by Daniel Ruth
I groaned. I was a terrible flyer. At my best flying speed, it would take me almost two days to get to land. I had the endurance but I am not sure I had the patience. None the less, I didn't have many options.
I formed wings at my back and rose into the air. I wish I could say gracefully... but I wasn't. If it wasn't for the float spell, I definitely would have landed in the drink several times. In the past when I went flying, I would use a dragon form or a bird shape. Why the heck would I choose a man with wings? People are about as aerodynamic as trash cans. Without any native flying ability, I had to work within the laws of physics. With some minor tweaks from float and levitation.
Despite this, within an hour I had finally gotten the hang of it. Flying high above the sky was incredibly relaxing. While a mortal may have had to worry about their stamina, I could literally fly for days. Just not very fast.
As I went, I killed a bit of time finding thermals and diving towards the ground. A few times I misjudged the distance and smacked into the water at terminal velocity. It didn't really hurt and a Clean spell later I was up in the air lying again. It was a lot of fun.
When night fell, I flew onward. Since the sky was clear I flew as high as the thin air would allow and looked down. Far off to the side, I could see the glow of a ley line. Since the ten worlds all suffered the same fate of overflowing energy gathering into ley lines, they likewise all had these lines crisscrossing the planet.
Flying onward, I checked the terminal to see if the buoys had a chance to map where the ley line went. Since the ley lines were the best and most obvious indicator of where the nodes were and where the portals could be, I had Beth make tracking these a priority.
Unfortunately, it was too soon. All I knew was this ley line went west somewhere. Ley line merging and travel were fairly easy to learn, however, if I merged and traveled along it, I may end up in some random place like Kansas. I checked the map just to make sure Kansas wasn't near New York. Nope. So, I kept flying.
It was evening the next day and I was kind of zoned out, thinking of some possible ward combinations, when I saw a faint shadow indicating land. I descended a bit until I was skimming the water. I didn't want another encounter with the local hero group until I was a bit more entrenched in society.
I got closer and almost felt like kissing my terminal. It had guided me correctly. There were the large twin towers, the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty. They were veritable beacons of hope that guided me towards the promised land.
Then I noticed a discrepancy that had me frowning in consternation. Since when had the Statue of Liberty been missing its head?
Chapter 18
In the darkness, I simply landed on a street near the shore. Checking my terminal, I realized I was on a tiny bit of land called Staten Island. It seemed very suburban with large old houses. This wasn't like the movies Jeremy and I watched at all.
This was actually a bit disappointing. I needed a few things to set up shop here. The first thing was an identity, the second was to change a bit of my gold into worthless paper. Wait. I suppose I need to do things in the opposite order.
"Excuse me," I asked an elderly man walking his dog. "I am looking for a pawn shop. Is there one around here?" The dog sensed something off with me and did its very best to drag his owner away from me, whining as it leaned into the leash.
"This look like Brooklyn?" he asked with a snort.
"Um. No. This looks like Staten Island," I replied. He must have been senile. I understand there were a long of mental illnesses and diseases that hadn't been cured in this time period.
"There you go. If you want a pawn shop you might look in Brooklyn, Manhattan or the Bronx. Not here and definitely not in a suburb."
"None on the island?"
"How the hell would I know? Do I look like I need one?" I eyed him closely. He was dressed casually and even his dog was well groomed. He definitely didn't stink and appeared decently clean.
"To be honest you look like you already used one," and got a good price for his stuff too.
"Bah. Screw you. If you want a pawn shop go look in the yellow pages," he spat as he walked off. The dog practically propelled him away.
Yellow pages. Right. Phone books were a thing. I guess the alien's watch had raised my expectations unreasonably. Now, where was a phone booth? I looked around me again. Residential houses everywhere.
"I can't wait until the buoys tap into the local web and the search function starts to work." GPS without a search function wasn't terribly useful. Staten Island was just a name I had never heard before.
However, now I had a name. Brooklyn. My map had that labeled from the archives Beth stuck in it. It was pretty dark by now, so I reformed my wings and flew up. Wary of various other possible flyers I kept low. I suppose I could have been mistaken for someone doing parkour. Assuming I wasn't flitting from one low house to another.
I had just flown over a small body of water and entered into the city again when I saw a cluster of stores. Finally, a business area. I never thought residential zoning would be my bane. I found an alley and dropped down, hid my wings and was about to step out when I heard a voice.
"Your money," a raspy voice stated. "Now!"
I turned to look behind me. A rather ragged man was pointing a gun at me. I pointed to me as well. "Me?"
"You see any other idiots here?"
"Yes. Yes, I do," I nodded to him. "Did you see me arrive here?"
"Yeah, so what. You can fly. Don't mean you're bulletproof!"
"Great, I was looking for some local currency," I said, ignoring his blabbering. He was obviously an idiot. "Give me your money and I won't hurt you too much."
"Eh, a hero," he snorted. "On the streets, we call heroes dead men!"
His finger moved on the trigger. I was paying close attention to my admittedly unreliable danger sense. It didn't stir. Based on that, I didn't raise my force field. The expected gunshot didn't ring in my ears, instead, a bright flash pierced my eyes and I felt a slight warmth on my face.
"Laser," I asked in surprise, blinking my eyes in mild discomfort. I wasn't expecting that. I was eighty percent sure that was out of place for this time. I looked in my attacker's eyes and pushed down on his brain with a telekinetic touch. The man shrieked in pain, dropped his gun and began rolling on the ground, writhing in agony.
"Hmm, missed," I shook my head as I moved over to the prone man and searched his clothes. I counted fifty bucks, someone else's wallet with someone else's family in the pictures and several credit cards that I was pretty sure didn't belong to him either. Unless his name was Mary or Houston.
I frowned to myself. I couldn't buy much with fifty dollars. I didn't think so at least. I stuck it in my pocket and looked more. He had a second gun. This one was a 'real' gun. With silver bullets.
"What a little boy scout you are," I hummed to myself. "So prepared. So busy. If you actually got all this tonight you must do this a lot."
I put the laser gun and the traditional gun in my pouch. Then I put my foot on his arm carefully stepped down until I heard a cracking sound. Then I stepped on his other arm and repeated my action. While I couldn't take him to the police at the moment, I could make sure he didn't attack anyone for a few days. Maybe a few weeks depending on the state of medicine.
Then I walked out into the lamplight. To me, it didn't matter how dark it was, but obviously the people of the city cared. Out on the street, I started to see a lot of people. All focused on their destinations and ignoring the people around them.
I imitated the culture and ignored them as I looked around for a phone booth. I did find them. The first one had broken glass on one side, the change box was ripped out and the place I assumed that once had a phone book only had a broken chain.
"Phonebook thieves," I muttered in wonder.
The second one was actually working but had no phone book. They must have been hot properties. In a land where technology was in its infancy perhaps the less fortunate e
ntertained themselves by reading it.
As I was walking the street, getting more and more frustrated I was also entering the more populated areas. Here couples walked hand in hand and I saw what may have been cafes, DVD rental stores, and many liquor stores.
The third phone booth was the charm. I casually tore the book off its chain and took it over to a bus stop bench to read. There were dozens of pawn shops. I limited myself to the ones in Brooklyn and randomly chose a store named Gem Pawnbrokers. Seeing as I only had fifty dollars, I didn't hire a cab. I slipped into another alley and grew my wings. This time I didn't get mugged.
I entered the address into my trusty terminal and followed the tiny arrow it generated. It kept trying to take me along the streets but I still got there in a few minutes. It was closed.
Cursing to myself I looked in the book again. Pawn Rite was my next attempt. They were obviously cleaning the shop and about to close. The sign said it closed at eight. Excellent! It was only seven fifty-five!
I walked in with a smile. The scruffy man at the counter looked up as his assistant, who was sweeping the floor, ignored me.
"Go away, we're closing," he grunted and went back to what he was reading. I glanced at it. Yesterday's newspaper. The headlines were about a meeting taking place in New York. It was for discussions for trade with some aliens called the Balkeez.
That was odd. Diego said that there were aliens here. Starman for one. I didn't think they would be trading partners though.
I reached into my pouch and absently put a handful of gold coins on the counter. He put down the newspaper and picked up a few coins and looked at them in interest.
"Never seen coins like this before," he said skeptically. "You trying to sell this crap as antiques? Cause I call bullshit. This is all minted new."
"No," I replied as reached over and grabbed the newspaper he dropped. I started to read about the aliens. The trade meeting was only one of the articles. The entire newspaper was devoted to the latest alien craze. There was even an article about how crazy the alien mania was. "Just selling the gold based on its weight."
"Pawn or sell," he grunted holding up the tiny gold coins.
"Sell," I said as I turned the pages. The aliens were fairly mysterious. They wore pressure suits, far slimmer and advances than the ones humans wore on the moon, but still pressure suits. Complete cover and mirrored helmet. All voices were digitized and generic. Most of the articles were wild guesses or scientists spouting random theories.
"I don't have an XRF machine," he said as he brought out a scale and beaker of water. "I'll have to damage them a little with acid and a scratch test."
"Melt it for all I care," I said as I flipped the pages again. Starman wouldn't comment on them and also wouldn't stay near them. Yeah, I wasn't the only one that found that behavior worrying. "I just had it formed into gold coins for fun."
"Do you have any proof of ownership?" he asked as he looked at me sideways.
I looked over the newspaper and raised my eyebrow. "No."
"Okay, no problem," he nodded. "I'll record it from an inheritance. It's not much so it shouldn't be an issue. It will take me about an hour to test all this. Matt, lock the door. We'll be staying a bit late, I'll pay you overtime."
"Got it, boss," the man nodded and continued sweeping.
I heard scuffling and shouting outside. Looking out the door I saw several ragged people in poor health pushing one another and shouting curses at the other party.
"Lovely. Bum fight," the counterman muttered. "Matt, lock the door and pull the bars down. I'll be in the back doing a thorough testing. Give me a little time."
The other man nodded and finally put the broom down and went over to the door. He locked the door and reached up to pull a collapsible grating down from the ceiling. I noticed a remarkably shining coating on the metal. A silver coating.
"Is that blessed silver?" I asked as I went over to the metal and tapped it. "Vampire problem?"
He looked at me in disdain. "Gang members."
I recalled that Diego had mentioned that local gangs were various shifters. I was a bit puzzled though. "Silver only causes the wounds of the shifter to heal at a normal rate." I examined the gate again. Unless it had spring-loaded silver spikes integrated into it, I didn't see how it would be that useful.
"So are vampires a thing around here," I asked. I still needed to find a local high priest for Lamia and I did not feel like randomly roaming the sewers. I admit that is a bit biased of me but... yeah, you'll always find vampires in the sewers even if they are the fringe members.
"There no such thing," he said scornfully. I shook my head ruefully. In a world of shifters, superheroes, and aliens he balked at vampires.
"I see," I said and went back to watching the homeless people outside scuffle on the sidewalk. By the time the shopkeep came back out, it had degenerated into weak hairpulling.
"Sixteen thousand," he stated flatly. "One thousand per ounce."
I frowned to myself and looked at my terminal. It still hadn't connected to the local internet so I had no convenient way to check the value of gold.
"Is that one an iWatch," he said as he watched me fiddle with the controls. "Looks like a different brand. You want to sell it?"
"No, just the gold," I replied. "That seems a bit low. How about twelve hundred per ounce." I guessed he would lowball me but without a method to research anything I could only guess.
"Highest I can go is eleven hundred," he reluctantly stated. "You wouldn't get much more at a jeweler's and they are all closed."
I looked at him and he looked at me. After a few seconds, I shrugged. It was only a little bit of gold. "Sure, I'll go for that. Seventeen thousand six hundred. Any tax?"
"Amount greater than 25 oz. of South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs and Mexican Gold Onzas gold need to be reported. These types of gold are considered to be a regulated commodity. Yours isn't," he stated shortly.
"Perfect, I don't suppose you know anyone that can do fake identities?"
Both men looked at me as if I was an idiot. It was a long shot. I sighed. "Forget I said anything." A slight psionic nudge made the hypnotic suggestion stick. Their eyes became unfocused for a moment and then became normal.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"Nothing. I'll take my money now."
"You got it," he said as he counted out the money. He filled out several forms and I gave him some nonsense to fill in. Finally, he asked me for an ID and I picked out a business card from the counter.
"Here is my ID, I think you'll find everything in order," I stated as I nudged his mind slightly. I think Beth had more natural talent at this than I did but I definitely was better than when I was chasing Mei around a few months back.
I finally had my money and Matt let me out front and quickly locked up behind me. I stepped over the remaining prone homeless man and walked towards a nearby alley. I wasn't sure if he had won territory rights or was the loser and left unconscious.
Slipping into the dark I grew my wings and flew off. I needed an identity and to find a few undead leaches. I also wanted to look for a property to lease so I needed to see an agent tomorrow. Of course, I needed an ID first. I could simply take someone else's but aside from not wanting to kill random people I would prefer everything in my own identity.
The vampires could wait. If I ran into one that was fine but I was in no hurry to scurry around the sewers. Unlike Arc's sewers I doubted that they would be very neat. They may be like Gildorn's. The only reason I stepped foot in there was that Beth had been kidnapped. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near them. I shook my head in dismay. The very fact that I knew enough to compare various sewers made me vaguely wonder what had gone wrong with my life.
As for my identity, aside from randomly asking for a forger, I suppose I could find some criminals and ask them. I haven't ever had much luck with that method. They always did something stupid and forced me to hit them. I could absorb someone's memor
ies but there was no guarantee they would have any useful skills.
I was mulling over my options as I flew between the buildings when I heard a large commotion a block over. The area I was in was rundown. The buildings old and streets were narrow. Unsurprisingly, I immediately thought that there may be some illegal activity in the area. What fantastic timing.
Flying towards the noise, I reached the edge of a building that was overseeing the street. As were all the nearby streets, it was barely two lanes. A few dozen young men were gathered in the street brawling. I could tell they were shifters because about half of them were in animal or hybrid shapes.
One of the groups were werewolves and the other one were hyenas. I watched for a moment. Hyenas are actually pretty brutal animals. Except for their weaker rear ends they actually were the stronger animal. They had very strong jaws. Also, in their hybrid form, their weak legs weren't as noticeable. They were using this to good effect on their rival shifters.
Although they had an advantage they still weren't in complete control. The wolves had better coordination and were definitely more agile in all forms. They were also more numerous.
Blood flowed on the streets and several of the members of each gang were down, some missing limbs or fingers. For races with such a vigorous regeneration factor, these were merely flesh wounds. As bad as it looked there were no lethal wounds and the people on the ground dragged themselves to the side as they visibly recovered.
I was contemplating whether to interfere or simply wait until the fight was over and talk to the winners. I was leaning towards the latter when I saw a flash of movement and a small dog ran into the middle of the melee.
I blinked in surprise. Normal animals would rather die than run towards any supernatural creature, let alone over twenty growling, clawing bloody canines of various forms.