Drone

by wantsomefun

©Copyright 2017 by wantsomefun

NOTE: I ran into wantsomefun at an erotic stories forum, and we hit it off from the start because I made friends with a classy lady there, a friend of his, ejls. Over the next five years, we had our share of laughs and triumphs and our fights too. He was a very good writer, a great conversationalist, funny, and rather intelligent. At one point, in early 2017, the three of us got pissed at the state of affairs at that site, and made a decision to leave and start a new site, one that would be, above all, devoid of trolls. And that's exactly what we did, and today, it is still running strong. Unfortunately, one month after the site opened, wantsomefun (Rich was his name) passed unexpectedly. It was a huge, huge blow to the website, and to those who knew him. As per the terms of the website that he helped create, we're publishing his stories, and we know that he is smiling down upon us. --ahorsewithnoname

Chapter 1

Matt hustled through the door of our apartment and set a box on the floor. “Look what I got.”

“Is that a drone?”

“Damn straight it is. We're gonna see shit no one else does. This is the coolest fuckin' thing ever, dude. Get my tool kit from my room. Help me put it together.”

I knelt on the floor next to him while he unpacked the contents of the box. “Whoa, Matt! That's no toy. I've seen drones like this on TV. How the hell did you afford it?”

He put on his best fake innocent face. “I got it from a buddy.”

“Oh, wonderful. More stolen merchandise. You take some damn stupid risks, Matt.”

“Don't be a choirboy, Jason. You didn't complain when I got those speakers for your room.”

“They're worth a hell of a lot less than this. You always said the cops work more on thefts of high-dollar items. I suspect this qualifies.”

“If I stole it myself, I'd worry, but hell, technically I don't know if it's stolen or what. It was an early Christmas present, okay? Quit your bitchin'. Find the assembly instructions.”

“No way trouble comes back to you?”

“Bro, I'm not fuckin' stupid. Like I said, it's not 'stolen' as far as I know - more like lost in transit, inventory error, some such shit.”

“That's a fine line.”

“I trust the guy I got it from, okay? We've been tight forever. I did a lotta favors for him when I was a kid. He owed me, so he gave me this.”

“You make me nervous, Matt.”

“You're such a wimp, dude. Relax. This is about fun. Think of what we might see.”

“That's true.”

He laughed. “We're gonna have a fuckin' blast. You're supposed to register a drone this big, but screw that. I don't have to stand out in the open to fly it, so who's gonna know whose drone it is? If I crash it or go out of range and someone finds it, as long as there are no pics of us on it, we'll be fine. If they lift prints from it, so what? I never got fingerprinted. Did you?”

“I don't do dumb shit that could get me arrested, so no.”

“Dude, I never got arrested because I'm smart. I don't do dumb shit. I do careful shit, so fuck your attitude. There are no prints on file for either of us, which means it's not a problem if someone finds the drone. I mean, yeah, I'll lose it, but it's not like I paid for it.”

“How quiet is this thing? Can you get close enough to really see much?”

“Read the box, Jason. It's supposed to be for stealth surveillance. Hell, you can turn off the running lights so it's pretty much invisible in the dark. What the drone sees shouldn't be a problem. Latest tech hi-def zoom lens and all. Even low light vision for night flights. You steer by the camera in the drone - view it with an iPad on the controller.

I can fly while you're someplace else talkin' to me on your cell. That way you can sorta keep watch and tell me if anyone seems to notice the drone. It's supposed to be super quiet for its size, but I have no clue how quiet that is. We'll find out when we get it put together. Here, plug this charger in and figure out the batteries.”

After some cursing and well over a six-pack of beer, the kit was assembled. Matt stepped back a few paces to look at the drone as a finished unit. “That thing's fuckin' nice. Too bad it's gettin' dark.”

“You said it has night vision.”

“Next generation low light vision, dude. It won't record in total darkness, but if there's any light at all, they say it can get an image. Not green like old military crap or black and white like a hunter's trail camera - digitally enhanced full color.”

“So we can actually spy on people under the cover of darkness, huh? That's some serious cloak and dagger shit right there, Matt. Sounds like now is a great time to go out with it.”

“Yeah, but I never flew a drone before.”

“You have two radio-controlled cars and an R/C boat in your room. You race them, for pity's sake. This controller is more complicated than those, but the basic stuff must kinda work the same. How hard can it be?”

He finished his beer. “Probably hard enough I should practice with it somewhere open first, like out in the country where no one will see us, and there isn't as much shit to hit. Even if it was daytime, we shouldn't drive out there with it now. I'm sure I'm over the legal limit, and you drank as much as me. Campus security doesn't give a damn as long as we don't hit stuff, but real police are different.”

I nodded. “You're probably right. If we do anything to attract a cop's attention, he smells beer, and he sees that thing in the back seat, we'll have a lot of questions to answer.”

He looked though the instruction book. “It says here the batteries should charge overnight the first time for best service life.”

“Fine. We don't know where all the trees and wires are around here anyway. Who pays attention to that?”

“People with drones,” he laughed. “Let's take a walk and see where we can fly on campus.”

We took our jackets with us and headed outside. It never really gets cold here in winter, but if you're strolling around at night, sometimes a jacket is good. The campus was quiet for a Friday, probably because most kids were working on papers or cramming for finals before semester break.

“Check it out.” Matt pointed to the fourth floor of Pearson Residence Hall, the university's largest girls' dormitory. “The window on the left end - the one with the curtains open. If we had the drone, we could see what's goin' on.”

“Don't you think girls probably close their curtains when they undress?”

Chapter 2

“Maybe not, dude. If you have your curtains open all day on the fourth floor, would you worry about 'em at night? Look around. The nearest place tall enough to let you see in that window is the men's dorm on the other side of the quad, and there's a row of trees in front of it. The girls probably can't see it that well, which means guys over there can't see them. We're close enough, but we're not at the right angle down here. The drone won't have that problem. We could probably see that girl if she's changin' clothes like we were in the room with her.”

“You thought this through before you ever got the drone, didn't you?” I asked.

He laughed. “Bro, I'm a pervert like you, but I never considered a drone until it was, ya know, offered to me. If it's quiet enough, we could be a safe distance away outside a window and zoomed in. Plus, I know a girl who lives in that dorm. She said on nice days there are dozens of 'em on the roof enjoyin' the sun. Some don't like tan lines. It's the tallest structure on campus, so it's not like anyone can see 'em. Heh heh heh. Until now.”

“That won't work, Matt. They'll spot the drone in daylight.”

“Sooner or later, maybe, but can I get close enough for good pics before they do? I wanna try flyin' above someone, you for instance, and puttin' the drone between you and the sun. If I'm up high enough there won't be a shadow, and you can't look straight at the sun anyway.”

“The weather is supposed to be good tomorrow,” I said. “You know that abandoned farm about four miles north of town?”

“You read my mind, Jason! That's the perfect place. Come on. Let's explore some more.” We walked around for over an hour, surprised by how many people let their curtains open at night. “The beauty of a drone,” Matt said, “is I won't need a clear vantage point to operate it, since I'll see what it sees. I can stay a discrete distance from a target. If someone spots the drone, I'll fly it somewhere safe to pick it up. You'll be on the ground, so no one will suspect you of peekin' in upstairs windows. It's perfect.”

Saturday morning we were up early, at least in college student terms. All batteries were fully charged, and the kit came with a car charger to top off between flights. Matt put the drone camera in one corner of the room and turned it on. I went outside with his iPad docked in the controller to watch him fill a backpack with drinks and snacks for the day. Then we downloaded the video to my laptop.

“Stop,” he said. “Go back, and pause on the fridge door. There! Look! You can actually read the brand names on shit.”

“I can also see your plumber's crack. Let me start the vid again.”

“Wait. The camera was at least fifteen feet away from me. Is it zoomed in all the way?”

“Not even close. You'll see at the end.” I pressed play, and we watched the rest of the recording. After Matt was out of the frame I moved the camera around with the controller and then zoomed in on my room, visible through the open door. It was easy to read the copyright information at the bottom of a poster on the far wall, letters only a fraction of an inch tall. “That's zoomed in all the way.”

“Jason, that's gotta be at least thirty feet from the camera, and your shades are down! I'm surprised the camera could see that well with as dark as it is in your room. It's set to normal vision mode, too, not night vision. Damn! Think how good the image would be in bright light! This is the kind of drone they use to make TV shows, like followin' a car around a test track or a skier down a slope. It has to be maneuverable and fast for that work. That means we can fly in, get our shots, and get out in a hurry if we need to. With that zoom lens we're gonna have some serious fun. Do you have gas in your car? I'm pretty low.”

“Maybe you should start stealing gas. Put everything in my car.” I got my key from my room. “Bring the spare parts that came with it too. I'll get your tool kit. We might need to fix stuff if you crash.”

We drove out of town into the scrub land of the countryside around it to our favorite keg party spot, an abandoned farm. I pulled up in front of the crumbling house, and we unloaded the car. After a number of failed attempts but only minor repairs Matt was able to control the drone, taking off, flying around, and most importantly, landing in one piece. Learning to use all the features of the camera at the same time was a bit more tricky, but by mid-afternoon, we had some quality video of the location. The images were clear enough we could read the rust-pimpled chrome “V-8” logo on an old Ford truck returning to the soil outside the barn. We even practiced flying the drone from my moving car.

“Listen,” Matt said. “It's really quiet out here.”

“I think I can hear traffic on the interstate near campus, but that's pretty much it. Way quieter than back there, even at night, but that's city noise pollution.”

“Right, so whatever sound the drone makes might be hidden, especially during the day. Let's see how close I can get to you if I come in from the sun like we discussed,” Matt said.

“Okay. I'll go stand by the barn. If you launch from near the road and come in high, let's see how close you can get before I spot you.”

Chapter 3

He nodded. “I'll find you with that white tee shirt you're wearin'. When you hear me, point to your ears. When you see me, point to your eyes.”

I trudged through the weeds and found a good spot in front of the ruins of the barn. Matt was somewhere on the other side of the house, the sun glaring over its sagging roof. I called him on his cell. “I'm in place.”

“Goin' up.”

I thought I heard the drone lift off, but there was just enough background noise for me to wait to respond. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand and saw nothing. After about a minute I was sure the sound I heard wasn't insects or traffic. I pointed to my ear for a moment before I saw the drone. It circled overhead within easy sight and then flew away. I dialed Matt again.

“Dude,” he answered, “there's an old Budweiser can maybe twenty feet behind you to your left. It's all faded out.”

I trampled the weeds around it. “How the hell could you tell what it was? Did you see it when you were circling low?”

He laughed. “No, bro! I saw a white spot in the weeds, so I zoomed in for a better look. I read the brand name just before you heard me.”

“I can barely read it, and I'm right on top of it. It's really sun-bleached.”

“It is,” he agreed, “but I saw it fine with the drone cam. You signaled me at about a hundred feet above the ground, and with the sun I got down below seventy before you saw me. I was about forty feet up when I circled around you. Damn! I can't believe it's that fuckin' quiet! The controller has about a one mile range, so we can spy in complete safety, zoom in, get some good video, and get away with no one knowin'. Think of it! If we see a girl with somethin' tattooed on her mound, we'll be able to read it.”

“Incredible.”

“No shit, Jason! Let's get out of here.”

We drove back to campus. While the batteries recharged, we strolled past Pearson Hall again, making plans for the night.

“We have to be careful, Matt. If anyone sees us with that thing, especially flying around windows, we're pretty much screwed.”

“That's why you're gonna walk around talkin' to me on your cell while I drive someplace I can hide to take off, fly, and land. Let's keep it simple at first. See the lot behind the student union? No one goes back there at night, so I should be good. It's a clear line of sight from there to the end wall of this dorm. It's completely blank - no windows at all for people to see me from. That should help for my first night flight. Look. The curtains are still open in that fourth floor window we saw last night. Hell, a lot of them are. We can do this, bro. You can sorta spot for me and maybe see if anyone notices.”

“That should work.”

We went back to our apartment. “What do you want to do if we get any good video, Matt?”

“Well, duh. We can both make copies so we can enjoy them when we want. Maybe we could even sell a compilation vid if we get enough hot girls.”

“Sell it? No way! If we fly the drone often enough, people will see it, even if they don't figure out whose it is. The images we get could only be made from the sky, right? Airplanes and helicopters make too much noise to spy on people close up, so anyone who sees our footage will know it came from a drone - specifically, that drone.”

“Maybe, but it's not like people would know whose drone it is. We're takin' pics of random girls. We could probably get away with it.”

“You're nuts, Matt! You can easily identify my face in the vids you took at the farm, and anyone who's been there would know the location. Someone will know this campus if they see it. Hell, a montage of aerial shots from a helicopter is the homepage of the university's website. It's not that damn hard to figure out what buildings you're looking at if you're familiar with the campus at all.”

“You may be right, bro. We'll edit out any long range shots. A window kinda looks like a window, so we should be okay with close-ups.”

“That's not the point, Matt! What if a girl recognizes herself, or some guy does and tells her about it? That sounds like a game of cops and lawyers to me.”

“You're such a pussy, Jason. Fine, we won't sell videos. If we share images we can pixelate faces.”

“Share?”

“Like, with buddies or guys we chat with online. This could be some good shit to trade.”

“You trade pictures of girls with people online?”

“Well, yeah. Don't you?”

“No! Not real girls!”

“What? You and your dweeby online buddies beat your meat to pics of blow-up dolls?”

I glared at him. “Don't be a douche-bag. I meant I don't get online and share nudes of girls I know.”

“Wait. Do you have naked pics of girls you know that you didn't show me? Are you holdin' out on me?”

“Screw you, Matt.”

He chuckled. “Remember that crazy slut Heidi I dated last year? Remember that blowjob vid I showed you? She let me watch the one her last boyfriend took, so I shared the fuck out of her suckin' me off.”

“That's different, somehow, maybe. She knew you were recording her. The whole point of the drone is they don't know we're recording them.”

“Yeah. So? Screw that gentleman shit. You sound old when you talk like that.”

I looked at my friend. “You don't see the difference, do you? I wouldn't share pictures of someone I know in real life.”

Chapter 4

“Bullshit, Jason! You showed me photos you took of the blonde who moved in next door to your parents' house over the summer. The divorced woman who doesn't close her bathroom blinds - what's her name? Jenny? Jaime?”

“Julie.”

“That's it. She's, like, thirty, and definitely still fuckable. You have about a dozen pics of her nude in the back yard sunbathin' behind her privacy fence and a bunch of shots you took through her window. You even told me how you pulled your pud watchin' her shave. You know the woman, and you showed me pics of her tits, pussy, ass, and face that you took without her knowledge. The next time I visit you at home, I'll recognize her if I see her, and I'll know what her cunt lips looks like, so don't go all moral on me.”

“No sharing, Matt. I mean it. I don't want anything to do with that crap. What if we get an illegal image?”

“You mean an underage girl? Hell, no, I agree with you there. I'm not into that shit, and I sure don't want to get caught for it. But we're on a university campus, so it shouldn't be a problem.”

I shook my head. “We could get caught for all of this, especially if we share! Everything about this is illegal!”

“It's voyeurism, dude. Calm down. People have been doing it since the days of fig leaves. Why do you think porn is such a big deal? You've been to strip clubs. Same shit.”

“No, it's not, and you damn well know it. Porn stars and strippers do it 'professionally' for money. We're talking about invading girls' privacy. That's not the same thing at all.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Go ahead and live by your cute little standards. Don't share, Mr. Moralist. Jeez, I thought we were buds.”

“We are buds, Matt, but sharing pics of girls who don't know they're on camera is over the top for me.”

“Fine, but quit tryin' to be my mommy.”

“Whatever.”

It was raining on Sunday when I woke up. I stumbled into the kitchen to find Matt, obviously just out of bed himself, sitting slouched at the counter. “Coffee should be ready in a minute,” he mumbled.

I flopped on the stool next to him. “The weather's crap.”

“The manual says you can fly in rain, but watch out for wind,” he grumbled between bites of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “I'm not up for crashin' in a storm, and we wouldn't see much today anyway. Pics of girls in raincoats don't do it for me.”

“Maybe we should finish our term papers.”

“There you go again, Jason, bein' all responsible and shit. But this time you're probably right.”

We slaved through the day, helping each other with wording and proofing each other's work. I emailed my paper to my prof and then made dinner. Matt sent his off after we ate.

“The rain stopped,” he said. “I just checked the weather online. Supposed to be clear and calm for a while tonight. No wind or rain until later.”

“You wanna try a night flight?”

“We worked all day, dude, so we owe it to ourselves. Let's try Pearson Hall. I'll take the drone and controller and launch from the student union lot while you spot for me, like we said.”

“Deal.” I set off on foot. When I got to the sidewalk in front of the dorm, I called him. “Where are you?”

“Just about set up. No one's out here, so I'm good to go.”

“The girl on the fourth floor has her curtain open again.”

“Then that's the first place I'll look. Yes! I see the window. The drone is about halfway there.”