Drone Club: On the Road

By Jamesjohn

How much more trouble can our boys get into?

. “I hope this ends well,” Devin mopes.
. “Yes it will,” she jostles him, “Unless you think you’re going to win in only one day.” She stretches out with the soles of her feet against each other. It feels so good to be here. She rotates her ankles to loosen them up, keeping her insteps parallel and her toes exactly lined up.
. “It’s like we’re on a military campaign or something.”
. She brings her legs in and leans forward, turning to face him, “Well. You are.”
. He finally looks at her. Her eyes are green in this light. “I guess so...”
. My reluctant hero. She turns back and straightens her legs, stretches her arms far over her head until she feels a satisfying pop in her upper back, then relaxes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamesjohn
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005366827

Jamesjohn

I'm jamesjohn. It' a name my mother gave me. In her honor, it's all lower case, all one word.. I was the goofy kid who hid out at the library, and when I got tall enough I went out into the world to see what everybody was writing about. The military, then working as an EMT and nurse, caring for thousands of patients, has shown me that life is complicated and sometimes people say the funniest things.. I like good-hearted characters who stick up for what they think is right, and spontaneous in-the-moment action where people work together to sort it all out.. I currently live along the Front Range of Northern Colorado, going through life as we all are.

Book preview

Drone Club On the Road

jamesjohn

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

This spinoff adventure fills the gap between the first two books in the Drone Club series. Stevo and Devin step out of their school’s Drone Club right before the pushback against their evil sponsor comes to a boil. The pair have their own plans for a future, and they take the ugly van out on the road to start making it happen. It’s an adventure with a hot payoff.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

With author comments

at the end of each chapter!

Drone Club On the Road

DCa OTR v2.3 2021-12-21

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781005366827

Copyright 2021 jamesjohn

visit me at: jamesjohn.com

No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not buy it, or if it was not bought as a gift, then please buy your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 ~ The Club

Chapter 2 ~ Take Off

Chapter 3 ~ Theft

Chapter 4 ~ Hideout

Chapter 5 ~ Adventure

Chapter 6 ~ Fine-Tuning

Chapter 7 ~ History

Chapter 8 ~ Revisit

Chapter 9 ~ Success

Chapter 10 ~ Possession

Chapter 11 ~ Cleanup

Chapter 12 ~ Encounter

Chapter 13 ~ Letdown

Chapter 14 ~ Disclosure

Chapter 15 ~ Enchantment

Chapter 16 ~ Reality

Chapter 17 ~ Treasure

Chapter 18 ~ Hope

Chapter 19 ~ Future

Chapter 20 ~ Chores

Chapter 21 ~ Mastery

Chapter 22 ~ Exposure

Chapter 23 ~ Affirmation

About Me

1~ The Club

Pulsing gravitons, suggests Stevo.

At the frequency of Earth, Devin nods, imagining it while he flies, Heterodyne it so you can use the harmonics for directional force.

Where do you get this shit?

I pay attention.

"Right. With fringe videos." Stevo eases back in his recliner, bored, still not willing to log off early so he can finish Mrs. Richardson’s assignment. He’ll do it while they walk to the main part of school and during roll call. She’s very chatty at roll call, ‘checking in’ with everybody.

Their imaginary antigravity coil is taking shape. They’ve been playing with the idea since yesterday.

Around them the Clubroom hums. If the Boyz gang had been there, the racket from their corner two consoles would have overrun everything, but early mornings are quiet. Only serious Game Club members show up before classes start and their low chatter is focused on the flights at hand. The swish of cooling fans can actually be heard.

Unifly’s sleek proprietary gaming consoles fill the disused classroom in the high school’s old wing. Wraparound screens play complex scenarios, self-adjusting recliner chairs make it hard to go to class, and each Operator’s Matrix of flights draws them in to the world of semi-intelligent commercial drones. UAV simulations are all that their sponsor lets them run in the Club but nobody complains because the images are crisp and realistic, the adaptive controls responsive, the games always challenging. Amongst themselves the members call it ‘The Drone Club’ instead of The Game Club, and there is a waiting list to join.

The far wall of the ancient Clubroom is covered by a badly-installed forest mural, and a mish-mash of posters spread across the rest of the room. Their faculty advisor is never there because the Club runs itself, and even when Mr. Friedrich stops by he doesn’t understand what was going on. The room is busy from the moment the school is opened until the janitor kicks everybody out at the end of the day. Students fill the room even during study halls, free periods, and lunch breaks.

Later that day, Stevo and Devin are settled back in their usual consoles near the Boyz, their proximity to such a ruckus giving them privacy.

Hey lookit that. A girl is ushered into the room by their resident extravert, Matt.

I see her. Don’t stare.

I’m not staring.

Your eyes are bugging out. Take a breath and put your tongue back in.

She’s gettin a tour.

Matt’s got a girlfriend?

"Didn’t think so. He’s cool, but not that cool."

Not like you.

Exactly. Stevo has clean lanky Midwestern blondness, but his mother keeps telling him he slouches too much.

Look at that hair. The girl’s auburn curls are out of control. "And she looks interested, Devin indulges in a note of hope. But she..." he breaks off because they’ve been spotted. Matt is bringing her over.

"Hey, guys, this is Marisa. Pronounce it ‘Mar-ee-sah’ or she’ll stomp on your foot. She just joined the Club." Matt beams as if the whole thing is his idea while the girl shoots him an oblique look, clearly not knowing what to make of his unpredictable humor.

Matt is in full tour-guide mode with nonstop patter, so Stevo and Devin get back to their flights. It’s nice having a female audience, but it makes everything harder now. Devin switches to a flight that needs routine maintenance so he has something easy to focus on, Stevo calls up the flight with the best camera view so he can show off without looking like he’s doing it, and they exchange glances.

So the Club now has a girl.

It’s about time.

The boys consider their chances. Matt thinks she’s cute and sees her hiding behind big glasses and fluffy cardigan as a challenge. Stevo keeps telling himself she’s not really his style, even though she might be. Devin knows he has no chance, and hopes she’ll be friendly so he can steal glances without looking too weird. He’s small and towheaded, so weirdness is relative.

Marisa had thought it would be difficult to get into her new school’s Game Club, but it had actually been easy. Then she had hoped that the gaming would be superb, and it clearly was. Of course it’s a boy’s club, big surprise, but the system... is nothing like she had imagined. Her dad is a consultant to the corporate sponsor, but she had no idea...

Over the next couple of weeks Stevo and Devin keep an eye on her, as does every other member of the club. Matt is especially witty and the Boyz boast and swagger even more than normal, but Nate hogs all the attention. He’s brooding and edgy, and he’s racked up enough points on one of his animal protection flights to earn some action.

She has just finished a tutorial in an ‘egg cooker’ trainer when he gets his chance for calling in a strike, and everybody pauses their consoles to watch.

Stevo can see Nate’s screen just by leaning over, but Devin would have to climb out of his recliner and go over. Then he might end up standing next to her, so he decides to stay put and just see what he can by peering over Stevo’s shoulder. He looks around for someone who’s streaming it so he can watch on his phone.

Nate’s high score has earned enough points for the game to give him poachers and a reason to call in a strike, which of course he does in true Nate style.

It’s a hot moment, rare but rewarding.

The camera view zooms in on a rough group of men, most holding rifles, and two game spotters are highlighted in the nearby trees. Nate pins the encroachers with a locator while the tiger is still safely away on the hill above, and a yellow ring of devastation surrounds them, well clear of the animal. Then there’s a ball of fire so realistic you can see the individual leaves flash into flame. The men near the edge of the yellow ring fall and quiver, but the ones at the center just aren’t there anymore.

The room is silent. Everyone gathered behind his console is breathless.

Nate is not done. He changes his focus to the nearby encampment, and with the more open ground the yellow ring of devastation is much larger. The game is so realistic that when his second strike hits everybody reflexively cringes back before leaning in to see the carnage. There’s even a disfigured baby crying next to a body that’s missing a leg.

The points rack up with another comma, a far higher score than anyone has ever gotten before.

No mercy, huh, Marisa says.

Nate bristles, "It’s a game."

They go back and forth about what the point of the game should be, and he finally tells her, It’s practice for real life.

Stevo glances over his shoulder at Devin, Action junkies.

Having all the Club members gathered around makes Devin nervous, so he just gives a little nod. Then they go back to their flight programming. Stevo is working on a Path routine that will add flourish to his security patrols and Devin is figuring out a new way to merge all of his camera views into one composite.

As they’re logging off, Stevo pretends to be all smug and superior about his mediocre point score but the joke falls flat because Devin never has any idea what his points are. Whenever he gets done programming a survey Path or setting up sneakier surveillance parameters he always forgets to look.

Marisa becomes a fixture in the Club. She surprises everyone by passing all of her tutorials in the time it usually takes newbies just to get used to the system, and then she gets assigned Nate’s animal protection flights after he moves on to terrorist patrols. She is more attentive to her charges than he ever was, and when she’s not in class she’s in the Clubroom from the moment the school is unlocked until the door is locked behind her at night.

It’s nice having her around and Devin even talks with her a few times, but then she messes everything up with her discovery.

Their flights are real, not simulations, and she proves it dramatically when her father almost becomes one of the victims. The Club holds an offsite meeting and goes on a war footing. Truth and justice against corporate greed and manipulation. No more free student labor working for Unifly’s criminal customers, no more lies about what is going on, no more triple-charging for services and getting illegal tax breaks.

A clever plan unfolds. It would be hopeless to confront the corporation directly, so first they’ll get social media buzz going against commercial drones, then they can state their case in the court of public opinion.

To pull it off, fake flight information is sent back to Unifly so their sponsor thinks everything is normal, while in reality the Club members are making anonymous disruption flights that start filling social media with complaints, sightings, and selfies. Santos the master hacker manages the data flow, Marcus the tech genius supplies the hardware, and Marisa leads the way with Matt at her side.

Even Stevo gets caught up in it for a while.

You’re gonna piss off all your friends, Devin chides, trying to keep his mind on his flying.

Not all of them. Just the game heads, and they’re always pissed off. I’m just giving them something useful to do.

Stevo has gotten his game developer friends to edit-down recordings of actual Club flights into generic ones that can be sent back to Unifly as a covering smokescreen. The online group thinks it’s helping a struggling young developer get a new flight simulator up and running, and Unifly seems to be easily fooled by the footage.

I’m flying rings around you, Devin challenges. They’ve both been assigned swarm flights, and while Devin is embracing the new possibilities of having a cloud of little fliers, his friend is still treating them like normal drones.

Stevo leans over for a better look at his friend’s screen.

It’s filled with a confusing mess of camera views. The telemetry and telltale windows are in a corner out of the way, and parked just above them is a long narrow programming window that has a marker stepping through the code.

How are you flying those things? Stevo asks. He’s just been directing the group as a whole and letting his swarm’s individual copters self-organize. The system gives him a composite view of all the cameras for 360º visibility, and it’s definitely an upgrade over flying one drone at a time.

His friend seems to be going beyond this and working with them individually.

Devin brightens up, Here. Lookit. I’ll give you the baby view. His fly-eye images are replaced by the panorama of a computer-generated composite and he slides the programming window to the forefront, Now see here where I’ve accessed the control interpaths? He highlights the routines he’s inserted into the base code. "You can control how they fly with each other, and use that to control how the swarm flies as a whole."

Huh. Wanna send me that?

Maybe. If you promise to use it. No more flying like it’s just one big copter.

"Sure... Stevo leans farther over so he can read his friend’s code documentation. So then I can make the cloud of copters break apart... or even fly in a shape?"

Now you’re gettin’ it. Devin brings back his fly-eye matrix of individual camera views, preferring to combine them inside his head instead of using the dumb computer-created one that seems flat and disconnected. He enables his latest subroutine and puts the swarm’s telltale graphic front and center so Stevo can see how the swarm is now flying in a ring that could literally fly around Stevo’s swarm.

And this is actually possible. They had just discovered that both of their new swarm flights are located in Las Vegas. Under the cover of the fake smokescreen flights they really could find each other in the air and interact.

Right away they stop flying the harassment flights for the Club and start playing. Neither one had liked the risky pushbacks against Unifly, no matter how justified, so they start creating artistic performances that will attract an audience instead of just making incidents that attract attention.

Nice save.

You like that? Here it comes again.

Oh no. Got you figured out now.

No you don’t. Watch out for that woman.

Crap. Forgot the crowd.

How ‘bout this?

Nice weave.

Collision evasion.

See? I told ‘ya. Swarming the back streets is choice.

Let’s go behind that casino. Bet they have a loading dock.

Yeah. Put on a show for the workers on break.

We’re a flying USO.

Meanwhile, their Club friends are knocking off people’s hats, buzzing picnickers so they scatter, and flying stupidly to attract attention, all to annoy people and get social media going. Renegade drone videos blow up all across the media, and now with Stevo and Devin’s performances, the mystery drone flights are attracting as much admiration as ire.

But the Club’s Actions weigh upon Stevo and Devin.

We’re gonna get caught, Devin tells his friend.

Don’t I know it. Stevo doesn’t sound concerned.

No. It’s gonna go bad, Devin presses, Even if we win, we’ll lose.

What are they going to do to us? Convict us for shaming them?

Yeah.

There’s a tone in Devin’s voice that stops Stevo, and he starts thinking beyond their coming Drone Club fame.

Devin presses his advantage, We need an exit strategy.

Exit, stage left?

Naaa. Exit through the back door.

The pair starts batting around ideas, and form a plan.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

I like Stevo and Devin. They’re strange, brilliant, and follow their own path. This companion story to the Drone Club trilogy bridges the first two books and gives us a chance to see their perspective amidst the Club’s huge undertaking. They are helping out their friends but have their own take on things, and they stick together to create something more personal than the revolution that surrounds them, for a future of their own making.

2~ Take Off

As the Club succeeds with its sabotage and minor mayhem, and the evidence against the evil corporation keeps mounting, it’s clear that things will come to a head soon. The uncertainty about what will happen makes it seem like a good idea for Stevo and Devin to have their own exit strategy, just in case, and planning it helps them relieve the stress about what their friends are doing and the part they’re playing in it.

Their favorite idea is wildly risky. If they snagged a few of Unifly’s drones and figured out how to control them they could go into business for themselves. They’re flying two swarms... Would a few missing copters be noticed? Stevo and Devin keep glancing at each other, wondering.

What if we get caught? Devin is the ‘designated worrier.’

It’s no worse than what the Club’s doing. And it’s gotta much better payoff, if we can get ‘em to work.

We’d need a control system too.

We’ll figure it out. There’s that Freeflight app. I can put it on my tablet.

"That’s a line-of-sight baby system. These are real drones. We need a transmitter."

"Run it through a cell phone then... I don’t know... We’ll figure it out."

Devin sighs and shakes his head, "Guess we don’t have much to lose. Even if the Club wins we’ll prob’ly still be in trouble. And if Unifly does cave in, that won’t last"

Unifly will always be Unifly, Stevo shrugs, Might as well take advantage of the confusion. There’s little downside to having a private scheme, and it may really pay off. Least we can do is scout it out, see if it’s possible.

When they fly intensely along the foothills of the desert their friends conclude that they’re either taking a break from being drone performers or looking for a new audience. They keep their voices down while they search methodically.

I wish these things would go faster.

You’re like Nate.

Ouch. Cut the cut.

Cut it out.

Always gettin’ the last word.

I’ll let you have that one.

Sand and rock fill their screens as the swarms hug the hills