Chương 100: CDM 2, Chapter 36: Strategic Investment

We didn't kill every goblin in the nest in that initial battle. We know that several fled, using the tunnels farthest from our position to make an escape, and we found over two dozen still inside the mines when Kimmy went in to search. They were soaked with river water and shivered in huddle masses. They saw the drone watching them, but they didn't have the strength to go after it. They died a few minutes later. When Nathan brought Kimmy back, he said, "Let's get all this stuff on the trucks.

I'll feel better when it's all officially returned."

"Are you going to explain all of this to me now?" I asked through my radio. I sat in the bed of the pickup with Megan and Beth, all of us exhausted.

"Most of the big machinery you see on construction sites is rented, so that's all I did. I rented it."

"You ducked me about cost earlier. Are you ducking it now?"

"I may have had to dip into the money I got from my mom, but we'll make that back."

"What?!"

"That's why I didn't tell you," Nathan replied.

"I knew you would worry."

"That was your house money. It was your money. Not ours."

"I think it was a smart investment. Besides, we're returning all of the equipment in good shape. Letting goblins ruin it would have been really expensive."

"What would you have done then?"

"Left the country probably." I wanted to be angry about the risks he had taken, but we came through it okay. His plan, as absurd as it was, worked.

"Where did this idea even come from?" I asked.

"We got ground hornets in our yard every summer. My mom would stick a hose in them to drown them all. My uncle used gasoline, and that was more effective, but I couldn't afford that much gasoline. I settled for river water instead."

"You're crazy."

"I'm crazy? Are we forgetting that Megan went police state with a hose just a minute ago? That was not a part of my plan at all, and it was bad ass."

"Aw, my man is so sweet," Megan replied.

"That was a lot of fun," Beth said.

"When does my heart stop beating like this?" Megan shrugged.

"Sometime tomorrow. It takes a minute to come down."

"It feels awesome." We all laughed. Nathan rode back to the city with one of his construction buddies. They had no sense of the battle we just had, save for the goblin blood all over Megan, and we didn't explain ourselves. Nathan wanted to keep as much of this event under wraps as he could, but that seemed silly to me. As soon as the video was online, they would know everything about the event they contributed to. But this was Nathan's plan, so we went with it. He got back to the apartment late in the afternoon.

Megan and Beth had enough time to go to their place and shower while Nathan dealt with all of the equipment. We were all in the living room waiting for him.

"No issues returning the equipment," he said.

"I watched them inspect it to be sure, and the techs signed off on it. No damages or other charges." That was a relief. Nathan still wouldn't tell me exactly how much all of those rentals cost, but a few internet searches and some envelope math suggested he likely spent $20, 000 or more, which made me ill. That was his money. Not our money. His mom left that to help him get ahead in life, not to fund a wild YouTube video. But it was done.

Nathan continued, "I know we talked about going out to celebrate, but could we order in instead? Now that I'm in the door, I don't want to leave."

"I like that better, actually," Beth replied. Megan and I nodded that we agreed. Food and drink at a restaurant sounded great a few hours ago, but I had no desire whatsoever to get off the couch now that I was in its sweet, comforting embrace.

"We'll order," Megan said.

"Go ahead and shower." That evening felt like old times, the four of us in our tiny living room eating chicken wings, drinking beer, and watching dumb television shows. At one point in the night, I looked around at my family. Beth hung upside down off the side of the couch, insisting that she felt less drunk in that position while Megan scolded Nathan for leaving too much meat on his chicken wings.

Nathan argued that sucking the scraps of meat off the bone felt too much like sucking on a finger, so he couldn't do it. This was what I wanted for my life. This sense of peace and this sense of belonging. Back on the yacht, Leonard was flabbergasted that we couldn't think of new and elaborate ways to spend our money, but in that moment, I thought he might be able to understand. If he were here, if he felt what I felt, he would see that true contentment couldn't be bought.

It had to be made, and it took multiple people coming together to make it possible. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Enforcer Cortez was back at work the next morning.

"Welcome back," I said.

"Hope you're feeling alright."

"It's good to be back, brother. I got a big email from Chapman that we were detailed to investigation. You're supposed to tell me what to do." I frowned. I didn't mind briefing or training Cortez, but I would have expected that someone like Dempson or Chapman would have taken that responsibility. My perspective on the case wasn't exactly high-level. Cortez seemed unimpressed when I explained our task–watch hours and hours of drone footage and hope we catch something–but he didn't complain.

I was moving onto the titanboa footage, so I asked him to look at the next most likely material on my list: nightmare moth wings. And I need to pause here and voice something that has bothered me ever since I was a kid.

"Nightmare moth" was a dumb-as-shit name because the monster was quite obviously a butterfly. We shouldn't even need to discuss this. The difference is obvious, but anytime I try to be the change I want to see in the world and call it a nightmare butterfly, people look at me like I'm the idiot. It's a fucking butterfly. Read a book. At any rate, nightmare moths used their wing powder to put enemies to sleep. Then a follow-up spell created the bad dreams.

Due to their potency, nightmare moth wings were treated like controlled substances. They were ingredients in expensive medications, and they were popular among recreational drug users. Supposedly, it was really easy to lucid dream if nightmare butterfly wings put you to sleep.

"I always figured this was simple underreporting rather than anything elaborate," Cortez said after a while of silent footage review.

"Why sneak it out of the gate when you can just fudge the count a little bit? The dungeons with scarabs usually have what, 15 or 20 of them? If you carry out 20 but only report 17, I don't think that would be easy to notice."

"But we do truck counts. We confirm that's not happening."

"We can't count every truck, and fudging that paperwork can't be that difficult. I know our process tries to prevent that, but come on. You don't think you could figure out how to get the inspector to count and confirm 20 but the number that actually hits the books is 17?"

"Investigator Dempson might be interested to hear that theory. Even if they've already thought of it, it sounds like you'd have an idea of where to look." Cortez chuckled.

"That's a hell no. I'm keeping my head down. Bringing up something like that gets me assigned to days of reading spreadsheets. Drone footage is boring enough as it is." A string of sick days. Deflecting when someone asks about that time off. Wanting to not attract attention. And previous statements about wanting to change careers. That sure sounded like he was quitting the CDM to me. I was a little hurt that he wouldn't tell me, his partner, that he intended to leave. At the same time, though, I understood.

He had to protect his own interests, and we weren't exactly best friends. I just hoped he took our current task seriously. I never saw him as someone who would coast to the end of a two-week notice, but I also didn't want his apathy to torpedo my opportunity.

"I have to ask you something," Cortez said after another hour and a half of us scrubbing through video files. My heart clenched. I hated when people started a conversation that way.

"Yeah?"

"Did you meet the Dungeon Divas?" I blinked.

"What?"

"Did you meet the Dungeon Divas? I saw ads for a show where they go hunt in the wilds. They flew into Taiwan, just like you. It took me seeing the promos to put that together, though."

"We didn't meet the Dungeon Divas." And when did these ads start to air? I figured Chrissy would give us a heads up about that. They must also have an air date locked in, which was also still unknown to us. Megan had a lot of video to edit, and it was important we dropped the Banning #2 Mine video at the height of Nad-Nade's promotion of the show. She planned to be done by the day after tomorrow, so we were probably fine. Regardless, I hated not knowing what was going on. Cortez leaned in.

"Were they there, though?" I shrugged.

"We got the impression that a lot of influencers came through there. They could have been."

"If you're lying because you're under NDA, itch your left eye."

"That's not fair. Saying that makes my eye itchy. I'm serious, though. If I had something to share, I would share it. Where did you see these ads?"

"Instagram."

"Ah, I see." Cortez froze and slowly spun his chair to face me.

"You know the Dungeon Divas."

"Huh?"

"You know the Dungeon Divas. They're from Pittsburgh, supposedly. You and Megan suddenly get whisked away to the other side of the planet? They have to have invited you."

"You think Megan is a Dungeon Diva?" I asked. Cortez laughed.

"Osheski is tough as hell, but she's way smaller than the brawler in the Divas." His eyes widened and his mouth dropped.

"The Divas got you your bow too, didn't they? Damn. That makes so much sense. You've been holding out on me this whole time."

"Sorry, man. Your theory is wrong."

"Are any of them single? Have you seen the chick who flies the drone?"

"I'm getting back to work," I said. Shaking his head, Cortez sighed.

"Holding out on me like this… That's low. You have a chance to make a guy's dreams come true, and all you have to do is admit you know them. And then introduce me, of course." I laughed.

"Like I said, your theory is wrong."

"Sure, sure." Three more CDM drones were shot down that day, but none of those were from the Pittsburgh program. When Chapman made the announcement to those of us in the RAID room, she finished by asking that we give her detailed daily updates. Until then, we had only produced a list of the files we logged that day. We sent those to Dempson and CCed Chapman. What she envisioned was something more narrative that reflected the depth of our investigation. Neither Cortez nor I could figure out exactly what that meant.

What was there to say if everything was normal? Yes, I watched 47 hours of footage for this one harvest site. I observed people doing stuff, the same kind of stuff we see harvesters do every day. The sun went up. The sun went down. Did she want a blow-by-blow of all the site movements, down to the man? I tried to get Cortez to go and ask her, but that would violate his head-down policy. Chapman had seemed especially irritable, so I wasn't keen on venturing into her office myself either.

Cortez left at the end of his shift. I stayed later to get through more footage. Before I logged off, I sent Chapman a bulleted list of "major" harvest site movement, like crawlers entered, crawlers exited, monster retrievers went in, miners went in, etc. I hoped that would be enough. On my way up the stairs to my apartment, my phone buzzed. My mom had sent me a text message. I stood in the stairwell, staring at that notification. For the first time, I didn't feel like I was obligated to open it.

Not now, and not in the future. Instead, I ignored it and wasn't sure that I'd ever go back to see what it said.