Drone

Eyes in the sky

Photo by Caro Henry

Moving smoothly and silently above the trees, the drone captured it all in that liminal space between day and night. No sharp focus here but softened edges and blurred lines; the houses with their neat (or not so neat) yards, people walking their dogs (or just walking), outdoor lights beginning to paint this world in grays and creams, shadows deepening under the trees of the woods beside barely visible railroad tracks.

The hand that guided the drone belonged to an 18-year-old woman sitting in front of an array of screens in a room lit only by the screens themselves. She had programmed the drone today with coordinates to the railroad tracks and back but had it in training mode to teach it the route she preferred. Her other hand was in the midst of plugging in the holes in some code she’d written for White Dragon, a computer game she and a friend had created. Her eyes flicked from one screen to the next, her hands moving quickly as she maneuvered from task to task when…