“Weren’t we going to fly this today?” I asked to remind him of why I’d come.
“Yes, we were. But I sort of couldn’t get what Mr. Jacobs said about improving it out of my head, so I had to take it apart.”
“I sure hope you know how to put it all back together.”
“Uhrm … I think I can,” he said, and then my new Jedi mind trick seemed to work. “I know I can. If I have to, I’ll get the design layout from the manufacturer.”
Somehow, that didn’t reassure me. I seriously doubted that they would hand over their design documentation just because Dare took it all apart. I also suspected that he might’ve voided the warranty I’d paid extra for.
“What exactly did you think you would accomplish?” I asked.
“I wanted to add small cameras at each corner so I could make it safe for even you to fly.”
The ‘even you’ comment caused the hairs on the back of my neck to go up.
“You mean, you wanted to idiot-proof it?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t say that.”
I rolled my eyes. That was precisely what he’d said.
“I need to buy some stuff,” Dare blurted as he grabbed a piece of paper and shoved it at me.
I took it and read the list.
“What’s a stick PC?” I asked.
“It looks like a thumb drive that you plug into the HDMI or USB connection on the side of a TV or monitor. It’s like a portable PC.”
I’d been thinking about buying a Roku, or something similar, to stream television shows and movies to my TV. I’d seen our latest cable bill, and it was ridiculous when you considered I only watched TV occasionally. One problem with the different non-cable options was they were subscription services and forced you to go through them for most of your programming. That meant that if you wanted to watch a show that wasn’t part of your service, you were out of luck. Another problem was they had figured out they had a captive audience and had started raising their prices to almost equal our cable bill.
I imagined the stick PC might solve most of my issues because I could watch most everything on my PC right now without a problem. The one drawback was how to watch live sports. I would have to go home and research this.
“What do you need it for?” I asked.
“I have to have more computing power,” Dare said as if that would make perfect sense to me.
“What about this solar panel?”
“Mr. Jacobs suggested that if I installed one, the drone would fly longer on a single charge.”
Mr. Jacobs had just become a pain in my butt.
Using Dare’s laptop, I bought all the gadgets he wanted to trick out my drone. To be honest, I feared I would run it into something, so idiot-proofing it was fine with me. But I didn’t need him knowing that. After I’d spent more money, Dare focused on the drone and ignored me. The kid had a one-track mind.
I came out of his bedroom and found Dr. Rossetti grading papers.
“When Darius was ten, I came home and found our TV in pieces. I wanted to be mad, but he explained he wanted to understand how it worked,” she said.
“Did he get it back together?” I asked, hopefully.
She laughed.
“Nope, I had to buy a new one. I finally tossed all the parts from his failed experiment when we moved here.”
I might have to take something for the migraine I had coming on. Drones weren’t cheap, and I wasn’t about to buy Dare another one.
“Don’t worry, Darius has gotten better at putting things back together. If I were you, I would make him show you whether he ends up with any spare parts when he’s done. I almost burned the house down when I used the microwave one day,” she shared.
“Okay, I can see the wisdom in that. I wouldn’t be happy if the drone burst into flames.”
“Like I said. Make Dare show you, because he just assumes it’s okay if he has extras when he’s done.”
◊◊◊
Since I now had time on my hands, I sent a text to my girlfriend. She suggested that I take her to lunch. That seemed like a great idea because it gave me a couple of hours to stress-test my car. I would recommend to any teenager who has a lot of cash to buy a muscle car to play with. My
Mr. Sullivan had told me they only planned to make 3,000 Demons this year. He recommended that once I put about thirty thousand miles on it, I put it in storage and treat it as an investment. I would have to start looking for a new car about the time I came back from New Zealand next fall.
After I’d had my fun, I picked up Brook. She wanted to go to the Chinese place that overlooked the park. She clearly had something on her mind, and after we ordered, she finally blurted it out.
“I think you should cancel your date with Destiny tonight.”
I tilted my head to see if Brook was serious or just jerking my chain. Lately, it seemed to be ‘punk David’ season, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t just giving me a hard time.
“You know how I am about giving my word,” I reminded her.
