“I hate you,” the taxman said.

  Luke shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Hector. I’m not doing it on purpose, I promise.”

  He had learned the man’s name after the last time, trying to head off a vendetta. He even dropped off Krumble Cookies this morning. But he had unwisely picked up something new on the way back to Earth. In addition to the twenty-two small monster cores, Luke had brought back six light crystals so he could mount them on the power armor. It was a rare item because people on Earth would normally just use a flashlight.

  Hector the taxman was looking at Luke like he had just kicked his puppy. He grumbled and flipped through his massive reference book, looking for a category that might fit.

  “Surely some scientist has brought these through the portal before, right? Don’t they always bring random junk through?”

  “Yes, but that’s for study purposes only. They don’t have to pay taxes because they aren’t going to sell them,” Hector said without looking up.

  Luke sighed and stopped trying to help. By now he had learned that he just had to wait while Hector frustrated over the correct categorization.

  The other five monster hunters waited less patiently. Jinx was particularly frustrated with the wait. Eventually Hector came up with a number they had to pay in taxes.

  Shepard was shocked at how much they had to pay but Luke was expecting it. He had to pay taxes on the light crystals, large haul of monster cores, and three new sets of power armor.

  It wasn’t long after that where they were walking into the warehouse one by one.

  Allen stood up from his desk, surprised. “You are earlier than I expected. It’s only been four hours. Did something go wrong?”

  Luke shook his head. “No, the mission went well. We’ll have to do some extra repairs to Davis’ suit, but other than that, things went flawlessly. We know now that the Crystal Golems aren’t being eaten by the Hive Wolves.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I guess. But the problem is that we still have a hydra we have to take care of in the Purpleheart Ent forest, and we still have to track down where the wolves are hiding. The longer they remain hidden, the worse things get.”

  Bumblebee butted in and said, “Don’t harsh the vibe. Today was a W. We got some guap coming.” He rubbed his fingers together.

  It took Luke a minute to realize he was talking about money. “Yeah, that’s right. Allen. Can you pay the new hires their day rate, and the five of them earned a bonus today, an extra grand for each of them.”

  “Hell yeah,” Bumblebee said and danced around in a circle.

  The mention of a bonus caught the attention of the others and they hurried over as Allen punched in the details into the payroll system. He was able to send the payments right away and they all promised to show up in two days, the next Kalibutan morning. Since today was a Friday, their next shift would be on a Sunday, but that’s how working every other day would work. They could take off on the Kalibutan weekend, but other than that Luke wanted them there every other Earth day.

  Before they left, Luke gave them the details about the Hydra and they discussed strategies. Shepard had a few good ideas, but Luke wasn’t feeling confident yet. He wanted more firepower before he tackled something that big.

  When it was just him and Allen, Luke turned and said, “By the way, did you find out anything about surveillance?”

  Allen shook his head. “More than I ever wanted to know. They used drones at first, but monsters and birds took them out. Even the quietest drones are too loud and they always got hit. The military deployed weather balloons, but dragons attacked them. Lord Edo got super pissed.”

  “Do you mean Lord Edobar?”

  “Yeah, him. He made a new rule. Nothing can fly over 250 feet now.”

  “So what do they use then?”

  “Trail cameras, mostly. They have to keep replacing them, and they have stopped using them as much. Most of the scientists going through our portal are sociologists these days.”

  Luke nodded thoughtfully. Trail cameras might be a good idea for his own work. He could even build a magnetic casing that would protect them. He did a quick calculation of how many he would need to make to cover the peninsula Lord Edobar owned. It was a lot. Way too many to be feasible.

  They had to come up with some sort of solution though. His group of six monster hunters couldn’t cover the peninsula without intel. He ran through a dozen different ideas, using bait, setting up traps, using a swarm of tiny drones, remote control cars, radar. Each idea had its faults, and Luke kept coming back to drones. He really wanted to make one work.

  The problem was that drones were too loud. Even the ones that claimed to be whisper quiet were loud enough that the Kalibutan wildlife would tear them to shreds. But Luke might be able to make something silent.

  The first day of this job Luke had taken pictures of the underside of the hover trucks. He remembered isolating the rune that made the trucks float, so replicating it shouldn't be too hard. He pulled up the pictures on his phone again. He thanked the stars for cloud storage since the phone that took these pictures had been fried. He located the hover rune again, now realizing it was an apprentice rune. Two intents, and four connection nodes.

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  Luke wanted to sketch out a new design and work out the quadphasic mana flow. Unfortunately, Allen hadn’t stocked any pens or paper for their makeshift office. It was mostly just the folding table and the laptop.

  “I bet the office for the fabric company has stuff we could use. You know them, right, Allen? Can you scrounge up some supplies?” Luke asked.

  Allen nodded. “Yeah. I bet they will be happy to help. They are so bored in there.”

  “You should ask them if they want to sell the warehouse. I’m carrying over a 100k in cores from just one day’s work. We can afford it and if we own the place we can set up some security.”

  Allen nodded and walked over to the offices in the front of the warehouse. When he came back, he held a stack of printer paper and wore a wide grin.

  “They wanna sell. They have to talk to their partner, who wasn’t answering the phones, but we can definitely buy it.”

  “How much do they want?”

  “550k. Which is a steal, by the way. Even though this warehouse is small, it is worth over a million. They’ll be taking a loss, but no one else wants to buy this place.”

  “Cool. If they come back, go ahead and sign the contract. We’ll be able to pay in cash by the time the sale closes.”

  Allen shivered when he realized how much money he would be throwing around. Luke let him have his little breakdown. He wanted to work on runes.

  He came up with a dozen sketches in as many minutes, but he wasn’t sure if any of them would work. There was just too much of this design that was on the edge of his understanding.

  He pulled up the Lighthouse rune forum and tried to formulate his question. Even though the specific runes were claimed to be copywrited, the forum loved to discuss theory.

  Luke created a throw away user id and took pictures of his notes. He asked for help with his new drone design and closed the app. The mods might take down the pics. But the way the forums worked, the comments always stayed up. Luke could come back to some help, if the community felt like it.

  For today, he was done with work. He told Allen they should take off a bit early and they both headed home. Luke had a date night to get ready for. He cleaned his place, better than usual. Jinx supervised, offering a meow or two as comments every time he started a new task.

  He finished well before it was time for the date. He had left work fairly early, after all. He popped open the Lighthouse forum and checked to see if his post had any comments. To his surprise, it had 168 comments, and the pictures he had taken were still up. Apparently his hand drawn runes weren’t precise enough for the mods to care.

  Most of the comments were garbage, accusing him of being AI or shameless bids for upvotes. But there were three people offering useful suggestions. One of them clearly worked with the hover rune and was trying to offer advice without breaking any NDAs he had signed.

  Luke sent out friend requests to each of the three helpful people and reworked his designs. It was simpler than he was thinking, but more mana hungry than originally planned. He would have to use a mana core to power even a light drone. The other problem was that he couldn’t create rune based piloting, it had to be all electronic, so he would need to combine the two with a method that no one had invented yet. That was a problem for future Luke though. For today, he had a hot date.

  ???

  Luke smiled. Vanessa had been sending him signals all night. Hair flips, long touches, flirty comments. Things were going well. They had both loved the acts at the Comedy Fort, and the bar afterwards was fun. He planned on asking her over to his place as soon as she finished her drink. Then she said something that derailed everything.

  “I have a friend that invited me to that new church, the one with the Kalibutan gods. Never been much of a believer, but they say some of the devout get magic powers.”

  “No, don’t do that. The gods ask you to sacrifice your emotions, but we need them. I told you about the monster spider that killed those three people, right?” Luke said. He had given her an abbreviated version of the story on their previous date. “They never would have died if it wasn’t for the Kalibutan goddess taking away their fear. They rushed in when they should have retreated. Emotions suck sometimes, but we need them.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, Spock and the Vulcans do it. I know that’s just a TV show, but I bet there are plenty of emotionless people on Kalibutan, right? You just have to get used to it.”

  “I really don’t think so. There are a bunch of shrines near the portal, I could take you to visit them any day of the week and you wouldn’t see anyone praying there.”

  She grabbed his face with both hands and pulled him in close. She looked him in the eye and said, “What did you just say?”

  “They don’t pray at the shrines?”

  “No, the other thing. You could take me to Kalibutan, do you have access to portal passes?”

  “Yeah, of course. Allen got us six of them for our business. I told you about Monster Jaeger Inc, right?” Luke said. He pulled back a bit. “Can you please let go of my face?”

  She looked at her hands and yanked them back like she had been scalded. “Oh, ha ha. So sorry about that. I got a little excited there.” She smoothed her dress and looked around.

  “You seem... passionate,” Luke hesitantly said.

  The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Maybe just a bit.” She put a light hand on his arm. “Do you remember how we met?”

  “Of course, it was only a few years ago. We did that whole DnD thing in the park. Larping, kinda. It was fun.”

  “I have always wanted to be a wizard. I’ve craved magic since I was little. It’s why I play DnD, it’s why I follow every single news article about the portals. And now you tell me you can get a pass to visit a magical world? It’s a heady feeling. I know you didn’t really invite me, but the idea of me going to Kalibutan, it’s a rush.”

  Luke smiled and brought her in close. “I could probably make it happen. Not today, there is a lightning storm going on now. Oh, and you would have to pass a background check first. But I own my own company with rights to pass through the portal. Our next date could be on Kalibutan.”

  She lay her head on his shoulder. “Luke, you really know how to make a girl’s heart race. Yes, please. Can we have a date on Kalibutan?”

  “You got it. We can schedule a romantic picnic under an alien sky for the day you clear your background check,” Luke said. He snapped his fingers. “Oh, actually, I have an idea. How would you like to shoot a magic spell today?”

  She flipped her hair out of her face and stared at him intently. “You better not be joking.”

  “No, I mean it. The mech I built has embedded spell rifles. If you wanted to drive down to the Norfolk Complex with me right now, I can have you slinging ice bolts in no time.”

  “What are you waiting for? Let’s goo!” Vanessa said and charged for the door, pulling him along.

  Today’s chapter title comes from Gladiator (2000)

  Also, we hit our milestone for another bonus chapter! Yay! You'll see the bonus chapter later today.