Drone Chase

by Pam Withers

  In the poachers’ warped minds, Stud Griz is too big to wrestle into a milking stall, and therefore needs to be shot and butchered for his valuable bits. For his paws, skull, hide, and gallbladder. I dare not launch Butterfly to film it happening, and lose my best spy as a result. There’s Skyliner, but his forte is flying at night or inside dark buildings. I may yet need him for those tasks.

  Even if I could film what’s coming, I’m sure I’d lose my stomach contents. And yet, while Oakley’s busy, this is my chance to sneak into the unguarded cannery and free Hank.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE MINUTE MY feet land on firm ground beneath the fir, I sprint downhill toward the bay, ducking under trees for cover from drone detection. Not that Oakley can dissect a bear and operate Yellow Drone at the same time, right? I roll under the barbed-wire fence near where it ends at the water — the place my binoculars saw the camouflage motorboat enter under the dock during the school trip.

  Wading between the pilings through the salt water — with floating bits of wood and an occasional dead fish bumping against my legs — I pull out my headlamp. Under the dock, I spot a ramp-and-trap-door entry into the warehouse. Though the trap door has a padlock, it doesn’t take me long to break it using the bolt cutters I liberated from Granddad’s part of the garage. I lift the trap door slowly and find myself in the giant warehouse, which smells as rotten as New York City during a summer garbage strike. Stacks of unused cans still await the fresh salmon that processors years ago would have packed, probably for a back-breaking number of hours per day. Now, the unused tins sit in corners like a museum display.

  Kneeling on the worn planks, I pause to listen, but hear only the lapping of waves beneath me, the whistle of the wind blowing along the roofline, and chirps from birds nesting in the eaves. Thanks to chinks in the wall, some missing planks, and the glassless window frames, it’s light enough for Butterfly to travel ahead of me, so I launch her and tiptoe a safe distance behind, turning her every which way on her travels to ensure there are no traps.

  She passes from the warehouse to a far corridor, flitting between half-rotted walls and under corrugated metal roofing so aged and rusty that I’m extra careful to keep her from touching it. A roosting pigeon dives, but I skillfully steer Butterfly away.

  When she reaches a closed door at the end of the hallway, I ease her down to rest on the doorstep and approach as silently as possible. Could this be the office? I pick up Butterfly and turn the doorknob. Not locked. The door hinges squeak just a little as I push it open an inch or two. The stench hits me first, enough to make me gag. Oily sweat, animal excrement, and the foul whiff of bodily infections only a vet could identify. Then I hear the sound of grunting and whining from a dark corner.

  Through the door crack, I decide I am indeed viewing the room with the desk and cages I saw through my goggles while on the precipice with Min-jun and Cole. It has the same plastic-covered hole in the roof, the plywood desk with a chair and tray of medical equipment, and two coolers. And yes, the shelf of cages holding captive figures.

  Entering the low-ceilinged room, the first thing I do is push up a corner of the plastic sheet over the roof hole and lift Butterfly onto the tin roof. She’s now out of sight, but still under my control. Quickly, I stash the remote in my backpack.

  Flicking on my headlamp and pinching my nostrils shut, I approach the dank, scary, putrid-smelling shelf, noting that the cages are locked, complicating my rescue of their occupants but also preventing them from springing out and mauling me. Nor are my lightweight bolt cutters going to get anywhere on the thick steel bars.

  Choked at this setback, I draw nearer, like an onlooker at an accident scene. Small bears are moaning in the cages, banging their heads against the bars, chewing on their own paws.

  I count: seven cages, four young bears. And there’s Hank! He still has the cast on his paw. The other three bears look older than him. They’re all in distressing states of deteriorating health, and all too large for the cages. They look starved and dehydrated, with missing teeth, stringy muscles, bald patches, and swollen limbs. Hairy arms and feet full of sores stick out from between the bars.

  Trays beneath the cages catch their urine and feces — and haven’t been emptied for a long time. Each bear has a plastic catheter stuck in its abdomen, most with rotting sores surrounding the wound. And there, as I noticed before, are the syringes, forceps, scalpels, and tubing sitting on the desktop beside the cages, as well as the muzzles hanging from hooks on the wall.

  I have to turn away to keep from vomiting, crying, and screaming all at the same time. What kind of inhuman being could do this to any animal?

  Hank is in a middle cage. I reach over to touch his limp, outstretched paw, my entire body contracting with sobs. He looks at me with hurt, glazed eyes. Though I know it’s way too heavy, I want to lift his cage and run with it down the corridor, back through the warehouse, down through the trap door, and all the way back to my base. But every cage is locked and super heavy, and it may be only seconds before Oakley reappears or Orion chugs to the site with a borrowed boat or motor. In fact, who knows whether more than the two of them are in on this operation? Besides, they’re probably on high alert, having swarmed one of my drones a short while ago.

  I search the desk and shelves frantically, looking for cage keys or Yellow Drone. I notice that the shelf holding the cages doesn’t quite meet the warped wall behind it. There’s a gap, a dark space surely full of poisonous spiders, rats, and spilled bear excrement. Oh, stop thinking the worst, Ray. When the bears start to whimper in response to footsteps moving down the corridor, I quickly judge it’s not large enough to hide me, but I can hide under the desk. I push my backpack, which is too big to fit under the desk with me, into the spider hole and crawl under the desk, then pull the chair in front of me, all but wetting myself in the process.

  “Was a messy job but you should see the size of the claws,” Oakley is saying in a lighthearted tone as he kicks the door open and strides through it. “What d’ya mean ya can’t make it? I’m not doin’ a double shift, ya lunk.”

  So he’s talking on a cellphone. Lucky for him there’s good enough reception here.

  “The outboard? What the hell? That’s worth, like, nothing! Why’d anyone bother? Well, borrow or steal one and get your ass over ’ere ’fore Chee shows up.”

  Chee? Who’s that?

  “I don’t care! Just do it, numbnuts!”

  There’s a little bleep, like he’s hung up on his brother.

  “Okay, creatures,” he says, and I hear the jingling of keys. “It’s not my turn, but you reekin’ douchebags are in for suppertime, followed by milkin’ hour. While my idiot brother sits on his ass.”

  It seems talking to animals isn’t just a vet thing.

  I’m all but holding my breath as I sit crunched up under the desk. Then I hear a sound more terrifying than the bears’ crying: the skittering of dog claws along the corridor. Chief comes bolting in, barking joyfully, like he knows it’s feeding time for him as well. And it takes the Doberman all of a split second to stick his large black nose under the chair and into my face and yelp excitedly at discovering my cringing, sweating, shaking body.

  I have a can of bear spray on my belt, but hell will freeze over before I ever use it on an innocent dog.

  Though bred to take down strangers, Chief doesn’t sink his teeth into me. I’m lucky. Then again, it’s not pure luck. He knows me. His tail is wagging enough to almost trip a shocked Oakley.

  I use that second to shove the chair into Chief ’s and Oakley’s legs, leap out of my cubby, and sprint toward the door. But Oakley’s long arm grabs me by the neck of my sweater, as Chief leaps about us.

  Even in nice neighbourhoods of New York City, you don’t grow up without learning some defence tactics for situations like this, and my knee goes straight for Oakley’s balls.

  “Arghhh!” He doubles over in agony.

  By then I’m out the door and putting boot tread to r
otting planks down the dark corridor and into the warehouse. I’m nearly to the trap door when some kind of noose drops over my head and yanks me to the ground, strangling me. I try to scream but can’t. My hands grab for my neck but the noose tightens, forcing me to lie still and silent. Next thing I know, Chief is licking my face.

  “You little prick. How’d ya get in ’ere? Thought you’d explore and then jist saunter out? You’re dead, little McLellan. Not going nowhere now.”

  I’m struggling to breathe. Is he going to kill me? How can he afford not to, now that I know what I know?

  “This ’ere’s called a capture pole,” he boasts, holding the end of the pole over me with his trigger finger on the spring-loaded wire that tightens the noose cable. “Great for nabbin’ cubs. Never used it on a brainless varmint ’fore. Hey, Chief, lay off. What kinda guard dog’re you, slobberin’ over ’im like that?”

  I say nothing, just kick my ankles as a signal of distress and point my fingers at the plastic-coated cable against my Adam’s apple.

  “Aha, we wanna breathe, do we? Well, I can loosen it if ya stand up and start marchin’ back to where I found ya.”

  I nod, a gurgling sound emerging as he returns some of my airway to me.

  Like a fish on the end of a pole, I rise. He grabs the bear spray off my belt, then frisks me and takes away my phone and bolt cutters. Fine. At least he missed the small bag of sedatives, and he doesn’t know about the stowed backpack.

  Guided by the choke ring, I move ahead of him down the corridor, Chief ’s tail batting against my knees. I’ve stuck one little finger under the noose in a vain attempt to save myself if he tightens it again. The bruise-ring that the capture pole has created smarts. In the office, Oakley leaves the door open behind us.

  “Lie down,” he orders, and I’m confused till I see Chief drop obediently to the floor.

  Then, one hand still firm on the capture pole, he pulls a ring of keys out of his jeans pocket, opens the largest empty cage, and delivers a swift kick to my butt.

  “No!” I shout with my recovered breath, but as he lifts the noose off me, I feel the rifle barrel resting against my back.

  “Get in, now!” he shouts.

  The cage he’s pushing me into is a poor fit for my frame. My neck is bent, my legs crossed, and I’m cramping up already. But he’s not going to shoot me if he’s putting me in a cage, right?

  The lock clicks, and his angry, glinting eyes meet mine. “We’ll decide later what ta do,” he mutters. He tosses the keys in the top desk drawer, slams it shut, and storms out of the room even as his fingers are tapping his phone.

  Who’s “we”? I wonder ominously. I glance sideways at my ursine companions and feel every nerve ending of their pain. The bars don’t allow any of us to move our bodies more than an inch in any direction.

  Judging from the sunlight moving across the skylight, I’m there for hours — most of the day. Despite the discomfort, the reek, and the moans and shuffling of the bears, I somehow manage to doze off a few times. When I wake and notice the sunlight is fading to dusk, desperation jerks me to full attention. Slowly, an idea forms, one I wish I’d thought of hours before.

  I find that with some wriggling, I can fit my arm between the bars at the back of the cage and lower my fingers to a loop on the backpack I tossed down the spider hole. I fumble in it for my remote controller, then gaze up to where Butterfly sits on the roof beside the flapping, plastic-sheeted skylight. She’s fully charged and can fly longer than her drone siblings. She should make it to Dorothy’s in less than forty-five minutes.

  “Fly away home,” I whisper. “Please.”

  The stench and unhappiness of the bears beside me fade as I concentrate on lifting Butterfly off the roof and directing her down the cannery property slope, over the water, and across the bay. I’ll slam her against Dorothy’s garage door, and Dorothy will know something’s up. She’ll look at the film. She’ll guess where I am. She’ll get help. Please, Butterfly, make it to Dorothy’s. Please, Dorothy, be there. I can’t stand to think about her not being there, or her not getting what my drone’s visit means: that I need help ASAP at the cannery.

  I hear Oakley shouting on the phone somewhere in the warehouse but can’t make out his words. Then I hear a louder shout, and Butterfly’s camera picks up Yellow Drone in hot pursuit, though Butterfly is surely barely visible from the cannery by now. Oakley — unless there’s another person involved — has spotted and is chasing her, but he doesn’t seem to assume it’s me at the controls. At least, he hasn’t hotfooted it back here to check on me. How could it be me, a captive in a cage? In his mind, it’s got to be whoever is hanging out at Campsite 78.

  Yellow Drone may be a bigger, badder UAV, but it’s not as manoeuvrable as my nymph. We feint and dodge one another as we fly, using up precious energy. We clear the bay and are over town now, zigzagging in crazy motion, would-be predator and prey. Yellow Drone, drunk on aggression, almost knocks against Butterfly once, but Butterfly manages to give it the slip. Still, my baby is going to lose her advantage any second. The fighting has sucked out too much of her battery power. She’s not going to make it to Dorothy’s unless her flight path returns to a straight line. That’s what Yellow Drone is waiting for, I know it. My joystick dances like crazy as Yellow Drone seems to move in for the kill.

  Just then, a swarm of mini-drones led by a larger one comes screaming toward both of us. This is how Butterfly is going to die? Ingloriously, only two blocks away from the Dawsons’ garage? Incapable of tapping on Dorothy’s door, or lowering herself into Dorothy’s tender palms? Who’s behind this bombardment, anyway? Orion in phone coordination with his brother?

  The enemy formation zooms in on Yellow Drone, not Butterfly. The mini-drones scream through the air at it, whirl around it like a tornado, and force it to the ground. On her last dregs of battery power, Butterfly lands in a yard a few houses away from Dorothy’s place. But, astonishingly, the leader of the mystery fleet detaches from that group and hovers over her protectively while its minions continue to harass Yellow Drone. Suddenly, I recognize the leader. It’s Dorothy’s custom-made cherry-red drone, the one Butterfly duelled with on our first meetup!

  My view of the scene now cuts out. Butterfly goes to sleep there among the dewy blades of grass in an unknown backyard, guarded by her surprise angel. I’m unable to see what must be occurring next: Dorothy’s pink running shoes leaping over the fence and scooping up Butterfly, while her crazy dad, general of the mini-drone squadron, captures Yellow Drone before Yellow Drone’s operator can recover that pricey pursuer. Mr. Dawson, original creator and seller of Yellow Drone, taking re-possession for its bad behaviour.

  From within my cage, my chest fills with hope, and with pride in Dorothy, but the sound of heavy boots stomping down the corridor toward me makes my heart slam against my ribs again. I drop my controller and backpack down the spider hole as fast as I can.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “MR. KIM!” I shout in relief as he bursts through the door. “Help me, please! Oakley Logan locked me in here. He might come back any minute. And these bears —”

  I choke on my words as he glares at me from the centre of the room, hands on his hips. “How dare you come here! We try warn you. Mess your workshop, make bears come to your campsite. Your grandfather say you city kid big scared of bears. But you no listen to warnings and come here now. Is bad, bad.” He wrings his hands and shakes his head, jowls flapping.

  “Mr. Kim?” My stomach clenches into a tight ball.

  “These bears have special medicine. Keep Min-jun healthy. Keep your grandfather alive.”

  “What? No, they don’t! That’s bull!”

  My mind is flying tight corners around my memory. I once heard that kimchee is an insulting name for Koreans, so does that mean Mr. Kim is Chee? And he’s working with the Logan brothers? I recall the day he stared at me when I set up an IV in the clinic and how casually he reached for a muzzle to put on the retriever. And the time I ove
rheard Mr. Dawson and him arguing in the Dawsons’ garage. Delivering dumplings? Maybe. And perhaps negotiating to buy more drones to guard the cannery property.

  Does Min-jun know what his father is up to? I bet he didn’t before that day he, Cole, and I were on the cliff ’s edge, when he had a seizure and smashed my camera. Min-jun saw something that upset him, but I don’t know what. It stressed him out, brought on the seizure. But I doubt he ruined the camera on purpose, or even remembers doing it.

  Min-jun said his dad had upped the dosage. Of bear bile, I now know.

  So, his father has been giving him bear bile in some form — pills, tea, whatever — rather than prescription drugs, thinking it’s preventing seizures.

  “Who’s the boss, you or the Logan brothers?” I ask Mr. Kim through gritted teeth, my palms wrapped around the bars of my cage.

  “Oakley and Orion work for big boss in China. I help for medicine.”

  “The Logan brothers dropped salmon in our campsite by drone?”

  “Yes,” he says with a grim smile. “Steal boat motor?” he demands.

  “Maybe,” I toss back, no longer feeling guilty about that.

  “But is okay that Orion late to extract, because we have you,” Mr. Kim declares, eyes on the bears like he’s impatient to collect his allotment of the bile. “Vet who can do IV.”

  I turn to look at Hank and his sad buddies, quivering in their overtight prison cells, infections leaking pus where a butcher of a person has pushed tubes into them.

  “Hank’s not even old enough to be a bile bear. They’re supposed to be three and up. You’re killing them,” I spit out.

  “No, I save Min-jun and your grandfather,” he says calmly, confidently.

  He pulls the ring of keys out of the desk drawer and unlocks my cage. I want to dash past him and escape, but his fingers rest on my bruised neck. He eyes the capture pole beside us. “Sorry, Ray.”