Chương 57: Reapply

Before he handed me his keys, McDouglas said, "We're not putting Beth on paper. If you don't mention her, then I won't have to either. Take her home, and then come back here with eight cups of tea." I did as he asked. Beth was pretty shaken up, but she got especially reserved and quiet on the ride to the apartment. That was a survival mechanism for my family, I realized. Being outwardly upset just made the people around you angry, so you learned to keep it in where it wouldn't bother anyone.

She insisted that she still go to her apprenticeship that morning. It was too new and too big of an opportunity for her to call off this early, she argued. I tried to convince Beth that it would be fine to do it just once, but if I was being honest, I would have had the exact same fears were I in her shoes. I too would have gone into work, trying to pretend that someone I loved wasn't missing–and most likely dead.

If I had more friends, I would have asked one of them to check in on her, but Nathan had work, and so did Megan. Furthermore, I wasn't technically allowed to reveal anything, as I was a CDM employee and this was now a CDM investigation, but I also worried how sharing this with anyone could affect Beth's safety. The more people who knew she had any involvement with gate crashing, the more exposed she was. Nathan and Megan would never knowingly betray Beth, but good people slipped up all the time.

The best way to protect Beth was to keep this locked up on every front. When I returned to the crash site, I understood why McDouglas told me to bring so many cups of tea. Two CDM vehicles were already on the scene. One belonged to Enforcer Chapman, and the other belonged to Investigator Dempson, whom I hadn't seen since my first day on the CK investigation.

"Must really trust him to let him borrow your ride," Dempson said as I approached with cardboard tea carriers in hand.

"It was early. I wasn't thinking straight," McDouglas joked, happily accepting one of the teas. Chapman eyed me suspiciously but thanked me for the tea nonetheless.

"So what do you got?" Dempson asked.

"Enforcer Gray figured it out," McDouglas answered.

"He can walk us through it." Stumbling and stammering, I showed Chapman and Dempson the trail across the creek and pointed out the dual-tire tracks where we believed the crashers' cars used to be. Dempson scratched his beard.

"Might get lucky and spot a tow truck on a traffic cam, but we're not exactly close to any of those all the way down here. Not a chance they called any old service for this either. This would be off the books through someone they trust."

"We know the crashers, right?" Chapman asked.

"Might get a hit on their vehicles getting sold." McDouglas shook his head.

"My tip only had the name of one crasher and a username for another. Gray is going to run the username for me when we get back to the office, but I'm not optimistic."

"So we can ID one vehicle, potentially. He could have ridden in with a friend or borrowed someone else's car." Dempson and McDouglas both nodded that they agreed. Pulling out a notepad, Dempson asked, "Does splitting it up that way work for everyone? I'll look into the tow truck. Chapman chases down whatever we can about the missing crasher we can ID. McDouglas digs into the username. Missing anything?"

"Doesn't sound like it," Chapman answered.

"Probably goes without saying, but I think we should keep this out of the system for now. The fewer chances for the Mill Rats to catch wind of this, the better." That was met with universal agreement as well. Dempson eyed the teas sitting on his hood.

"Lots of those left over…" McDouglas grinned.

"I got two extra for the both of you. I know better than to be around CDM when they aren't caffeinated."

"You really think I drink that much tea?" Chapman asked.

"So you don't want the extras?" Chapman narrowed her eyes and took her two extra cups without another word. As soon as I was in the passenger seat, I pulled out my phone to begin searching.

"Looking up JuicyPulp?" Enforcer McDouglas asked as he buckled his seatbelt. He hadn't started the engine yet.

"Yeah."

"Don't bother. I did that while you were getting tea. The only notes on him you'll find are from me. JuicyPulp is a moderator for one of the crasher Discords I'm in."

"What do we do next?" I asked.

"You and I need to have a hard talk about that."

"Okay..."

"You being on this is a clear-cut conflict of interest," he said.

"No question that taking you off the case is what policy dictates. You have two choices. One: we do the safe thing and follow procedure. We'll disclose your connection to one of the missing crashers, and the paper trail will prove we kept you out of it if this ends up in court.

"Two: We do some things we can't take back to keep your name from showing up on anything. That would mean keeping your work on this case a secret, even from Chapman and Dempson. I want you to understand that doing it that way could go wrong in a half dozen different ways, especially if you don't do what I tell you to when I tell you to. At a minimum, you lose your job. Getting charged with some form of fraud or investigation interference is also possible."

"I'll take option two," I answered immediately.

"How much of option two are you comfortable with?"

"Whatever it takes."

"And you'll follow my orders? You don't get to argue in this deal."

"Yes." McDouglas nodded and started the engine. Once we were on the road, I asked, "He's dead, isn't he?" Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Most likely." I didn't really need McDouglas to answer that question. I knew Jonathan was dead as soon as I saw Martin Kieler's name on the gate record. Jonathan was killed in the dungeon, and his body was left there when the gate closed. He wasn't just murdered. He was erased from existence. I also understood how this worked. All of the evidence we had was circumstantial. We were unlikely to uncover anything that directly linked the Mill Rats to CKing.

We could infer all sorts of shit, but we couldn't prove any of it. And the chances that we ever could were virtually nonexistent. McDouglas seemed motivated, though. Maybe there was something here that gave him hope. A few blocks from the CDM offices, his phone dinged. He pulled off the side of the road at the first gap he found and blocked an alley while he read his screen. He punched in a response with two quick-moving thumbs. Then he put the car into drive and made a U-turn.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"I'm taking you home."

"I don't mind going right to work," I said.

"That was a Discord message just now. I've sat in JuicyPulp's Discord for two years, by the way. I DMed one of the other mods saying I hadn't heard from Juicy, and added he was supposed to vet me for access to the private channels."

"Oh." It all made sense to me now.

"You're going undercover as a crasher. That's clever."

"I'm not," McDouglas replied.

"You are."

"Huh?"

"When I confirm a time and place for vetting, you're going in. I think there's an angle here, and step one is getting you embedded with crashers. The only thing for you to worry about right now is convincing whoever steps in for Juicy that you're a legit crasher." Yanking the wheel, McDouglas pulled over in front of a bank. He hopped out, stood at an ATM for a couple of minutes, and then got back into the driver's seat. He held out a wad of money for me to take.

"Before you come in today, you're going to buy a full kit of used gear. We can't send you crashing with CDM standard issue anything. Try to pick items that have already seen a few crawls. If you can't find something good that way, buy it new. Then take it home and beat the piss out of it so it looks shitty. When you do come in, say I sent you to city hall, where you waited for a bunch of paperwork only to learn I picked it up already." I nodded and took the money.

"I want the change back, for the record," he quipped with an edge of seriousness.

"There's four grand there. Try not to flash all of it around at once." Four thousand dollars? I counted it. He wasn't kidding. I had never seen so many one hundred dollar bills in one place in person.

"Are you worried about my bow giving me away?" I asked. McDouglas laughed.

"Honestly, that helps your cover. You don't see CDM with gear like that hardly ever." Before he let me out at my apartment, McDouglas added, "Come into work when you're done shopping. Stop by my office before you leave for the day."

"Yes, sir."

"What do you mean he took you off the case?" Beth texted me as I paid for a new suit of leather armor in cash. It was banged up, but it was better quality than what the CDM gave me. I wondered if I'd get to keep it when this was done. Instead of texting Beth back, I stepped around the corner from the shop and called her.

"It's a conflict of interest," I explained.

"If I'm involved, the whole case is at risk. To that end, the same goes with your name. We need to keep this quiet to keep you safe."

"I don't care about the risks. I want to help." Woodworking equipment buzzed faintly in the background.

"Beth, I love you, but I have to call permadeath on this. You can say you haven't seen him, but you can't tell anyone he was a crasher. That includes Nathan and Megan."

"We can't trust them?"

"It's not about trust. This is about protecting them too. No more texts about crashing to me or anyone. Don't even try to sneakily ask for updates. These are dangerous people, and I need to know that I can rely on you to handle this right." She was quiet for a long pause.

"That's it? I don't get to help at all?" Beth clearly didn't respect the rules of calling permadeath to the degree that Nathan did.

"You have to stay as far from it as you can. If we fuck this up, my life is ruined. Your life is ruined. And the people in our lives could be in danger. Will you do what I asked?"

"Yes," she answered weakly.

"I promise."

"Thank you. And I promise that this is the second most important thing to me right now."

"What's the first?" Beth asked.

"Keeping you safe." Megan and the interns were the only ones to ask why I was late for work, and everyone but Megan accepted my explanation without question. She didn't say anything, but she held my eyes long enough to convey that she was suspicious before going back to her desk. For the rest of the day, I found excuses to walk by McDouglas' office, hoping he would loop me in on updates, but he didn't return to the office until almost 8 p. m. that night.

"Wasn't sure you'd wait," he said when he saw me at my desk, alone in the intern cubicle.

"Come." He gestured for me to take a seat in front of his desk as he closed his office door.

"First, I need you to sign this." He pushed a stapled packet of papers toward me.

"This makes you a criminal informant. If Kielar has friends high enough up the ladder to get this unsealed, we have bigger problems than your name getting out. Going this route allows me to use you as a source without having to name you in any official documents." I tried to read it, but I understood less than half of the language. Talking to a lawyer was the smartest thing I could do in that situation, but I decided, "fuck it," and signed.

McDouglas briefly flipped through the documents to make sure I signed in all the right places. Then he passed me a canvas pouch, zipped shut. It reminded me of what Beth's boss at Milly's used for bank deposits at the end of the night. A battered cellphone, a thick leather wallet, and a set of car keys were inside.

"I know you're not stupid, but I have to say all of this anyway. That's a burner phone. Don't even think about your personal life when it's around, and never use it for anything except for this case. That wallet has a driver's license and a few credit cards. Again, only used for this case. And the car those keys go to will be parked down the street from your apartment in about an hour." I looked at the driver's license. That was my photo, but everything else–like my name–was fake.

The credit cards were in the same name as the driver's license.

"Starting tomorrow, you are scheduled for an advanced safety course offsite. That course only exists on paper. Instead, I need you to go spend the day somewhere no one you know personally or professionally will stumble across you. I recommend a library. Nobody goes to those anymore." I nodded along. McDouglas was building a cover story that protected me on all fronts, but how did he get all of this done so quickly? Fake ID? Fake credit cards? A fake CDM training course backed with records in my file?

"I'm in the process of working a Discord mod to get you a crasher audition. That could take some time because Juicy hasn't been missing all that long yet, but you'll be ready when it pops. Don't use any of your cover items until then. Don't drive the car. Don't use the credit cards. Keep the burner with you and charged, though. It will be active the entire time you have it, but you don't have to touch anything. All of the fakery is done remotely. You'll hear from me when it's time for you to do something with it."

Holy shit. All I knew about undercover ops came from television, and what McDouglas just walked me through sounded pretty freaking hardcore. Giving me a car? Going to great lengths to spoof daily cellphone activity? This morning was the first time I heard of the CDM doing undercover work, and by the evening I had a whole fake identity to use? I wasn't prepared for this. I had no training whatsoever on what to do and what not to do.

Surely someone should teach me how to be a convincing undercover agent before I actually try it in the field.

"Take a breath," McDouglas said as if reading my mind.

"Your cover story will be your life up until the moment you applied for the CDM. You won't use your name, but everything else will be the truth. You ran away from doomers. You tried college. That didn't work out, so you got into gate crashing. I'll be your handler, which means you aren't doing this without a net. Not completely, anyway."

"Okay."

"I wouldn't bring you in on this if I didn't think you were up for it."

"Yes, sir," I said and stood to leave.

"Hey," McDouglas called to stop me at the door.

"This is how it happens."