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What the quadcopter was thinking when they used it to buzz a moose (a found fiction in a Boing Boing comment thread)

Cory Doctorow at 6:38 pm Tue, Jan 8, 2013

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From the remarkable keyboard of allium, in the comment thread for this post:

"Rocky...is that you? My God, what did those Pottsylvanian bastards do to you?"

It was my own government that did this, I think in jagged letters ten feet tall. Of course after the cyborging I can only talk in Bluetooth, 802.11, and half a dozen classified military frequencies, and I left my loudspeaker module back at the base during my escape, so all Agent B hears are the chainsaw buzz of my rotors. He only knows it's me because the boys under Groom Lake painted a cartoon of...what I was...on my fuselage. As a joke. They thought it was hilarious.

So I yaw back and forth, hoping he'll interpret that as a "no".

Steam rises from B's nostrils as he tosses his massive, antlered head back. "When I see Fearless Leader again. I'm gonna pull a can of whoop-ass out of my hat!"

By the Great Acorn Above, he's dense. I dispense some eka-meth from my internal drug reservoirs to focus; two point eight seconds later I come to a decision and warm up the excimer.

"But wait a second...the Admiral told me you were dead! He spoke at your funeral! He..." B trails off as he sees words of fire appear vertically in the bark of the trees in front of him, one word per trunk. My targeting system is very precise - assassination tools generally are.

"PEACHFUZZ BURNED ME. CALL CLOYD AND GIDNEY."

Two hours later and thirty miles to the west, B paws at a nondescript hillock of frozen earth to uncover the squirt transmitter we buried there after the Upsidasium Affair. As dirt flies into the air, I idly wonder whether there's room for a squirrel brain in a Metal-Munching Mouse chassis, and how long it would take to get through a certain flag officer's sternum with its gleaming titanium teeth.

allium

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

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  • Barry Wilson

    Love the Gidney & Cloyd reference. Note perfect. Bravo, good sir.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dave.maclachlan.3 Dave MacLachlan

    Wonderful.

  • Nadreck

    The Upsidasium Affair! But that was Officially Denied!

  • BDiamond

    Genius!

  • http://twitter.com/james4765 Jim Nelson

    And this is why I visit this site. Right here.

    • outer rower

      Jim, I agree! Top marks for channeling Thomas Pynchon. And he’s not even dead!

  • Jake0748

    Very nice.  Could have done with a little less giggling. 

  • Ashen Victor

    Amazing, bleak and fun. That is the kind of short fiction I love.

  • http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

    Wow…I haven’t heard the names Cloyd and Gidney in years!! Anyone know what the range is on these quadrocopters? How close were the people to where this moose is standing?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jon-Wallace/100002261734497 Jon Wallace

       At the end of the video, the copter flies back to the pilot and friends. At a guess, they were a few hundred yards away at most.
      To allium: This was fantastic; more, please.

  • Evan Fedorko

    brilliant.

  • wrybread

    I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but more more more.

  • Lobster

    Moose bites can be pretti nasti.

  • euansmith

    David Attenborough never sounded as excited as these guys.

  • Mutation_Engine

    Hmmm, nice little bit of writing. Reminds me of Nicholas Zerhakker from Skin Horse, except that Nick’s brain was implanted in a modified Osprey VTOL.
    http://skin-horse.com/cast/