Sharpe walked over to the huddle around Paul’s X8. Cole headed back over to see what was up.
“Paul, the time has come.” Sharpe said gruffly. “It’s put up or shut up.”
Paul evidently agreed. Only seconds later he stood and stepped out toward second base, holding the slender body of his drone just behind the wings. Everyone gave him room. He set the engine running and buzzing, then extended his arm, posed like a kid with one of those rubber-band balsa gliders that Cole used to buy in dime stores, with wings that fell off every time it landed.
Paul flung it forward. The X8 rose sharply without stalling, just as it was supposed to.
“How’s he flying it?” Cole asked. “He’s not even at his laptop.”
“The autopilot takes over,” Sharpe explained. “The damn chips. He programmed in a flight path. If he wants to change it, fine, he can do it with a few clicks. All he really has to do manually is land her, so it’s a pretty easy guess where he’s going to screw up.”
Cole walked over to check the image on Paul’s laptop. It was alarmingly good. Brown fields, a tree line, all of it crystal clear, an HD display as good as an NFL broadcast. Then, as the plane banked, there they were, all seven of them below, gazing up at the X8.
“Can you zoom it?”
“Sure,” Paul answered. “I can change the view, too.”
The plane kept circling, widening its arc, but Paul pointed the camera out toward the road, then zeroed in on a red sedan cruising past the school. You could see the driver’s face through the window, completely unaware. Just like those Afghan dirt farmers, oblivious.
Paul punched in some commands and his drone soared higher, zooming off toward the open skies of the eastern horizon.
Over at the edge of the field Cole saw a silver BMW sedan pull into the school parking lot and come to a stop among the other vehicles. It sat for a minute or two with no sign of movement behind the smoked glass. Then a door opened and a silver-haired guy, maybe in his fifties, got out. He wore a shiny cordovan leather jacket, unzipped, and a blue oxford shirt with the top buttons undone. He nodded toward the group, and several of them nodded back. He went around to the trunk and unloaded a drum case a lot like Sharpe’s, then wrestled it awkwardly across the grass to the edge of the dirt infield, where he set it down. He made no move to open it. Instead, he eased back a few steps, as if to say that was enough activity for now. Then he folded his arms and started watching the others.
Cole would’ve guessed he was a stranger to the group if not for the reactions of the others, who seemed perfectly comfortable with his presence. After five minutes or so, he began to find the man a little unnerving.
“Who’s the guy in the Beemer?” he asked Bert.
“Oh, that’s Derek.” He smiled, like it was some sort of inside joke.
“Man of mystery,” Stan chimed in, making Bert giggle.
“He never does much flying,” Bert said. “I think he’s too worried he’ll screw up. So he mostly just soaks up the atmosphere, watching the rest of us crash and burn.”
“But he’s got some pretty hot birds,” Stan said. “On occasion.”
“When he actually gets ’em out of the box. How many do you figure he’s actually flown down here with us?”
“Five?” Stan guessed. “Maybe six. But never for long. Hot stuff, though, like I said.”
“Payload obsessed.”
“That’s for sure.” Stan laughed.
“Payload?” Cole asked.
“Always wants to know what your stuff’s capable of carrying — weight and volume, the impact on the aerodynamics, all kinds of related shit.”
“Do his birds ever carry anything?”
Bert and Stan exchanged questioning glances.
“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Stan said.
“Leo says he’s seen him load up some stuff. Dummy weights, I think he said.”
Stan laughed again. “Typical Derek. Hey, Paul’s doing okay!”
He was indeed. Cole watched the X8 do some fairly nimble maneuvers off in the distance, out over a bare lot. Five minutes later Paul brought it back toward the baseball field. A low trajectory carried it across the chain-link fence in left field, and it zoomed down the foul line like a throw to the plate. It bounced once on its plastic wheels, then a second time, before planting nose-down in a sudden blat of prop and wing that stopped the engine and tumbled the plane onto its back about halfway between third and home.
“Out by a mile!” Stan yelled.
“Shit.” Paul trotted over, brow furrowed, expecting the worst.
“Yep. That’s a maiden,” Bert said, which triggered muffled laughter and a few gentle words of condolence.
“She’ll fly again, Paulie.”
“Duct tape, baby. Duct tape and epoxy and she’s good as new.”
Nice guys, he thought again. Fun to be around. And he could tell Sharpe liked them, too.
But something about the setup kept him off balance, and as he looked around at the barren expanse of the dirt infield he felt almost wobbly, as if he was back in the desert, gazing up past his trailer into a threatening sky as he listening for the telltale buzz. At that moment it was easy to imagine this same crew milling around on some postapocalyptic dreamscape, scalded and empty, yet they were still chattering, pointing, playing with their winged tools of intrusion. Watching all their fellow survivors from afar.
“Wanna try ’er, Joe?”
It was Bert, snapping Cole out of his morose reverie with a welcoming grin. Cole blinked and looked around. It was a baseball field, nothing more. Fresh footprints and the chatter of humans.
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah, sure. What was your question again?”
Bert held aloft his quadcopter.
“Was wondering if you wanted to try ’er. You looked like you were feeling a little left out. And she’s practically indestructible. Has to be, the way I fly ’er.”
Cole smiled.
“Then I guess she’s the perfect one for me to try out. What’s the drill?”
In addition to an iPad, Bert had rigged up a headset control with goggles that offered a bird’s-eye view from the camera, and an optional function that let you control the flight by tilting your head. Otherwise, the autopilot did most of the work. It took Bert only a few minutes to explain it, and Cole was up and running in almost no time. He marveled at the smoothness of the setup. For probably no more than a few hundred bucks, Bert had developed a ground control station miles better than anything Cole had ever used in piloting a Predator.
“Jesus,” he exclaimed, “your GCS is better than—” He stopped himself.
“Better than what?”
“Better than, well, just about anything I’ve seen.”
“I’m still working out some bugs, but, yeah, it’s not bad.”
Cole was transfixed by the images on the goggles, which made him feel he was up there with the machine, an illusion of flight that lifted his spirits and made his stomach do little bounces and flutters with every movement of the aircraft. It felt great. He was out there over the edge of a marsh, then speeding along above farmland, the sun to starboard as he soared toward points unknown.
“Looks like there might be some sort of power plant coming up. Down by a river.”
“Oh. Better steer clear. They might not like us buzzing their stuff.”
Cole did as Bert asked, veering gracefully away from the sun toward the open water of the Bay. Bert was monitoring his progress via the display on his iPad.
“You’re good at this,” Bert said. “Instinctive. Ever done any real flying?”
“Oh …” What would Sharpe want him to say? “Just simulator stuff. I’ve thought about taking lessons.”