A whisper broke the stillness.
"Rick… wakey wakey, coffee and droneny."
Rick squinted, rubbing his eyes. "When did I fall asleep?"
"No clue," 777 shrugged, hovering beside him with a steaming cup. "But you did. Missed the whole night."
Rick sat up sluggishly. "Alright. Tell me what happened while I was out."
777 took a sip from his cup. "Nothing. Nada. No sign of Tobey leaving the town."
"Damn." Rick looked around. "What time is it?"
"Zero. Midnight sharp."
The van door creaked open as they stepped out into the cold. Night air wrapped around them like damp velvet. The faint buzz of electronics hummed in the background. Streetlights flickered like a dying memory of civilization.
777 reached into the van and pulled out a rugged tablet. "Will this work?"
Rick nodded lazily. "As long as it's got a screen, a processor, some memory, and—most importantly—supports 'I API'."
"Of course. Flex your genius at every opportunity," 777 rolled his eyes. "So… how do I connect this piece of junk?"
Rick, now popping open an energy drink, smirked. "Why ask me? I'm vibing."
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because this system is low-level hell. I need to pass 23 commands just to access basic functions!"
Rick chuckled. "Funny, coming from the guy who once assembled a whole script just to print 'Hello World'. And hey—Jennifer was made for moments like this."
777 flushed slightly. "...Shut up."
He cleared his throat and called out: "Jennifer, give me access to Hive Truck."
"Running 65 commands across 40 API keys… and done," Jennifer's voice chimed through the van's internal speakers.
777 blinked. "What the actual fuck."
Rick sipped slowly. "Jennifer, break it down. Where's the blame?"
Jennifer responded like a sassy assistant with receipts. "30 commands for truck access, 35 for API and security protocols. The truck uses only 5 API keys. The rest? Security. Blame: 777, for writing excessive protocol layers."
Silence.
"Shit. It's my fault," 777 muttered. "And how the fuck am I supposed to control 500 drones from a terminal?!"
Rick stood up from his deck chair slowly. Walked toward him. Locked eyes.
And lightly punched him on the head.
"I told you. Read the damn documentation for 'I'. But nooo."
He turned to the truck interface. "Jennifer, use the UI pin in the truck to build a complex drone control interface. Integrate it into the control line."
"Done," Jennifer replied almost instantly.
777 stared at the slick new UI on the tablet.
"Oh. Okay. That's… actually useful."
"Use it," Rick said, already halfway back to his deck chair. He plopped back down, cracked another can, and leaned back with a sigh. "Let me cope in peace."
The chair creaked. The stars above blinked, uncaring.
"Okay. Launch 500 drones—wait. Jennifer, is there any algorithm to make this drone search as efficient as possible?" 777 asked.
"Yes. There are many algorithms stored in the ALGO directory. I can purge sub-optimals and auto-select the best pathing if you wish."
"Yes, please do it," 777 replied.
"Done. Would you like to run a fifteen-minute simulation before the actual operation?"
"Go for it."
{Simulation ends. Now begins the drone sequence.}
Wind whipped through the open lot as the van's roof panels folded back with a mechanical hiss.
Inside the truck bed, five hundred sleek, matte-black drones began to rise—one by one—silent rotors spinning, blue tracer lights blinking softly. The collective hum of their startup echoed like the world holding its breath.
"Beginning launch protocol," Jennifer intoned. "All units, synchronized to hive-mesh."
A ripple of pulses passed through the swarm. They hovered, trembling like a swarm of angry hornets ready to strike, then—
FWOOSH.
They took off in waves—spiraling upward into the cold night sky like black sparks. Their tracer lights vanished into the darkness, only visible on 777's control display as hundreds of red blips fanning out across a satellite map of the town.
The screen flickered—video feeds opened like eyes waking up one by one. Alleyways. Rooftops. Fields. Shadows moved. Lights buzzed. The world below was under surveillance.
777's eyes darted across the feeds. "Jennifer, any anomaly pings?"
"Matching object detected—building ID 0347-B. East end of town. One humanoid figure. Masked. No thermal reading. No movement detected."
The feed zoomed in: a figure stood in the window of a run-down apartment complex, four stories tall. Pale mask. Still as death. Watching nothing—or maybe everything.
"Holy shit…" 777 muttered. "That's her."
Rick didn't move. Just took a sip of his drink, staring out at the sky.
"Well then," he muttered. "Guess we're not done after all."