Dan Fesperman - Unmanned

They compared notes, grudgingly at first, and soon discovered that between them they already had the basis for a story that, with a little care and watering, might grow into something altogether more satisfying and lucrative. If they were lucky they might even land a book deal.

They decided to move in together to economize. From the beginning Steve had been the resident counselor and peacemaker, the soother of bruised egos, and from that perspective he sensed that Darwin Cole would be a risky ingredient to pour into their sometimes volatile mix.

“Where’s Keira?” Cole asked, looking around the room. He was wrapped in a towel.

“Down at the front desk, getting another room.”

“You guys are sharing?” He scanned the two double beds as if trying to figure out which ones had been slept in the night before.

“We were sharing, but not like you think. You’re my roomie now. For tonight, anyway.”

“What are the sleeping arrangements in Baltimore?”

Christ, this guy really believed he was in it for the long haul.

“We’ll figure that out later. But it’s strictly platonic. You’re not joining some sort of hippie commune.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

Cole threw on a pair of jeans and was buttoning up a flannel shirt when the door opened with a click and in walked Keira.

“They put me next door.” She looked at Cole and stopped short. “Wow. A new man.”

Steve watched her carefully, then took charge.

“It’s almost lunchtime,” he said. “Should we talk or eat?”

Keira looked to Cole for his preference.

“Whatever you two want. Some food might be good.”

“Room service okay?” Steve asked. “That way we can get started while we wait.”

“Oh, c’mon, Steve. He needs a real meal, a chance to stretch his legs.”

Coddling him, although Steve had already been thinking the same thing. He smiled ruefully and looked at the pilot.

“What do you say, then, Captain? Looks like you’re the boss on this one.”

“Sure. Going out’s fine. Whatever you guys want.”

Cole went to fetch a clean pair of socks from his duffel by the window. Then, just as he’d done in the car, he looked up at the sky, long and hard, as if he were searching for something. Steve couldn’t let it go a moment longer.

“See anything?”

“No. Doesn’t mean nothing’s there.”

“What is it you’re looking for?” Keira frowned, but Steve kept going. “Not Predators, I hope.”

“You’d be surprised what they do with those things. What they look at.”

“The ones flying out of Creech are just for training, right? The only real action is in the trailers, where they pilot the ones overseas.”

“Even the training flights have to look at something.”

“Nothing but mountains and desert out that way. Plus the old test range, farther west.”

“The old nuke site, yeah. Bunch of A-bomb craters from the fifties and sixties. All the new stuff’s underground, but, still, they don’t like us poking around.”

“Sounds like Area Fifty-One.”

“Stop it, Steve.” Keira shook her head.

“No, I want to hear. What do they look at, then?”

“Some other time,” Cole said it abruptly, as if he’d realized how he was sounding. Or maybe he was trying to head off an argument. The silence afterward was strained until Keira changed the subject.

“How’d you end up flying Predators? You volunteer?”

“Nobody volunteers for Preds. Except those video gamers the Air Force is signing up.”

“Video gamers? Really?”

Cole shrugged.

“Might as well, since they grew up with a joystick in their hands.”

“So they shanghaied you?” Steve asked.

Cole nodded.

“Christmas weekend 2008. I’m still at Aviano. My CO calls me in, says, ‘Monkey, I got a shitty deal for you.’”

“Monkey?”

“My radio call sign. Monkey Man. ’Cause of my first name, the whole Darwin thing. He says, ‘There’s this new program out in Nevada threatening this entire unit, and you’re victim one.’ I asked if he meant that Xbox shit, the fucking drones. Yep, that was it.”

“Bad, huh?”

“You gotta realize, Vipers were the top of the food chain. Slide into the cockpit and you’re wired in straight to God, every system integrated. Tilt your helmet to aim a missile, that kind of thing. You can practically think a thought and make it happen…” His voice trailed off. “When you arrive at Creech they take you inside a GCS for a Predator and you want to throw up.”

“GCS?”

“Ground control station. Some geek’s idea of a cockpit. Video monitors stacked up like junked TVs in the window of a pawnshop. Shit piled on shit. The stick and rudder are an afterthought.”

“Isn’t somebody else in there with you?” Keira said. “A copilot or something?”

“Your sensor sits to your right. Same array, pretty much. But, hell, you’re glad for the company and he does half the scut work—operating the camera, handling the maps, keeping the audience happy.”

“Audience? Sounds crowded in there.”

“Not in the trailer. They’re watching on their own screens, from a bunch of different places.”

“Like the J-TAC?” Keira offered.

“Plus your CO, or whoever the MIC happens to be. Sorry. Mission intelligence coordinator. Then there’s an image analyst, at Langley AFB in Virginia, plus some desk jockey at Al Udeid.”

“Al Udeid in Qatar ?” Steve asked.

Cole nodded. Keira had started taking notes, but the pilot didn’t seem to mind.

“The Combined Air and Space Ops Center,” Cole said. “Went there once for a dog and pony show. Big-ass warehouse. Industrial strength air conditioners going full blast. Hundreds of people at monitors, with headsets on. When both wars were going, everything that was airborne was displayed up on wall-sized maps of Iraq and Afghanistan, like movie screens. The Preds showed up as little blue dots, barely moving. Slowest damn dots on the board.”

“So, at least four people are looking over your shoulder?” Keira asked.

“And all of them think they know better than you what to do next. You have to just sit and take it, when what you really want is to say, ‘Hey, I know this is neat and new to you, but I’m not just driving a bus to take pictures for you guys on the ground.’”

“What a cluster fuck,” Steve said.

“Sometimes.”

“How much can you see from that high up?” Keira asked. “Somebody told me once you can even recognize faces.”

That stopped him for a second. He turned away toward the window.

“Not really. But if it’s some village you’ve been to before, you do start to recognize people. From the way they move, the clothes they wear, the things they carry. You end up feeling almost… like you know them.”

“That’s kind of horrible.”

“It can be. Especially when you start to like it. Not really like it, I mean, but, I dunno, it gets into your head. You hate it one minute, get off on it the next. It’s their little world, but in some ways you know more about it than they do. If bogeys are over the next hill coming for ’em, you know about it hours before they do.”

Keira, who couldn’t see his expression, seemed eager for more, but Steve was troubled by Cole’s fixed stare. He could easily picture Cole the way he must have looked the day of the disaster at Sandar Khosh, surveying the wreckage on video screens while everyone told him what to do next. Drone pilots were often burnouts, he knew that as well, from a Pentagon study he’d sourced on the Internet. Thirty percent or something, with almost a fifth suffering from clinical depression. And now, after just a few minutes of pointed conversation, Cole looked like he was at the end of his rope, cornered and hopeless. They were opening up this poor guy like a lab animal. When Keira started to ask another question, Steve cut her off.