20 - Nico #2
Back at Sam’s apartment, Ari was running tech, Frida was plugged into the network of all the Freedom Party teens at Sam’s hotel to boost the videos, and Sam was orchestrating it all.
Nico knew Sam was itching to be out here in the field instead, but he felt better knowing Sam was safe.
Their target was on the north side of the traffic circle: a thirty-foot-tall silver globe of the Earth.
The continents were solid and everything else was an open grid of longitude and latitude lines.
Three rings orbiting the sphere made it seem like our planet was caught in motion. The perfect spot to send a message.
Slinging Byron’s drone bee hive backpack off his shoulders, Nico pressed the button to open it.
Fishing-tackle style, the hive opened out, revealing twelve rows of twelve drone bees each.
Fully charged. They were eight short of a gross, so 136 drones, which he’d direct with the controller in his hand.
He fought the urge to touch his ear and snorted a quiet laugh at how annoyed Sam would be if he did. “Peter, you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Byron?” Nico asked.
“In position and recording,” Byron responded.
“Bec?”
He could see Bec flip her skateboard up and deftly catch it. “All set.”
Frida chimed in: “There are sixty-eight of us standing by to boost and repost and comment—the algorithm should do the rest.”
“You are so good at this stuff,” Bec said.
“Less flirting,” Ari instructed. “We’ve got a lot of moving parts, so let’s keep communication to just what’s necessary.”
Nico wondered if flirting was part of the Iconography of Love show at the museum he was standing on. It might be a way to make up for missing Valentine’s Day. “Hey, Sam. Maybe I can take you on a date when this is all over?”
“Did I not just say less flirting?” Ari complained.
“That’s a yes,” Sam said. “But let’s do this first. If we want to hit 10 AM , we’re one minute away.”
“Roger that,” Nico said.
“Oh, talk sexy military to me,” Sam teased.
“Gentlemen…” Ari growled.
Even over the fan blowing air into the inflatable red heart, Nico could hear Sam’s snort of laughter.
He activated the controller and the bees flew into the air like synchronized swimmers diving into a pool, one after the other.
He just had to control the first—the queen bee drone—and the others would follow, each an inch behind or to the side of the one before it.
He flew them out past the Columbus fountain to swirl above the 3-D silver globe.
“Now,” Nico said, and hit the first programmed pattern.
“Hey, I’m here in Columbus Circle, New York City, and these bees are acting really weird.” Peter’s voice.
“It’s like an answer to our prayers,” Bec said, live-streaming on her phone as well. “It’s a peace symbol!”
It was, a swirling peace symbol made up of 136 tiny bee drones.
Frida piggybacked on the live stream, adding her own comments. “Maybe the aliens are friendly?”
People stopped to stare, many with their cameras out to record.
“Good, keep it going everyone, looks like we’re trending.” That was Sam.
“It’s a peace sign! Thank God!” Peter said on his video.
More people gathered below, everyone with their camera out, live-streaming.
“Wait. Shit. There’s a whole push against us,” Sam said. “Play it for them.” Ari patched another audio piggyback and Nico could hear a new voice. “What if they’re tricking us? The aliens. Trying to lull us into thinking they’re peaceful before they kill us all! You’ve seen those other messages!”
“Try the smiley face,” Sam instructed.
Nico hit the program and the bees shifted to a circular smiley face.
“Whoa!” The throngs of people below responded like it was a sports event.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen one change!” someone shouted.
“Maybe it’s not the aliens,” someone else said on their live stream.
“Do the No Humans symbol,” Sam suggested, “then back to the smiley face.”
Nico did, and the crowd below responded like they were at a ball game, cheering and shouting.
BAMP—PING!
Nico dropped flat to the roof.
What was that sound? It was loud. A gunshot, and then maybe the bullet hitting something on the roof next to him? “I think someone’s shooting at me!” Nico told them.
BAMP—PHSSST!
That was definitely a gunshot. And closer.
Screams below as the crowd panicked at the gunshots, people running everywhere.
“Everyone, get safe!” Sam said. “Nico, get out of there. Byron, clean up the bees. Bec, Peter, report in.”
“It’s mayhem!” Bec said.
“Trying to get out of here!” Peter said.
“Sending the bees to the park,” Byron reported.
Nico did the math. The shots came from directly west of him. The shooter must be on top of the glass atrium, which gave them the height advantage. Nico needed to get off the roof but couldn’t cross back to the door without being shot.
He yanked open the guideline knot by him, then shouldered the hive backpack and commando-crawled to the second guideline knot, freeing that too.
As a decoy, Nico flung the backpack eight feet in the air to his left—
BAMP—PING!
In the same instant Nico rolled his body over the roof edge onto the inflatable heart.
Loosed from its moorings, Nico’s weight forced it down.
The electric cord in its plug caught it for a moment outside the top floor restaurant but then gave way—Nico fell nine stories down, riding the inflatable heart.
It held enough air in it that Nico’s landing was absorbed like a professional stuntperson’s airbag.
He rolled off and raced south around the corner, keeping the building between him and the shooter.
Nico sprinted down Broadway, passing panicking crowds. “Heading to Times Square!” Nico said.
BAMP—CRASH!
The rear window of the abandoned yellow taxi next to Nico shattered. He lunged back onto the sidewalk and ran even harder as people screamed around him.
He was already seven blocks away, and it didn’t make sense. “How are they following me?” Nico asked.
“Closed circuit TVs? Traffic cameras?” Sam wondered.
“But I should just be a blur to those, right?” Nico glanced at his shiny black bracelet. Had Ari given him a dud on purpose?
“Could they have hacked our earpieces?” Sam asked Ari.
“Maybe?” Ari said. “But we have another problem—eight masked gunmen just entered this building.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit. We need to go. Frida!” Sam yelled.
BAMP—POP!
That shot hit the trash can Nico had just passed. In what he hoped was an unpredictable pattern of zigzags, he sprinted into Times Square.
“I’ll find you,” Nico told Sam, and threw out his earpiece as he ran. He needed to be untraceable.