Once Upon a Drone

by Shauna Checkley

Hunched over her laptop, Nicolette sat at her oak dining table. It smelled of lemon, as she had recently polished it, and it gleamed warmly, the wood rubbed to a grainy magnificence. Her nostrils flared lightly at the scent. But that’s not what had her attention.

She stared into the screen as if it were a crystal ball or magic mirror. Too bad it can’t just grant wishes like that!

She was on Pour Funds into the Kitty, a website that she had just stumbled across. Ah well, it just doesn’t work like that. Gotta come up with my own fundraising schemes to finance a local cat shelter. Hmm, let the brainstorming commence...

Posting the wildest schemes imaginable, Nicolette let loose a mental blitzkrieg. Pose naked fundraiser? Nah, they’d likely pay me to get dressed. Bicycle across Canada? Already been done. Try to get into a new Guinness Book of World Records for drinking the most shots? Probably wouldn’t survive. Have corporate logos tattooed all over my body? I might end up boycotted.

She paused. Frowned. What is the most likely way to raise the big bucks needed to set up a shelter? I could fight a robot! Woman versus she-bot! I would wear my pink cowboy boots and really put on a show.

Weaving through her bare legs like an orange ribbon, her pet cat Stormi rubbed against Nicolette. Then the musical purring began, trying to soothe the fretting mistress. Nicolette finally half-smiled.

Meanwhile the webmaster, Dieter, a clandestine international troll, wondered at her entries. Who is this crazy bitch? Is she for real? Does the West really have decadent cat ladies who pull off such stunts? Imagine that!

Rubbing his bald head, which was shining under a colossal chandelier, Dieter marveled in silence. He was alone at his palatial estate. Moonlight poured in through the skylight, leaving bright footprints on the hardwood floor. He sipped champagne.

Unbeknownst to the meticulous webmaster, however, was the fact that he had been hacked by foreign military. The troll was being trolled. “Our intelligence believes that ‘cats’ is code for ‘tanks.’ An armed advance is thought to be the likely outcome,” a lackey said.

The war room fell into silence.

Sitting ramrod-straight behind his black walnut desk, General Das grunted in response. He was picking his teeth with a sterling silver toothpick. It gleamed wantonly under the bright overhead lighting. “Then we have no choice but to deploy armed drones to the source of these cats... or tanks.”

The lackey bowed in submission. The order had been given.

Nicolette imagined a colossal spectacle, hyped on social media and really everywhere with money and pledges and advertising pouring in. Having been gifted with a healthy imagination, she smiled and daydreamed.

Setting up a cat shelter has been a long-term fantasy for her. Living on the prairie her whole life, she knew the brutal reality of Saskatchewan winters. Strays used up their nine lives quickly. They froze to death in droves. So, need to set up a shelter for them! She released that passionate plea out in the ether, allowing for Providence to hopefully provide.

But her reverie was short-lived. Her picture window crashed to the floor. What the hell? She nearly fell out of her chair and ran toward it.

Outside, she saw four black drones like evil eyes in the sky. They began shelling her house. When a bullet whistled past her head, she streaked back to the dining table and grabbed Stormi and her laptop.

She ran for her tornado cellar. While the shelling raged, bullets ricocheting and gutting her home. She hurried down the cellar stairs and slammed the door behind them. Stormi lept from her arms and bounded down the steps in one gargantuan leap. What now?

Seeing a bunch of strange cats in her basement, Nicolette wondered at the sight! But then she saw a black cat squeeze through a crack in the wall. Unbeknownst to her, neighborhood cats had long known of a secret way into her cellar. They were piling in right then to take refuge from the blitzkrieg of bullets.

Her heart pounded. She gasped. Nearly dizzy from fright and confusion, her mind raced. Gotta call 911! Whipping her phone out of her jeans pocket, she dialed. “There are drones firing on my house! 936 College Avenue. Phone the Air Force base in Moose Jaw for help!”

“I dunno! You phone the base!”

Nicolette huddled in a corner of the basement. She was panic-stricken. What could this be? What is happening? She breathed in short, ragged gasps.

Without hesitation two of the vaunted Snowbirds team blazed across the sky. Being nearby, they had arrived in minutes. The drones were still firing. Like black bats out of hell, they had encircled the house. But the Snowbirds easily shot them down, and the drones dropped like flies.

Soon a cavalcade of police cars and RCMP arrived. Nicolette’s place instantly became a crime scene.

The event made major headlines. It was considered an international incident, nearly kicking off a much-feared Third World War. But the heroic Snowbirds had thwarted it just in the nick of time.

Media from all over descended upon the levelled residence. Nicolette and Stormi went viral and instantly became a cause célèbre. They had their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame.

As news spread of her and the cats’ plight, funds poured in for them from everywhere. A modern, sprawling cat shelter was built on the ruins of her old place, 936 College Avenue. It was christened Nicolette’s Cat Shelter. Nicolette lived on the third floor while the strays resided on the other levels, and they all lived contentedly in their warm home.