Chương 66: CDM 2, Chapter 2: Pilot Program

The Monday before our daring weekend raid on the goblins of Chestnut Ridge, Megan and I met Enforcer Chapman on the sixth floor. A fourth of that space had been converted into a computer lab command center of sorts. One wall had multiple monitors stacked like surveillance feeds in a security office, then rows of independent cubicles ran parallel to each other the length of the space, and a conference room occupied the opposite end. I was surprised to be on a project with Chapman.

When she busted me running gates without medical clearance, which meant me no-showing an on-call shift, she made no effort to hide her disappointment in me. At times, it felt as if that disappointment drifted into plain old disgust. If Chapman was forced to have me on her new team, then my first day as a full-fledged enforcer was the beginning of many long, uncomfortable days.

If I was exceedingly lucky–unlikely for me–then she was impressed by what she knew of my role in busting George Baker of the Furious Few for attacking gate crashers. Whatever way that ax was going to fall, I suspected I'd figure it out sooner rather than later.

"Pittsburgh has been selected for a pilot program," Chapman began, addressing us in the conference room with a blank presentation projected on the whiteboard behind her. Her ponytail was as taut as a drum, and her glasses did little to hide the dark bags beneath her eyes.

"Seattle, New Orleans, and San Diego were also selected. Depending on the results, this program will be rolled out nationwide. If we are successful, we will be able to remotely monitor every active gate in our region with the intention of catching gate crashers, preventing crasher killings, and enforcing harvest site rules and standards." She tapped her laptop to advance the slide. The text read, "Welcome to RAID Management."

"Remote-Assisted Inter-Dimensional Management, or RAID for short, is a drone-driven gate-monitoring system," Chapman continued, advancing to a slide of a quadcopter drone.

"RAID automatically syncs with our existing satellite network. When a new gate opens, RAID deploys a drone to the location, where it hovers for twenty-four hours, feeding video back to our command center here. When its battery runs low, a second drone is deployed to relieve it, giving us round-the-clock coverage of every gate." A new slide appeared titled "The Human Component."

"While RAID has swarm coordination, fleet orchestration, and flight management built into it, the system will alert when the drone detects people, at which point a remote pilot can take over flight control and investigate, if necessary. You can even speak directly through the drone if you need to communicate with someone on site." An overhead image of an active harvest site appeared next.

"In-person inspections will actually be increasing in the coming weeks, and our team will provide remote support. Not only can we see the site from a different perspective, but we will also have full recordings of every harvest to reference later. For example, if an enforcer finds a water buffalo filled with blight slimes, we can review the footage to identify specific workers involved." The blight slime example was my catch.

According to McDouglas, a liter of blight slime was considered a biological weapon of mass destruction, so my finding over a hundred gallons of the ultra-toxic goop was extremely troubling to the CDM as a whole.

"You will not be responsible for drone maintenance, but you will interface with the team that is. Mana crystals make battery life a non-issue, but those batteries will degrade over time, as will the various bearings in the propeller system. The propellers themselves will weaken as well.

'Propeller creep' literally stretches the blades because of the nonstop motion.

"The IT team will proactively service each drone, but as the primary operators, you should understand the tools you're working with. You may need to troubleshoot something or catch an issue someone else missed. Lastly, you will still be in the field two days a week. We don't have enough staff to keep up with everything, so this project is only part of your work." Chapman switched to a slide that simply read, "Questions?" and forced a smile when she turned back to us.

Enforcer Wilson raised her hand so fast her wild, curly hair bounced. I was surprised her glasses managed to stay on.

"Is the day-to-day watching drone feeds?" Nodding, Chapman answered, "Yes, but we are also training the AI. We will need to correct it when detection fails or when the data it collects is inaccurate. For example, if a dog gets reported as a crawler, we tell the AI that's incorrect. Since RAID is synced with our portal management software, it will also learn to identify crawlers on sight. The AI will need guidance there as well." The next question came from Enforcer Black.

Like Wilson, he got bumped to full-time enforcer early in order to staff this program. He was a former football player, and his physique still matched his linebacker roots, so it was hard to imagine him stuck at a desk all day.

"You said this was a pilot program," Black began.

"How long should we expect to be assigned to this team?"

"Six-month minimum. Are you itching to jump ship already?" Black swallowed.

"No, ma'am." Another hand went up. He was lean, had black hair shaved to stubble, and wore a well-kempt, albeit thin, mustache. I later learned his name was Enforcer Dante Cortez, and he was one of two new transfers who came to Pittsburgh for RAID. He was from Nevada, and the other was a woman from Maine. She was so tall she seemed ashamed of it, hunching to make herself smaller. She kept her head shaved, and it took me reading her name off our email list for me to catch it all: Enforcer Rania de Saint Gilles.

Her family had immigrated from Libya originally. Cortez asked, "Are we monitoring the drones twenty-four hours a day, or is there another team taking the night shift?" Chapman shook her head.

"Everyone should expect to work at least one overnight shift a week. That is subject to change as the project demands. Any other questions?" There were none.

"Very good. Today, you are to complete the RAID training modules. Tomorrow, members of the Air Force will give us a primer on flying drones from a remote location. I know most of you are used to the drones we already have in the field, but those are backyard toys compared to these. Lastly, this is a protected program. We can admit that it exists and that we are on the team, but any details about the software and the hardware involved are classified."

"We're glorified security guards," Megan said. She joined me, Nathan, and Beth for pasta night at our apartment. We sat around the kitchen table with plates of spaghetti.

"At least, that's what it looks like."

"I guess I'm not surprised that Big Brother finally took an interest in dungeon gates," Nathan mused.

"Sounds like decent job security for you two, though." Megan shrugged.

"Yeah, I know. I should be grateful. I knew deskwork was always part of being an enforcer, but I wanted to spend way more time in the field instead of staring at monitors." Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Nathan nodded that he understood. Beth did the same.

"I'd feel the same way if I were in your shoes. I'm so thankful the apprenticeship with Frank is going alright." Frank was a bowyer and the first sponsor of the Dungeon Diva's YouTube channel. In addition to her apprenticeship, Beth also ran Frank's social media. Thus far, that had gone well. The shop had already seen an uptick in sales, and Frank seemed to like teaching Beth. He hid it beneath a layer of curmudgeon, but he was endlessly supportive of Beth's learning.

"I'm just happy Chapman doesn't seem to actively hate me," I said.

"I'll take drone duty if it gets me out of her doghouse."

"Now that you mention it, how did you pull that off?" Megan asked.

"Got lucky, I guess." Megan frowned at me. No one at the table knew that I had gone undercover to investigate gate crashers, and they also didn't know I played a part in George Baker's arrest, a spellsword from the Furious Few who would have easily wiped my party of crashers had Enforcer McDouglas not intervened. I desperately wanted to share all of that with Beth. Jonathan's death still weighed on her, and I suspected that would be the case for a long time yet.

They hadn't dated that long, but their connection seemed pretty special from what I saw. We didn't bust Martin Kielar, the Mill Rats black mage who we believe killed Jonathan and his party, but if she knew I had accomplished something, maybe she would feel a little better. She could have an inkling of hope that Kielar would be brought to justice as well. But I couldn't say anything.

"Are we going to complain about work all night, or are we going to talk about killing goblins?" Nathan asked.

"I've been looking forward to this." Beth grinned.

"Well, Dor? You talked a big game. Can you back it up?" The first evening we returned from finding the goblin nest on Domonkos' property, Nathan found a map of the caverns in the mess of family documents Domonkos lent us. The nest was in a cave system with over five miles of winding passages and big, expansive chambers. We didn't know if the map captured the full five miles a geologist predicted back in the early 1900s, but we were sure it was really freaking big.

Riding a bit of a high, I declared that Megan and I would clear the nest ourselves, just the two of us versus what was likely a hundred goblins or more. Everyone else–Megan, Nathan, and Beth–thought that was impossible, so I doubled down. I boasted that I would come up with a plan and prove them wrong. Nathan was so happy to call me on it.

"I'm almost there," I said.

"I'm ironing out a few details."

"Dude, bullshit," Nathan teased.

"You got nothing."

"I don't want to give you an incomplete plan now and hear all the reasons it wouldn't work. I know it needs refining." Nathan looked at Megan and Beth.

"We can agree to recognize this as a rough draft. If that rough draft exists, that is." I put down my fork and wiped my face.

"Fine. Wait to comment until I finish, okay?"

"Sure, buddy."

"To start, Megan and I running into the caves like it's a dungeon gate is off the table. The goblins have the ultimate home-field advantage, and a nest this size is likely to have at least a few advanced goblin variants. Diving headfirst into that with our levels would be really dumb.

"Then I thought about explosives, but I nixed that idea too. Domonkos wants to visit the caves, so blowing it up or making it unstable isn't an option. On top of that, making and possessing a bunch of bombs is crazy illegal. Filming ourselves using them is just as dumb. That got me thinking about less-destructive options, so I thought, what if I smoke them out?"

"Wouldn't work," Nathan said and then covered his mouth. Rolling my eyes, I continued, "That was my conclusion as well. There are a bunch of historical accounts of that tactic working, but big caves have too much air and too much airflow. Smoking our nest out isn't practical."

"I could have told you that." And Nathan was right. He probably could have. He was an HVAC tech by trade and a science enthusiast on top of that, but the challenge was for me to figure out the plan.

"I'll double-check your math to confirm it, though." I scowled at my best friend.

"Since that was out, I decided poison is the way to go. I have a plan to make a bunch of free food look less suspicious, but I'm trying to work out what poison to use. Like explosives, you need a bunch of licenses and whatever to buy strong poisons. Right now, I'm thinking antifreeze. Apparently a lot of black widow types have poisoned their husbands that way, but they do it slowly over time. We would need to use way more. The goblins would probably taste or smell it in those quantities, though."

Nathan's face finally went serious. He leaned back.

"Did Dor impress you?" Megan asked.

"Getting there," he answered.

"Ethylene glycol. That's all antifreeze is."

"All of the consumer versions have bittering agents. I can't get the unbittered version without the right paperwork."

"I could," Nathan proposed.

"Commercial HVAC systems use ethylene glycol, and a lot of times they don't have the bittering stuff. You would still need a lot of it, though. For a person, it's deadly around two fluid ounces. Wait, do goblins even have livers?"

"They do indeed," I said.

"Their anatomy is pretty close to ours."

"That makes sense. Getting you two gallons of ethylene glycol wouldn't be hard, but making sure each goblin gets a full ounce of the stuff would be tough. I doubt they divide food up evenly."

"That's my concern as well. Cyanide would be the more reliable way to go, but that takes us back to the acquisition problem." Nathan chewed his cheek and kept his eyes on the floor. He thought deeply about alternatives.

"What about arsenic?" Megan asked.

"Is that hard to get?"

"Yeah," Nathan answered.

"Would be great if that wasn't the case. You don't need a lot of arsenic to kill something." Beth leaned forward.

"Less than antifreeze?"

"Oh, dude, yes, way less. Like a grain of rice, that's all it takes."

"Would be awesome if it was an option," I said. Nathan was still deeply pondering the problem.

"You might be able to find an old stash of rat poison somewhere. The real dangerous stuff was discontinued, but I have to believe someone has it sitting in their shed."

"That's an interesting idea. I didn't think of trying to find old stuff. Sean, the guy I work with sometimes at the Department of Health, has mentioned old pesticides and solvents sitting around in barns. We even-" I sat up straight.

"Wait. He said taxidermists used a lot of arsenic." That got Nathan's attention. I braced for him to bring up finding a taxidermied pet for the apartment.

"Taxidermists?"

"Apparently they painted the inside of hides with arsenic. That was the old process, at least. We weren't even allowed to go inside of a known taxidermist because of the risk. They default to HAZMAT protocols in those cases." Beth looked around.

"That solves it then, right? Track down an abandoned shop and take theirs."

"I like it," Megan echoed.

"What happens after we dose them? We can't assume every single one dies."

"No, we can't," I admitted.

"At that point, it becomes a dungeon crawl, but we aren't searching the full caves. We'll investigate that first main stretch and not go any deeper." The entrance of the caves opened into a long, vast chamber. At various points, large formations split the space into two passages, but it was still one big space that was as perfectly straight as a natural cave could ever be.

My total lack of spelunking experience made me hesitant to even do that much, but I believed we could breadcrumb our way through to avoid getting lost.

"What if there are more deeper in?" Megan asked.

"We don't go chasing them. We assess what we can without leaving the main artery and decide from there. The EPA will have to come and clean up the goblin bodies anyway. If there's more, they can deal with it."

"You sold me on the poison plan," Nathan interjected.

"How do you trick the goblins into eating a bunch of food you left?" I grinned.

"We make them believe they stole the food from us."