Chapter Six: Stymied by Bodyguard Interrogation

Janae loomed over me as I leaned back against my Vespa.

“Hello there,” I began, trying to sound friendly.

“You’ve delivered our last several orders,” the bodyguard said.

“About that.” I instinctively leaned back, to which Janae instinctively leaned further in. “Well, you see, the tip on that bento box order was really good. So I started doing airport delivery gigs.”

“Uh-huh.” Janae put her hands on her hips. At this distance she succeeded in being intimidating.

“… I got the next few jobs, including one big one to a movie set while you were preoccupied.”

Janae’s hazel eyes danced about, deep in thought.

“The only time I was away from Miss Yuki’s side during work hours was…” Janae nodded. “The brownstone shoot.”

“I got rained on,” I said, sounding like a dope.

“Right. That makes sense. I was out on drone duty.”

“You… can swat drones out of the sky?”

Janae shrugged. “It’s an acquired skill. Just a matter of—look, that’s not the point. It appears that Miss Yuki has already hired you using a private account. I’ll let it slide this time, but I’ve got my eye on you. There better not be any funny business.”

I gulped. The tone of the bodyguard’s voice and the stern expression on her face led me to believe she meant it, too.

The faintest of chirping bugs out in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains was the only sign of wildlife. We were still, technically, out in a parking lot. The nearest pines and shrubs were well away from the lot as a fire-prevention measure.

“I’m to understand that you’ve already been contracted for a job tomorrow?” Janae asked.

I nodded.

Janae eyed the Vespa. Probably wondering how I was going to fit such a large order on such a tiny ride.

“Hmmm. I’ll allow it—tentatively.” Janae exhaled. “But I have to make sure you’re not associated with any known paparazzi outfits. And don’t even think of selling any candid photographs to that one celebrity aggregation site. You know the one.”

“I… really don’t,” I admitted, hands up in a non-threatening fashion.

Janae frowned, more skeptical still.

“I... ain’t from around here?” I offered.

Celebrity gossip was not actually my foray. All this checking of Hollywood gossip rags to learn about Yuki☆ was foreign to me. It was awkward to my sensibilities, and I kind of just fumbled about the Googles.

For the first time, Janae’s face softened. “Well, that makes two of us.”

I paused, unsure how to respond.

Stalemate ensued. Before Janae could next respond, we both heard a strange humming sound. That was no cicada. It was too steady, too mechanical.

“Drone,” Janae said with a scowl.

Immediately, Janae ran off into the brush. For a lack of anything else to do, I followed after.

“What are we after?” I asked her.

Janae was fast! Actually, it kind of looked like I was chasing her. That wasn’t good.

The bodyguard yelled something into a subtle ear-mounted headset.

“Campbell, engaging,” she said. “Close the perimeter around the principal.”

Ah, so her surname was Campbell. Janae C. Janae Campbell. It made sense. And she had a whole team out here, ensuring no paparazzi got their snooping camera lenses fall upon Yuki☆.

An off-white blur moved laterally to the ground up ahead. Janae picked up a fallen stick without breaking stride. She wound up for a flying leap even as she held this natural club clear over her head and swatted a basketball-sized quad-rotor drone clear out of the sky.

“Hiya—!” she said as she landed superheroine-style on the ground.

The blur—now clearly revealed to be a drone—spun about in an unstable orbit around nothing in particular. It wobbled, Janae having nicked one off its four rotors. Gravity and an increasingly unstable flightpath won out as the drone took one last spiraling loop that ended abruptly in the trunk of a nearby tree.

Rotors continued to whirr for a bit before the drone realized that its flying days were over. Only then did the robotic Peeping Tom die out.

“Drone, secured,” Janae said into her earpiece.

I tentatively took a step toward the drone. Janae squatted down, poking it with a stick.

The drone was sleek, far higher in quality than what you’re likely to get in a standard big box mart. A fancy, pixel-perfect camera sat safety embedded deep in the drone’s chassis. Whoever had deployed this drone was a professional outfit with money to spend.

“They actually make versions that home in on a target automatically, to prevent outside interference,” Janae explained.

I nodded understandingly.

“We’re lucky these are only here to take pictures,” Janae continued, poking around the central chassis. “Any photographs are likely uploaded to an external source. It’s too late to stop any photographs already taken. Still, this will prevent them from getting any more.”

I leaned in beside Janae to get a closer look. This drone was strangely familiar. Indeed, I got a sneaking suspicion that this was a cousin model to the one I’d spied outside the food truck. I didn’t say anything, as that could be suspicious.

Nevertheless, Janae pointed an accusatory finger at me.

“You. There was a drone here at your previous delivery.”

I glanced around, not that there was anyone else in the vicinity.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you! This is awfully suspicious. I’ve got my eye on you.”

I took a step back, stammering out an excuse.

Janae put her hands back on her hips. “You’re going to be under my close personal supervision until I rule you out as a potential stalker for Miss Yuki.”

This kind of blended in with the background noise to me as I pondered the possibilities. This couldn’t possibly be the same drone I’d spied at the taco truck. These things had a limited range. The most obvious solution for that would be that there were two high-quality drones flying about. But why would they be stalking me, specifically?

“If you want to keep tomorrow’s gig, you’ll be accompanying me to a third location for proper vetting,” Janae said.

It could be a way to track Yuki through me, perhaps. Surely nobody would be drone-stalking little old me.

Janae rattled through a schedule based purely on memory. The shoot would be over soon, as would her shift. There was an establishment at the foot of the mountains she wanted me to go to. Still, my mind had not settled. I couldn’t stop thinking about that drone—that curious drone.