Chapter Forty-Nine - Rubber Boots

Chapter Forty-Nine - Rubber Boots I arrived at work excited for the portal we were supposed to hit. It was just another E-ranker, but that would mean a bit more progress, a few points more on my potentiometer and a little more magic and practice tackling portals. Eldur greeted me when I arrived, then gave me a small stack of bagged-up clothes. "Put these on. I'd suggest not wearing anything to care about into this one. There are rubber boots in the lockers as well." "Uh, okay," I said. The bagged up clothes turned out to be these one-piece coveralls. They had a zipper down the front and covered everything from the neck down like one big body glove, there was even a hood with laces to tighten it up. I wasn't liking where this was going. I stripped down to my undies, then found one of the suits that was nearest to my size. It was a little baggy, but I supposed that was fine. My padded knee guards and greaves fit over the suit, as did the metal bracers and elbow pads I had. Then I shrugged into my plate carrier and tightened the hood so that my face was just an oval. I probably looked like a mil-spec marshmallow. I wasn't the only one. Dharti and Terry both got geared up the same way, with the only exception being Terry's mechanical arm which she awkwardly put on through a cut sleeve in the suit. I helped her, wrapping duct-tape around and around her bicep just a little above the connection-point. "I hate this portal," she said. "No one's told me what's in it, except that it stinks," I said. That wasn't entirely true. I think I knew which one we were heading to, from past... future experience. Terry made a face. "It's an E-rank portal that pops up like, once every two weeks. It's basically this disgusting sulfur mine." I nodded. That was the one. I'd been in it as an E-ranker, wearing a suit that wasn't too different. Luna Corp actually made a lot from this one recurring portal contract. It had large pools of sulfurous water and raw chunks of almost pure sulfur. The monsters were... also somewhat valuable. "Alright, let's go," I said. We finished gearing up. Handguns, some assault rifles, spare ammo. I noticed that favourite guns were left behind for this one, but I only had the one Myalis Arms Feline9 to work with at the moment. Then we were given gas-masks with rebreathers. There was a complex filter thing that fit into one of the larger pouches of our standardized plate carriers and which had a tube that ran up to a mask with a full-face covering. The angular glass front actually afforded an alright range of vision, so that was nice. Squad B loaded up into one of those vans, and then we were off. This portal was in the outer industrial district, ironically about twenty minutes by car away from the spot where Ojou had been held. The space was already guarded by some company E-rankers and normal folk when we arrived, and there were trucks waiting to pick up the stuff we liberated from the portal. We did a last gear-check, and then went in. It wasn't a complicated or particularly dangerous portal. The monsters within were... not fun, but also not that hard to take out. They were basically something like a cross between a skunk and a chimp. Small, bipedal, with a long tail, and multiple 'spitting' glands in their necks that allowed them to spray a mildly caustic 'juice' at anything within a few paces. It, of course, smelled like warmed over sewer water. Even with the mask and the filters, I was able to get a good whiff of it, and it made my gorge rise. Awful, but I could deal. The others handled it with various levels of tolerance. I was happy to see that the women dealt with it better. Sol and Erde both looked like the blood had drained from their faces at the stink. We shot our way through the first dozen rooms at lightning speed, sometimes literally when Eldur let Terry off the leash so that we could get it over with faster. It only took three hours to clear the portal. The boss was a bigger, larger version of those skunk-monkeys and it went down to a hail of gunfire. I didn't envy the E-rankers who had to get in there and extract the bodies, and I envied the poor fools who had to dissect those bodies for the stink glands even less. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from novelhall. Support the author by reading it there. If I recalled, there were several rare organic compounds in those glands that were worth their weight in gold even if they could outcompete a sewage treatment plant for stench.Some pharmaceutical purpose that I couldn't guess at. Plus, they were technically magic. Humans, at least anyone below B-rank, didn't have 'magic' as part of their bodies. We could absorb it, somewhat, and it made us better, faster, tougher, but that was it. Some monsters in portal worlds, however, had biology that straight up used magic for different things. The stink glands was one of those. I hated to think about it, but every time I ate one of those magic replenishing pills, there was likely some small fraction of that which was minced up monster guts. Anyway, we were made to stand outside next to a repurposed water truck and an employee hosed us down. The stink wasn't chemically harmful, just socially so. Then, as a group, we tossed our gear into big bags for a deep cleaning, and got undressed and redressed into company uniforms. The hose-down wasn't enough. The moment I had my suit off (and it was a little embarrassing to be in my underthings before the others, but we were all being very adult about it... Eldur didn't wear underwear, which I wasn't ready to discover and would never mention aloud) I was hit by a lingering stink that the masks had covered. It was awful. Still, our work was done, bonus pay was on its way, and we rode a van all the way back to HQ. That little post-portal buzz elevated the mood a lot, I think. I imagined that even the more experienced members felt it, a small, electrical thrill, like downing three coffees and then going for a jog. It was a good feeling. We made it to HQ, had a quick and unnecessary debrief, and then Eldur said that we weren't supposed to head home early, but that he sure wasn't going to be paying attention to what we were doing for the next hour and a bit left to the day. I took the hint. It was nice to walk into my apartment at four-something instead of five. Not too different, but still nice. So, I took a shower, then a longer, second shower, then padded around in nothing but sweatpants before I set a fresh Save. Time to have some fun, get some training in, and maybe do a bit of self-improvement. I started with the guitar. The strings I'd ordered had come in, and I fumbled around to replace them, then tuned it up before going right back to practicing. I really needed to practice in a 'real' timeline because the lack of callouses on my fingers was growing annoying. I was just finishing up, growing a little tired of playing after a few hours when I noticed something. There was a letter on the table next to my bed. I froze. It was a pale pink envelope, one that had small engravings pressed into it. Not some standard letter that one bought in bulk. When had that gotten there? I set the guitar down on my bed and moved over to it, then flipped it over. To Deadline. It was one line, in a neat script on the front. I Reloaded. The letter wasn't there. "Fuck," I said. Staring at the space where it had been did nothing. This time, when I got changed, I put a shirt on. I tried to chill out, but the letter's appearance nagged at me. An hour of doing not much later and I jumped as I caught motion from the corner of my eye. The letter was back. This time sitting next to my laptop, where it would be impossible to miss. Same fancy envelope, same font. I checked the time. It was eight thirty in the PM. How had that happened? I Reloaded, put a protesting Mister Couchtop into a cat carrier, and was out of them. By eight thirty in that loop I was in a cheap motel, signed for with a very obviously fake name an hour's drive away from my apartment. The letter was on the motel bed. "Fuck!" I snapped before Reloading. Someone knew where I was. No. They knew where I'd be, regardless of what I did in the loops. Teleportation? Some sort of spell to locate a person? How were they doing it? I chewed on a nail.... This time, I supposed I could go through the trouble of opening the damned thing. ***