Unmanned (9780385351263)

by Fesperman, Dan

“Do It Yourself Drones?”

  “With cameras, in-flight computers, sensor chips, and a whole lot more. All of it state of the art.”

  “Is that what’s in the drum case?”

  “A quadcopter of my very own. I’m the only one who doesn’t use a laptop.”

  “Then how do you—?”

  Sharpe brandished his smart phone.

  “It’s really all you need anymore to control one of these things. Comforting to know, isn’t it?”

  He opened the door and stepped outside. One of the men on the field immediately called to him.

  “Lenny! Get a move on, you old chicken plucker, we’ve got birds to fly. Paul’s gonna do his maiden!”

  “That’s Stan,” Sharpe said to Cole through the open door. “The mouth of the bunch, but you’ll like him. He’s got a fixed-wing X8 with enough battery power to stay aloft for three hours. He once covered ninety miles, and he’s got a sweet little GoPro high-res camera on board. If he wanted, he could’ve tracked you all the way out here from the moment you left your country estate. Hell, maybe he did. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”

  Everybody shook Joe Cooley’s hand. Sharpe, or Lenny, explained that Cole, or Joe, was a newbie who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. They were cool with it, not the least bit worried. Besides, most of the day’s attention was already focused on Paul, a potbellied day trader from Salisbury, Maryland, who looked as excited as a kid on his birthday. He was gearing up for the maiden voyage of his very own X8, and at the moment he was down on his hands and knees, getting his pants muddy out past the pitcher’s mound as he tweaked and tightened with a mini-screwdriver and a tube of epoxy.

  Three other members of the group faced him in a tight semicircle, hands gesturing as everybody talked at once. Paul kept nodding as if to say yeah, yeah, I get it, but he said little. Between adjustments to his aircraft he ran his fingers through his hair and frowned, like he was worried about screwing up.

  Cole edged closer, listening to their patter. He picked out a few aviation terms, but the rest was geekspeak.

  “Hey, man, did you check your APM settings to see how the elevons respond?”

  “Dude, you know you’re gonna crash your maiden, so maybe you should offload some of that high-end gear.”

  “Does that software overlay a 3-D HUD on the video when the plane’s flying Gmaps?”

  “Paul, what’s your SVGA output?”

  Sharpe sidled up to Cole.

  “So what do you think, Joe?”

  “What the fuck are they talking about?”

  “You could learn most of it in about ten minutes.”

  “Do these things really do the job?”

  “Once you get the hang of ’em. And it’s pretty cheap. Ten times better and cheaper than when people started in on this stuff a few years back.”

  “What’s it take to get started, about a thou?”

  “A few hundred, as long as you’ve got a laptop or a smart phone. The aircraft’s the big expense, but it’s the chip package that does all the work, and you can buy a pretty kick-ass autopilot for about the cost of two double cappuccinos and the Sunday New York Times.”

  “What’s in the package?”

  “Oh, nothing but a gyroscope, a magnetometer, an accelerometer, a processor, a pressure sensor, and a temperature gauge.”

  “Damn. That’s pretty much everything.”

  “Except the camera.”

  “I remember hearing about this shit a few years ago. You’d see message boards with all the hobbyists. But it was nothing like this.”

  “Smart phones. That exploded it. The same tech that puts all those apps in your pocket helps fit all these controls and capabilities into your very own private spy drone. Not that any of these fine fellows is up to no good.”

  “Except Joe and Lenny, the two guys using fake names.”

  “Only two? You sure about that?”

  “Do you know something?”

  “Later. On the drive back.”

  Cole reassessed the crowd, trying to pick out who Sharpe might be referring to. Chattery Stan was now busy with his own X8, preparing for takeoff about thirty feet away. The three guys watching Paul—Bert, Wallace, and Leo—all had different models of quadcopters, like small helicopters but with four overhead rotors. Everyone looked harmless enough. Jeans and khakis, down jackets with a comfortable Saturday rumple. Nobody had shaved. A few had coffee in travel mugs. But how else would he expect them to look?

  Bert was talking up the idea of payloads. “I figure she can carry maybe three pounds the way she’s rigged now. A few modifications, maybe a little more horsepower, and I’m thinking I can ramp it up to eight, maybe even ten.”

  Ten pounds of what? Cole wondered. Anthrax spores? A pipe bomb? A Glock 19, mounted on a swivel with some whiz-bang chip to activate firing? You could fly these things just about anyplace, right past security checkpoints and every metal detector known to man. It would have to be outdoors, of course, but it still seemed like a nightmare waiting to happen. Or maybe Sharpe’s paranoia was rubbing off on him. And maybe that was foolishness. Because out here in the fresh air, with a touch of brine on the breeze and the sound of easy laughter among friends, the whole idea of anyone trying something terrible seemed remote, even laughable.

  “Look out!”

  He turned just in time. A gust of wind had gotten a hold of Leo’s quadcopter, a metallic green model that veered toward him like a wayward June bug. It buzzed past him, about eight feet to the left of his head, then caught itself in a hover and adjusted, rising twenty feet into the sky.

  “Sorry, man.”

  “No harm, no foul.”

  Leo nodded, smiling appreciatively. Cole already felt accepted, a part of the club, and he might have been anyone, seeking to learn this technology for any purpose. Just like those quiet young men who had enrolled in flight schools in the months before 9/11. He wondered how they would’ve received him if his name was Hassan, or Mohammed. “Hi, guys, I’m Osama and I want to build a drone for my friends.”

  Sharpe walked over to the huddle around Paul’s X8. Cole headed back over to see what was up.

  “Paul, the time has come.” Sharpe said gruffly. “It’s put up or shut up.”

  Paul evidently agreed. Only seconds later he stood and stepped out toward second base, holding the slender body of his drone just behind the wings. Everyone gave him room. He set the engine running and buzzing, then extended his arm, posed like a kid with one of those rubber-band balsa gliders that Cole used to buy in dime stores, with wings that fell off every time it landed.

  Paul flung it forward. The X8 rose sharply without stalling, just as it was supposed to.

  “How’s he flying it?” Cole asked. “He’s not even at his laptop.”

  “The autopilot takes over,” Sharpe explained. “The damn chips. He programmed in a flight path. If he wants to change it, fine, he can do it with a few clicks. All he really has to do manually is land her, so it’s a pretty easy guess where he’s going to screw up.”

  Cole walked over to check the image on Paul’s laptop. It was alarmingly good. Brown fields, a tree line, all of it crystal clear, an HD display as good as an NFL broadcast. Then, as the plane banked, there they were, all seven of them below, gazing up at the X8.

  “Can you zoom it?”

  “Sure,” Paul answered. “I can change the view, too.”

  The plane kept circling, widening its arc, but Paul pointed the camera out toward the road, then zeroed in on a red sedan cruising past the school. You could see the driver’s face through the window, completely unaware. Just like those Afghan dirt farmers, oblivious.

  Paul punched in some commands and his drone soared higher, zooming off toward the open skies of the eastern horizon.

  Over at the edge of the field Cole saw a silver BMW sedan pull into the school parking lot and come to a stop among the other vehicles. It sat for a minute or two with no sign of movement behind the smoked glass. Then a door opened an
d a silver-haired guy, maybe in his fifties, got out. He wore a shiny cordovan leather jacket, unzipped, and a blue oxford shirt with the top buttons undone. He nodded toward the group, and several of them nodded back. He went around to the trunk and unloaded a drum case a lot like Sharpe’s, then wrestled it awkwardly across the grass to the edge of the dirt infield, where he set it down. He made no move to open it. Instead, he eased back a few steps, as if to say that was enough activity for now. Then he folded his arms and started watching the others.

  Cole would’ve guessed he was a stranger to the group if not for the reactions of the others, who seemed perfectly comfortable with his presence. After five minutes or so, he began to find the man a little unnerving.

  “Who’s the guy in the Beemer?” he asked Bert.

  “Oh, that’s Derek.” He smiled, like it was some sort of inside joke.

  “Man of mystery,” Stan chimed in, making Bert giggle.

  “He never does much flying,” Bert said. “I think he’s too worried he’ll screw up. So he mostly just soaks up the atmosphere, watching the rest of us crash and burn.”

  “But he’s got some pretty hot birds,” Stan said. “On occasion.”

  “When he actually gets ’em out of the box. How many do you figure he’s actually flown down here with us?”

  “Five?” Stan guessed. “Maybe six. But never for long. Hot stuff, though, like I said.”

  “Payload obsessed.”

  “That’s for sure.” Stan laughed.

  “Payload?” Cole asked.

  “Always wants to know what your stuff’s capable of carrying—weight and volume, the impact on the aerodynamics, all kinds of related shit.”

  “Do his birds ever carry anything?”

  Bert and Stan exchanged questioning glances.

  “Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Stan said.

  “Leo says he’s seen him load up some stuff. Dummy weights, I think he said.”

  Stan laughed again. “Typical Derek. Hey, Paul’s doing okay!”

  He was indeed. Cole watched the X8 do some fairly nimble maneuvers off in the distance, out over a bare lot. Five minutes later Paul brought it back toward the baseball field. A low trajectory carried it across the chain-link fence in left field, and it zoomed down the foul line like a throw to the plate. It bounced once on its plastic wheels, then a second time, before planting nose-down in a sudden blat of prop and wing that stopped the engine and tumbled the plane onto its back about halfway between third and home.

  “Out by a mile!” Stan yelled.

  “Shit.” Paul trotted over, brow furrowed, expecting the worst.

  “Yep. That’s a maiden,” Bert said, which triggered muffled laughter and a few gentle words of condolence.

  “She’ll fly again, Paulie.”

  “Duct tape, baby. Duct tape and epoxy and she’s good as new.”

  Nice guys, he thought again. Fun to be around. And he could tell Sharpe liked them, too.

  But something about the setup kept him off balance, and as he looked around at the barren expanse of the dirt infield he felt almost wobbly, as if he was back in the desert, gazing up past his trailer into a threatening sky as he listening for the telltale buzz. At that moment it was easy to imagine this same crew milling around on some postapocalyptic dreamscape, scalded and empty, yet they were still chattering, pointing, playing with their winged tools of intrusion. Watching all their fellow survivors from afar.

  “Wanna try ’er, Joe?”

  It was Bert, snapping Cole out of his morose reverie with a welcoming grin. Cole blinked and looked around. It was a baseball field, nothing more. Fresh footprints and the chatter of humans.

  “You okay, man?”

  “Yeah, sure. What was your question again?”

  Bert held aloft his quadcopter.

  “Was wondering if you wanted to try ’er. You looked like you were feeling a little left out. And she’s practically indestructible. Has to be, the way I fly ’er.”

  Cole smiled.

  “Then I guess she’s the perfect one for me to try out. What’s the drill?”

  In addition to an iPad, Bert had rigged up a headset control with goggles that offered a bird’s-eye view from the camera, and an optional function that let you control the flight by tilting your head. Otherwise, the autopilot did most of the work. It took Bert only a few minutes to explain it, and Cole was up and running in almost no time. He marveled at the smoothness of the setup. For probably no more than a few hundred bucks, Bert had developed a ground control station miles better than anything Cole had ever used in piloting a Predator.

  “Jesus,” he exclaimed, “your GCS is better than—” He stopped himself.

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than, well, just about anything I’ve seen.”

  “I’m still working out some bugs, but, yeah, it’s not bad.”

  Cole was transfixed by the images on the goggles, which made him feel he was up there with the machine, an illusion of flight that lifted his spirits and made his stomach do little bounces and flutters with every movement of the aircraft. It felt great. He was out there over the edge of a marsh, then speeding along above farmland, the sun to starboard as he soared toward points unknown.

  “Looks like there might be some sort of power plant coming up. Down by a river.”

  “Oh. Better steer clear. They might not like us buzzing their stuff.”

  Cole did as Bert asked, veering gracefully away from the sun toward the open water of the Bay. Bert was monitoring his progress via the display on his iPad.

  “You’re good at this,” Bert said. “Instinctive. Ever done any real flying?”

  “Oh …” What would Sharpe want him to say? “Just simulator stuff. I’ve thought about taking lessons.”

  “You should do it. Looks like you’re a natural. Not that this is all that tough, once you’ve got the right components.”

  “Do you fly?”

  “Nah. Took some lessons, but it was costing a bundle and my wife hated it. Kept thinking I was going to crack up, come home in a box. So I do this now. Gets me up in the air and I survive all the crashes. Hey, look at that guy. You see him?”

  He did. Cole was back over dry land, above a fallow field. Below was a hunter carrying a shotgun, marching across the mud toward a distant blind tucked at the edge of a tree line.

  “Think he’ll take a shot at us?” Cole asked.

  “Hey, it happens. In Texas, anyway. But I doubt this guy can even hear us. I just installed some noise suppression gear. Plus, you’re up pretty high.”

  “How high?”

  “Maybe six hundred feet. That camera’s on full zoom, pretty much.”

  “Oh, sorry. Isn’t there some kind of altitude limit for this stuff?”

  “The FAA says four hundred feet, unless you’ve got a permit. But why bother? And way out here who’s gonna give a shit? Especially if they don’t know.”

  Cole switched back to autopilot and took off the goggles, handing them back to Bert, who then took command via the iPad.

  “Thanks. I enjoyed that.”

  “Looked like it. So, Lenny says you’re thinking of getting into this?”

  Who was Lenny? Oh, right. Sharpe.

  “Maybe. Looks pretty cool.”

  “As long as you don’t mind a lot of crack-ups and false starts.”

  Cole glanced over to see what the others were up to, and saw Derek in his ugly leather jacket. The drum case was still locked up tight, but Derek held out a smart phone and seemed to be shooting video of Cole and Bert. Cole quickly turned away. He felt foolish for doing so, but he didn’t turn back around. No sense ending up with his face on somebody’s footage that might go up on Facebook within the hour.

  When he glanced back over a few minutes later, Derek had put away his phone and was chatting amiably with Leo, both of them with their hands on their hips, at ease with each other, which made Cole feel better.

  After another ten minutes, Bert brought his dr
one in for a smooth landing near home plate.

  Sharpe walked over. “Joe? Time we got moving. We’re on a schedule today, Bert. Just wanted to give him a taste of it.”

  They said their good-byes. Everyone invited him back. Under other circumstances he might even have accepted. In some ways it was the same dynamic as in the fraternity of pilots. A similar kinship, albeit without the dangers. And at least they were out in the open air, not in some damn trailer, running other people’s missions while people barked at them on a chat screen. He would have enjoyed sticking around for a beer or a bourbon afterward, although he doubted their drink of choice was Jeremiah Weed.

  Sharpe loaded his gear. He had made only the most cursory of flights with his quadcopter, just enough of an exercise, perhaps, to show that they weren’t there only to gawk. Maybe he’d been too intent on watching Cole to indulge in his usual level of play. They drove out of the parking lot. Cole was about to speak when Sharpe held up a hand to silence him and said brusquely, “Open your window.”

  “What?”

  “Roll it down. Stick your head out and tell me what you see.”

  Cole eased off on the gas and lowered the window. Glancing back, he saw one of the fixed-wing X8s buzzing angrily in their wake, maybe thirty feet overhead.

  “Jesus. Who’s doing that?”

  Sharpe laughed uproariously.

  “Fucking Stan. Always follows the first one to leave, then stalks him back to Route 50.”

  “Why?”

  “To show that he can. Flip him the bird for us, they’ll enjoy it. Go on.”

  Cole held out his left hand for a good five seconds while steering with his right. They heard a faint outburst of good-natured cheering. Then he shut the window. Stan’s X8 zoomed out in front of them and veered west, waggling its wings good-bye while Sharpe bent over the dash for a better view.

  “Well, if you were trying to freak me out, it worked.”

  “Good. Your former employers fully support this kind of thing, you know.”

  “The Air Force?”

  “DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The brain bin Ike created after everybody freaked out over Sputnik.”

  “Shoulda known.”

  “Drones are their pet project these days. A couple years ago they posted a public challenge, with a hundred-thousand-dollar reward. Lots of specs and guidelines, but basically they were asking the DIY crowd to build the world’s perfect little spy drone. Crowd sourcing. Smart move. Their way of tapping in to the wisdom of the mob, all those armchair geniuses. A thousand bad ideas for every good one, but still. Nobody met the specs by the deadline, but they picked up some good stuff along the way.”