Predators

Predators

        Bombs rained down on the forested mountainside, shattering the early spring morning. Levi heard shouts around him, and checked to make sure his squad mates were still with him.

        “Keep going!” He heard one yell, gesturing to a thicket of bushes around a downed redwood ahead. Levi sprinted over and dove behind the log as the crackle of gunfire rang out.

        His squad mates returned fire, and sought shelter where they could. Many of the trees were too skinny to hide from the bullets, but it didn’t matter to Levi’s redheaded sergeant, who was blown apart by a mortar shell. Tearing his eyes away, Levi listened for where the sound of the enemy's fire was coming from.

        The artillery had stopped: the enemy must be advancing. Levi’s squad mates looked at each other, prepping themselves for the coming onslaught. Sure enough, the silence was pierced by dozens of bullets ripping into the ground and bouncing off rocks around him.

        Levi rolled onto his side, with his head and body below the log. He grabbed a grenade as his squad mates returned fire. Levi yanked the pin and heaved it up and ahead. But like an amateur golfer, Levi didn’t consider the tree branches in front of and above him. He watched in horror as the grenade ricocheted directly off a branch and back six feet behind him, leaving Levi and his squad mates just enough time to curse before the concussion tossed them into the air. 

        Levi kept rising, acquiring an out-of-body view of the fight. Most of his corpse was against the log, his lower torso missing in action. Next to him were two dead squad mates, each looking rather peeved. Levi felt himself lifting even more, and soon had a bird’s eye view of the enemy advancing against the remnants of his squad, who they made short work of.

        “Nice throw, stupid,” he heard one of his dead teammates say.

        Levi was about to respond, but a recurring buzzing diverted his attention. The forest scene before him was replaced by the walls of his cubicle, and translucent words streaked across his vision as his eyes were dragged to a clock.

        “Damn,” Levi said. “Gotta go guys, happy hunting.”

        Break time was over, and Levi doubted that his teammates would be disappointed by his absence in the coming rounds. His PlayVision 3 could wait.

        “Keeping your senses sharp during break, eh Levi?”

        Levi suppressed his angry nausea. “Yes, sir.”

        His boss laughed. “Three years into the job, and you still can’t call me Ted? You’re too young to be old fashioned.”

        “Whatever you say, ass nugget,” Levi thought, still keeping his back to his boss. Three years into any job robs a man of his youth.

        “Anyway,” Ted began after chuckling at his own wit, “I’m assigning you district six in sector seven.”

        “I thought I was patrolling up the Limpopo River?”

        Thanks to his boss’s pseudo-tribal earrings, Levi heard the jingle-jang of his boss shaking his head. “Nah, we got activity up north, and since Claire called in sick today, I’m giving you a chance to prove what you got. Don’t let the company, or the elephants, down.”

        Heartbeat. Heartbeat.

        “But I’m sure you’ll do fine!” With a back slap, his boss was off to ruin someone else’s day.

        Levi’s felt his hands sweating. For the past three years, Levi hunted poachers for Bristol & Johnson. They hired him to man a Predator Drone after it was discovered that common genetic defects in humans could be repaired with genetic compounds found in animal excrement. 

        Certain animals did certain things. For example, an enzyme in rhino dung cured erectile dysfunction (“Charge like Rhino”), and elephant dung cured male pattern baldness. White leopard dung could cure obesity (just spread a little over any meal), and panda dung cured PMS. Lion dung cured anxiety, whale shit kept faces wrinkle-free.

        The reason it took so long to discover the medicinal benefit of wild animal dung is because nobody had bothered to check. The only caveat is that the animal had to be wild, since the struggle to survive activated and enhanced key enzymes. Thus, major corporations like his own bought out huge swaths of wildlife preserves, offering resources for the right to remove an agreed upon excrement from their land.

        The game preserves that participated saw dramatic boosts of their endangered species populations. The corporations maintained the parks, claiming that wildlife was too important to be left up to nature. 

        After all, poachers were only one threat facing their “assets.” The more dire threat was a loss of habitat, and a degrading of what little space they had left. Thus the less dramatic but more labor intensive intervention was agricultural upkeep. By using water and fertilizer dispersals, the average vegetation output per acre multiplied, meaning less land could support more animals. The gardening cost more than hunting for poachers, but had the effect of provide jobs for the locals, who otherwise might have to resort to poaching for lack of a better economic alternative.

        To the media, the most dramatic effect was a culling of the area’s main predator: man. Corporations deployed security teams and large numbers of UAV’s to protect their “assets.” Since endangered species were now the gooses that laid the golden turds, serious money was invested into their protection. With serious money comes serious intent.

        It was open season on poachers, and without any time to adapt, they fell in droves against their new predator. The poachers now had an unfair advantage arrayed against them, and there would be zero mercy from the sky. Levi would be holding the cutting edge in the fight against illegal animal harvesting. 

        The savanna itself was dark, save for whatever the pale moonlight lit up. Of course, with all the UAV’s sensors, it didn’t matter to Levi what time it was. But it mattered to poachers, since like nightmares, poachers are nocturnal, and ply their terrible trade during full moons. The darkness masks their villainy, while the moon provides just enough light to doom their prey. The moonlight also saves the poachers the need of headlights, which invite detection. The poachers used night vision goggles, technology based upon the same basics that allow nocturnal predators to prey.

        Levi had began his career flying UAV’s during the African daytime (previously his night time), searching for traps set up by poachers during the night. If the trap had caught bait, it was reported to corporate command, which would keep a UAV around the area, lurking above eyesight, waiting to pounce when the poachers returned. Indeed, the best way to spring a trap is to use your enemy’s trap against it.

        If, on the other hand, the magnetic resonance scanners picked up a trap before it was sprung, a field team would be dispatched to deactivate it and scrutinize it for evidence. In this regard, Levi would at any time be in control of nearly twenty UAV’s at a time, each scanning for anomalies.

        It’s not like Levi hated his job; there were worse things than sitting in an air-conditioned office, remote controlling UAV’s patrolling the skies of Africa to save endangered species. Beats telemarketing.

        It was just his supervisor. No matter how much his boss tried to motivate Levi and his coworkers, the majority of their job was out of their hands. The UAV’s would either notice something, or not. Even still, his boss’s constant and gentle assault had heightened Levi’s hunger for success, since each success kept his supervisor from interfering. Like most middle-management, his boss was robust in encouraging newbies and under-performers, but embraced an enlightened isolation towards successful employees.

        With his supervisor’s departure, Levi activated his retinal interface, and sixteen screens from sixteen different UAV’s popped up like the world seen from a fly’s eye. Levi only had to think about one for UAV his interface to zoom in and display all relevant information. Levi could handle so many UAV’s at a time since they were on autopilot, crisscrossing the savannah on preprogrammed routes.

        It was with this in mind that Levi noticed one of his UAV’s go red with interest. He flicked his attention that way, and instantly it filled his vision, with the stats and information in this periphery. Within seconds, Levi saw that the UAV’s had detected a small convoy of three humvees driving at high speeds off the road. It didn’t take long for Levi to recognize the party as poachers, since tourists never ventured off roads at night, let alone without headlights on.

        Standard corporate operating procedure demanded at least two UAV’s for every action, so Levi sent a nearby UAV to assist. This procedure was because cloud cover forced the UAV’s far lower than their ceiling allowed them to soar, and poachers had taken to firing on any UAV they spotted. Without a backup UAV in the vicinity, some poachers had swatted down one UAV en route to a kill, then gotten away without their comeuppance.

        Thus, the nearest UAV was redirected towards Levi’s main position, but it would take twelve minutes to arrive. So he waited, stalking his enemy. The UAV’s sensors revealed that the poachers were still several miles away from any likely targets, and a failed engagement without backup could mean losing the poachers, and his job. Once the second UAV was in range, it’d be taken over by another operator. That’s when the banter and shit talking would begin.

        “Just keep an eye on them until I get there to clean things up,” Miguel said from the next cubicle.

        “You better haul ass, if they get within a klick of that sleeping rhino and her calf, I’m gonna send them straight to hell, and you’ll be back to patrol duty.”

        “Fat chance,” Miguel countered. “Does your UAV has enough missiles to compensate for your shitty aim?”

        The hummers kept driving, and Levi’s supervisor was on the other side of the office, probably instructing a rookie on how to catalogue an anomaly.

        “Whatever, at least I didn’t get shot down by a bunch of wannabe mercenaries twice in two months.”

        “Fuck you, Levi, they brought that helicopter outta nowhere.”

        “Learn your interface better, maybe it won’t surprise you next time.”

        The hummers kept driving southbound.

        “I guess if my girlfriend put out as little as yours does, I’d master my job as well.”

        Levi sipped his Green Dragon energy drink. “Don’t worry about my girlfriend not putting out, your mom more than makes up the difference.”

        The hummers slowed their pace. In fact, one was now branching out, and then a second at an opposite angle. Soon, the three had made a triangle a hundred meters apart from each other, and then stopped.

        “What are they doing?” Levi asked as he slowed his UAV down to compensate for their sudden change.

        Miguel checked his radar and display. “Looks like they’re about to—”

        A flash lit up the night’s ground, and sirens erupted in Levi’s head as he engaged easy evasive maneuvers. One of the bandits had launched a surface to air missile at him. Levi’s distracted piloting was bailed out by what was no doubt a premature firing.

        Levi rose above the clouds to deploy his countermeasures, with more than enough time for them to be effective. Levi wished he had advanced audio sensors on board to listen into the eager shooter’s berating. Indeed, the shooter had just alerted Levi to the poachers knowing Levi was there, and wasted a perfectly good missile doing it. If they wanted to shoot down Levi, they would’ve fired multiple missiles at the same time. It was like springing a trap while the prey was still looking at the trap.

        Levi deployed his countermeasures and the missile exploded over the savannah. Levi checked his sensors, which couldn’t penetrate the clouds but used the last data entries to project that the fragments from the exploding missile wouldn’t injure any major animal.

        “That was stupid of them,” Miguel said. “They’re fucked now.”

        When Levi plunged his UAV back beneath the clouds, he noticed that the hummers had assumed a different position, this time headed south of where they had been, but in the same triangle formation. They were headed away from where the UAV reinforcements were coming from, but luckily, also away from where any significant mammal was.

        “Hurry up, I can’t wait forever on your bum ass.”

        Miguel responded by engaging his afterburners, doubling his speed in a matter of moments. “Hold on, man, you know I haven’t had a kill in weeks. Let me get one of these and I won’t tell Samantha about the Super Bowl party.”

        Levi reddened. “That was months ago, statue of limitations.”

        “It’s statute of limitations, dumbass. And you’re right, I’m sure Samantha won’t care that you were necking with my fiancé's sister since enough time has passed.”

        Levi muttered something unprintable. The incident in question was a Super Bowl party that got out of hand. Well, the game got out of hand, since it only took a quarter before Miguel’s Mexico City Titans were beating up Levi’s Los Angeles Outlaws. Samantha was out of town for a business conference, which left Levi free to drink heavily, which he did, especially since his team was getting obliterated by his best friend’s team.

        One tequila slammer lead to another, which led to a vague amount more, and the next thing Levi remembered was spending the fourth quarter making out with a very blonde and very rambunctious sister of Miguel’s fiancé.

        But that was an isolated incident; well, except for the pictures she had sent him. In his drunken stupor, Levi had shared his neural transmitter’s IB address, so in the months since the party, she had bombarded him with picture after picture, which weren’t nearly as distracting as the Valentine’s video she sent over.

        Luckily these were all sent to Levi’s head, so there was no way for his girlfriend to find them. Indeed, even with all the technology and innovation, a man’s mind was still his last refuge. But all the technology in the world mattered little compared to word of mouth, which in the course of history had wrought more destruction than any mechanical device.

        With that in mind, Levi slowed his UAV, eager to let Miguel have a shot. Besides, the targets would remain in his sights long enough not to escape.

        “You can’t use that ever again,” Levi said.

        “Yes I can, but it’d be poor form not to wait at least a month.”

        Levi hated that he could practically hear his friend’s grin.

        Just as Miguel was coming within combat range, a ping stole both their attention. Regional sensors detected a much larger target cutting quickly across Levi and Miguel’s north: a poaching helicopter had filled the void left by Miguel’s diverted UAV.

        “You seeing what I’m—” Levi began.

        “Wo, hot bogie, flying fast through sector 9. Disengaging to pursue.”

        “Belay that,” Levi barked, the force of which stunned both men into silence. The two friends were equal in rank, and thus an order was unprecedented between them. “Stay on the southern targets.”

        Levi could feel Miguel was about to object.

        “You’ve already burnt your afterburners, you can’t possibly make it back in time.”

        Miguel saw the truth in his friend’s argument, and continued on his course while Levi turned his UAV 180 degrees and built up speed. He was lucky that he had slowed down already, otherwise he would’ve lost even more time slowing down before executing the turn.

        Once headed in the right direction, Levi pushed ahead full throttle, waiting impatiently for his UAV to hit top throttle before engaging his afterburners. Sensing Levi’s intentions, the computer plotted an intercept course. Levi relinquished control as the computer could execute the maneuvers faster than he could. Even three years into this, pride still nipped at Levi as he ceded critical functions to a computer. But with the stakes so high, there was little margin of error and even less room for ego.

        Southward, the hummers split in different directions, meaning one or two might get away. But at least one of them was doomed, and Miguel zeroed in for the kill. Once the hummer found a relatively flat straight away, the occupants engaged a crude auto pilot to drive fast and straight while the occupants bailed out.

        “Gotcha, la puta,” Miguel said as his missile zoomed in towards its destiny. In this case, the missile struck the vehicle several hundred meters after the passengers bailed. “Bam!”

        Miguel leaned back for a high five. He was left hanging.

        “Changing course for nearest target,” he said.

        For Levi, the situation was simple: he had a lot of ground to make up, and when he finally hit his maximum normal velocity, he engaged his afterburners, which flung him across the sky as swift as justice. Unfortunately, he was also as late as justice. It would take eight minutes to reach—

        And just like that, it was gone. The blip that indicated a hostile helicopter blinked off the radar, which meant one of two things: it had dropped to fly at treetop level, which in the savanna wasn’t high up at all; or, it had landed. Levi figured it would be the former, since nobody important enough to use a helicopter could be dumb enough to land at the spot of last radar contact. Before he could blink, Levi’s neural interface displayed the helicopter’s possible range of trajectories based upon its last known heading. Levi immediately dismissed these as unlikely. Judging by their previous hummer tactic, this group used non-linear thinking.

        Levi used his instincts. Shifting his gaze to a spot on the map, Levi engaged autopilot to get him there as quickly as possible. Once his afterburner exhausted itself, the UAV slowed, allowing its sensors to function normally. Moments later, data streamed into Levi’s consciousness indicating which direction the assailants might be. Then he saw it: his infrared detected three blips directly northward, just inside its range. The dots weren’t moving, and Levi could guess why. Within a minute, his fears were confirmed: three elephants were slumped on the ground, motionless and limp, three heaps of horror.

        “Mother of God,” Miguel said, seeing the carnage via Levi’s sensors.

        Stemming a nauseous surge in his stomach, Levi engaged his UAV’s cameras to photograph the crime scene, then took measure of the possible escape routes. With reinforcements coming in from the north, and him from the south, that left westward deeper into the park, or eastward towards the park’s boundaries, where Levi and his company’s jurisdiction ended. Indeed, bureaucracy benefits the lazy and the crooked over the honest and hardworking.

        Levi locked his sights onto the closest border point, and engaged full throttle.

        “Holy shit, man, you might be in luck,” Miguel pointed out.

        Fortune shined brighter than the moonlight. The cloud cover had broken up to the east, and the wind would be at Levi’s back. The cloud break meant Levi could raise altitude, granting his sensors a greater degree of coverage.

        “We’ll find the bastards,” Miguel said before Levi’s UAV found the bastards.

        “Bandits, eastward headed low and fast.” To Levi’s exhilaration, the poachers were still at least ten minutes from the border, while he was three minutes from combat range. Soon, the best of technology would be eliminating the worst of humanity.

        In the meantime, Levi reflected on the ethics, a reflection that wasn’t new or long, but always necessary. He was, after all, about to take human life. If he didn’t constantly critique the ethics of this action, he would become complacent and comfortable in the killings, which would make him a murderer instead of a hunter. And that was the distinction, a razor thin but imperative line separating Levi from his targets. 

        An argument could be made (and always was by any captured poacher) that they were doing this out of necessity: poaching was their job, and if they didn’t bag trophies, they and their families would starve. But no honest hunter kills five tons of flesh without taking a pound of meat. And the old “if I could find a better job, I would” argument held no merit for Levi, since he knew his own corporation was always on the lookout for local talent from lads who knew the land and could handle a rifle.

        Even if the “I’m just trying to make a living” argument were valid, then wasn’t Levi justified in his actions? His own livelihood depended on how well he did his job, and thus, eliminating poachers was a necessity. And while one might point to the difference between killing a person and a mere animal, it should be noted that many poachers have shot at and killed park staff. Some have even set up traps, drawing in patrols before slaughtering them wholesale.

        Which poses another difference: no elephant or rhino had ever devised a trap to kill poachers, and the firepower gulf between animals and poachers was far greater than the advantage the guards held over the criminals.

        And it might be controversial to refer to suspects as criminals without a trial, but the cherished notion that everyone is innocent until proven guilty makes no functional sense in the wild. In the savanna, there is only the rule of nature, and power makes fact. What few manmade rules there are, the poachers break. Out there in the middle of the night, the burden of proof lies with the people piloting an attack helicopter, or driving a military style hummer full speed away from a scene of abject carnage. Indeed, few civilians use shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in innocent self-defense.

        Standard corporate operating procedure dictates that when possible, assailants are to be apprehended, not obliterated, but that was up to an operator’s discretion. And you know what? The elephants and rhinos don’t get a trial, they don’t have the opportunity of a limitless appeals system. Why should the poachers? They had plenty of opportunities to consider their actions, and were only out tonight because they hadn’t been caught sooner.

        But every prey has its day. Levi’s attack crosshairs pinged. He was now within operational, if not optimum, weapons range. Levi gripped his joystick, perspiration making it slick.

        Heartbeat, breath. Heartbeat, breath.

        “You gonna take the shot, or are you waiting for me to get there?”

        “I don’t want to miss,” Levi said, since a miss would alert the poachers to his presence. And a dodging prey is far more elusive than one headed in a straight line, especially when the prey is piloting a military-grade attack helicopter. Besides, a hit, right now, from this height, they’d never see it coming or going, which to Levi was a shame, since savages like these deserved to see judgment coming.

        Levi wondered, as he always did before a kill, whether or not his target could feel it coming. Whether they could sense his missiles locking on, whether they could sense that they’re being watched. They say that the closest thing to a sixth sense man has is the feeling of being watched. And they were being watched, from 12,000 miles away via a drone 12,000 feet away.

        Levi hoped the back of their necks tingled with an unknown anticipation.

        He could see the helicopter, twice in fact: first crawling along his radar, then with his video, zoomed in and using the moon’s light to illuminate the fleeing copter. Now his reticle flashed pretty green, meaning he was within optimal range.

        “You gonna take the shot, or what?” Miguel asked nervously. “They’re getting close to the border, you’ll have to disengage soon.”

        “Hold on,” Levi said. Indeed, man hath no shelter from time or judgment.

        “You can’t wait for me man, I’m not gonna make it in time.”

        The target was less than two minutes from the border. Something about that thrilled Levi. The poachers surely knew how close they were to getting away, but they hadn’t a clue how close they were to death. Levi wondered if the elephants suspected anything before their deaths, if they had felt themselves being watched, or if they had been shot in their sleep, the rudest of awakenings before the longest of slumbers. If Levi took the shot now, the poachers’s death would be swift. He doubted that the elephants’ death had been swift.

        So he held off. Just the same, the helicopter knew not of his presence, otherwise it would engage in a zig-zag flight pattern to throw off his targeting. That they weren’t already flying such a precautionary maneuver showed how eager they were to cross the border, which was now under a minute away.

        “What are you waiting for?” Miguel demanded, loud enough to draw the attention of their manager.

        Levi couldn’t express his answer in words, but his UAV knew what to do. It locked on target at the spot of Levi’s choosing. A sweat bead fell down from his temple, his hands clammy. He saw in his periphery his manager walking towards him.

        “Just few more seconds,” he thought, and then squeezed his joystick. It was away, and within seconds the helicopter was breaking to its right, desperate to shake the missile. But the missile would not be shook, and it descended like a meteor from the heavens sent to shatter and smite. In the moments before the impact, Levi wondered if the poachers were right with Jesus, since Levi himself had never felt closer to God.

        The missile struck the helicopter’s tail with a flash that blinded Levi’s visual sensors. The computer used the time to project the helicopter’s likely position in the event of a miss. As he waited for the dust to clear, Levi noticed that there was a lot more dust, indicating that a crash occurred.

        “Yeee-haaa!” Miguel squealed. Levi had pounced, and now his prey was immobile. Standard corporate operating procedure dictated that he should stick around to check for survivors, which he did.

        “Holy shit, you really toasted those assholes, didn’t you?”

        Levi kept silent, still in hunt mode. He’d aimed at the tail for a reason.

        Within a minute, Levi’s sensors detected multiple silhouettes crawling away from the wreckage, moving slower than any human would usually move. His sensors also detected a pack of hyenas between the downed helicopter and the border. They were trotting towards the wreckage, intrigued by the noise.

        Nature was on the prowl, and the poachers were trespassing against more than the corporation at the moment. Nature would have final say, and once again, the company’s investment would be secure.