Chương 81: CDM 2, Chapter 17: Retirement Planning

I kept the Mill Rats delivery to myself. No one but me could know I pulled that photo stunt with Brennan Kielar, and I wasn't about to go running to Enforcer McDouglas for help. I started this snowball rolling down the hill. All I could do now was see how much damage it did. Or I could kill Martin Kielar. That was a funny thought, and it was proof that I had watched too many action flicks. Even if I were physically capable of besting Kielar, I wasn't emotionally capable of killing another human being.

I also didn't want to become the kind of person who was. Early the next day, I texted Nathan.

"You home tonight?"

"ya probably like 6. why?"

"I need 15 minutes. Nothing serious."

"man you know that's going to drive me crazy all day""Remember that the next time you do the same to me."

"ice cold dude" When I got home from work, I was displeased to see a box in front of my door. I was still an hour away from the start of the delivery window, and I requested that a signature be required. Seeing that much money just sitting unattended in the hallway gave me chest pains. I got the box inside and sifted through my mail. Bill. Bill. Bill. Preapproved credit card. Preapproved loan. AARP invitation. I got, like, one of those a week and had no clue how my address ended up on their list.

And a letter from my parents addressed to me and Beth: Dorion, Bethany, Your father and I are leaving for New Eden in three months. The Lord has called, and we answered. For all the darkness that has entered your hearts, I believe you can still understand why that's important to us. Given that you don't visit us now, we know you won't visit us in another country entirely. We would like to see our children one more time before we go. We love you, and we miss you, and we will continue to miss you.

Please have one more dinner with us. We hope that isn't too much to ask. -Mom & Dad Denying this request felt like it would be cruel, even if half of my brain raged about how nothing good could come of it–because nothing ever did. They were right that I wasn't flying to South America to visit them. The unpleasantness of a nation-sized version of our church community aside, that was an expensive plane ticket I couldn't afford. At the same time, I knew my parents wouldn't be the ones to fly to us.

In addition to the costs, they were getting older. The trip down would be their first time flying, and I expected it to be hard on them. A return trip for a brief visit just wouldn't happen. Ugh. This was almost certainly a trap, but Beth had the right to weigh in on this too.

"Whorion!" Nathan yelled as he bounced through the apartment door.

"Are you home?"

"In the kitchen." Nathan came around the corner, covered in dust and sawdust from a day of building Pittsburgh's new airport.

"Did you see it's snowing? Shit man, it's already cold as balls all day. We don't need snow too."

"If you tell me where to submit the complaint, I will."

"What did you need to talk to me about?"

"Don't you want to change first?"

"Nope. Out with it." I laughed.

"You're really struggling with not knowing."

"Not at all. I'm doing this to ease your stress. I'm cool, bro." Instead of arguing, I slid the unopened box toward him.

"This is for you." He raised an eyebrow as he pulled a box cutter from his pocket. He sliced through the tape and fished another box from inside the shipping box. Slack-jawed, he stared at the glossy box emblazoned with pictures of the fancy drone inside.

"How did you get this?" he asked.

"You were right. We were taking dumb risks, and we need to do more to keep ourselves out of trouble. This is our best solution, and we need to keep an eye out for other ways to make hunts safer too."

"I thought you were avoiding me."

"Not intentionally. Thank you for calling me on my shit. I'm grateful. So, what do you think? Does this make you more comfortable with hunts?" Nathan nodded.

"Are you cool with me coming along? I won't be offended. This is your thing, and I get-""If you don't fly the fucking robot, you're dead to me."

"Ha! Okay, okay. Where'd you get the money for this, though?"

"I found a good deal," I answered.

"If you think I believe-" Nathan stopped himself when my phone buzzed. He knew the drill at this point.

"A C gate needs cullers by 9 p. m., and I've been instructed to inform you that declining this cull will not affect future gate selections. Given the danger, this gate is entirely optional. Are you available?" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I swallowed.

"C-ranked?" I asked.

"A C gate went unpurchased long enough to need a cull?"

"I'm sorry. I don't have any other information."

"Right. Of course. Yes, I'll take it."

"Thank you for your service. I am texting you the address now." When I hung up the phone, Nathan's eyes were wide.

"I know you've been in C gates a bunch of times for inspections, but this is your first C crawl, right?"

"Yeah."

"You look freaked out."

"I'll be fine. The frontliners are the ones in the real danger. Stuffing a low-level scrub like me in the back isn't a big deal." Nathan looked at his screen.

"Speaking of frontliners…"

"Nuh uh."

"Yep. They called Megan too. Probably the same gate, right?"

"Probably." Sighing, Nathan scratched his head.

"So much for a carefree evening. Alright, bro, go out there and just do your thing. You've been in some hairy shit before. You got this."

"Thanks. I'll let you know when we're out." The closest landmark to the gate was an abandoned town called New Bethlehem, which was northeast of Pittsburgh. I say closest because the gate wasn't really close to anything, not even a passable road. The gate was two miles from our rendezvous point, and the terrain wasn't suitable for ATVs. We were going to have to hike out to the gate in the dark with three inches of snow on the ground. I knew Megan was on her way.

I briefly talked to her about driving together, but she was already across town and would have had to double back. I was surprised, however, to see Enforcer Grensmith and Enforcer McDouglas on-site when I arrived. Seeing Grensmith in anything but nice jeans and spotless sneakers was jarring. He wore a gray brigandine, and I guessed that the bow and sword on the hood of the SUV behind Grensmith belonged to him as well. He was a rogue, it turned out.

The one run I did with McDouglas, he was basically in street clothes. For this crawl, he wore a cloth gambeson and matching, heavy-duty pants. It looked like he would bring a sword and shield along for this crawl.

"Enforcer Gray!" he said when I got out of my car.

"Nice of you to join us."

"I feel a little bit better about doing a C if you guys are here." McDouglas smiled.

"Yeah. Appreciate you stepping up."

"No one wanted this gate?"

"Some kind of glitch marked it as claimed when it really wasn't. IT doesn't have a real explanation yet. Didn't have time to call settlers to join us either." Megan and Enforcer Cortez pulled in, followed soon after by Enforcer Black. Cortez was a level 9 fighter, which I knew from being partnered with him. I didn't know, however, that he chose a more exotic weapon for his specialty. I was about to ask what it was, but Grensmith beat me to it.

"The hell is that?" Grensmith asked. The body of the weapon was wooden and resembled a baseball bat if everything beyond the grip was flattened like a paddle. Square metal teeth lined the perimeter of that flat section, each twice the size of a razor blade and skewed slightly to exaggerate the sharpness of the corners. Bands of metal ran down the body of the wood, for reinforcement, I guessed.

To my eye, the material looked like ironwood, so I wasn't sure how much of that reinforcement was functional and how much was decorative. Grinning, Cortez answered, "This is a macuahuitl. We always called it a chainsaw sword when we were kids."

"May I?" Grensmith asked. Cortez passed it over. After a few movements, Grensmith added, "Kind of feels like an ax and a mace had a baby."

"That's a pretty good description," Cortez replied.

"It's a bit of a family tradition. That one originally belonged to my bisabuelo, actually. Sorry, that means my great-grandfather." Taking his turn to hold the weapon, McDouglas said, "White people can learn Spanish too, you know."

"Yeah, but the gringos who haven't get pissy about it sometimes." McDouglas belly-laughed.

"You got me there. I feel like I've seen something like this in a museum."

"Probably. The traditional version uses onyx for teeth. Sharp as hell but don't last long." Cortez accepted his weapon back. Enforcer Black was a level 5 defender. Capitalizing on his bulk, he carried a typical-looking spear and a shield almost as tall as I was. Outfitted head to toe in platemail, even his breathing creaked and chinked. Usually, a defender joining a crawl was a comfort, but this was a C gate. Level 5 was way too low for him to play the tank role usually expected of defenders.

As if reading my mind, McDouglas cleared his throat and began to speak.

"This is going to be a weird one because of our levels. We won't know what we're in for until we get there, but I don't want all of you stressing the whole hike to the gate, so I'm telling you now: Unless the gate is something ultra weird, we're running a spear tip formation.

"I'll be the point, then Black and Cortez will be over either of my shoulders. Osheski, you're in the middle and a row behind them, followed by Grensmith and Gray. The idea is that I'll be in the shit first to do damage and throw them off. Two people behind me are kind of playing cleanup. Black, Cortez, and Osheski: We're going to rotate the three of you. Give you all a chance for a breather, and I'm pretty sure Osheski would spit in the coffee pot if we kept her tucked in the back."

McDouglas looked around for questions. No one had any. Satisfied, he reached into his passenger seat and started tossing small bags to each of us.

"Handwarmers," he explained.

"Crack them to activate. Nobody is going into the gate with cold, numb fingers. That will only put us off to a bad start. There's also one healing potion for each of you. Emergencies only, and I expect it back at the end of the run, so no sticky fingers. Alright, let's move out." I don't know who did it, but someone had already marked a trail for us. Even with pink ribbons and pink flags guiding our way, a winter forest in the dark of night was not an easy hike. I was grateful that all I had to do was follow.

Leading and navigating in this would suck so much. An hour later, we arrived at the gate. At first glance, it struck me as what you might see at the entrance of a cemetery. Wrought iron bars sat within an arch of the same material. Little decorative touches like twists in the metal or dense geometric shapes broke up the relatively simple gate.

"Smart money says this is an undead dungeon," McDouglas said, his breath turning to white fog in the chill air. Grensmith nodded that he agreed.

"Keep your cool. Remember that zombification doesn't always take from a single bite, and if it does, we have twenty-four hours to get it taken care of, and you can't transmit even if you turn. I say this because I don't want anyone to freak out if something gets its chompers on them. I'm going to take a quick peek inside. If you have questions, when I come back will be your last chance." The gate clanged closed behind McDouglas as he disappeared into the black of the portal.

"He knows what he's doing," Grensmith said.

"You're right to be concerned about your levels, but this isn't a suicide mission. If you take it seriously and follow calls, this won't be a big deal." Black did his best to hide his shaking, but his armor betrayed him. That made me grateful to be in leather. I was just as nervous but could at least hide it somewhat. Grensmith put a hand on Black's shoulder.

"Remember, he's the tip of the spear. Let him lead, and you'll do great." Not wanting to make Black more uncomfortable than he already was, I kept myself from watching the whole exchange. I did hear the sound of Black nodding, however. McDouglas returned.

"Alright, we've got our work cut out for us."

"What is it?" Grensmith asked.

"Party bells." Grensmith sighed. I didn't recall hearing that term for a dungeon before, but I also didn't know if that nickname was what most crawlers used or if that was unique to McDouglas and Grensmith.

"Every six minutes, a big bell will ring. That means an undead swarm will hit us in the next 30 seconds, and that bell will keep going off until we kill the undead bastard ringing it. We're going to be moving fast on this to get the bell out of the picture as soon as we can. Gren, any advice you want to offer?"

"Think of it like a Roach Run," he answered.

"If you feel overwhelmed, stay in position and keep attacking. If any of the undead are runners, that compulsion to turn tail will be strong. That's natural. Resist it for the first couple swarms, and you'll be fine after." McDouglas nodded.

"That's good advice. Alright, on me, everyone. And uhh… There's probably going to be a bunch right at the gate. That's my bad."