Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
London, the escort unit leader, surveyed the mining crew. He was a blade warden, which meant he could both dish out lethal damage and summon a protective forcefield that made him invulnerable for two minutes. He carried a brutal-looking tactical axe, and on the few occasions I saw him use it, he cut through interdimensional monsters like he was chopping salad.
Both the mining crew and the escort wore indigo gear marked with the emblem of Cold Chaos, an upright sword wrapped in lightning in white on an indigo background. I wore a white hard hat and grey coveralls with a patch of the Dimensional Defense Command on my sleeve. The mining crew and the escorts were private contractors belonging to the Cold Chaos Guild, while I was a representative of the US Government. My official title was Dimension Breach Resource Assessor. The guilds called us DeBRAs, and they were supposed to keep us alive at all costs.
If things went to shit, Aaron would put himself between the mining crew and the threat, the strikers would shoot down whatever got past him, and London would grab me, wrap us both in his warden forcefield, and drag me out of the gate so I could report the disaster to the DDC. Of everyone here, I was the least expendable, as far as the government was concerned.
It didn’t make me feel any better.
The mist swirled inside the hole, sending tendrils of dread toward me. I resisted the urge to hug myself.
Twenty days of recuperation leave. Which was long overdue. Maybe that was part of the problem.
Basic Housing Allowance.
Child Tuition Assistance.
CTA was the big one. It helped me cover tuition for Hino’s Academy. Things were tight but I hadn’t missed a payment yet. The school had stellar academics, but I’d picked it for their underground shelter. If a gate ruptured and a flood of invading monsters washed over the city, Tia and Noah would be safe until the military and the guilds repelled it. Competition for the school was fierce, but since I was DDC, the kids were given special treatment, along with the children of guild members. Advertising that Hino was the school of choice for the children of Talents was good for the academy’s prestige.
“Ada, London is checking you out again,” Melissa said.
Next to me, Stella, Melissa’s baby-faced protégé, snickered quietly. She was twenty, and flirting was still exciting.
A large German Shepherd sitting at Stella’s feet panted as if laughing. Bear came from an illustrious line of police dogs with heroic careers. She had the typical GS coloring, big brown eyes, huge ears, and petting her was off-limits. I’d asked before and was told no. Bear was working like the rest of us. Petting would be distracting.
“Brace yourself, he’s coming this way,” Melissa murmured.
I turned. London was heading straight for us. His real name was Alex Wright, and he was from Liverpool, but everyone called him London anyway. People with combat talents were resistant to wear and tear, and at forty-five, London was still in his prime, tall, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and an easy smile. His job was to keep the miners and me safe, and since he was my designated babysitter, he and I spent a lot of time in close proximity. Even so, he’d been paying me too much attention lately.
London stopped by us. “Everything okay here?”
“Everything was fine until you showed up,” Melissa said.
He grinned at her. “Just doing my due diligence.”
They usually had a fun back-and-forth going. It put people at ease. I worked with guilds all over the Eastern US. In some mining crews, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and make a sandwich. Cold Chaos was light and bright.
Their bickering was amusing, but in reality, London was in charge. Melissa gave orders to the miners, but in the breach London had authority over everyone, me included. Disobeying his command meant endangering the entire team, and it wouldn’t be tolerated. If London got a bad feeling, he could halt the entire operation and pull everyone out, and Melissa couldn’t say a word about it.
“Are you worried about us, Escort Captain?” Stella tilted her head, and her mane of dark curly hair drooped to one side.
“It’s my job to worry, Miles. Have you been doing your sprints?” London asked.
“I have,” Stella told him. “Fifteen seconds for the dash.”
A hundred meters in fifteen seconds was damn impressive. It was good to be young. God, I was twice her age. How the hell did that even happen? I was twenty only a few years ago, right?
“Not bad,” London said.
“I can beat both of them,” Stella reported, nodding at me and Melissa.
“Talk to me after you’ve pushed three human beings through your hips and put on forty pounds from the stress of keeping them alive,” Melissa told her.