Chương 164: CDM 3, Chapter 40: Breaking News

By the time we finished interfacing with the local first responders, it was 2 a. m. We wanted to stop for some food, but nothing was open that late on a Sunday, so we settled for gas station cuisine. Nathan and Megan both got two different flavors of beef jerky and periodically rotated who had which. Without a word spoken between us, we all had quietly agreed not to talk about what we saw, and I felt an intentional effort to keep the conversation going about anything else.

When we couldn't bullshit about the best go-to gas station food anymore, de Saint spoke to me.

"What was that little sidequest about?" she asked.

"Yeah," Giago echoed.

"I heard that on the radio. Think we missed some goblins?"

"No, I noticed something and wanted to check it out."

"Uncle Dorion," Nathan said from the driver's seat, raising his voice slightly to be certain he was heard.

"Don't make us beg."

"I found some snake scat." Megan spun hard in her seat.

"From a big snake?"

"Looked like it. I already checked. No SOCs in the area for one of those either."

"One of what?" Hornby asked.

"A giant water moccasin," Megan answered.

"We fought one before, and I'd love a second try now that I've got more levels under my belt." Hornby whistled.

"Them fuckers are mean."

"If we punched out right at 5 tonight, we could be back here before dark," Megan said, thinking aloud.

"Hour and a half drive isn't too bad."

"I'm down," Nathan volunteered.

"We need the content, and it's something different from goblins."

"Is this how it's always going to be?" Giago asked.

"How is what always going to be?" de Saint followed up.

"Like I get that Hornby and I aren't Dungeon Divas, but are you going to make us listen to you all talk about how much fun you're going to have without us?"

"Damn, bro, you're right," Nathan admitted.

"That was rude as hell. I'm sorry." Hornby coughed.

"How does one become a Diva, exactly?" Megan answered Hornby with a question of her own.

"Are you saying you two are interested?"

"I'll always take more action," Giago replied.

"That god damn desk takes a little piece of my soul every time I sit down."

"Looks like a hell of a good time to me," Hornby added.

"I can't tonight, though. I gotta be an adult and get my license updated before the DMV closes." After looking at de Saint and me, Megan said, "I don't think any of us are opposed to more help, necessarily. We've talked a lot about how to handle the bigger hunts with so few people, but all of us for a water moccasin might be overkill. Gray and I killed one when we were like level 5 or something." Giago shrugged.

"I'm cool with waiting for something bigger." Hornby nodded in agreement.

"Alright, yeah," Megan continued.

"This could be good. We'll figure out how to do it."

"We need a van," Nathan stated. I wanted to argue with him, but at that point, I couldn't. Fitting 6 people into the D-Wagon was possible, in theory, but it wouldn't be comfortable or legal, nor would it leave any room for equipment.

"I give," I announced.

"I've been putting off trading my car in for a while. I need something more reliable, anyway." Nathan guffawed.

"Dude, no one is taking that thing as a trade-in. They'd probably charge you extra for the disposal."

"That bad?" Giago asked. Nathan nodded emphatically.

"Picture one of those abandoned house horror films but turn it into a rusty sedan. That's the D-wagon."

"It's not fair to ask Gray to pay for the van out of his pocket," Megan interrupted.

"I wouldn't want to use a van for my personal vehicle either."

"I don't care what I drive," I said.

"I need wheels. The Divas need a van. Makes sense to me."

"Okay," Megan relented.

"I won't fight you on it."

"If I have time during lunch today, I'll start looking." When no one spoke for a while, de Saint filled the silence.

"A new paper was just published on active mana. It came out of the Solvay Institutes, so that's pretty credible."

"Who releases a paper at 3 a. m. on a Monday morning?" Hornby mused.

"They're in Belgium," de Saint replied.

"It's 9 o'clock there." Hornby laughed at himself.

"And the mystery is solved."

"Give us the Rainy summary," Nathan suggested. De Saint paused to collect her thoughts.

"Okay, so the research was intended to be an early part of a new ranking system based on active mana rather than inert mana. They were collecting readings and comparing them against the kinds of monsters found inside. Someone steps through the gate to trigger the active mana release, and they log the reading. Pretty straightforward. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"This is the interesting part: They set out to measure wild gates in Iceland, but weather delayed most of the research team. One of the gates they intended to test ended up surging. When it did, it released more active mana than they were prepared to measure. Maxed out their instruments." Nathan whistled.

"Yeah, humanity is definitely fucked."

"Why do you say that?" Hornby asked.

"Rainy's better at talking than I am. Take it away, Rainy." De Saint smiled and shook her head.

"alright. Fine. If rising active mana levels are the driver behind Stage 2 changes, reducing how much active mana we release would be the solution. But if dungeon surges release active mana, that means we have to close every gate, wild or otherwise. When we close gates, only the crawl party can be allowed in or out, since we've seen that harvester traffic generates a boatload of active mana from all the back and forth. Then we have to stop using any tech that burns mana crystals.

At that point, the only active mana entering our world would be from crawlers closing gates."

"Yeah, ain't none of that shit happening," Hornby said.

"But it's worse than that," Nathan added.

"Or are you not allowed to talk about that, Dor?"

"I didn't sign anything with the EPA," I answered.

"There is some data to support the idea that more active mana makes monsters more fertile, but that part is correlation at this point. We do have hard data that says the lycanthropy virus becomes more aggressive when active mana goes up, and Earth already has several viruses that can lie dormant in a person's system for decades, and they never know."

"Fuck!" Giago replied.

"That means just about anyone could be carrying the virus."

"Yep." Giago leaned back in his seat and sighed.

"Stage 2 is going to be wild." When I arrived to start my CDM shift, Megan was already there. She and Enforcer Chapman talked in the conference room, and I recognized the overhead view of Punxatawney on the screen. They were debriefing from last night. I wasn't invited, so I sat at my desk and started on my daily CDM chores. 30 or 40 minutes later, Megan sent a text to the Cold Rollers group chat.

"Chapman says we did an excellent job last night, and the local responders spoke very kindly of our efforts. She also wants me to remind everyone that trauma resources are available to us at no cost. If you use them, it will be completely confidential. Not even Chapman and McDouglas will know unless you share it yourself." I involuntarily rolled my eyes at the bit about confidentiality. Enforcer McDouglas ordered a bunch of tests on my blood, urine, and stool samples.

I wasn't given the chance to give or withhold permission, and I wouldn't have heard about the results if the shadow hunter gate hadn't upset him so much. That made it hard to believe that the CDM wouldn't peek at "private" psychology and therapy notes. I didn't share that skepticism with anyone else, however. That scene was fucked up, and I decided it was better for someone to get help with the CDM eavesdropping rather than refusing to get any help at all.

I wasn't going to introduce a reason that discouraged seeking a way to process seeing the pieces of three dead kids. A paper cup appeared in front of me and smelled of jasmine.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it," de Saint replied.

"How tired are you right now?"

"Pretty tired."

"After all that talk about us having coaching and support, taking our second-ever mission solo was a surprise."

"I think we did pretty good."

"Yeah, me too, but listen," she said.

"You've been here longer than I have. Does McDouglas disappear like this often?"

"Yes," I answered.

"With no notice?"

"With no notice. I've had other people in the agency warn me that he has a reputation for being reckless in a sink-or-swim kind of way."

"I can see it." My phone buzzed.

"You good, Gray?" de Saint asked when she saw my pale face.

"McDouglas just texted me."

"Oh, yeah, that's creepy. He was probably listening to us talk." I shook my head.

"Don't even joke about that." His message only contained a link to a stream. I tapped it. An empty podium surrounded by microphones occupied the center of the frame. The lower thirds title read, "CDM/FBI to Make Unscheduled Announcement." I held my phone between de Saint and me so she could see. Three men and two women formed a line upstage and were joined a little while later by an older blonde woman in a pantsuit. When she stood in front of the podium, the lower thirds updated to say that she was FBI.

"Minutes ago, a joint task force between the CDM and FBI apprehended El-Tijani Bashir attempting to cross the border into Mexico," she began.

"He was carrying this at the time." She gestured off-camera. When the shot zoomed out, a man wearing latex gloves held up a longbow sealed in a plastic bag. The wood grain was a dark purple.

"This is a voidwood bow enchanted with Fire 3, and we believe it was used to murder Crawler Martin Kielar." A grainy photo of a man with dark skin in a military uniform appeared in the corner of the screen.

"The evidence we have recovered makes us certain that Bashir fired the shot that killed Kielar. At this time, however, his motives are unknown. Bashir is a level 22 archer, a former member of Sudanese special forces, and a decorated marksman. Our allies in Sudan have informed us that he has been AWOL for more than a decade, and his whereabouts in that time are not yet known. Based on the evidence we recovered, he appears to have acted alone, but that remains to be confirmed as we continue our investigation.

"We will not be taking questions at this time and will update you as we learn more. However, we believe it is important that Kielar's family and friends know that the killer is no longer at large. Anyone with knowledge of Bashir or his movements in the United States, please contact the CDM or FBI tiplines as soon as you can.

"Thank you for your attention to this matter. May God bless America." A chorus of reporters shouted questions as she marched off the stage, followed by the entourage that stood in the background for the announcement.

"Why would a member of Sudanese special forces want to kill a crawler from Pittsburgh?" de Saint asked.

"Does Kielar have some kind of history in Sudan?"

"Beats me," I answered.

"He was a dick, though. A guy like that can make enemies anywhere."

"Terrorism? Personal vendetta? Hired hit? Maybe a Sudanese attempt to destabilize the US? All of that sounds out there to me."

"I can't say I know a lot about US and Sudan relations," I admitted.

"Me neither," de Saint replied.

"I feel like we would have heard something about a conflict if there was one. Yeah, see, nothing in the news for the last six months says anything about problems between the US and Sudan." I shrugged.

"Well, this will be the only thing anyone talks about for at least a week, so I'm sure we'll hear more." De Saint shook her head, still in shock.

"Sudanese special forces? I didn't see that coming."

"Neither did Kielar," Chapman said as she walked by our desks. She was gone before de Saint, or I could react to Chapman, the Enforcer Chapman, making that kind of joke.