Robots and Drones

No, the storm didn’t catch me on the interstate. Unawares, yes. Unprepared, maybe. But I’m home. We won’t be boarding up windows and hitting the highway under a mandatory evacuation. I would have noticed a tornado or hurricane warning. But this wind. There will be tree arms scattered throughout the yard and up and down sidewalks. Pines, dogwoods, and great oaks will be toppled on every other block.

A walk to the main road told the tale of the nightmare that was. The carnage on Cedar Lane. The disaster on Aspen Drive. The train wreck behind Arbor Glen, literally. And Redwood Lane. I’d like to. But it’d be in my best interest not to venture up Redwood. The oak tree near the corner grabbed powerlines on the way down. I decided I could do without the scorching of an extra 240 volts.

And the way the water rushed like a waterfall on Redwood, no doubt a pipe burst. It’ll be ice by morning. And then Mockingbird Lane. There’s no 1313 on Mockingbird. The numbers don’t go that high. A new subdivision. Only a few homes built so far. The house at the end of the cul-de-sac looks a lot like the Munster’s home from the television show. The family’s Cane Corso could double as Eddie Munster’s pet, Spot.

When it’s all said and done it will be a county-wide disaster. And possibly state-wide. So far windows are blown in at schools. Small businesses in the square flooded. Roofs ripped off of factories. Word is it spawned a quick tornado. The storm, that is. Hail damage to new car lots.

Gale force winds delivered upper cuts. A right cross that buckles your knees. An elbow to the back of the head. Yeah. That’s the one we didn’t see coming. The forty year old 100 foot oak that we thought would stand forever toppled through the middle of the square, crushing a handful of businesses on top of the wind and water damage.

Allow me to start from the beginning. It was a dark and stormy night. Cliché? My sentiments exactly. But that’s how the evening started. The heavy rain came suddenly landing like an invading army pelting the windows and the deck. Then the power went out and a bolt of lightning turned the stormy night to day. The clap of thunder though a handful of seconds behind seemed like an eternity before it arrived. And our house shook so we felt it would be blown apart.

The wind picked up with every moment that passed. Before the sun went down it was 57 degrees and a light breeze blew leaves across the front yard and the driveway. The tops of the trees swayed. The wind, a haunting saxophone. It’s selection: Ray Charles, “Hard Times” .

The temperature dropped thirty degrees in fifty minutes. The last time it did this sleet, rain and snow made my ride home from work a nightmare. We slipped and slid in spite of the early warning and the salt being applied to the roads. There were so many people on the highways and backroads moving at, no, creeping along at, such a slow pace it would have taken three hours to travel my usual twenty minute trek. It hadn’t snowed in decades.

And so the clean up came. But it was different this time. With other clean ups you would see a dozen power trucks lining the road here and another dozen lining the road there. Somewhere else you’d see county workers removing the fallen trees and fixing a busted water main plus clearing debris from sewer openings to help the water run free and fast from the streets.

But this time around drones blazed up and down the streets above the tree line. And then more drones blazed through the wooded areas behind our homes and in the parks and also through the streets leading to the town square.

When I got to the area along the streets where debris was blocking the sewer or where large tree branches had fallen on wires or where the top half of trees had been snapped in half I found more drones.

Not like the small ones that were speeding around town above the treeline and under the treeline through the wooded areas, but drones the size of dump trucks with robots sawing the large branches. And robots sawing to completely separate the top of the trees that had been snapped like matchsticks, but hung perilously threatening to crush anyone that might pass underneath. My early morning run or midafternoon bike ride could end up causing me to lose more than just a cup of sweat and a handful of pounds.

As I continued assessing the carnage from the storm, I think, I’m open to change, or progression, if you will. Why not a handful of drones flying around to assess the situation. Almost everyone has them. The police, the delivery companies. And a park on a given day is filled with just as many drones as there are bicycles.

But when did the county, the power companies and the police department start making use of so many robots. There is not a human in sight. The worker in the bucket of the power company drone-truck. Robot. The workers clearing the sewer-grid. Robots.

The workers sawing the top of the trees that fell to the ground during the storm. Robots. The bulldozer and or bobcats grabbing loose debris floated three to five feet above the sidewalk and were and are operated by robots.

No sooner did I think well where’s the shredder or woodchipper did five more drone-trucks clear the treeline above me. Three descended into place behind the other equipment and hovered three feet above the pavement like the others.

Attached to one was the woodchipper. The other two drone trucks continued on. Likely to the park and the town square. These new arrivals weren’t from the county. There was no county logo on the sides of these drones nor on the uniforms of the robots I could see as they jumped to the ground.

Robots and drones. Machines Everywhere. Where are the human beings, the men, the women. Likely these robots are the first responders now. And the government has it set up so that human beings can be with their families and then come in and work with the robots and drones creating a more focused, stronger and more efficient task force.

I was so busy taking in the scene, I never noticed the robot officers that had moved on my position and were now standing behind me and next to me. “Sir, please move back down the street behind the barrier? We need to cordon off the parkway all the way through town,” stated the officer.

As I turned to walk toward the barrier, three enormous drones hovered near the end of the parkway that intersected with the street connecting the neighborhood in which I live. At first glance, I counted what looked to be twelve robot soldiers that emerged from the first large drone and maybe ten to twelve from the other two drones.

To protect and serve, I thought, as a container emerged from the rear drone with what looked like more than a dozen racked assault rifles. To protect and serve. I hope so, because this has the makings of an invasion.