Phantom Drone

It was a beautiful day for invisible flight. And felonies. And it all started… thus.

“Ugh, you’re a grown man. How can you just sit there on that couch playing video games all day?”

The question came from across the room, courtesy of a beautiful woman twelve years my junior, dressed smartly, like a business professional. Adding, “we need some fresh air,” she strode to the sliding glass door leading to our back yard and slid it open to the world.

Seated on the living room couch, cloaked in my fluffy bathrobe, I turned my gaze from the huge, wall-covering TV screen hosting my game. Viewing out the now-opened glass door and down the suburban hill, I was in time to catch the early summer sun rise over the sprawling palaces of a gated community. The morning breeze brought the earthy scent of freshly mown grass into the home, as well as the savory, mouth-watering aroma of frying bacon. That lucky someone…

“It’s a beautiful day for a wedding,” the woman sighed. “You sure you don’t want to go to Karen’s wedding?”

“Your father going to be there?”

“Of course, sweetie.”

“Right. I’ll pass; it's a bridge too far."

Now the young lady turned to me and pouted, “Dante, you and Daddy need to learn to get along!”

“He needs to learn to adjust his attitude, babe. Either that, or I need to learn to adjust my skin color. Which one of those things you reckon is going to happen first, Matilda?”

Matilda sighed again. But then her lips twisted into a wicked little smile. She strode to the couch and bent to peck me a little kiss. Her lips tasted of strawberries; her breath was cinnamon, the perfume in her dusky body heat was lavender.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning in time for church.”

Then, still bent over, she patted my belly and added, “I handmade you a scrumptious low calorie, low carb, high protein lunch and put it in the fridge.”

“You saying I’m fat?”

“It would be nice if you could at least try to keep up with me when we work out, sweetie.”

“That mean you’re about to dump me for some hot young athlete and take half my money?”

“Your money?” snorted Matilda as she stood up, that infuriating tone of condescension in her otherwise melodious voice. “Please. I’m the one with all the money! And for the record, it’s painfully obvious that you could stand to lose a few pounds, Mr. Project Manager. So! You eat that lunch I made. Isabella will fix your supper.”

“I’ll fix my own supper. I can clean up in here as well. Give Izzy the day off.”

“The day off? You’re too nice to Isabella, dear. The woman is paid, to be a servant. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my husband to the help.”

“Ewl. Izzy is old enough to be my mom!”

“Why do you think I hired her? Later on, babe.”

With that, her stiletto heels clicked away across the glossy foyer tiles. I heard the front door chirp an electric beep, then heard it shut. She was gone.

About an hour after my wife left the house – her house -- I was straight up slaying some poser online in my favorite basketball video game when the doorbell chimed. I signaled a “Time Out” and switched the display from the game to the front door security camera.

There stood a chunky, mousey looking female with a bush of dense, curly hair and thick-lensed, “coke bottle” glasses; the kind I thought they’d stopped making. I was used to seeing her in a soiled white lab coat, but now she was wearing a scarlet party dress that would have looked downright ravishing on someone half her size. I was also seeing her in makeup for the first time. Her dress pushed up and framed her greatest asset –a generous cup size.

“Good morning, Ms. Maguire.” I declared, talking to the TV.

“Busted!’ she crowed, her eyes on the camera, her smile triumphant. “But Dante…”

“No, not ‘Dante’; that’s ‘Mr. Johnson’ to you. I’m a happily married man, and now you’re stalking me at my home? How’d you even get past the gates?”

“Oh that. I fabricated a keycard in the lab. Showed it to the reader, and the gate opened right up. Guy in the guardhouse didn’t even look up from his phone. I think he was playing a basketball game.”

I took in a deep breath then commanded, “Go away before I call Security!”

“But Donte, this is work related, I swear!”

“Really? Ms. Maguire, I have repeatedly told you I am not interested in any relationship beyond the professional. Thus, your reason for showing up at my front door on a Saturday morning had best be… extraordinary.”

“It’s the Phantom Drone, sir. I think I’ve cracked the code on the Invisibility Field. That extraordinary enough?”

A beat.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Busted! If you come on out, I’ll show it to you in the park across the street.”

Talk about an offer I couldn’t refuse.

“Did you bring one of those stupid-expensive cameras from the lab?” I asked.

“Ah sorry sir, but no. I got distracted. You know how forgetful I can be!”

“Yes Ms. Maguire; on several occasions your… aroma indicates that you frequently forget to shower.”

“Sorry Mr. Johnson,” the woman sheepishly admitted. “You want me to go back to the lab and get…?”

“Nah, we’ll just use my smartphone. It’s not official, but it’ll do. Let me get dressed; I’ll be right out.”

Well, I had to forfeit my game, which dinged my stats and overjoyed my online opponent, who’d been flailing badly only to have sweet victory handed to him on a silver platter. Inside the master bedroom, I shed the bathrobe and exchanged it for sweatpants and a tee shirt. I also collected my phone, wallet, and keys.

My phone can operate nearly everything in the house, including and especially the locks; plus, it has an app that starts my car. Matilda completely trusted the technology, but I always took the physical, old-school keys just in case. I for one prefer not to be one power outage, computer virus, or hacker away from being locked out of my own home and car.

I stepped from my front door into a cloud of unseen roses.

“You like my perfume?” Molly asked hopefully as I hacked a cough.

“I’d like a lot less of it. You use the whole bottle?”

You could tell by the look on her face that I had hurt her. I felt bad, but not too bad – maybe if I were meaner to her, she’d quit hitting on me. She perked up almost immediately though, chirping “let’s go!” as she led me to her battered old jalopy.

“Molly, I know we pay you at least decent late model used car money. So why are you driving around this beat up old dinosaur?”

“Still got Student Loans to pay, boss,” the woman replied as she unlocked the trunk and lifted the lid. Something inside made lumps under a blanket.

“If you quit spending so much money buying a venti triple latte double backflip with a half twist from your favorite coffee shop every day, you could save up for a down payment on a reliable car. We won’t even get into how much that latest smartphone set you back. An older phone from a less popular brand is all you need.”

“Easy for you to say, Daddy Warbucks. We can’t all scam rich sluts.”

“Hey!” I barked. “That’s my wife you’re trashing. She might be a spoiled rotten little brat, but she doesn’t run around on me, and I’d like to extend her the same courtesy.”

“Busted!” cried Molly, and she whipped the blanket away with great flair, revealing the gleaming white drone components beneath.

“So, we’re still trying to get this thing down to 11 kilos, right?”

“This is 22.7 kilos, Dante.”

“We’ll have to do better. No Soldier wants an additional 50 pounds of gear on top of his body armor and all the other crap he has to carry.”

“We’re okay, boss. The contract reads, ‘no more than 23 kilograms.’”

“And I’m telling you I had to hump a 50-pound javelin over the mountains of Afghanistan, and I darn near shot myself before the Taliban could get a chance. Make it lighter.”

“Sure. But demonstration, yeah?”

So, we took the drone parts across the street to the park. Not a public park, but a private one; a field of green next to a patch of trees both surrounded by the four finest mansions on the hill; one of the latter being Matilda's place. Children under the watchful eyes of their nannies frolicked on colorful playground equipment in one corner of the park, and on the expansive green a teenager was tossing a disc to a dog.

We made our way to the center of the field and set down the components. When assembled, the drone would be arranged like a doughnut, with the operator standing up through the hole in the middle.

“Let me help you with that,” I offered.

“No, the operator is supposed to be able to fit the pieces about they waist alone. It’s in the contract.”

I was about to protest the use of the word, “they” in that sentence, but then I decided to keep my job.

Molly struggled, but it did not take the woman more than two minutes to click the five components about her. Her fingers flew on a touchscreen, causing two joysticks to snap out of the drone to her front. There was more tapping, and a whine ascending in both pitch and volume arose from the machine. Now the mousey engineer manipulated the joysticks, and she rose slowly to float about 20 feet off the ground. The noise coming from the drone became a whisper – I could barely hear it.

“The drone will fly a 200-pound load for one hour at 60 miles per hour,” she continued, shouting down at me. “That’s a 150-pound Soldier, plus up to 50 pounds of they gear. This component on my right hip is the power pack; charges in 3 hours from standard household current. A bit longer from a car or truck, with the USB plug-in.”

“By ‘a bit longer’ you mean ‘twice as long’,” I shouted back. “I’m familiar with the specs Ms. Maguire; I’m literally the Project Manager. I’m here because you said you solved the Invisibility Field?”

“Oh, that. Well, remember how we kept trying to use micro-cameras and projectors?”

“Yeah, the cameras surrounding the drone project holograms of what they are filming to the opposite side of the machine, providing the illusion of invisibility.”

“True. But I had a better idea…”

She tapped away on the panel in front of her and was suddenly surrounded by a shifting kaleidoscope of rainbows. Then she and the drone winked out of existence!

“Ms. Maguire?” I asked, frankly shocked at what just happened, even though it was supposed to happen. “Molly, are you there? Are you okay?!”

“Quit shouting!” she snickered, her voice emanating from thin air above. “I’m still here, and I see you just fine. You just can’t see me!”

“Oh. Um… not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but does that thing block radar? Cause… almost every anti-aircraft system in the world uses radar to track targets…”

“Sorry boss, but I haven’t yet figured out how to bend radio waves away from the drone. And if I did, the pilot couldn’t communicate, now could they?”

“True but… how are you doing this?”

“Instead of that stupid camera and projectors method, I figured out a way to use holo-prisms to bend light around both the drone and its pilot.”

“How does he see?” I asked.

“What?”

“If you’re bending all incoming light around the drone and its pilot, how do the photons reach the pilot’s retinas so he can see where the hell he’s going?”

“Oh, that’s easy!’ crowed the engineer. “All you have to do is… uh-oh.”

“’What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?”

“Behind you, boss!”

I turned in time to see two people in nice suits and dark glasses get out of a car parked on the street next to where I live and then march up the brick path to my front door.

“Who the hell are these two?” I asked of no one in particular.

“Probably the FBI,” Molly answered, though now her voice came from directly behind me, not 20 feet up in the air.

“What?! Ms. Maguire why would the FBI… Oh good Lord. You stole this thing, didn’t you?”

“Well, I might have asked Mr. Forbes if I could take the drone out of the lab, and he might have cussed me out for even suggesting it, so technically… yeah?”

“That place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. How in the world did you…?”

“Oh please Dante, I’m the best! No security system is going to beat Molly Maguire. Besides, I already have Top Secret access to the most secure areas of the facility, anyway.”

I heard a metallic whine in a descending pitch behind me, so I turned to see Molly, no longer invisible, wearing the drone about her waist.

“So… I guess we go talk to the FBI now?” she asked.

“No, we don’t,” I snapped. “They arrest you for stealing that drone, they can legally impound it as evidence. Maybe they’ll turn it over to the company right away, or maybe the Feds will drag their feet long enough to reverse engineer the Invisibility Field on their own without having to pay us for it!”

“Okay so… what do we do?”

“Take that thing off! I’ll deliver it to Mr. Forbes personally.”

“Sure thing Dante,” Molly agreed, a sudden, wicked flame in her eyes. “But first you must promise to take me out.”

“Sure I’ll… wait. What?”

“You heard me; dinner at a nice place – at least a hundred bucks; take it out of your allowance. And then a movie. All I’m asking for is a chance Dante, just give me a chance, huh? Just one lousy date!”

“You out of your mind? I’m not taking you out, I’m married!”

“Then I turn this thing over to the FBI right now!” Molly pouted, slightly lifting her nose. “On the other hand, you agree to take me out, and I’ll tell Mr. Forbes that bending the light was your idea. That should get you that big promotion you’ve been so hot for, yeah? Oh, and a lot more money. Not your wife’s money, or her racist turd of a father. Your own money!”

I had to think about the offer – for all of two seconds.

“Deal.”

“Busted!” Molly crowed, and threw her hands in the air, adding, “Whoo-hoo!”

“Get out of the drone!”

Together, we hastily dissasembled the Phantom Drone from Molly’s waist and reassembled it onto mine, making the necessary adjustments. I found the control screen easily enough – it lit up with a classic digital QWERTY keyboard at my touch.

“What am I supposed to do here?” I asked.

“Just type in the same password you use at the office.”

“Lousy security,” I noted, even while typing in my employee password.

The screen went blank for a second, but then a message appeared:

[That password is expired. Reset your password.]

“Ah! Seriously?”

“What’s the problem, hot boss?”

“It says my password is expired. I’ve got to reset it.”

“You know the deal, Dante; every 6 months new password. Company policy.”

I glanced up at the house again. The agents had finally noticed us, and were striding our way…

“We don’t have time for this!” I snarled. “What’s your password?”

“Dante forty-two me, exclamation point,” explained Molly. “That’s Dante four two me, exclamation.”

I hurriedly typed “Dante42me!” and the machine powered up with an ascending whine.

“What does it mean to ‘42’ someone? Is that some weird sex thing you college kids are into these days?”

“First, I am not a kid!” Molly scoffed. “I’m a doctoral candidate. Second, you’re the one with his mind in the gutter. 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything. That’s what you are, Dante; you’re everything to me!”

“Fantastic. How do I get this thing…”

“This is your instrumentation panel,” she told me breathlessly, pointing out symbols and numbers on the main screen. “Speed, altitude, air temperature, compass…”

“Just a compass? No GPS on this thing?”

“Have you forgotten the contract requires the drone have no connection to GPS? Now here’s the dial for the Cloaking Device – sounds way cooler than ‘Invisibility Field’. Those two joysticks control your flight. I can give you a quick rundown on the…”

I looked up from the controls to spot the two assumed FBI agents approaching with a corresponding increase in my heartbeat. I could still hear Molly, but I had ceased comprehending her words.

“They’re practically on top of us! Stand clear!”

“Love you, Dante!” my subordinate chimed, standing back.

At that, the agents began to sprint across the fresh-mown field at us. Molly was trotting toward them, waving her arms, shouting…

I punched maximum power to the engine and was hurled into sky on the world’s scariest amusement park ride. The drone vibrated all around my waist, rattling my organs. The rushing wind blinded me with tears and roared in my ears, drowning out all other sound. And despite the hot summer day, the wind tore through my t-shirt and sweatpants, and I was chilled to the bone, like falling through the pond ice when I was a kid.

Frightened, I cut the power. Still floating upwards, I instinctively looked down. Terror seized me – I’m afraid of heights and the earth below was a view from an airplane window! I was awestruck, but then I realized I had to turn on the machine if I didn’t want to plunge into the ground like a meteor.

A touch to the screen brought back the keyboard, and I put in my employee password.

[That password is expired. Reset your password.]

I stared at the screen in dumbstruck horror as my ascent slowed to a crawl. Instinctively, I reentered my password.

[That password is expired. Reset your password.]

I stopped floating upwards, hovered for a heartbeat, and then began to float down…

There was a reset password button on the screen. I pushed it.

[Old Password:__________ New Password __________]

Floating down got faster. And faster. And then it got faster.

I shouted, but otherwise stayed calm enough to plug in my old password. But when I tried my new password, “stop”, it came out “stopp”.

[That password is incorrect. Passwords must be at least 10 characters long, and have at least one of each of the following: a capitalized letter, a number, and a special character.]

I shrieked like a banshee as I plummeted to my windy doom, wondering if I would freeze to death before I even hit the ground. But somehow, I managed to type “St0p!” into the New Password slot.

[That password is incorrect. Passwords must be at least 10 characters long and have at least one of each of the following: a capitalized letter, a number, and a special character.]

Raging panic clawed at the back of my mind as the ground rushed up at me, threatening to overwhelm my very soul. But then somehow, something clicked, and I typed: “Dante42me!”

[Welcome Dr. Molly Maguire!]

“She’s not a doctor yet!” I howled, and wrangling the controls, I finally decelerated as if I were on the end of a bungee cord. Yes, part of the price of being married to Matilda was dumbass bungee jumps. Don’t judge me; she’s hot. And rich.

So there I was, my pants saturated with frozen pee, less than a meter off the park’s turf. I was lying sideways, parallel to the ground, close enough to reach out and touch the grass.

I set the drone in motion again, scooting over the field sideways. Then something hit me in the eye. I’ve been on enough ridiculous bike rides with my wife to realize it was a probably a bug. I finally got myself turned right side up when suddenly it felt like a man punched me in the forehead. Hard enough to make a cut; I could feel the blood trickling down toward my left eye. And with that one remaining good eye I beheld my neighbor’s house rushing toward me…

I cut the power, bounced into the turf on my drone/side, bounced again, plowed up their lawn with the third bounce and then rolled into the street, where a car squealed brakes to keep from running me over.

“Dante, what the hell?” Noah Wáng cried as he got out of his car. “What is that… thing you’re wearing?”

Whatever was in my right eye was driving me crazy, so I plucked my smartphone from my pocket and used the mirror function in my left hand to finally dig the smashed, still-twitching remains of the bug from under my right bottom eyelid. I looked up and saw a wounded bird struggling in the street beside me– a pigeon with a broken wing. That pigeon had hit me in the forehead at 11 miles per hour. Had it hit at 60…

It didn’t seem fair. In comic books, TV, and movies, flying heroes just… flew. None of them had to deal with bugs in their eyes, or birds striking them in the face, or freezing to death on a summer’s day…

“Dante Johnson, FBI; you’re under arrest!”

I looked up to see an FBI agent, gun drawn, approaching me from the park. His female partner was behind him, viciously hurling Molly to the ground in an O-goshi maneuver. I staggered to my feet.

“Dante?” Noah asked, “Dude, are you in trouble?”

“Peace out, homes,” I told him, and activated the Cloaking Device.

Well, Noah was downright thunderstruck; pure, open-mouthed shock. The agent looked equally surprised, adding a loud swear. Despising the weight of the drone at my waist, I hopped to the park’s dense grass to muffle the sound of my footsteps and walked away.

I knew the family across the park from where I lived was currently at their summer home, so I jogged on over and entered their backyard for some privacy. Then, I called my boss.

He let his phone ring exactly once.

“Mr. Johnson,” he gasped. “Do you know where your Chief Engineer is?”

“FBI’s already got her, Mr. Forbes.”

“Do the Feds have the drone?”

“No sir. It’s with me.”

“Oh, thank God!”

“Mr. Forbes, you should know that the Invisibility – um, Cloaking Device on the Phantom Drone totally works. This is a game changer sir; the company stands to make tens of billions on this project. My project!”

“Excellent. Bring the drone to me immediately.”

“Sure thing boss, but I remind you that Molly Maguire is indispensable to this project. We must bail they... the, the girl out sir, and we need to get her the best legal team money can buy!”

“Sure, sure. Bring the Phantom Drone to me, Johnson. But not to my office. Meet me at the airport.”

“The airport?” I squeaked, my anxiety rising. “Where are you going, sir?”

“I’m personally delivering this miracle to the main man himself at corporate’s international headquarters in Seattle. Don’t worry Dave, I’ll be sure you get the proper credit.”

A beat.

“Johnson?” Forbes asked. “You still there?”

“’Dave’ sir?”

“Sure, Dave. It is Dave isn’t it? David Johnson?”

I hung up the phone. Yes, I still say “hang up” even for ending calls on smartphones. I’m old school that way.

“It’s ‘Dante’ not “Dave’ you idiot,” I heard myself say aloud. “And no way you get credit for this, Mr. Forbes. I’m delivering this drone to the big guy myself. I’ll get that promotion, and I’ll finally be my own man with my own money!”

After that, I made some plans. Need to keep bugs and wind out of my face, and birds from smacking my head? Full face motorcycle helmet that, as a bonus, also concealed my identity! Need to keep warm while flying? Thermal underwear, winter gloves, snow boots and arctic parka. I also needed an extension cord for the battery pack – the original was in the trunk of Molly’s car, and I sure as hell wasn’t going back for it! Thank God I'd talked Mr. Forbes out of making the power chord proprietary – any old cord would do.

So, there I was; officially on the run with a stolen device worth about eleventy gajillion dollars. I couldn’t take my phone or it’s GPS app, lest the authorities track me via the device. I also had to get to an ATM and withdraw as much as I could, lest I was tracked via credit card. No GPS meant I had to buy an old school road atlas.

It took the Phantom Drone three hours of charge for a one hour of flight, and its top speed was 60 miles an hour. Thus, it would take days to reach Seattle, but staying at hotels and shopping for groceries along the way increased my chances of getting caught. So, I decided to go camping. That meant buying camping supplies, including a mountaineering backpack to put all the stuff in.

The fact that the Cloaking Device didn’t evade radar meant I couldn’t go anywhere near an airport. Air traffic controllers freak right out if they detect drones near their runways, because drones endanger the lives of everyone in every plane trying to take off or land. I could imagine how they’d respond if a man-sized contact was suddenly detected in their airspace. Besides, I didn’t want to get killed by a 777 on takeoff or final approach!

Shopping list in hand, I flew invisible to the nearest ATM. Afterward, I stocked up at a sporting goods store on the other side of town and paid for everything in cash.

*

My journey to Seattle did not start well. I was flying with the Cloak engaged, following the interstate about 40 feet over mid-morning traffic when my panel wailed at me, flashing a blood-red light. I was nearly out of power! I checked the flight time – I’d only been flying for 28 minutes!

Desperate, I looked for a safe place to land before lack of power made landing involuntary. Thankfully, I saw a billboard on the interstate advertising a new housing division nearby. I reasoned that at least a couple of those houses would have electricity running, so the real estate agents could show them to prospective buyers. And because no one lived in those houses – yet -- there would be no one there to catch me siphoning the precious juice for my ride.

I landed in the dirt backyard of one of the impressive new homes (no grass yet), turned off the cloak, squatted to set the doughnut on the ground, and then stepped out of it. It felt good to finally have the heavy thing off me, and I had only worn it for half an hour – not a good sign. Sure enough, I found an exterior outlet at the back of the house covered by a plastic lid, so no breaking into the place for my hookup.

I could access a full digital copy of the Operator’s Guide from the instruments screen, so I did exactly that to find out what had gone wrong. Turns out the Phantom Drone is rated for 200 pounds; a 150-pound pilot plus 50 pounds of gear. Well, I’ve been over 6 feet tall and at least 200 pounds since I was 16 years old. Now, I weighed 262 pounds. So, I alone was a whopping 62 pounds over carrying capacity, and that was before the weight of all my camping gear!

Turns out the Phantom Drone was never meant for general travel. It was designed to allow a Soldier to move unseen on the battlefield. Getting the thing to the battle in the first place was the job of a truck or helicopter.

Problem. It took three hours to charge the drone with standard household current, and the thing had only lasted for half an hour with my weight. At 3.5 hours for every 30 miles, it would take me forever to reach Seattle! I was in a pickle for a good 20 minutes before a revelation hit me – how much energy did it take to stay invisible? If I didn’t engage the Cloaking Device, how far could I get?

However, a man flying through the air is huge news, especially a wanted man. I didn’t want to travel only 30 miles on a charge, but I didn’t want to be seen, either. Solution? I didn't need invisibility if I flew high, out of sight of anyone on the ground. It would be cold up there, but that’s what the thermal underwear and arctic parka were for.

Another epiphany stuck; I didn’t have to follow the roads because I was flying. Between the road atlas and the compass in the instruments panel, I could shoot a straight magnetic azimuth, saving me miles of travel distance.

Two and a half hours later, the Phantom was charged, and I was off to Seattle.