Citizen Tales 4 – Delivering (Patreon)

Jereshesh was in a phenomenal mood.

This was, de-facto, a daily affair. About one and a half years ago, he had lived in a homeless enclave by Liberty State Park. That was, as chance would have it, the place John Newman first expanded to from his then humble Guild Hall.

The enclave had been majorly improved by the Gamer’s efforts and consequently forsaken when he cleaned up the whole city and made living in the more populated areas feasible. Jereshesh still sometimes ran into people from that place. Some of them maintained it as some sort of cultural marker.

Jereshesh had found a different way to get by. Once the Hudson Barrier had been established and the ferrying industry could be taken out of the hands of the Fateweaver monopoly, he had swiftly found a few buddies, gotten a boat running, and started the first competition business. The effects had been mediocre, to tell the truth. Five people with a fishing boat could not quite compete with several Fateweavers with proper ferries that had connections to the owner of the Guild Hall.

One of Jereshesh’s business partners eventually took the reins and restructured their business to be more flexible. Rather than just ferry people from and to the Guild Hall, they would be the ‘water taxis’ of the Guild Hall. That was where the money was at. They exchanged their one boat for a number of smaller vessels and were since making a killing. By now, their biggest issue was that others had copied the idea. Still, for now, they were the biggest name in town.

Jereshesh still preferred doing the ferrying job over sitting in an office. Sure, the climatized rooms were nice and all of that. As a fishman, he was much happier in and around water, though. His skin did not feel right when he didn’t get some contact with moisture on the regular.

His new job was going well, he got to swim a lot in the crystal-clear water of the Hudson, and he was safe. All around, Jereshesh was in a good mood every day.

“Keep the rest,” the latest passenger on his boat told Jereshesh, after handing over three whole Tokens. That was the reason for his absolutely phenomenal mood today. Not only was there a metric tonne of customers, they were also all so generous. He was making an absolute killing, just swimming around.

“Thank you.” Jereshesh waved, half his body submerged in the shallow water. Pulling the harness he used to pull the boat over his head, the fishman got on land. Water swiftly dripped from his thick skin. It had a marine blue colour, the kind that let sharks stay hidden until they were ready to bite. His front side was notably paler. Although he was fit, the blubber hid the definition of his muscles and the particular, hairless texture of his skin made it dry quite quickly under the sun.

Sitting down on the shore, he reached into the thoroughly soaked bag and pulled out the smartphone that had been designed specifically with his job in mind. That being said, having webbing between his fingers was a hindrance when it came to typing. He used his index finger, rather than his thumb, for comfort reasons.

All he needed to do was to check if there was any other passenger around.

The system they got working was fairly simple. Everyone who wanted to work for them just had to install their app. All ferry requests were summarized on an interactive map and every request could be claimed by anyone at any time. The colour of the markers all over the place indicated how long someone had been waiting.

Jereshesh had two reasonable choices, one that was close and another further away, who had been waiting for five minutes longer. His personal code of honour obligated him to go with the latter option. Pressing the confirmation button, Jereshesh put the phone into the bag again, made sure the belt was tightly attached to his pants (the only article of clothing he was wearing) and then hopped back into the water.

He took hold of the harness, slung it around his shoulders, held onto the bar at the front and then dragged the boat off the shore. The gills around his neck widened as they took over for his lungs for breathing. The water rushed around his bald head, as he picked up speed. He dove deeper. A translucent membrane protected his eyes from the saltwater.

The Hudson was so clean, Jereshesh could still not believe it. He recalled this river as a place that was filthy no matter where one opened an Illusion Barrier. A couple of metres had been the absolute best in terms of visibility in the brackish brown water. Now he could practically see from shore to shore, so clean was the water. The river floor was covered in marine life that had been carefully cultivated, with lots of cute fish and only the occasional, non-harmful predator to keep the balance of the ecosystem going.

Jereshesh loved watching all of that and he loved that he could get his dinner down there whenever he was so inclined. Unlike the weak stomachs of humans, he was perfectly fine with eating raw fish five times a day. Certainly cut down on the food expenses. Other fishmen had the same idea, which may become a problem down the line. Jereshesh enjoyed it while the getting was good.

Without checking his phone, Jereshesh emerged. A couple of blinks, and the translucent membrane retreated, leaving his eyes completely clear. By the shore waited a group of four, three men, one woman, all gazing with interest at him. “Did you ask for a ferry?” he asked. Judging by the interest on their faces, they must have been tourists.

“Yeah, we’d like to get to… the redlight district.”

‘I guess they are that young,’ Jereshesh thought, his mouth maintaining a content smile. “To the Bae Circle? I can do that. Just one moment.” The harness was tossed into the boat. The fishman got onto land, then climbed into the back of his boat. Cranking a large handle caused the mana engine to activate. “Alright, hop on in,” he invited, one hand on the steer.

“Not going to pull us there?” one of the guys asked, and stepped on board.

“I could, but it’s a bit far.” Once every passenger was seated, Jereshesh carefully manoeuvred them off the shore. The speed picked up after they hit the open waters. Busy as the last few days had been, the Hudson was vast and traffic generally not an issue one needed to be concerned with. Especially when one was using such a small vessel. Despite the speed, the engine only hummed trivially. “First time in the Hudson Barrier?”

“Yeah,” one of the guys, the same guy that had asked the initial question, confirmed. It appeared he was the talker of the group. “We came for the festival.”

“Where’re you from?”

“I guess they call it Pacificia these days. Still kinda weird.”

“Not a state name that rolls of the tongue,” Jereshesh agreed. “Like, in the Pacific Ocean, the last c is a k sound, in Pacificia it’s a z sound. Pretty confusing.”

“There’s worse names though.”

“Definitely less creative ones. I mean, you are in the Hudson Barrier.” Jereshesh cackled and turned his head, spotting something he knew well by this point. “You in a hurry?” he asked.

“Are we?” the question was directed at the guy’s friends, who let out a series of denials. “Why you ask?”

“Lemme show you something interesting!” Jereshesh went off course. Taking a sharp turn right, he held towards the Guild Hall. Approaching it via high-speed vessel really elevated the physical distortion that was taking place. The group of friends rubbed their eyes and blinked in confusion, trying to comprehend why the Guild Hall wasn’t really getting any closer. It was a ten-kilometre-wide space sitting inside a ten-kilometre-wide space, without actually influencing the width of the Hudson River.

What Jereshesh really wanted to show off was another entity en-route to the Guild Hall. Glowing gold in the waters, a ten-metre-long crocodile swam with its back above the surface of the mostly still waters. A group of about two dozen people were standing and sitting all over the glowing scales. A silver eye looked at Jereshesh’s approaching boat.

Turning sharp yet again, Jereshesh hailed Stirwin with a single quick beep of his siren. A massive tail cut through the surface of the water, sending drops flying everywhere. After waving, it slammed back into the water, creating notable waves behind the ferry as the fishman steered it back towards their destination.

“What is that?” one of the passengers asked, excited.

“That’s the sage crocodile Stirwin,” Jereshesh responded. “Surprised you haven’t heard of him. Lots of people come here to get his advice. He’s also the light elemental of the president and the entity that ended the whole Death Zone conflict, if you believe the rumours.”

“He’s huge!”

“You think that’s huge?” Jereshesh laughed. “Did you catch the earthquake this afternoon? Because our first Patron Goddess had a kerfuffle with her brother. That was scary, I tell you!”

“That’s what that was? Wow, the capital is… impressive.”

“It’s usually not that eventful,” Jereshesh told her. “Although I wouldn’t recommend living here if you aren’t ready for some oddities around.”

“Or if you can’t stomach seeing John Newman fuck on every surface,” one of the guys threw a joke in there that made all of them laugh.

Jereshesh chuckled along and then shrugged when the conversation quieted down. “Actually, far as I hear, he keeps the public sex to a minimum. You could probably catch him with his pants down if you were filming his roof or something like that. Wouldn’t recommend it though; the Sentinels remove anyone caught filming the Palace from the premises. Anyway,” Jereshesh pointed ahead, “that’s the redlight district.”

The day was slowly advancing towards its end. In the dimming orange of the slowly setting sun, the redlight district looked barely different from the surrounding areas. A large road encircled it, fencing it off, and confined the perversions allowed there into the area. That was the balance their lustful leader had struck between his own stance on sexual liberty and the need for a city where one could raise a family without outsized worry.

Jereshesh aimed for a green strip by the coast. While the general layout of the Hudson Barrier resembled that of New York, enough time had passed that there were large and notable differences both in terms of infrastructure and the look of the place. Mages had gotten busy everywhere, whether that was in private or public capacity, and the amount of decorative green had vastly scaled up.

Since this was a relatively small vessel, Jereshesh needed shallows to allow his passengers to get off, preferably the kind that let him get all the way to land. People that got wet feet were typically unhappy about the service. Jereshesh knew all the proper spots.

“Thanks for getting us here,” the young man that had said the most said. “How much do we owe you?”

“That would be three Medium Tokens, five Minor.” Jereshesh loved the new currency. In dollars, he would have needed to ask for something like three-hundred (prices in the Abyss had been horribly inflated for a while). Slashing all the numbers with the coins had made his life a lot easier. ‘Would be nice if we got paper currency too.’

Jereshesh soon found himself four Medium Tokens richer. The exact values of a Token was determined by the exact elemental metal used for it. Pleased, Jereshesh found he had been given a new electric blue coin. That would make a fine addition to his collection. Between the various metals and the different minting marks, there was so much to collect.

“Any recommendations of a place to visit?” the guy asked, while his friends already walked away.

The fishman stood in his boat, ready to throw the harness back into the water, and hummed. Personally, he did not visit any of the establishments around these parts. Paying for the sexual was not something he was comfortable with and he was out of that age anyway. Still, as a ferryman that often worked during the night, he heard this and that. “I hear the Little Whirl is the best strip club in town, but it will probably be packed. I recommend you stay to the north side of the district and just scour around there. Newer places, so less of an established customer base, typically.”

The guy thanked Jereshesh for the tip and went on his way.

Taking back to the water, the fishman worked for the rest of the Sunday.