#the misfortune of video communications being broadcast into a helmet

[scaryscarecrows]

Full Moon

Antoine looks at the weird-ass string of numbers and letters for all of ten seconds before calling Jimmy.

“Why am I getting drone codes,” he says. “I don’t know shit about those and there’s none out here anyway.”

He wishes there was at least one, though. The smoking blimp in the water looks inclined to spawn something nasty.

“Oh yeahhh, I forgot to tell you. You got put in the system by accident because I had too many tabs open, but when I tried to take you back out the whole thing crashed so I just left you.” That explains fuck-all. “Hang on, lemme see…okay…this one hit somebody.”

“Thought they were were programmed to swerve,” the Knight says suddenly. He’s looking at the blimp, fiddling with his sidearms. “To avoid accidents.”

“Only if they see one of ours, boss*. Lemme make sure this isn’t a malfunction.”

“Hm.” There’s a few minutes of tapping before Jimmy busts out laughing. “Holy shit, hang on, this you gotta see.”

A few seconds later, Antoine’s phone dings.

The video’s not bad quality. The first few seconds are just a street the drone was moving through, and then.

And then.

One of the many, many rioters that stuck around tonight hops off the sidewalk. He gestures a bit–looks like he’s cursing it out–and turns around. Drops his pants. The camera zooms in on a hairy, looks-like-probably-crusty-god-why ass for a few seconds before the drone straight-up runs him over and keeps going.

Neat.

Antoine takes a drink of his coffee and is just wondering who raises people like that when the Knight says dryly, “Rogers.”

“Yessir?”

“What made you think I needed to see that in HD, literal inches from my face.”

On the other line, there’s the silence of dawning realization. Antoine, mid-swallow, can’t stop the laugh fast enough to avoid immediate choking. The swift whack between his shoulder blades is probably retaliation more than life-saving.

“I did not think that through,” Jimmy says. “Uh. Sorry, boss.”

The Knight sighs.

“So not a malfunction.”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Knight out.”

THE END

*No idea if this is true in-game, but we’ll say the Militia suits have chips that the drones can read from a set distance that identify them as ‘friendly’; we do see troops backed with drones, after all. (No idea about the general goons. The drones might just be programmed to recognize ‘Batman’ as an enemy.)