Chương 156: CDM 3, Chapter 32: Hot Lead

While we were away, Enforcer Black and two of the newer RAID team members kept up on reviewing the footage flagged by the AI as containing monster sightings. By the way Black described it, the algorithm was in a much better place than when we had left it. That didn't mean it was perfect, but he assured us it was significantly improved. I was pleased to learn that Black was correct.

The few days of material that de Saint and I had on our plates to review were far more actionable than what we were seeing before we left for Fort Poolaw. As we neared the end of that shift, de Saint said, "Gray, got a sec?" She was in her cubicle, and I was in mine, and it seemed like neither of us was willing to stand for this conversation, so we talked through the cube wall.

"What's up?"

"I just entered another goblin sighting into the system, and it looks like you flagged one in that area earlier today," de Saint answered.

"I emailed you the map." The location she shared was north of the city. As de Saint said, I confirmed a goblin sighting near Babcock Boulevard, and she had just confirmed one about a mile and a half northeast of the first location. I grinned.

"There's an abandoned mall between them."

"Ross Park Mall," de Saint confirmed.

"Part of it burned down, and part of it was demolished, but they ran out of money and just kind of stopped, so a little more than half of it is still standing. Police reports show that a few homeless encampments have been busted there over the last decade, and there are two new missing persons reports in that area just this month." I decided to be the first to stand up to speak over the cubicle wall.

"This looks like a possible SOC, doesn't it?" She smiled back.

"Sure does." Enforcer Black and Enforcer Wilson were monitoring the RAID feeds at the time, so we stepped away from our desks to ask for their help.

"Mind if I see if we have any drones near a spot Gray and I want to check?" de Saint asked.

"Not at all," Wilson said as she slid a keyboard across the desk. De Saint punched in the coordinates for Ross Park Mall.

"We're monitoring a D gate a little more than 2. 5 miles away in Glenshaw. Buttymen bought the rights, and it looks like no one has set up around the gate yet."

"Fine by us if you want to borrow it for a joyride," Wilson added. De Saint sat at a RAID station and took control of the drone, flying it west to the abandoned mall. When the mall came into view, I could see where an anchor store–probably something like a Boscov's or a Macy's–had burned down. The demolition de Saint referenced had started at the opposite end of the mall.

I couldn't tell how much had been demolished, but it was clear that at least one anchor store was gone, and then the project stopped partway into the mall, leaving it exposed like a sort of cross-section. The parking lot surrounding the mall remained, but it was pocked with wild shrubs that broke through the asphalt and covered in an array of garbage. A fleet of semitrucks had been parked and abandoned. Three cement trucks were nearby those.

There was a pile of debris that might have come from the mall demolition or was left here by someone not wanting to pay a disposal fee. A mishmash of cars, trucks, and vans rotted in random places around the mall as well. But there was one garbage pile neither de Saint nor I could immediately identify.

"Are those bones?" she asked as the RAID drone zoomed in for a closer look.

"I think you're right. Looks like a monster processing outfit is dumping their trash here, if I had to guess."

"Can probably get away with bones since they won't smell as bad, but they're probably not perfectly cleaned either." I nodded.

"Free food for a burgeoning goblin nest."

"Yep." We circled the mall with the drone, looking for signs of goblin activity.

"I'm not seeing any obvious trails," I said. De Saint shook her head. She wasn't either. She zoomed out and raised the drone to get a view of the whole mall at once.

"Look at how that garbage goes from the mall all the way to the treeline," she said, pointing to a pile of old construction materials mixed in with a few abandoned school buses.

"That's 130 feet or so…" Piloting the drone closer to that area, she passed back and forth over the rubbish.

"Do you think a goblin could leave the mall and get to the woods without being seen?" de Saint asked. That got Black and Wilson curious, so they rolled their chairs over to see for themselves.

"Depending on how that sheet metal is lying, definitely," Wilson answered, and Black nodded that he agreed. De Saint puffed her cheeks as she thought.

"Let it out," I suggested.

"What if that's why we don't see goblin trails? They're passing under that shit to get to the tree cover."

"That doesn't sound crazy to me," I replied.

"The crazy part is that there aren't any other trails," de Saint continued.

"If there's a goblin nest in there, they have stuck to one way in and out." In my mind, I cycled through the other goblin nests I had seen. All of them had multiple paths, some for convenience and others for escape routes. I couldn't think of a nest that didn't have fewer than three paths leading into or out of the nest. I frowned.

"Are we suggesting the goblins are deliberately avoiding being seen from above?" I asked. De Saint shrugged.

"If we believe there is a nest in the mall, then yes." Black threw up his hands.

"Hang on," he said.

"You think these goblins are aware that we have satellites and drones, so they changed their behaviors to not get spotted?"

"Hypothetically," de Saint replied.

"But look, most of the area around the mall is wooded, and those woods run up against residential and commercial structures eventually. They would have access to a far larger hunting ground if they used the forest for cover. Again, hypothetical."

"Wait, there!" I pointed to the screen. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"I don't see anything," de Saint said.

"Go to thermal." She did as I requested and clicked over in the thermal view. Flickers of a high body temperature appeared beneath the rubble, seeming to move toward the mall. Thermal wasn't x-ray vision, so we couldn't specifically see what was moving, but we could see that its body temperature was far higher than a human's.

"That's a fucking goblin," Black whispered in disbelief, more to himself than to any of us.

"Language," Enforcer Chapman said. All of us jumped at her sudden announcement. How long had she been there?

"Sorry, ma'am," Black replied. Chapman looked at her watch.

"It's 6: 30 now. It'll be dark by the time we call everyone in and get you there. If the threat isn't urgent, protocol is to wait until morning. Looks like the Cold Rollers will run their first mission first thing tomorrow."

"You own this place?" Giago asked as he stepped into the first floor of the guildhouse.

"Yep," Nathan replied.

"Sorry about the dust. We're under construction."

"All good, brother."

"Can I get you anything to drink? Beer? Tea?"

"Beer, thanks." Giago joined the rest of us–me, Megan, de Saint, and Hornby–in sitting in front of our briefing board and television. He claimed a dining room chair that Nathan found on the side of the road that morning.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked.

"Nope," Megan answered.

"Hornby and Rainy just got here a minute ago. You guys really didn't have to make the trip out for this, but thank you."

"Just because you're in charge doesn't mean you gotta do it alone," Hornby said.

"We all want the first op to go smoothly. Maybe impress a few brass while we're at it." Nathan returned and handed a bottle to Giago. Megan pointed at de Saint.

"Want to give us the overview so far?" De Saint had a laptop in her lap, and she cast her screen onto the television. A satellite image of Ross Park Mall appeared.

"We believe there's a goblin nest in this abandoned mall," de Saint began.

"RAID has a drone parked over it right now. We're not allowed to access drone feeds outside of the office, but I've been getting updates from the people on duty tonight. Once the sun went down, thermal caught all sorts of movement, and we've made multiple visual confirmations of goblins active in the area in just the last hour.

"This surprised us too, but it looks like the goblins are actively avoiding being spotted by drones or satellites. If they move during the day, they leave under the cover of this construction debris and use that to get to the woods unseen."

"That's still tough to get my head around," Megan said.

"People always talk about goblins being clever, but picking up on our use of drones is something else."

"Scary shit," Hornby agreed. De Saint nodded.

"Chapman is very curious to see what we find." A zoomed-out view of the mall and the surrounding neighborhood appeared on the screen.

"This area has been getting goblin activity for the last six months, according to Domestic Dungeon scrapes. These tag locations aren't precise, but this gives us an idea of how old the nest is." She clicked to put a new image on the screen.

"This is a map of the mall before it closed," de Saint explained.

"This Macy's on the end burned down. This sporting goods store was demolished, and part of the inner mall too. Anything not scribbled out is still standing, mostly." Megan stood to point at the television.

"This JCPenney connects to the debris tunnel, and it's a self-contained department store with its own two floors." De Saint clicked into a gallery view of old shopping mall photos.

"These are pictures from before it closed," Megan continued.

"As you can see, we've got two floors with a gallery-style setup. You can look down from either side of the second floor to see everything below. You've probably been inside malls like this before." Everyone nodded.

"Dorion had an interesting observation: Between the demolition and the fire, both ends of the mall are open to the outside elements. Yes, the goblins could potentially use any part of this complex for their nest, but the JCPenney is pretty well secured. If they wanted an easy escape from the weather, holing up in there makes more sense than trying to rough it in the mall section. If that's true, we can skip searching 150+ stores and focus on the JCPenney. Kimmy will have to confirm that."

"That's what we named our drone," Nathan clarified.

"She's technically not invited."

"The drone that Meehan pilots will confirm that in the morning." Megan stood to point directly at the map on screen.

"If we're right about the nest being in the department store, I'd like us to enter on the second floor and work down instead of trying to fight our way up. We don't have eyes on the interior to know exactly what we're dealing with, but if there's a path and it looks structurally sound, we would enter the upper level of the mall on the southeast corner here. We'd then travel about 400 feet across the second level and enter JCPenney here.

"If that route isn't possible, and given that the fire was right there, we should be prepared for it to be a non-option. In that case, we'll enter from the west on the lower level. If there's a way into the department store from the second level, we'll use the stairs in the mall here to head up. If that option doesn't exist, we'll breach from the lower level.

"If all else fails, we go in the front door, right up the tunnel the goblins have been using to get in and out. I think we'd all prefer not to do that, but we won't know until we're on the ground to see what's what." Megan nodded at de Saint, and a zoomed-in floor plan of the JCPenney appeared.

"There are 9 total exterior doors," Megan said.

"Most of those are service entrances for employees, but goblins could use any of them, potentially. Inside, we have 4 other entrances. Two on the lower level, and two on the second. Access between floors is limited to two escalators in the center and two elevators on the outside walls. As for what it will look like inside… that's anyone's guess. It's been sitting for a long time, and we know more than a few homeless encampments have come and gone.

"There are a lot of opportunities for traps in here, so we need to watch where we step and mind the dark corners, which there will be a bunch of. We'll run a 3-person speartip formation with melee weapons, and then Dorion will come in behind with his bow. We'll abuse the shit out of the voidwood to help us flush out any problems. Any thoughts or questions?"

"If there's a bunch of shit in there, that place could turn into a hell of a maze," Hornby observed.

"Getting turned around in the dark when everything looks like piles of shit is real easy. The escalators as a TRP will help, but we might find too much shit in our way to even see it. If we could get periodic updates from Kimmy and Zordon about our heading, that would help us keep our bearings." Nathan sat bolt upright with his eyes wide and a tentative grin.

"I'm a little bit jealous that Rainy is Zordon, but I'm cool with it."

"McDouglas will probably assign call signs tomorrow," Hornby said.

"Or we can be proactive and nail those down now," Nathan suggested.

"When you two were in the Army, what'd you go by?"

"Tex," Hornby answered. When he saw the confused looks we all gave him, he added, "If a Yankee hears you have a southern accent, they assume you're from Texas. It's not my fault."

"I got the nickname 'Gumbo' because I was chewing gum on a training mission one time and got reamed out hardcore about it," Giago answered.

"I'm used to answering to it."

"What do we call Osheski and Gray?" de Saint asked.

"People have started calling Dorion the 'Unkillable," Nathan offered. Giago shook his head.

"Too long and complicated."

"Uncle," Hornby suggested.

"Sounds like Unkill but is easier to say."

"Love it," Megan said immediately. I wasn't that much of a fan, but I would take Uncle over a nickname like Gumbo any day. Giago smiled.

"We should call Osheski 'Jumper.'" Megan tilted her head.

"I watched that troll video maybe a dozen times," Giago explained.

"The one where you jump out the high school window. Super badass."

"Do they teach nicknames in the Army or something?" Nathan asked.

"You guys are good at this."

"Nah, but you get a masterclass in ball busting," Hornby answered.

"Good nicknames and expert ball busting have a lot in common."

"I can live with 'Jumper,'" Megan said.

"Thank you for coming, everyone. See you all at the garage in the morning. Get some rest." We used those call signs throughout our ops for the entire time we worked together, but for civilians, keeping up with code names and call signs can be frustrating, so I'll spare you. I wish I could spare myself, though. I never got away from the nickname "Uncle Gray."