Kim Seo-ah was in the groove.

She’d made it out of Four City in a taxi just moments before the bollards came up and the CIU units posted themselves at the roads exiting the City. Her driver told her quite excitedly that they were doing this everywhere — an attempt to limit civilian movements in case those with family in Two City wanted to test their luck on a rescue mission.

To continue her string of good luck, Jamieson was at his home in Three City for once. The gruff detective was married to the job, and at times wouldn’t be home for weeks — simply preferring to live and work out of his car. She strode up the path to his front door, at least she thought that’s what she was walking on — the whole front yard was overgrown with dense, choking weeds and unmown grass.

The house itself was ramshackle at best, but it was clean and orderly on the inside. Jamieson let her in the front door and she slipped into the living room where two other CIU detectives were sitting at a low wooden table. They each had a glass of orange juice, and there was a plate of untouched biscuits in the middle of the table.

She reached for one.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” a detective whispered. Seo-ah recognised her as Colleen, a middle-aged lady who’d taken over a few of Jamieson’s cases when he was off sick. Colleen was a taskmaster, but capable and always thankful for Seo-ah’s hard work. “Sarge went through four cupboards before he found us something to eat. Wouldn’t tell us the use-by date on the pack.”

Seo-ah smiled. That was very Jamieson-like. “And the orange juice?”

“I brought it,” chirped Ren, who Seo-ah knew from the cohort preceding hers. Ren was a perfect example of where her career would be if she weren’t shipped off to the GRA. It was hard not to dislike him for it, despite it being no fault of his own.

“Right, I’ll take an orange juice then. Anyone wanna let me in on what’s happening?”

The two detectives glanced at Jamieson as he entered the room with a thick folder under his arm. He nodded approval, and the detectives returned to Kim.

“Well, there’s been a Dungeon Break, obviously. We’re getting conflicting information regarding which Gate actually broke, though. Some say it was under a guild called Ballistic, other sources say that one’s already cleared. We’re basically at the stage of lifting up rocks and seeing if there’s a snake underneath.”

Seo-ah was happy with that. She’d arrived at the perfect time — the point at which everything was on the table and not a single theory nor idea was too wild. Everything was in the scope, which was where she shone.

Jamieson slammed down the binder in front of her, making the table rattle. A couple of the stale biscuits simply fell apart, the softened sugar and flour disintegrating under the stress. “Here’s yours,” he said. “Details of every guild with a bid on any Gate in Two City since last week. Find our unicorn.”

The room quietened as each detective went to work on their separate tasks. Colleen sorted through her own set of files, which from a glance appeared to be profiles on some of New Melbourne’s underworld figures. Ren sat upright with nothing in front of him, though he was likely using his System to track down some other piece of useful information. Or just slacking off.

Kim went in with a vengeance, poring over each document as if it held the secret to a dragon’s treasure. There were forty-six Gates registered in the heart of Two City that day, and another eighty-six on the fringe areas bordering One City, Three City and a tiny portion of Five City which looped around and made contact with one tiny, jagged finger of land.

She was more than halfway through the stack when she spotted something interesting. It was a guild called Restart Cooperative, registered under the office of a lawyer in One City. Such arrangements were sketchy because they allowed someone to run the guild from behind the scenes, pulling their lawyer’s strings and remaining anonymous. There were very few ways to break through attorney-client privilege, but Seo-ah had her methods.

Instead of breaking through, she could always go around.

“Jamieson, you got a computer I can use?”

“Aye.” He pointed to a door in the back corner of the room. The wood was faded and had a bedraggled poster of a musician playing an acoustic guitar pinned on it. “Through yonder. Password’s O-D-Y-S-S-E-U-S-2-1-2-1. Don’t look at my photos.”

Seo-ah laughed. Being told not to look just made it more tempting, though she would respect his privacy. The guy was enough of an enigma that one never knew what might be stored on his personal computer.

She started with an easy win, simply searching up the law firm that represented Restart Cooperative. They had a website which appeared legit, and a section called ‘Meet the Team.’

One step closer to the good stuff.

Stolen novel; please report.

There was only one practicing lawyer listed, with a number of paralegals and other support staff helping in the background. The lawyer, a portly old man going by Heston Mackridge, smiled at her from his picture right at the top. There was an ‘About Me’ section next to his photo, but Seo-ah wasn’t interested.

All she needed was a name.

Next up was a deep look into the cases attended by Mr Mackridge. Not all of his trials would be in the public record, especially criminal trials decided by a jury, but the records could still be useful to her. She downloaded pages upon pages of scraped data, exporting it into a format she could sort and filter. Even whilst building her dataset, she began to see a pattern.

Heston Mackridge basically only had one client. A very busy client, it seemed.

Not long after walking into the office, she was already walking out with a name. She cleared her throat, and the detectives all looked at her expectantly.

“Numen Construction Corp,” she said. “Any hits from your ends?”

Ren chewed his lip, shaking his head. Colleen and Jamieson had blank faces.

“Damn. If it comes up, let me know.”

She settled back into her spot and flipped open the rest of the folder’s contents. It was a minor setback, but she was used to chasing leads. Not all of them panned out, but that was half of the fun.

It was only an hour later when Ren’s head snapped up. It looked like he’d been snoozing, but he was wide awake and alert. “Did you say Newman, or Numen?” he asked.

“Numen. Rhyming with lumen. Got something?”

Ren nodded and waved a hand under Colleen’s nose, grabbing her attention. Jamieson came over and leaned against the wall, coffee in hand.

“The CEO of Numen Construction Corp, Jason Rowenthal, was just arrested under suspicion of murder. Allegedly killed a politician, one Gerald Harbin. CIU currently working under suspicion of a lover’s quarrel, but nothing confirmed yet. Rowenthal isn’t saying a word.”

“Where you getting this from?” Jamieson asked. He’d set down his coffee and joined their ranks. “Reliable?”

“It’s from CIU chatter. Guy I went to academy with was at the scene.”

“Shit. Okay. Kim, ditch what’s left of that folder and find out anything you can about Rowenthal and his company. Motives, financials, pet dogs, anything. Got that?”

Seo-ah nodded, jumping to her feet. Butterflies gathered in her stomach as the case heated up.

One step closer to clearing Chase’s name.

Kim Seo-ah was in the groove.

*******

Night fell over Two City, turning the sky to a starless void. Chase and Mia had found nearly a dozen civilians in that time, pulling them from the wreckage of their homes and guiding them to safer areas. Only one had recognized Chase, and the older gentleman had required a lot of calming down from Mia before he was willing to go with them.

Chase wasn’t ready for the emotional turmoil of saving the civilians. It was crushing to see them gather shattered photo frames and valued mementos, clutching them to their chests like they were vital to their survival. Each time someone broke down in tears looking at the dusty, destroyed remains of their ‘safe’ homes, it felt like his heart might rend in two.

Even worse were the ones who’d lost someone. Their grief was palpable, and nothing he or Mia could say would help. A husband who’d lost his wife, a mother who’d lost her daughter. It took everything in him not to sit down next to them, wrap his arms around himself and wait for the nightmare to end.

It was awful. And to think he was being blamed for this atrocity made his blood boil.

“That’s the last one,” Mia said. She was clearly dejected, merely mumbling out her report in a monotone voice. She was doing a better job than he was, but it was hitting her hard, he could tell. “Next building?”

Chase looked across the street, where orange flames were licking up the side of an apartment building. He could hear the crackle from where he stood, but that was all. There were no signs of human life coming from that building.

“I think that’s us done,” he said. “I don’t think I can handle any more of this. We’ve got our own people to worry about, too.”

Assuming everything had gone to plan, the rest of Ballistic remained inside the Gate they’d cleared earlier that day. They’d be waiting, nervously wondering if anyone was coming to save them. He figured David and Marcus would be watching the clock and making sure they were out by the time it hit midnight and the Gate disappeared, but that was only the first step in getting them to safety.

Someone had to escort them through the City.

The news outlets reported monsters leaking into Three City, though they were being restrained by the forces that the CIU had on call at their various outposts. Still, One City was the closer option, and probably the safer one, too. The richest, most powerful Hunters lived there, and they would defend their homes, assuming they weren’t already participating in the fight for Two City.

“So back to our Gate?” Mia asked. She peered outside into the inky black, craning her neck to find the moon. It was a tiny sliver of a crescent, barely providing any light at all. Fortunately, the burning city provided its own light, illuminating the streets in flickering multicoloured flames. They’d learned earlier not to go anywhere near the petrol stations. Luckily, it was easy to avoid the thick, black smoke once they knew what it was likely coming from.

“Yep. We’ll bring this lot with us. Can you do the honours? My throat feels like it’s full of razorblades.”

Mia nodded, then raised her voice as she delivered a quick round of simple orders to those gathered around them. They’d both given the speech multiple times in the last few hours, and they’d found a balance in emotional grounding that seemed to work well.

It was basically just ‘Follow us or be eaten by monsters,’ but said in a nicer tone.

Traversing the city at night was less depressing, because it was harder to see the carnage. The sounds of fighting had died down, too, or perhaps Chase had just grown accustomed to it and his brain reduced it to white noise. There were only two monsters for them to put down between their original position and the Ballistic Gate, and they did so in stoic silence, aside from the bark of the Beretta APX.

The Gate was still there, standing tall as if the world around it wasn’t ablaze and crumbling. Chase had a brief flash of concern that a monster or three might’ve sensed the human presence inside the Gate and decided to attack, but he pushed the thought away. He was too tired to worry about it. They’d find out soon enough.

Without a word, they ushered their rescued civilians through the Gate and followed after them.

Chase’s senses were still adjusting to the new world when a hard, bony weight crashed into him, taking him to the ground.