“Yeah, I actually remember.”
“Hope you made it to school on time.”
“Yeah, got there early.”
“This is Colonel Carl Kincaid,” Major Anderson says. “We’re on the same team.”
I’m trying to wrap my brain around the fact these guys are real and not one of Uncle Sal’s jokes. I shake the colonel’s hand. He’s a knuckle cracker.
“What team would that be?” Dad asks.
“ARI,” Colonel Kincaid says.
Dad looks puzzled. “You government boys and your acronyms.”
“ARI—Applied Robotic Interdiction,” Colonel Kincaid says.
“Yes, of course,” Dad says. “Let’s go inside before it hauls down. We can interdict ourselves over some coffee.”
We go up into the kitchen. I’m thinking about what Major Anderson said this morning on the phone—about war games and White Sands. Just the thought . . . Something soars inside me. If it’s true, this could be profound.
Dad gets the Mr. Coffee going, and I clear the table of Siouxsie’s homeschool stuff. It’s a mess, with spilled juice and scattered worksheets. The old Siouxsie was all about neat stacks and parallel pencils. The new Siouxsie’s a slob.
“Just wondering,” I say. “If you’re a colonel, how come you’re not wearing a uniform?”
Colonel Kincaid smiles. Actually, it’s more like a facial tic.
“I’m old army, Arlo. I wore a uniform for twenty-two years—Persian Gulf to the Pentagon. These days, I work independently.”
“Ah,” Dad says, setting out the mugs. “An independent contractor.”
“That’s right,” the colonel says.
The Mr. Coffee drips down. Dad fills the mugs and hands them out, sniff-checking the half-and-half before he plants it on the table. He drops a pack of Chips Ahoy! cookies beside it—the original hard variety, not the phony chewy ones. Dad doesn’t bother to put anything in a pitcher or on a plate. Mom would’ve had a fit.
“So what’s the big deal?” Dad says. “I mean, why are you interested in Arlo? Has he broken any law?”
“Hey, please!” I say. “I don’t break laws. I ride and abide.”
It’s a load of crap. I break laws every day, if you count the speed limit.
Everybody’s staring at me. It feels like something’s going to drop: a hammer, a shoe, a guillotine blade.
“Arlo’s captured our attention,” Colonel Kincaid says. “You see, ARI has evolved into an important part of our strategy, especially in one war zone.”
“ARI?” Dad says. “Tell me again.”
“Applied . . . Robotic . . . Interdiction,” the colonel says.
“He means drones,” I tell Dad.
“Ah, yes, well, we know about those, don’t we,” Dad says. “And which war zone are we talking about?”
Colonel Kincaid starts to answer, then stops. “Why don’t you tell him, Arlo.”
The reason for this visit is starting to explode my mind. At the same time, it’s so off my beaten path, I have to wonder.
“Pakistan,” I say.
“Can you be more specific?” Colonel Kincaid asks.
Thanks to Drone Pilot, I can.
“The North-West Frontier,” I say.
Colonel Kincaid smiles—it’s more than a tic this time. It’s almost warm.
“Pakistan!” Dad says. “We’re not at war with Pakistan.”
“Not officially,” Colonel Kincaid says. “Our war is not against the Pakistani people or government but rather against an extreme mindset that breeds in that region.”
“Sir,” Major Anderson says, “the North-West Frontier is one of the world’s most dangerous landscapes, both topographically and politically.”
“It’s a godforsaken snake pit,” Colonel Kincaid says. “In three thousand years, nobody—not Alexander the Great, not the mogul warlords, not the British Empire, not even the Soviet Union—has been able to control the Frontier. Today, it’s occupied by insurgent groups and outlaw tribes. Depending on the day of the week, they’re either in bed with each other or cutting each other’s throats.”
“Sounds like a great place to raise kids,” Dad says. “But I still don’t get it. Why are you here?”
Yeah, I say to myself. Why are you here?
I grab the sugar jar. The near-infinity of white crystals seems to capture the surrealness of this conversation—the relationship between micro and macro, nothing and everything.
“Mr. Santiago—may I call you Hector?” Colonel Kincaid asks.
“You may.”
“Hector . . . Arlo . . . we know that key elements of the insurgency—those responsible for attacks against our personnel and facilities—are based in the mountains of the North-West Frontier.”
“Yeah, mostly in the Swat Valley,” I say.
“Correct,” Colonel Kincaid says. “That’s common knowledge. The media reports it every day. The Swat is our main area of interest.”
I’m watching Colonel Kincaid as he talks. He looks both worn down and alert. Like he’s spent most of his life missing sleep, eating meat, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. Or more accurately, like he’s tried to cut back on all those but failed. He also looks like he’s pumped some iron, though maybe not this year.
“These insurgents,” he goes on, “hide in remote compounds, slipping back and forth across the border. They plan missions, train operatives, and carry out their mayhem with virtual impunity.”
Major Anderson clears his throat. “One of our jobs is to monitor all communications pertaining to UAVs—”
“There you go again with your acronyms,” Dad says.
“UAVs,” the major says. “Unmanned aerial vehicles.”
“Drones,” I tell Dad. “All these acronyms are about drones.”
Dad scratches his head.
Major Anderson says, “The DOD—Department of Defense—”
“I know what the DOD is,” Dad grumbles.
“Yes, sir. Well, the DOD tracks the entire universe of air combat and defense scenarios. One area we monitor is video games—the type that involves covert observation and strike.”
“Video games!”
Dad fixes me with his “squinch”—his pinched, squinty look that combines doubt and disgust with a twinkle of amusement. Over the years, as editor of the Gunslinger, he spent a lot of time squinching at mayors, governors, rodeo stars, and other people who might not be telling the truth.
Colonel Kincaid picks up. “New games come on the market every day. As far as we’re concerned, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent are pure shit. Forgive my French.”
“Forgiven,” Dad says.
He swings around and opens a cupboard. Plants a bottle of Cutty Sark Scotch whiskey on the table. “More authority for your coffee, gentlemen?”
“Not for me, thanks,” Major Anderson says.
“How about you, Colonel? It’s the real McCoy. Double rectified.”
Colonel Kincaid places a hand over his mug.
Dad shrugs and spikes his own coffee. “Keep going,” he says. “I want to know more about these video games that involve ‘covert observation and strike.’”
Colonel Kincaid sips his coffee. “Most are conceived and designed by twenty-two-year-old kids dressed in black T-shirts,” he says. “In my opinion, they’ve cracked their skulls in one too many skateboard falls. They know nothing about us.”
“‘Us’?” Dad asks.
“That’s right.” The colonel coughs—a boggy, old-smoker cough. “Those of us on the front lines—from Colorado Springs to Cambridge to Kabul—who study military operations, history, technology, strategy, logistics . . . These kids know squat about flying. Flying is the supreme skill, Hector. It’s the sublime marriage of science and art. ‘The touch’—that’s what you need. These damn video games rarely rise above the level of cartoons.”
“There’s one exception,” Major Anderson says.
“Yeah,” I say. “A big one.”
“Go on,
Arlo,” the colonel says. “Tell us about it.”
I set the sugar jar on the table. “It’s called Drone Pilot,” I say. “Actually, that’s the short name. The full name is Drone Pilot World War III: In the Valley of the Shadow.”
“Isn’t that the game you’re always playing?” Dad asks.
“Not always,” I say.
“Like hell,” Dad says. “That game eats you for breakfast and spits you out for lunch.”
It’s actually a fair statement. When I’m not sleeping or at school, I’m either hitting the mesas on my 250 or playing Drone Pilot. I can pinpoint the start of my meteoric rise on the leaderboard to May, about when Mom died. It’s just a coincidence, as far as I know.
Dad turns to the military dudes. “Is it me, or is our country spawning a generation of couch-potato slackers? Thomas Jefferson must be weeping in his grave.”
“He’s not weeping over Arlo,” Colonel Kincaid says. “You see, Hector, we think your son may be a highly capable drone pilot.”
These words buzz up and down my spine.
“Sir, we’d like to invite Arlo down to White Sands to test him,” Major Anderson says. “If he performs well, he may be of value to us.”
“Of value?” Dad looks puzzled. “Are you sure this isn’t one of Uncle Sal Focazio’s practical jokes? Who are you, a couple of his old paratrooping buddies?”
The colonel glares at Dad.
“Sir,” Major Anderson says, “as of today—correction, yesterday—Arlo is the top drone pilot.”
“Top drone pilot where?” Dad asks.
“In the world.”
“You mean, the video game world,” Dad says.
“Yes,” Major Anderson says.
“Hell, that’s not the world.”
“Let me break it down for you,” Colonel Kincaid says. “The game Drone Pilot is based on our technology. God knows how they got it—the algorithms and such—but it’s ours. This game is not like any other video game out there. It replicates one of the most effective and lethal weapons systems ever devised, a system that delivers profound capability with zero vulnerability. If you can fly a UAV—excuse me, a drone—in the game Drone Pilot, you can fly a real one. If you can pinpoint and destroy a level-fourteen target, you can pinpoint and destroy a real target. Something the size of, say, a pickup truck from half a world away.”
“Or the size of a single person,” I say.
Dad doesn’t look impressed. “Capability without vulnerability? Where are the heroics in that?”
“We’re not interested in heroics,” Colonel Kincaid says. “Only in results.”
Dad gulps his coffee. “Surely you can find someone at least eighteen years old.”
The colonel shrugs. “Let me tell you, Hector, what does not interest me: talent. I see talent every day and it bores the hell out of me. What I’m looking for is far more rare.”
“And what would that be?” Dad asks.
The colonel’s eyes spark. “Rapture.”
“Rapture?” Dad says.
“Someone with ‘the touch,’ Hector.”
“And you think Arlo has ‘the touch’?”
“I do,” Colonel Kincaid says. “Assuming the leaderboard is accurate.”
“Hey, it’s accurate,” I say. “It’s sacred.”
Right now, my mind is on fire. Because Colonel Kincaid gets it. He actually understands what I’ve done. And respects it. Major Anderson, too.
Dad scratches his neck. “White Sands, that’s a long ways down the pike. A night or two in Alamogordo. Five or six meals. I don’t exactly relish all that. And I sure as hell don’t have the budget for it.”
“Sir,” Major Anderson says, snapping open his briefcase. “We’ve taken that into consideration.” He hands Dad an envelope.
Dad props it up—unopened—against the pepper mill.
“I’m going to level with you,” he tells the officers. “We’ve had a lousy year—book of Job lousy.”
It’s strange to hear him say this, because he almost never talks about it.
“In what way?” the colonel asks.
“Every way,” Dad says. “Lost my wife. Lost my job. And my daughter has been diagnosed . . .”
“Diagnosed with what?” the colonel asks.
Dad shakes his head. Sunken.
“She’s got Huntington’s disease,” I say.
“HD,” Colonel Kincaid says. “A tough one.”
Dad’s trembling now. He doesn’t usually let it show. He’s proud—a proud man. But since the newspaper folded, people see him as half gone to hell. That’s the way it works in Clay Allison, New Mexico—you’re as shiny as your last victory or as dog-assed as your last defeat.
He looks at the officers. “So I must ask you, what’s in it for us? Because, you see, I’m sitting on a mountain of debt the size of Pike’s Peak. And due to geological instabilities, Pike’s is getting higher every day. Boy, what a view!”
Dad looks half ready to laugh, half ready to cry, and half ready to lunge across the table and kick the crap out of Colonel Kincaid. He would definitely lose.
Dad and the colonel go eye to eye, ’nad to ’nad—first to blink, first to twitch and all that. The colonel blinks first.
“What’s in it for you, Hector? Well, it all depends. If Arlo can help us . . . if his skills can translate . . . if he can perform at the highest level . . . then—”
“Then what?” I blurt.
The colonel faces me. His look goes deep, like he’s trying to see some magic spark inside me.
“Then, Arlo, your father will no longer be sitting atop Pike’s Peak.”
Dad looks stunned. I’m feeling it too.
Dad says, “Do you want to do this, Arlo?”
The truth is, going to White Sands to play the military version of Drone Pilot sounds amazing in itself. But the idea that we might lower Pike’s Peak feels like an answered prayer.
I don’t explode out of my chair. Got to keep the seesaw balanced between Dad and the dudes.
“Yeah,” I say, like it’s nothing.
“I’m curious about something, Arlo,” Colonel Kincaid says. “What makes you so good?”
So good? It’s not that I don’t have an answer. It’s that I don’t fully grasp what’s behind my answer. Plus, it’s kind of personal.
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“Take a minute,” the colonel says.
I grab the sugar jar again and roll it in my hands. Stare at the tumbling crystals as they bury the soda cracker, then fall away, revealing the cracker again.
The Drone Zone is that special place on the right side of my brain where the clutch is always wet and the engine always purrs.
Like when I crank my Yam 250 and take to the air on Little Piñon.
Or when I play Drone Pilot.
It wasn’t easy getting here. For a long time, I measured progress in inches—one inch higher. One foot farther. One kill more.
Do that a hundred times. Do it a thousand. Do it five thousand. Don’t try to be better than others. Just push yourself to be better than the last time.
On a blackboard, you can write it this way:
The more you push yourself + the more you push yourself = the better you get.
One day, you go past the point where your senses work in greased harmony. You slip out of your skin. You free yourself from gravitational pull.
You enter the Drone Zone.
When I’m in the Drone Zone, I function better than I’m capable of. Brain chatter dies. Life shit fades. Something inside me lines up with something in the universe.
I break through.
Maybe it’s God letting me peek at the light.
Maybe it’s the spirit of Mom pulling me from the dark.
Maybe I’m delusional.
But whenever I enter the Drone Zone, when I reach my limit, I realize it’s not a limit. It’s a door. All I have to do is open it.
Nobody—including me—knows what I can do when I e
nter the Drone Zone, and truly push myself.
Because I never have.
But I don’t tell this to the officers—it’s way too much information.
I set the sugar jar back on the table.
“Why am I so good? Um, maybe because I’m not afraid to go fast or high. Lobo and Cam—my friends—are afraid, which is normal. But I’m not, which is probably abnormal. Like there’s a broken fear wire in me. I’m more aware of things when I leave the ground. The higher I go, the more aware I am.”
Colonel Kincaid looks at me like I’m freakin’ Mona Lisa. “A broken fear wire,” he says. “I like that.”
Dad frowns. “Well, I don’t.”
Chapter 6
A RAINDROP—ONE SINGLE DROP—splats at my feet. We definitely need this rain. Most of Mom’s plants have died of thirst. They stand in the dust and rustle in the wind. But after that one drop, nothing.
The sky scowls down. But it can’t darken me.
I’m feeling too good.
I watch the Crown Vic roll up our driveway, go left on the access road, and head toward Interstate 25.
“Damn!” I say, smacking my fist. “Daaaamn!”
I wheel my Yam 250 over to the shed. Dad’s turned this weathered-plank shack into a garage for all our nags. We keep five here—the oldest dating back to Dad’s dusty-rusty motorcycle days, before he and Mom got married.
The only actual living bikes are my own two, my Yamaha 250 and my YZ 125.
Dad’s bikes—his Harley Fat Boy, his Indian Chief, and his Triumph Bonneville—died slow deaths, cannibalized to keep each other alive. Still, even in death, these old bikes are beautiful machines, majestic and muscular. You can tell they once ruled the open roads. They make my two bikes look like wimps. But then, my bikes can do things these old nags could never do.
I park my 250, close the shed door, and slip the bolt. It’s getting darker and darker. It’s truly going to piss and float cow pies.
I stroll over to the barn—our giant green-sided, silver-roofed aluminum lunch box, all prefab and permanently new, with none of the grainy-plank-truth feel and smell of the shed. Nothing like the old barns of Orphan County that sag like mule backs and make you wonder, did Billy the Kid or even Clay Allison himself sleep in that hayloft?
Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly Page 4