'Hoverboard' on YouTube, actually large drone with person riding. What if the drone was used to carry essential items in times of need and trouble. -- Anon Guest
[AN: I've seen videos of these things. They are cool, but also loud as HECK. More annoying than the average dirt bike and three times as dangerous. And yes, Drones carried goods before they carried people]
Tal could trust the ones that made noise. Ze had learned to hide in the granite tubes until ze could hear the good drones coming in. Those who had scopes or binocs said that both kinds of drones had the same markings. Tal would never understand why the enemy would treat with one hand and torture with another. Yet the ones that gave never lured anyone out so the ones that killed could do their dirty work.
Tal had given up on watching the news, like so many others had done. Not only was there a supreme absence of working screens or speakers now, but they often said different things about the same events. The carpet bombing of the last surface funeral was apparently quelling a riot over food, while the supply delivery was urgent humanitarian aid for the children suffering in the conflict of the war-torn area.
They said they were quelling sadistic overlords, but Tal had never heard of any such person here in the wastelands. There had been troops, once, searching the area for some kind of leader, but all that was left were kids like Tal, scrabbling for their own keep. Some kids were having kids whether they wanted them or not. Some kids, like Tal, were more or less raised by the clusters of those older than them.
Now ze waited at the exit, carefully cleared just enough to let one runner at a time to squirm out and dash for the boxes. Watching the noisy bot drop the boxes. Legs curled under hir, ready to spring. Out in the field of inhuman conflict, hatches were carefully opening up. Tal traced the paths with hir eyes. Ze could reach three of them quickly.
The goal was to get the boxes down underground as quickly as possible. Supplies went to the Warehouse, an ancient bunker where all the groups came to get what they needed. There were rules. Only take what was needed, when it was needed from the Warehouse. The old looked after the young. Everyone kept the babies safe. Whose babies didn't matter. As soon as someone could walk, talk, and understand, they were given a job. Tal's was to run, get, and drop.
The drone flew away. They all waited until they couldn't hear it any more before they sprang. Everyone knew that all the drones had cams on them.
Tal dodged and jinked around the rubble of destruction. New UXB's[1] jutted out of the landscape. Best to not touch them at all. The last runner to even brush up against one had blown themselves up with five others. Tal wove around them rather than come near. It was the kids with slings who would set them off later. Preferably when the kill drones were near.
Never fight for the box. If one has one, grab the next one. Never fight for the drop point, just go to the next one. It's not a competition. Get it all, get it safely, and get it to delivery... then get out. And always, always, listen for more drones.
Tal grunted under the load of hir box. Water was great, but it was heavy. A different kid from another tunnel pitched in, taking two other corners and nodding towards a pair of drop holes nearby. One had an elevator on a winch, run by the strong kids. Heavy stuff only. Ze matched pace with hir helper, sidling at best speed towards the drop.
The rush of blood in hir ears from doing all that obfuscated the next drones. Tal was bent over and panting when someone tapped hir shoulder and pointed them out.
These ones were not carrying food.
They were carrying soldiers.
"GUNS! RUN!" Tal barked it, tapping anyone who seemed oblivious. The cry echoed around the craters and bombs. Kids were dropping off what they had. Kids were diving for the nearest hole. Tal jumped in after the water, which was already dangerously far down. The kid who helped hir was last seen heading for a different drop.
Tal flinched as the soldier drone buzzed overhead. This could be it. Game over.
A blur and a shadow dropped off, and the drone flew on. Tal kept watching the dwindling sky all the way down.
Ze hi-fived the winch crew at the bottom, already running for the nearest exit. This had never happened in living memory[2]. Tal watched from one of the periscopes. They'd have to clean that cracked mirror come next cease-fire. Some soldiers lay in pools of their own blood. Some still rode the drones, searching for stragglers. Tal saw one get picked off by one of the sling-shooters.
Fellow soldiers twitched, but the sling kid was already down. They were playing whack-a-mole with lives at stake.
If it's you or me, I'd rather it was you.
They couldn't afford to not run out for the boxes. Some of the stronger kids would emerge to drag the bodies off the field for whatever was good to strip off them later. All this did was delay the gathering process.
Now the drones were dropping paper. Shiny bright pictograms that told of salvation if they came unarmed to the gun walls.
Lies.
Everyone knew that the gun walls were death. Anyone who came near them, even completely naked, was shot as soon as they crossed the line of death.
Still, they were good fuel for winter. Tal would gather them last. It was spike-pole work, and not as urgent as the supply run.
Someone found a radio in one of the boxes, where a voice was declaring another victory for the forces of righteousness. It was that voice that told Tal who ze was, even though ze never understood what a threat ze and the other kids even were.
The drones were gone from the scopes. Tal raced on to the next exit, not even caring that the voice was cheering another grand victory against the evil Antifa.
[1] UXB - Un-eXploded Bomb. As much a hazard now as it ever was.
[2] Eighteen years, tops.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / pilipenkoD]
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