The dumbass fell for the misdirection. Greg had been out of the house too long. Otherwise, he’d never have fallen for that one.
“What would you do if you ended it?” I asked.
“Maybe I’d date Brook, and you could make Angie’s dream come true.”
At least he still had a sense of humor.
“How about I set you up with that Victoria’s Secret model?” I suggested.
Greg just groaned in frustration. We both knew that he wasn’t leaving Angie right now. I had a bad feeling that if they didn’t get this figured out, he very well might at some point. I heard a little one start to cry in the background.
“Hang on,” he said, and I heard him open a door, and the sound of crying get louder. “What happened? No, wait, tell your Uncle David.”
Dick!
“Unca David? When you come home?” Mac asked and sniffed.
“Two weeks. I’ll have your dad bring you over to your grandmother’s, and we’ll have a family dinner. How does that sound?” I asked.
“Will you play wif me?”
“Absolutely. Let me talk to your dad,” I said.
“We get to ride ponies,” she said and began a monologue.
Ten minutes later, she had forgotten whatever caused her to cry and was all giggles. I might not be able to solve my brother’s marital problems, but I could listen to my niece. I needed to get home.
◊◊◊
While I’d been talking to my brother and niece, I received a text from Megan about the drone Dare wanted to buy. It was as expensive as a car. She had held off the purchase until I approved it. I called Dare.
“Megan tells me that you picked out a new drone. Is there a reason it’s so expensive?” I asked.
“It’s new technology. To reduce the noise the drone generates, they’ve developed lightweight motor shrouds that they’ve lined with nanofiber acoustic dampening materials. These new shrouds are designed to minimize the sound and direct it skyward. They’ve also replaced the rotors with ones that are larger, have an increased blade angle, and spin slower. That design yields a much lower acoustic output. This makes the drone much stealthier.
“The new design also includes anti-vibration components made of silicone gel. They work to isolate the vibration from the rotors. It’s the same technology used by the military in stealth helicopters. With less vibration, it not only reduces noise but makes for a more stable platform for the cameras.
“The drone was designed for the police. It has automated subject-tracking software. It also includes a thermal-imaging sensor for nighttime operations and finding missing or hiding persons. There are a bunch of other cool features. It’s all fully programmable, so it can run routine security checks at scheduled times,” Dare enthused.
I could tell he had done his research and had taken my idea of finding something quieter and run with the task. To head off a lengthy discussion, I stopped him.
“Send me three choices to compare, and why you picked the one you did.”
“I’ll probably need to explain it,” Dare said.
The little shit just insulted me without realizing it. He simply assumed he was the smartest guy in the room. He was, but that didn’t mean he had any common sense. This was why people wanted to put his head in the nearest toilet and flush it.
“Just send it to me if you want me to tell Megan to authorize it.”
“Okay, okay,” he said and hung up on me.
If I knew Dare, he had decided he didn’t need to talk to me any longer because he had to hurry. He had to rush to get me the information so he could have his new toy. Sure enough, ten minutes later, I had an email sitting in my inbox. Ten seconds after that, my phone rang. I didn’t have to guess who it was; I let it go to voicemail.
It surprised me a bit when I saw that the one he had picked wasn’t the most expensive. I had no idea a commercial drone could cost upwards of a quarter-million dollars. It was designed for filming action scenes in movies. He gave it five stars and noted that if I wanted the best, to pick that one. He was a funny kid. I could just see myself trying to explain to my mom why I’d spent that kind of money on a drone. The capper would be Dare taking it apart and breaking it.
The one he wanted was designed with law enforcement in mind. I suspected that the hefty price tag was partially because government agencies were the ones buying it.
It was like our county sheriff who had purchased a helicopter a few years back. What got him voted out of office was that they needed five pilots to cover 24/7/365 at the cost of a hundred grand each. That didn’t include the maintenance crew and fuel. Twenty-five thousand for a drone didn’t seem like too much, compared to that.
The last one was made in China, and Dare suspected that they might not sell it to civilians since it was used by Chinese intelligence. He’d found a sketchy source that sounded like they were Russian arms dealers trying to rip the kid off.
