Unleashed

by Patrick McLaughlin

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  This was Craig’s first time back to Afghanistan since spring 2011 where he consulted and assisted in the planning leading up to the final assault on Osama bin Laden. Working closely with the SEALs, Craig had viewed a live UAV demonstration conducted by U.S. Naval Special Warfare Group on Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He stood with a videographer and other witnesses in a shielded observation post while a drone pilot placed a UAV (very similar to the one they now prepped) one thousand feet above a cluster of shipping containers set up to resemble bin Laden’s compound. The pilot was stationed below deck in a U.S. Naval vessel more than three miles off the beach at Dam Neck. On command, the deadly drone tilted and dove on the structure. Once at eye level with the makeshift building, from about twenty-five yards away, it rapidly circled the outer perimeter, piercing the metal outer walls with armor-penetrating ammunition. Within thirty seconds, every outer-facing wall at every level was peppered with six-inch holes.

  Afterwards, Craig fully comprehended and accepted how the rapid development of drone technology would aid intelligence, military, law enforcement and security professionals like him. He was irritated by reports of amateurs flying drones in military and commercial airspace, but the FAA could take care of that. What truly alarmed Craig was the way people were modifying commercial drones for their own ill-intended applications.

  Just in the last year, Japanese whaling ships had launched drones outfitted with GPS-tagging dart guns in order to tag entire whale pods, including calves, so they could more easily track and kill the mammals. Terrorist groups in Nigeria purchased consumer-grade, four-rotor drones on the internet, slapped on biochemical disbursement packets in place of Go Pro cameras, and gassed an entire village with a lethal vapor from a distance of two hundred yards. Finally, he had viewed a classified video where militant jihadists modified a drone similar to the one carrying the Sentient now, but instead of a camera or surveillance unit, its payload was a high-velocity, one hundred and fifty-round machine gun.

  Craig often thought about how in the future, the Sandy Hook shooting or the Boston Marathon bombing would be considered terrorist child’s play when compared to the death a handful of these could reap in a public crowd.

  So when it came time to design the UAV to carry the Sentient, Craig had some ideas. At his urging, the R&D team at the drone design facility made two improvements to their premier craft. Then, unbeknownst to them, he made a third.

  As Craig explained it, the Taliban, while still carrying 1876 British Martini rifles adorned with “happy Afghan crap,” had managed to get their hands on some sophisticated heat-signature tracking gear, so the first modification was a complete change out from a standard motor to a custom brushless motor. The heat-seeking equipment was sensitive enough to detect the tiny sparks the brushes caused in the old motors, but as the there was no metallic friction in the brushless motor, there was no visibility. After the motor was changed out, the sound level was cut by a third — a windfall.

  The second modification was the removal of the beaming red eyes which were actually left and right indicators, showing anyone on the ground which way the camera was pointed. To Craig, it was purely cosmetic, as it would be out of visible range when deployed, and it had to go. For Christ sake, he wondered, why do robot designers always have to humanize their creations? So the R&D team removed the eyes and shielded all external light sources as well.

  The last modification was his brainchild.

  Craig instantly grasped the vast, untold capabilities of the Sentient camera. He reasoned: if the camera sensors essentially record the subatomic makeup of individuals at multi-dimensional levels, then he should be able to manipulate the data to identify discrete “bad-guy” identifiers. It would be much more reliable than mere DNA. Craig’s idea was to quietly siphon these quantum signatures and begin compiling a database of known terrorists. He planned on keeping it to himself for as long as he could. After all, who better to snuff out the bad guys than him?

  With this database, he theorized, physical security profiling would be a thing of the past. Transportation security agencies would have access to a “quantum identification” database of all foreign and domestic suspects. Scanners could read the subatomic makeup of any individual within range, regardless of whether they were boarding a plane or buying a donut, and sound the alarm if their DNA matched the database of QPID (quantum particle identification) signatures. The prospective perpetrators of violence against innocent civilians wouldn’t have too many places left to hide.