by Andy Briggs
“This is amazing!” Carson said before gulping half the drink down.
“Why are we whispering?” whispered Eddie.
“I tell you, according to the web, there is nothing like Vanta out there,” said Trix, putting her phone back in her pocket. “She’s unique.”
“She?” choked Eddie, his Coke fizzing from his nose. “You don’t name your phone.” After a thoughtful pause, he added, “Do you?”
“She definitely carried me over the scrapyard,” Carson said firmly. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced. But he could tell by the look on Trix’s face that she wasn’t. “You don’t believe me?”
“Talking to us and flying around on her own –”
“Its own!” Eddie interjected.
“– is one thing, but flying you out? Really? I think you’re getting confused with a movie or something.”
Eddie pointed at them both, arms outstretched. “Now that leads me to a good question. Where did she come from?”
Carson couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow. “She?”
Eddie huffed again. “It! Look, if you wake up dead tomorrow because there is an alien spacecraft in your bedroom, then I’m just going to say ‘I told you so.’”
Trix rolled her eyes. “She’s not from outer space!”
“What, then? She travelled back in time to stop us saving the world from our robot overlords?” He gave a short triumphant laugh when Trix and Carson exchanged a worried look. “We don’t know if she’s – it’s – safe to be around. What if it’s a secret government experiment that went mental and is now trying to destroy the human race? Or maybe a mad scientist could have built her to take over the planet!”
“And then he just dumped her in the scrapyard?” Carson shook his head. “We can ask her tomorrow when she’s recharged.” Eddie opened his mouth, but before he could utter another wild theory, Carson cut him off. “And I don’t care if you think I got hit on the head and imagined everything, Vanta saved me. So I for one don’t think she’s going to kill us.” He looked pointedly at Eddie, then ominously added, “Not all of us, anyway.”
Eddie pulled a face but said nothing.
“We shouldn’t tell anybody about this,” said Trix. The three friends solemnly nodded. “Especially not Kay.”
Eddie looked at her blankly.
“Your sister!”
Eddie nodded vaguely. “Oh yeah. I just don’t call her that. She’s too annoying to have a name.”
Carson finished his drink, his eyes wandering the ceiling as he thought about the drone above their heads. “I guess we’ll get our answers tomorrow.”
That night, Carson found it difficult to sleep. After half-heartedly tidying his room and reattaching the wardrobe door, he lay on the bed in the dark, lulled by Vanta’s steady pulse of light. The drone didn’t move or speak again and, just as he heard his father coming home, his eyes closed.
He had a vivid dream of flying, his arms extended wide, the rush of air on his face. It was incredible…
Chapter 8
TEST FLIGHT
Eddie stamped his feet for warmth as a chill breeze blew through the enormous derelict warehouse. It was supposed to be summer, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. At least they didn’t need to sneak in, as his uncle owned the site and allowed them to use the warehouse to practise racing.
Carson gently took Vanta out of his backpack and placed her on an upturned crate. When he had awoken, the charging cable had been ejected and lay on the desk, but the drone hadn’t stirred at all. He was now beginning to wonder if the previous night had actually happened. Just how hard had he hit his head?
Eddie kept his distance and examined their broken racing drone. Trix had managed to get two of the engines working, but not enough to make it airborne.
“Terrific,” he muttered. “Now we have two drones that don’t work.”
Their attention was drawn to Vanta when she suddenly lit up with a BEE-BOP that was familiar to Carson. Moments later the engines whirled to life and the drone lifted in the air and flew across to them. The camera angled down to inspect the ruined racing drone.
“Oh dear. What happened here? Did somebody get angry with a hammer?”
Eddie was unnerved by the way the drone’s camera stared accusingly at him. “No, he flew it into a wall!” he snapped back, pointing at Carson.
“This was our racing drone,” Carson explained. “That’s why I was in the scrapyard last night.”
Vanta seemed to pause for a moment for speaking. “Ah, yes. Drone racing is becoming a popular sport around the world.”
Trix frowned. “You know about it?”
“I just looked it up on the internet.”
Eddie was impressed. “Wow. Maybe you can do my homework too?”
“Oh, that’d be too easy!” Vanta turned to Carson. “You wanted to find spare parts to replace this?”
Carson nodded. “We were hoping to build one from scratch. They’re … you’re quite expensive.”
“Oh, I’m priceless,” Vanta chuckled as she pirouetted in the air. “And, since I’m not too busy at the moment, maybe I can be part of your team?”
Carson let out a sigh of relief. While waiting for any signs of life from Vanta, the team had had a whispered discussion about what they should do next with the strange little drone. Carson had felt it was mean to open up Vanta for parts, ignoring Trix, who attempted to remind him that was the original plan.
“And can I remind you it’s –” Eddie silently mouthed the word stolen as if speaking it aloud would summon the police “– property? We could get arrested!”
“I can race. Watch this!” In a sudden burst of incredible speed, the little drone shot off across the warehouse so fast that she was nothing more than a blur that was lost amongst the warehouse’s concrete columns.
Carson spun around, listening for the distinctive buzz of a drone engine, but there was utter silence. Then Vanta suddenly appeared, whooping with delight, as she passed so low overhead that the trio threw themselves flat in the dust.
Vanta stopped dead in the air, then abruptly zigzagged left and right, effortlessly dancing through the barrels, posts and other obstacles they had laid out for training. Then she shot straight up through a broken skylight.
Carson was the first to his feet, slack-jawed with awe.
“Wow…”
Vanta plunged straight back down. The move was so savage that Carson threw his hands over his head, expecting the drone to fly straight into him. Instead she hung gracefully in the air, slowly pirouetting nose-down.
Trix couldn’t stop herself from clapping. “That was a-ma-zing!”
Carson was breathing hard, as if he had run the circuit himself. “We’re going to win everything!”
“That was cool,” said Eddie. “Too cool.”
The others looked questioningly at him.
“For starters, you’re so fast there’s no way anyone would believe Carson was flying. That makes us cheats. We’d be disqualified, and it’s not right.”
Carson rolled his eyes. “You and your rules! If we’d listened to you we wouldn’t even have a drone right now.”
“Duh! You’re not listening! We’d be disqualified, so we might as well not have a drone at all!”
Trix pulled a Torx from her pocket and waved it at the drone. “But maybe if I could tinker with your power management I could sort that out.”
Vanta retreated a little. “Nobody is messing with my undercarriage, young lady.”
Trix put the screwdriver away.
Eddie folded his arms defiantly. “There has to be a human pilot. Rules are rules.”
Carson guiltily held up a radio controller he had kept in his pocket. “OK. Pair her up to this.”
Vanta zipped between the controller and Carson. “You want to control me, with that?”
Eddie looked sidelong at Carson. “I’m afraid they’re the rules, if you want to race with us. Unless you want to go back into the bag?”
Carson gently nudged the joystick and Vanta drifted first left, then right. The drone giggled. “That feels so strange!”
“Cool!” Carson applied a little throttle, and Vanta shot forward with a whoop of delight.
“That took me by surprise!” the drone said cheerfully. “Put on your goggles and let’s go for a spin.”
Trix was laughing as she passed Carson the virtual reality headset. She took her phone out and opened up the racing app so it could receive the drone’s signal, then she slid the phone into the helmet to provide the screen. They had long dreamed of getting a proper, high-definition, dedicated headset, but that would have required them to have won a couple of league races at the very least. Carson put the headset’s strap tight around his head, wincing as it pressed against his stiches. The phone screen filled his vision as the headset’s magnifying lens pulled it into focus. He was now looking at himself, at the video streaming from Vanta’s camera.
“Ready when you are!” The drone’s perky voice came from the phone’s speaker, which was an unusual addition. Their drones had never talked back.
Carson licked his lips, and his thumbs circled the joystick toggles. “Let’s see what you’re really capable of.”
Vanta responded instantly to his controls. Within seconds Carson was flying with the drone – banking around posts, sliding through broken windows into distant extensions of the warehouse. A quick flick of the thumb and the drone jinked vertically upwards, spiralling through an empty skylight and high into the air.
Both Carson and Vanta unleashed screams of delight as they soared high above the industrial estate, the warehouse becoming one of several small blocks below. From this vantage point Carson could see clear across the town, and it struck him that he had never been able to race his drone very far, in case it fell out of range of the controller. Vanta didn’t seem to have this problem.
Cackling with exhilaration, he plummeted the drone earthward. He skimmed Vanta low over a lorry pulling into the industrial estate, then turned and buzzed a forklift truck that was loading pallets in an adjacent factory. He saw a couple of angry fists waving at him as they soared over another factory grounds and through a set of concrete pipes that had just been stacked for a delivery.
Then up to the rooftops to effortlessly slalom through smoking chimney pipes – before rolling back through a skylight and into their warehouse. When Carson brought the drone to a dead stop in front of them he was panting hard, as if he’d run the course himself.
He yanked off the goggles and saw the astonished looks on Trix and Eddie’s faces. They had witnessed the entire flight on Trix’s iPad.
“That was awesome!” Carson said in disbelief. “I mean … that was super fast! We are so going to ace this with you!”
Trix fist-bumped Carson, then gave Eddie a lopsided smile. “What do you think?”
“Awesome. I don’t see how we can lose!” He didn’t share the darker thought at the back of his mind that somebody out there was surely missing this incredible drone. He wondered what they would do to get it back.
Chapter 9
SIGNING UP
The Constructor League race was at the weekend, giving them a couple of days to practise around the warehouse with Vanta. The drone was always in a good mood and eager to fly, but during the night she sat silently on Carson’s desk to recharge, while he lay on his bed looking thoughtfully at her.
“How did you end up in the scrapyard?”
For a long moment, Vanta remained silent. Only the occasional flicker of light through her orb gave Carson the impression she was thinking. Eventually she spoke in a weary tone.
“Strong winds … blown off course…”
Carson waited for more, but it was clear that was all the drone was offering.
“I mean, you’re a pretty high-tech … thing. Expensive, I reckon.”
“Oh? And how much are you worth?”
A noise from downstairs told Carson somebody was home. A quick glance at the clock told him it was 1:30 in the morning.
“Who lives with you?” Vanta suddenly sounded less exhausted. The glow from her orb brightened inquisitively.
“Just my dad.”
He listened to his father’s footsteps wearily trudge up the stairs. For a moment they paused outside the door, but Carson didn’t expect his dad to check in on him; he never had before. After an uncomfortably long pause, he heard his dad walk away and gently close the door to his own room. Carson let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “So, you were telling me where you came from?”
When he looked back at Vanta, her orb had faded to just a few occasional trickles of light, and the drone didn’t say another word for the rest of the night.
The trio were out of breath when they dismounted their bikes and craned their necks up at the grubby exterior of the local football stadium.
“I thought this place had been demolished,” said Eddie sceptically. “In fact, it’s difficult to tell if it hasn’t been already.”
It had certainly once seen glorious days, but that was probably before they had been born. The only flash of colour amongst the peeling paintwork was a large “Constructor League” banner draped over the entrance. The league’s fifty-pound entry fee was everything they had, or rather, what Trix had, topped up with a couple of five-pound notes from the boys.
“I’m only doing this because of our new teammate,” she said grudgingly as she paid the fee.
Eddie quickly filled out the registration papers. “They want to know everything. I’m not giving them my address…” he muttered.
Carson tapped the team name box. “Carsonators.” Eddie grunted, but dutifully filled it in. Then Carson saw the email address Eddie had used. “That’s not your email.”
Eddie’s eyes darted around as he spoke in a whisper. “It’s one I use for spam, y’know, when I sign up for free stuff online. It can’t be traced to me.” Carson shrugged indifferently, causing Eddie to sigh and raise his voice. “We’re using a stolen drone! I’m not going to give them our real details! I don’t want a criminal record!”
“Sssh! OK, OK,” said Carson, indicating Eddie to lower his voice. “Whatever. Let’s just get in there.”
Eddie handed their entry form back and they walked their bikes into the stadium.
Instantly, everything around them was very different from the grungy car park races they had attended. The outdoor pitch had been converted into an obstacle course, while the sloped seating had flags and markers forming a racetrack that looped around the entire arena. A surprisingly large number of spectators sat at one end of the pitch, watching a large projector screen that would display the action from numerous cameras around the stadium.
“Wow!” said Eddie, wiping the sweat from his brow. “We’ve hit the big time!”
“It’s a bit better than the car park challenge,” Carson admitted.
“Let me see,” Vanta squeaked from Carson’s backpack.
“In a minute,” Carson replied quietly as a large man with short, curly brown hair and wearing a garishly bright Hawaiian shirt, blue trainers and khaki cargo shorts, approached them waving an iPad like a fly swatter.
“Hey, kids,” he said in a smooth American accent. “This is the team paddock. Spectators sit over there.” He pointed to the people sitting at the far end. Then he turned back and was already scrolling through messages on his tablet.
“We are a team,” Trix said impatiently.
The man stopped and looked as if he was about to wave them away when Trix raised their entry ticket. His surprise gave way to a doubtful smile.
“OK. Cool. Just a little … young. And a little sweaty too.”
“We had a few technical issues getting here,” Eddie said firmly.
“We got lost,” Trix clarified.
> “What’s your team name?”
Carson spoke up before Eddie could. “The Carsonators.” He ignored Eddie’s groan and elbowed his backpack when he heard an urgh from Vanta. The man hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Well, Carsonators, everybody is welcome. I’m Marcus Nation. Welcome to my league!” He treated them to a winning smile, as if expecting them to break into applause. Disappointed, he continued, “I put together all these local rounds building to the championship.” Again he expected a reaction that wasn’t forthcoming. He raised an eyebrow. “You know this is the first year the Constructor League’s been around, right?”
Carson nodded. “Sure. I read that on the internet.”
Nation huffed. “The internet. Terrific. This is gonna be big, you know.”
Carson and Trix nodded politely. Eddie gave him a thumbs up.
With a sigh, Nation indicated they should follow him towards the team paddocks. “As you know if you read,” he mimicked Carson, “‘the internet’, we don’t have the same rules as the racing leagues. If you can fly it, you can race it.” He chuckled. “Although we had one team in Scotland who tried to fly a drone so huge that it couldn’t even fit through the first obstacle.” He turned, walking backwards as he spoke. “And the course will bite back. I don’t want to give anything away, but our spectators are looking for destruction. Big explosions get big cheers.”
“Explosions?” Trix swapped a worried glance with Carson.
“Yeah. Should be an interesting race,” Nation said as they reached the paddock. It was an unspectacular area filled with workbenches, separated from the rest of the pitch by orange tape strung from poles in the ground.
“We have some mean competition taking part today, so don’t let it get you down. It’s the taking part that counts.”
Carson felt irritated when Marcus winked. The meaning was clear: you don’t stand a chance, but thanks for the entry fee.
“Take a bench. See you in the race.” He started to walk away, then stopped. “Oh, one more thing. You were late, so you’ve already missed the sighting lap.”