A Drone over New York

Only few days before, Max waited under the bridge, his eyes scanning up and down the footpath. The summer’s evening traffic rattled overhead. He started to doubt he had the right time and place. He knew he was looking too conspicuous and had to calm down. He tried to pretend he was playing with his phone as he fidgeted on some worthless app. It did little to calm his nerves.

Dale was late.

Max did his best to keep his eye out for him, but it was hard. Max’s hat was pulled down to cover his face from any eyes in the sky. Though lightweight, his oversized sweater made him sweat worse, but he wouldn’t dare take it off. He couldn’t risk a delivery drone seeing him, no matter who owned it. The clear, hot summer’s night sky made it all the harder.

He sighed. Max hated waiting. Especially when it was out here, outside, exposed under the sky. The bridge offered little concealment, but it was the best they could do. This was an important buy. They had to do it face-to-face and away from other people. Max could only hope it would be worth the risk.

Max had almost given up hope when he saw the overweight lone jogger off in the distance. Max knew it was Dale. Who else would wear his hoodie pulled up, covering his face in this heat?

The big guy moved slowly toward the bridge, his feet taking the smallest of tiny little steps one after the other. It was a slow shuffle more than a jog. Max tried to pretend not to watch.

Eventually the shuffler pulled up under the bridge and pretended to stretch. Max looked at Dale’s shoes. They were for basketball rather than running. They were also loosely tied. No wonder he was struggling.

Dale was still trying to lose some weight, but he looked the same as the day Max had first met him.

“Hey,” Dale said between his heavy breaths.

“You’re late,” Max said. Dale should’ve been on time, especially for the price he was asking.

“I know. Sorry.” Dale kept panting. Jogging was clearly still not a regular routine for him. “I needed to detour to make sure to scramble anything watching. A new software patch came out today.”

Max gave a small nod. No arguing with Dale on that count; he knew the eyes in the sky better than anyone.

“Trust me, this is worth the wait,” Dale said, then panted some more.

Finally, with his fat fingers, Dale dug into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a small pen drive. The thing looked tiny in his hands as he held it out. It was covered in sweat, and so Max handled it with only his fingertips. How a man could sweat so much just running here from the East Village, Max would never know.

Max gave a look over his shoulder before he reached into his satchel. He pulled out his small phablet, plugged in the drive, and began the important inspection.

“It’s all the raw footage, straight from the delivery drone,” Dale said, his breaths starting to calm down.

Max gave him a wary eye. “You trust me with the direct feed this time?”

Dale shrugged. “Honestly, no. But I know you pay well enough to get all the footage. You’re also good enough to cut anything that can get the both of us in trouble. The stuff you’re after starts around 18 minutes, 38 seconds.”

Max glided a fingertip across the screen, fast-forwarding the video. His finger lifted at 18:20.

The footage looked clean and clear. The drone camera’s high-definition output cut through the twilight perfectly. Max tried to hide his excitement. If this was what Dale said it was, the images would be better than expected. But Max had to play it cool. He couldn’t see anyone in the footage yet. He had to wait and see if Dale could deliver on his promise.

On the video the drone descended to make its delivery, and now Max saw what Dale was excited about. Sure enough, there they were, just as promised: a couple on a bed, in the middle of a wild time. But Max could only see their backs. He sighed, heavy and loud.

“This could be anyone,” Max said. A half-truth, yes, but needed to be said. After Dale had built this up so much, Max had expected far more than what he was seeing.

“Just fast-forward to after the delivery,” replied Dale, “at 20:12. You see her face then.”

Max now understood why it needed to be the uninterrupted footage, cut raw from the delivery drone. Otherwise it could be just a couple of scraps pulled together. The time stamps, package details, delivery address … everything Max needed to ensure that this was the real deal. His own buyer would expect as much.

He released his finger at the appropriate minute mark and studied the screen. Sure enough, clear as day, he saw her face. A few moments later her entire naked body came into view. The phablet didn’t do justice to the image.

It was beautiful.

This was almost too good to be true. Max almost couldn’t contain himself as a smile crept across his face.

“I have exclusivity, right?” he said, trying to be calm.

“Yeah, this is the only copy. The footage on our servers will be erased within the next day. That’s why I had to wait. I knew you would be happy with it, though.”

“Good,” Max said, his focus back on the video. He slid his finger across the screen again, back to the first scene. He watched it over again, almost unable take his eyes off the footage.

“Uh, Max?” Dale said. “Your turn.”

Max looked up. “Oh, sorry.” He reached into the coin pocket of his cargo shorts. He produced his own small pen drive and extended it forward. His eyes, though, returned to the small screen in front of him.

As he watched, Max felt Dale grab the pen drive from him with his still sweaty fingers. Max glanced up again and saw Dale insert the drive into his own phone to check the amount. The big man smiled.

“I’ll let you know the next thing that crops up,” Dale said. He stuffed the pen drive into his sweaty shorts and then secured his phone. “Good doing business with you.”

His mind still on the video footage, Max said nothing and responded with a simple nod, so Dale just smiled and started up his slow shuffle.

As Dale disappeared into the summer night, Max leaned against the railing for a moment, scrolling back and forth through the footage. If Dale knew the true value of what he had just provided to Max, he wouldn’t have sold it so cheaply. But then again, Max was the one with the connections and reputation to move it. They were the perfect team.

He watched the naked image again.

How could she have been so stupid to do it in front of an unprotected window? Max thought.

A sudden realization hit him that he was still out in the open. He looked up to see the bridge overhead. Nothing could be watching. Any potential footage was incidental. It would never reveal the nature of their business. Even the police drones would never have picked it up. But Max had to play it safe. He put the phablet back into his satchel and headed back the way he’d come. He walked out from under the bridge, pulled the cap down tighter, and, just to be on the safe side, kept his head down all the way to the subway station.

He waited until he boarded the train to take off his sweater. The cooled subway air rushed over his overheated body. His cap went into his back pocket. He ran his hand through his hair, fluffing it back to his normal style. He was finally allowed to be himself again.

It was an annoyingly long trip via the subway, but he couldn’t risk being caught on film in a cab. Even the ones with drivers had cameras these days. Anyway, he didn’t want anyone knowing where he had been and what he was now carrying.

Max barely noticed the summer’s evening crowd around him. His mind was too preoccupied. He wanted to watch the footage again, but knew he had to wait.

After a few subway car changes, he finally pulled into his home station. He climbed to the top of the stairs, stepped back outside, and paused to look up to the pale night sky. Somewhere up there they were watching. Thousands of them. Going about their business—earning people money, delivering their packages. Doing the jobs that were once the domain of people in trucks and on bicycles. Now Max couldn’t imagine New York City without them.

He quietly thanked those lovely little machines for the little gift they had given him. Of course, by now they had probably already taken hundreds of images of his face as he stared up.

A man shoved past him, and Max felt a wave of panic. He checked his pockets and let out a long, slow breath. The drive was still there, as well as his phone, wallet, and keys.

He needed to get going.

After covering the four blocks back to his apartment in short order, Max climbed the three flights of stairs and pulled out his keys. After he had unlocked the three locks of his apartment door and gone inside, he threw his satchel on the couch and then didn’t waste a second. Squeaky clean and not connected to the web, his spare laptop was ready to go, so he plugged in Dale’s pen drive and went to work. Five minutes later he’d cut and sliced some images from the video itself, rather than use any of the still shots that had been taken. Ten minutes after that, he’d written the article, transferred everything to his everyday laptop, and then start accessing the coded website.

Now was the time to turn this from just another phone hacking scandal into something big. He posted a couple of small details, tidbits of information, along with two of the still images he’d pulled and edited: one photo of her face and a purposely blurry image of her in bed with the guy. Enough to whet someone’s appetite. After all, he needed to create some buzz if he was going to get his payday.

He closed his post with the comment: Full video to be sold to the highest bidder. Themanwhoknewtoomuch

His old handle should grab the attention of the serious players. It had taken him years to create solid credibility for the name, only using it when he had something decent—something real and authentic. A time like this. Most of the other stuff he sold went cheap, but Max liked to think he had a good rep within this community. They knew he would be selling the good stuff, and this was as good as it got.

It took less than a second to receive his first hit. He switched over to the traffic monitoring application and watched as it went viral. Millions of hits in less than five minutes. Max knew other sites would start to copy it, but this site was the first. They would trace it back to here. The buyers would come to him. In the meantime he would still make some small pocket change.

He switched sites and watched the bitcoins roll in. He hoped he might have enough to retire soon, if he even wanted to.

Max reached back and opened the fridge. The pop of the IPA beer and then its sweet-bitter taste made him feel like it was a job well done. He deserved it for work like that. The heat of the summer made it all the more refreshing. His phone buzzed with a marketing email for that restaurant he and Callie had gone to over the weekend. The thought of food made him realize how hungry he was. It had been a long night. A few clicks on his phone and he’d placed a pizza order. Then he turned back to the counter.

He watched the numbers tick over and climb higher and higher. It was already two weeks’ pay and climbing faster than he had ever seen it.

Max changed back over to the clean laptop and pulled down the faces from the video. The guy was someone he didn’t recognize, but it was a problem he could deal with later. The application pulled all the different faces contained in the video. There were a few more people than he expected, but he needed to ID them all. He went back to the connected laptop, switched windows, and uploaded the pictures into the facial-recognition website. It would take a few hours to run, given that he only had a few pictures from different angles, but no actual personal information.

With the photos uploaded, and the facial recognition running, he returned to see how far the number had climbed. Now at three and a half weeks’ pay and still climbing fast … By the time it hit a month’s pay, the phone buzzed with the pizza.

He slid his finger to the right on his phone screen, and details of the delivery popped up. The app’s countdown timer signaled he needed to move from his current location to receive the package. He walked to the window and pushed aside the blinds, then opened the window and held out his phone.

A few moments later the soft buzz of the approaching drone grew louder and louder.

Then the small delivery drone hovered two feet from his hand before landing on the fire escape. Leaning out through the window, Max typed in his personal pin on the drone’s touch screen interface to unlock the carrier box. Then he reached in and pulled out the flat, rectangular box that held his meatball pizza with extra cheese. He opened the pizza box and drew in that amazing first whiff through his nostrils. It was heaven.

Finally he reached back down and pressed the green Delivery Complete button on the interface. Max gave a quiet chuckle as the drone sprung back to life. He reflected on the irony as it lifted off and disappeared into the clear night sky. If only it knew what Max was doing. Max started to imagine what it saw on its nightly journeys. It must be amazing. Flying around in New York, along all those open windows. Past all that unprotected glass. Staring into the apartments of unaware people. People doing things they thought couldn’t be seen.

The realization of his own open window and the potential spying eyes prompted Max to shut the window and retreat back inside. This was not a night to be carefree. He pulled the blinds closed and cranked the AC.

All the excitement had made his stomach rumble. He plopped back into his computer chair, opened the box again, and grabbed a slice. He savored that first amazing bite of his favorite pizza as he chewed. How on earth they ever managed deliveries before drones escaped him as he began to wolf down bite after bite. It was perfectly hot, having only been taken out of the oven around two minutes ago. Actually it was better than perfect. Max smiled. Tonight nothing could go wrong.

He relaxed in the chair and watched the counter as he ate. With each passing bite, the number rose and rose. The bitcoin counter that symbolized all those downloading useable copies quickly grew higher than he had ever seen it. Before he knew it, Max had demolished the entire pizza and felt way too full—too much too fast.

Hoping to give his stomach extra space, he reclined back in the chair. No matter how much money he made from this, he knew he would never give up that pizza. Ever since he’d moved here, he loved that place. As his stomach pulled the energy from his body, Max watched the numbers tick upward. It had a certain rhythm to it. Hypnotizing. He felt his eyelids get heavy.

He woke up with his face against the keyboard. He must have drifted off. He heard a soft beeping sound from somewhere. With haze still in his eyes, he glared at his screen. He’d only been out for ten minutes, but the counter had quadrupled already.

The soft beeping drew his eyes slowly downward, toward the flashing icon in the bottom corner. He smiled.

His dark web email.

Someone was reaching out.

He clicked open and saw a host of new messages awaiting him. The first email was an offer to buy all the footage from him. Max had a little laugh at the $50k offering. If the footage was fake, yeah, then it might be worth such a low price. But this was the real deal, and Max was not prepared to let this go cheaply. Sadly his inbox was full of similar offers that he also ignored.

But then he spotted an email from Dale among the cheap offers. Max raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected Dale to contact him so soon after the drop. But maybe he’d seen the traffic and now he wanted a bigger cut.

But the Subject line read: Destroy drive. Not safe.

Max reacted by reaching out and yanking the drive from the spare computer. Luckily it wasn’t connected to the web. He’d been bitten previously, so he knew to use a non-connected device. He had even pulled it apart and removed all the connection hardware.

But he couldn’t help but be angry with himself. He should have scanned it first. He should have taken the normal precautions. Now he was going to need to wipe the entire laptop and start over. He mentally thanked Kate for insisting his normal work be done on a device like this. If it wasn’t for her, this personal little escapade could have gone quickly awry.

He started a hard reset and loaded the wipe sequence. This would take some time, and it had already been a long night. The adrenaline had died away and now he was starting to feel the pull of his bed. Halfway through brushing his teeth, the silent buzz of his phone ringing grabbed his attention.

It was Kate.

Her calling could only mean one thing.

“Max, were you awake?” she said.

“Just about to climb into bed. What’s up?

“You seen the news tonight?” Max knew his boss well enough to know she was wide awake and firing on all cylinders.

“No,” he replied. His mind darted to his computer and he moved back to the chair.

“You sober?” she asked while he clicked onto the web.

“I had one beer while I was watching a movie. My AC broke, so I can’t sleep,” Max lied. “What’s up?”

But even as he asked, he saw that it was all over the newsfeeds already.

“Martha has called us in. We have an all-hands meeting in forty-five minutes. Get into a cab as soon as you can. Read the news on the way.”

As Max ended the call, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Martha being involved meant that his own company was going to think about buying the footage. If he played his cards right, this could be the payday of paydays.

He jumped out of his chair, grabbed his work gear, and put the small pen drive in the coin pocket of his jeans. No way was he going to let his little “fortune in a drive” out of his sight today.

In the cab he loaded up his own work’s website on his phone. The night shift was on the ball and already had something up. He flicked though the standard progression of sites. Everyone already had an article up. Even the mainstream channels had something. It had gone truly viral. This was the big one that Max had been waiting for.

He was about to put down his phone when another article caught his eye: a bad fire over in the East Village. He clenched his jaw as he hoped it was just a coincidence he’d been there only a few hours ago.

Almost at that moment his phone buzzed with another dark email. Dale again. Max couldn’t help but breathe a little sigh of relief. That must mean Dale’s place hadn’t been involved in the fire. Before Max opened the message, though, he saw that it contained a video attachment. Dale would know better than to send videos and so Max deleted it without hesitation.

Max sat back and looked out the window. The last two emails from Dale played through his head. It was all the signs that said Dale must have been hacked. He clenched his jaw as he realized that meant the pen drive could be infected with something pretty bad. After all the stories he’d worked on, he was prepared for this kind of hassle on a personal project. He knew too well there were a lot of crazy people in his industry.

Still, Dale being hacked presented a bunch of other issues. Someone out there wanted this footage—someone good enough to hack Dale. Given the stakes, that could only mean one thing.

Max not only needed to be careful. He needed to watch his back.