Chapter 13

The week ground on. Professional Portal divers had this time between portals to rest and train, while us amateurs down in Beer League are working other jobs, raising kids, planning our retirement, and hoping that we can make it that far.

Janet and I had another ‘revealing’ MeTube show made. The star of the show was definitely the Knights Helm. I tried it on and immediately sounded like Darth Vader, my voice echoing all around me. It gave a defense of ‘armor to the head +3’ but I admitted to struggling to see out of it at all. The vambraces we found on one of the Kings were very similar to the shin guards, in that they protected the forearm and elbow with an ‘armor +1’. They actually looked kinda cool. We showed the Kite Shields and brass machetes also, none of them having any special attributes. We displayed the odd Bucket, along with pithy suggestions of what we could put in it. We eventually got quite rude since we were both about 3 margaritas in by this point.

We did a “bulk” identification and review of oddball stuff that people had sent in, probably because they would rather risk getting the item stolen in the mail than spend a hundred-odd silver to find out that ‘yes, that’s a ballpoint pen, and the only magic it has is that you cannot lose it’. No kidding, that happened. (Oddly the guy ended up selling it through us for 10 silver!). I liked the teacup that wouldn’t tip over or spill your tea... (two drunk women trying this one out on MeTube ended up going viral on the ‘Shorts’ format.)

The purse was cool too. The description read: ‘NeckShoulder holding bag, dig deepest for nearest result!” Even dead drunk, neither of us worked up the nerve to stick our hands in that. I had images of Mary Poppins carpet bag swallowing me whole, never to be seen again.

I had to be driven home after that, the Vivideo driver had a blacked-out Escalade, and was taking three other girls home after a long day of shooting. I tried to avoid thinking about what they’d been doing all day in their own daily grind. I would never have imagined that they’d spend the drive talking about the upcoming election, it’s probable outcome, and domestic interest rates changes that were being pushed around by the current inflationary cycle.

I was the last one to be dropped off. The driver had walked every single woman to her door, and peeked in for a few moments before returning. Glancing at his nametag, I giggled seeing that his name was ‘Barry’.

“They’re not like you expected mam?” He asked, holding the door for me.

“Not at all Barry. Those girls totally shredded my preconceived prejudices.” I answered before thanking him again.

I’d put my pearl ring on as we finished filming. Dave and I had discovered it basically erased the possibility of having a hangover and I also didn’t want to be thinking with my groin like I’d been doing after drinking last week.

I dropped the paperwork that Dave had left for me at the Vivideo offices on the kitchen table. I’d bought a measly 1.3% of his new investment company for damn near all my Silver. Janet had bought in also, but only about 1%. The rest of the team (except Jimmy) had agreed to sell their silver to this same company for cash. I had 3 bankers drafts for them in the pile for them too.

The boys were firing pictures of the boats and trucks they intended to buy back and forth on our WhatsHapp group chat. Like drunken sailors these lads were.

Dave had the kids tonight; he’d leased a two-bedroom Condo for a year right downtown. I’d jokingly called it his ‘slutpad’ and promised myself never to darken its door, but here I was in my own quiet home with nothing but laundry and cleaning to do on a Wednesday night, contemplating driving downtown for a booty call.

I looked at a bottle of wine in my fridge, thought better of it, and instead rolled out my Yoga mat. Selecting MeTube on the TV, I called up a Yogi I’d watched a few times and liked her voice and calm demeanor.

Tired, stretched, and ‘centered’ after 45 min of intense yoga, I had a quick shower and was in bed by 10. Work started early, and I had the kids for the next week. The Grind continued.

Finding myself daydreaming at work, I forced myself to snap out of it. My charge at the moment was a young teen, who admitted herself after having suicidal thoughts. We got one or two of these a week. They usually stayed a couple of weeks before being discharged with follow-up meetings with a psychiatrist. Many of them returned a couple of times, voluntarily or not.

“Aren’t you, like, supposed to be talking to me or something?” She asked as I shook off the doldrums that memories of the aftermath of last weekend’s run got me into. We were walking around the bare gardens, not much to see but I was supposed to be practicing feeling grateful and looking for the beauty in life. It wasn’t easy in the late fall.

“There’s certainly nothing against me speaking with you...” I answered. After many years dealing with these kids, I knew that I could say anything I wanted, they’d hear what they chose to hear.

“Well?” The girl asked, as though I was going to impart wisdom she didn’t want to hear.

“Um, how about ‘Don’t enter a portal alone’ ... it’ll probably kill you.”

There was silence from the little twit.

“Oh yeah, when being chased by a pack of Zombies, yelling and screaming just attracts more. Stay quiet while you run for your life.”

She had no response for that one.

“How about, Ant guards try to swipe your weapon to the side, then lunge at your thigh or waist while your weapon is out of position ... and don’t let giant poisonous spiders surround you...”

I was on a roll here.

“Use protection or you won’t be able to complete University.”

“Don’t marry for beauty or success.”

“Risking your life is also risking the life of your children’s mother.”

“Hold onto your kids with both arms.”

“You’re not very good at this.” said the girl. “I didn’t need that kind of advice.”

“I know,” I sighed...”but I did.”

We (the team) got better with each run. The team worked better together and made less mistakes. Loot was found, silver was divided up and we made off like bandits with the proceeds. The only thing missing was some kind of meaning.

I’ve said before how we were just mercenaries and just here for the cash, but I think most of us wanted more. Jimmy wanted a sword and to become a major player in the industry (at that time). Janet wanted a limited exposure, and a chance to use her skill with identification. The more time I spent around DeMarcus, the more I felt he was just here for Janet.

Tarl and Jude seemed to be the only ones purely motivated by profit. Most men would have an issue being sidelined as ‘Guards’ while the ladies on the team went head-to-head with the enemy. Not these two, they’d smile the whole time knowing that they might never have to fire a shot while earning 50k for an afternoons labor.

I’d already admitted to myself that I wanted more from life than just Portal Diving. It was a means to an end, just a job ... right up to the time the second breakout occurred.

Every portal released 10 of their first level bosses or sub-bosses upon our world one Thursday at midnight. Our countries mandatory ‘Watch’ program meant that many of these portals had someone nearby ready to respond when it happened.

Jimmy was on Watch when our two portals opened. Ten ‘King’ ants and ten Skeleton swordsmen. He wouldn’t stand a chance by himself.

As luck would have it, it was deer season (rifle, not bow) and the woods in the area were crawling with men (and a few women) with scoped high-powered deer rifles actively looking for a target.

A .300 Winchester will make a mess of an ant’s head or torso regardless of who fired it.

The skeletons were another story, however.

Center of mass shots were largely ineffective but the act of being fired upon did split-up the group as they chased down panicked hunters who were expecting stealthy deer, not skeletons clad in armor and wielding huge swords. Few escaped unharmed.

Like others, I was woken up by my phone blaring out an emergency broadcast alarm.

Reading it, it was immediately clear that we were having another breakout. I had no assigned watch or portal muster station (professional portal diving teams had permanently assigned muster stations or government issued phones) so I called May and told her I was locking the kids in the house then got armored up and went looking for trouble.

It didn’t take long to find.

A three-foot-tall armadillo with 6-inch tusks was between me and my car. Using my special skill right off the bat seemed shortsighted so I stepped to the side as he lumbered towards me and levered him over with my staff, skewering his neck with a dull (but pointy) skeleton sword. I didn’t even register that I’d looted the corpse.

Predators of all sorts were prowling the streets, looking for opportunities and soft targets. My second ’interaction’ of the night were three teens trying to break into the local liquor store. I broke a few bones of theirs from a distance, intentionally using a reduced amount of force while staying away from the cameras.

I hadn’t consciously decided to be a vigilante but real people were dying in droves tonight, and these assholes were using the disarray and disorder to loot their neighbor’s property. It simply pissed me off. I paused only long enough to throw a few stones, both physical and metaphorical.

I had a special hatred for the spiders, so when I saw a couple (it later turned out to be four) surrounding a bus shelter with a bunch of people it, I took more action. I managed to get close enough not to need my special sniper skill again, killing two with hard body shots before the rest turned my way. Those inside the shelter who had been beating them back from the doorway with backpacks, canes, umbrellas and briefcases got to watch (and film) me fighting the last one hand-to hand through the clear glass walls. I saw it later online, it looked easier than it felt, but as I had the pearl ring, I knew that they couldn’t kill me anyways.

I killed and looted, as an afterthought looking in on the bus stop crowd. One young man had managed to get bitten and was throwing up, already delirious. “Throw him in the back of my van, I’ll get him to the hospital. The ambulances will be busy tonight.” I said, dispassionately.