Brad was in his basement man-cave, scoping the drone footage.
Sickly blue CRT flicks returned from the Wasp’s deeply primitive drone firmware.
It was a bird’s eye view situation. A peloton of soft geezers fizzed past on a tail-wind, lost focus, then returned to clarity as the sky-borne electric eye centred.
Brad adjusted settings, flicked through the bands.
The Outriders – state Gestapo, lycra-shod sentinels in light armour – rode the outskirts at sun-up, enforcing the Curfew. Silent, superannuated cops on thirty-K carbon fibre rockets.
The Yu variant had leaked to the mainland from the island state of Southern Arcadia and steadily encroached north, and here we were.
Federation at war. Eternal nightsticks. Infinite lockdown.
Vaccine supplies were decimated, meth labs requisitioned as last resorts.
Water supplies were looking average.
Food at a premium.
Thanks, hill-people.
A torn ember of sunrise, the horizon a smouldering rip of fire, briefly blinded the Wasp.
Brad recalibrated again, dropping a couple of spectrums.
Refocused.
There they were, glowing infra-red in leafy Yerwoong, average house price a lazy $2.4m.
First, the Garbo, swinging his truck’s arse-end into the bend as the pigs accelerated into a sharp left, maw gaping.
Then, a gleaming lethal filament licking across the screen, neck height.
A thick black tube, concertinaed, guzzled human fat from an expensive hotel’s trap on a monitor. A face, bloated and fatally aerated, gurned up from another. A hedge-trimmer bore down on exposed genitals, making blunt, bloody work. A beer keg full of fresh viscera briefly winked by on yet another.
Brad popped a No-Doze, chewed, tasting earthy upper.
His jaw locked as the peloton accelerated into their decapitations.
Six heads cascaded, thunkity thunk thunk thunk (thunk thunk), quick, clean and satisfying.
The Garbo made short work of it all – bodies into the crusher, bikes requisitioned.
A street sweeper, bringing up the rear, sorted the heads-errant situation.
Here’s what was happening.
The Revolt was on.
It was Brad’s day off – he was a delivery driver – which meant he worked a shift manning the drones.
The Yu variant – that’s Greek, by the way – had cast the Class diaspora into even more extreme relief. The haves had their Outriders protecting their largesse, the have-nots were merely fucked. Essential servitude was the order of the day, probably a death sentence, while the non-essentials wallowed.
Brad had a plan, though.
He could broadcast the Truth.
The Wasp just needed carbon fibre.
More antennae to throw the signal.
More Outriders, more pelotons.
The fat-trappers, the keg-haulers, the arborists and all of the other invisible laborers were out there, collecting.
Getting it done.
Doing the work.
Boosting the signal.
Brad tapped at the keyboard, offering coordinates to another Wasp, another cohort of workers in the Capital.
Parliament House.
He popped another No-Doze, tasted dirt, and hit send.
Time to do some actual work.