit and they were elite. If you had the money, you hired them. Midnight Tea Garden was a wildcard. Only four in the whole guild, but two of them were A-rankers. Heavy hitters.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Then there were the corporations. Orchic Lux specialized in high-end products made from portal-sourced materials. Real boutique, high-price stuff. SynthCorp LLC started small, but their synthetic replicas of portal finds were undercutting everyone. They were expanding fast. And Redline Global? They were everywhere. Tech, weapons, logistics, even food. If it turned a profit, they had a hand in it.

One of them had to be behind the Breach. Maybe more than one. Someone had something to gain.

I needed to be strong enough to both learn who that was, and take them on.

The main way most D-rankers and above grew more powerful was through exercising their magical abilities and by spending time in and around portals.

Portals were what Luna Corp was all about. A lot of my time with them had been spent guarding random lots where a portal had been closed, in case it reopened.

And as it happened, I could remember where one had appeared.

It had happened the day after I was recruited. I came into the local HQ only to see everyone feeling down. A portal had opened the night prior in a civilian zone, well within Luna Corp's jurisdiction, but another delver team had 'sniped' the portal overnight. Luna Corp had been too slow to respond.

We'd ended up having to guard the site for a month.

I knew the place well, though not so much the portal itself or its contents.

So... that portal was going to open... in two days. The night after I joined up. And I knew its opening location.

Information worth gold, but I wanted that portal to myself. It would be the whetstone that I'd sharpen myself against.

And I knew exactly how wild and stupid this plan was. An E-ranked portal took a team of D-rankers to secure and close. Maybe a small team of C-rankers, or a strong solo C-ranker could do it, but no corp or guild sent people in like that.

The risks weren't worth it.

If humanity was good at one thing, it was finding the most optimal, safest way to handle something. Portals were lethally dangerous, which was to say that one in a hundred portal closures ended with a fatality.

That sounded small, but it was massive. The kind of fatality rate that just wasn't sustainable in most cases. Humanity rarely suffered jobs that dangerous for long, not outside of times of war or crisis or natural disasters.

If I did what I was planning on doing, I'd be heading into that level of danger alone, hours before someone else showed up.

It was... kind of stupid, but I had to grow stronger. If I didn't, I'd regret it, I just knew.

My core churned for a moment, and I realized that I was standing in my apartment, staring at nothing for a while.

"Christ," I said before shaking my head. That was ten minutes lost... until it wasn't anymore, and I found myself half a step back and ten minutes prior.

I got changed in a hurry.

One strange side-effect of this new power was that I was acting 'faster.' Thinking time was time that I rewound. So when I did choose to act, it was quick and immediate.

I found some old gym clothes in my tiny wardrobe, stuff that I hadn't worn since my last work-out phase a few months ago.

Very tight spandex shorts that... might have been a little tighter now than they'd once been (when was the last time I did a squat?) a sports bra, and a loose T-shirt. Then, because I wasn't insane, I pulled up some loose cargo pants over the shorts and grabbed a hoodie too.

I paused, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror for just a moment. The woman in the reflection was me. A slightly younger, slightly less stress-aged me, with older cyberware.

I touched my cheeks where there had been twin lines for under-skin wiring before which were now gone.

Right, never had that installed, huh? And I'd gotten some dermal-plating as well, a month and a half or so before the big breach. Just thin, flexible plates of some sort of bio-organic titanium weave under the skin to cover vital organs without disturbing the look of me too much. I had plates on the small of my back, under my breasts, and along the sides of my neck and even along my inner-thighs.

All gone. Which was too bad, that had been an expensive set of mods, and was probably still something I'd want, even as a D-ranker. A lot of folks at Luna Corp had similar.

I wasn't too much of a looker, though I could pretty up nicely, if I tried. Medium-length black hair that I didn't tend to enough, a pretty-enough face, big eyes that were--my eyes were different.

The colour had gone from a pale green to a sort of blue-green. Huh?

No, wait, no. That was normal. An expression of magic, I think. I tried not to let it get to me. The new eyes weren't too far from my old ones. It was fine. Becoming a D-ranker would come with changes.

Like... second puberty.

I sniffed, then turned towards the door.

Might as well jog to the bus, then to the gym itself. It would burn a few more calories.

And if I wanted a snack, I could set a Save right before indulging myself, then Reload once I was done eating.

Yay for small victories!

I took off, then ditched the 'jog all the way there' plan about a block away. Maybe once I was in better shape?

The run... and walk... did give me some time to think. If I was going to barge into a portal that I had no right to enter, then I'd need to do it equipped for the job, and with my identity hidden.

That would mean looking like someone entirely different. My Luna Corp job had come with some equipment, but I didn't have that, and wouldn't have it in time for the work either.

So, I needed gear, and I needed it on a sub-six hundred dollar budget within the next day.

I sighed as I climbed into a waiting bus. It was just one complication atop another, wasn't it?

Gym first, then I could see about finding gear and supplies for a quick bit of illegal diving.

***