Chương 125: CDM 3, Chapter 1: First to Market [+ Recap]

Recap: The agency assigning Dorion to the drone-based gate monitoring initiative RAID wasn't what he expected post-internship enforcement to be. Though he still had field assignments, more and more of his time was spent behind the monitors of the RAID control center, ensuring that drones were positioned properly and that rules about civilian privacy were followed. The work was dull, but it was novel, and some of his coworkers believed that being associated with a pilot program that early was good for their careers.

The work may have been less interesting than Dorion hoped for, but being on RAID gave him a front-row seat for major moments in crawling history. He was part of busting a black market player for unreported dungeon harvests. He connected with the EPA to identify potential monster nests with RAID footage. He worked an S-ranked gate, giving him a behind-the-scenes view of how government agencies managed the whole of the event, from securing the site to deploying military-backed researchers.

The S-ranked gate ended in tragedy, and the nonstop coverage and discussion of Martin Kielar and George Baker–the former was believed to have killed Beth's boyfriend Jonathan, and the latter threatened Dorion directly–wore on Beth and Dorion's morale. The Baker Bill was passed, charges against Baker were dropped, and Dorion's hope that someone in Kielar's family would have a conscience earned him several veiled threats from crawlers who were more powerful than him in every way.

As settlement efforts ramped up in South America, for a country Rick Young called "New Eden," Dorion grappled with his relationship with his parents and the church. At work, settlers started claiming culling spots usually reserved for CDM, and his parents revealed that they intended to follow Young to the promised land, forcing Dorion and Beth to decide whether or not they should give their parents a final conversation, potentially the last they would ever have.

Outside of the office, the Dungeon Divas channel reached new heights of popularity and profitability. Their proximity to the ghost salamander discovery put the Divas at the center of global discussion about the true threat of wild monsters, fueling growing concerns that the problem was far worse than anyone official has been willing to admit.

Goblin, troll, and bugbear nests surfaced in strange places–like the middle of cities–and the Divas discovered the first documented case of an Earth human contracting lycanthropy. The Diva's willingness to take on big, unusual hunts earned them the attention of the energy drink brand Nad-Nade, flying them across the globe to level with elite boosters in mainland China. They met Leonard Resmith, billionaire owner of Bluewater Security, on that trip.

He regaled them with predictions about interdimensional travel and theories on the steady increase in gate difficulty. By the end of Book 2, that difficulty curve is named "Stage 2" as more of the world recognizes the challenges such a development poses to the human race. The Bluewater leveling trip also exposed Dorion to what Resmith's people called "natives"–people who had managed to survive on a continent overrun with monsters.

Dorion and company knew such people existed, but their experience in the wilds of China left them with the feeling that these people were more common and more organized than the broader world knew or admitted. The booster hunting party narrowly escaped an ambush on their way out of a gate, and Dorion's escorts timed their exit so that they couldn't be followed, leaving the locals inside when the dungeon closed. That left Dorion conflicted about what was right or wrong in those circumstances.

That feeling worsened when Megan discovered that someone deleted their footage of encountering locals in China. Somewhere between the Bluewater boat and their return to the United States, any footage of seeing or discussing people living in China disappeared. Dorion got to revisit that memory when a gate that registered as a D on scans had a bloodlocked door and a B-ranked environment populated by B-ranked monsters.

Having run that gate previously with boosters, Dorion concocted a plan that got most of the party out alive, but only barely. While he was on leave for the incident, the city hosted a memorial for the victims of the S-ranked gate tragedy. Dorion watched live–along with millions of other people–as an arrow from a voidwood bow killed Martin Kielar mid-speech. The ensuing investigation discovered the bad blood between Dorion and Kielar, and law enforcement came for him in the night.

With a search history full of suspicious topics like poisons and explosives, Dorion feared he could be railroaded into being found guilty, but a solid alibi and a McDouglas-supplied attorney pulled him from the flames. Book 2 ended with Dorion regifting a multiclass to Megan and pitching McDouglas on letting him apply for new wild-monster-hunting jobs opening in the CDM.

To prove he could handle himself on wild hunts, Dorion revealed that he was one of the Dungeon Divas and, therefore, had a proven track record of success in the wilds. CDM 3, Chapter 1: First to Market"He seemed like a typical crazy old guy," Nathan said.

"I still can't imagine him tearing apart a live cow." Nathan and I sat on the first floor of our guild house. Someday, this would be the headquarters for the Dungeon Divas, but right now it was a giant one-room apartment with bare concrete floors and dusty brick walls. We had a still frame of Freddy up on the screen. We interviewed him as part of our research for a werewolf hunt we did a little ways back. He lived in a trailer park nearby and greeted us in his boxers and carrying a shotgun.

Like Nathan had said then, the guy was clearly not all there. He was confused and forgot who we were and what we were talking about halfway through our conversation. He did have a noticeable number of jagged scars up and down his arms, but he openly told us he used to be a crawler, so the injuries made sense at the time. Learning he was a werewolf later made it seem as if it should have been obvious to us at the time, but no Earth human had ever contracted lycanthropy. Freddy being a werewolf wasn't possible.

Wasn't supposed to be possible.

"You okay with all this?" Nathan asked.

"With what?"

"You and Megan killed him. A dude. A guy. That's not messing you up?"

"I'm not stoked about it, but I killed a werewolf doing werewolf shit. I didn't show up at his trailer and beat him with a tire iron."

"Oh, dude. I agree with you. It's just super weird." I refreshed my feed and scrolled for new posts. We had been doing this for the last couple hours, starting from when news broke that the first-ever case of lycanthropy infecting an Earth human had been confirmed. The Dungeon Diva's video of the hunt was attached to the coverage, so our channel was tangled up with the Internet's reaction. That was great for views, but it also meant riding waves that we couldn't predict or anticipate.

With the story having taken on a life of its own, all we could do was hang on for the ride. So far the most interesting theory we read was that the Dungeon Divas faked the entire thing, and Freddy was a victim in our scheme. But I had just discovered another contender: "This thread says we aren't considering the possibility that this is a dungeon werewolf that adapted to living on Earth." Nathan took a drink of his beer as he thought.

"That's ruled out by DNA, right? The whole confirmation that it was an Earth human eliminated the possibility it was from a dungeon."

"Correct, but aliens living among us is still a go-to conspiracy cornerstone."

"True. True. It's a classic." Human-like monsters weren't uncommon, but in the case of werewolves or vampires, they were human in looks only. The monster behavior didn't go away even if they were in captivity, and no attempts to communicate with these types of monsters had ever yielded results. They were bloodthirsty beasts, and no amount of time in a lab ever changed that.

One of those adapting to Earth would have greater implications than the other way around, in my mind, but that was another thing that was supposed to be impossible. Martin Kielar's assassination continued to dominate headlines and to feed conspiracy theories, but the absence of suspects had begun to sound implausible to the general public, not just the fringe.

Therefore, any unusual developments, like the first documented case of communicable lycanthropy, were stories planted to cover up the truth about Kielar's death by drawing attention to something else. Nathan asked, "How many Kielar distraction posts are we up to?"

"My count is 73."

"Lil' Dorion is up to 96," Nathan replied, tapping the stuffed dire guinea pig next to him on the couch. The police had cut his side open during their search of our apartment, and Nathan stitched it back together with pink yarn.

"How long until the feds come looking for the Dungeon Divas?" Nathan asked.

"We've been connected to three scenes with human victims, one ghost salamander, and now Freddy the werewolf. I almost don't want to decorate because they'll trash this place too eventually." Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"I'm working on that," I answered.

"We're going to be fine."

"Can't say I expected secret agent Dorion to be a thing, but alright. I'll trust in the plan."

"Let's not go as far as to call it a 'plan.'""Alright. Alright. Want another beer?"

"Sure." Nathan went to the back of the building. When he returned, he handed me a bottle.

"You know, she told me immediately," he said.

"So I don't know why you haven't brought it up. It's not a secret."

"Megan's multiclass?"

"No, I'm talking about a different half-million-dollar gift."

"I'm not hiding it. I don't see what there is to talk about."

"I can't think of anyone I've ever met who would get their hands on something like that and then turn around and give it away." I twisted the cap off the bottle.

"I wish I could have done it in secret."

"What are you talking about?"

"Frank called me one day. He was worried about Beth, and I told him Jonathan was missing. He knew she wouldn't take time off, so he told her a story about having to close the shop for a few days so she wouldn't have a choice but to take a break."

"Okay…"

"Until now, I was the only person other than Frank who knew this happened. He didn't want to be a character in that story or to receive a bunch of gratitude. He cared more about doing something nice than getting credit for it."

"So you wish I didn't know that you gave that to Megan."

"I wish she didn't know either," I said.

"I don't want the attention, man. It makes me uncomfortable."

"It's not like you filmed it for YouTube or something.""'Be careful that you don't do your charitable giving before men, to be seen by them, or else you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Therefore, when you do merciful deeds, don't sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men.'""Haven't heard you quote a Bible verse in a long time," Nathan said.

"And Megan knowing the dude who handed her a multiclass is pretty different from blowing a trumpet for yourself."

"Can we change the subject?" Nathan raised his hands and leaned back. He picked up the remote and started to scroll through livestreams. My phone buzzed. Beth sent a text to the Dungeon Divas group chat that said,"We have four requests for interviews about the Backyard Werewolf and three new sponsorship offers. Will everyone be at the guild house tonight? We should talk about this." I replied, "Megan and I have a meeting at work tomorrow. Can we circle up on this after?"

"The conversation we are about to have is highly irregular," Enforcer Chapman said. Megan and I sat across from her and Enforcer McDouglas in a windowless conference room. His polo was buttercream yellow today. Chapman continued.

"Enforcer McDouglas came to me with a proposition. At first, it sounded like he wanted to poach two of my people, but we have actually ended up with a few interesting ideas. Now both of you have expressed interest in applying to be a Stage 2 Rapid Dungeon Surge Response Agent, correct?" Megan and I nodded. That was a newly opened CDM position devoted to addressing "the rising risks of dungeon surges and ongoing challenges with wild monsters appearing in or near residential areas."

That sounded like the exact kind of job I wanted, and when I showed it to Megan, she agreed.

"DC hasn't decided what part of the organization will own this initiative officially. For now, Directors at the state level will make that decision. That might sound strange, but this isn't a full-time position. In law enforcement, many times SWAT team members are on call. When there isn't an emergency, they work more standard roles. That's going to be the case here as well." McDouglas leaned in.

"So no matter what, these Stage 2 positions are likely to be spread across the agency. I wanted to make a play for field enforcement to own this, but Chapman wasn't thrilled about me trying to pull you two off of RAID, so I proposed we keep you there.

"Enforcer Gray once pointed out that our drone system could help us find wild monsters in the process of monitoring gates. Chapman likes the idea, and so do I. When we ran it up the chain, it turned out this use of RAID was on a distant roadmap for the project, but we don't want to wait. Part 1 of our proposal is to keep you two on RAID but with a wild monster focus. You would still kill monsters, but we are assuming that drone tech will play a big role in supporting on-the-ground efforts."

"Any objections so far?" Chapman asked. Megan and I looked at one another and shook our heads.

"Good," Chapman said.

"Now, McDouglas has trusted my discretion and made me aware of your work as Dungeon Divas. You're not in trouble, and we aren't sharing this revelation with anyone else in the agency. Instead, we see an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of our efforts.

"The Chestnut Ridge Goblin Nest, the Hill District Troll, the Backyard Werewolf–in reviewing these cases, it's apparent to us why other government teams stopped investigating, and if those cases were under our purview, we would be subject to similar guidelines. We would have terminated those investigations as well."

"There's a small precedent for hiring private citizens to hunt invasive species," McDouglas added.

"The Dungeon Divas would continue as an independent entity and could pick up any case that we think has merit but falls short of justifying government resources. Your secret stays a secret, and we get another option for killing wild monsters."

"So like the troll, a fuzzy doorbell cam video might not be enough for a full CDM hunt, but the Divas could pick it up and run with it?" Megan asked. Chapman and McDouglas nodded. Megan frowned.

"What's the catch?"

"We can pay a bounty for a kill, but otherwise, these are not sanctioned CDM hunts," Chapman answered.

"The monster bounty idea was something the CDM tried in the early days, but they caught too many people letting goblin nests get big so they could make more money. In one case, they were breeding the goblins themselves. We will never admit that we are feeding intel to private contractors, and you can never represent yourselves as CDM when on one of these hunts."

"For example," McDouglas added, "An official CDM hunt would have the full support of RAID for its duration. The Divas would be on their own."

"But we get paid for succeeding," I said.

"Correct," Chapman replied. Megan turned to me.

"I'm still not seeing why we would say no to this."

"You won't be in charge of CDM hunts," McDouglas said.

"You two have skills, but you're still green. When you're hunting as CDM, you have to follow orders and protocol. Someday, you'll lead hunts, but not for a while. When you're so used to doing whatever you want to do, suddenly having a commanding officer can be a painful adjustment. Switching mindsets like that can be hard for people sometimes, so be prepared for that." Chapman nodded.

"You have time to think about this too. We haven't brought the idea to Director Akinwale for approval yet. Go talk it through and let us know what you decide by the end of the week."

"That sounds perfect, doesn't it?" Beth asked. The four of us were back in the basement, sharing a pizza. We had finished answering interview questions as the Dungeon Divas–agreeing to written interviews only. They weren't as interesting as I hoped, and most of the inquiries were simple variations of "What was it like to kill a werewolf who was human?" One of the interviewers asked for bikini photos from the Taiwan trip, and I kind of respected their directness. Kind of.

All of the dick pics our inbox received were also very direct, so maybe that wasn't a quality to admire. At any rate, we had moved on to discussing doing wild hunts for the CDM.

"It might not seem like it, but it gives the government a controlling interest in the Divas," Nathan said.

"Connecting that bridge could mean the CDM, or whoever, expects a say in how we run the channel." I nodded.

"That door would be really tough to close again."

"Dude, I already made a bridge metaphor. Why are you switching to doors all willy nilly?"

"Do we think there's a risk of leads running dry?" Megan asked.

"That to me is the biggest advantage with this deal. We'd have access to all kinds of tips."

"Leads haven't been a problem since the EPA started detailing their Sites of Concern," I said.

"Tim, Domonkos, the troll, the mines… We did all of that ourselves."

"Banning #2 Mine used RAID sightings," Megan corrected.

"Ah. Yes. You're right. And that's our second most watched video behind the exploding trolls."

"Hard to compete with an explosion," Nathan mused.

"The Hill District Troll also had a RAID component, actually," I admitted as I thought my own argument through. I couldn't say that the Hill District Troll or the Banning #2 Mine were totally independent successes. Megan leaned forward.

"I think we all like the idea of having the resources and support, but we are worried about losing control of our baby. Is that right?" We nodded. Nathan frowned and turned to me.

"Dor, can I ask you a really blunt question?"

"What?"

"Do you want to step away from what you've got rolling with the CDM? I know you can't talk about it, but bro, you seem pretty invested. Like, I looked up the lawyer who bailed you out. She's a fucking powerhouse. No way that was standard enforcer treatment."

"Would that be bad?"

"Not at all. I'm saying that should be part of our consideration here. I'd understand it. You're a long-haul kind of guy, and I would get you wanting to see something through."

"Same," Beth said as Megan nodded.

"What if I didn't want to step away?" I asked.

"That would be a good reason for us to try this CDM deal," Megan answered.

"The risk of hitching the wagon to the CDM is still there-" Nathan glared. Megan rolled her eyes.

"The risk of connecting our bridge to the CDM is still there, but if seeing where things go with the CDM is important to you, that's all I need to know. I'd vote that way." Beth and Nathan nodded as well.

"If it turns into me holding the Divas back, I would want to address it rather than let it continue," I said.

"We know," Megan replied.

"None of us are worried about that." I choked back a few tears.

"Thanks, guys."