SureFire Bye-bye (part 2 of 3, actually)
Is drone security cramping your style? Consider Drone Distraction Ultra (DDU)
Before we get started with the next installment of the story, I’d just like to break the fourth wall here and say WELCOME NEW SUBSCRIBERS! I appreciate every one of you. Yes, you. No, I’m not watching you while you read this. Just thinking fondly about it. Not about watching you, but about you reading this. You, dear reader, are my sole reason for being. You are the gas to my engine. The ki to my third eye. The pumpkin to my pumpkin pie. Hey look, I’m rhyming. What am I trying to say here? I just want you to know that without you, who knows where I’d be. Probably under a bridge, selling my body. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just not what I want to do. At least, not right now. No, what I want to do is to keep writing, keep delivering via Brief Sci-fi Oddities. Have some feedback? Something you liked? Something you didn’t like? Post a comment. I can handle your hate. And your love. And your questions. Okay, okay, you’re probably saying, enough with the chit-chat, just get on with it already, back to the story…
Right away, good Sir!
Or Madam!
Or otherwise unspecified! (I don’t judge!)
(thanks again)
5.
DRONE DISTRACTOR ULTRA’S LOCAL technician was Vanessa, a tiny freckled woman about mid-thirties with a great mass of black curly hair. In her profile picture she wore giant shades that covered half her face, the kind great for hiding a hangover.
DDU said her ETA was thirty minutes, but I messaged her thinking it might be inaccurate.
Vanessa: You have reached a technician who is currently in the middle of a drone distraction operation for another client. Do you think this is easy? As in, oh let me just hop this fence/unleash this pack of mad squirrels/fake a seizure in this bush, then I can shoot off a quick reply to the next client…? Also, how would YOU like it if I was chatting up other clients in the middle of YOUR drone distraction operation? Yep, that’s what I figured. Also, while we’re at it–didn’t anyone tell you that patience is a virtue? Did you know that Cato the Elder was the first person to say that, all the way back in the ancient Rome days? Bet you didn’t. One of his better ideas. Unlike the ones he had about women. He was actually kind of jerk, but he WAS patient, unlike you, I’m guessing. Of course, maybe you’re messaging me because there’s been some sort of mistake. You selected ultimate distraction when really what you wanted was something more moderate. Firstly, why would you settle for anything less than ultimate? Secondly–and I’m speculating here–MAYBE you’d have hit the proper button had you been a bit more patient. But hey, I’m just one person. Really a tiny speck in the grand scheme of this absurd universe where one speck demands another to hurry, hurry, hurry, so they can commit whatever crime/revenge/prank they feel necessary without being seen/chased/apprehended by drones. If none of the above applies, disregard. If you are my parole officer, definitely disregard and expect a reply within 24–48 hours.
I busied myself foraging for mushrooms in the park while I waited. Patrick went on and on about his garlic bulbs.
Eventually we saw the technician make her way down the private drive, notice it dead-ended into the park, and reverse out. She pulled into the parking lot on the other end of the park and stayed put. I zoomed in on the windshield and saw her eating some kind of red soup with noodles, a very inappropriate in-car meal.
“That looks like kimchi soup. If she spills even a drop of that, it’ll never come out.”
I walked the Beetle up the sidewalk next to her door, expecting her to roll down her window; she tinted the glass.
Vanessa: Hey, how about some privacy while I eat?
Me: Of course. Take your time.
I went back to the other side of the park while Patrick talked about garlic kimchi.
Ten minutes later, a man in a baggy track suit stepped out of the car. Bald, middle-aged, slightly overweight, unhappy looking. An unfortunate smattering of acne scars and patchy stubble covered his cheeks.
Me: Who’s this guy?
The man’s fingers wiggled in that special, typing-on-air way.
Vanessa: It’s me, you goof.
I walked the Beetle over and unmuted my mic.
“That’s quite a disguise.”
Vanessa lifted the Beetle and turned it over, throwing the camera and my Hi-Def screen into vertigo. “Any reason you’ve chosen this piece of junk to get onto the property?”
“What a spitfire!” Patrick hooted.
I wished I’d had some witty retort, but it was coming up on my bedtime. “The Beetle can crawl quite fast. All you have to do is buy me a few minutes.”
Vanessa shrugged and tossed the Beetle onto the pavement. “You’ll have to sign the disclaimer before I can proceed.”
I scrolled through the fifty pages of legalese and signed.
Vanessa touched her toes a few times, then dropped into the splits. “No guarantees. You read the contract. Payment is for my attempt, not success. Tell me about the property.”
I told her about the high brick wall, the surveillance fleet rotating along the perimeter, the large, hilly yard, trees, the two-story house a hundred feet or so from the gate.
“That’s all?”
“And there’s some kind of curlicue object on the roof.”
“Oh, I don’t like that.”
The technician pulled a palm-sized drone from her pocket and hefted it in the air. It rose out of sight towards Sid’s property. Her pupils shimmered briefly, and then a hollow pop issued from the direction of the house, killing the video feed from her scouting drone.
“That sound you heard was a Disassembler vaporizing my scout. I’ll be adding that to your bill. And you’re going to give me a lot more money if you want help with this.”
6.
My original plan was pretty basic: fill the sewer grate nearest Sid’s house those super absorbent beads to back up his plumbing. I’d read about someone doing it overseas. Apparently it’s a nightmare to clear the suckers out once they’ve ballooned and pushed up into the piping. My next move–and I had to do some research on this one–was to drop a canister of laxative gas down his chimney.
Yeah, I know, I’m an 85-year-old child. But no ones likes to crap outside of a toilet. Especially with diarrhea.
The technician and I haggled over the price for her services–which no longer involved her stepping foot on the property–for a good twenty minutes. Patrick thought I’d been a pushover, but it was getting on eight o’clock, and there was little daylight left. After that, plans became a lot more complicated.
Her plan was to mob The Disassembler–that curlicue thing on Sid’s roof–with more scouts than it could handle at once. She had a nice pile in her trunk, and she could outfit their little grabbers with sheets of tin foil. The few who’d made it to the roof would be out of firing range and able to blind its infrared sensors, giving my Beetle an opportunity to make a break for the house.
“What about the surveillance fleet?”
“That’s where the No-See Cloak comes in. Unlike the Disassembler, surveillance drones use regular cameras. Out of the trunk she unfolded a delicate fabric that seemed to float in her hands. It ran about the length of her arm, a diaphanous and feathery weave cut in the shape of a little cloak. She cinched the top around her wrist and began walking backward. At about twenty feet, her arm faded out of view, like the Disassembler had taken it off from a great distance. She came back and the cloak’s milky hue reappeared.
“You’re only renting this. I won’t go into what a No-See Cloak is worth, but let’s just say people have remortgaged their houses for the knock-offs coming out of China.”
Neither Patrick nor I had seen or heard of anything like it. “How does it work?”
She shrugged. “Quantum tunneling or some such nonsense.”
“Well what if The Disassembler hits me while I’m wearing it?”
“That would be very bad. The material is immune to physical damage, since it’s not really here. It’s somewhere else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does. The point is, your Beetle will disintegrate under the Disassembler’s blast, but the cloak won’t budge.”
“So it’ll absorb the hit?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, or it might deflect it and vaporize something else. Or maybe it’ll get pregnant and have kids.”
“What an odd ball,” Patrick put in.
“Alright, so we won’t let that happen.”
“Not unless you’re prepared for anything.”
“I’m 85 years old.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
7.
The couriers were right on time with my bag of super-absorbent beads. In their dehydrated form, they looked like sand, multi-colored and with no weight to them at all. Melissa secured the No-See Cloak over the Beetle’s back and I dragged the bag across the park and up the private drive. I saw squirrels and rabbits scurry out of my way and jerk their heads around in confusion once I’d left their range of visual detection.
Me: This cloak is really something.
Vanessa: Don’t get too cocky. It won’t fool the Disassembler and it’s completely worthless if you drag it through leaves or other debris.
Perched over the sewer grate, I pinched a hole in the bag of beads and let them sprinkle in. Within seconds, a family of raccoons came surging out, the mother hissing and thrashing me with her tiny dark hands. I was about to box her with my free manipulator, but one of Sid’s surveillance units came whizzing over to investigate. I dropped the bag and retreated up the road. The beads spilled everywhere, swelling into marbles as they fell. The mother made a u-turn for her pack of kids, who were punching and sniffing the beads as they bubbled out of the sewer. The surveillance unit swooped down into the range of the raccoon family and jetted some kind of repellent that sent them fleeing. They hadn’t spotted me, but more were flying over to search the area.
Me: Bad news. The surveillance crew spotted my beads.
Vanessa: On the contrary. That’s a good diversion. Make your way around the other side of the property, but stay out of the yard until I give the word.
Patrick was looking up the penalty for destruction of public property, AKA the sewer system. “Tom, this could land you five to ten. I can’t sit and watch this.”
“Do they serve green tea in prison?”
“Very funny.”
“How about another cup?”
He got up. “It might be your last.”
As I made my way around the backside of the property, the sky swelled with the hum of drone propellers. In the rear stood a line of old growth oaks with wide, craggy trunks, their leaves fall-ripened and backlit by the retreating sun. At the base of one I spotted a particularly luscious specimen of Chicken-of-the-Woods bubbling out, shelves so fresh they looked painted on, rich in striations of orange with yellow trim. The Hi-Def vision had me salivating, but I had to move on. I ascended a nearby tree with branch outstretched just inches from the brick wall.
As the mob of scouts passed over, The Disassembler blazed blue and thrusted out a column of blurred air, frying every flier within its grasp. Hollow pops–much louder up close–reverberated with each atomized object, like the stomping of bubble wrap. The disintegrated remains fell in twinkling clouds. Perhaps I would have found it beautiful had it not been so disturbing. It was as if the weapon were breaking the spell that held each thing together, proof its life was merely a feat of magic.
Sid’s front door opened and I saw him stomp out, large and heaped with muscle, hair soaking wet, dripping down the back of his bathrobe. Apparently we’d interrupted his bath.
Over his eyes were the goggles Patrick had described, black and menacing, tracing the path of the mob of scouts headed for The Disassembler.
Out of his robe he drew a handgun and began firing. He must’ve known their objective, because he focused on the ones closest to The Disassembler and nearly out of its visual range. After he’d reduced a handful to shrapnel, I didn’t bother waiting for Melissa’s signal. I leapt for the wall, then flew as far as my wings would take me into the yard.
At that moment I’d forgotten about the whole possibly catastrophic event of atomizing beam versus not-really-there quantum cloak. What can I say–I’m 85.
I scurried into throwing range of Sid, activated my manipulator holding the gas canister, and chucked it his fat, ugly head.
My actual shoulder popped.
A blurry beam fell down between us, turning the canister into ash and frying a hole in the grass. As I made a mad rush for Sid, I saw that the mob of scouts were no more. I was the Disassembler’s only remaining target.
Why everyone is so happy?