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

Drone Wars: Talking Rabbit

 

            "Bourbon or Scotch?"

            "Bourbon!"

            "Sometimes I forget I'm talking to a rabbit."

            "Hooey."

            "No really. I never met a talking rabbit who liked bourbon before."

            "Hello," Roman Forester yelled from the front porch.  Snow was coming down hard in the Upper Peninsula.  He stamped his feet to get the slush off his boots.

            Dr. Tulsa Phoenix put the rabbit back in its cage, grabbed the open bottle of Maker's Mark, and ran upstairs to answer the door. 

            Between nips from the bottle they undressed each other.  Her skin was so beautiful Roman Forester was overwhelmed by an idea.  There was something he always wanted to, but never had done before.  With a swift motion he grabbed the waistband of her underwear and tore them off her.  Dr. Tulsa Phoenix's first thought was confused, a little angry even.  They were her nicest lace underwear and she had saved them especially for such an occasion.  Her dismay didn't last long, however.  She quickly realized it was a romantic first for her.  No man had ever ripped her underwear off before.  Both of them practically busted their sides, they thought it was so funny.  Roman Forester wanted to say "We interrupt Drone Wars to bring you this special moment," but he couldn't quite catch his breath.

            Emergency alert sirens went off.  Drones were coming in again.  The young man wanted to get back to his equipment at the refugee camp, but she pointed out that they were both still a little drunk from the night before.  "Besides it's too dangerous.  There isn't enough time.  My neighbor has a bomb shelter."  She ran downstairs to grab her rabbit.  "It's right over the hill," she yelled up from the basement.  "If we're lucky we might just about make it to the farm before they seal the hatch." 

            Half-hidden faces winced in the dark bunker with every new thump and quake overhead.  About thirty people had made their way to the bomb-shelter.  A nearby impact, quite a bit louder than the rest, made them all flinch.  Roman Forester had his arm around Dr. Tulsa Phoenix who nervously cradled her fluffy white rabbit.  He knew the drones were targeting the outer-lying camps because that was where all the Drone War Version XIV points were, but he also knew adolescent and teenage remote-control operators halfway around the world could care less what they blew up.  As long as it was in the designated mission grid they got some points. 

            "Who was it you were talking to in the basement when I came over last night?" he figured she would tell him about a roommate he didn't know she had. 

            "The rabbit."

            "I thought I heard another voice."

            She tickled the rabbit under the chin.

            "He talks?"

            "She sure does, don't you," Dr. Tulsa Phoenix corrected him and set the fur-ball on her lap so it could nibble on the snacks she had cupped in her palm. 

            Air in the bunker was getting thin.  Everyone was breathing heavily and wiped the perspiration from their wet brows.  "Damn this old death-trap all to hell," the old farmer stood up and pounded the air vent with his hand to try and get the rusted out fan to start working again, but it was frozen.  A whiff of smoke from singed electrical wiring was a sure sign the motor had burned out.

            "Last year at this time we were down here for two days before the carpet bombing let up," a middle-aged woman across from them pulled out a songbook to try and raise everyone's spirits.  "To pass the time we all sang Christmas carols."

            "Last year at this time we all thought if we only embraced Jesus Christ as our savior and lord everything would turn out fine and all the wrongs in the world would miraculously get righted," her husband sardonically cut her off.  "And the year before that, and the year before that going all the way back as far as I can remember.  Well, where's it got us, mother?  Huddled down here while the whole town up above us gets blown to kingdom come!"

            "Hard hearted stick-in-the-mud," she gently reprimanded and flipped through her book for the right song.  "Don't pay him any mind," she said to everyone else in the shelter.  "Hard in the heart and soft in the brain like all those right-winger nuts he's always crooning over."

            "You're a fine one to talk," another bearded man accused the farmer's wife. 

            Sooner or later someone was going to notice Roman Forester was not a local.  Tulsa Phoenix would defend him, but he was already self-conscious enough about the fact that were it not for him and all the other folks like him camped out on the outskirts of their town these people -- otherwise forgotten on the northern boarder -- would enjoy a peaceful and placid existence far away from the chaos of the civil war that raged in the rest of the country. 

Roman Forester felt so sure the second bearded man was about to turn on him he tried to change the subject back to the talking rabbit.  The tension in the fall-out-shelter was unbearable.  To the young man it seemed like all hell could break loose with the next impact. 

"So," the rabbit asked: "Did you ever hear the one about the comedian Vagina von Lesbian?  I'll tell you right up front the guy was a wet rag, down on his luck.  He was desperate -- at the end of his rope," the rabbit held one paw over her head, cocked paw and head to the side, and stuck her tongue out to indicate an invisible noose.  "Living in a one-room cold-water flat in New York with a view out his only window of an air-duct.'

"One day Ruth Buzzi walks in on his lounge act.  After the gig is over Vagina von Lesbian comes over to her table.  'Ms. Buzzi,' he says, 'I'm one of your biggest fans.  Do you have any advice for a young aspiring comedian?  I'm putting my best material out there but it all flames out like the Hindenburg.  No one ever laughs at any of my material.  You're the greatest of the great.  What do you think I should do?'  She narrows her bleary eyes, clearly unhappy with the intrusion.  'Whah?  Who the hell are you?' she whines and knocks her drink over reaching for her cigarettes.  'Vagina von Lesbian,' he says with as much pride and self-confidence as he can muster.  'Vagina von who?' Ruth Buzzi practically spits up her olive.  'Are you kidding me with a name like that?' she gags.  'I mean that's awful.  Maybe you should start by changing your crummy name.' 

"A year later she stumbled into a Vegas lounge.  The room is in stitches, the comedian is killing, but the minute he sees her walk in he runs down to greet her.  'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' he says.  'For what?' Ruth Buzzi asks somewhat annoyed.  She doesn't recognize him from Adam.  'Last year I was down-and-out and it's all thanks to you my career was resuscitated,' he tells her.  'You saved it when you told me to change my name.  And you were right!'  She squints up at this lanky character: 'What did you say your new name is?'  He stands back for dramatic effect.  'Dick van Dyke,' he says proudly."

No one was conscious enough to get the joke.  Far from it, a number of folks clutched their throats and coughed uncontrollably like they were about to throw up. 

Not much oxygen was left in the shelter when the firemen finally cracked the metal hatch open with their jaws-of-life contraption.  "Bless you baby Jesus," the middle-aged farmer's wife wept at the sight of daylight.  The drone raid was over.  The bombing had stopped.  Everyone, young and old alike, poured out of the bunker and gasped for fresh air.  A shaky Roman Forester helped the physician and her talking rabbit up the stairs.  Most everyone recovered after a gust of icy cold wind. 

Dr. Tulsa Phoenix had her work cut out for her at the hospital tent.  Victims of the drone attack numbered in the hundreds. 

            Back at the VW Van Roman Forester's friend ribbed him about the doctor: "No way that's her real skin," he said.  "She bought that skin."

            "Not even the Pentagon can make skin that perfect," Roman Forester wistfully brushed the comment aside and got back to work wiring a stack of hardware that he believed could cut down their response time to the Drone War Idol gamers by half -- maybe even give them the edge.  He didn't mention anything about a talking rabbit. 

 

--Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009

Drone Wars: Urban Wars III

 

 

            Panicked crowds pressed up against the sides of buildings.  Drones hung over Park Avenue.  Some people prayed.  Others turned their shoulders at the hiss of the first rockets let loose on the civilian population.  "Operation Rapture Day" was underway.  Missiles ripped through the pavement.  They tore into storefronts.  Large chunks of asphalt and concrete flew through the air.  Taxis and other vehicles were sitting pigeons in the congested traffic.  Drivers jumped out of cars.  It all came back to Smalls Hawkins with a rush of cold sweat.  He was sitting in the back of a cab when the first bombs hit.  There was a gust of hot air.  The taxi was momentarily airborne.  It hit the ground upside down with the sick crunch of broken glass and crushed metal. 

At the time he couldn't have known it, but the same scene was repeated all over town.  Manhattan was under attack. 

            "We wanted the game to get off with a bang," one of the Drone Wars creators reminisced about the initial launch.

            "It had to be big," his partner explained the pressure they felt from their financial backers.  "Really big and very loud."

            Mystery surrounded the inventors.  Neither had ever agreed to an interview before. 

            "Every square inch of every surface of life made esthetic," the video game entrepreneur described his fantasy world.

            "But it quickly became evident to us that only a few chosen people could participate in the design revolution," his partner explained the shortfall of their dream of a world in which everything was completely art-directed. 

            "Our first mistake was to think about it in terms of a single ideal esthetic for everyone.  We had to step back and look at the whole picture."

            "Popular art was as good a place to start as any.  And, if you think about it, many of the most popular forms of entertainment are very dark.  People are scared.  Fear is real.  But they can't stand the uncertainty.  They want their worst fears to come true as fast as possible so they can get on with their lives.  Drone Wars is nothing but a perfectly designed version of the nightmare world they want to get out of their minds."

            "All we are actually doing, in a sense, is frontloading everything bad and terrible.  Maybe it's a false premise, but if everyone wants to believe the world will be a much better place after Drone Wars is over, who are we to tell them any different?" the co-creator went off on a tangent. 

"But there are still some severe limitations to the game," his partner tried to get the interview back on track.  "Lamentably, private moments between people are still so elusive to machine logic.  Our interactive vision requires that everyone is an equal participant in the video game (whether they like it or not).  We are currently working on tools that will hopefully make it more possible in future upgrades to..."

            "Did you say your name was Plastic?" Smalls Hawkins pulled out one of his earphones so he could hear her better.  "Are you a hostess?"

            "Shasta," she repeated from behind the foldout table at the Pleasant Valley Nuclear Association booth and pointed to her nametag.  "As in Mount Shasta...  The sex booths are on the other side of the park."

            "I'm looking for electronics," Smalls Hawkins looked up from under the brim of his fedora as if to convey how foolish he felt for his mistake.

            Her perfect teeth glinted when she smiled.  It was the previously agreed-upon password.  "By the zoo," she winked and quickly handed him a promotional brochure she had set aside from the others.

            Central Park looked almost medieval, transformed into an extended modern-day frontier outpost town -- like Woodstock with Power Point presentations.  Chickens and other domestic animals ran wild.  Muddy thoroughfares connected the various districts.  Anything and everything was available for the right price; sex, gambling, drugs, you name it.  The place had an electric bazaar-like feel.  Folks came in from New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware to purchase what was outlawed in their own neo-Puritanical Christian-ruled states.  Pirated drones circled overhead.  Every so often an NYPD drone broke through and managed to let loose a missile, but most of the time they were shot down before they got anywhere near the various booths and stalls in which business was done.  Rebel officials bragged it was safer in the park than in the nation's capitol. 

            "Heard what the young president said the other day about the massive explosions that practically leveled several federal buildings, including the Department of Justice," the Electronics District contact chatted up Smalls Hawkins.  "He said: 'There are a few assassinations, bombs go of every once in a while, but besides these major attacks, it's not a bad place for the country to be.'  Can you believe it?  The Feds are crazy out of their skulls with the crap that comes out of their mouths.  What phony-baloney.  His own mother wouldn't believe him."

            To anyone else it looked like a chance encounter.  But to Detective Alejandro Chomsky's well-trained eye the exchange between the two men took on sinister proportions.  He observed the whole scene from a dark corner of the park.  Nothing about the seemingly casual rendezvous escaped him.  Smalls Hawkins clearly shoved something into the other man's pocket -- probably the brochure he picked up at the Pleasant Valley Nuclear Association booth.  Detective Chomsky wanted some answers.  It was time to bring his former partner into custody for questioning. 

            An old grifter's con was employed.  A man steps out in front of you at the last minute holding out his bifocals like a toreador holds his red cape in front of a charging bull.  Inevitably the glasses are knocked to the ground by the supposedly incidental contact.  In case the impact of the eyewear on the asphalt does not smash the lenses they have already been cracked ahead of time.  The scam-artist raises heck about his broken eyewear.  In full throat he demands as loudly as possible so everyone nearby can hear him that the victim of the swindle compensate him for the accident.  Nine-out-of-ten times even the most seasoned cynical New Yorkers will fall for the trick.

Before Smalls Hawkins knew what had happened he found himself surrounded by a crush of irate witnesses all of which insisted he do the right thing and compensate the poor nearsighted man for his broken glasses.  All Detective Chomsky had to do was make sure there were enough undercover officers in the crowd to block the suspect's escape and apprehend him.  When it works it's a thing of beauty.  Before anyone knew what had happened Chomsky's men were walking him away in handcuffs.  None of the Central Park bystanders had any idea what had just happened. 

"HitList writers might do well to take some notes on how to detain a suspect," thought Smalls Hawkins dryly as he was shoved into an unmarked NYPD cruiser.

            "Allan Arkin," Detective Alejandro Chomsky paced the interrogation cell, "once said 'There's two people in this world who can talk without making sense.  That's John Wayne and Fred Willard.'  I'm thinking of adding your name to the list Hawkins."  The pressure was on.  NYPD brass wanted answers and they wanted them fast.  "You might recall Version XIII of Drone Wars overturned the US Constitution.  We don't have to call it 'extraordinary rendition' anymore.  We don't have to farm it out to contractors.  We don't have to send you to black sights halfway across the planet.  We don't have to lie to the American people about what we are doing behind closed doors anymore.  Call it torture if you want to.  Call it any damn thing you please.

"If we have to harm you to get the information we want we can do it, easy as that.  NYPD can hurt you so you can never walk again, or hold a spoon.  We can drug you so you piss blood and shit your pants," he knocked Smalls Hawkins hat off his head.  "Don't you get it, man?  You are on your own.  Can't you see that there's no one to stop us?  Don't test my patience.  I don't care if you once wore the uniform.  You better start talking and start talking fast.  I saw you make the exchange in the park.  I got it on tape.  We got your Ms. Shasta in the holding room across the hall and I'm in a rush.  She won't hold up as long as you.  Are you going to tell me what was in that pamphlet or do I have to order my goons to ruin that perfect smile of hers?"

 

--Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009

Drone Wars: Rebel TV II

 

            Cast iron sculptures of gagged figures strapped and bound on monolithic horizontal slabs lay face-up.  In a moment of excessive exuberance the expatriate Greek artist had them electrically wired so they gave off a mild shock when you touched one.  "Ants!" his son Tardif Disconesia yelled.  He yelled it over and over again.  The boy couldn't stop himself he got such a charge out of it.  Every time he ran into one of the sculptures the jolt tickled like a million ants were crawling all over his body.

            Rebel TV was filming the second episode of HitList from the Canary Islands.

            "A plate of awful with a side of trouble," was the fat man's assessment of the waitress. 

            "Give her a coat of paint and maybe a little touch-up like a Hollywood movie star," his partner contradicted the fat man and smiled at her as she came over with their coffee.

            Makeup and wardrobe decided on a trench coat for the skinny man and a velour sweat-suite and visor combo for his overweight partner.  They both had on dark sunglasses the crew picked up at the local tourist trap. 

             Next the ex-Navy Seal entered the seaside cafe'.  He inquired on queue from the assistant director about the two men.  The Spanish waitress pinched her little nose to indicate that the men smelled bad and pointed to the rear booth. 

            "We didn't know who to call when our car broke down," the skinny man apologized. 

            "Goddamn Ford Clitoris," the fat one gurgled. 

            The retired soldier sat down: "Dangerous neighborhood to get stranded in.  Roving gangs of boys everywhere.  Up to no good as far as I can tell.  I'm sure I saw one of them out there brandishing a bottle of suntan lotion." 

He was given a manila envelope that he promptly emptied on the table.  Some grainy photographs of Tardif Disconesia fell out along with a sheath of typed up notes.  It was all for effect, of course.  The cameras were rolling. 

"Don't be too concerned with the letter of the law," the skinny man winked.  "It's the spirit of the law that counts."

            Quiet settled over the otherwise boisterous Montana Rogue Army mess hall.  Yet another week running, Tardif Disconesia was the Drone War Idol board leader and that kept him at the top of the HitList "Most Wanted" list.  The ex-Green Beret and Navy Seal had spotted him at a street-side kiosk flipping through a pornographic magazine he had secretly sandwiched in a comic book.  Porter Hightower sat at the edge of his seat along with all the other militiamen in the hall.  Everyone took a collective breath, but it was different for him.  Tardif Disconesia was the gamer who supposedly pulled the trigger of his joystick to launch the Hellfire rocket that killed his mother and sister.  Porter Hightower wanted nothing better than to see the little runt squirm.

            At the exact moment the ex-Green Beret yelled "Move In!" on his walky-talky Tardif Disconesia's mother's Mercedes Benz showed up and the kid hopped onto the passenger side seat and closed the door behind him. 

            Everyone in the Rebel Cafeteria stared slack-jawed at the big-screen.

HitList followed the mother's car to a house at the edge of town.  Balloons and brightly colored streamers covered the front door.  "Somebody's birthday," the retired Green Beret whispered.  The decision was made to surround the house and go in after the boy.  "We're going to try and take him out right here," the former soldier intoned furtively into the camera and cocked his twelve-gage with the well-practiced motion of a professional killer.  But it wasn't exactly like Keith Richards parachuting into a Sweet Sixteen party.  There were screams and cries, food flew through the air, adolescents, parents and chaperons scattered.  The scene was one of general chaos.  When the confetti finally settled the ex-Navy Seal and Green Beret stood amid flipped over picnic tables in the backyard of the house alone with the camera crew and covered in birthday cake.  None of them had the foggiest notion which direction the kid and his mother had run. 

"Draw down," the ex-Green Beret barked with resignation. 

Conversations in the Rebel Army mess hall slowly picked up where they had left off.  "You wouldn't know it by lookin' at him," the man sitting on Porter Hightower's right had trouble getting his head around such a young criminal.  "But that kid is a stone-cold killer."  The codger looked like he was sent straight from central casting to play an old pirate or gold prospector down on his luck.  Yukon Jack.  That was the nickname the other Rebel soldiers gave him.  "Just look at the scallywag.  Already a mass murderer at his tender age."

Strange emotions Porter Hightower didn't understand swelled up inside him, so much so he felt like his eyes would well up.  He closed them tight and stabbed his plastic fork into the shit-on-a-shingle scooped on his paper plate with so much force the flimsy utensil snapped in two. 

After a commercial break that basically consisted of Rogue Army recruitment footage of Predator Drones firing at unarmed townsfolk in the heartland and the President shaking hands with various notorious war criminals there was telephoto surveillance-footage of Tardif Disconesia and an unknown girl from his grade school.  The two stood in a quiet secluded corner of the playground with their unzipped pants and underwear pulled down to their knees.  HitList's high-powered microphone picked up the exchange:  "Yours looks funny," the boy seemed uncertain about his attraction.  "So does yours," the girl nervously stared back and tried to cover her open mouth with the back of her hand. 

At the head of the briefing-room regular Army Sergeant Killroy Townsend cursed: "Disgusting, vile shit."  New boot-camp recruits were watching The Rebel Army Network as a training exercise.  Slurs flew from the Sergeant's grim mouth.  Some of them Private Kenmore Westell had never heard before.  "This is the Drone Wars Version XII cow pile of dung your enemy is propagating," the old soldier growled with obvious disdain.  Kenmore Westell felt the cold gray eyes of the Sergeant pause suspiciously on him as if the man instinctively new that he was thinking of Porter Hightower's family and how they got blown to smithereens by a drone missile fired by the kid on the screen.  "No momma's boy crybabies allowed in my army, son!" the old soldier flicked his thumb in the direction of the door.  The Private locked his jaw to show his resolve, but inside he tried to picture his friend.  No doubt Porter Hightower was in a Rebel Camp by now, out there somewhere watching the same show.  Kenmore Westell tried to imagine what his friend was feeling, but knew he couldn't come close to understanding that level of emotional trauma. 

Somehow HitList had acquired some home video Christmas footage of a slightly younger and positively beaming Tardif Disconesia opening his presents on the rug in the living room of a sunny bungalow in some blue-water Aegean paradise.  The boy tore into the candy-cane wrapper of his first Pentagon issued Pray Station III, the game-box he would later use to remotely guide the drones.  It was an eerie segment of the show played up in slow motion.  Behind the kid there was a plastic tree decorated with crystal balls, store bought gingerbread cookies, and plenty of tinsel.  You could see Pine Trees through a side window.  Tardif Disconesia ripped the paper from the box and threw it at whoever it was behind the camera awkwardly the way you would expect a child of his age to.  HitList ran the footage of the boy's laugh as he danced and waved his arms even slower to make him look maniacal. 

            Part of Kenmore Westell was too serious.  He knew he had to learn to shake it off, or he wasn't going to last long in this world.  But it didn't stop the newly conscripted Private from feeling like the Christmas footage dragged on much longer than was necessary.  To him it seemed hokey, a lame gimmick.  But he also knew wherever his friend was at that moment Porter Hightower was hurting something bad inside.  And he felt sure deep down to the marrow of his bones these images of Tardif Disconesia so happy and unaware of what it was all going to lead to in only a few months time, these images stretched out so interminably by HitList probably did his friend much more harm than good. 

 

--Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009