A swarm numbering roughly 300 bodies glows green in the view through Steve’s sniper scope. The night vision adds its layer of reality to things but makes it flat and almost two dimensional. The drones huddle on a residential street waiting for the day to break, blind as bats in the darkness. Working like this at night and sleeping by day was going to be the best way to study them. He could avoid trouble and gather more details for his big plan at the same time.

The plan was never quite right though, there was always something else to include that set everything else off balance. He knew that thinking about it directly would become a chore after a while as creativity sensitive. But he knew also from experience that it was a process you could summon at will rather than waiting for some random moment of divine inspiration.