He barked at me as I approached. I shot a quick glance at the sky but didn’t spot another drone. “Skippy and Sparky—the A-Team,” I grinned, getting into the back seat. “More like Scooby-Doo,” Sparky laughed. “If he’s some kind of Eskimo hound, shouldn’t he like whale blubber or something? This monster ate three double cheeseburgers in, like, ten seconds. And an apple pie and most of my fries.” Skippy almost never met a food he didn’t like. All this eating talk was making me hungry. I called Jane and told her I was on my way. My phone vibrated in my hand with an arriving text. It was my New Minutemen friends with a new message, which was preceded by the OLDNORTHCHURCH4181775 verification code: I did not like the sound of the last part. I forwarded the message to Mel, so he could slap it on the web. It was a non-denial denial. They didn’t claim the drone wasn’t theirs or that it didn’t have explosives attached—just that they weren’t going to commit random terrorism.
