DRONES (SPECTRAL FUTURES) (4 page)

Authors: Olsen J. Nelson

As the elevator descends, the operators hear the imposing interruption of the public address system of the remote operation center: “Evacuation will begin in five minutes. All off-duty operators are to assemble on the roof for relocation to an undisclosed facility. During the transitional period, there will be one more shift to continue carrying out missions before evacuation is complete by eighteen hundred hours. Further operations will commence at the new location. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Kacey stares at the screen representing the closed doors of the elevator in front of ZeroSum. She raises her arms in front of her and watches the robot point its machine gun towards the door in preparation.

The doors of the elevator open, and the robots run into the basement, homing in on the target location and scanning the area for anomalies.

The scene in the basement goes blank momentarily, disorienting the team members; this is enhanced when the blank screen is replaced by the cityscape extending beyond the top of a high-rise building in downtown Pittsburgh.

“Priority mission transfer. Proceed to the tenth floor through the stairwell,” orders a voice through the team’s headphones.

Kacey shakes her head and grinds her teeth as she scans the new mission data while their new robots race through the doorway and begin jumping down whole flights one at a time; their loud and abrupt landings reverberate rhythmically throughout the stairwell. “Potential nuclear device …” she mutters to herself more than her team.

She doesn’t notice the replacement team entering the control room, standing by watching the action on the main screen on the far wall adjacent to the operator units.

Kacey’s robot comes to a stop by the tenth floor exit door. She reaches her hand out, guiding the robot’s hand towards the exit touch pad on the door. She glances at her team members scaling down the remaining stairs one at a time, then watches as the door begins to slide swiftly open. She glances one more time at the floor plan and steps through the doorway.

The screen goes blank. She pulls her visor up viciously and stares at the aerial shot of the area from the satellite surveillance footage.

Everyone in the room stays silent for a moment. The lieutenant of the replacement team speaks up first. “Lieutenant.”

Silence.

“Lieutenant, you’re wasting time.”

“I’m going in again,” Kacey says angrily.

“No, you’re not. That was your last one. You need to evacuate your team … now.”

Kacey stares at the mushroom cloud expanding over the surrounding city blocks while her team members disengage from their operator units and step out, allowing their replacements to begin strapping in.

The replacement lieutenant walks towards Kacey’s operator unit impatiently.

Kacey steps out of his way while looking at the mission priority list displayed on the left-hand side of the main screen: Washington.

She watches her team exit and hastily head towards the elevators. She then turns to the lieutenant and says, “It’s just symbolic … I mean, in Washington.”

“Of course. There’s no one important left there.”

“What did you just say?” says Kacey with disgust.

“I was talking about the government.”

“Were you?” Kacey shakes her head dismissively and turns for the door. She exits and walks down the hallway towards the elevators, noticing that her team members must already be on their way to the rooftop. She stands in front of the four elevators and stares at the up and down arrows. She touches the down arrow and waits, looking back and forth down the now empty hallway.

She hears a mid-tone note ring out softly, spots the light flashing above elevator two, and walks casually towards it as the doors slide open.

On the roof, the evacuation helicopter pilot waits impatiently for Kacey’s team members to clamber aboard, their identity tags registering in the system, which displays them on the flight manifest in front of the pilot. He notices that Kacey is still missing, waits a moment longer, then opens a communication channel to the captain. “Sir, Lieutenant Kacey Maloney is still unaccounted for. We’re behind schedule as it is.”

In his office, the captain stands behind his desk looking out at the afternoon sun approaching the horizon. “Don’t worry about it. You head off. She can get on the next one.”

“Certainly. Just wanted to let you know, Captain.”

The captain nods slowly to himself and takes a sip of coffee.

Kacey sits in her car staring vacantly out the side window at the streams of vehicles and roadside buildings before turning into the quiet, familiar streets of her neighbourhood. Before she realises it, her side door slides open. She steps out onto the driveway’s pavers and looks around at the plant life and the pristine, bright green lawn in the front yard while she approaches the porch.

She quietly closes the front door of the house behind her, leans up against it, and takes a few short breaths while staring down the hallway towards the far end of the house. She holds her breath and listens intently for any sound at all. Hearing nothing except the fridge humming in the distance, she turns to the control panel by the door, taps on the robot app, and stares at the deactivation button. She finally presses it and begins to walk down the hallway. She stops midway and gently places her hand on the knob of Emma’s bedroom door. She waits a moment before opening it just enough for her to peer through the slight gap at Emma and Donna sitting still on the edge of the bed staring into oblivion. Kacey looks down at the floor and shuts the door softly.

Late the previous night, Eastern Standard Time, deep in the Gobi desert, a steady stream of long-distance, fixed-wing UAVs emerged from the entrance to an expansive underground facility; out from the cave-like entrance streamed two UAVs abreast every two seconds until all seven thousand in the fleet were deployed and en route to their range of target destinations around the world.

As each of the UAVs dispersed, a hacked surveillance cloak of satellite and international, lower-orbit-based and land-based radar coverage prevented them from being spotted by foreign interests; this was assisted by background-projection camouflage screens that protected them from being spotted from a distance by the foreign-controlled, long-distance UAVs trolling around outside the PRC’s airspace.

Of the two hundred and fifty thousand-plus long-distance UAVs already airborne internationally prior to the commencement of the operation, only one-third belonged to the PRC. Nevertheless, assisted by its surveillance cloak, the PRC’s UAV flight control centers proceeded to direct their entire fleet to target the foreign UAVs; they made it a priority to destroy those closest to the seven thousand UAVs launched from the Gobi desert base in an attempt to ensure that most safely reached their ground and sea targets.

Being immediately aware of the loss of surveillance data, the US-allied international community had the situation made abundantly clear to them when their own UAVs started to be aggressively engaged and destroyed with line-of-sight capabilities from onboard cameras being their only assistance in evading and counterstriking.

The battle continued throughout the day with a blanket silence enforced upon the mainstream media in the US and Europe and with only scattered footage of UAV explosions and crashes being displayed and discussed on the Internet. As uploads to the most active sites began to increase in frequency, and before they gained considerable traffic, Denial of Service Attacks were carried out, preventing the mainstream audience from being reached. This continued throughout the day with more than three thousand sites falling victim, preventing the situation from going viral on mainstream platforms and the big picture from being pieced together.

At high altitudes, three PRC UAVs approach the eastern seaboard of the US in the late afternoon, homing in on Atlantic City. As they fly overhead, they release payloads of three missiles and seven quadrocopters each. The weapons descend rapidly upon the unsuspecting city below.

The captain glances at his watch, then looks back up at the glow from the sunset for a moment longer before turning and heading towards the door of his office for what he believes will likely be the last time. He makes his way to the helipad.

Aboard the last helicopter, the captain looks back at the building as they take off and quickly gain altitude. He barely flinches when he just notices the incoming missile moments before it slams into the building and explodes, causing the building to gracefully collapse upon itself in full view of the passengers, the last to evacuate. Rather than feeling a sense of publicly displayed relief, they all stay silent throughout, knowing that this means the worst is yet to come. Once out of sight, the captain turns to his tablet and begins analysing the incoming data in an attempt to work out what’s going on from the limited information he has access to.

Moments later, a PRC quadrocopter intercepts the captain’s helicopter with a set of scatter explosives that rip the tail and one of the main rotor blades clean off, causing the helicopter to begin its terminal spin towards the ground, now two thousand feet below. The captain grips tightly onto his seatbelt straps holding his shoulders close to the seat while he looks out the window during free fall. Just before impact, he smiles slightly to himself and nods to no one in particular.

Kacey stands in her study with the curtain open. She looks up at the moon rising above the neighbours’ rooftops and spots Jupiter nearby, the only other astral phenomenon she’s able to see from her vantage point. She sips at a glass of red wine and tries to avoid thinking about the day’s events. Her mind reflexively gets filled with criminal activities enabled by the emerging conditions. Each time this occurs, she shakes her body slightly and refocuses. She does this for several minutes until she remembers a hiking trip she made with her husband and daughter to a national park in Pennsylvania: the smell of the forest, the sounds of the birds, the camping, the quiet moments spent together looking out across the valleys and the mountains. She remembers for the first time in several years the smiles and the laughter of her daughter and how that could so quickly give way to complaining, screaming and crying … and back again. She smiles and almost laughs.

She’s given no warning as a PRC quadrocopter approaches the house and launches a mini-missile from around two hundred yards, which proceeds straight to her heat signature data that’s streamed into its navigation system.

The quadrocopter changes course and heads to its next target.

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