Chapter One Hundred - Selkies of the Inner City I rode my bike out to the centre of the city, next to where a long, narrow canal ran. It was one of the half-dozen or so channels feeding into that one natural river slipping through the city. I think it had been there prior to Fortress ENE going up, though it was obvious that some embankments had been built up and reinforced, and several channels and canals (what was the difference?) now dumped rain water and sewage right into the river. The sewage probably explained the perpetual stink around the river. So, the problem now was finding the damned portal. I knew it was along a channel, but not which one. I had a map up, though, as I rode out towards the east-end of the outer city. The plan was simple enough. There were a lot of canals, but only so many where it would be logical to find the portal. The inner-city was right out. It was congested and something like 30% of the population there was a Ranker of some sort. Way, way above the national average. Across the entirety of Fortress ENE, the percentage was a lot closer to something normal. It was just that rankers tended to earn more, and they tended to move into the nicer downtown part of the city. If a portal popped up there, it would be noticed. Already as a new D-ranker, I could kind of feel ambient magic in the air in a way that I couldn't before. It was subtle, like a weird smell, but there. I imagined that C-rankers had it easier. So, that excluded a big chunk of the city. I then decided to start from the east-end, near the shore, and work my way back and around the south-end of the city, mostly because that would eventually bring me home. The first three places I checked were a waste of time. I Reloaded in the early evening and started over, this time while listening to some audiobooks. The twenty-third volume of Lost Dog Swagger was out, and I wanted to find out what the protagonist was gonna blow up this time. I was halfway through by the time I found something promising. It was near the industrial sector, but not in it. The channel was buried under layers of concrete, a large, flat-bottomed artificial passage that usually ran under the road, but which poked out in a few places. There was no easy access to it, but I eventually found a ramp that led down, and rode my bike down into it. That was probably very illegal, but I didn't quite care very much, so whatever. I rode my bike through ankle-high water, and immediately regretted how absolutely soaked my pantlegs were. Another consequence that I wasn't going to suffer through. The channel eventually ran under a large parking garage, of all things, and that's where I found the portal. Or rather, the camp around it. There were some tarps up, and a few small tents, most seeming unoccupied, but some homeless sorts were living out of others. They were higher up, on a flat section above the space where water ran, and right next to a large culvert that was probably being fed by the water coming down from the parking garage above. I sensed the portal almost as soon as I rode near the tents. So, I kicked my bikestand down, got off, and walked over to the culvert. Some old man called out a 'hey!' to me, and gestured for me to move on, but I showed him one of my top-two favourite fingers and went in, pulling out my phone for light. And yeah, there it was, some two dozen meters into the tunnel. A gash in reality. Interestingly enough, there were tables around it, with odds and ends left on them. "Hey, I said," the old homeless man said as he ran after me. "You deaf?" "No, I'm fine," I said as I half-turned towards him. "This the selkie portal?" I asked. He pursed his lips, eyeing me with naked suspicion. He had a piece in his belt, I noticed, but he wasn't reaching for it. "Maybe?" "Just answer me straight," I said. "I'm not here to mess your shit up, I just need to know." "Yeah. Who told ya? That bitch Nan?" "No," I replied. "Just heard that there was some trade going on. How does that work?" "Hmph," he said. "Ya go in, and there's some weird monsters, all wet and shit, like sirens but not. You leave stuff out, don't piss 'em off, and they'll trade ya. Food for food, stuff for stuff and the like." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "Interesting," I said. "What sorta stuff?" There was a wobble from the portal, and I fixed my attention forwards again just as two younger guys stepped out. One was a chubby little white boy, and next to him was a more latin-looking guy with some muscle on him. They were both struggling with... baskets? Yeah, those were baskets. Like in some old movie or something. They were filled with some junk that I couldn't quite identify. Wooden bits and bobs. They both walked over, only pausing to stare a little. "Hey, who's this?" the taller of the two asked with a nod in my direction. "Iunno," the old man said. "City inspector," I deadpanned, and then let them have a good look at me in my old ripped-up jeans and hoody. They laughed, which at least diffused things a little. "Nah, but seriously. I felt the portal around here. I decided to come and see what was going on." "Felt it?" the shorter guy asked. "You a ranker?" "And you're not?" I asked. "Brave to go in there without being one." "We're both E," his taller friend said. "And we're armed, yeah?" He shifted his hip, showing off the gun in a nice leather holster by his side. It didn't look all that impressive, unfortunately, just some little 9-mil piece everyone off the street could pick up for a week's pay. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NovelHub(.)net "Alright," I said. "Well, whatever. That portal's about to breach." "Nah," he said. "How'd you know that? The selkies in there ain't bad." "Sure," I replied. "But the portal's already showing signs of destabilization, and I don't care how nice they are, they won't be as nice once they start leaving,." There was some common knowledge out there that said that nothing that came from a portal was friendly. Now, I wasn't super taken with listening to common sense. So far, it seemed to me like most common sense was wrong in some way or another. Not always in big ways, but usually in some way. If the media always told people that portals were dangerous, then it was probably true for ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, which was more cases than the average citizen was ever going to run into. Maybe this was the exception. "Got any pics of these selkies?" I asked. The shorter guy set his basket down. "Yeah, got a selfie with one of them. They're kinda hot, ya know?" "Monster fucker," he friend said, only to jump back to avoid a kick a moment later. The boy showed me a pic taken on his phone. He was in it, of course, smiling like a moron, and next to him was a monster. I... kinda saw what he did. She was humanoid, with pale grey-hued skin and large black eyes. Her hair came down in larger strands, all stuck together. It reminded me a little of something like seaweed, only a dark brown. Her chest was bared, and... yep, those were tiddies alright. Below that, however, her hips expanded into a long seal-like tail covered in some sort of fur, it was grey and brown and kind of mottled. The angle made size hard to tell, but she looked larger than the boy, which didn't mean much when he was like, five-two. "Huh, alright," I said. "And they're friendly?" "Sorta," the boy said as he stuffed his phone away. "If you don't touch them. They'll leave items out, and you can place stuff. If they like it, they take it, and you can take their stuff. Trick is, they'll take any old junk." Right, that was some uneven trade then. The stuff in the basket looked a little primitive, but not all bad. It might've had some sort of magic going on. "I think I'll pop in, then, see what's what," I replied. "Y'all don't mind?" "You're not gonna pop it, right?" the taller latino guy asked. "Nah. Not even armed," I said. I could always come back properly armed, though. For now, the threat seemed pretty low, but I wasn't so sure it would stay that way. There had been a breach tomorrow, and it didn't sound like the selkie had come out to trade and pop over to the local corner store for a pack of cigs and a beer.