“War isn’t hell. War is war, and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. For one thing, there are no innocent bystanders in hell.” - Hawkeye Pierce, MASH -

_____

“Why aren’t you more worried about this!?” Jeanne was yelling at James. Currently, instead of being worried about anything, he had propped an elbow up on his arm and was rubbing at his chin in what he thought was a sagely manner. And the young mother took some amount of offense to the lack of concern he seemed to be showing. “My daughter has something living in her head! And you’re just standing there!”

“Okay, first of all, I’m thinking, so I’m not just standing here.” James said. “And thinking is hard, because I’ve been running around in hundred degree heat trying to get city officials to give me the time of day for the last eight hours, so cut me a little slack.” He let out a long breath, allowing the motel’s wimpy AC to do its job a little longer. “Second of all, this is not that big of a deal.”

“How can you *possibly* think that!” Jeanne snapped at him. She was pacing frantically while her daughter sat in the corner of the room, looking equal parts sheepish and anxious. “How would you like it if this happened to you?!”

James folded both his arms and set his mouth into a flat line. “Uh, yeah. Ship’s sailed on that one. Anesh and I both have native infomorphs. There’s a lot of evidence we used to have another one, too, but we’re trying not to dig too deep into that. Half of my organization is friends with at least one infomorph in a similar way to your daughter. I understand why you’re worried here, but this isn’t a parasitic thing.”

“But you can’t *be sure*...”

“Of course not. That’s why we ask.” James said, trying to keep his voice calm. “There’s usually some pretty obvious signs if a compulsion or memeplex are keeping a person from talking about a specific subject. It’s why I asked Ava a bunch of random questions when we got here. It’s pretty clear that she’s in control.” James paused, and then raised a finger to make a follow up point. “I mean, insofar as anyone under the age of twenty five is ever in control of themselves.”

“Hey!” Ava didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she understood that she was being made fun of.

Jeanne wasn’t convinced though. “How come she didn’t tell me, then? She never keeps secrets. But *this* she kept from me, for *months*!”

“Didn’t you… talk to her?” James looked confused. “The infomorph is obviously hurt by people knowing about it. I’ve never seen that before, but it’s not outside what’s easily possible. Ava didn’t want to hurt her friend. It’s why I asked Anesh to wait outside; not everyone needs to know about the infomorph to learn from it.” He glanced over at Ava. “That’s why I’m using terms like ‘it’ or ‘the infomorph’. More general language is less likely to cause harm.”

“And you don’t think it’s creepy that *this one* has emotionally blackmailed my daughter into not talking about itself?” Jeanne crossed her arms and glared at James.

“Uh… I mean… it’s not a good look, I admit. If this infomorph were a human adult, that would be a red flag the size of Montana. But it looks like what’s happening here is more about survival than manipulation.” James kept himself from shrugging, not wanting to seem too casual. “You asked for my opinion, and sadly *I’m* somehow the only known expert on this stuff, and that’s my call. It’s fine. Ava’s safe. Probably *safer* than any other kid on the planet. I don’t think… you understand.” James leaned against the door and stared down at his shoes. “I don’t think you get how devastating an infomorph can be, if they’re hostile. What Ava has as a friend-slash-sister is roughly on par with carrying around a rocket launcher all the time. Humans don’t *have* a defense against that; we‘re just screwed. And somehow, Ava does. It sounds like, from what she’s shared with you, that the only reason you snapped out of that walking trance was because of her friend.”

“So I’m just supposed to be grateful that there’s some kind of snake thing that came from nowhere and that no one understands, living in my kid’s head?” Jeanne couldn’t really decide if she was exhaustedly resigned or tiredly angry.

“Yeeeeeeeeeees? Yes.” James nodded. “Also it’s not that bad. Some of my best friends are snakes.” He said.

“What?”

“I wanna meet the snakes!” Ava exclaimed, forgetting that she was being punished.

A brief thought went through James’ head, of Ava riding on the back of a camraconda. “Yeah, we can arrange that.” He nodded, then caught her mom’s death glare out of his peripheral vision. “*Ahem*. If your mom says it’s okay. So… be good? Yes. Be good.” James faltered through the interaction. “Okay, good talk. I’ve gotta fill Anesh in. Ava, is your friend doing okay?” He asked, genuinely concerned.

Ava tilted her head back, looking upward and at nothing in particular as she thought about it. “She’s sleeping.” The young girl announced. “Will she be okay?” Her voice wavered.

“Yes.” James said with all the adult confidence he could project, before he stole out the front door. Shutting it behind him with a mechanical clatter from the door’s lock, and hoping that he’d been able to explain enough to Jeanne that she wouldn’t try to do ruin her kid’s life over this.

“So?” Anesh asked him.

“Good news or bad news?” James said with a tenuous grin.

“Oh, sod it. Bad first.”

“I don’t know how, but Ava’s got an infomorph. I’m not gonna talk about it too much, because it’s literally painfully shy. But yeah, it’s… hoo boy.”

“Hostile?”

“No, no. Not even a little, that I could tell.” James shook his head. “Alive. A person, somehow. It’s actually weird in that regard. No, the problem is…” James trailed off, walking over to their car and pausing numbly at the driver’s door.

Anesh noticed, and followed, standing nearby but not crowding. “Can I help?” He asked quietly.

“When did we leave? On ‘vacation’.”

“Eight days ago?” Anesh guessed.

“Wanna bet when they first arrived in town?”

“No...”

“Well, you don’t have to.” James ‘reassured’ him.

Anesh held up a hand. “Wait, no. El called us.”

“Yeah, she did!” James agreed. “And why did El get back here when she did? She was having fun, roaming around, being free. What made her come back here?”

His partner let out a small grunt of confusion. “I don’t think the timeline comes together perfectly.” He said. “But you’re implying that we were summoned here?”

“At the very least, we were drawn to help them. There’s some kind of hostile compulsion here. And Ava’s infomorph has been blanking their memory every night to get rid of it. But it’s also been *screaming* for help.” James sprawled dramatically over the hood of their car. “I don’t know what to dooooo.” He moaned. “Are we being manipulated here? I told Jeanne it was fine, but I’m actually kind of worried! I don’t… I don’t know what to do about this!”

“I’ve got a suggestion?” Anesh said, sliding up to James and running a hand through his boyfriend’s hair in a comforting motion.

“Hrrrm.” James half asked, half just relaxed into his partner’s touch.

“What do you do, when someone calls for help?”

“Help them.” James said, in a voice that didn’t need to add ‘obviously’ to the end of the sentence.

“Yeah. There ya go.” Anesh shrugged. “Oh no! A little kid and her imaginary-and-also-real friend asked for help, and we came running! Whatever will we do with this world-shattering information about the nature of who we are as people?” Anesh swooned, holding a hand against his heart as he tried to contain his fragile ego.

James cracked his eyes open in narrow slits, not moving for a second before rolling across the hood and then sitting up. “Alright, alright. I’m good. Stop taking my job as world’s largest ham.”

“However will we cope with this new paradigm!” Anesh continued his joking.

“We link up with El and start the nighttime part of our investigation.” James informed him dryly. “Get in the damn car, you goof.” Anesh grinned wide at him, and circled around to hop in the passenger seat, leaving James shaking his head with a creeping grin on his lips. “I love you too.” He muttered, before getting in the car himself.

_____

Operation Figure This Shit Out, Evening Version, was in full swing. Which, on a practical level, meant that they’d met up with El, who was taking them on a tour of where local delinquents hung out.

In theory, James had an appointment to talk to a realtor tomorrow about selling some property that wasn’t real. But in practice, that didn’t make him any more patient now. So, they’d started the tedious part of information gathering; asking random people questions until they either got a hit, or ran out of time.

Currently, they were in the back parking lot of a diner that El had led them to. It was the fifth spot they’d hit up so far tonight. The diner oozed a feeling of disrepair and quiet apathy, which was pretty appropriate for a Denny’s. James hadn’t actually known that Denny’s still existed, since the last one near him had closed years ago, and he assumed that was part of something larger. But this establishment, just like the one that existed in his own younger years, was the perfect place for late teens, early twenties kids to hang out in the evening.

It was, James knew from experience, a hard age to be. You were supposed to be an adult now, but no one had dropped off the manual that explained what that meant. And for a lot of people, spending late nights with your friends, splitting a plate of not-very-good french fries and talking about anything at all was both a great distraction, and an even better way to hone yourself into someone a little more mature.

It also made it a convenient place to locate a collection of exactly the kind of people who poked their noses into unexpected places, and turned over strange secrets.

“Hey!” James introduced himself to the small crowd of maybe ten of the young adults clustered around a couple cars. They’d waited nearby long enough to know that they were waiting for a couple friends to show up, but James didn’t feel like he needed to snoop on them any longer before making an introduction. “You guys mind if I ask you some questions?”

He’d pitched his voice perhaps a little too far toward authority, judging by the handful of muffled swears in the group. “Are you the cops?” One of them asked him. The kid had a voice that was too deep for his young age, and towered about a foot over James in height, but he didn’t have that aura of being in control of the situation. Nervous. They were all nervous.

He glanced back and forth behind him to Anesh and El, raising his eyebrows in the pale evening light.

“Yes.” Anesh said. “No.” El said simultaneously.

James nodded and looked back, deciding to go with a different route instead. “I could impersonate the FBI if you really want, but nah, I’ve just got a few weird questions about this town.”

“Impersonate…?”

“Daryl, shut up.” One particularly smart girl in the group said. “Don’t talk to the cops, remember?”

“Seriously, not the police.” James said. Though he was largely ignored as the friend group devolved into what felt like a well trodden internal argument. “Guys?” He added, waiting patiently.

“This is my fault.” El nodded to herself, shooting a glance at Anesh. “I should have known better then to trust college kids to be useful.”

“It was a noble attempt.” Anesh told her. “Maybe the next group will be better.”

James wasn’t ready to give up though. “Hey!” His shout cut off all the discussion with a sudden nervous silence. “Have any of you noticed what’s wrong around here?” He loudly questioned the group that was now openly staring at him.

One of them, who’d been edging toward the back of a car and the line of bushes that marked off the parking lot, perhaps getting ready to run, suddenly perked up. No one else noticed it, and a couple other kids started talking over each other asking what James meant, but both James and Anesh had caught the flash of recognition.

“You, in the back.” Anesh said tiredly. “Come on, we’re not gonna kill you. What’s up?”

“What’s it in for me?” The kid asked. His voice was unsteady; he was obviously trying to look cooler than he actually felt, leather jacket and a black hat in a style James could never remember the name of but was kinda eye-rollingly silly to see worn seriously. A soul patch, on a kid who was *maybe* twenty two, at the most. All of it made a bit dumber by how hot it was out. James had just worn shorts, like a smart guy.

The instant he spoke, half the group turned to look at him, and the other half actually did roll their eyes. Or, at least, made motions of derision.

James eyed the dude for a second. He was still clearly deciding if he should just bolt into the bushes and make a run for it, which was stupid, since James was tired and had no intention of chasing him at *all*. Then he shrugged. “In general? I’ll pay for your guy’s food tonight. For you specifically?” His eyes locked onto the kid’s, and he let a sharkish grin out. “I’ll tell you that you’re right about what you suspect.”

“Dude! Don’t talk to the-!”

“They go by my house every night.” The kid said, and the fear in his voice gave James some pause. “My parents live by the highway, and I see them every night. Ten cars out, nine cars back. Every night. I’ve been counting. I don’t know… I don’t know what’s wrong. But there’s something wrong?” His voice cracked. It was obviously something he hadn’t shared with the rest of the friends around there, either. “You said you’d tell me.”

James nodded, taking the asshole grin off his face. “There’s something wrong in this town.” He said. “And you already know, don’t you? You just don’t think anyone will believe you if you say that you’ve seen an actual monster.”

“...yeah.”

“Foster, what the fuck are you talking about?” The girl from earlier demanded.

James ignored her. “Your friends are here.” He said to the group as another car pulled into the lot. “Go inside. Here.” He tossed the tall kid a small roll of cash that wasn’t actually *that* much, but would add to his mystique. Then, as they worryingly cleared out, he turned back to the one kid who knew something. “Okay. Where do you live, and around what time? One, maybe two AM?”

“Yeah. How did… oh.” The kid came to his own conclusion. “Are you gonna kill me?” He asked quietly.

“Yo, you’re scaring the kid.” El told him angrily.

Anesh cleared his throat. “Yeah, you do need to remember that most people who ask questions like this don’t leave a lot of witnesses.” He added.

“In *movies*!” James exclaimed. “I’m not some government coverup crew!” He threw his arms up. “Fine, whatever! Mystique broken! No, we’re not gonna kill you. Also, here’s my number, and an emergency response number, in case anything goes horribly wrong, okay?” James handed a small card to the kid. “Anyway. Go join your friends.”

The kid practically sprinted away, as Anesh stepped up to James. “Should you really have been that... um… that?”

“Probably not.” James sighed. “I’m not good at this stuff. You know, at the end there, I really, *really* wanted to just do the whole ‘magic is real and I am a wizard’ thing. So at least I’m improving on that front?”

El made some kind of strangled noise. “Improving? Like, you’ve done that before?”

“Oh, repeatedly.” James nodded enthusiastically. “Sometimes to government officials!”

“I’ve been hiding magic from everyone!” El shouted at him. “Why have I been doing that?!”

“Dude, most people won’t accept magic unless you’re really blatant about it. Some people literally cannot fully engage with anything from a dungeon; it’s a weird quirk, and it must suck for those people. But yeah, I haven’t bothered with much secrecy lately.” James shrugged. “I kinda feel like we’re at a point where small things like this aren’t ever going to matter that much.”

Anesh frowned at his partner. “Yes, but it’s reckless.”

“Counterpoint!” James offered. “The world is falling apart.”

There was a pause. “...and?” El asked tentatively.

“And that’s his whole point.” Anesh sighed. “Okay. We’ve got one lead. Where’s next?”

“What, you don’t want to go check that out?” El asked, pointing to the notepad that James had written the address on. “That’s kinda huge, isn’t it?”

James shook his head, running a hand through his hair in an idle motion. “If I’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that more information is always better earlier. Shocking last minute revelations are great and all, but actually knowing what’s going on before doing anything lets us plan around that, instead of flailing as we react.” He took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air. If there was one perk of there being basically no one around, it was that there wasn’t as much lingering scent of gasoline in the air. “So we check out the rest of the places on your little list. Then we go talk any employees that are working late who might have noticed something. Normally, we’d also talk to hotel desk clerks, but there’s exactly one open motel in this city and we’re in it and it kinda sucks.” James shrugged as he opened his car door. “We might hear the same things multiple times. But whatever. That just helps us sort out what’s accurate. And *then* we can start to put the picture together.”

“I’m just saying, the picture sounds like there’s some kind of weird cult sacrificing people to the dungeon.” El muttered.

“Sure. Or sacrificing cars.” James offered. “Which is way less bad, and also, even if they were feeding people to the road, it doesn’t explain where the other, you know, fourteen thousand people went.”

“Fine. Fine! Follow me, we’ll go to the park where assholes hang out after dark.” El scowled. “But I swear to god, if someone gets eaten by a car while we’re fucking around, I’m gonna be mad at you.” She said, slamming her driver’s door shut with a bang.

There were no assholes in the park. Nor at the hooka lounge that El led them to next, which had closed down at some point. Sweeping dark parking lots of derelict strip malls led them to a guy who offered a ‘great deal’ on weed, which mostly served to remind James that marijuana was still inexplicably illegal in this state. He traded the guy two full thermoses of iced wisdom coffee for any information on anything he felt was weird in the city. Which got them a rumor that was going around about ghost speedbumps, or speedbumps the city was installing in the dead of night. He *also* said James wasn’t the first person to ask about that, which was a little worrying, but wouldn’t explain further.

They followed up on that, and two hours later, closing in on midnight, James got a sudden shift in tone from the cashier at an all night convenience store.

“Yeah. There’s someone out there moving ‘em.” The old man told him. Dude had scraggly hair and more tattoos than original teeth, but when he started talking, it was like his voice was liquid gold. But no level of soothing tone could mask the obvious worry he felt. “Never see ‘em. But he’s there. Called the cops once, but the pigs won’t even come out. Say I’m seeing things.”

“Are you?” James asked, earnestly.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

The old man laughed, a warm belly laugh. “Ayy, I’ve been strung out a few times, yeah?” He gave James an appraising eye. “But not this one, brother. He’s out there. And there’s something *wrong* with ‘em.” He tapped the plexiglass countertop, obviously not indicating the lottery tickets on display. “Got a sawn off under here if he ever comes in. Don’t like the feel of ‘em one bit. The road moves whenever he’s nearby. Everyone fucking laughs, but you aren’t gonna, are you?”

James gave him a card with a couple numbers on it, collected the candy bar he’d paid for, and headed back out to the parking lot.

“Speed bumps aren’t the only thing that’ve come out of the Route.” He told the other two as he bit into the wafer bar. He paused, and glared at the candy in his hand; it was the first candy he’d paid for in a while, and he decided he didn’t like it. “There’s something that the clerk there at least thinks is person shaped. And the speed bumps are moving around it. Might be following it, or it might actually be controlling them.”

“Okay, *that’s* a problem.” El said. “We need to kill that.”

“Do we?” Anesh asked.

“No, she’s right this time.” James shot a nod at El. “The speed bumps are probably something close to what we’d call yellow life. But if they’re dancing to something else’s tune? We’ve seen the things that do that.”

Anesh grimaced. “Greens.”

“Yeah.” James agreed grimly. “And that means the dungeon is up to something. And with everything we know is going on? I’m not super inclined to let keep doing whatever it’s doing.”

“Okay. How do we track it down?” El asked.

“Oh, no idea.” James shook his head. “We’d have to get lucky, find some of the speedbumps, then maybe a stakeout? And honestly, it’s…” he checked his phone, “...it’s almost one AM?! Shit, no wonder I’m tired. Okay. Sleep. Then tomorrow, you two can go hunting while I talk to the realtor.”

“Guard shifts again?” Anesh asked.

“Yeah.” James sighed and shook his head. “Getting tired of this. This place feels spooky as all hell.”

“We should call in backup.” Anesh suggested.

“Guys?” El said softly.

“I suppose it is time to cut our vacation short.” James admitted. “Get a chunk of the Order in here.”

“Guys!” El’s voice picked up.

James and Anesh weren’t idiots, contrary to popular opinion. The instant they actually realized how worried El sounded through the tired haze around their minds, they looked over sharply. “What’s wrong?” James asked instantly.

El just pointed across the parking lot, past half a row of dead trees and barkdust that separated them from the road. The road itself was a very mild hill that climbed to their right, and dropped off to level ground farther left where it met a big traffic circle intersection in front of a strip mall. And because of how open the space was, except for evenly spaced street lamps, they had a great view of what El had spotted.

The engine noise of the battered grey pickup hit James’ perception shortly after he realized what he was looking at. The car was flying down the hill at an irresponsible speed, a pair of humans hanging on in the bed of the truck for dear life. Someone was leaned out the passanger window, twisted to face behind them, and as another loud engine cough sounded, James realized that what he was hearing was gunfire.

Then the truck blew past them, screaming through the intersection without even blinking at the red light.

And a second later, a school of speed bumps followed after, flowing in ripples through the pavement that looked surreal and otherworldly in the pale orange light of the streetlights.

What makes it look a lot more otherworldly was the humanoid figure in the flapping black cloak, face obscured by a dark hood, standing tilted forward on the back of one of the speed bumps, riding it after the escaping truck.

“What the bloody hell…” Anesh exclaimed, while El limply let her pointing arm drop down to her side, mouth hanging slightly open in confusion.

James’ eyes glittered. “A lead!” He announced enthusiastically. “Let’s fucking go!” He yelled, sprinting for the car, shortly followed by his cohorts.

The problem was, even if the city wasn’t that big to begin with, they actually did have an amount of respect for traffic signals. And mixed with the lead their target had on them, it didn’t take long for everyone to realize they weren’t going to catch up if the driver had decided to just get the fuck out of town and not look back.

“Alright, fuck it.” James spoke into the radio. “I’m lost, and we’re clearly not finding them. But we all saw that, right? Over.”

“I saw it.” Anesh grumbled. “I wish I hadn’t. This is boiling over, fast.”

“I saw it *first*.” El’s words through the two-way overlapped Anesh’s. “Anyone got a good explanation for that? Cause that was fucked up.”

“I got nothing.” James admitted. “It’s inconsistent with the dungeon’s behavior. So either we’re missing a major piece of this puzzle, or there’s someone else fucking around here. Over.”

“She’s never gonna say over, no matter how many times you do it.” Anesh stage whispered to him.

When El’s voice did come back, it was a bit resigned. “Whatever. You guys mind if we call it for tonight? We’re near my house and I wanna grab a burger and make sure my mom’s doing okay.”

Anesh took the radio from James, who was busy pulling over to park while they talked, and replied. “Yeah, we’re wiped too. Reconnect tomorrow after James’ meeting?” He paused for just a second, and then added, “Over.”

James was cackling through El’s acknowledgement.

_____

The next day dawned. No one had answered their texts back to the Order. James tried calling, and got a busy signal. According to Jeanne, she hadn’t been able to call her family either.

James had politely excused himself to the bathroom of the Waffle House they were eating at, and had screamed into his coat for a few minutes.

Then he’d calmly come back, and asked Anesh to look into that, while he went and talked to a realtor. They’d finished breakfast, politely asked the waitress for a small dish of water so Rufus and Ganesh could wash the syrup off their faces, and tipped with a thousand bucks and a small yellow.

On the way back to the motel, Ava had asked them what the orbs were. James, happy to have his mind taken off things, had explained, and capped off his rambling, tangent filled monologue by asking if she wanted to try one. He’d also offered one to Jeanne, and done the ‘if your mom says it’s okay’ thing, to cover his bases.

Surprisingly, she did say it was okay, and James handed them a couple orbs from his coat pockets.

Ava got a rank in meteorology and global weather pattern recognition. Her mom got a rank in formatting recipe books. James explained that this was about normal, and then the rest of the walk was a conversation on how he was using the word ‘normal’ wrong.

El met them at the door to their motel to complain about her phone being broken. Then she’d actually filled them in on what she meant to, which was that when she’d gone to a drive thru last night after splitting up, she’d asked the staff if they’d noticed anything weird. And she had *also* gotten a “you’re the second person to ask that” from them. Except this time, they had a description for her; some blonde kid wearing armor. El had made a comment about a bulletproof vest, and been corrected; the kid was wearing *plate mail*.

James tried to assign El to deal with that, but she waved him off. She was meeting up with a friend today. He tried to assign *Anesh* to that, but Anesh was already busy. Jeanne said she could try, but James wasn’t sure he wanted an unarmed, untrained, barely initiated civilian getting into a potentially dangerous situation. Jeanne had glared at him, and demanded he arm her then.

Jeanne got James’ spare handgun, a long range radio, Ganesh, and instructions to run if anything seemed even slightly suspicious. Then she assigned herself to asking questions around town.

Then James had to rush to not be late for his meeting.

_____

Of all the dungeontech from Officium Mundi, there were absolutely standout hits. The nerf gun that shot balls of superheated plasma, the laser pointer that broadcast emotions, the binder that converted kinetic force into paperwork. All great, useful beyond belief, lifesavers.

Of course, different members of the Order had their own favorites. Most people had a pair of headphones they favored at this point. One person had found a little plant pot that grew anything planted in it into a succulent, and that ‘anything’ included everything from gemstone to meat. Someone had a dress shirt that removed back pain. And another aspirant had at some point acquired a desk lamp that gradually recovered lost personal effects.

All of that was cool. But to James, none of it held a candle to his actual favorite magic item.

“Good afternoon.” He smoothly greeted the receptionist at the desk of Sunshine Realty while he reached into the breast pocket of the suit jacket he was wearing. “Fred Timman, New York, Fidelity Investments, I’m here to see Mr. Stephens?” As James spoke he words, the magic of the suit jacket materialized an appropriately ostentatious business card under his fingertips, which he drew out and handed to the grey haired woman who was eyeing him with raised eyebrows over her thick glasses.

This jacket was James’ favorite. Partially because it was hilarious and made him feel incredibly suave, but also partially because the contact numbers on the generated business cards were *real*, and some kind of potentially unethical memetic effect would make his cover bulletproof for exactly ten minutes. Or until refreshed.

The woman took his card, looked at it, then back up at him. “I don’t have a meeting scheduled.” She said without checking.

“Oh, I know.” James told her with a brash smile. Here, finally, the half dozen business etiquette orbs he had could kick in and do their dark work. “Ya’ll wouldn’t even pencil me in. But I’ve got a deal Stephens is going to want to hear, and playing hard to get is only gonna work for so long.” He smiled again and leaned on the desk. “Also I couldn’t call. All the phones are down.”

“Someone ran into a cell tower.” An angry man’s voice cut across the office’s chilly air. “I told you yesterday, we’re not looking to hire anyone.”

“Hire me?” James’s persona tilted his head back and laughed deeply. “I’m not looking for a *job*.” He told the man. “I’m here to offer you a deal.”

Mark Stephens was a cautious man most days. And something about the grin James was giving him put him off; it seemed a little too smooth. But then, this was some jackass from a big city who probably thought he could just stroll in here and buy the place.

And if there was one thing Stephens wanted, it was a chance to shove it in this guy’s face. “You’ve got ten minutes. Step into my office.” He said, with his own rude grin splitting his face under his salt and pepper mustache.

In his head, James laughed. This had worked on the first realtor he’d talked to, too. Once you got the trick down, it was almost too easy.

“This must be how JP feels all the time.” He muttered, riding high on a feeling of social invulnerability as he stepped into Stephen’s office.

“Okay.” The middle aged man dropped heavily into a swivel chair and didn’t offer a seat to James. “What do you want?”

“A certain industrial corporation is looking for a large portion of land to develop.” James said, purposefully vague. “They don’t just want to build factories, though. They need space for workers, services, the whole thing. Company town in all but name. We’re looking to buy out as much of this hamlet as possible, and it *seems*, Mr. Stephens, that you already own a fair chunk of it.”

“So what if I do?”

“Then I’ve got an early offer for you, that I think you’ll find very lucrative.” James said with a slimy tone. “After all, whoever sells first is going to get the best offer.”

Stephens was pretending to read something on his computer while playing solitaire. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong guy.” He said. “Not sure what you’ve heard, but I won’t be selling to you.”

“Oh? Interesting. Your peers in town all pointed to you as owning the largest share. Just thought we’d give you the opening offer.” James said, standing from the uncomfortable chair he’d occupied and dusting his coat off. “Well…” He trailed off, turning and idly moving for the door.

‘Take the bait.’ James thought to himself. ‘Tell me something you shouldn’t.’

“Hang on!” Stephens’ voice was a little more panicked than it should have been. “What did you hear?”

James turned, face neutral. “Only that you owned the largest portion of the town. You’ve done well on your collective buyout, haven’t you? Been a little faster than the others, hm? That’s smart.” He didn’t miss that the wannabe mogul preened under the praise. “But this town is emptying out. It’s dying.” And again, James didn’t miss that the man *flinched* at the word choice. “Property with no one to rent to? That won’t bring you profit. But I’m offering you an escape plan. Sell to us, everything you’ve got, and get a good deal. Retire. Never worry about money again. Hmm?”

Stephens looked like he was considering it, but he came to the conclusion James was leading him to quickly. “You’ll use my properties to pressure the others to sell.” He said, pointing a meaty finger at James.

“Yup.” James admitted. “But what do you care? You’ll already be rich.”

“I play poker with ‘my peers’.” He put on a nasaly mocking tone for those words. “You’re asking me to betray my friends.”

“They’ll still get paid, if they’ve done their jobs.” James said, going with the flow of conversation. He had fully immersed himself in the role now, and something in the back of his mind told him Stephens was just a half step away from telling him *something*. “Besides. Even if you call it betrayal, one of you has to sell first. Why not you?”

And James could practically see the gears turning, as the man in front of him put together the puzzle he’d been offered. This guy wasn’t *stupid*. And that’s why it was a surprise when he came to a conclusion rapidly and firmly.

“No.” He growled at James. “None of us will be selling to you, mister Timman. Get out of our town.”

James raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. None of them? Their town?

Well wasn’t *that* interesting.

The rest of the conversation was insults and threats, before James strutted out of the building and pulled away in what appeared to be an angry huff. The drive to the next office gave him a little time to think.

Everything about that interaction had been suspicious. When he’d hit up the first of the town’s four realtors, he’d done the persona to get a foot in the door, not because they were *actually* suspicious. But after Stephens, he was starting to feel like there was something a lot deeper going on with these people.

Their town. *Their* town. What kind of people bought a town for fun? If they’d been taking advantage of dungeon conditions to make some quick cash, that would be one thing. Shitty, sure, but not an existential threat. But that guy had made it sound like it was more than that.

Were they dealing with a full on dungeon cult? It was adding up that way. But James wanted to do a little more digging before he went in guns blazing.

By the time he made it to his next destination, the woman who ran the office had heard he was coming.

“Yes, Ms. Terry is aware of you, Mr. Timman.” The employee who answered the door had told him. “She is uninterested in your offer. Fuck off.” And then, with a door slammed in his face, James had returned to his car with a puzzled look.

“Way more aggressive than I was expecting.” He spoke to himself, sorting out his thoughts. “Either I’m flagrantly misunderstanding how dedicated realtors are to each other, and this is some kind of secret guild I didn’t know about, or else these guys are in *deep* with each other.” He watched the building through his rear view mirror, almost snickering as he saw the blinds snap closed from someone ducking away from watching him.

“Okay.” James reordered his thoughts. “Dungeon feel in town, majority of town owned by four-ish people, monsters in the streets, cell service down…”

He paused, narrowed his eyes, looked down at his hands. Took a second to go over that information again. And then, snapped his head back up.

“This is some Scooby Doo bullshit, isn’t it?!” He barked out. “No, no, fuck! The guy last night even had a mysterious black cloak on! That’s not *fair*!” He slapped his steering wheel in frustration, and instinctively went to text Anesh before getting the notice that he still had no service on his phone. “Ugggghhhh.” James hammered his head back into the seat cushion. “God dammit. This is going to be so dumb, isn’t it? This is just a regular criminal conspiracy using dungeon stuff. I’m almost disappointed.” He shook off the feeling of exasperation. “Alright, one more.” He muttered, and started the car.

There was still one more realtor who’d been buying up cheap property, and James wasn’t going to make a stupid conclusion without being thorough.

_____

“Where’s James?” Jeanne asked as she was let into their motel room by Anesh, her daughter in tow.

“Still out lying to businesspeople. Why, what’s up?” Anesh asked. “Oh, also, the phone thing is weird and I do need to keep looking into it, so I don’t want to take too long.”

“Someone left a note on my car.” Jeanne said, handing the folded paper to Anesh.

He put aside his worries about phone connectivity instantly and took it from her, opening the page to see words written in a flowery script and thick ink.

‘You are looking for me. We wish to meet. Highway 122, 10 PM, tonight.’

“Absolutely not.” Anesh shook his head.

“What?” Jeanne looked confused. “Isn’t this good? This means at least one other person isn’t… an enemy? A bad guy? Is that how you’d say it?”

“We try not to say ‘bad guy’, since that’ll get James and Alanna talking in circles forever about ethics. But yeah, no, this would work perfectly on James, who loves this kind of theatrics. But me? I’m just seeing a massive opportunity for a trap, and I think we should skip town at this point. Teleport out, come back better prepared. I should have done it today, but I admit, I got distracted following the trail of devastation around city infrastructure.”

Jeanne jerked back. “What?”

“Oh yeah, someone demolished three cell towers, and a broadband hub point.” Anesh sighed. “Stuff is escalating, fast, and-”

Ava jumped in, tacking into Anesh’s leg and staring up at him. “You can teleport?!” She demanded.

“Yes. No. Yes.” Anesh faltered. “Um… yes, we can teleport. But I only have two uses of it left, and we’d want to make sure everyone leaves safely, and… it’s a logistics thing.”

Jeanne pulled her daughter back and set her on the bed, admonishing her to not grab people at random. “So someone is cutting off the phones?”

“And internet.” Anesh said. “Everyone thinks its just a single car crash that messed one thing up, but it happened in multiple places.”

“People are going to notice that, right?”

“Almost right away.” Anesh nodded. “So we need to find James, fast, because whatever they have planned, it’ll be happening relatively soon. Assuming it’s not just random vandalism.”

“Can you… can you teleport to him?” Jeanne asked cautiously. “I don’t know how your power works.”

“Oh, it’s not a power. It’s a notepad.” Anesh clarified. “You write a destination on it and then you go there. Moves up to six people.” He hummed. “Problem is, we can’t go to ‘James’. Where is he, right now?”

“He had an order to the realtors he was going to visit.” Jeanne said. “We can go to the last one, and wait?”

Anesh nodded slowly, unfolding his arms. “That’s… not a bad plan.” He admitted. “Yeah, okay. I’m nervous enough staying here. It’s well past time we evacuated. Grab Rufus and everyone circle up. We’ll come back for luggage and stuff later. I think at this point, getting you two safely out of here is the most important thing.”

“Is Hidden people?” Ava asked quietly.

“Yes. But, as far as the telepad is concerned, you’re not moving her.” Anesh told the young girl. “But even if she did count, that’s still six of us. So. Ready?” He held up the note pad onto which he’d written down ‘Across the street from Golden Valley Property Management’.

“Yes!” Ava squeaked.

“What do we need to do?” Jeanne asked, letting Rufus rest in the palm of her hand.

Anesh nodded at her. “Hold hands, and let your daughter tear the page off.”

“Why her?”

“She seems like she’s most excited.” Anesh admitted.

They linked arms, and Jeanne put a hand on her daughter’s head as the young girl reached out and dramatically ripped the page away with a solid tug.

They arrived safely, Ava laughing gleefully and Anesh jerking in surprise as his map updated to inform him that his destination was on the left. And after that, they really didn’t like what they found.

_____

James had, he would later be willing to admit, made a mistake. He’d assumed that because this was some Scooby Doo bullshit, that the other humans involved had all sort of capped their level of hostility at ‘mostly harmless jerks’. Possibly with masks. There was an outside chance they had very good masks, and maybe a fog machine.

He was three blocks away from the last little office complex that he was going to try to wring information out of today, when the attack came. The attack he probably should have anticipated, but was caught completely off guard by.

Though to be fair to him, he wouldn’t have seen it coming anyway.

The first thing James knew was wrong was that his car was lurching sideways. He’d been on a main thoroughfare, and the lack of citizens in the city had made traffic a breeze, so he was slightly speeding on top of the already decent speed limit. And then, without warning, there was the screaming of metal tearing, a pair of cacophonous bangs, and the world was titling sideways.

James was augmented. It had become so much a part of his daily life that it wasn’t even difficult for him to keep his perception augmentations on at least a little bit at all times. But no amount of reaction speed could have prepared him for the horizon rapidly tilting ninety degrees sideways.

The wheel had stopped responding, but he was still holding onto it. The airbag’s hiss as it deployed somehow filled his ears over the shattering glass as the driver’s side of the car slammed into the pavement and momentum pushed it forward, grinding away the window that he was now being pulled into by gravity.

He’d had a split second to brace himself, and only an instant longer to realize what was happening, and then, everything was physics and sharp edges and he was slammed around like a rag doll at fifty miles an hour.

Then the car made use of enough friction to slide to a stop, the noise of metal squealing against the road mercifully ending even if the echo did ring in his ears. And James was left to slump limply against his seatbelt, pushed back by the airbag.

Two dozen small cuts across his face and arms were already healing. Upgraded endurance had mingled with enhanced bone density to keep his left arm from shattering when he’d hit the frame of the car, and now it bolstered his improved clotting speed to seal over wounds at a superhuman rate. But nothing that James had could do much about whatever he’d slammed his forehead into at high speed, leaving his brain sluggish and vision spinning through the haze of a concussion.

Through the spiderwebbed cracks in the windshield, James saw boots approaching. Two sets of legs moving toward his car. There was something wrong with them, he thought.

Something wrong. Because they were… walking. Yeah. They were going too slow. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, they were standing right there, one of them leaning down to peer at him through the broken window. Tapping on the glass, held together with sheer middle finger energy, with something that made a metal scratching against the cracked material.

Oh. They had a gun. James fumbled for his seatbelt, but his fingers wouldn’t move properly. This was, he decided with a Herculean effort, *bad*.

Then something else impacted his window. And he let his lips slip into a slightly drooling grin as he let out a dazed chuckle.

Because someone had just slammed that guy’s face into his car. Twice, judging by the number of impacts he heard.

James could hear shouting, and at least one bang that was probably a gunshot. And then another thud on the side of his car, before silence.

Somewhere between twenty seconds and two days passed, with him sitting there, laying sideways in the wreckage of his brand new road trip car. He had just figured out how to unbuckle his seatbelt, and shoved away the deflating airbag, when the passenger door cracked open and rained tiny shards of broken glass down onto him.

The sun overhead burned his eyes as he looked up. But even through the pain, the concussion, the distant fury at someone trying to kill him again, and now the indignity of light sensitivity, James still found the energy to give a goofy grin as someone leaned down to offer him a hand up.

“Ohhey.” He slurred out, tongue not obeying him properly. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Come on.” Alanna said, not acknowledging what he’d said, as she grabbed him under the shoulder and hauled him out of the wreck. “We’ve gotta go before this gets worse. You really pissed someone off.”

James didn’t argue. Partially because he agreed with her, but also, mostly, because he felt unconsciousness calling to him. As he slid down the undercarriage of his vehicle, the last remaining chunk of his perception noticed that there were a pair of asphalt spikes driven through what used to be his driver’s side wheels. Then, he also found he was a lot closer to answering that call than he’d thought.

Arms caught him as he fell, and the last thing he knew was the feeling of being carried.