Fritz, Hunter, and Dare were huddled around the controller screen when Dare turned on that part of the software. My phone beeped, and I opened the app. It showed me that it had identified four people ahead of me.
Paul walked towards me, and my phone beeped again, and it showed a dot on his chest go from green to pink.
“Draw your gun,” Hunter suggested.
That got a reaction. My phone began to beep a warning, and the dot flashed bright red.
“Raise your gun and point at the drones,” Hunter instructed.
As the gun came up, they suddenly began to move erratically to avoid his line of fire.
“Switch it to the full protection mode,” Hunter instructed Dare.
The drones continued to dance, but two of them zoomed past Paul. I watched in disbelief when one of them suddenly dove towards the back of his head. Hunter’s hand flew to the controller and hit a button. The drone that had been dive-bombing Paul leveled off and rejoined the flock. They were back in observation mode, as if the mother drone had called them home.
Paul turned on Hunter.
“Did you know they would do that?” he accused.
Hunter held his hands in front of him.
“Sorry. The manual’s in Russian. I understood enough to gather that it had a full protection mode, but not enough to determine exactly what it would do.”
“I don’t expect it would kill you, but I bet it would get your attention if it smacked into your head,” I offered.
“So, you thought you’d try it out on me?” Paul asked, not exactly happy with Hunter.
“You were the most expendable person here,” Hunter said with a straight face.
Paul looked to be getting ready to express his displeasure with Hunter by the way he moved his feet. Hunter’s lip twitched, and I suddenly realized that Paul was about to make a mistake. I’d seen how fast Hunter moved when he stopped the drone from cratering Paul’s head.
“Stop!” I barked. “You’ve underestimated him.”
Fritz looked at me, then at Hunter, and suddenly became very still.
“Stand down,” Fritz ordered Paul, and turned to Hunter. “You’ve had training?”
Hunter didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at me.
“Can I have five minutes of your time?” he asked.
He was pretty good at the evasive nonanswer. I wanted to take him home with me and let him face off with either Tami or my mom. No matter how good he was, I was sure they could break him.
I nodded, then followed him to his truck and got into the passenger seat so we would have some privacy. I looked to where Paul and Fritz stood and saw they were looking at Fritz’s phone, no doubt listening to our conversation.
“Who are you, really?” I asked.
“Officially, I’m a professor at State.”
“Unofficially?”
“I know Dr. Rossetti, and she shared with me what a special boy Darius is. She’s been worried that he wasn’t passionate about anything. That the last school he attended had damaged him, and he’d withdrawn to the point where she was afraid he’d become a social outcast and a recluse. It was simply coincidence that we met at Lincoln Flight School when they offered drone classes,” Hunter said.
“You didn’t stalk him or anything, did you?” I asked.
“In a past life, it was my job to discover truths. Before you ask and I have to give you a nonanswer, I can’t talk about it. Let’s just say that Darius interests me.”
“Dude. You’re a fifty-year-old man hanging out with a socially awkward teen who’s seeking approval. You get why that sounds a little creepy, right?” I asked.
Hunter looked shocked. Apparently, he’d never considered what I was implying. Then he found it amusing.
“If you only knew,” he said and shook his head. “Actually, you probably have a pretty good idea. When I was in high school, I had a serious growth spurt, and ever since, I’ve been successful with the ladies.”
“So, why help Dare? It’s not like you knew him or were dating Dr. Rossetti, and a lot of smart kids are socially awkward.”
“When I saw Dare working with the drone, I watched him transform. As a teacher, I seek out people who have potential and try to nudge them in the right direction. There’s nothing better than seeing someone get it and be excited about something,” he explained.
“Okay, I understand why you’re helping him. I’m still confused about the Chinese, Russian, and now Hungarian research that has helped him create these drones.”
“What’s your real worry?” Hunter asked.
“Two worries, actually. How did you know where to get what Dare needed, and is it going to come back and bite him in the butt?”
“My specialty is aerospace engineering.”
“And …”
“You’re a smart boy.”
“This is part of what you can’t talk about,” I supplied.
“Yes. Let’s go with that,” Hunter said with a smile.
The man was starting to get on my nerves, and he seemed to realize that.
“David, I’m trying not to lie to you,” he explained and looked at his watch. “I have to get going, but I wanted to talk about you for a moment.”
“I like girls,” I said with a straight face.
Hunter shook his head.
