15015/Beach front drone hunt

Beach front drone hunt
Date of Scene:	27 May 2023
Location:	Brighton Beach
Synopsis:	Viv and Harper go looking for a missing drone and find a weird device sending out a mystery signal. They decide to form an elite team of specialists (or anyone who happens to be free and ideally has a boat) to investigate!
Cast of Characters:	Harper Row, Vivian Vision

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Harper Row has posed:
Harper needs help, and she's come running to her girlfriend. Little Bo Beep has lost one of her automated sheep. Is it a ploy to go to a beach on a date? It was a pretty nice day out. The sun hanging in the sky, past its apex, and if reality conforms to itself it will set in due time. But for now, it nice, it's breezy and the water is inviting.

Ms. Row has on a one-piece blue suit, a towel wrapped around her waist as a makeshift shirt, sunglasses perched on her head...and a satchel. The girl is ridiculous about her gadget-purse. But in this case, it holds some devices to help her track down her missing Drone. And sun-block...And her phone...And a small electronics kit...and...

"I don't know what's gotten into him. He's always returned when I press the Recall signal. He's got a really good sensory radius, a charming little battery that's good for hours and hours, I really can't fathom where he got to. Unless..." He got stolen...a thought she doesn't want to welcome into her head.

Vivian Vision has posed:
Ahh a sunny day on the beach with your girlfriend. Is there a better way to spend the day when you're solar powered? Probably not. Especially when you can phase through solid matter. Ideal for stopping sand being coarse and getting everywhere. And with Brighton Beach not all that far from Brooklyn, relatively speaking, it makes the ideal place to go for a day out.

Or in this case a search and rescue mission.

"I shall take a look on social media for anyone talking about having found a drone," she offers. Find also covering stealing a drone or destroying one. "I can also scan a much wider area while we walk. Do you have an image for reference? I can also upload some 'lost drone' fliers if necessary." It's merely a matter of seconds for her to locate every business along the beach and email them. "That way if anyone hands anything in you'll get contacted."

She's wearing a yellow one piece. Her own skirt is actually a real genuine skirt. But is fashioned to look like something she's just tied around her waist for casual poolside lounging. She's got a bag too but it's much smaller and only contains a small first aid kit, bottled water, some energy bars and a towel. All the things they might need while walking for an extended period of time.

"I'm sure we'll find him somewhere."

Harper Row has posed:
Harper digs into her bag of Holdings and retrieves a little joystick that fits into the palm like a pair of high-tech brass knuckles. Her fingers squeeze into the grip and her thumb flicks over the directional toggle, giving it an experimental revolution softly, before, nail-flicking it, that sends it wriggling like a door stopper. She bites are her lip and reaches for Vivian's hand with her free one.

A smile is offered to Viv and gives a firm nod, which dislodges her sunglasses in a way she hopes is pretty cool. The movement dropping them onto the bridge of her nose, their polarized lenses blocking the sun and casting the beach in a different tint. "Doogie isn't supposed to let anyone get too close. He's more the watch and report type of little fella. There ~was~ a bit of a glitch in his software where he'd go chasing Gulls. Some sort of fascination with how they could stay aloft on the air currents without a propulsion device I think. Oh my god, I was spammed with terabytes of flight telemetry on what I thought were UFOs or something. Nope. Birds. Just sea birds." she slowly shakes her head.

Harper awkwardly uses her tech be-knuckled hand into her bag to get her phone and call up a photo of a Drone that's definitely not in Bird or Bat colours. He's got colours like fish, with a dark greent tint on top, with a white belly. Quad propellors arranged symmetrically, antennas, and a revolving sensory suite located underneath and above. "He's quite handsome if I do so myself. He's not fast, but he's got range."

There are quite a few others sharing the beach. Some are drone operators, some are flying kites and some are soaking up the rays after a little splish-splash. Some unleashed dogs seem to have a bit of freedom to, and not all have owners chasing after them. This is a cause of some consternation. Happy kids chase one another too, kicking up sand and racing about with beach balls or squirt guns.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Would you like me to boost your signal reach?" Vivian wonders as Harper gets out the controller. "I can pick up signals about half way across the planet. So I should be more than capable to increasing your coverage." If she can't reach it the drone is either in a faraday cage, destroyed, or something exceptionally weird has happened....

"Gulls can be quite aggressive if they have young. Is it possible he got too close to a nesting site?" she muses. Idly creating a map of local bird life and optimising her search patterns to start with locations near to gull nesting sites. Then work outwards from there.

She squeezes Harpers hand and nods at the image. Incorporating it into a digital flier as well as calibrating her sensors to look for Doogie by shape and colouration.

"I think it might be nice to come back here for a walk when we're not in crisis mode," she muses. "Perhaps once SPARKY is working I'll take him for walks about the beach."

Harper Row has posed:
Harper's nod of agreement is very quick. "Abso-tutely. Yeah, boost me!" she smiles tightly and then her brain catches. "Oh...Oh...right..." she puts the phone away and raises up her hand device for inspection, assuming even that gesture is unnecessary with Viv's capabilities. But it's fun to show-and-tell.

"I mean, anything is possible. I'd like to think I can build and program as well as the next person, but infalliable I'm not. So this could be anything like what you suggested. He's got a thing for birds for sure, so I could see that." she clears her throat as they walk along.

"Is SPARKY getting close to being ready to rock? That should draw a lot of eyes, unless you do what you do, holo-wise, make it so us Muggles aren't tipped off by anything amiss. I wish I could make Doogie truely sentient sometimes, but I'm no Mother, and certainly not ready for the mantle of being a Creator. Taking care of myself is enough work, right?"

A sensory sweep would show a lot of interference on the beach today. The usual blanket of frequencies invisibile to the naked eye carrying individual roaming wi-fi signals, remote control toys and drones, radio and whatnot. There's a bit of a deadzone further along the beach, perhaps half a kilometer away. That would coincide with some weather station facilities that the city uses to gather data for weather and air traffic control.

Vivian Vision has posed:
It is indeed not really necessary to hold the device up. Vivian has likely been aware of every signal emitting gadget Harper's had with her the entire time. Just waiting for permission to do her thing. Which takes all of a second. Tapping into the controller, routing the signals through herself like she's the worlds most expensive signal booster, and sending the drone control commands over the whole state. To start with anyway.

"SPARKY is... very complicated. I have got his physical form working. It's just the mental side I need to work on. Like... he can do anything I can because he's a synthezoid but that means I need to be very careful about his use of those abilities."

She bites her lip.

"Basically I need to either remove the optical blast capability or put stronger safeguards in against their use. Same with the phasing. Right now he could jump on you and it'd be like getting hit by a cannon ball. Or he could pass through you and scramble your nerves..."

Harper Row has posed:
    Harper turns a look on Vivian as she lays out some truely remarkable abilities for robo-pooch. Her eyes peering from under her brows and dimples appearing where her cheeks quirk. "Oof. Stronger safeguards. It feels weird to suggest neutering his capabilities. As...freakin dangerous as that sounds, shackling things just rubs me wrong. I mean..." she trails off, the murky territory of Rights of Sentients mingling with her incomplete knowledge. Her hand squeezes Vivian's again. "I trust you to make better decisions that most everyone on the planet."

There's a ghostly return on ~Doogie~ that fluctuates, but seems to originate from the deadzone of signals that pollute the area. Like a cone of silence further along the beach, coinciding with a large antenna jutting out from a pier that extends into the ocean. A number of warning buoy's warn away swimmers. A simple fence surrounding it. More warning signs of different shapes suggesting electric shocks or trespassing, but so one with enhanced senses, there is no current running through the fence.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"SPARKY is never going to be capable of sentient thought," Vivian says solemnly. "I'm just not building him with the capacity to carry out that sort of complex planning. The last thing anyone wants is a canine Ultron... Although he would be vastly cuter." She hmmms thoughtfully. "Maybe it wouldn't be the absolute worst thing. I think there are enough people who like puppers in the world that canine overlord might go down better than a Human one."

"It's not the same as shackling his abilities. Promise. I'm not building a super smart synthezoid and then forcing it to act like a dog. That would be cruel. When I talk about safeguards I'm really talking about a very complex decision tree which will, when possible, contact me for permission before engaging in any dangerous activities like firing optic blasts. No different to how you wouldn't fly a drone that had missiles with free fire capabilities in a public area."

She frowns at the data readings. "Did you see that? We got a ping on Doogie." She points. "That way. By all the suspiciously unnecessary warning signs."

Harper Row has posed:
"Ahhhhhh." Harper gets it now, or at least, she gets it ~better~. She sucks in air past her teeth and nods. And then she's bringing up her gadget to get her own eyes on the past return, furtive as it was. She lifts her sunglasses to squint at her own display. Calling back the readings like she wanted to catch something streaming she missed on the television. "Huh." she exclaims with a curl of lip.

"Nice. Yeah, aren't they just?" She heads on over to that location until the fence is within spitting distance of them both. Craning her head, she looks up at the antenna as it rises a good 4 or 5 stories. The installation is small, large enough to hold a junction box, to transmit atmospheric data for weather stations or pick up and piggyback coast guard stuff. Kinda. Up near the apex is a dish that's permanently affixed to point out to sea. Within the tilted concave shell a number of rotors can be seen. Doogie is perched up there like he's trying to catch some rays, his camera lenses pointed out to sea as well. "I think I see the little bugger."

Harper hits the recall command, but the drone doesn't respond. She also doesn't get much cellphone coverage here. There's a saturation of frequencies going out to negate each wifi or carrier that tries to pass through the zone of this location. Only the beam out to sea is consistent. To lovely electronic eyes capable of reading different wavelengths, it might appear as a focused beam going out to the horizon. Perhaps to a ship or a stationary location like a platform. The beam carries an encryption that is a jumble of languages, binary and spoken, piecemeal jigsaw and braided like a hemp rope.

Vivian Vision has posed:
Vivian blinks a few times. "Harper do you remember those scrap drones you were investigating a while back?" she muses. "The ones which were building each other out of parts? The signal this facility is broadcasting reminds me of that. It's not... coherent. Like someone decided to be Frankenstein but for signals. Stitching a whole bunch of random things together to make a 'code' that not even I can decrypt because it doesn't really mean anything."

She frowns as part of her mind portions off to try check for codes. Just in case.

"I am going to do a quick check to see who approved this facility. There should be records if it's legitimate." She might also be tapping into some satellite feeds to look out to sea in the direction the beam is transmitting. Calculating just how far the beam could potentially reach given the current weather conditions. And then refining her search radius based on the data.

"It's also just vastly inefficient to transmit like it's doing. Everyone knows the smart thing to do is use a point to point laser to send data without risk of interception. No dead zones. No signal leaking.."

Harper Row has posed:
    Harper's expression turns to worry. Concern for her little drone, and the shadow of anxiety over those past scrap monsters that were never sufficiently sorted out. She hits the recall button again like someone impatient to summon an elevator that won't come any faster. "Okay."

Harper's drone stays perched, sensors pointed out to sea like the beam only Viv can see. Doogie is in a receptive mode, not passive, but like a little sponge. Perhaps its obsessive glitch to know all about telemetry having been hijacked by a new need to know what the heck is going on here, and without the distraction of all the usual signals singing through the air of the beach.

The Facility is decommissioned, having belonged at first to the US Navy during the 50's, having been refitted as a transmitter in the 80's for the Coast Guard. Sometime in the following decades, it was never renewed for service, the Coast Guard having moved onto spiffier things like Satellite and other optical means of communication. It should not be in use. Cross-referencing against the city's power grid, it isn't listed as being connected anymore, but it is obviously powered.

The beam could reach a number of nautical miles on a good day, given atmospherics. There is a old oil rig from a failed extraction back in the 80's in the beam's direction. A trio of them in various rusty states of decay most likely. The company that owned them having been bankrupt from a scandal and then absorbed into some massive corporate umbrella. Surely the rigs should be nothing more than monuments to fossil fuels at this point. A cursory satellite image peek of the last few months would show the trio of rig platforms as still existing, not dismantled. No one laying claim within the United States.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Well," Vivian says. Pausing as she considers the data. "That is... interesting."

She glances around, gauging how busy the beach is, and then looks at Harper. Voice quiet so no-one can overhear she relays the information regarding the oil rigs and how this station shouldn't be in use at all. All the while doing slightly unethical hack of the power grid to check if anyone is illegally drawing power at this location and if anyone has hacked the utility companies in the area to cover it up.

"If you can hold my things I could fly up there to remove your drone. And then we can prepare a team of some sort to investigate where the signal is being sent?" She suggests. "I don't want to cut it off and alert whatever is behind this. Not until we know more about who is behind it and why." Her superhuman senses scan the area for any signs they're being watched. Using her holographic systems to hide them just in case. Holographic doppelgangers taking up perfectly innocent sunbathing positions at the extreme of her range so they don't simply vanish. "Even retrieving your drone has a minor risk but it's better than leaving your tech in unknown hands."