by Elin Peer
“You don’t?” Disappointment dripped from Tristan’s voice.
“No. Biomimicry is admiration for the perfection of nature. What do you want to imitate? Give me your top five features.”
Tristan counted on his fingers. “I want it to be silent, fast, energy efficient, flexible, and solid.”
I tapped my upper lip, thinking. “We already talked about the fuel, so let’s make a shape that causes as little air resistance as possible. If we can get this bad boy to soar it would be perfect, wouldn’t it?”
“Soaring is nice, but people have places to go. Like work.” Tristan took another bite of his pie, and his upbringing in the Motherlands showed when he covered his mouth with his hand when he spoke while chewing. “It has to have some speed as well.”
“Speed is your specialty. I trust you can do some magic there.”
“Right, but racing drones aren’t built to accommodate up to forty or fifty people.”
Twirling a lock of my hair and thinking hard I sat for a while going over options in my head while listening to Tristan’s challenges with his design.
“The Adélie penguin.”
“The what?”
“The Adélie penguin.”
Tristan scratched his head. “We’re talking aerodynamics here, Shelly. Penguins don’t fly.”
I leaned forward. “That’s right. But they swim and slide with perfection. It could give you the angle for your bottom.”
“Penguins are so fascinating with their white and black colors.” Tristan frowned. “If nature is such a genius, how come they have white and black colors when they live on ice? You would think they would be all white so they could camouflage themselves against ice to avoid predators.”
“That’s a good point.” I tapped at my lip. “There must be a logical explanation.”
“It doesn’t matter, Shelly. It was just an observation. You know, because I’m so sharp.” Tristan chuckled, but I wasn’t listening to him. My mind was digging through everything I ever read about penguins.
“The Adélie penguins don’t have many predators on land. They forage their food in the ocean, and the black color on their backs will blend in with the depths when viewed from above, while the white front will keep them from standing out against the bright sea surface when seals or other predators approach from below.”
“Huh. Yes, that makes sense. So, you want me to use their shape for the bottom of the drone?”
Another thought occurred and I grabbed Tristan’s forearm. “The kingfisher!” Excitement filled me from within. It was perfect.
“The kingfisher?”
“Yes, please tell me that you’ve learned about the kingfisher in school.”
“Ehhm,” Tristan scratched his neck. “If we did, I don’t remember it.”
“You can’t learn about aerodynamics and not study the kingfisher.” I pulled out images on my wristband, turning them around in the air, to see the bird from different angles. “The Adélie penguin is a torpedo in the water while the kingfisher dives from the sky into the water to catch fish. It goes down so fast and with such precision that it hardly leaves a ripple when it breaks the surface of the water. Notice the beak – see how sharp it is – and the way the bird’s whole head is like an arrow?”
“Uh-huh.” Tristan shifted in his chair, his eyes blinking as if taking pictures to memorize it. “Show me.”
I found clips of the bird diving.
“Wow, I see what you mean.”
“If you want silent and energy-efficient, you’ll need the minimum of air resistance. This is nature’s recipe. You should imitate this shape.”
“But a drone can’t be shaped like that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“I don’t think it would look good. Drones aren’t rockets or birds; they’re not supposed to have pointy fronts.”
I got up, “Do as you want. It’s your assignment, Tristan. If you want to adopt a set of limitations from how you think a drone is supposed to look like, then your job is easy. Just make another copy of drones from the past four centuries and give it a different color.”
“Shelly, come on. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying there are rules in the field of aerodynamics that you’re not aware of. I studied this, remember?”
I scoffed a little. “If you want to tell me that any of the drones that man has created are superior in aerodynamics compared to the kingfisher and other birds, then I have to question what they taught you in school.”
“Maybe I’m just not visionary enough to see how you could implement it into a design that’s useable.” Tristan stood up too, handing me a pencil. “Please, Shelly, help me out.”
I sighed and took the pencil. “How about if you do like this…” I’d never been good at drawing and was frustrated that the image in my head didn’t transfer well to paper. In the background Nmen at the bar were growing louder and rowdier.
“You could scale it depending on the size needed. I suggest you do different versions of size and then combine them whenever you need to transport a large number of people at events. Otherwise you’ll end up with oversized drones that fly around half empty or sit on the ground most of the time. Consider programming the drones to fly in formation, like real birds do. It will save energy with less wind resistance. Trust me, birds have perfected the formation for millennia.
Tristan and I sat in a bubble of ideas and creation, ignoring the drunken people at the bar. Only when the bar-bots began blinking the ceiling light did we look up.
“Shit.” Tristan swore softly and I noticed that others were getting up from their seats.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, still doodling on one of my ideas.
“They’ve called the police. Probably because someone is drunk and threatening. The light is a signal for people to get out.”
“Oh.” I spotted the group of Nmen arguing by the bar. “Maybe they need help reconciling. Should we offer to help?”
“No!” Tristan was already up, his hands folding the paper with hurried movements. Taking the hint, I finished my drink in a long slurp.
“We should mind our own business and get out of here.” His eyes darted between the men at the bar and me. “Come on, Shelly, hurry.”
We were on our way out when a police squad of two fully armed officers with four police-bots came rushing in. To avoid being trampled, we backed inside again and that’s when the chaos began. The unruly group of Nmen were not open to leaving their drinks, and when the police-bot moved too close, warning the group to calm down or suffer arrest, a large angry-looking guy smashed a glass of beer into the bot, shouting, “Leave me the fuck alone.”
Tristan covered me with his body, pushing me against the wall when things began flying through the air.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered and protected his face with his hands when a steak knife came flying in our direction.
“We have to get out of here,” I yelled in the noisy chaos and pulled at his shirt to get him to move with me toward the door again. Still covering our heads, we made it to the exit, where people were pushing to get out. “Hurry,” I screamed in panic when I heard the first shot.
Tristan was pushing from behind me and I was stuck between large sweaty bodies on all sides.
Fear has a smell. I knew that from my training, and while being pushed and squeezed by men trying to save their lives, the analytical part of me was going over scientific facts about the olfactory bulb, which is the part of the brain that detects smell. It’s located just above the nasal cavity and below the frontal lobe, and I fixated on all the details I could remember to keep from panicking from the lack of air in my lungs or the constant shots from inside the bar.
And then, finally, finally, we got pressed through and I could breathe again.
Taking Tristan’s hand, I moved fast in the direction of his drone, but we’d only taken twenty or thirty steps when his hand slipped out of mine. I turned to see why, and gasped.
Blood was running down Tristan’s face and he was staring at his fingertips, red from the blood as if he’d just touched his face.
“Tristan, what happened?” I exclaimed with concern. He was pale as a corpse, and I only just managed to support my friend before he fell to the ground, passed out.
With hands trembling from the sheer panic I was in, I searched his scalp to see where the bleeding was coming from and saw a large open wound.
Did he get shot?
No, it looked more like a large cut, like he’d been hit by an object sharp enough to break his skin and hard enough to cause him to pass out.
I needed something to stop his bleeding, but there was nothing close to us that I could use.
His shirt.
I tried pulling it off him, but he was too large and heavy for me to move around and get his t-shirt off.
Looking around in a panic, I shouted for some of the men back by the bar to lend me a shirt, but they were arguing among themselves and too far away to hear me.
Determined not to let my friend die from blood loss, I did the only thing I could. Pulling off my yellow summer dress, I pressed it against his wound and called for Tristan to wake up.
He was limp and lifeless and it scared me.
“Tristan, open your eyes,” I coaxed and supported his head in my lap, while drying off blood with my dress.
The dark night was lit with flashing lights coming from inside the bar and the loud sound of the police drones ordering people to get on the ground and surrender without resistance. At least the shooting had stopped by now. Still holding my bundled-up dress to Tristan’s wound, I looked around, hoping to make eye contact with someone who could help me. Seeing only large angry-looking men, many still holding glasses of beer in their hands, my better judgment told me they would be more dangerous than helpful.
Call for help. I raised my wristband but had no clue who to call. The people I knew were on the East Coast or in the Motherlands and I didn’t know the number for medical emergencies in the Northlands.
Raising Tristan’s wristband, I chose recent calls and Storm’s name came up. When his face popped up in front of me, I almost cried with relief. I would have recognized Storm anywhere. He had been two years younger than me at the school, and often gotten in trouble for his impulsive behavior.
My voice was frantic. “Storm, it’s me, Shelly. You have to help Tristan. He’s hurt.”
“What the fuck is going on? Where are you?”
“Outside a bar. They were shooting and we made it out, but then he fainted. I don’t know what to do. He’s unconscious.”
“Is he breathing?” Storm asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. I recognize where you are, I’m on my way.”
“Hey, what happened to your clothes?” someone called from behind me and others chimed in. “She’s only wearing underwear.”
“Look, her protector got shot.”
Men were gathering around me and my worry for Tristan grew to include fear for my own safety. I wanted to scream at them that Tristan wasn’t shot, but I was too afraid to even look at them. Like predators sensing a weak prey they moved closer, and tears began dripping from my eyes. Most Nmen were protective of women, but drunken men in a group had been known to suspend their values and do things they later regretted. I was unprotected, and only wearing panties and a thin white camisole that went to my navel. This was definitely bad.
“Hurry,” I begged Storm, who from the look of his picture was running.
“I’m not far from you. Stay with Tristan… and keep talking to me.”
“Tristan needs medical attention,” I said, focusing on Storm’s image, and ignoring the large stranger who was now squatting down next to me, way too close.
“Hey, beautiful, looks like your protector isn’t doing too well. You need a new one?” he whispered, his alcohol breath making me wrinkle my nose.
My body stiffened and I leaned away from him, my focus still on Storm, who was talking.
“You said there were gunshots – that means the paramedics will be on their way. Don’t worry. Just stay with Tristan.”
The stranger next to me didn’t touch me but he was close enough for me to feel his warm breath on my skin. I closed my eyes to block him out.
“Three minutes, Shelly… Hold on, okay? Storm assured me.
Three minutes sounded like three decades. Tristan and I needed help now!
For a full minute I sat, counting seconds in my head, hearing drunken men make lewd comments about my curves and others telling them to shut up. A fight broke out, and one of the few men who had been protective of me limped away with a bloody nose and his hand to his jaw. I watched him leave with my heart in my throat, afraid that the men would attack me now.
“Storm,” I said, needing to hear that he was still there on the line.
I saw him move his lips before a loud siren made me look back toward the bar. As Storm had predicted, paramedics arrived on the scene, but they ran straight into the bar and didn’t see me or Tristan.
I kept counting the seconds, and when I got to one hundred and eighty seconds, Storm still hadn’t arrived. The man next to me was breathing into my ear, talking about all the ways he could make me a happy woman. The eight men standing close to us chimed in with unwelcome offers of their own.
“Your protector is dead. You’ll have to think about your future.” One of them laughed. “I’ve got my own boat and I could pop some kids into that belly of yours real fast.”
“We could make it easy for you to pick. Kiss each of us and have a little sample.”
“Careful,” one of them said when his friend stepped closer to me. “If you touch her without consent, they’ll kill you for it.”
“So what?” he said in a drunken slur. “Maybe the pretty woman is worth dying for. I reckon I could at least get a quickie in the alley before they take me out.”
The other men encouraged him with laughter and pats on the shoulder. They were old and unattractive men. I wanted to tell them that women cared about hygiene and that they should too, but the situation was already tense and I was afraid of provoking them.
“We’re landing, Shelly, be with you in ten seconds.” Storm assured me.
“Hurry!” I begged, my hands keeping pressure on Tristan’s wound, my head turned away from the man too close to me, and my heart racing from terror.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 I counted in my head before running footsteps were followed by a deep threatening voice giving a firm command. “Get away from her, right now!”
Marco stood between me and the group of men, his shoulders squared and his back straight. With a quick glance down at me and Tristan, he cursed, and pulled his black t-shirt off his ripped torso and handed it to me. “Put it on!” he ordered.
“I can’t. I’m putting pressure on Tristan’s wound. Where is Storm?”
“He’s finding a paramedic.” Marco narrowed his eyes at the man too close to me. “Get the fuck away from her.”
“I was protecting her,” the creepy guy defended himself. “I never touched her.”
With a large palm on my shoulder, Marco bent down over me. “I’m her protector now, so fuck off!”
As if I were a child, Marco helped me dress in his t-shirt while I shifted between using my left and right hand to keep pressure on Tristan’s bleeding.
It occurred to me that he could have just squatted down and taken over on Tristan. That would have freed my hands to put on the t-shirt, but for some reason he didn’t.
“The show is over. I said, fuck off,” Marco yelled at the last four men still remaining.
“Fuck you,” the drunken men mumbled back at him, but Marco was too pumped up with adrenaline to care about their numbers. “Why are you here?” he asked me in a blameful tone.
“Tristan and I had dinner,”
“In a bar? What was he thinking?”
“It’s his favorite pub.”
Marco rolled his eyes. “You Motla
nders are too goddamn naïve. Bringing a woman to a bar is stupid.”
“I’m okay, Marco. It’s Tristan who’s hurt.”
Marco lifted the dress to take a peek. “By all the Devil’s demons, that’s a lot of blood.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Where the fuck are the paramedics?”
We waited another minute before Storm came running with help. When the paramedic took over, Marco pulled me back to give some space. I stood close to him watching in slow motion how the paramedic examined Tristan.
“Did he hit his head when he passed out?” the paramedic asked Storm, who was kneeling next to Tristan.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t here.” Storm looked to me. “Did he?”
I shook my head, my arms wrapped tight around my midsection. “No, he didn’t hit his head.”
“Was he drunk?”
“No.”
“Does he suffer from any medical illnesses?”
“Not that I know of,” Storm replied.
I took a step closer. “Is Tristan going to be okay?”
“This guy?” The paramedic was a skinny man with black circles under his eyes and a serious demeanor. “I doubt he’ll make it.”
I just stared at the man, too shocked to breathe, and a sob erupted from me. Marco was quick to pull me into his arms.
“I’m joking.” The paramedic lifted one edge of his mouth in a sarcastic smile. “This wound is nothing. I don’t see anything but a long cut. The blood makes it look worse than it is.” He slapped Tristan’s cheeks hard, shaking his shoulders. “Time to wake up now.”
I sucked in a deep breath, my voice trembling. “Are you sure?”
Tristan stirred and blinked his eyes open.
“Welcome back,” the paramedic said, and supported Tristan when he tried to sit up.
“My head.”
Tristan lifted his hand, but the paramedic made sure he didn’t touch the wound. “Don’t touch, I’m almost done cleaning it.”
“What happened?” Tristan looked up at me with confusion on his face.
“You got hit in the head,” I explained in a soft voice full of sympathy.
“Have you ever fainted before?” the paramedic asked him.
