Chapter 13: The Tax Drone (Elena)

The hum wasn’t the sound of a honeybee, and in Cypress Bend, that distinction was the difference between an organic miracle and a federal audit. 

Elena froze, her trowel suspended over a cluster of heirloom kale that was finally, stubbornly, beginning to thrive in the silt-heavy soil. She didn’t look up. Not yet. Looking up gave the thing permission to see her face, to run the biometric scans and cross-reference her retinal patterns with the IRS database she’d been dodging for three years. Instead, she watched the shadow. It drifted across the vibrant green leaves of the vegetable patch—a sharp, mechanical outline against the soft, irregular shapes of the garden.

The drone was a Model 9 Collector, nicknamed the "Hummingbird" by those who worked in the trade, though there was nothing delicate about it. It was a matte-black surveillance node with four high-torque rotors and a gimbal-mounted sensor array that could smell the difference between a dandelion and a prohibited cash crop from fifty feet up.

"Elena?" 

Grandpa Miller’s voice cracked from the porch. It was thin, reedy, and spiked with the kind of terror that only a man who had survived the Great Devaluation could summon.

"Inside, Grandpa," Elena said, her voice a low, disciplined rasp. She still didn't look up. She forced her hands to remain steady as she tucked a handful of mulch around the base of a kale plant. "Go back to the kitchen. Now."

"It’s circling the barn," he whispered, his boots scuffing the wood of the veranda. "Elena, the silage—"

"The silage is fine. Go."

The shadow stopped. It hovered directly over the crown of her head, the downdraft from the rotors kicking up a fine mist of dust that stung her eyes. Elena counted to ten. She concentrated on the smell of damp earth and the rhythmic *thrum-thrum-thrum* of the machine. The drone was checking for Heat Signatures first. It was looking for the illegal grow lights she’d supposedly dismantled two weeks ago, or the fermentation tanks that represented five thousand dollars in unreported barter-value cider.

Finally, she stood. She wiped her dirt-caked palms on her canvas work pants and looked the Hummingbird in its glass-balled eye.

"You’re trespassing on a Zoned Agricultural Variance," she said, projecting her voice toward the drone's directional microphones. "Section 44-B. This property is exempt from automated aerial inspection between the hours of sunset and sunrise, and per the 2031 Privacy Accord, you lack a specific warrant for low-altitude loitering."

The drone didn’t move. It drifted left, then right, its sensors clicking like an angry insect. 

Elena felt the sweat prickle at the nape of her neck. If the drone dropped another six feet, it would pick up the faint, sweet-rot scent of the mash fermenting under the floorboards of the tool shed. If it shifted its thermal focus to the North-West corner of the plot, it would see the heat signature of the cellar—where Marcus was currently hidden, holding his breath and clutching a decommissioned EMP rifle that would likely blow his arm off if he actually tried to fire it.

"Identify," the drone barked. The voice was a synthesized grit, a mimicry of authority that lacked the soul of a real officer. "Identify occupant Elena Vance. Confirming residency status."

"Residency confirmed via the gate-post RFID," Elena snapped. She took a step toward the drone, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She needed to lead it away from the shed. "You’re wasting battery, Unit 4-niner. There’s nothing here but kale and bad attitudes. Why don’t you go harass the folks down at the marina? I heard they’re trading untaxed red snapper again."

The drone banked, its rotors tilting with a whine that set Elena’s teeth on edge. It didn’t head for the marina. It drifted toward the shed.

Elena’s hand went to the heavy shears hanging from her belt. It was a suicidal thought—bringing down a federal drone was a felony that carried a mandatory ten-year sentence in the New Memphis work camps—but if it found Marcus, if it scanned his face and realized he was the same man who’d walked out of a high-security precinct in Nashville six days ago, no one would be going to a camp. They’d just be erased.

The drone hovered over the shed roof. The sensors began to glow a dull, neon violet.

"State your business!" Elena shouted, moving fast now, her boots churning the mud. "You are violating the perimeter!"

Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle cut through the air from the direction of the woods. It was a sharp, two-tone trill that sounded like a mockingbird on amphetamines. 

The drone spun 180 degrees. Its primary lens zoomed, hunting for the source of the acoustic anomaly. From the tree line, a small, glittering object streaked into the sky—a Mylar balloon, weighted with lead shot and covered in reflective chaff. It caught the afternoon sun, becoming a blinding, shimmering disco ball that threw the drone's optical sensors into a recursive loop.

The Hummingbird stuttered. Its software, designed to prioritize high-speed movement and reflective interference, locked onto the balloon. It surged forward, chasing the glittering lure as it drifted over the creek and toward the dense canopy of the cypress swamp.

Elena let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She didn't wait to see if the drone recovered. She sprinted for the cellar door behind the barn, her fingers fumbling with the heavy iron latch.

"Marcus!" she hissed, swinging the door open.

The darkness of the cellar smelled of damp stone and old potatoes. Marcus was there, huddled in the corner, the EMP rifle gripped so hard his knuckles were white. He looked up, his eyes wide and frantic in the gloom.

"Is it gone?" he whispered.

"For now anyway," Elena said, stepping inside and pulling the door shut. The silence of the cellar was heavy, broken only by the sound of their combined breathing. "Someone just saved our asses with a chaff balloon. Probably Silas. He’s the only one in the Bend with that kind of tech and the balls to use it on a federal unit."

Marcus slumped back against the wall, the rifle clattering to the floor. "It shouldn't be here, Elena. They shouldn't be scanning this far out. This is a dead zone. That’s why I came here."

Elena knelt in front of him, her eyes adjusting to the dark. She saw the tremor in his hands. Marcus wasn’t a soldier; he was a data-miner who had seen something he wasn't supposed to, a man who had traded his comfortable life for a suitcase full of encrypted drives and a life on the run.

"Nowhere is a dead zone anymore," Elena said softly. She reached out, placing a hand on his knee. "The algorithm is expanding. It doesn't just want your taxes, Marcus. It wants your geography. It wants to know exactly where every outlier sits so it can predict the next deviation."

"I have to leave," Marcus said, his voice rising in panic. "If they find me here, they’ll take you too. And Miller. They’ll burn this place to the ground."

"You leave now, and you’re walking right into their net," Elena countered. "That drone will be back. It’ll bring friends. We have maybe an hour before they analyze the chaff and realize they were diverted by a low-tech lure. We need to move the drives."

"The drives are encrypted," Marcus argued. "They can't get into them without the biometric key, and I’m not giving it—"

"I don't care about the encryption!" Elena snapped, her patience fraying. "I care about the physical hardware. If they find those drives in my cellar, this farm is forfeit. Everything my family has built for four generations... gone. Because I decided to help a man who can't even hold a gun straight."

The silence returned, sharper this time. Marcus looked down at his lap, the shame rolling off him in waves. Elena felt a pang of guilt, but she didn't apologize. In Cypress Bend, sentiment was a luxury they couldn't afford. You worked the land, you paid the bribes, and you stayed under the radar. Anything else was a death sentence.

"Where do we put them?" Marcus asked quietly.

Elena stood up, crossing to the back of the cellar where a stack of rusted milk crates sat covered in a moldy tarp. She pulled the tarp away to reveal a heavy, lead-lined box—an old x-ray film locker she’d scavenged from the ruins of the county hospital years ago.

"The creek," she said. "There’s a section under the roots of the Old Sentinel where the water stays cold and the silt is deep. We sink them there. The lead will mask the signature, and the current will wash away any lingering scent."

"And after?"

Elena looked at the cellar door. She could hear the faint, distant sound of the drone returning. It wasn't the same one—the pitch was higher, more aggressive. A Hunter-Seeker.

"After," Elena said, "we hope Silas has more balloons."

She grabbed the handle of the lead box and yanked it toward the center of the room. It was heavy, packed with the digital ghosts of a world that was rapidly being rewritten by the people who owned the drones. 

"Help me with this," she commanded.

Together, they lugged the box toward the hidden exit at the back of the cellar—a narrow crawlspace that let out into the irrigation ditch behind the barn. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth and the copper tang of fear. 

As they crawled through the muck, Elena could hear the Hunter-Seeker overhead. It wasn't buzzing anymore. It was screaming, a high-frequency whine that vibrated in her very marrow. It was searching for the heat of two bodies. It was searching for the discrepancy in the landscape.

They reached the irrigation ditch, the muddy water soaking through Elena’s clothes. She didn't care. She kept her head down, pulling the box along the bottom of the trench, her fingers stinging from the cold. 

"Stay low," she breathed. "Don't look up. Don't give it a face."

They moved like ghosts through the shadows of the tall grass, their world reduced to the scent of mud and the terrifying, electric scream of the machine above. 

When they reached the bank of the creek, Elena didn't hesitate. She rolled into the water, the shock of the cold hitting her like a physical blow. She pulled the lead box with her, feeling it sink into the soft, yielding silt of the creek bed. Marcus followed, his eyes wide and vacant, his body shivering uncontrollably.

"Push it under," Elena hissed. "Under the roots."

They shoved the box deep into the tangled mass of cypress roots, burying it beneath a layer of rotting leaves and stones. It vanished into the black water, another secret kept by the Bend.

Elena leaned back against the submerged trunk of the Old Sentinel, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She looked up through the canopy, catching a glimpse of the Hunter-Seeker as it banked over the farm. It was beautiful in a terrible way—a jagged, chrome star cutting through the sunset.

It lingered over the garden for a long time, its sensors bathing the kale in an eerie, ultraviolet light. Elena watched, her hand finding Marcus’s in the cold water. His grip was frantic, his pulse a frantic staccato against her palm.

The drone hovered, searching for a ghost that had already vanished. Then, with a sudden, violent burst of speed, it climbed into the darkening sky and disappeared toward the horizon.

Elena didn't move for ten minutes. She waited until the only sound was the frogs and the wind in the reeds. 

"Is it over?" Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible over the ripple of the water.

Elena looked at her mud-stained hands, then at the spot where the drives were buried. The farm was still there. Grandpa Miller was likely still in the kitchen, trembling over a cold cup of chicory. But everything had changed. The veil had been lifted, and the eye in the sky had seen them.

"No," Elena said, her voice cold and hard as the lead box. "It’s just starting. They’ll be back with a warrant and a ground team by morning."

She stood up, the water sluicing off her in dark ribbons. She didn't look back at the creek. She looked toward the woods, toward the place where Silas had fired the chaff. Usefulness was the only currency that mattered now, and she needed to find out exactly what Silas wanted in exchange for their lives.

"Come on," she said, hauling Marcus to his feet. "We have to get to the cabin before the perimeter sensors reset."

As they climbed out of the creek, Elena felt a strange sense of clarity. For years, she had been hiding, trying to preserve a dying way of life in the cracks of a digital empire. But you couldn't hide from a god made of silicon and glass. You could only fight it.

She looked at her garden—the kale, the tomatoes, the herbs. It looked small. It looked fragile. 

In the distance, a second drone began its patrol, a red light blinking like a malevolent eye against the rising moon. 

Elena didn't flinch. She reached down, picked up a heavy, jagged stone from the bank, and tucked it into her pocket. It wasn't an EMP rifle, but it was heavy, it was real, and it belonged to her.

"Let them come," she muttered to the dark.

She turned her back on the garden and disappeared into the trees, leaving the Hummingbirds to circle the empty shells of their secrets.