“Are you coming or what?” my guide shouted from the black drone.
“Excuse me, but you haven’t introduced yourself,” I reminded him.
He had a hand on the door. “My name is Alexander Boulder – now get in the fucking drone,woman.”
I crossed my arms and pushed my jaw out, letting him know that I would not be disrespected like this.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked with exasperation.
“You’re being most unkind to me and I don’t appreciate your constant use of curse words.”
From the way his knuckles changed color to white, I knew he was squeezing the door hard and suspected he was counting to ten in his head.
“I also need help with my luggage, so could you be a gentleman and load them into the drone?”
“Why? I thought you women were all so independent and strong,” he mocked me.
“We are,” I said quickly. “And we’re also very keen to help others. In this case, I’m asking you to help me.” While talking, I moved toward him and my luggage followed me.
Alexander opened a hatch and bent down to take the first suitcase.
“Careful with that one, it’s very heavy,” I warned.
He snorted and lifted the suitcase as if it weighed nothing. I picked up the lightest of my heavy bags, but his drone was too tall and the luggage area much too high for me to reach.
“Could you please help me?” I asked while struggling with the heavy thing.
He did, and judging from his smug smile of satisfaction, he was clearly amused by his superior strength.
“Thank you,” I said when all my luggage was loaded aboard the drone.
“Let’s go,” was his reply and I noted again that he had no manners. I had greeted him kindly when we first met, wishing him peace, but he didn’t return the greeting. Now I’d told him thank you and he didn’t acknowledge that either. So, it was true then; the Nmen were primitive and rude and didn’t have a civilized way of interacting. But then again, they grew up without mothers or female influence, and didn’t know any better.
“What am I to call you?” I asked when we sat in the drone and it took off.
“You can call me Boulder,” he said and that’s when I realized that he was maneuvering the drone around.
“Do you control the drone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun.”
“But who taught you how to?” I stared at the steering panel with the large screen.
He gave me a sideways glance. “A friend.”
“But don’t you have automated drones?”
“Of course; this one is a hybrid. I can choose to steer or not.”
“But that can’t be legal, can it?” I asked skeptically.
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because of accidents. Humans get distracted and make mistakes. In traffic that’s often fatal. We haven’t allowed manually controlled vehicles for hundreds of years.”
