Chương 56: Human Resources

Megan's desk being empty was strange. Five months wasn't all that long, but the familiarity and predictability of a simple work morning had carved a routine for me. Routines were comfortable, or maybe the better way to put that is that routines were "comforting." The active process of going through a routine gave you a sense of control over your life that didn't really exist, but it felt good to pretend. I would see her again soon. She was still on this floor, but I didn't know where yet.

I suspected she had a whole new batch of trainings to officially welcome her to being a full-time enforcer. That sounded on par with my CDM experience so far, so I might not see her for a few days. Stranger yet, no new intern had arrived to replace her. Every other time an intern graduated, a new person replaced them right away. Maybe this had something to do with all the raging conflicts around the country? That seemed like something that could gum up the works of bureaucracy.

Enforcer McDouglas said that he would see me that day. I never actually saw him in the office, however. That wasn't unusual, but he was the only one who knew I knew about the Unsung Heroes Project. More importantly, he was the only one aware of my interest in being a part of it. If he wasn't around, how could I prove myself? But maybe that was for the best. I received this text from Beth:"I think mom has been waiting outside Frank's. I thought I saw her Friday, and I'm pretty sure I just saw her driving away."

"Just now?"

"Yeah."

"Need me to come down there?"

"No. I think she's gone but wanted to warn you in case she was still around. How does she know about the apprenticeship? Did she follow me from the apartment? From work?"

"I don't know. Maybe. That's a new level of insanity, though."

"But is it surprising?"

"I guess not."

"Maybe we should move out of Pittsburgh when we can."

"They'll also be going north soon, right?"

"That's true. I wonder how all these attacks have affected their plans. They might not be going anymore for all we know."

"You're okay right now, though?"

"Yes. Thanks. See you for dinner tonight."

"No problem. Let me know if something changes."

"You've got that face," Megan said when I put my phone down. She leaned over my cubicle wall the way Enforcer Grensmith did when he needed an intern. Maybe she wasn't as bogged down as I expected if she was already visiting my cube.

"What face is that?"

"The 'I'm too tired for this shit' face." I laughed.

"Okay, yeah. That's exactly how I feel."

"Everything okay?"

"Beth thinks she's seen my mom following her to Frank's." Megan cocked her head.

"For real?"

"I'd like it if she was just being paranoid and seeing things, but that's not like her," I said.

"I never got that impression of her either. Well, let me know if I can do anything. I should get back to my desk." Sighing, I put my eyes back on my computer screen. This spreadsheet wasn't going to proof itself. That evening was one of the dullest I had in a while. Nathan and Megan were at her place to celebrate her first day as a full-fledged enforcer. Beth and Jonathan were supposed to meet me for dinner, but she got called into a shift at Milly's. The apprenticeship was unpaid, so she needed the hours.

I worried that the weight of what was essentially two full-time jobs would get to her. More than that, I worried it would get to her and she would hide that fact from me. No matter how many times I told Beth she didn't have to work herself to death in order to contribute to bills, she didn't want to be a burden. In my aimless scrolling during crawler streams, I made the mistake of checking the Dungeon Divas channel.

Last night Megan uploaded the video from our time learning how to track with Domonkos, and the view count was barely in the thousands. The upload was still relatively fresh, admittedly, but it seemed obvious to me that viewers were turned off by the lack of excitement. And I couldn't blame them. I wouldn't watch a video of three people staring at mud for a few hours. The last time I remember looking at the time, it was close to midnight. When Beth shook me awake, it was after 3 a. m.

For a shift at the bar, that wasn't an outrageous hour for her to get in. A little later than usual, maybe, but a tough closing shift did that sometimes. Her eyes were puffy, and her face was tense.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You're going to be mad, but I have to tell you. Dor, I messed up. I messed up big, and I think Jonathan is in trouble." I turned on a lamp as I sat up.

"Slow down. Take a beat and start from the beginning."

"Jonathan and I were supposed to crash a gate tonight. I got called in for work, so he went without me. You can be as mad as you want and hate me too–I deserve that–but he didn't come home, and his phone is going straight to voicemail." The fugue of recent REM sleep slowed my ability to process.

"Did you say you planned to crash a gate?"

"Yes."

"Is that something you've done before?"

"A few times, yes."

"Jesus Christ, Beth," I said, putting my face in my hands. Months ago, I considered checking her location sharing every now and then, but I told myself that was a violation of her privacy if I didn't think anything was wrong. I should have checked it. I should have caught this.

"This is the worst fucking time to do that shit," I groaned.

"I know. I was stupid. Really, really stupid."

"Okay. So Jonathan went anyway?"

"Yes. It was going to be our first D gate." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"D?! What fucking level are you?"

"I'm a recent level 3 and Jonathan was almost to 5…" My little sister crashed enough gates to get from level 1 to level 3, and I never suspected a thing? How could that be possible? How many times had she told me she was going to Milly's but went crashing instead? Those questions were important, but they could wait.

"Maybe his phone died, or he lost it." Beth shook her head.

"I feel it in my heart. Something's wrong."

"When was the last time you heard from him?" She showed me a selfie with a small wooden doorframe in the background. The camera flash was harsh, but it made the gate plain enough to see in the dark of night.

"He sent me this before he went in. That was the last message he sent." I looked at the timestamp. 11: 33 p. m.

"When you crashed, how much time did you give yourselves?" I asked.

"Thirty minutes." Which was the standard duration most gate crashers recommended. Even if that ran long, he should have been out of the gate well before 3 a. m. The tension growing in my chest was similar to what Beth was feeling, I imagined.

"Do you have the gate address?" She nodded and texted it to me. I logged into the crawler portal from my phone with my CDM credentials, which was a perfectly normal practice for anyone in the CDM. Window shopping open gates at strange hours was something of a hobby for a lot of my coworkers, I had learned. Myself included.

"Satellite data says that gate closed at 1: 07 a. m.," I said. That was bad. That meant the crawlers of record arrived and cleared the gate. If Jonathan was crashing when they showed up…

"Fuck."

"What?" Beth asked. I should have been able to hold that exclamation in, but it popped out before I realized I was speaking. Holding my finger up, I pulled up my contacts and made a call.

"Gray?" a groggy McDouglas answered.

"I'm really sorry to bother you, and there's a lot to explain, but I know of a crasher who went missing tonight. The gate he was targeting is closed now."

"When?"

"1: 07 a. m."

"And you think this was a CK?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Martin Kielar is listed as the captain of record for the crawl." A knock came at the door around 3: 45 a. m. McDouglas, wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and a ball cap, was on the other side.

"Come in," I said. He followed me to the kitchen table. Beth looked at him, surprised.

"Benny?"

"Hey, kid."

"You're CDM?" McDouglas nodded.

"Am I getting arrested?" He shook his head.

"First thing we do is check the gate site. You can explain everything on the way." McDouglas drove, and for the first time, it wasn't a CDM vehicle. Instead, we piled into an SUV outfitted for off-roading. It had a lift kit, big chunky tires, a winch on the back, and thick, round metal rods for bumpers. The paint was a sparkling black, as if he washed it right before he came to my apartment, and the interior was luxury leather. I don't know shit about speaker systems, but that sounded nice too.

On our way out of the city, McDouglas asked Beth to tell him everything she could think of about the crash.

"Jonathan met some people online who invited him crashing," Beth began.

"Nobody used their real names, only handles, and we never had a part of picking what gates to crash. The captain did that–a guy who called himself JuicyPulp, or JP for short–and we just showed up at the right time. Jonathan wanted to be a crawler so badly he was willing to do anything for levels, and I wanted to unlock another weapon proficiency. Bow, since I'm apprenticing with a bowyer."

"Who else was going to meet you?"

"I don't know. Jonathan didn't tell me, and I don't know that he was ever told either."

"Levels?"

"Jonathan is level 4, and JP said he was level 11. The times I got to go, the other crashers were usually between levels 4 and 7."

"Your level?"

"I'm level 3…" Beth answered shamefully. McDouglas nodded as he drove, thinking.

"Okay. You're right that something could have gone wrong, but that doesn't mean it actually did. A boyfriend being MIA for a few hours could be for any number of reasons, so let's not assume the worst until we learn more."

"Okay," Beth managed. This gate had appeared in the midst of an old house foundation wedged into the bottom of a tiny valley, right next to a creek. When Beth and I were kids, our parents would have called it a "holler." We parked several lots away from the gate site itself.

"Gray, you're with me," McDouglas said.

"Beth, you stay in the car. Keep trying his phone, and try anyone who knows him. Friends, family, coworkers. Blast them all to see if they've heard anything."

"I want to come with you and help."

"Nope. Sitting here and dialing is how you help." I looked at Beth and shook my head, encouraging her to do as McDouglas said. Reluctantly, she stayed in her seat and shut the door. I walked with McDouglas up the street to where the gate had been. His flashlight darted about as he took in the scene. In what would have been the house's front yard in happier years, his light lingered on a pair of tire tracks in tall grass.

The area immediately around the tracks was stomped down by foot traffic, like a party gearing up for a crawl, and there were a few cigarette butts as well.

"What do you see?" McDouglas asked as he crouched next to the tracks.

"The Mill Rats usually ride into a gate in one vehicle, from what I've seen," I said.

"I'd guess that these tracks are theirs."

"What don't you see?"

"Cars for the crashers."

"Yep," he replied, standing. He scanned the surroundings with his flashlight.

"Let's see if we can find them." Neither of us expected those cars to be right next door. Smart crashers usually parked somewhere out of the way to approach gates on foot and in secret. This was a tight road, though. Their only real options were down the street in either direction, but that wasn't very sneaky at all. You could end up taking the same way out that the crawlers were taking in if you did it that way. Circling the lot, I saw more stomped-down grass, like a single-file trail.

No, this wasn't me being a tracking savant after one lesson with an eccentric old man. Abandoned lots didn't get mowed, and flattened grass next to tall grass was hard to miss. Following it with my flashlight, the trail seemed to lead down to the creekbed. Okay. That would be kind of clever. Park on the other side of the stream and cross where it was shallow. There wasn't a whole lot of forest over there, however. This was a proper holler, so there were only a few trees and then a steep hillside.

"Take a look at this!" I yelled so McDouglas would hear. He appeared at my side a few seconds later.

"Does it look like this trail goes down to the creek?" I asked.

"Sure does." McDouglas shined his flashlight to the other bank, thought for a moment, and then stomped across to investigate. I followed. Whoever had come through wasn't worried about someone following them, apparently. They stomped down the few scrubby plants around the trees and broke half a dozen low-hanging branches along the way.

A few twists down the trail and along the stream, we exited the holler onto several more abandoned lots, bordered by a road that twisted just enough to reach them before cutting sharply around the terrain of the valley. There was more concrete here than in the first lot we saw, but there was still enough grass and weeds that the paths of multiple vehicles were readily apparent. But no cars. I put my hands on my hips and frowned.

"This is good news, right? If their cars aren't here, that means they had to have left with them." McDouglas didn't immediately reply. He circled the lots, studied where they met the road, and walked a few paces with his mind imagining something. I couldn't say what, but he made the stiff, thoughtful motions of a cop on a procedural television show picturing how a crime played out based on evidence at the scene.

"Look at this," he said. His flashlight shone on a pair of tire tracks tight together when I arrived at his side.

"This was left from a dually. See how there are four back tires instead of two?"

"I do now," I admitted. Next, he traced the lights to the road.

"See how the dually did a lot of backing up and turning around?"

"Yes."

"One of the crashers could have been into big pickups, or these tracks are from a tow truck. And it made more than one trip."