SW ORE Tales by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

What the Drone Saw

by Mike Bozart

© 2020 Mike Bozart

The Natural Bridges (coastal rock archways) main pedestrian overlook, a short walk from the parking lot on Oregon Coast Highway (US 101), 18.18 km (11.3 miles) north of Brookings. This is where 46-year-old Sylvester Q.

Owenstein, Sr. and his 11-year-old son, Sly, find themselves alone on a mostly sunny, 18° Celsius (64.4° Fahrenheit) Saturday afternoon, the 17th of November in the 2,018th year of our ever-loving gourd.

The dark-haired, lanky, green-Oregon-Ducks-sweatshirted lad begins to unpack his dull-gray drone that is in the style of a U.S. Army attack helicopter. He feels the slight-but-chilly onshore breeze on his ruddy cheeks. This westerly wind should increase the lift and get it some decent altitude very quickly. Just need to fly it straight into it.

“You want to launch it from here, son? Or, do you want to walk further down the trail?” Dad forgot that this model has incredible range. No need to go any farther.

“Here is fine, dad. I like the view. I can see all the targets.”

Targets? Should have weaned him off the war video games years ago. So much over-the-top gore. Too late now. He would never give them up. All the male kids – and many male adults – seem to play them. Strange how when video games first came out, they were all violent. Automatically. As if that was the default mode. What about a video game with enigmatic

clues?

Paradoxical

intrigue.

Mind-blowing

revelations. No discernible objective. Guess only a few people like me would play such. Most video games remain exceedingly brutal. Says a lot about us ‘enlightened’

humanimals. [sic] Hope he can make a nice life for himself using his smarts for noble purposes. Though, I guess mortal battle is sometimes unavoidable. And often times, very strategic, especially now. Chances for armed conflict are everywhere. Small-scale wars have been, and still are, occurring. Always several to seven raging on this oblate spheroid. Wonder how far we are from World War III? What a grim thought. Cancel. Delete. Shoot! Who gives a hoot?

Such a bucket of joy I am becoming. Switch off. Reboot.

“Is the battery totally charged?” the once-black-but-now-fading-to-silver-haired, royal-blue-windbreaker-clad father asks. Of course!

“Yeah, it’s all charged, dad. I left it plugged in all last night.”

Sly then sets the multi-mini-camera replica aircraft on the top

plank of the railing. “Taking off now,” he confidently announces. Hope this goes well.

Soon the drone is cruising down the craggy quasi-gorge, whizzing over the white-foam-laced, slothfully sloshing surf.

“Do you think that you could pilot it through one of those land arches?” Sylvester asks. Maybe that was a mistake. That’s one expensive toy. If he crashes it, may not be able to replace it immediately. Which will be a good lesson for him.

Though, more so for me.

“A piece of cake, dad. Watch this.” Sly looks at the small monitor that is propped on an adjacent wooden rail. The view is from the drone’s front-facing camera. The opening in the rocky oceanside cliff grows closer, as does the now-jostling sea. However, the nimble preteen is up to the challenge and threads the dark eye of the stony needle. The monitor’s screen soon brightens once again. Another proximal maritime arch appears.

“Wow! That was very impressive son. Great job. Excellent piloting there, ace.” Not sure if I could have done that.

“I’ve been practicing in the backyard, dad. I hung that old truck tire that was behind the shed from that big tree using a discarded piece of rope.” What rope? The old clothesline?

Thought that I threw that out.

“Oh, did you hang it on that tall Douglas fir in the back corner, son?”

“Yep. And I crashed it into the limbs several times, but this model is pretty durable, dad. No damage.”

“Ah, that’s good to hear, son.”

“So, where to next, dad?” He coughs a few times. Sounds like he may have a cold. Maybe this wasn’t a good time to do this. Need to wrap it up and get back.

“Another mission? How about a high-altitude return to base.”

“That’s my next mission, dad?” Sly asks as the drone hovers ten meters (33 feet) over the precarious inlet.

The father nods. “Can you loop it back towards us?”

Sylvester asks while looking through a pair of compact

binoculars, scanning horizontally for the drone. Don’t want him to lose radio contact with it.

“Sure, I’ll have it come back at a missile-safe height, dad. It will make for a nice video later after I do a concise edit.”

Missile-safe? Concise edit? He’s really up on this. Will he become a helicopter pilot? Or a video editor at a TV station?

Really hard to tell. At his young age, what did I want to be?

Seem to have forgotten. It certainly wasn’t a data analyst.

“Sure, son. Sounds good.”

Soon the father is searching for the drone once again with the 12 mm x 25 mm (.47” x 1”) binoculars. The backdrop has quickly gone from almost azure-blue, cracked-crystal-clear to a darkening ominous gray, as a line of low nimbus clouds is steadily advancing eastward. Looks like rain is on the way.

Did I leave that bag of [grass] fertilizer open in the wheelbarrow? Hope not. If so, it will be a worthless gooey mess. Well, maybe we can get back to the house before it starts to unload. It’s going to be close, though.

They both begin to hear a low-volume, high-pitched whirring sound as the azimuth-of-275° breeze suddenly picks up.

Sounds like the drone. Way up there. Somewhere. Though, where?

“Can’t get it to descend in time, dad. A gust of wind has got it. It’s going over our heads.” Oh, crap!

“Son, maybe turn it slightly to the left or right to –”

<thud>

The Helicopt-a-Drone® IV crashes into the bare bough of a Pacific madrone and tumbles downward, bouncing off several limbs. It lands on the soft earth in one piece, though some damage appears likely. That didn’t look good. / Darn! I didn’t want to wreck it with dad watching. I’m sure he’s not happy. I’m not happy, either. Really misjudged the wind.

The son runs over to retrieve it, just as a group of five, jovial, knee-length-shorts-donning, 30-something Asian American hikers appear. Time to get going. Let them have the viewpoint. We’ve been here with it all to ourselves long enough.

Tiny raindrops would start to sporadically dot the windshield just before reaching their residence in the nearby township

of Pistol River. Immediately after parking on the concrete-slab driveway, Sylvester rushes to the backyard. The bag of lawn fertilizer is sealed. Why’d I think that I left that bag open? Maybe subconsciously worried about Monday’s tele-meeting. The big boys at the home office [in Seattle] are not going to like what I found in the numbers. Hope they don’t want me to doctor my research. Again. Hate being coerced into doing unethical things. ‘Hey, my man, it’s nothing. No big deal in the grand scheme of things. Everyone fudges and hedges a little. Everyone knows it. And everyone will get their money. It’s how the world of bigtime corporate business works, Sylvester. Don’t be so naïve.’ [what his 50-year-old coworker, Joshua J. Johnstown, told him two weeks prior]

Holy Moses! What a species we is. [sic]

Once inside their three-bedroom, two-point-five-bath, 1970s-ish split-level house, the father and son closely examine the drone in the den on an oak card table. Surprisingly, the only discernible damage to the drone is a splintered main rotor blade. The son quickly orders a replacement online using his dad’s Visa credit card. And thanks him. He’s a good kid.

Hope his teenage years come and go without too many incidents. Fingers crossed. Just never know.

“Sorry about that, dad.”

“It’s ok, son. That’s life. Unexpected things happen –

sometimes for the good, but many times for the not so good.

In such cases, all we can do is fix/correct/modify/adjust, and move on.” Did dad read that somewhere? Or, did he just come up with that?

Later in the still-raining, dankishly cool evening in his upstairs bedroom, Sly begins reviewing the video footage on his laptop computer. One of the side-mounted cameras has picked up some disturbing images. A tall, middle-aged, full-bearded, dark-haired white man is severely scolding a Caucasian teenage girl, who is on the edge of a high-enough-that-a-fall-would-lead-to-certain-death precipice. The light-sky-blue-with-leather-sleeves-jacket-wearing presumed father is standing above his dark-browned-haired presumed daughter, waving his right hand in a threatening manner. Oh my God! I wonder what happened. Why is he so mad at her?

What did she do? Did he throw her off that cliff later? Gosh, I sure hope not. Need to show this to dad. Don’t want mom to see it. Yet. Maybe never. Her reaction … would be epic!

Sly summons his dad who is watching an old Twilight Zone episode on MeTV in the living room downstairs. The father and son review the footage upstairs together five minutes later. This is awful. Wish Sly never saw this. Can’t erase it from his mind now. Need to check the local news later to see if a young woman or female teenager has been reported missing. Or has died. Groan. Just terrible. What a horse’s ass that guy is. / Wonder what dad is thinking right now.

“Son, let’s just keep this to ourselves. If we tell your mom, she will call, text, and e-mail everyone in Curry County, and create a firestorm. I’ll discreetly do some research, and try to find out if anything foul occurred. What an awful father that guy is. Absolutely horrible. A sad excuse for a human being.”

Glad dad is not like that man.

That night as Sly lies in his bed, his mind keeps thinking about the troubling video sequence. Is that poor girl ok?

Where is she right now? Is she injured? Did he push her off that cliff? Is she dead?

The next day is a chilly, rainy-to-cloudy-back-to-rainy, no-sun Sunday. Sly stays in his room and begins piecing together a 97-second video from the raw footage, minus the disturbing frames. Just after lunch he has it all cut and spliced together, incorporating some soft dissolve fades accompanied by a piece of classical music by Maurice Ravel, who he knows his dad loves. All finished. Finally. Hope they like it.

When presented to his parents at 3:03 PM on the wide flat-screen TV in the living room, both parents are highly impressed. They profusely congratulate their son and encourage him to make more of them.

Sylvester then rises to refill his tumbler. He winks at Sly and gives him a thumbs-up. Perfect.

Martha, Sly’s biological mother and Sylvester’s 2nd wife, senses that something is up, but just smiles at her husband.

Female intuition kicks in. My two males are up to something.

Wonder what. Boys, and even men, are such a giveaway when they are attempting to conceal a scheme. At least from an observant woman. But, exactly what are they hiding?

There was nothing out of the ordinary on Sly’s video. It was just nice coastal scenes and classical music. Ah, but I only saw the edited version. Did something get cut out? What could it have been? Hmmm …

Monday morning sees Sly catch his school bus at 7:37.

Sylvester then goes to his office at 8:38. At 9:19 AM, Martha slips into Sly’s bedroom and glances at the ultra-bright-yellow laptop. She notices that a purple flash drive is inserted on the left side. Martha carefully extracts it and places it in her black denim jeans left-front pocket. Hope it’s not loaded with porn. Ughhh …

Martha scans the flash drive on the desktop computer in the den. Fog-diminished sunlight is beginning to trickle through the southeast-facing window. She is happy to see no prurient videos or images. He’s a good boy. Well, so far.

The sound of a low-flying helicopter is suddenly heard by Martha. She cranes her neck to see as much of the upper southern sky as possible. But, still can’t see it. Must be the police looking for someone. Who? For what? What could someone have done here to warrant a helicopter? Murder?

Sounds like a big one. Probably a military helicopter from Pendleton [Oregon] on a training exercise. Sly really loves that helicopter-styled drone. Wise birthday present.

Martha then studies the file names on the flash drive. Natural Bridges 11-17-18 raw footage - front camera, Natural Bridges 11-17-18 raw footage - left camera, Natural Bridges 11-17-18 raw footage - right camera, Natural Bridges 11-17-18 raw footage - rear camera. Hmmm … Maybe just do a quick scan of the left-cam video.

Lunchbreak finds Sly seated alone in the school cafeteria.

He slowly pecks at his peas after eating the sliced turkey and gravy. He is deep in a pit of gloomy thoughts. I just know that poor girl is dead. Did she die instantly from the fall? Who was she? What did she dream of becoming? What was her name? Was that her natural father? Or, was it an evil stepdad? Johnny [a classmate-friend] said that his stepdad is an asshole; once slapped him in the face. Did that man previously abuse her in some way? And, was she going to tell her mother? Or maybe a brother or friend? Was that what was going on? Have I figured it out? What a world.

Sylvester’s virtual meeting wraps up at 12:34 PM. He is the only one in the Gold Beach office suite. After replying to a coworker’s e-mail about a certain parameter’s statistical importance, he makes some spearmint green tea. He can see the Pacific Ocean from his oceanfront 3rd-story window.

It is mostly sunny, but rain clouds are moving in once again.

He is calm; the big event for the week is over. His mind meanders with the oscillations of the blue-blotched jade-green surf. They seemed to take the news pretty well. Jared

[his immediate boss] never frowned – a good sign in itself.

The dip in average sale wasn’t that much. The client is still fat with receipts. The trend is still decidedly rosy. Still a very healthy profit margin. They’re nowhere near an inflection point – nowhere near a cliff. Cliff … That poor girl on the cliff.

There’s just nothing online anywhere about her. Or him. Did that maniac get away with murder? Was her body quickly consumed by opportunistic sea life? Or, was it washed out to the depths? Would like to think she’s alive somewhere. But if I had to bet … Ughhh … Life is anything but a fairy tale for so many. So often an ongoing nightmare just below the surface. The way he was admonishing – more like torturing –

that poor lass. Bet he was abused by his father. The ugly cycle replaying once again. Can go on for generations. No excuse, though. She’ll be psychologically scarred for life. For life? I’m sure that her life ended minutes after we left. Should have run down that trail. Eye contact may have stopped the tragedy. Sly and I – our presence alone – would have aborted the horror. We truly blew it. No, I blew it – only me.

Can’t co-blame my 11-year-old son. Where is my brain?! We didn’t even know what was going on; we had no idea what was occurring in real-time. I seem to want to pronounce a guilty verdict on myself. Why? I guess that couple on the stony arch in front of us had no idea, either. Could they have seen that terrible scene one natural bridge away? Sincerely doubt it.

Sylvester and Sly find themselves alone at the dining table at 5:55 PM. Martha is cooking in the kitchen.

“Did you find out anything about that girl, dad?”

“Nope. I contacted the Curry County Sheriff’s Office and DHS. Nothing, son.” Sylvester shakes his head.

Sly looks down solemnly. He fiddles with his fork. Where is she now?

Four interminable minutes later, light-blonde-haired Martha bursts through the bar-style swinging doors with a bodacious bowl of marinara-sauced, parsley-flakes-topped, baked spaghetti. “Dinner is served. Oh, did you boys happen to see any of the actors on the natural bridges?”

another pSecret pSociety pshort pstory

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Agony in Agness by Mike Bozart (Agent 33) | December 2020