October 11, 2009
Drone Wars: Rebel Attack
Foreign NGOs rolled into Boulder with the first snow. They had rice and water. Manchild Elkhart sat in his truck at the back of the line. The US Military hadn't let relief organizations in since the leaves turned. Folks were desperate. Most he recognized were rail thin. Fights broke out sporadically ahead of him as friends and neighbors struggled over the meager handouts. The days of the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder mystery case and sprawling golf course McMansions were ancient history. "Bad times hit the city hard after the military blockade" the billboard tagline for Version IV boasted. Manchild Elkhart adjusted his earphones and patiently waited his turn. He was listening to pirate radio, and every once in a while, as his truck neared the front of the food line, he couldn't help himself but let out an incongruous giggle at the host's never-ending apocalyptic rant.
Pirate Radio 1 was having a field day at the young President's expense. "It's like he's trying to ace some exam, but he's so damn sure the American people aren't the ones grading the test." The radio personality let the words roll off her tongue slowly for full effect. "Big business, corporate interests, tycoons, the military industrial complex. You name it, anyone but the average Jane!"
Three sacks of rice hit the bed of his pickup with a thud. There was another 50 gallons of water stacked and tied against the back of the cab. It wasn't enough to last through the winter, but the government wasn't about to let another NGO into the area till after the ice melted, so for a while it was all there was. Manchild Elkhart knew what they would say when he pulled up to the mountaintop encampment with his pathetic haul. They would rib the hell out of him is what they would do, because they all had him pegged for a soft touch. It was all in good fun though because no one up there really expected the run into town to bring back very much. The whole thing was kind of like a prank on him. "Another winter of squirrel meat," he heard the rest of the gang joke. Nobody put much stock in the NGOs. Venison and quail were plentiful and the hothouse garden they worked through the winter months produced piles of vegetables. More, in fact, than they knew what to do with.
As his truck climbed higher and higher into the Rockies, Pirate Radio 1 was the only thing that kept his spirits up. "According to Marshal 'Army' Archer's press statement after the Oval Office meeting 'I might as well have been telling the President Sloppy Joes were on the days lunch menu' was how the dyed-in-the-wool conservative put it." Pirate Radio 1 escalated her rhetoric. "The President can't tell his ass from his elbow." Below him the city looked smaller and smaller. On the final ascent the tires of his truck spun on the black ice as he tried to round a corner. Eventually his four-wheel-drive bit into the asphalt and propelled him up the few hundred remaining feet to the top of the peak. "Maybe if he could," she vented without mercy, "he could find his head, because I'm telling you it's not up his elbow!"
"Not worth the gas for the trip," his older brother Jodhpur Elkhart dryly ribbed him. The seven others went back to what they were doing. They had manned the mountaintop guns for close to a year now. All but Jodhpur were in History Class together when the first automated robot flew in low over the grassland behind the football field and interrupted the day's lecture with a blast of gunfire. Students at Mountain High ducked under their desks to avoid the incoming rounds. The whole thing was beyond insane. Manchild Elkhart remembered the impact of the large caliber munitions as they smashed through the windows -- lots of his classmates got cut by the flying glass. When his older brother got wind of the situation he piled everyone he could get his hands on into the back of his Jeep and raced over to their dad's sporting goods store. No one knew what was going on. All they knew was they were under attack, but by whom no one was sure. Maybe the Communists, or the Anarchists, or some global Terrorist conspiracy was all anyone could figure.
For the first couple of months they watched in disbelief from their vantage point high atop the mountain as drones blew the living shit out of their town. At the time it was simply inconceivable our own government would wage war on its own people, never mind that they could take the most extraordinary measures and farm their drones out to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection. After the truth sunk in nobody really knew what to do, but everyone agreed that the drone attacks simply couldn't continue unchecked. Their dad was eventually able to smuggle in some major firepower from friends out-of-state and town-members unanimously agreed the boys and their friends should do their best to shoot the damn things out of the sky. And by all accounts for the last six months they had done a serviceable job. Only one in three automated robot planes got past them. It wasn't perfect, but folks on the ground had a better chance of saving their homes and businesses from the bombardment than they otherwise would.
But the fact of the matter was it wasn't nearly good enough. The city was still suffering a major hurt. Even with the reduced number of what the government boasted as "surgical strikes" both younger Elkharts knew full well Boulder was on the verge of extinction if they couldn't do any better.
"Dude," Jodhpur Elkhart showed Manchild the two game stations he had set up in the field office while his younger brother was away on the supply run. "Check it out!" When the screen lit up Manchild was amazed to learn he was guiding some kind of aircraft over a city that was the virtual double of his hometown. "Don't hold back," his older brother yelled over his shoulder. "Go in like you want to take out one of the targets on the screen." Manchild leaned back and gave his older brother a quizzical look, but was not immune to a sibling rivalry challenge when he got one. He grabbed the joystick and aimed for the first target that he saw highlighted on the grid as a major priority insurgent hotbed -- their dad's shop. The boy nosed the plane down and started to dive over the store when his left wing and thruster unexpectedly flamed out and ripped to shreds.
"Busted," he heard his brother behind him yell out just before his screen went black. "I just shot your butt out of the sky with another drone!" Jodhpur exclaimed. "Can you imagine the possibilities?" The rest of the gang crowded into the small room where the brothers were sitting. "No freaking way," Manchild was letting the full gravity of the discovery set in. "We can fly these robots against each other?" The revelation was incredible to all of them. "What are we waiting for. Let's go!" The two of them adjusted their headsets and pivoted their joysticks with anxious anticipation.
Pirate Radio 1 ratcheted up the level of rhetoric a couple of more notches. "Not that Marshal 'Army' Archer is any kind of American hero," she sputtered. "The traitor should get hung in the public square upside down by his balls!"
With those words Manchild Elkhart eased himself forward in his chair, and tightened his grip on the trigger. His brother did the same. Both of their monitors flickered back to life. Together they turned their automated planes around and flew them in the opposite direction back towards where they came from. Any flying robot tin can they passed along the way they shot out of the sky. The air-wars were on! "Look out folks," Manchild said blasting away. "Coming Through!"
The two of them circled the city a couple of times more, and confident they had cleared the area for the time being and had shot down all the other unmanned military aircraft, they turned on each other and blew their respective National Guard drones out of the sky. Manchild fell over backwards in his chair he was so giddy with pleasure over his older brother's discovery that they could control the aerial government robots from their laptops. The others hooted and hollered cheers of victory. Face up on the floor Manchild couldn't remember when he had ever felt so happy before.
-- Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009
