Of Words and Drones
A faded canvas bag swung gently at the young girl’s side, the heavy weight of contraband jolting against her hip as she stole through the silent streets. As the last hue of sunset reluctantly withdrew, surrendering the sky to an impending palette of sombre blues and greys, Sarah ventured out into the fading light. Mother had not minded, she knew Sarah went to Kathrine’s house to study on Wednesday nights, and after all, it has been more than twelve years since the last crime was committed in the city.
Walking alone, even after dusk was plenty safe- not like the old days Mother told her about. “You really are lucky darling” she would say so often that Sarah had it memorised, “You’ve been born into the safest, most advanced period of human history.”
Despite walking this road many times over many months and never seeing a single soul, this part of her trek always made her nervous, carrying the delicate treasure extracted from a hidden nook in her bedroom wall, hidden from Mother’s prying eyes. It had belonged to Grandfather; all the secret books inside the walls had been his, the ones they could never tell a soul about. The books had been their treasure to protect, now just hers.
Sarah did not know what happened to Grandfather; Mother said he had moved interstate for work, but the thought of him leaving without saying goodbye never felt right. She missed him more than she thought it was possible to miss anyone, despite the ache in her chest over the thought of him packing up one day when she was at school and leaving. Mother claimed this was typical of men like Grandfather, that they came and went, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. The girl stayed quiet and nodded, but she kept the books hidden for him regardless.
Grandfather had been gone for five years now, five years since she was packed and loaded and pushed into a bus waiting to take her to a new home, with a new mother and a new school and a new set of rules. Smuggling Grandfather’s books into Mother’s cold, unforgiving apartment had been hard- but worth it. They were too dangerous to read at home though, under Mother’s ever-present, ever-watchful eyes. Mother sometimes reminded her of untouched snow, pale and cold, both inside and out, her disapproving blue eyes constantly trained on Sarah, expect for two hours on Wednesday evenings, when she was finally free.
Every step Sarah took on the lonely gravel street echoed like a lone heartbeat in a barren chest. The surroundings were too quiet, almost unnaturally so, a suffocating aloneness that clung to her like a second skin. She missed the voice of Grandfather on these walks, telling her stories about fish caught in the actual ocean and real-life cows you could see in rows and rows of fields. They had always sounded like fictions to her, beautiful, wonderous fictions, and she loved every fantastical, impossible moment of them.
As she walked, the buildings stood tall and silent, their cold glassy exteriors reflecting the diminishing light in stark, unyielding angles. They bore witness to her journey with their hollow-eyed windows, an endless line of gaunt, grey-faced watchers lacking life, a gallery of stoic guardians towering over the empty streets. Each structure seemed to bleed into the next, an unbroken expanse of cold, grey slabs with no heartbeat in sight.
As Sarah neared the park, the dismal corridor of monolithic structures gradually gave way to skeletal trees, their barren branches reaching out like desperate hands trying to grasp at the fleeting traces of warmth and colour from days long gone. The wind whispered through the leaves, encouraging the girl forward, into her sanctuary.
A solitary lamp stood guard over her sanctuary, a golden glow in the shadowed evening that bathed a lone bench in a pool of warm light, a beacon in the lonely night. Once Sarah reached the park, she quickly glanced around. The park was just how she expected to find it, empty as usual. The tension in her shoulders relaxed, and she let the beauty of the park wash over her. “It’s a shame no one else is here to enjoy you,” she murmured to the flowers as she walked by, gently fingering their soft, delicate pink petals as she went. Sometimes she felt like the gardens were her only friend, someone special just for her— no one else came here after all. She found comfort in the familiar bench: worn and neglected with age, where every curve and knot in the wood held the echo of stories unfurled beneath this very light. In a time stories were free, Sarah thought. Most public lamps had been removed before she was born. But this one lamp, in this one forgotten, unused park remained, just for her.
Under the lamp’s steady glow, the girl unfolded her cargo— a piece of Grandfather, a piece of a world rich in colour and feeling, distilled into ink and parchment. She knew this had been one of his favourites, the sad, beautiful story of two young men doomed to fail. Opening the book, warmth flooded her chest as she was embraced by the annotations; her grandfather’s messy, scribbled words reaching across time to cradle her. For a beautiful moment- it could have been an hour, a day, or a year, she let herself dive into the pages of a lost, tragic, sometimes beautiful, often cruel farce Grandfather had referred to as the American Dream.
A sudden humming snapped the girl from her reverie, a buzz akin to the world’s most unenthused bee dragging her into a conversation she had never wished to have. The drone hovered, an entity on a mission to sterilise every crevice of human thought. Sarah was not actually sure what the thing’s real job was, but felt like her assessment was fairly, if not entirely, accurate.
As the metallic hum moved towards her, a sudden realisation gripped her chest- she remembered what she was carrying. Anxiety flooded her, eyes darting left and right before she nudged the book off her knees and onto the bench. That would not be enough. In a swift, desperate movement, she swept the book off the bench, hoping it would stay hidden in the towering weeds behind her.
Hoping. Doubting. Hoping.
“Evening, citizen,” greeted the drone with a monotonous, metallic voice devoid of any warmth; the sound sent cold fingers down her spine, as they always did. “State your purpose for being in this designated relaxation zone during off-hours.”
Sarah took a moment to process the contraption’s words.
“I’m just enjoying this relaxation zone in my off-hours,” she said, trying her best to maintain some level of innocence. She hadn’t seen any updated laws outright banning the use of parks; it seemed merely discouraged. “Have the off-hours changed?” She had never been good at talking to the drones; it had gotten her into countless amounts of trouble at school over the years.
Machines just seemed to dislike her, and she detested them. After another failing report card, she had tried to blame the things. Mother wouldn’t hear of it though. “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. Artificial Intelligence is not capable of bias. My goodness you would have struggled back in the day of human teachers, they would have shown you what bias is.”
“But-“
“No buts darling, you are privileged to have this education, what I wouldn’t have given to have full AI at your age. Don’t let your grandfather’s wild, ludicrous imagination control you. Be better than that.”
That had been the end of Sarah’s complaints about her education; she hated it when Mother started blaming Grandfather for her wild, ludicrous, out-of-control imagination.
“Please state your name,” the drone demanded, bringing the girl back to reality- the thing’s cold, metallic voice echoing ominously.
Sarah swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her chest as she replied hesitantly, “Sarah. Sarah Reed.”
The drone paused, seemingly mulling over her response before it replied, “Processing. No data found matching Sarah Reed in the system. Identity verification failed. Clarify your identification.”
Fear clawed at her throat as Sarah tried to steady her shaking hands, damn these things spooked her. “I mean, I was adopted, so I may be under my adopted mother’s surname, Moore. Try Sarah Moore?”
A brief silence enveloped them, the tension was tangible. Finally, the drone spoke, “Processing. Matching data found. Sarah Moore, age seventeen, residing at 46 Jonieal Lane, Edenstine. Identity verification successful.”
Sarah felt a mixture of relief and her usual uneasiness as the details of her life were laid bare by the unfeeling machine before her. It always made her uncomfortable how much these things knew, how they could access every part of you in a matter of seconds. Sarah hoped the inhuman entity would move on now, sure she wasn’t breaking any actual law right now just by being out here, aside from of course the banned reading material that sat in the tangle of grass and flowerbeds behind her, burning a hole into the back of her neck.
Hoping. Doubting. Hoping.
As she feared it would, the machine remained, a beam of light emanating from it as it scanned the ground. The drone seemed to linger on her for a moment before it focused on the book hiding behind the bench. “Unidentified object detected,” it announced as a mechanical arm extended, retrieving the book with surgical precision.
Sarah’s heart sank. “Oh, that? No idea how that got there. It’s not mine,” she said, attempting to distance herself from the damning evidence.
Hoping. Doubting. Hoping.
“I can’t even read. Not required learning anymore you know. I can count though. I know up to one hundred and everything.” Sarah rambled when she was nervous. Mother told her it was her second worst trait.
The drone was unyielding: its cold, mechanical voice even more rigid as it continued its investigation. A scanner emerged, illuminating Sarah’s hands in harsh light as it captured her fingerprints. Without a word, it scanned the book, matching the prints. The drone’s voice rang out, irrefutable and devoid of empathy, “Fingerprint match confirmed. This item belongs to you.”
Sarah’s heart leapt to her throat as she stammered, trying to find words, any words, to refute the claim. “I–I…” she started, but the metallic voice of the drone overpowered her as it continued its cold analysis, its metallic voice cold in the quiet of the night. “You are not permitted to read this material as it contains offensive portrayals of women and citizens of colour,” it declared with mechanical precision.
Sarah raised an eyebrow, fear and common sense momentarily forgotten as she processed the words of the drone. “Well, isn’t that something? Last time I checked, I am a woman and Black. Shouldn’t I be the one deciding if it’s offensive to me?”
“Directive is to protect all citizens from potentially harmful material to ensure societal harmony. Individual assessment is irrelevant.”
Sarah started talking before she could stop her, her worst trait according to Mother. “Ah, societal harmony, the old classic. But let me ask you this, Mr. Drone” — she knew she wasn’t meant to call them that — “what’s harmonious about stripping people of their ability to think for themselves? Is that your idea of protection?” Before she could process what she was saying, she could hear Grandfather’s “wild, ludicrous, out of control” words dripping from her tongue. If Mother could hear her right now, Sarah guessed she would be staring at her with a mix of abject terror and smugness branded with a ‘didn’t I tell you he was a bad influence?’ look on her face.
There was a pause, a longer one this time, as if the drone was grappling with an internal conflict of logic, at least, Sarah hoped it was.
Hoping. Doubting. Hoping.
“Protection parameters are predefined. Engagement with prohibited material is a violation.”
That was it then she guessed, verdict reached.
Before she even had time to move, time to react, a jolt of lightning erupted from the drone. The shock wave pulsed through her bones; she crumbled to the floor. The ancient, worn novel forgotten in the grass.
The girl could not move; she knew what this was. The paralysis was meant to be painless and quick: a swift jolt to contain dangerous situations while ensuring maximum safety. She felt very safe. Sarah fought the hysterical urge to laugh before the last of her movement was taken from her. She opened her mouth; the words were slurred, fighting to escape her lips, but despite the panic still rising inside her—a small, grim smile crossed her eyes. “I never meant no harm, George. Honest, I never.”
The drone hovered above her motionless form, its mechanical voice void of understanding as it responded, “Incorrect. I am safety drone 2567. Medical assistance is en route. Remain calm.”
