Chapter 1

 

“And now for today’s addition of Zone War.  Viewers are warned that this presentation may include sudden images of extreme graphic violence, including death.  This production is unscripted and carried live in unedited format for an authentic viewing experience.  Under no circumstances should any viewer attempt to enter the Manhattan Drone Zone without explicit authorization by the Department of Defense Zone Exclusion Authority.  All of the salvage and bounty personnel depicted are duly licensed and trained professionals.  There are no amateurs in Zone War, and Flottercot Productions is not liable for any injuries or deaths incurred by viewers of this program.”

 

Of course I had to cross the living room at that exact moment, my bowl of ice cream balanced on my work tablet.  I had timed my foray into the kitchen with exacting precision, determined to be in and out in under two minutes, which was the amount of time till that blasted show started.  The rest of my family was huddled around the viewing wall in anticipation of the daily showing of what was currently the most popular reality show in the world. Not being able to find the ice cream scoop had foiled my plan.

 

The screen melted from a black background with floating words to a live feed showing bouncing footage of one of downtown Manhattan’s deserted streets, husks of cars littered about.  The sun was out and the camera mounted on the outside of the LAV was broadcasting a clear, high-def picture, even if it was shaky from the vehicle’s ride.

 

Catching the opening scene was my first piece of bad luck. The second was Monique catching sight of me in the corner of her eye.  “Hey, AJ’s here.  You gonna watch it with us this time?  Or hide in your room?”

 

“I’m going to work in my room, little sister, so that we can get paid for what I brought out yesterday,” I said.

 

The little sister part was ill-advised on my part, as it was guaranteed to trigger her twin’s temper.  Gabby whipped around on the couch and glared at me.  “Oh, is big brother busy saving the day?”

 

Fourteen-year-old girls should come with the same kind of hazard warning labels used for explosives and poisons.  I’d rather face the Zone any day than get drawn into a verbal war with my lethal little sisters, who fire off words faster than a Russian Wolf anti-personnel drone fires flechettes.

 

“Gabby, enough.  Ajaya’s work is important to this family, and you know it.  All of our BUIs together aren’t enough to support us, even with your father’s death benefit,” my mother said, shutting down the more volatile of the twins.  Then she turned my way.  “And you, Ajaya Edward Gurung, how many times have I warned you about arrogance?”

 

“I wasn’t being arrogant, Mom. I was making the point that I have other things to do besides watch that crap, especially when I can see it in person any day I want—if I want to take the risk of being near them,” I said, moderating my tone.

 

Behind my mother, the terrible twins both raised their hands and enacted individual ceremonial displays of the middle finger.  Monique chose to pull off the imaginary top of her middle finger lipstick and apply a liberal dose to her lips while Gabrielle blew into her thumb to inflate her own middle digit.  

 

My eyes flicked their way and then back to my mother, whose face had taken on her stoic look.  The one where she tries not to crumble for fear of my weekly forays into what was regularly described by the Zone War narrator as the most dangerous place on Earth.

 

And it was.  Take the island of Manhattan, release over twenty-five thousand highly advanced Russian, Chinese, and Indian autonomous war drones in a single stunning act of terrorism, and let simmer for ten years.  The result was the one borough of New York City that was completely devoid of human inhabitants and whose artificially intelligent denizens aggressively kept it that way.  

 

It was estimated that over three hundred and seventy-two thousand people lost their lives in the first week of the Manhattan Attack.  Another twenty-three thousand died during the second week,as rescue operations and military units counterattacked.  Only a crazy fast response by US special operations ready reaction teams, in coordination with New York National Guard, FBI, NYPD,and a whole alphabet of other federal groups, kept the drones from escaping into the other four boroughs.  The whole world almost died as an enraged America brought the doomsday clock to eleven-fifty-nine and fifty-nine seconds, saved by uncharacteristic transparency on the part of Russia, India, and China, who all stepped up to provide assistance and data about their drone weapon systems and particularly against the terrorists.

 

Ten years later, the terrorists who were responsible, the Gaia Group, were completely obliterated, hunted with a chilling ruthlessness by a fiercely unified United States.  The borough island, however, was still a no-man’s-land.  And a rich one at that.

 

Everyone in Manhattan either fled or died in not much more than a few days’ time.  One of the wealthiest communities on Earth became empty so fast that countless riches, both literal and information-based, were left lying around for anyone to pick up.   Anyone who could get safely past the lethal new owners, that is.  Hence Zone War, a show that followed five salvage teams as they braved the Zone on a regular basis to kill drones and pull out abandoned riches.  The Zone was also the source of my income, the money that kept my family afloat after Wall Street crashed, was abandoned, then relocated piecemeal to backup sites around the East Coast. The massive worldwide recession that followed dwarfed all others before it.  Ten years later, the world economy was just now starting to see the sprouts of fiscal recovery. Yes, we all received the Basic Universal Income checks that were paid out to all Americans, but that wasn’t enough to do more than cover bare necessities, as Mom had said.

 

Zone War was a huge success, a show that followed the flashiest and noisiest salvage teams.  And none of them made more noise than Johnson Recovery.

 

“Oh, Ajaya, there is your girl,” Aama said from her spot between my sisters.  My father’s mother is quite the romantic.  Both of my sisters turned and gave me their best smirks.  I ignored them, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to ignore the monitor.  Onscreen, the camera had switched to the face of the LAV driver.  The blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian goddess of the drone hunt, Astrid Johnson.

 

The youngest member of Johnson Recovery, a.k.a. Team Johnson, Astrid was the principal LAV driver but also filled the role of overwatch sharpshooter when more than two of the team deployed from their armored vehicle.  A beautiful, smart, and very tough girl, she was hugely popular across the nation and probably most of the globe, a role model for girls, and an object of fantasy for guys of all ages. I’ve known her since we were both ten.

 

Only her oldest brother, JJ, was as popular.  Tall, muscular, and bold, JJ was the JR point man for ground deployments, and his media nickname was Thor, possibly because of the big sledgehammer he used to break into buildings, possibly because of his blond good looks. Women sure seemed to dig him.

 

You had to give him his due.  Even with full body armor, he took enormous risk every time he stepped foot on Manhattan soil, mostly due to his father’s preferred approach to things—drive fast and loud, shoot everything in sight, and then haul ass back out at extreme speed.  Right on cue, the camera view switched to show JJ standing with his father, Brad, just behind the driver’s seat.

 

Brad Johnson, or Colonel Brad Johnson, was ex-US Army.  He’d started his career in tanks, then moved into a Stryker Brigade Combat Team and never looked back.  He and the rest of his family were in Manhattan, visiting an old military friend, on the night the drones were released.  They escaped, as did their host family.  Drone Night was a life-changing event for anyone who survived it and Brad Johnson was as affected as anyone—maybe more so.  Within a year, Brad had quit the military and the Johnsons had relocated to Brooklyn.  Brad started Zone salvage work, even as the military was still permanently blockading the island.  He started work with his military friend, an ex-British SAS sniper named Baburam Gurung—my father.  Eventually they had a falling out over work methods and went their separate ways.

 

I turned away from the show and walked out of the room, down the hall, and into my bedroom, which is also my office.  Time to make some money.