Changing the Speed of Light Bulbs (Tales of a Former Space Janitor Book 4) by Julia Huni

Author:Julia Huni [Huni, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: IPH Media
Published: 2023-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

VANTI

Elodie has a plan B, but I’m not convinced. We’ve retreated a few hundred meters up the canyon and huddled under a rocky ledge at the sheer cliff wall. Hopefully the professor thinks we’ve left.

I pace along the shadowed edge of our refuge and scowl at her. “If you send in another drone, he’s going to fry it like the first one. You don’t have an unlimited supply of those things.”

“Actually, I can order more as soon as I can connect to the net. CelebVid said there’s no limit on the number of drones—they want footage.”

“And the riskier the better, right?” Leo shoves his hands into his baggy pants and scowls.

Elodie’s eyes twinkle. “Gotta go viral!” She turns to me. “I’m going to send in two. One making a frontal assault, and the other dropping down from above. We’ll get a look at how robust his security really is. If I get one through, we can use it to speak with him.”

We all stare at the woman.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” She flicks through her holo screens and turns the drone on herself to use it as a mirror.

“Did you just use the words ‘robust security’?” I turn to the others. “Are we sure Elodie wasn’t swapped from a different reality, too?”

Elodie rolls her eyes, but a strange shadow seems to pass through them.

I reach out to grab her shoulder. “Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

She smiles, and the shadow vanishes as the drones rise. “Don’t be silly. I’ve been watching a lot of crime shows lately. They always talk about credentials and security and things being robust. I must have used it right.” She shrugs off my hand and sends the drones into action.

With the holos stretched wide, we all watch the tiny crafts’ progress. One streaks upward, the canyon wall blurring as it rises. It tops the steep ascent and crosses a scrubby ridge. The other zips forward, then pauses at the canyon’s tight corner.

“Going in three, two, now.” Elodie swipes a command with each hand, and the scenes shift as the drones react. The one on the right lifts a bit more, then the ground drops away as it moves toward the roof now visible below, maintaining its altitude.

On the left, the rocky cliff disappears as the drone rounds the corner. It immediately begins jerking in random directions as it moves closer to the little house, presumably avoiding invisible defenses.

I lean closer, trying to read the tiny print scrolling across the bottom. “Do these things have an evasive maneuvers setting?”

“Cool ain’t it?” Elodie flips a file to me, making my holo-ring buzz. “They’re designed to defeat anti-paparazzi measures.”

“Anti-anti-paparazzi? That’s a thing?” I need to do some research when this emergency is over. If I’m going to stay with Elodie, these capabilities could come in handy.

“Oh, yeah. All of the celebrities have protection against drones.” Elodie’s tongue sticks out of the corner of her mouth as she focuses on the screens.

I frown at Anti-Griz and start to ask why we weren’t aware of this tech when I remember this isn’t my Griz.

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