Chương 159: CDM 3, Chapter 35: Intern Development

Deadly Dorion, they call him Double Ds because you can't look away from his skill! LOL. The Pampas Plains sound wild. I'm a little offended you came to South America and couldn't be bothered to stop by and visit me, but I'll try to forgive you. You should think about coming to Australia with me in a couple of years. We'll both have the levels, and we only got that one run in, but I think we worked pretty well together. There are a few rumors going around about how the U. N. will let it go down.

One of them is to give up on the idea of clearing the continent. Instead, guilds or crawl teams establish cities that they're in charge of protecting. My abuelo told me stories about how volunteer fire departments repurposed their sirens for monster emergencies in the early days of the gates. No cell phones, so the volunteer fire department would set off this loud-ass horn to tell all the firefighters to hurry down to the station. They did the same thing but for monsters.

Maybe Australia ends up looking something like that since most of it was never really inhabited, even before the gates? Road trips between cities would be hella more interesting in that kind of country. Anyway, I got your parents' info for you. They're up the coast about as far from the hobs as you can get. That attack was a fluke, anyway. Your folks are perfectly safe.

-Cortez the Involuntarily Sober I wasn't thrilled to get that email simply because it involved my parents, but Cortez did a good job of softening the blow with his other ramblings. The Australia he described sounded a bit like de Saint's commentary about walling off cities to guard against wild monsters. Something like that would have to be a necessity if Australia went the city-state route Cortez described.

Cortez talked directly to recruiters to learn about the plans to resettle Australia, but I felt like I hadn't paid enough attention to that topic either. In the brief elevator ride to my floor, I scrolled past half a dozen international news stories that seemed significant, from Japan's approaching moon mission to a standoff in Cameroon where a cult was holed up in a compound and refused to leave. Lycanthropy was rumored to be involved, but that wasn't confirmed. I couldn't keep track of it all.

Enforcer Chapman was on her way out of the RAID room when I was on my way in.

"Good morning, Enforcer Gray," she said.

"You should be getting a revised inspection schedule any minute now. I'd like you and Enforcer de Saint to split up and take interns today."

"Yes, ma'am." I dropped my stuff, found the new inspection schedule in my email, and went downstairs to recruit an intern. Intern Ali saw me before I saw him.

"Enforcer Gray!" he said happily when I was a few steps out of the elevator. A limp shirt sleeve hung where his left arm used to be, but he seemed healthy and in good spirits. I wasn't sure I'd be able to find that sort of positivity if I were in his position. I doubted I'd even be able to fake it.

"Good to see you, Intern Ali," I replied.

"Are you cleared for fieldwork by chance?"

"Yes, sir. I was out with Enforcer Grensmith yesterday."

"Anyone call dibs on you today?" He shook his head.

"Alright. Grab your stuff." Ali grinned and rushed to his desk, returning in less than a minute with a kit over his shoulder. Interesting that the CDM still expected him to be ready to fight a surge, I thought. I was sure a one-armed fighter could manage, but that seemed unfair to Ali. Any fight he was in would automatically be significantly harder and more dangerous.

"Umm… Enforcer Gray," Ali said as we looped through the parking garage.

"Isn't the garage exit that way?"

"It is. I'm required to have my full hunting gear on me at all times, so we're stopping at my car."

"Is that for the Rapid Response team?"

"Yep."

"Congratulations on getting that promotion," he added.

"I don't think I've seen you since… You know."

"Thanks." I didn't know how to talk about the shadow hunter incident, so I didn't try. Once my gear was in the SUV, I plugged in the location for our first inspection.

"Looks like we're going to Washington. It's south of the city."

"I'm familiar. I went to a prom down there once."

"That's pretty far from home for you. How did that come about?" Ali chuckled.

"The niece of one of my mom's friends needed a date for her prom. When my mom gets an idea, she doesn't let it go, so I gave up fighting it and just went."

"Did you have fun?"

"Yeah, I guess. She was pretty. Nice but a little quiet. Then, when we danced, she turned into a grinding machine. I swear I had rug burn on my crotch by the time the night was over." I laughed. Ali paled.

"I'm so sorry. That wasn't professional. I won't let it happen again."

"Don't worry. I'm not bothered." The intern relaxed. We drove in silence for a bit before he asked, "Did you like going to prom?"

"Never went," I answered.

"Dancing was a sin, so we didn't do a prom or a homecoming or anything like that."

"Terra was definitely sinning when we were dancing." That got me laughing so hard I started coughing. I briefly considered pulling over so I could recover.

"Are these the kinds of conversations you had when you were out with Grensmith?" I asked.

"Nope. He quizzed me on standards for handling hazardous materials."

"That sounds right."

"I'm glad I got to work with you today. He's so boring." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"He's better at teaching and mentoring than I am. If you want to be good at your job, learn as much from him as you can. That guy is a walking Wikipedia of dungeon gate knowledge."

"I didn't mean-""It's okay," I interrupted.

"I know where you're coming from, and I was the same way." Our C gate inspection site was in a part of town that had seen better times in a very distant past. The gate was a portcullis, and it looked like the Buttymen–that's who bought the rights to this site–had to cut through the bars to get inside. That happened sometimes. When that style of gate appeared, it was a toss-up of whether or not the crank to raise the barrier appeared on the outside of the gate. When it didn't, out came the blowtorches.

Ali had a chest harness like someone would wear with a GoPro, and his tablet was attached to a bendable arm, making it easier for him to file reports one-handed. I knew that some workplace positivity didn't mean that Ali was over losing his arm or over the trauma of surviving a Stage 2 gate, but I still found myself feeling jealous of his ability to bounce back. The universe screwed him over, yet he returned to work and seemed to be making the best of it. My phone rang.

"We just got a call from the foreman on site," Enforcer Black said. He was on RAID drone-sitting duty today.

"They found a body in the dungeon. He's waiting for you at the gate."

"Does Chapman know?" I asked.

"Already looped her in. Call me back when you've confirmed what we're dealing with, and I'll take care of all the phone tag stuff for you."

"Appreciate it. Thank you." I hung up and yelled to Ali, who was a few dozen feet away, comparing VIN numbers to insurance documents and vehicle registrations.

"Come on. We've got a problem inside the gate."

"Isn't the gate that way?" he asked as we walked.

"Yes, but I don't go into gates unarmed anymore. I don't care if everyone looks at me funny." Ali nodded. Of all people, he could appreciate the wisdom of assuming the worst of a dungeon run. He mimicked me but struggled a bit with the belt buckle that came with his standard-issue CDM sword and sheath. He had to press his hip into the side of the SUV to hold it in place so he could close the clasp. I pretended to be engrossed in my phone while he figured it out.

If I were him, I would hate having someone cinch a belt for me. That was like asking someone to tie your shoes. No matter what, those kinds of situations make you feel like a helpless child. For my part, I wasn't wearing full armor or anything that extreme, but I did have my bandolier of flares and breach pens as well as my bow, which was zipped up in a neoprene case and slung over my shoulder.

The foreman gave me a quizzical look as we approached, his eyes darting between this strange pair of CDM enforcers, but he didn't say anything.

"The lumber team found a body, and it's lucky they did," the foreman began.

"We weren't planning to harvest anything but ironwood, but there was less than we hoped, so we started to pull out regular timber. We wouldn't have spent any time in that corner of the dungeon otherwise." We followed the foreman through the gate and into a badlands dungeon, a mix of tall rocky formations and pockets of tropical jungle. I watched LootLootLouis run a gate like this not too long ago.

His had the dinosaur-like bigals and terrors, but the monsters coming out of this gate were hellcats, saber-tooths, and lotus tigers. That last type of monster was like a rainforest had grown out of the body of an exceptionally large tiger. They were known for having beautiful flowers among the foliage wrapping their bodies. They were pretty to look at, but their part-plant biology made them nigh-impossible to spot in a rainforest.

As soon as they lay down to wait for prey, they blended perfectly with the environment. The foreman led us to a partially logged copse of trees and then along a brief, stamped-down trail. A woman wrapped in duct tape and black plastic bags was in the weeds. The harvest team tore the plastic over her face open to confirm it was indeed a person. She looked to be Beth's age. I checked the time on my phone. This gate would close forever in 52 hours.

"Intern Ali, please wait here and make sure nothing else is disturbed. I'm going outside the gate to report this."

"Yes, sir." An hour later, a Washington County police detective, as well as Investigator Dempson and two of his team members, approached the crime scene. The detective, a very round individual with a sort of side-to-side form of walking, raised an eyebrow at me.

"Little overdressed for a cleared gate, aren't you, son?"

"That's not the right foot for us to get started on," Dempson scolded.

"Besides, you've got your sidearm on you, right?"

"Well, yeah, but that's just being prepared." Dempson seemed to consider saying that was precisely his point but chose not to. He looked down on the corpse.

"Let's focus on her, shall we?"

"Dumping a body in a gate is pretty old school," the local detective observed.

"Smart money says she is a working girl." Dempson turned to the foreman.

"You boys square dance on the crime scene or something? It's a mess." The foreman raised his hands.

"We stopped as soon as we knew she was here. Almost ran her over, actually." Sighing, Dempson spoke to the detective.

"Are you okay with sharing this investigation? If she does end up being local, your people would be a big help."

"Yeah, sure. Your team or mine to process the crime scene?"

"It would take us a while to get a medical examiner down here. Lend us a hand on that front?"

"Roger that." The detective nodded at a patrol officer lingering on the periphery. She went back to the gate to make the call.

"Enforcer Gray," Dempson said.

"Thoughts?"

"Someone on the harvest team, most likely."

"Why?"

"We're too far into the dungeon for this to be someone sneaking in ahead of a RAID drone. No one reported dead monsters or evidence of crashers, and we don't have footage of anyone entering or leaving the gate once the drone was here. My guess is the body was dumped after the crawl team cleared the dungeon, and a harvester would have the access, knowledge, and means to sneak the body in here." Dempson nodded and grinned.

"Almost there. What else?" I thought. Nothing came to me.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"You did pretty well off the cuff. You sure you don't want to jump ship and become an investigator?"

"Thank you for the compliment," I said.

"Anything else we can help you with?" He shook his head.

"No, sir. I'm sure you've got other sites on your list for the day. We can take it from here."

"Seen a lot of those?" Ali asked when we were in the car and on our way to the next site. I shook my head.

"That's my first body dump. Not my first murder victim, but nope, haven't seen something like that before."

"She's probably not local," Ali added after a bit of driving.

"I think that's what what's-his-face was hinting at."

"Investigator Dempson. Why do you say that?"

"The harvesters probably aren't local. Most of them drive pretty far to get to job sites. If a harvester killed that girl, wouldn't it be more likely they did it nearer to where they live and moved the body?"

"That's a good point. Could be that the harvester hired a girl while they were down here, but we don't know anything about her, really. If it was personal, your explanation makes even more sense." Ali beamed.

"If you decide you're interested in investigation, let me know," I offered.

"I don't know Dempson that well, so I don't know how much water it will carry, but I'd put in a good word for you."

"Really?"

"If it's what you want, yeah, sure." I spotted a shop sign in the distance and had an idea. We pulled into the gravel parking lot for "Stevens Brothers Armory."

"Just a minute," I said to Ali and hopped out. This shop stocked firearms and crawler weapons. It was more redneck than I would have preferred, with targets featuring politicians' faces next to the deer and goblin dummies, but I found what I was looking for easily enough. I handed the sword to Ali when I got back into the car.

"What's this?" he asked.

"That sheath has a cross-body strap so the scabbard will be on your back instead of your hip. The sword isn't anything special, but you can throw this over your shoulder and go if you ever need your sword on you." Ali studied the weapon in his lap. He stayed quiet long enough that I started to think I overstepped, that I should have minded my own business when I saw Ali struggle with his sheath earlier.

"Thank you, Enforcer Gray," he finally said.

"I love it."

"Good. Now, please don't slice your own carotid open, drawing or sheathing your sword. Your mom knows what I look like, and I don't need her coming after me." Ali laughed.

"Yeah, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."