Three large armored carriers sat parked in front of the large walls that the humans had erected. This was one of the many border towns near the DMZ where mutants had taken over. This particular town had seen better days when it was simply Adelaide. Tourists came and went and its economy was stable. Now, it was one of the main refuges for the humans that had fled from the ongoing mutant action.

Roland had the town's current council on vidscreen as he sipped a cappuccino. They were bickering with him about the price he had offered for weapons, fuel and supplies. Roland always enjoyed a good haggle."You simply don't understand, Sir. The amount you are speaking of is tantamount to extortion! You are taking advantage of our position here! Don't you have any decency?"

Roland set the drink down on a saucer as a beautiful Swedish girl brought him some paperwork. The men of the council let their eyes roam freely." I am decent enough to deal with you at all. No one else is coming to help you. Also, what exactly do you need money for now? The things I have to offer you are going to get you much farther than paper will." He spoke in Swedish to the young girl and she left the camera's view, causing a slight slump in the fat balding men of the council.

Another screen showed an armed detachment of men approaching the APC's. Roland turned to the council camera. " I assume those men are your insurance policy? Or perhaps you thought you could just take what you don't want to pay for?" Roland nodded off screen and then watched the little pretend army men duck and cover when the tailgates of the carriers popped open, revealing little more than several monitoring banks of computers and screens near the cab end.

The barking got louder on the council's end."What kind of fools do you take us for? Did you think you could just rip us off so easily?"

Roland stepped away from the screen as the yelling continued. He checked with the pilot on an ETA and then returned to his leather chair. " Excuse me. Let me explain something to you all now. I assume that if you can see the carriers out front that you can also see several other things. Please check to the west and east of your quaint little village now." Roland looked at his own radar as the council undoubtedly did as well. "What are those? Missiles?" The crowd's anger quickly settled and changed into a more formal kind of mewing.

" Missiles? No. But they are carrying missiles. I'd like you to meet my own personal little army. Military drones, all on remote control and all ready to wipe your existence from the desert's face. I'd like your cronies to go back inside until the transaction is complete. I'd like you five to come outside with the money and wait for the exchange. Anyone else appears and T-shirts will be the style when it heats up inside. " Before any more objections could be made, the screen was silenced.

Outside the complex, the men received tinny orders to fall back to the safety of the walls. The lead man, a Cpl. Watts, looked around in disbelief as he began to move his men back. "Whaddaya mean? There is nothing out here besides these empty trucks! Affirmative!" He drew the men back inside the walls, though they did take points along the walls to watch and protect. A strange, droning hum could be heard once things became quiet. It seemed to come from all sides, growing slowly in its buglike swarm intensity.

Watts took a pair of high powered binoculars and swept the area. On the second sweep, he did a double take. It appeared at first to be birds, but these birds flew in a sketchy manner and were indeed too large to be any known bird capable of flight. "What the?" Watts took one of the sniper's rifles and zoomed in on the lead ' bird'. It was metallic and had a fixed wing with two large Stinger miussiles on its undercarriage. What would be a head was a large array of lenses, turning and scoping at him in turn. Soon Watts was only holding his arms out and had an eye squinted at nothing.

Many of the men on the walls had similar problems. Once the swarm arrived, there were easily one hundred of them, swooping and buzzing, their lenses feeding back to Roland. He stood in a large chamber in the cargo bay of the helicarrier, his hands moving amongst the various views from the drones. A group of programmers and r/c pilots worked the swarm from the same bay, so that voice orders could be carried out from the source.