Committing Abnormal Behavior With Total Impunity
April 1, 2016
Desperate Times Call for Innovative, but Bizarre Solutions
April 29, 2016
In some ways I’m a bit too impatient and the broken arm is a classic example of this. I want to be in more or less tip-top shape on a physical level right now. Unfortunately the arm still isn’t quite 100%. It is getting better though, and I wrote this short story on a windy, blustery day here in the San Juans. The type of situation when a person feels no guilt about not being outside. Story relates to an expose I saw on the Boob tube about the advancement of personal drones in society. Had the usual twisted, but fun time transposing the words on the computer monitor.
Word Count: 2391
Drone Usage for
Ulterior Motives
So let’s say you have access to a drone? A flying drone? Yes, one of those unmanned aircrafts that most governments use to do James Bond-like secret surveillance activities? How is this possible when the cost alone automatically eliminates 99.9% of the general public? Allowing only upper echelon President-for-Life Dictators, company CEO’s, and multiple lottery winners access to. Basically folks with lots of money and unable to think of creative ways to dispose of it. Why not, in fact can you envision a scenario in which this is possible?
Now let’s say the person using the drone decides it should be utilized as a way to keep tabs on another individual they’re attracted to. This sounds kind of creepy actually. Almost like the person using the drone has taken it into the realm of 24/7 stalker territory. But what if we were to tell you the person being spied on with the drone doesn’t mind being looked at on a fairly regular basis. A part of them does think its kind of uncomfortable being monitored. Particularly when they’re sleeping, or whenever they enter and exit their abode by walking out the front door. They’ve learned to tolerate it though. How does a Big Brother scenario such as this play itself out?
Let’s meet the players. Tinsley Turwilliger, or PFC “T” as most of his friends and fellow soldiers referred to him. PFC “T” was a member of the U.S. Army and liked to tinker around with almost every piece of electrical equipment he could get his paws on. It wasn’t that uncommon for him to take a gadget his unit was working with and disassemble it just for entertainment purposes. Most of the time he’d developed this weird obsession with just wanting to figure out “how” and “why” it worked the way it did. Other times he’d try to re-assemble the gadget to see if he could get it working again.
Every so often he’d take something apart just to challenge himself. See if he could put it back together and only have the minimum number of parts left over when he finished. Unlike a lot of guys who end up with the occasional errant screw, bolt, or wire left over when they’re done assembling something. Then they conveniently discard it when their wife or girlfriend has their back turned while talking to a friend on the smart phone. The round file in the corner is convenient for these purposes.
PFC “T” often became so obsessed as he was tinkering with something that he’d do it at the expense of almost everything else around him. This caused a few problems. For one, he’d neglect to maintain the area around the bed at his companies’ barracks. Giving new meaning to the term, “controlled chaos”. This also caused all sorts of interesting situations.
Predicaments of this nature had forced “T” and his comrades to develop a system for warning one another that the company commander was about to saunter in the door to carry out another white glove inspection. Cleaning up could take them anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes. This wasn’t such an easy task. Particularly when one considers the fact that “T” had developed this unusual habit of liberally spreading everything out while disassembling it. This resulted in lots of anxious running around and impending Armageddon looks on the faces of his fellow recruits before, during, and after one of their numerous hectic clean-ups. “T” also received more than his fair share of gratuitous name calling, but that’s another story for another time.
_______________
We enter the fray in the aftermath of another surprise inspection. “T” and his comrades, Junior “Rez Wonder-Boy” Alexi and Enrique “Burrito-Breath” Salgado are just catching their breath. Immediately after assisting “T” in another successful effort to hide multiple circuit boards and wires from their company commander. Unfortunately, Enrique & Junior didn’t want to carry out any more stealth maneuvers after this one if their comments were any indication.
“T” had a relieved look on his face. “Boy that was really cutting it close guys. We almost forgot to hide that last set of circuit boards before “Sgt. Sadistic” showed up.”
“Speaking of which “T”,” said Junior. “I’m really getting tired of all this running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”
“Disconcerting for me too,” said Enrique.
“Reminds of all those times we used to go to my uncle’s place on “The Rez” for parties.”
This suddenly didn’t sound so disconcerting to Enrique. “He used to butcher a chicken for the occasion?”
“Three or four of them actually,” said Junior. “We’d separate their heads from the rest of the body then let’em run around the yard just so we could watch blood shoot out of their necks. Sort of like our own little zombie show.”
“Cool,” said “T”.
“I guess. Also like getting to watch a “slasher flick” for free. My brother and me had to pluck all the feathers. That really blew big time in addition to the stink.”
“Speaking of things that suck,” said Enrique. “You got any plans to re-assemble that drone you tore apart last week Dr. Demento?”
“Why you so scared I won’t get it put back together Burrito Breath?”
“Maybe that’s because if you don’t, the three of us along with all the other recruits in this outfit get to do a 20-mile hike with 250 pounds strapped to our back next weekend. Not exactly my idea of a “funfest”.”
A look of total fear suddenly painted itself all over Junior’s face. “Me either. You ever seen the look on NASCAR’s mug when he’s mad. His color is like one of those chicken heads after the hatchet’s come down.”
“He always has that look actually,” said “T”. “A lot of people in West Virginia have that enraged zombie appearance. Some folks say his eyes look that way because he’s perpetually confused. His mother is his sister.”
“So why’d you take that drone apart in the first place?” asked Enrique. “Other than the fact that you’re always entertaining yourself by trying to imitate Thomas Edison.”
“I’d like to figure out how to re-program it so the thing will do what I want it to.”
“Why?” asked Junior.
“Yeah why Professor Dumbledore?”
“Remember that woman who was here last week?”
Junior’s face lit up. “You mean the hot looking computer programmer who came to see our monitoring facilities? Man, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating potato chips and getting crumb stains all over the sheets.”
Enrique concurred. “Me either.”
“She challenged me to figure out how the thing works. I want to re-program it so the drone will fly over her house and monitor Kerri’s activities. Then when she notices its presence, she’ll get back in direct contact with me. We’ve already “friended” each other on Facebook.”
“And you think this will impress her?” asked Enrique.
“I know it will. She’ll be totally enraptured with my genius after the drone has been spying on her for a week.”
This gave Enrique an idea. “Tell you what, we’ll help you put the drone back together if you promise to quit disassembling stuff in front of your bunk.”
“Yeah, I’m getting tired of doing a decapitated chicken impression right before “Sgt. Sadistic” comes barging through the door.”
“Okay guys. But I still want to take stuff apart at other spots around the base.”
“Whatever. I doubt we’ll ever put a stop to that.”
_______________
Sure enough “T” was able to put the drone back together. As testament to his mechanical tendencies, he even figured out every aspect of how the thing worked along the way too. This reconfirmed the sneaking suspicions he had about this being the beginnings of a “Golden Age” in the evolution of UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). He was getting in on the ground floor too. This made him feel like a Star Wars afficianado the night before a science fiction convention.
Things had happened at the speed of light since the tragic events of 9/11. In 2002 there were less than 200 drones in existence. These days, estimates had it that the Feds alone had deployed something like 11,000 military drones. Most of them just for surveillance activities, but a lot of them for other purposes. They’re the “Feds”, so much to the chagrin of certain civil liberty types; they basically did whatever they wanted.
Most folks figured drones should only be used for military purposes. Not “T” though, who felt a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that he was about to alter the object’s coordinates. Getting ready to deploy this one for a vital, in his eyes, legitimate purpose. “True Love”, or maybe it was “True Lust”? Depends on one’s perspective related to the emotion.
A tiny part of “T” wished he had enough time to design and build a smaller version of this UAV. Something resembling a bird. Fake feathers and all. Better able to conceal the object’s identity. Which would also make it easier to hide from the prying eyes of “Big Brother”. Maybe not such a good thing since he wanted Kerri to notice his presence like an unexpected skin rash.
From what he’d read in “Popular Mechanics,” “National Geographic” and other periodicals, some of the drones being designed and tested these days happened to be the size of common hummingbirds. They even had life-like wings that flapped at the same rate of speed too. Disturbingly realistic looking and probably also designed to dive-bomb their targets at the same blindingly fast velocity too?
_______________
A month went by and “T” was on the cusp of being able to redeploy the drone. Unfortunately things changed slightly in the interim. Junior and Enrique noticed this alteration in their friend’s outlook right off the bat when he walked in the barracks that afternoon.
Enrique heard it first when “T” slammed down the top of his footlocker. He acted as if his favorite motherboard had just blown up in his face.
“You just get cut out of your inheritance?” said Enrique. “Anything we don’t really care to hear about?”
“Kerri moved to another base and didn’t tell me till yesterday,” said “T” as he lied down to contemplate the currently pathetic state of his love life.
“Interesting,” said Junior. “Sometimes when a person is moving to a new crib they’re outrageously busy so they don’t have time to keep in touch with all their friends. How do you know that isn’t the case with Kerri?”
This seemed to upset “T’ another degree or three. “Not much of an excuse, she didn’t even post it on her Facebook page till
the day before she moved to the new site. Found out right after I collated the new drone location coordinates.”
Enrique smiled. “So what happened next?”
“Classic #### storm,” said “T”. “The drone ended up flying to Kerri’s former location and gathering tabs on some guy who looks to be about 6’8” with a temper shorter than the groin region of some guys.”
Junior laughed. “Fun. Then what?”
“The idiot discovered my drone. Pulverized it with a sledgehammer I assume. Luckily right after I’d already collected the first set of surveillance on him, then had the UAV fly back for a second set of spy activities.”
“Avoided a major beating this time, right?” asked Enrique.
“Yup. He couldn’t track me down at that point.”
“How’d you find out he destroyed the drone?”
“T” frowned. “Everything went dead when I started monitoring the new set of data. I assume he found it, and then went to town on the UAV with something that isn’t mechanical. That might require an IQ higher than 50.”
“Could get even creepier,” said Junior. “What if she ended up selling her old house to somebody who’s mentally unstable? A Serial Killer or even scarier, another computer nerd like yourself. Eventually they would be able to figure out why the drone is spying on them and hunt you down. Is your passport updated?”
“Yeah, what you planning on doing now Mr. Gates?” asked a still indifferent Enrique.
“T” started getting philosophical. “Build another drone to replace the one that got downsized. I’m fairly sure I’ll come up with something.”
Junior shuttered, “That’s what we’re afraid of.”
_______________
That something was “T” stealing another of the bases’ “airborne surveillance monitoring gadgets” and reprogramming the location coordinates for it so the object would fly over to Kerri’s new house and surprise her. This resulted in a dramatic shift in “T’s love life.
The army base he was stationed at also underwent a dramatic shift too, changing locations. Suddenly “T’s personal life took a noticeable up tick.
An extended e-mail sent to Enrique and Junior one month later:
“Wonder-Boy & Burrito Breath,
This place is pretty neat. Because it gets hotter than Satan’s armpits around here, they’ve got this Olympic-sized swimming pool and an air-conditioned rec. center on the base. Also because of the rep. I built up at my old stomping grounds as a computer programming genius (don’t laugh Burrito Breath, truth hurts don’t it?); the bigwigs pretty much let me do whatever I want. I changed the drone coordinates and nobody even noticed what the Hell I was doing. Those that do get curious and asked me, I told them I was reprogramming location coordinates so we could determine which were the fastest pizza delivery joints in this town. They swallowed it like a junkie the day after the latest delivery to the ‘hood.
Best of all, Kerri discovered the drone I sent her and was totally impressed. At first she told me she was offended since the drone made me look like an obsessed stalker. She knew it was me who sent the drone when she noticed it flying somewhat erratically. Said it reminded her of our relationship.
Then she told me she was completely impressed with my superior programming abilities. Acted humble, but of course I totally agreed.
Right after that, I drove up to see her for the weekend and now we’re keeping in contact fairly regularly. Next week she’s planning to drive up here. How sweet is that? Who could’ve predicted all this would happen because of my access to a drone? Guess you can use those things for legitimate types of surveillance.”
