“What’s that?” I whisper.

“Watch and learn, Bo Peep.”

She drills a hole at the bottom of the fence separating the two properties. Even though the drill is completely quiet, with some kind of crazy silencer on it, and she goes slowly enough that the wood hardly makes a whisper, sweat flows down my face in tiny rivers. I’m trying to decide if I should pick the weapon up and have it ready for Toni if she needs it. No way am I going to use the stupid thing myself.

The black box attaches to the wood fence with four tiny screws. Toni puts those in manually. She pushes a button on it, and a tiny green light comes on.

“Find me some brush.”

I blink a few times, wondering what the hell she’s talking about.

“Or some garbage or something. I need to cover this thing.”

The lightbulb goes on above my head, and I quickly stand to gather bits of garbage and dead weeds. Toni takes them from me and adds them to the things she assembled, covering the camera so neither it nor its green light is visible.

“Sweet.” Toni stands and smiles. “You ready to get out of here?”

“Sure.” I’m proud of myself that I was able to keep my cool. What I really want to do is sprint to the van, but I follow Toni’s casual pace and cringe as sweat trickles down my spine.

When we’re in the van again, Toni goes to the back, opening up the laptop. She clicks the touch pad a few times and turns the screen to face me. “Lookie, lookie.” She’s smiling.

The camera inside the black box has a fish-eye lens, allowing it to pick up almost the entire back side of the house and the yard. The only thing we can’t see is the yard on the north side and the back corner, parallel with the camera.

“Not bad.” I nod in appreciation. “How much battery does that camera have?”

“Forty-eight hours, give or take.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“Lithium ion. Waterproof too. I love gadgets.” She closes the laptop and stands to go to the front of the van. I swivel to the front so she doesn’t have to climb over my legs.

“Where to now?” I ask.

“Last part. And this is my favorite part, by the way.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

She laughs. “You’re going to love it, I promise.” She pulls out of the driveway of the abandoned house and goes back to the other street we were on before. She stops at the corner and parks on the side of the road behind another car.

Once she’s done, with the engine off, she goes into the back. She’s all the way in the rear of the van, so I can’t see anything that she’s doing.

Her voice sounds muffled. “Come out and play, Polly. Polly want a cracker?”

“Please tell me you don’t have a parrot back there.” I twist around farther to see better.

“Oh, but I do have a parrot back here.” She giggles like a mad scientist.

She comes to the front of the van and holds something black out in front of her. “Behold: Polly.”

“What is that?” It looks like a small black X with helicopter blades on it in four places.

“This is a drone. She’s my Parrot.” She cackles with glee. “And today she’s going to go sit on a pole and spy for us.”

I reach out to touch it, but Toni stops me with a sharp slap to the back of my hand.

“Ow!”

“Don’t touch. She’s mine.”

I lift an eyebrow. “She has a camera on her. I think that makes her mine too.”

Toni’s eyes narrow. “Keep your paws off her or else.”

My jaw drops open in surprise. Is she threatening me?

Then her expression changes and she smiles. “Gotcha.” She motions for me to join her. “Come on back here and help me fly this bitch.”

I feel like a kid in a toy store. I’m so excited. I never outgrew getting gadgets for Christmas and my birthday, and this is one hell of a gadget. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I thought all those stories in the news about drones were science fiction.

Toni clicks on a program on her computer, and a black window opens. She presses a button on the drone, and in a couple seconds, the window on the computer flickers. I can barely make out the interior of the van, where the drone is pointing.

“Whoa.”

She hands it to me. “Here. Be careful with it. In a minute I’m going to send you outside with it.”

My enthusiasm is tempered by the reality of our situation. “Outside the van, you mean?”

She pauses in her keystrokes to look at me. “Where else would I mean?” She shakes her head in disappointment and then starts clicking her keys again. “As soon as I have this ready, you’re going to go outside the van and put Polly on the ground. I’ll launch her up, and then my goal is to get her on that light pole just behind the van.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“Because. The bird’s-eye view is awesome for catching daily activity and vehicles and sometimes people too.” She frowns. “Not always great at getting faces, but still, valuable intel worth getting.”

She leans over and grabs a big black box. It has hand controls on it, joysticks and buttons. She flicks a switch and it goes on.

“Okay, so, hold Polly from underneath and away from your face. I’m going to check her props.”

I do as I’m told and hold the thing as far from me as I can. My arm muscles ache with the effort, even though it weighs not much more than a feather.

It vibrates as the propellers start to buzz. They’re going so fast, they’re a blur.

“Good. We’re all set. Go outside and put it on the curb behind the van. Take this with you.” She hands me a walkie-talkie. “I want you to let me know of any problems that you see.”

“Problems?” I’m picturing bad guys with guns.

“Yeah, like power lines I might not see in the monitor or whatever.”

“Oh. Okay. I can do that.” I think. Being almost a whole block down from the target house makes me feel a little safer than I did in the backyard behind it, but not much.

“Go. We have to get back soon.”

A glance at my watch tells me that time flies when you’re scared shitless that you’re going to get discovered on a surveillance run. I’m not unhappy about that. It sure beats time crawling.

I step outside the van with the drone in one hand and my walkie-talkie in the other. Behind the vehicle in two seconds, I put the drone down on the curb.

A voice comes out from the two-way radio, so low I can barely hear it.

“We good?” Toni asks.

I look all over the device for a button, pressing one on the side experimentally. The static that was there is gone. “Um, yeah. We’re all good.” I let go of the button.

“Good. Now step back a little. I don’t want to hit you with this thing.”

I walk back a couple strides, but it’s not enough. The drone takes off straight up about one foot and then veers to the side, slamming into my thigh.

“Ow, shit, mother fu . . .” I hop around on one leg, trying to keep the shout from leaving my lungs.

“What just happened?” comes a voice over the speaker.

I grab it and press the button. “You ran the thing into my leg!” There’s going to be a bruise, I know it.

“Oh. Sorry. Let’s try this again.”

Again?! What am I, the crash test dummy?

I grumble as I pick up the drone that’s fallen to its side in the street. I put it down on the curb again and go around the back of the van until I’m at its side. This way I can peek around the corner and watch from a safe distance.

The propellers start up again, and the device rocks back and forth. It rises slowly from the ground and hovers near the back of the van. I move farther toward the side of the vehicle. Now I can hear it, but I can’t see it. The whir of the blades is whisper soft. I’m sure none of the neighbors will notice a thing.

Suddenly, it appears around the side of the van.

“Ack!” I run backward, but it follows me.

I scramble for my walkie-talkie. “Stop chasing me with that thing!”

It surges forward at me and then at the last second goes backward and sideways, banging into the side of the van before hitting the street.