Hail Warning

The White House Rose Garden — Washington, D.C

I t was raining when president Joanna Weston stepped into the White House Rose Garden. In one hand, she clung to a paperback romance novel. In her other hand, she held a glass of tea. Weston looked up at the new opaque glass roof that had been constructed over the garden. This was the first time she was pleased to have the roof over her. In the past — if it had been raining — she was stuck indoors. Now she could enjoy being outdoors during any type of weather. It remained to be seen if she would still feel that way when the Washington snows arrived, but at least it was an option.

The glass table in the center of the garden had been cleared off, except the three roses in a tall vase. Weston pulled out a chair from the table and kicked off her heels. She propped her feet up on the chair. After taking a sip of her iced tea, she set the drink on the table and began reading.

Fat rain drops made plinking sounds on the glass above, and it was a relaxing sound to the president. She scrunched down a little more in her chair and let her body lean back into the fat seat cushions.

She didn’t hear the drone until it was literally two feet from her. From somewhere off to her left, the drone had flown in under the glass awning, and it made a beeline straight for her table.

The president flinched, and her heart skipped a beat when the small drone knocked over the vase, bouncing off the table, and shattering on the ground.

Three tripod legs began to sprout from beneath the drone as its flexible LCD video screen began to unroll.

Anger rose to a boil inside the president when she recognized it was the same drone Hail had landed on her table weeks earlier. But how? How was this possible? A new opaque glass dome fully covered the Rose Garden, and every electronic signal was jammed.

In one quick motion, the president pulled her feet off the chair and sat ramrod straight. She slapped her book down on the table and watched as Marshall Hail’s face appeared on the screen.

Hail began the conversation, “Good afternoon, Madam President, I mean, Joanna. I hope I’m not interrupting you, but we really need to talk.”

Hail thought the president appeared mad, and her first words proved his assumption correct.

“How in the hell did you land this — this — machine on my table? Do you have any idea what we have gone through to prevent this exact thing from happening?”

The president pointed up at the glass roof and continued, “We installed this glass over the top of the garden to prevent you — and anyone else — from using lasers to pilot drones onto the property.”

Hail thought, although the president had run out of words after her tirade, her anger had not diffused. She was still fuming.

Hail meekly replied, “Well, we have the exact coordinates of this landing spot from the last time we met at your table. All we did was return the drone to the same coordinates. It keeps track of its own X and Y, so it doesn’t need to communicate with anything to return to the same spot. Now, if you had moved the table, it would have probably—”

But the president wasn’t listening any longer. Weston put her arms in the air, expressing her exasperation and looking up at the glass dome. She began to shake her clenched fists and she yelled, “Mr. Hail, you are really trying my patience! Do you realize how much your visits to my table are costing the taxpayers?”

Hail shrugged and said, “If it makes your staff more security conscious and take the proper precautions, I have done my civic duty.”

The president made a face that Hail thought looked a little mad, a little frustrated and a whole lot overwhelmed.

In a tone that sounded like a woman trying to get rid of representatives of Hare Krishna, the president asked, “Why are you sitting on my table again, Marshall?”

Hail was pleased to finally get down to business.

“It’s really no big deal. I just need two things. First, I will need those names and the contact information for the Marines I got in trouble.”

“You mean got dishonorably discharged,” the president corrected him.

“It sounded better the way I said it,” Hail said.

The president huffed and asked, “And what’s the other thing you require?”

Hail looked sheepishly at the president and said, “Oh, and some weapons-grade anthrax.”