Chương 80: CDM 2, Chapter 16: Market Density

Megan waited for me in the parking garage when I pulled into work. She motioned for me to get in her passenger seat.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Her eyes were puffy, and her hands shook. I expected this meeting to be a celebration of another successful video. Two minutes of Megan talking about Domonkos' crappy photos had already spread exceptionally far.

"Nathan and I fought this morning. The ghost has him really freaked out. That's what people have started calling the salamander."

"He mentioned to me he was worried, but he didn't go further than that. Definitely didn't sound as serious as this looks."

"He said that got him thinking about it more. We've had so many close calls already that he wants us to stop hunting until we have a safer way. I wasn't supposed to tell you any of this. He wanted to do it himself." I leaned back and slumped against the window.

"Did he say stop for good or stop until we have a better way?"

"That's the worst part about this. He wasn't a dick. He said he believes in me and supports me, but he can't not say something. He doesn't know what he'd do if I went hunting anyway, but he wants me to really hear him before I decide." No doubt he would tell me the same thing.

"Is he going to break up with me over this?" Megan asked.

"He's not the ultimatum type." She sighed.

"I know."

"If he asked me to stop, I would stop," I said.

"What?"

"I'd stop," I repeated.

"We need to figure out how to make runs safer. The cave drones seem like they have the most potential. Maybe I could take out a loan or sign up for another credit card."

"It's that simple for you?"

"Yeah. That's what we want a friend to do, right? Save us from the hits we don't see coming?" Megan rested her head on her steering wheel and bounced it a couple of times. I added, "This is probably the wrong time for this, but good job on the video. You've got the right head for this YouTube stuff."

"Thanks. Sorry for dragging you into this. That was probably the last thing you wanted to happen."

"It's fine. I'll take care of the drone today."

"Dor, no. That's so much money."

"I'll figure it out," I said.

"Seriously. I want you to let me do this. It's important to me." Megan nodded.

"Okay."

"Come on. Let's go face the day."

"Yeah," she grumbled and got out of the car to walk with me to the elevator. When we stepped into the RAID room, Enforcers Cortez, Black, de Saint, and Wilson wore dumbstruck faces. Megan rubbed her eyes.

"What is it?"

"The president just signed the Baker Bill," Cortez said.

"No shit. Really?" De Saint nodded.

"Doubt we'll see many gate crashers after this." She didn't say anything, but Megan put a hand on my shoulder and told me she was sorry. She was disappointed about this too.

"Calling it now," Cortez gruffed.

"The guilds are going to drop the suit against the CDM."

"You love your conspiracies," Black said. His big body heaved a sigh as he stood.

"Wilson, you ready to play hall monitor?"

"Yeah. You should bring your gloves. They're calling for snow."

"I'll be fine." Wilson dipped her chin to eye Black.

"Okay, okay." Black raised his arms in defeat and went to his cubicle to get his gloves. As soon as everyone else was out of the RAID room, Cortez practically tackled me.

"Did you see the new vid?! They stealth dropped it at like 4 a. m."

"The ghost salamander?"

"That thing was nuts!" Cortez said.

"Do you think it's real or some Photoshop bullshit?"

"I hadn't thought about it. I guess it could be fake."

"The EPA will have to comment on it eventually. With how the news is picking it up, they won't have a choice."

"What do you think?" I asked. Cortez crossed his arms and thought.

"30 percent chance it's real. 70 percent chance it's a viral stunt."

"70 percent? You're that skeptical?" This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I think that's pretty generous. People always use that found-footage look for hoaxes." I laughed.

"Okay. Fair."

"If it's real, I'd be pretty freaked out if I were them. If the girls are level 8 or 9 like everyone thinks and came that close to a ghost salamander? That's some near-death experience shit."

"Language, Enforcer Cortez." Chapman had walked right into the middle of that conversation.

"Yes, ma'am," Cortez said, dropping his head.

"It's real, by the way," Chapman added.

"I just got off the phone with the Director of Invasive Species Intervention at the EPA. He confirmed it." She resumed walking to the conference room. Without turning around, she said, "There's a press release going out any minute now. It's not a secret." I couldn't resist texting that to Megan. The EPA confirming the ghost salamander was real should earn the Dungeon Divas a nice surge in views. Maybe that would make the drone expense less of a risk.

The credit cards that would accept me at this point were a few steps away from being mafia lieutenants, and the interest rates might as well be aggravated assault. If we kept up this momentum, I should be able to pay it off before the interest became a problem. I know. Famous last words.

"Do you think she watches the Divas?" Cortez asked in a hushed whisper. Christ. I hope not.

"I know nothing about Enforcer Chapman's personal life."

"Really? So it's not just me?"

"I'm not the best person to ask. Any chance I've had to get on her good side, I squandered. And we should probably stop talking about this now." Cortez nodded. A few seconds after I went back to focusing on my work, he held up his phone for me to see.

"She was right," Cortez said.

"EPA confirmed it was a ghost salamander. Holy sh- crap. That's really bad news. Country-wide bad news, really."

"How so?"

"Have you seen the Mojave?"

"Just pictures."

"Pennsylvania is completely different in a lot of ways, but to me, the reason a ghost salamander can go unnoticed is that there are too many places for monsters to hide. If that's a problem here, brother, how bad is it everywhere that's even more remote?" Cortez seemed to be searching for something on his phone.

"Pennsylvania has 13 million residents," Cortez continued.

"Nevada has 3. 2. You do any left coast travel in your life?"

"Nope." Chuckling, he added, "Ain't nobody living in Wyoming. 600, 000 there. North Dakota has 800, 000. See what I'm saying?"

"For sure. If a pre-satellite ghost salamander stayed hidden that long, we're definitely missing others."

"Cortez, Gray," Chapman said from the conference room doorway.

"Neither of you is in a position to slack off on your work. Don't make me say this again." The door slammed.

"Sorry, brother," Cortez whispered.

"That's on me." I just shrugged and sighed. Getting back into her good graces seemed all but impossible at this point.

"Are you working?" Beth asked when she saw me on the couch with my laptop.

"YouTube stuff," I replied.

"How about you? Shift tonight?"

"Yep. I have an hour and a half to get a nap in."

"Don't let me keep you, but things are good with Frank?"

"Everything seemed normal today. He wouldn't tell me about his trip, but he wasn't mean about it. This might be random, but what do you know about voidwood?" I spun in my seat.

"You're working with voidwood?!" Laughing, Beth said, "No, I'm not. Someone called asking if we sold voidwood bows, but when I asked Frank about it, he said to only think about Earth materials right now and sent me back to work. So I looked them up…"

"Frank sells voidwood bows, though?" Beth shook her head.

"No, he said he worked on one a long time ago but never since. I get that the arrows teleport, but I don't understand how that works based on the explanations I've read."

"I've only ever seen videos," I admitted, "so don't think that I'm the expert. The arrow looks like it teleports, but it actually still travels. Instead of flying through our reality, it moves through a parallel void plane and 'reappears' when it hits something alive. If there is a brick wall between me and a monster, the arrow will ignore the wall but not the monster. I still have to aim it and everything, but since the wall isn't alive, the arrow isn't affected."

"What if that wall was a tree instead?"

"The arrow would reenter our plane when it hits the tree. Objects held or worn by something alive also count as living, so the arrow won't poof through a shield if a monster raises one to block."

"But it makes cover a non-issue," Beth suggested.

"Yep. A goblin can duck behind a rock and not be safe. Voidwood is overkill for a goblin, but you know what I mean."

"That makes more sense now. Okay, I'm going to try and get some sleep if I can."

"Beth."

"Yes?"

"If Frank gets a voidwood bow in stock, I would give my left nut to get to use it. Even just once."

"God, Dor. That's so gross." When Beth shut her bedroom door, well, my bedroom door. I had been on the couch for so long at this point that it didn't feel like my room anymore, but that was fine. I grew accustomed to couch surfing after leaving the church, so this routine felt strangely natural to me. But I was stalling. Nathan was right about the close calls. I should have died in Daisytown on my very first hunt. The high school trolls should have killed me too.

The Chestnut Ridge goblins also should have been the end of me. I walked right into the path of two goblin archers, relying on the simple hope that my poison plan worked. Being wrong there would also have meant getting dead. And if they didn't get me, the goblin champion and other hundred goblins could have. Then there was the ghost salamander, of course. We were running around its home, totally oblivious to the potential danger sleeping in the shadows.

Losing Nathan as a friend was not an option, nor was giving up on wild hunts. The Dungeon Divas channel was making money, and its existence made Beth's apprenticeship possible. Furthermore, it helped me gain the wild experience Enforcer McDouglas said I needed for the Unsung Heroes. If I wasn't willing to throw away a friendship or put my little sister's future in danger, my only option was to do whatever it took to make hunting viable. Any risk that didn't jeopardize what mattered was worth taking.

That was the only way to protect what I wanted to protect. With a deep breath, I clicked "Confirm Order" on a high-performance, cave-ready drone with thermal imaging and infrared vision. I also got next-day shipping, because at this point, fuck it. All of this money was imaginary anyways. Just like that, I added two years of rent payments to my credit card debt, not counting interest. I felt sick.

As I leaned back to calm myself, I heard movement in the hallway outside of the apartment, followed by the soft hiss of something sliding under my door. I found a manila envelope on the floor. I poked my head outside, but whoever left it was gone. Inside the envelope were several small ripped pieces of paper. I didn't understand what I was looking at at first. As soon as I did, I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. This was the photo of Jonathan I gave to Brennan Kielar.

No other contents or writing were included with the scraps, but I understood the message. The Mill Rats were gloating. And they knew where I lived.