December 24, 2009
Drone Wars: "Spoofed"
Computer monitors buzzed, snapped and flickered across the globe. One minute Version XV Drone Wars gamers were watching a live-feed. The next there was a writhing mound of indistinct pink flesh on their screens. Male parts eventually differentiated themselves from female parts. Most of the unmanned aerial vehicle operators were too young to think of the images and the accompanying sounds of moans and gasps as anything but a sublime gross-out. Surveillance footage of a liquor store hold-up interrupted the pornographic snippet. None of the kids could understand what was happening. After watching the robbery-in-progress for a while the youngsters got spooked, but then what every one of them thought was a live-feed came back on line.
Only later did they learn they had been "spoofed". Official coordinates and flight paths the kids took for real had been swapped out with dummy footage by rebel hackers who apparently had little trouble compromising the Pentagon security feeds. Drone War Idol carried the whole disaster live on their oversized Jumbotron. No one at the network could figure out how to shut the thing off, or go to a commercial break in time to avoid broadcasting the ensuing catastrophe.
In Europe the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Roman Coliseum were pulverized before the eyes of a shocked audience of millions. US watchers were held passive hostages to the destruction of Monument Valley, Mount Rushmore, and the Washington Monument.
"Can you believe this shit?" his bodyguard limped into the car the arms dealer had parked and waiting outside the emergency room. "If this bitch gets infected I'm gonna sue that sorry ass state-sponsored bible hospital back to the stone-age where it belongs."
His boss jerked the steering wheel and floored the gas. "Took some extra heat along for the ride," he indicated the two men in the backseat. "FBI thinks I double-crossed them by not giving them a heads-up on this mess."
He took a hard right onto an unlit street. The car fishtailed and swerved in the loose gravel as they rounded the corner. An LAPD drone was hot on their tail.
"Government pigs want to know what happened," one of the men in the back passed forward a handheld flip-top device.
"Skygrabber," he trapped the device between his cheek and his shoulder and yelled into the receiver. "Russian Federation made. That's right. Only $30. Anyone can download it from the Internet."
The car s-ed around another sharp curve and roared down the boulevard.
His bodyguard swallowed a painkiller, pulled a Glock out of the glove compartment, and cocked it.
"You suckers blew my cover when you started handing out big dollar pay-offs to every hood in town. 'Counter-insurgency.' Suck my big fat dick!" The arms dealer was pissed at the FBI agent on the other end. "You knew what was gonna happen when you started throwing cash around to every small-time scumbag on the block. Total fuckin' mayhem, that's what. The minute you put the colors on the payroll, you lit this town on fire. You sold me down the line -- and you know it," with his free hand he snapped the device shut against the steering wheel. In case the Feds had hidden a GPS tracking device inside it that his men had somehow missed when they scanned it, he tossed the little black box out the window the first chance he got.
"No matter what the Feds do it always turns into a major fuck-up," his bodyguard turned to look out the rear window. "Besides making a mess the only thing they excel at is mop-up. Most of the time all they do is clean up their own damn mess. Now they've gone in with the street gangs, I guess they figure you're nothing but a potential embarrassment, a black-eye for the department, an unwanted loose-end they need to eliminate."
The arms dealer couldn't be sure the FBI put the drone on his ass, but under the circumstances it was near impossible to know who was friend or foe. More than likely the milk-toast guy he just teleconferenced with was the guy who called in his assassination.
He blew a red light. The Cadillac skidded, swerved to avoid the sports coup in front, barely missed another oncoming car, and sped up again just before the first drone missile slid out of its chute, trailed vapor as it swept through the air, and detonated in the middle of the intersection. The arms-dealer adjusted the rearview mirror in time to see the cars behind him go airborne in a plume of flame.
A laptop was pulled out of a black duffle bag. "Give it here," his bodyguard reached behind him. He grabbed the thing and tapped out some commands with the nose of his blue steel pistol.
Behind them the unmanned robotic remote-control craft almost instantly stuttered in mid-flight, lost air, and performed a couple of indescribably odd maneuvers to keep from wrecking. The arms dealer jammed on the brakes just as the belly of the low-flying robotic plane passed them overhead. Tires squealed and everyone in the car lurched forward. Only a few yards in front of them the LAPD drone slammed into the street nose first. He and his wounded bodyguard ducked down under the dashboard just before the remaining munitions went off. Even with their heads hidden bellow the dashboard of the car they could see the horrific fireball ignite in front of them.
"What did you do?" he was impressed.
"LAPD drones have lousy 'information assurance.' I switched out the live feed with footage of this nasty old bitch going all Sapphic on this fat nigger's anorexic old lady while he beat off," his bodyguard said.
The arms dealer slid back up in his driver's-side Corinthian leather seat. "After this the FBI can kiss my sweet black ghetto ass goodbye. If the government bastards call again," he looked over at his bodyguard, "Tell them I slipped out the little door in the side. Maybe no one else will, but those crazy paranoid cock-suckers in the Hoover Building will know exactly what I'm talking about."
His bodyguard nodded as the arms dealer turned the sedan around and made for the Hollywood Freeway.
Once safely away from the downed drone, the unusually large man flipped the laptop back open. Everyone in the Cadillac celebrated when they realized that the bedlam created by the "spoofed" unmanned remote-control planes continued unabated. Drone War Idol technicians still hadn't figured out how to cut the live-stream and despite all their best efforts to the contrary they were broadcasting a beautiful shot of the Washington Monument tipping over in a maelstrom of flame.
Some young cad had obviously figured out how to usurp the show's soundtrack. A pop music hit based on an old patriotic song by Toby Keith played over the burning rubble of the Egyptian-style Masonic obelisk, cut in half moments earlier by a Hellfire rocket. Some Arab Sheik's kid in a Dubai penthouse had shot at it under the impression he was firing at a Rebel gun-nest a few miles over in Arlington, VA. The music was basically the same as it was in the old hit with a couple of minor rearrangements that included newly added eastern influenced instrumentation, including the incongruous use of an electric sitar. Only the lyrics were significantly changed to conform to the present mood of the country. For sure it wasn't the arms dealer's first choice of music, but after giving it some thought he decided he dug it on principal even though it was nothing but lousy Country-and-Western inspired schmaltz.
--Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009