Alex looked up as the door to her medical suite opened. “Oh. It’s you?”

Zach looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Sorry. Were you expecting someone else?”

“Maybe.” She shifted a little on her bed. The medics had given her a standard issue hospital gown, and she was feeling a little exposed. “I…thought maybe you’d be one of my teammates. Or maybe the sergeant.”

He frowned. “They haven’t come by?”

“Audrey and Joanna were keeping me up to date on how Clara was doing.” She shifted on the bed again. The Acolyte was still alive, but she was recovering slowly. They were saying it would take at least another week for her to be back on her feet, and that was likely only because she had put her extra point into Life, and because the staff had been authorized to use a few small doses of health potion. “Sergeant Liliana is still… a little busy.”

The expression on Zach’s face told an entire story of its own, but Alex was trying to give the woman credit and assuming it was true. The catastrophe on the mission had resulted in the deaths of six Surveyors and the resignations of three more. Four of the remaining fifteen Surveyors had been returned in critical condition, and there was already word that several of the team sergeants would be demoted as a result. Even the ones that kept their jobs be struggling to reorganize their teams around the people who remained.

Zach either hadn’t heard about that, or didn’t think much of a sergeant that didn’t visit a wounded team member. Either way, he shook his head. “Your parents came to visit?”

“My dad, yeah.” Her mother wouldn’t be coming anywhere near Golden Swallow’s facilities, for obvious reasons. Her dad, however, had been quietly furious the entire time. It had taken a lot of talking to persuade him not to demand her being freed from her contract immediately. There had been a bit more of an argument before she had convinced him that he shouldn’t stay with her in the hospital indefinitely. His fire station needed him, after all, and Alex herself wasn’t that badly hurt. In fact, she’d been surprised that the medics had even insisted that she stay under observation.

Besides, his last visit to someone in a hospital had ended a bit too… explosively, anyway.

“I’m glad to hear it. I was a little worried that they hadn’t been told.” He made a face. “Sometimes the Group can be a little…close-minded about spreading news about incidents like this one. I’m glad they didn’t make that mistake this time.”

Alex sighed. “Seems like they made every other mistake, though.” She shook her head. “We’re going to have a lot of people out of commission for a while now.”

“The ones who made it back at all, yeah.” Zach shook his head and dropped something on the side table near her bed. “I got you some real food from the cafeteria.”

“Huh?” She forced a grin. “I thought you said real food?”

“Close enough.” He smiled and took a step back. “I’ll let you get some rest. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right after I heard you were up here. By the look of it, you should be up and going in no time.”

Alex smiled and nodded. Then, as he turned, she spoke up. “Hey, do me a favor. Next time you see the monitors go crazy, just give me a call or something. It might be too late, but better to give it a try than to just let it happen.”

Zach paused. His face had gone completely blank when he looked back at her. “Alex, the monitor array wasn’t reporting any unusual magic activity near the portal when the incident occurred. None at all.”

She blinked. “But I thought…you said that if there’s heavy activity near the portal, then more magic pours out of it. That way you can…”

Zach’s face grew extremely grave. “You’re correct…usually. This time, the array didn’t report anything unusual. At all.” He looked away. “In fact, as near as I can tell, the energy coming out of that portal never fluctuates. Ever.”

Her eyes narrowed. What he was saying was impossible. Her mother had told her that portals were always changing at least a little, even if it was just decreases caused by Surveys. Unsuccessful Surveys usually made them change a lot faster, since the magic began to reinforce itself. There had to have been some kind of spike in the readings from the monitors when all those Surveyors died.

Unless there was something wrong with the monitors. Unless the Group had arranged for something to be wrong with the monitors.

She met Zach’s eyes and saw him working through the same line of thought she was. Actually, knowing him, he’d seen it long before he’d arrived, and had been waiting for her to catch on to the same logic. Alex saw him nod slowly, once, as if to confirm what she was thinking.

Then he spoke up, unnecessarily loudly. “Well, I will let you rest, like I said. I hope you recover well, and I’ll look forward to speaking with you soon. Until then?”

His expression did not match his words at all. She tried to match the empty enthusiasm. “Until then! I’ll see you as soon as they let me out.”

He blinked as she put an extra amount of force on the last part of the sentence. Then he grinned, something that seemed almost halfway sincere. “I’ll look forward to it. Take care of yourself.”

Zach waved and backed out of the doorway before she could respond. She stared after him with narrow eyes and then went back to stewing in her own thoughts.

If the Group was hiding the readings from the portal, it would explain why they were so willing to risk sending in a bunch of E rankers when the magic levels were high. Maybe they’d been covering it up so much that they hadn’t even realized what the danger level had been. Is that what they were bringing in Forsmith for, to suppress the portal?

In that case, why would the Group bother to do that at all? It was part of their mission to suppress the magic coming from the portals they were contracted to Survey. If a portal was getting dangerous, that only made it more profitable for them to bargain for it in the next round of contract negotiations. Maybe they’d have to hire more high rank Surveyors, but it would still be lucrative in the long run. Could it really have been something as simple as cost-cutting that caused such a huge disaster?

She shook her head, still thinking through the issue. There had to be something else, something more sinister. Corporations were often stupid in a short-sighted, petty way, but this kind of disaster was just too visible for it to have such an easy answer. Plus, they could easily have sent their low level Surveyors in anyway, despite the readings. The only reason for them to cover up what the monitors were reporting would be to make sure that the Portal Analysis Department didn’t have any records of the fluctuations.

Which only made sense if the Group was somehow causing the fluctuations. They couldn’t be blamed for a portal going a bit bonkers. As she’d learned, almost all portals did some times. The only reason to be worried about it would be because there was some way that they could be held responsible for it happening.

It sounded insane, but there was no other explanation that she could think of. She remembered the caravan that had been on its way to the portal, remembered how firmly Forsmith had suggested that she leave. There was something going on at her portal, and it had just killed several people and hurt her teammates.

With a surprising level of viciousness, she marked down the need to track that problem down, just as she had planned revenge against the Killer. Her schedule was becoming crowded now, but she didn’t mind. It would give her plenty to think on, as she sat in the hospital bed and waited.

“Well, look who is back from the dead!” Audrey had a broad grin on her face. She didn’t seem as cheerful as she used to be, but at least she wasn’t staring dead eyed at a wall like some of the other Surveyors were.

Alex gave her a cautious wave. Clara’s bed had been her first stop after the docs had released her. Joanna had been there, watching over their teammate as she slept, and the glare that the Adept had given her hadn’t suggested good things. She’d settled for a few whispered words, and then started off to the gym to find Audrey.

It wasn’t a standard gym, by any means. A rubberized track ran around the outside, with different weight stations scattered on the edges. Roughly half a dozen sparring circles dominated the inside of the track, where the Surveyors could test their techniques against one another. Supposedly, they could be trained by more experienced members of the Group, but so far Alex hadn’t seen any evidence of that.

Audrey had obviously been using some of the facilities; she wore a loose exercise shirt and close-fitting shorts. Alex had seen her slowly working through some kind of training kata with her club when she walked in, utilizing one of the sparring circles as a practice space. The handful of other Surveyors in the room appeared to be disinterested in joining her.

The Squire gave her a friendly nod and then settled back into her stance. “So how’s the arm? That was your worst hit so far, right?”

“Healed up fine.” Alex stretched a bit. The medics had used a bit of health potion on her as well, though not nearly as much as they had for Clara. Still, a drop had done her a world of good. “What about you? You took some hard hits there at the end.”

“Clara had me up in no time.” Audrey’s expression slipped for a moment; it was a flicker of guilt and concern, quickly vanishing behind her concentration. “Still can’t believe she’s the one who went down. That Grue with the bow has some things to answer for.”

“On that, we can definitely agree.” Alex clenched her hands. “When are they sending us back out? Are we waiting until Clara can come with?”

Audrey gave her a speculative look. “Already raring to go again, huh? Didn’t get enough last time?”

Alex shook her head. “I want to hunt the one down that got Clara. Make sure he can’t try something like that again.”

Her teammate seemed to mull that idea over in her head. Then she shrugged. “Fair enough. Not sure if we can track that one down, though.” Alex raised an eyebrow, and Audrey shrugged. “The Group sent a C rank through to clear the portal. If he didn’t get the guy, then I don’t know if we’re going to be able to.”

She grunted. A C rank? Had Forsmith been the one to take care of things? “Maybe it got away before the C rank arrived. Either way, we need some payback.”

“No argument here.” Audrey spun her club through her kata, keeping the heavy weight moving. “If Clara heals in time, she’ll probably go out with us. If not…I heard they’re reorganizing some of the teams. We might get a new teammate to work with.”

Alex grimaced. “Really? Why are they doing that?”

“Most of the other teams didn’t come out of that fight too well. I think maybe us and one other team got everyone out. Every other team got pretty chewed up, either from people getting killed, wounded, or quitting.” Audrey progressed through her kata, the club still spinning. “We might end up with someone new anyway, even with Clara back. I’ve heard that they’ve only got enough for three or four teams now.”

It was something she should have expected, but it was still bitter news. “Any idea who it’ll be?”

Audrey shook her head. “Not that I can tell. We’ll still have Liliana as sergeant, though. That’s written in stone.” She paused in the middle of her kata, a broad grin on her face. “Not everything’s changing, at least.”

Alex snorted. “Well, have fun with your kata. I’m heading to the cafeteria.” The Squire nodded, not breaking stance or slowing her movements, and Alex recrossed the gym. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be long before she got a shot at revenge.

“You think they are increasing the magic from the portal?” Her mother sounded mildly confused. “I’ve never heard of anything they could use to do that. Why would they even want to?”

Alex sighed. She’d come home for the weekend, something that Liliana had grudgingly agreed to. The team sergeant had ‘officially’ been encouraged by her recovery, but she’d also seemed impatient with her request to visit her parents. Perhaps it was related to the number of other E rankers that had more or less deserted the Group in the last few days.

Her mother had welcomed her home, and then taken a closer look at her and proclaimed that she needed a haircut. Mere minutes later, she was sitting on a stool in the garage while her mother passed a comb through her hair. There was a pair of scissors sitting on a stool next to her, waiting to be used. Her father was working away in the kitchen, making some of his signature bacon chupaquesos. The smell alone was enough to set Alex’s mouth watering.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’m not sure, Mom. It seems like an insane risk for them to take, and I can’t figure out why they’d even do it. Still…”

“If it’s the only thing that makes sense, then it has to be what’s happening, right?” Her mother’s voice seemed quietly amused. “I knew I shouldn’t have read you all those Sherlock Holmes books when you were younger.”

“Too late now, no take backs.” Alex grinned to herself, enjoying the feel of the comb in her hair. “I don’t know why they are doing it, but it seems like they are. Any ideas about what I can do about it?”

Muriel was quiet for a few more moments as the comb continued to move through Alex’s hair. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “I’m not sure. The company has the right to exploit a portal in any way it wants, as long as the magic output of the portal remains below a certain threshold. Even the casualties they took can’t really be used against them. Surveyors often take some losses, especially below D rank. If they started holding the companies responsible for that kind of thing, there wouldn’t be many Survey corps left.”

Alex grunted. “So the lives that get sacrificed in the process just don’t matter?”

Her mother paused long enough to thump her shoulder with the comb. “That’s not what I’m saying, daughter of mine. Just that such things are expected, and if they are expected, no one will be shocked if you bring it up in public.”

The response didn’t make Alex feel much better, but she had to admit that her mother was right. Casualty reports among Surveyors might have made the news in the early years after the Fracture, when the portals first arrived, but nowadays people more or less knew that Surveys were a risky business. She couldn’t even remember the last time that the Tribune had published the casualty reports. No one was going to be excited about a half dozen dead E rankers.

She frowned, trying to think things over. As much as she itched to be doing something, she didn’t know exactly what the Group was even doing, yet. Making a plan to stop whatever it was they were up to was a little premature.

So instead of arguing the point, Alex let her shoulders slump slightly. “Okay, fine. I’ll just keep my eyes open and try not to die. Does that sound about right?”

“It would be a good decision, I think.” The amusement in her mother’s voice was vaguely irritating, but Alex tried her best not to focus on that. Muriel set aside the comb, placing it on the other stool before she picked up the scissors. “Now stay still. I don’t want a repeat of what happened in the fifth grade, do we?”

Alex restrained a wince. She remembered that haircut; it had gone so badly that she’d done her best to hunt down and delete every possible picture that had they’d taken of her at the time. There was a reasonably good chance that Muriel still had a few squirreled away, but she thought it was just being saved as blackmail material in the future. “Yes, mother.”

“Such an obedient child.” The mocking tone was softened by the careful snips of Muriel’s scissors. It had taken her mother a long time to figure out how to give a haircut with only one hand, but she’d been determined. Now she was just as fluid with the scissors as she was with her sword.

For a few quiet moments, there was just the sound of the scissors and her mother shifting around behind her. Alex continued to think over the problem, but she didn’t find any further solutions. At the very least, there was something she could do. Zach had given her the monitor that she could bring to the containment area; if she did it over the weekend, the guards wouldn’t have a reason to keep her out. Maybe if she got enough readings for Zach, he’d be able to turn it into something. She wasn’t quite sure about what his motivation was, but he seemed friendly enough. He’d even come to the medical station to check on her.

“So. This Zachary boy. What’s he like?”

The question was not an idle one. She felt her face go hot and red. Alex almost shook her head before she could stop herself. “He’s just someone in their Portal Analysis Department. I think he might be able to help me if I can get him enough data.”

“He sounds like a pretty smart kid.” Muriel’s smile was audible, even as she continued to snip away at Alex’s hair. “Not a bad thing for someone who you are working with.”

“Just a coworker, Mom.” She tried to put a bit more emphasis on the words. “Don’t read anything into it.”

“I’m not, I’m not.” The scissors snipped again, trimming a bit of her bangs. “He just sounds interesting, that’s all. Too bad I can’t meet him, obviously, but maybe your father can give me his opinion.”

Alex felt a stab of horror. “Dad isn’t going to meet him, Mom. Not unless half his lab is on fire.”

“That could be arranged.” Muriel laughed and patted Alex’s shoulder. “Oh, all right. I give up. You are far too easy to tease, my dear.” She snipped another couple of places and then set the scissors aside. Alex waited while her mother brushed the stray hairs from her shoulders, moving quickly and efficiently. “There, all taken care of.”

With a sigh of relief, Alex stood up and stretched. She smiled back at her mother, who still had traces of smug satisfaction in her expression. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it.”

“Any time, any time.” Muriel waved the words away. Then she scooped up the scissors and comb. “Come on, now. It smells like your father is almost done preparing that snack for us. Corporate conspiracies and other worlds can wait for another day.”

The guard looked up as Alex drew close. He smiled. “Another run today, ma’am?”

Alex nodded, hoping her own smile didn’t give anything away. “Yep! Need to get back into the Skill training thing again. That all right by you, Ron?”

Ron nodded. “Absolutely.” He took her identification and handed it off to his buddy. Then he leaned in and spoke quietly. “Actually, I’m kinda glad to see you coming back to it. The other day… well, things were bad. Enough said.”

She shrugged uneasily, and he gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. When the other guard passed her identification back without comment, he waved her through. “Have a good run. We’ll see you when you’re done.”

Alex trotted through the opening, heading for her shade tree. Once she set her bag down, she pulled out her phone and a strap that her mother had lent her. She slipped it onto her left arm and slotted her phone into it. Then she synced it to an earbud that she put in, before taking out a second strap, the one with the monitor attached.

She slipped it onto her left arm, hoping the guards wouldn’t notice it. Hopefully, they’d think it was just another exercise gadget if they did see it, but better that she didn’t give them the chance to start asking questions in the first place.

With that foreboding thought in her mind, Alex started off down the overgrown sidewalk, setting herself a decent pace. The magic wasn’t as thick in the air as it had been during some other days, but it was enough that she could feel herself begin to draw it into herself. She hoped it was enough to win her some advancement in Running; even if it didn’t, however, she’d at least be getting Zach his readings.

As if summoned, her phone rang. She tapped it quickly, momentarily throwing off her stride. “Alex here.”

“Hey! It’s Zach. Are you at the containment area?”

She smiled, falling back into her stride again. “Yeah. Just started my run, actually.”

“Your run? Oh, you were saying something about Skill training.” He paused. “I was just asking because the monitor started to report in. The readings are very interesting.”

“How…so?” Alex fought the urge to slow down so she could talk more. She wouldn’t get any levels by taking it easy.

“At this point, it is actually reporting higher levels of magic present than the stationary detectors. Are you close to the portal?”

“Nope.” She glanced in that direction. There had been no sign of a convoy there, and she was sure that Ron would have turned her aside if the Group had been up to anything. “Just running…along the…outside.”

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” She could almost picture his puzzled frown. “The magic should be less out there than where the detectors are located. If the readings are this different… Why would they…”

“Can’t let…there be…large…changes.” Her lungs were starting to burn a little. She gave herself a small break as she reached the first corner and made the turn. “Hiding the…spikes.”

“Huh. You’re probably right.” Zach snorted. “Then again, maybe they just never bothered to change whatever program they are running to falsify the results. At the very least, this proves that the readings are being falsified. Now we just need to see by how much.”

Alex felt a burst of alarm. “Can they…hear you?”

Another snort. “No. This is a private line, and one that they shouldn’t know I have. Plus, I’m calling from home, not the lab. We should be fine.”

“You…sure?”

“More sure than I am about your breathing. You sure you want to talk while you’re running? I can always just call you back.”

“I’m…fine.” Alex scowled a little, trying to breathe smoother. “So…what next?”

“What next?” He went silent for a moment. “We need more data. That means more days for our readings.”

“Do I…leave it?”

“No. They might run across it somehow. Better that we replace the dummy monitors with real ones.” He fell silent for a moment, leaving her to chug along on the sidewalk in relative peace. “Here. We have some additional monitors that I can check out of inventory. If you drop by the PAD, I can give you them, and then we can do a little search and replace.”

She frowned. “Would…they…notice?”

“That depends on whether or not they have a real stream of data, and they modify it on our end, or if they have just shut down the monitors and are generating the data on their own.” Zach hummed a bit to himself. “I’m betting that the monitors they have out there are just plain fake. We can test it out by replacing one, and go from there.”

Alex nodded to herself. It was a solid enough plan and one that they could test out today, whether he knew it or not. “Okay. Where…are they?”

“The monitors? They hid them inside some of the abandoned houses out there, in spots where they could contribute to a realistic estimate of the exposure a civilian would take close to the portal. There should be one in each house a block from the interior area.”

She grunted. “Anywhere…inside?”

“Yyyyesss.” Zach had apparently caught on to the direction her thoughts were headed. “Wait, you aren’t going to—”

“Better today…then tomorrow.” Alex grinned to herself. She’d wait until she reached the next corner; she’d be about as far away from the guards as she would ever be. The thought sent a thrill through her, and she put on an extra burst of speed. Zach seemed to be trying to find a way to stop her, but she’d already made her choice. She’d take her first step to finding out what was happening today, no matter what.

“You’re nuts, you know that?”

“Your first clue was the fact that I was a Surveyor, you know.” Alex grinned to herself as she tried the back door for the house where Zach had told her a monitor was located. It was locked, but that just meant she needed a different entrance. “Jumping through portals to fight monsters in another world isn’t exactly normal.”

“Even Surveyors have limits, though. What if they catch you?”

“Then I’ll tell them I was Skill training. I took the Inspect Skill after all.” She grinned, still breathing a bit heavier from her run. It was a thin excuse, but one that might get her out of being reported by the guards. Alex didn’t think someone like Forsmith would accept it, but it was probably a better idea to make sure he never even heard about it. “Anyway, don’t they have to check on these things regularly?”

“Yeah, technically, but if they’ve been dummies this whole time, I doubt they’ve been doing it.” Zach sounded nervous still, obviously not confident in her odds of pulling off the deception. “Can you not get in?”

“They locked all the doors.” She stepped back, studying the two-story house carefully. “Probably have a set of keys that they could use if they needed.”

“What a shame. Want to get back to your run now?”

She laughed. “Nope! Busy training a new Skill, after all.” Her eyes caught on a drainpipe running down one side of the house’s screened porch. “Let’s see if the second-story windows are locked up tight.”

“The second story? How are you planning on getting up there? Flying?”

“Not quite.” Alex began to clamber up the pipe, hoping it would bear her weight. It took her a few minutes, but she managed to get up on top of the porch, grinning as she felt the shingles beneath her running shoes. She crept up to one of the windows and tried to lift it. It was locked.

The second window, however, slid open. A closer look told her that something had broken the latch; maybe it had been an opportunistic thief, or just wear and tear over time. Either way, Alex grinned and slipped inside. She landed on a narrow bed, wincing as her shoes made marks on the mattress. Dust rose from unused sheets as she moved from the bed to the carpet beyond.

[Inspect has advanced to 1!]

“Okay, I’m in. Any clues about where they’d stash the monitor?”

She heard him draw in a steady breath. He spoke a moment later, in a voice that suggested he was trying very hard to stay calm. “Look in areas that they would have considered common or important. Something like the kitchen, dining room, front room, or master bedroom.

“All right.” She stalked across the room, heading for the door. It was open, and she stepped through into an empty hallway. Alex followed it, dust rising from the carpet with each footfall as she made her way to what seemed like the master bedroom.

There was a larger double bed there, once again with the sheets made and the furniture covered in dust. Alex sneezed as it got up her nostrils and then shook her head. “Nobody’s been up here in a while.”

“Like I said, they might not have been checking on them the way they needed.”

“Yeah.” She began her search, looking beneath the bed and in the closets. There were more clothes left in those abandoned closets than she’d ever owned. It was a bit of a bitter thing to recognize, even as she made sure that there were no monitors hiding there.

“Nothing up here. Going to move downstairs.”

“Be careful. The guards might notice that you haven’t come around again.”

Alex made her way down a set of wooden stairs to the ground floor, where the dust hung in the air. She walked through to the kitchen, which had a marble countertop and well-painted cabinets. The dishes inside were all cheap stuff, something that they’d obviously found in the nearby convenience stores, but when she checked under the sink, she saw a familiar-looking shape tucked in behind the pipes. “Got it. It was in the kitchen.”

[Inspect has advanced to 2!]

“Oh, good.” Zach sighed. “Look, if you’re going to do this, you should move quickly. You can’t have that much time there, right?”

“Keep your pants on, Zach. I’ve got it.” She reached out and pried the monitor loose from the housing that held it. It took a couple moments for her to take out her own monitor and stick it in the other one’s place. Then she secured the defective monitor to her strap. “It’s done. Any changes?”

“We’ll see once you get further out of position. Or maybe we won’t. Depending on what happens.”

“Comforting as always.” She chuckled to herself and shut the doors. Then she went back up to the room above and squeezed back out through the window. Unlocking a door would have been easier, but if someone did manage to visit, they would probably notice it. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice her footprints, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Out on the porch roof, she debated jumping down directly, and decided the risk of a twisted ankle was a bit too much. Instead, she went back to the drainpipe and shimmied back down it. Satisfied, she stood back from the house and smiled. “Any changes so far?”

“Nothing.”

“All right. Let me know if anything changes. Going to start running again.”

She took off towards the chain-link fence at the edge of the containment area, setting herself a decent pace. A part of her braced for Zach to yell at her to go back, that something had changed. He said nothing, however, just typing in the background and occasionally humming to himself. In the meantime, she charted a course that wove back out to the fence, darting in and around the yards of the houses.

By the time she got back to her original route, she heard Zach let out a breath. “Okay, I haven’t seen any difference in the official readings. We were right; the monitors in place are just fakes with no output. I think you’re good.”

“Glad…to hear it.” She continued along the edge of the area, eventually hitting the corner that would bring her back into the view of her shade tree and the guards at the entrance.

She ran in silence for a while longer. Tension built inside as she got closer to the entrance. For all her bluster, if the guards made an issue of her searching through the houses, it was going to cause problems. Her breath caught as Ron waved at her. He shouted from the gate. “Hey! Took you a little longer this time!”

“Shaking off… the rust!” She waved back, and he grinned. Then he went back to talking with his coworker, letting her run on past.

Alex spent a few more moments running before she spoke again. “We… good?”

“Yeah. We’re good. Well done!”

“Thanks…a lot.” Despite her sarcasm, it was hard for her not to grin as she ran along. First step down. Who knew how many to go.