Pye in the sky
by Carl Meewezen
Queens, NY - after midnight
The dark machine hovers silently 25 metres above residential sprawl, its echo-box unit totally
absorbing engine noise. Through my tiny porthole (passenger concessions are limited on these flights)
I can see the endless lines of traffic wind through baffling one-way systems. From this god-like
vantage point, the quiet was eerie and yet enthralling.
A whisper in my flight helmet's comm tells me our quarry is on the move, and for
the nth time this night I grab the sides of my seat, gritting me teeth ready for another
stomach-churning acceleration whirl, as the rotorcraft rockets upwards nearly 30 storeys. This is
surveillance duty with New York State's elite Air Patrol Unit; following the movements of a suspected
arsonist as a favour to Manhattan's Homicide Division. The furtive subject, dubbed 'Hedgehog' by the
crew, is tracked by a zoom-camera scope as he leaves a dimly lit apartment block. A couple of figures
appear briefly in the doorway, but do not venture out for this photo opportunity.
"Catch you later guys," the pilot remarks while, almost lethargically, he
keys in new flight plans. Captain Roy 'Modest' Duffy banks the Skydragon UH-101 into a leisurely
pursuit of Hedgehog's electric Pontiac, down 21st Avenue towards Greenpoint. Reputedly, Duffy is the
best (and oldest at 39) of the Patrol's sky marshals, or so I have been reliably informed by
Observer and co-pilot Otto Hellman: "He's an ex-Firehawk, and flew with the US vanguard in the
Gulf Wars. 'Course, he don't talk about it anymore." But young Otto (20) was only too eager to
chatter about himself, especially with reference to his newly implanted cyber-link, through which he
could yak using 100 languages - 95 of them computerised. Cruising at 150 metres over street level, we
follow the Pontiac all the way home to McCarren Park, where Duffy hands over to a grounder stakeout
team and leaves them to ensure that Hedgehog doesn't play with any matches.
"OK, we got some robbery reports from Battery Park, the usual Chinatown riot,
or how about a fast drive-by shooting on the Williamsburg Bridge?" Hellman offers, as Captain
Duffy logs in his unit's work status. "This is not really a gunship," Hellman had told me
earlier in the day, as he directed my attention to the helo's (they never call them copters or
choppers) underside and lateral machine guns, anti-tank missiles, rear defence pods, and prow-mounted
canon. "But we can kick any street butt, if called for." Skydragon's console data-plates
scroll through endless digitised coded info, quite incomprehensible to a groundhog like me. Having
tried one of those VR pilot tutors and crashed spectacularly on 1st
take-off, I'd abandoned all notions of learning to fly - which is probably why our esteemed editor
(INOFmaniac AI) challenged my sense of self-preservation with this latest hair-raising assignment.
With body rigid and everything clenched, I brace for another of Duffy's rollercoaster aerial
waltzes... And it's as well I did, for a heartbeat later we're going down what feels like a Mach 10
spiral (though I was later assured it was merely 500 kph) into the financial district of Manhattan!
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Forbidden to use heat-seekers on New York's bridge traffic, Captain Duffy had opted
to assist in the capture of armed thieves fleeing Broadway's uniformed officers across the grass.
They might have escaped had we not swooped in low attack-mode (with blaring siren and dazzling
spotlight) to zap 3 with a focused ultrasonic burst. SD #101 circled once overhead, pausing only to
call up paramedics for the dropped felons, and accept abuse-by-radio from pursuing ground units
somewhat ruffled by our fly-by's squall. It is rumoured that the Air Patrol are top of a city cops'
hate list - except for Manhattan's liberal, Hispanic new Mayor. Next, we're off in a dizzying rush to
join forces with another NYPD bird, and quell another of Chinatown district's increasingly regular
violent reprisals against recent changes to the area's planning
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regulations.
"It keeps flaring up," noted Hellman, "NYPD have given up fighting back, and so it's
just contained and left to burn." Besides spying on suspects from on high, the
New York Air Patrol (operating 10 VTOL craft from a tower site in redeveloped Brooklyn) also tackles
rooftop fires, occasional mountain rescues, medevac duties across the state; supportive roles to NYPD
as required, and general policing of local skies. This morning's scramble to intercept a stolen
hovercraft joyride on the Hudson River was at the US Coastguard's request. But they do not, it was
stressed to me by friend Otto, "blow cats out of trees, or dust the town's sidewalks!"
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Culture crash
by Steven Hampton
Suva, Fiji Islands
Priceless aboriginal artworks and ancient artefacts have, tragically, been lost at sea when a
transport plane crashed 50 miles from the shores of New Caledonia. The missing items of Australian,
New Zealand, Indonesian and Papua New Guinean primitives' work date from 4000 years BC, and were en
route to California, for a special Easter exhibition, organised by the Dreamtime Institute.
From the University of New Otago, Maori Professor Tu Kerikato, went on local webcast news to deplore
"those idiots responsible for this incalculable loss to Australasian culture." A fierce
opponent of the scheme, Prof Kerikato last month stuck out his tongue at High Commissioner
Tyne-Bakersfield, on a global satellite channel news-link, when the authorities cordially invited him
to the Easter show's opening.
In a related comms' incident, Dreamtime's head curator of antiquities received
death mails from outraged anthropological history societies, warning of dire consequences if he goes
ahead with next month's planned web auction of the Easter Island statues, which were moved to safety
on Galapagos after being damaged by recent tropical storms.
Vacationing here, on Vanua Levu, with her all-male teenage entourage, Sydney's own
Cultural Attaché to Museum of Antiquities, Toowoomba, Ms Kylie Mynoog
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(pictured), refused to grant any interviews. But, the onetime pop singer and Oscar winning (if
part-time) actress, who, in her official capacity has in fact
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previously stressed her approval of this controversial "cultural sale of the century" (as a
colleague of mine called the May Day auction), today expressed a characteristic, if fleeting, moment
of regret when she was informed of the losses to her native land's art history.
So then, with her vast personal fortune - made from pop music and fitness tapes,
will she be trying to salvage the artifacts? "I should be so lucky," she told this reporter.
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