2.2

Citizens are reminded that alert drills take place on the last day of each quarter.

Know where your nearest shelter is to your workplace and home.

Remember best practices: Take only yourselves and family members, and no personal property.

Crimes committed during alert drills are subject to escalated charges.

I wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed inside the portal, but it had been on the order of multiple hours. I’d successfully taken down about two dozen of the pig-monsters. Each one had gotten easier because I had a better idea of how they operated, and they didn’t seem to deviate too much from a handful of basic behaviors.

Charge, bite, kick, thrash, and attempt to run you through with tusks. They didn’t seem to have any ranged abilities, which was fortunate. I did find out that they could topple over even mid-sized trees after I had the bright idea of trying to snipe one from an elevated position. That had nearly ended extremely badly. I’d had the foresight to try and secure myself to the tree in the event it tried to knock me down. I hadn’t expected the tree to be the one coming down, and I’d narrowly managed to cut myself free and jump clear before it hit the ground.

Vael had found that really very funny. My ears had been burning for a good fifteen minutes afterward.

I had my first lesson in field dressing. I’d told Vael that I was squeamish about that kind of thing, but she helpfully reminded me that harvesting is as much part of the job of a Diver as clearing is. I was not a fan of the process and had wound up having to take a break to puke my guts out when accidentally cutting into something I wasn’t supposed to. That mistake had also contaminated the carcass. Still, I learned the very basics and made it through doing it five or six times now. I was still slow, but she had assured me that speed was just a matter of practice.

I couldn’t compare to the wizardry she was able to do with a knife. I was also jealous of her catsuit because it seemed to be made from some kind of synthetic polymer that was waterproof. Meanwhile, I was looking more and more like some kind of serial killer and covered in bloodstains.

Some of it was my own blood.

Vael had stuffed her pack full to the point of bursting with slabs of monster meat and hides. She showed me how to use harvesting bags and which bag was for what. Meat bags came sealed and sterile, with special liners and stabilizer packs. Take your chunk of monster that was all cleaned and ready. Spray it with the sprayer bottle. Open the bag and drop it in. Crack the capsule and drop it in with the meat. Seal the bag and wait for the foaming to stop. Attach the little pump to the nozzle and vac-seal it.

It wasn’t really hard or terribly complicated, but I’d felt weird about touching raw meat like that. Most of the protein I’d grown up eating was protein composites that most X-3 residents grew up eating. Fungus, legume & insect were the nutritional bedrock of the layer, and generally came in product form either ready to be added to a dish, or eaten directly.

Vael had been keeping a close eye on me during the Dive and I could feel her eyes on me, judging me against whatever metrics she was evaluating me on. It wasn’t just the fighting; it was everything. Even this breaking down monsters into useful bits.

I’d also learned something new and potentially valuable about myself. Well, about my new anatomy, to be more specific. My tail ended in this sharp, bony, conical spike, and there were the dimples covering the top half of the spike. On the underside were several long ridges that ran the length of the spike. I’d found out what those ridges were. Where seams overlapped and closed tightly enough that they didn’t have visible gaps.

After flubbing the gutting portion of one of the kills and spoiling the meat, Vael still had me practice doing the other carving parts. My tail had been sniffing around the end product of that work. Not literally, it didn’t seem to have nostrils or breathe, but it was the best way I had of describing when it got all nosy and interested in something. The bottom of the spike had popped open, revealing two independently articulated mandibles. The insides were covered in backward-facing teeth like a saw blade.

It proceeded to gobble down a bunch of the cuts of meat I’d been practicing. It wasn’t just snakelike; it seemingly was a snake of sorts, just one with no visible sensory organs and a head that it used to stab things to death. My tail didn’t gorge itself to such an extreme degree as it had when it had drunk the first pig-monster like a slush pouch. It still digested quickly as well, but not nearly as quickly. Digestion took a couple of hours instead of minutes with solid food.

Vael and I were taking a break from Diving currently. She’d told me that we were nearly to the guardian, and if I wanted to rest for a bit, now was the time to do it.

I’d taken her advice. The words of wisdom and training she was giving me were something I was starting to trust more and more. She was still acting… not oddly but differently than what I’d come to expect. More serious, less warm, and much more distant.

She’d started a small fire and cooked up a pair of tenderloins from my last kill. The smell had been mouthwatering, and I’d worked up a pretty ferocious appetite.

I was handed an oversized skewer with my chunk of flame-grilled monster on it after it had a chance to cool. Vael had sprinkled it generously with a seasoning mix, and it smelled amazing, but still, I hesitated.

I had questions. So many of them that had been slowly accumulating throughout the Dive that I was worried I’d lose track of some of them.

“Is this why you pack lightly?” I looked up from my chunk of meat and over to where she sat on the other side of the fire from me. “What do you do if there isn’t anything to eat?”

She’d been about to take a bite, but pulled back to answer me. “It’s one of the reasons, but not the primary reason. You’ll almost always find edible things in a Dive, bringing in food usually only matters in the higher-tier and bigger Dives.”

Vael picked up on my hesitation to eat. “It’s not going to harm you, and I don’t think my cooking is that bad,” she joked.

I swallowed. “It’s not that, it’s just…” I trailed off, then sighed. “I’ve never eaten like actual meat before, and I’m a bit in my head about it.”

She nodded and smiled. “Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

I took a tentative bite. The texture was the first thing that I noticed. It was tender but strangely structured. Mycoprotein and composites were dense but largely uniform. This separated along lines and had a bit of a springy chew to it. The flavor blew up in my mouth like a Molotov hitting the street. Salt, garlic, and peppers rubbed on the outside greeted my palate first, flavors I was all well accustomed to tasting. There were flavorful bits of crunch, and then the fats coated every bit of my mouth and taste buds. There was a sweetness to the savory, and the latter was deeper and more rounded than I was used to.

The grain, smoke, and sweetness, and the way it seems to just fill every part of my mouth with flavor all at the same time. The texture keeps changing while I chew.

I was pretty sure that I had an overall positive impression, if I still needed time to figure out the feel of it in my mouth.

Vael was looking at me expectantly. I swallowed my second bite and cleared my throat. “I think I like it. The flavor is certainly nice. The uh, textures are taking a little for me to get used to.”

She bobbed her head rapidly. “Take your time! We’re in no rush.”

We sat and ate in relative silence, the crackle and pop of the branches and chunks of wood burning being the only sounds other than the ever-present calling of the birds in the trees. When I was nearly done eating, I noticed a group of the tree rodents standing upright on a log nearby, their tails flicking back and forth and their pointy noses wiggling in the air.

I pulled a chunk of my monster meat off the stick and tossed it over to them. Several leapt off the log and proceeded to get into a furious ball of fur wrestling match over the food. One emerged triumphant with cheeks bulging, the others chittering angrily over their loss.

I snickered and tossed several more chunks. Enough that each of them would be able to get some. One scrappy-looking one with most of its tail missing wasn’t able to get a piece, having been totally crowded out by the others. I pulled off a piece of my dinner and held it out between my fingertips in the direction of the creature.

The others shied away when I extended my arm in their direction, but the one I was after crept forward a few steps at a time. It got close and backed off several times. I remained patient and kept the food dangling in place. Eventually, it worked up the nerve and dashed up, snatched the chunk from my fingers with its teeth, and darted off. It climbed a couple meters up the side of a tree and out onto a branch, where it proceeded to pull the food out of its mouth and hold it in its paws to nibble on.

It was cute. I’d felt bad that the others had bullied it out of having a piece. Hunger might have been a powerful motivator, but it had done what the others couldn’t and had braved approaching the glowing-eyed giant to get food.

I tossed my skewer into the fire and folded my arms on my knees. Vael had been watching me, and now was as good of a time as any to get some of what had been on my mind off my substantial chest.

“Vael?”

She stretched her legs out and crossed one ankle over the other, with her back reclined against a stump.

I’d start with the biggest and potentially heaviest question on my mind first.

Our eyes met over the flame and smoke.

“Who are you? I mean…” I frowned and tried to think of a better way of putting it. Tried and failed. “Who are you really? You told me you’re a sex worker in 6-3. You’re a User, but that’s just being Sul’vari, so it’s not special for you all the way it is for us. You run around with a gang heavy, know supply chain people, have contacts at fixer bars, and now this…” I gestured at the portal world around us.

She pursed her lips and folded her hands over her abdomen, but didn’t speak. Just watched me as the silence grew. She seemed to come to a conclusion eventually, though, and moistened her lips before speaking.

“What I told you is the truth, Kiera. I am involved in the world of sex work. Ellen is someone I know from that work. I assume you know that The Peacock Society is the enforcement arm of the sex industry in 6-3. We met when she asked for my help with handling another User who wasn’t wanting to play by the rules.”

“So what?” I challenged her. “You just know all about Diving, how to skin and butcher monsters, and what’s what in a portal world because it’s a hobby, or something? You know what I’m asking here.”

Her tone didn’t shift when she answered, still patient and level. Almost-but-not-quite flat, as it had been since entering. “I was getting there. You have things reversed. I was—am—a professional Diver, I’ve just…” She sighed. “I’ve been on sabbatical for a few years. Doing the odd Dive here and there as needed or when requested by contacts. My day job is a hobby, something to occupy the time and to have fun doing. I do it because I want to, not because I need to.”

The puzzle pieces rearranged in my head and started to fall back into position from where I’d left them partially completed. The picture hadn’t made sense.

The apartment. The career. The way she seemed to be so casual about throwing around money.

Professional divers made disgusting amounts of credits. The upkeep of the job was also quite expensive, so they didn’t tend to be as fabulously wealthy as some of the upper echelon corporates did, but the amount of money that flowed through their accounts was higher. Huge income, slightly less than huge expenditures. When Divers worked in guilds and became more established, they were some of the wealthiest people in the city. That was a big part of the draw for many people. Diving was absurdly dangerous, but you made bank doing it and could retire and live a life of luxury at an early age.

So Vael’s flush with creds. Bored and doing sex work like a hedonistic tomcat. Contacts galore because Diving requires it, and more contacts from the streets. But on a sabbatical for years? I know Sul’vari don’t age like humans do, but that seems wild to me.

“What ah… Are you planning on going back, do you think? Or going to keep doing what you’re doing now?”

She glanced off to the side. The sun was setting, and with the canopy, it was getting fairly dark outside. I could see her eyes as clear as day, though.

I suppose that’s true of me, too, now. I’ll have to try and remember that. Having a User’s eyes…

“I’ve been trying to make up my mind about that for a couple of years now. The family and guild have always assumed that I’d be returning. They haven’t really pressured me, just keep in touch somewhat regularly.”

Her body language told me she wasn’t in her comfort zone. My curiosity about her got the better of me, and I asked despite my brain telling me I was probably pushing the boundaries in doing so.

I tried my best not to sound too pushy when asking her. “Why did you leave? I imagine it had to be pretty significant for you to take an extended break.”

She didn’t answer for several beats. Instead, she turned and looked back over at me, regarding me with an expression I wasn’t able to put a name to. Many things I could pick up on. A spark of anger, a coldness that came across even though her fire-aspect eyes, maybe a wistfulness, too. I saw her chest heave out another sigh, and her face softened.

“You’re lucky that I like you as much as I do, Kiera, because I’d probably have knocked your teeth out for being so pushy otherwise.” She smiled, and the smile finally rose to the set of her eyes.

My face warmed.

“I lost someone I cared about more than anyone else in the world to a Dive. My younger sister. You remind me a lot of her, and that’s great, but also a hard reminder, at times.”

Muscles in my gut clenched upon hearing that. I’d known I was dancing around in a minefield, and I’d gone and stepped straight on top of one.

I lowered my eyes to the embers. “I’m sorry for pushing. I just… You’ve basically got my life in your hands, and I know next to nothing about you, and my paranoia keeps telling me that you’re out for some angle or scheme. That I’m a means to an end and will get chucked aside once it’s met. There was so much that didn’t make sense to me, and was setting off my warning alarms.”

Her voice was soft when she responded. “You’re smart to be wary, and paranoia keeps you alive, but you have to know that it’s also a trap that isolates you, and isolation is the most dangerous state of all to be in.”

Vael stood up, unbuckled her webbing, and stacked it up neatly on top of her pack where she’d just been sitting. She stretched in half a dozen ways, then looked down at me. “We should get some rest, I’m sure you have to be tired.”

I nodded slowly. “I am, yes. Totally exhausted.”

“Kiera?” There was something in her voice as she stood there with her tail lazily flicking back and forth behind her.

“Yeah?”

“Can I sleep with you?”

I did upset her just now. I owe her, even if my nerves are making me fluttery thinking about it.

I swallowed and gave her another nod, but didn’t say anything that was on my mind at the moment.

Coward.

She cleared a space on the ground, added some stuff back to it when she was done for padding, and then pulled out a well-worn-looking tarp-slash-blanket and laid it on top. I moved to take my boots off, but she shook her head.

“You can strip down to your clothing layer, but keep your belt close, and your boots on. It’s best to get in the habit of being prepared to get crashed in the middle of the night.”

I followed her example and stacked up my gear on my bag and brought the belt over to the blanket. Settling down, I got myself comfortable on my side, facing the fire.

She slid in behind me, and the blanket came over both of us a moment later. The evening air was cool and crisp, and the blanket was a welcome addition.

“How do you manage to pack all of this stuff in your bag while keeping it as minimized as it was coming in?”

She chuckled, breath washing over the top of my head. It was fresh and minty from the dental chew she’d been munching on. “You’ll come to realize that the vac-pump is one of the most useful pieces of kit you bring in. Making the most of your carrying capacity isn’t just best practice; it’s also what determines your margins. A skill every Diver has to develop, and who has their own handbook of tips and tricks.”

Her upper arm looped around my waist and pulled me in snugly against her. Her tail slid between my legs a moment later.

Suddenly, it’s quite warm in here.

The tickle of her breath on my scalp and the firm press of her chest against my neck and shoulders lulled me into an easy sleep.

***

My dreams were of family and fighting monsters in the darkness. A mother who cared, but wasn’t around nearly enough. A father with rosy cheeks and a substance problem who left one day and never came back. People with snake heads chasing me down alleys and shooting at me.

I woke up with my head on the best pillow ever. One that was moist with sweat and rose and fell in a steady cadence.

Blinking my eyes and yawning, I looked up and…

Oh.

Vael had her head propped up on her arms and was staring down at me with a shit-eating grin on her face. I’d been full-on nuzzling her tits with my face, and my arms draped around her sides.

“Sleep well?” She asked in an extremely amused tone.

I sputtered and pushed myself upright. “Sorry—I didn’t!” I rubbed my cheeks, which felt like they were in the middle of a nuclear meltdown at the moment.

She chuckled and sat up now that I was awake. “Human culture will never cease being entertaining.”

“Yes,” I answered after I had a chance to catch my breath.

“Hmm?”

“Yes… I slept well. Surprisingly.”

That got a smile out of her. She tossed me a ChocoBrick, which I tore open and started munching on. She pulled out a metal flask and poured in just under a liter of water, then set up two pouches on folding wire stands. The pouches were held open by the frames, and she stuck a funnel with a white pod inside into each.

I watched her hold the flask in her hands, and a few moments later, it was boiling and emitting a plume of steam.

“Ugh. Must be nice having a useful offensive aspect,” I grouched at her.

She stuck her tongue out and winked at me, then poured the boiling water into each of the funnels.

My nostrils were twitching like mad when the aroma of coffee wafted over.

Real coffee. Not the chicory root coffee that was one of the most popular hot drinks in X-3. The real deal, grown from trees on X-1. Expensive, but something one could afford to splurge on every once in a while. The demand had been so great for real coffee that it was traded as a commodity.

Sul’vari didn’t taste things quite the same way that humans did. We shared so much in common that it was more unusual to note the differences than the similarities. Taste was one of the big ones. Their senses were finely-tuned to the presence and sensation of mana. Their horns were dedicated sensory organs for that very purpose, and they had a far, far greater ability to discern mana at both the macro and micro levels than humans did.

Eating our mundane, manaless food meant that human food was considered largely bland and flavorless for them. But not all human food was considered bad. The things that were very strongly flavored were popular. Sul’vari bitter paste was an acquired taste for humans, but a staple condiment for them. We put a light smear on a flatbread, they slathered it on.

Sul’vari were coffee fiends. Their culture had a strong tradition of horticulture and flora cultivation, and they were now the top growers of beans in the city. Only some of it made it off-world for export, the majority was consumed at a feverish pace. Espresso was the most popular way of serving coffee topside, or so I’d heard.

I guess she was living the poor life here, making drip coffee in a portal world. I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain, assuming that the other pouch was intended for me.

I liked coffee. I rarely had it, and usually scratched my caffeine itch with carbonated drinks. It was a bit outside what I’d consider an acceptable price for food and drink. But I was also… pretty cheap when it came to that stuff.

She chuckled at my griping. “You’re not jealous of the fact that I’m a fire aspect, Kiera. You’re jealous of the application of ability. You’ll get your own, as you develop them, and people will covet your ability to do things much more than what I’m capable of doing.”

She offered me coffee. I had to wait for it to cool, but it shouldn’t take long with it being in the pouch. I had to hold it by the frame handle to avoid burning myself.

“You can hold a hundred-degree water in your hands like that without discomfort? Or is it like the chef thing where you just get desensitized to burning yourself?”

She sipped her boiling-hot coffee before answering. “Bodily tempering. You’ll have to work to build tolerance and resistance to environmental extremes. It’ll likely be easier for you than others, with your aspect. Based on what I’ve sensed so far, it seems like tempering will be your first milestone.”

“You told me you were a pro Diver last night. What tier are you?”

Her eyes had a mischievous glint to them as she took another sip of her coffee. “Why don’t you use your senses to probe me and find out?”

I narrowed my gaze. I knew it was a trick question. She laughed at my response.

“You’re masking your tier, trying to probe you wouldn’t tell me anything useful.”

She held up an index claw. “Not true, actually. Suppressing one’s circuit leaves telltale signs, and you can use those signs to determine to what extent it’s been suppressed. Takes practice, though. We’ll get you there soon enough.”

“Will you uh…” I grasped at straws for what term to use when it came to sensing her mana. “Will you show me yours without suppressing it?”

“You want to compare circuits?” Her tone was the teasing I was used to, and she waggled her eyebrows at me.

“Ugh!” I threw a hand up in the air. “Forget it. I wasn’t trying to do some kind of User dick-measuring contest.”

She snickered at me, all toothy grin. “You’d lose, given how you’ve reformed your body.”

I went quiet and looked down into the mud-colored brew in my hands.

I heard the grin fade without having to look up. “...Too far?” She asked.

“I don’t know what any of this means yet,” I mused.

She replied in a softer tone. “I think you do, you’re just not being entirely honest with yourself. But that’s understandable; it’s hard to come to terms with your own personal truths at times. Something we all struggle with.”

I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Under a spotlight neither of us meant to turn on. I steeled my nerves and risked looking at the truth I was avoiding.

I swallowed and touched a fingertip to my coffee. Still a bit too hot. “I um…”

Vael remained silent while I fought to navigate the chaotic eddies of my turbulent emotions.

“Yesterday, going around in the clothing we bought, I felt…” I took a breath. “A sense of joy, contrasted with exposure. Validation when seeing others looking at me, and panic at the fact that they were. Relieved, but also like I have no control over my life and situation.”

“They fit you well,” Vael said, nudging me onward. “Even with some of your more questionable styling decisions.”

Heat crept up my chest, neck, and face. Traces of shame came with the warmth. “When I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt weird, because I saw someone I didn’t recognize, and someone I do recognize, all at the same time. The lack of recognition is uncomfortable, but there’s this… weird sense of pride, too. There’s a girl in the mirror, and she’s really attractive. And that’s me, I’m attractive. I…”

I fought to swallow past the lump in my throat. “I really like the way she looks. Like, a whole lot. I would’ve been head over heels with her before.”

Checking my coffee, it wasn’t burning hot any longer, and I was grateful for the opportunity to take a few big pulls from the pouch and partially hide my face. It was black, with no cream or sugar, but it was still surprisingly good. It wasn’t bitter or acidic the way I’d been expecting.

“Woman,” Vael said.

I looked up at her, more than a little confused.

She was a touch stern-sounding when she resumed speaking. “You keep referring to yourself as a girl, like you’re something unfinished. You’re not, you’re a woman.”

I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t sure what, or that I’d not wind up breaking down and crying if I did. So I nodded instead.

Her smile got a sniff out of me, and the sense of a burdensome weight on my shoulders lessening.

“Kiera, you made yourself into a beautiful woman before you even understood what you were doing. Most Users stumble through basic changes for months. You did it perfectly, by instinct. That’s a remarkable feat.”

She repositioned to sit against my side. I felt her tail on mine, behind us. She took a deep breath and spoke for just the two of us. “When I said you remind me of my sister, that’s a big part of it. It became apparent that she was a prodigy from a young age. She, too was doing things that were far beyond what her level of development should have made possible. She was also remarkable, with a bright—” Her voice caught in her throat.

I rested my head against her shoulder, and she sighed. When her breathing leveled out, I asked her, “You said it was dangerous. Is that what you meant?”

Vael finished the remainder of her coffee and rested her arm on my shoulder.

“Mhm. But it’s more than that. She died of overconfidence born of her talents, and having a sister who helped her because she didn’t want to see her hurt herself. I bear as much blame as anyone, and that’s a mistake I’m not going to make again.”

I reached around behind her back and gave her a side-hug.

“It’s not just the overconfidence. People with innate talent are dangerous because they can do things they don’t fully understand. Mistakes born from ignorance cost lives. Someone thinks they have better control over an explosive blast and dismembers a teammate. Someone else seals a bleeding wound and triggers runaway growth instead of healing. It happens all the time at low tiers, and it rarely gets talked about directly. Only around. Passive voice. Lives were lost in the Dive.”

We sat with that together, two people who had just talked themselves into their own feelings and who needed a moment to find their footing again.

I polished off the last of my coffee, but didn’t move to get up right away. The sun was up, and insects were already buzzing in the forest.

I broke the silence first. “I wish I could have met her before she passed away, Vael. You clearly loved her so much. I can only really relate with my Mom, who passed a few years ago.”

Vael squeezed my shoulder and smiled down at me. “You two would have gotten along pretty well, I think, although I’m not sure you would have survived her appetites,” she said, with a bright laugh.

“What was her name?”

Vael wiped a mirthful tear from her cheek with the back of an index finger. “Her name was Rill’Thir.”

I let it flow from my tongue. Sul’vari names were pretty. “Rill’Thir. I like it. I’ll be sure to remember it.”

Vael gave me a light shake by my shoulder, then stood up and started strapping on gear.

I packed the remainder of the ammunition I’d brought with me into two mags. Just under sixty rounds, evenly distributed across two sticks. I loaded one into my gun and inserted the other into my belt.

“I’ve got a guardian to flatline. I’m really hoping that I don’t die in the fight.”

Vael twirled her staff around in her hands with a smirk on her lips.

I let a sigh slip out. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. This doesn’t run out of ammo, Kiera. This doesn’t cost money to use, Kiera.”

Vael just grinned at me. “Your words, not mine,” she teased.

“You literally said them yesterday!”

She just laughed and pointed into the forest. I could feel it, too. The aura the guardian was emitting. It was time to finish this Dive up. I only had to hope that I didn’t get creased in the process.