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LATE SPRING 2113 - 1:00 AM

I knew I was being followed...

Drone of some kind, judging from the faint buzzing sound of a nanomotor or two either spinning an axial prop or running a bugwing assembly...They both pretty much sounded the same to me...For the past hundred or so years, the night belonged to the drones, with their infrared and UV vision all-seeing camera eyes trained everywhere, their sensitive microphone ears that could be selectively adjusted to penetrate through solid walls or steel like a pin through a balloon, and of course...delivering whatever payload they were equipped to carry, be it explosive, poison darts or gas, or special stun or kill lasers...Technology had replaced the gumshoe, or assassin, however you wanted to put it......A few smiling faces in the DC hierarchy way back when figured we all needed saving from ourselves, and decided our private lives weren't going to be that private anymore...It was the Orwellian Nightmare come true...Well, sort of...

I was about 15 feet away from the front of my building when the mini mechanoid came into view and hovered right in front of me...a Dragonett DXS-250, standard police-issue surveillance hardware, probably on routine patrol, with its piercing green camera eyes and bugwing propulsion buzzing at a visible blur...They looked almost like the real thing...but they weren't...I should be thankful that it was just a police drone, equipped with just a stun laser, and not the more complex units the crime bosses, drug dealers, federal agents, corrupt officials, and other kill-happy nutcases used that delivered a more deadly method of enforcement...

Still, it was a police drone, with an on-duty patrol officer somewhere on the remote end...Avoiding or dodging it meant an immediate dispatch of a manned sky cruiser that would be on me in minutes, and the cops DID carry kill blasters...So I waited for an introduction...

"Good evening, citizen...What are you doing past curfew?"

"I'm headed home...What are you doing?"

"Arresting you...THAT'S what I'm doing!" the remote cop stated, "Now be a good boy and let me scan your ID tag..."

I pulled the tag out and let the drone hover over and laser scan it..."Bashett, Benjamin A," I said. "ID number AR-20554-31...I have a valid curfew extension designation on file..."

"Bashett? You mean 'Scoop' Bashett, muck reporter for the Times, at the 'Eye on Artopolis' desk? Nice to meet you!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." I responded, "But I'm not 'scooping' jack right now...I got booted over to Sports Desk..."

"Yeah, we heard about that...Whadd'ya do? Catch some councilman off-guard in the red-light district? HA HA HA HA HA!"

"Nahh...I got too close to a shady interstellar commodities broker and found out the hard way the SOB had some pull...I don't want to talk about it...Can we get this over with?"

"Sure, sure...Don't have a cow...OK, scanned and verified. You're good...You coming back from the ball park? I heard the Bohemians lost again..."

"Yeah...So I noticed..."

The drone stopped scanning and started to pull away, "All right, Scoop...I'm out of here...Let us know when you get back to mudslinging and muck raking again...Your replacement O'Connor - just ain't cuttin' it! He's too sterile...Why, my grandmother makes the people he spotlights look like a Sunday afternoon church social! We need a nice juicy story! Good night...Have a better one!"

As the drone flew off, I realized it was all BS...They knew who I was! They just wanted to know how long I was going to be in the doghouse...this time, anyway - SHEESH!

...Just a little mechanized doodle, for a change...