I’d never been up in a helicopter before and haven’t since, but Sgt. Nichols parked the armored car not far away at a hospital helipad. Squatting out on the target, before the pilot cranked her up, the Blackhawk looked like a cross between a shark and a knife. The sergeant told me to sit up front in the crammed cockpit and took his own seat directly behind me on a pulldown. The pilot wore a crash helmet that had bug-eyed reflector goggles, so all I could really see of him was a pinched nose and a close to lipless mouth that didn’t seem all that thrilled about this little sightseeing mission. He dumped a huge set of earphones in my lap and once I got them situated all he said was buckle up. It was like we were bugs on the face of an electric fan, the rotors whipping and then popping us into the air like we were all of a sudden weightless. And man that thing could move.

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Gradually things on the ground shrank as we soared into the countryside, gaining elevation, then hovered high above rolling hills. The cockpit was cold, a wind buffeting the chopper so it rocked like a boat in rough water. Sgt. Nichols explained that we were at the current border of what he called the Covenant Land. It was actually the Blue Ridge Mountains below us, their budding forests scarred with ruddy clear cuts. He said, “So this will be home if you go the environmental route. There’s gold in them thar hills.”

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I said, “We used to camp here in the summer, Y-Adventure Guides.” Remembering that scary initiation weekend, when they’d led me blind-folded off trail with just my backpack and a compass, so I lived on berries and filtered creek water overnight before finding my way back to the Skyline Drive and a ten mile walk on hot asphalt back to camp. It was full-blown summer then, ticks and mosquitoes and one quite memorable fat rattlesnake in my path. And a pretty waterfall into a waist-deep pool. What was I, thirteen? Nobody around, no hurry to do anything, really. I stripped down, waded into the chilly pool, and rinsed my head in the spilling water. Then sank down low so just my eyes and nose were above the surface, my whole body a goose pimple, hardly daring to breath when a hefty black bear moseyed up to the bank, sniffed at my boots, nibbled at a bush of berries, and crouched to take a long tongue-lapping drink from the pool. He might have been there ten minutes, but it seemed like forever. In some true way, I thought, I’m still down there and he is, too. But not for long, not when the bulldozers come. 

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“Adventure Guides. Pussy shit,” the pilot grunted.

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The sergeant said, “Can you see ‘em, the drones?”

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It took a minute, but eventually I could make out a line of evenly spaced white dots hovering below us. The sergeant said, “That’s our surveillance fence, we’re right at the border here, expand out ten miles a week, cleanup work as we go.”

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“Cleanup?” I asked.

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“Clearin’ out the stragglers. Ain’t easy in these hills.”

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The pilot snarled, “Clearcut the whole range, that’d flush ‘em out.” He was teasing us closer to the drones, careful to keep our downdraft from blowing them away. Then he said, “Oh shit, this is the shit! Look at that!”

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A few dots over, one of the drones toppled out of line. “We got a straggler, boys!” the pilot laughed. “Somebody shot that thing! Showtime for real!” The Blackhawk dropped so quickly I re-tasted my breakfast, swooping in right above the treetops beneath the line of drones, and abruptly halted, hanging in the air, but still fierce, its engines surging like a mad dog yanking its chain. Directly below us a line of trucks pulled to a stop on a wooded lane. Then one of those weird-looking SCILA machines crawled spiderlike from the back of one truck. A miniature from where we sat, but you could make out its octopus arms waving, its turret turning, as it sniffed the air. Then it found a target and scurried forward on its eight metal legs.

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We shadowed the monster as it trudged along, disappearing in the spindly trees, then reappearing, fighting its way forward through brush. The chopper started nosing up and down, until the pilot slapped my hand. Unconsciously, I’d grabbed the co-pilot joystick and was playing along like it was one of my shooter games. 

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“Fuckin’ pinhead,” the pilot growled.

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Feeling like the idiot I was, I jammed my hands in my armpits while the chopper steadied. Below us on a rocky ledge the robot paused, its turret spun to a stop and its tentacles all swung in one direction. It took a step, backed up, tried again.

 

“Found ‘em! It’s a cave,” the pilot said. “Caves like ant hills all over down there. See if that thing can get in.” 

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We hung there slowly rotating in place above the drama. We could see a half dozen men in camo approach. They’d been following the SCILA’s tracks to the cave mouth. And then a cloud of black smoke erupted, obscuring the robot and the men. Even wearing earphones, I could hear a dull boom. We dipped hard, tipped sideways so all I could see was blue sky, then pulled up sharp directly above the cave, our blades clearing the smoke away. The SCILA lay tipped on its side, legs thrashing, all the men on their backs. “Fuck!” the pilot and the sergeant said at the same time.

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Too many trees to land the Blackhawk, and set up for a tourist jaunt, no ammunition in its guns. The pilot said “Fuck” about a million times. We hung there above the struggling robot and the crumpled bodies and the cave mouth waiting for somebody to bring help.

 

“What was that?” I said, pretty much to myself.

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“That my friend was the enemy,” the sergeant replied. I couldn’t see him behind me but I’m pretty sure he was licking his lips.

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