Page 87 of The Fighter
A deep whistle came from Vic, followed by a long “Whooaaw. What’s that above the drone? Is that the pilot? Do you see it?”
“I see it, he must have ejected from the drone,” Mr. Bushy Eyebrows commented while both Laura and I stood with our faces painted in fear.
“Officer, do you see two pilots?” My question came out as a breathless cry while my eyes searched the sky. The robot would have the ability to zoom in.
“No, just one,” the robot answered in a calm voice.
“Laura, it’s not Magni and Leo then. They would have both ejected from the drone. This drone only had one pilot. It’s someone else.”
Laura stood pale, quiet, and with her fear-stricken face turned to the rain. Her eyes were narrowed into slivers as she followed the descent of the drone.
“It’s not them, Laura. It’s not!” My heart was racing and I stared as another lightning stroke lit up the gray sky displaying the two objects in the air like it was a dramatic art installation. Only this was real life, and right in front of our eyes, a drone was falling out of the sky at high speed while a smaller object was descending with the pilot.
Vic cursed. “It’s gonna crash on our barn.” He began running as if he could prevent the large drone from destroying his property.
We were too far away to see the face of the pilot and I didn’t recognize the drone.
“It’s not Magni’s drone, and Leo would fly a police drone. It’s not them, Laura!” I kept saying it because I needed to believe it myself.
“The drone is a Tyrant model 760851A. It’s also referred to as a Doom’s Bird and used by the military. I have alerted the medics to stay ready for potential casualties.” The calm tone of the police-bot made me want to scream at it.
Magni flew military drones often and when I opened my mouth to tell Laura it wasn’t him, my throat was dry and I couldn’t speak.
We stood as powerless spectators watching the pending disaster. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink. I just folded my hands into fists and wished that I had super powers so I could slow down the deadly speed of the drone. The collision with the ground was inevitable, and Vic had been right. The drone crashed partly on the barn, which was around eighty yards from us, causing parts to fly in all directions. A large metal piece landed only ten feet from me and Laura.
“Stay back,” the police-bot told us, but both Laura and I were already on the run.
The ambulance and police drone made it to the crash site in seconds and when we got there, two human police officers were helping a team of two medics tear at the door to the drone.
“Is someone inside?” I yelled while Laura ran straight in to help as well.
“We don’t know yet. You’d better stay back.”
From the sight of the drone it was clear to see that if someone was inside, there was no chance they would have survived. Protective airbags had exploded in every part of the cabin of the drone, but the front of the machine had curled up and was so bent out of shape that it was hard to see how it had originally looked.
“I see a man,” one of the police officers yelled out, loud. “Help me remove the door.”
Jake and Mr. Bushy Eyebrows caught up to the rest of us and all hurried over to help.
Laura was pulling with tears running down her cheeks, and with the combined strength of six men and two women, the broken door came off. The heart-wrenching scream that followed from Laura echoed inside me.
“Magni, I’m here. Magni talk to me!!!”
I ran forward to hold Laura back. “Let the medics help him.” Even as I said it, I knew I was asking for too much. Laura was strong, and only when the police-bot helped me did we manage to move her out of the way and give room for the medics to work.
“I’ve got her,” I told the bot and with a nod it returned to assist the medics.
Laura and I clung to each other as we watched them pull out a donor unit to pump blood into Magni. We heard them count, one, two, three, before the two medics and the strong police-bot pulled Magni’s body from the drone.
His head was dangling and his large body was limp, and then the shock hit me. He was missing both legs and half of his left arm. I couldn’t hold Laura up as she fell to her knees and screamed her pain out. “Noooo…”
The medics got him on a stretcher on the ground and we watched them work on him. One was applying blood blocker gel while the other did CPR.
“Let’s get him into the drone,” one of them shouted and in less than a minute they were airborne and flying away from us.
“He’s not dead, Laura. They wouldn’t be working on him if he was dead.”
Laura turned her wet and grief-stricken face to me. “Medics don’t do CPR on people who are breathing. I’ve lost him, Raven. I’ve lost him.”
