Drone Girl

Chapter One

Nine Years Later

     "Sybil, I need you to come up here and help me sort through these parts!" Uncle Silas called, voice echoing down the stairs to where Sybil was working.
      Sybil's eyes widened under her protective goggles, for a split second giving her the appearance of a mad scientist or too excited fish. They hadn't seen spare parts in almost half a year. Her mind was racing, maybe she could finally get enough synthetic material to cover her latest project. A. bit more fiberglass would go a long was as well.
      She sprang up, moving her goggles into her hairline. Her once light brown hair was tied back in a sloppy bun and had darkened to an almost mahogany that she grew out to her waist. Her clothing gave her away as a tinkerer, she felt too inexperienced call herself a mechanic or engineer. Her beige cargo pants and their endless supply of pockets held all the spare screws and bits and bobs she might need, while the fitted sleeveless top was purely to keep the excess material out of her way. When she was eleven, she had begged Avon to help her cut off the sleeves and sew up the sides of all her t-shirts. She hated how the material was constantly folding under her arms or snagging on mechanical parts. Now she had the technique perfected: anytime she got a new shirt, she sewed them to perfection herself.
      She had grown to be tall, like her father, standing at close to 178 centimeters at sixteen years old, and golden tan like she had always admired her mother for. To her, her mother had glowed like the sun. She wondered sometimes if she would glow one day too.
      Uncle Silas was not Sybil's real uncle, but he still cared for her like family since she first arrived in what many affectionately called 'The Desert Palace.' Without him and Auntie Avon, Sybil wasn't sure what would have happened to her. Auntie Avon took her in, raising her like the daughter she never had, while Uncle Silas had taken her under his wing and allowed her to apprentice for him in his workshop.
      Pushing her stool back from the worktable, she went upstairs.
      "Just in time!" Silas boomed, gesturing excitedly at two large rucksacks of what Sybil assumed were parts. Next to them laid the bodies of various mechanical objects too big to fit in the sacks.    
      Silas was an unusual sight to see, his body muscular to the extreme with orange hair that pushed out every which way all over his face, head, and body. With his much too large body, he would spend all day stooped over, playing with tiny mechanical parts. Despite his large frame, he was the best electronic parts scavenger, and everyone knew that if you needed something mechanical or technical, you went to Uncle Silas. The orange of his hair always reminded Sybil of her father; it was one of the few things she could remember about her dad.
      "Look," Silas waved a broken drone body at her from one of the bags, "we have about ten more of these in here, that's enough capacitors to finish those sensors for the next caravan trip!" Despite his age, Silas never failed to have the energy of a teenager.
      His energy was infectious, and scavenged parts were rare these days; Sybil found herself itching to go through them. They always needed more bits and pieces, plus if there were extras, she was allowed to experiment with them and see what she could make.
      Sybil kneeled and started picking through things.
      "Do you mind if I take some of these composites for my projects? I'm looking to make it as lightweight as possible." Sybil had long been planning to create something that could help the desert palace. Right now, all they had were the re-programmed drones and various sensor set-ups to help keep the city secure. The re-programmed drones helped citizens leave the city and blend in without causing immediate suspicion, but they were unable to answer the encrypted call that the government drones made to one another. Making life even more challenging was the fact that it was impossible to predict when the call would happen, and when it did, the person with the false drone would be in immediate danger.
      These problems had been rare until a few years ago. Now it seemed like with every mission to get supplies or infiltrate the government-controlled areas, there was almost always at least one person who didn't make it back. In this way, they had lost ten residents in the last three months.
     Sybil's plan was to stop the government all together. Ever since that night in Marfeld, she had been looking for ways to strike back. Thinking back on those days with Esmond made her sick to her stomach. How could she have been so naïve? Her plan now was to create a mechanical army of people, and to send this army into the world to fight for them and free everyone who wanted to be freed. In her mind this ended with her parents hugging her, surrounded by all her new friends.
      Unfortunately, she had hit a few hiccups along the way. The main problems were the encryption device and lack of materials. For her plan to work, each robot needed to be able to ping back the correct encryption code, or have drones that pinged back the correct code, this way they could fight from the inside undetected. The lack of materials had been a real hindrance as well. There were plenty of prosthetic parts and research in the field for Sybil to create a mechanical body, but it didn't help her at all when it came to programming a brain that could follow simple commands or speak. Her high level of mechanical engineering didn't correspond to her very basic knowledge regarding artificial intelligence.
      Everything had proven a much easier on paper than in real life, and she had moved forward without completely realizing how many resources and technical skills it would take to get her project going.
      "Hey," Sybil pulled out something that looked similar to a drone but heavier, with 'A-151' painted in red on the side. "Look at this. I don't think this one was meant to fly."
      Sybil struggled to lift it, instead opting to roll it out of the bag and onto the floor.
      Uncle Silas peered over. "That is a strange one. The outside seems to be made of steel, but the regular drones are typically made of carbon fiber."
       He scratched at his mustache, eyeballing the object for a moment. Then he came over and lifted it, weighing it in his hands. "Hmmm..." He walked it gingerly to his workstation, looking for any seams in the metal casing. The regular drones came in an almost easy to open case, the only problem being the anti-tampering device on the inside that sprayed a decent amount of acid on everything if forced open. Uncle Silas had created a special mechanical arm device in a separate shed outside the shop for opening them. Sybil lost count of all the mechanical fingers he had replaced over the years due to acid related damages. Silas must have taught the scavengers his technique, or maybe they had one of their own, because often Sybil and Silas received drones already opened, acid missing.
      "My eyes must be getting old, come here," He waved her over, "Do you see an opening anywhere?" Sybil rolled it around slowly, eyes searching for any seams in the metal.
      "No..." she rolled it over again. "No, nothing."
      Uncle Silas scratched at his beard. "I don't like it. What have those bastards come up with this time? And who decided it was a good idea to bring something unknown into the city?"
His excited demeanor changed, and his eyes, wide eyed and full of life before, now looked narrow and sharp.
      Sybil could understand how he felt, the desert palace had only been able to survive for this long because of its distrust and secrecy of the outside world. She was lucky all those years ago that they had let her in, saving her when she thought all hope was lost. Not all refugees searching for the desert palace had been so lucky. Over the years she had heard tales of bodies eroded by sand of people looking to escape. If they seemed untrustworthy, they were not invited in, instead left wandering until the elements took them. For those who traveled outside of the city and back in caravans for supplies, their drones were the key to unlocking the entrance of the city. The drones would relay a code that changed monthly, and it was the only way in or out of the city.
      "We'll have to put it in quarantine." Quarantine was where all unknown things and people had to go for at least a month upon arrival. Sybil still remembered her month's quarantine, but she had been lucky enough to stay in a fifty-five square meter space with Auntie Avon. Avon had taken pity on the seven-year-old girl, arguing that she was too young to take care of herself for a month. She had come in against the warnings of others and taken care of Sybil when all she had wanted to do was mourn the loss of her family.
      It was Auntie Avon, in that month of quarantine, who first told Sybil the truth of the outside world and guessed what must have happened to Marfeld. The government had wanted to keep the population high so the rich elite could continue to prosper, passing laws that kept the minimum wage unlivable and refusing to legalize any form of birth control. Women died on the streets from pregnancy and their complications. In this way they tried to keep the masses under their thumb, keeping everyone poor and hating each other for petty differences like skin color or religion. Sybil still remembered what Auntie Avon had said—"When you're poor, have kids, and are busy creating conflict with the people around you, you have no time to look around and assess what's really going on."
      Auntie Avon wasn't sure what had caused it, maybe it was the one-dollar meals that caused everyone to be so unhealthy, or the fact that soon everyone had a mother, daughter, or sister that had died due to pregnancy, but eventually the people had gathered together to fight. They were disorganized at first, starting riots, looting stores. But eventually they had come together as a militia.
     The only problem was their militia was no match for the real military. The government didn't even need to send troops. They just sent drones. Back in those days drones were apparently bigger and carried missiles, the militia had never stood a chance.
      Most cities, like Marfeld, had been destroyed in the attacks and as punishment, the government tightened their reign. New drones were made for surveillance, and those who openly dissented were shot down before they could start more problems.
      Sybil understood, years later, the insult of naming her drone Esmond.

      Quarantine for objects was a reinforced metal shed on the outskirts of town that stood empty most of the year. It had a 24/7 camera set-up and an optional EMP like device attached to the outside of it that was only to be operated in emergency situations, if, for some reason, something inside the box started to activate.
      "Sybil," Silas started to pack up the unknown drone-like object, wrapping it in a bag, "Do you mind staying here and categorizing the rest of these parts? I need to take this out and then question whoever the scavenger was who brought them, so we know where they came from."
      Sybil nodded. It was too bad they couldn't crack open the drone right this second, but she could wait the month.
      With Silas gone Sybil started organizing things into neat piles of wires, drones to be broken down, drones that could be salvaged, damaged circuit boards, batteries, etc.. Sybil couldn't remember the last time they had a haul this big. It made her a little dizzy to sort everything, there were so many projects they were going to be able to complete! Now even she was curious who had brought all of this in; she made a mental note to ask Silas later.
      Starting on the second rucksack, she came across another steel drone. This one seemed slightly larger and heavier than the last, if it was possible, with 'A-001' painted on the body. She rolled it on the floor, looking for a seam. Finding none, she tried to lift it again, getting it a bit off the ground before dropping it.
      Her heart stopped. What if instead of acid, as if that wasn't bad enough, it had an exploding anti-tampering device? It took a full minute of waiting for the world to disintegrate around her before she could breathe again.
     Now that she took a good look at it, this one looked fatter than the one that Silas had taken, like it was an egg waiting to hatch. She bent down and knocked on it, the low pitch suggesting it might be partially hollow.
      Sybil calculated how much time had passed. It had been maybe thirty minutes since Silas had left, which meant she had another hour or so before he came back. She check the clock. It was already 11:30, Auntie Avon would be around to call her for lunch any minute, and Avon would not approve what Sybil had in mind.
      Emptying out one of the rucksacks, she wrapped the metal object in it. She then ran to get the hand soldered dolly Uncle Silas kept a in the back of the shop, and slowly, painstakingly, she carted the object down the stairs and to her workstation. She unwrapped it before rolling it behind some boxes of spare parts she had on the ground.
      Right as she was parking the dolly back in its place, Auntie Avon came in through the front door. Avon was a tiny woman with eyes more green than blue most days and light brown hair she kept just under her ears. Sybil was jealous of Auntie's eyes; they had a way of changing with the weather. Green eyes were reserved for sunny days, while a deep blue tended to roll in with a storm.
      Not that any of the weather in the desert palace was real. The entire main part of the city was encased in a dome, buried under the sand. The dome itself was lined with sprinklers, a heating system, even a snow machine for winter. Everything for mimicking any possible weather pattern was available on the ceiling and sides of the dome. A holographic imitation of various weather patterns was then played through-out the year, imitating the seasons. No one was sure who had created the city, but the rumor was that the city had been here before the government uprising, hidden in the sand, and would continue on for eternity. Sybil wasn't sure she believed that, but she did know that it was her and Silas' job to keep the system charged, fitting new capacitors to equipment when the old ones hit twenty-five percent.
      She remembered Silas telling her that the original system would have failed if his father hadn't figured out a way to jerry-rigged the entire system to accept modern power units. Sybil did not envy that undertaking, just thinking about having the pressure of continuing the life of the entire city made her break out in a cold sweat.
     "What's all this?" Auntie Avon asked disapprovingly, gesturing at the piles of sorted parts and the other parts waiting to be sorted.
     Sybil could tell from the way Avon's eyes flicked from the items to around the shop that she was restraining herself from picking everything up and finding its rightful place. It would have been a pointless endeavor, only Sybil and Silas knew where everything went within the organized chao of Silas' workshop.
      "We got a new shipment in today." Sybil tried to sound casual, "We've been sorting things out."
      In a move that seemed to cause Avon physical pain, she stepped back out the front door, "Alright, let's get some lunch in you before you come back to," she paused, trying to find the right word, "this."