“That’s what I said,” Powell replied, and then turned to Salcido. “You’re the weapon nerd here. Explain this.”
Salcido pointed up, at the very long tube snaking up to the sky, now about two hundred feet up. “Air gets sucked into the thing from up there. It gets drawn down and accelerated as it goes. It hits the curve, gets an extra push, and out it goes that way.” He waved in the general direction of the protesters. “We set a perimeter length, and anytime one of them tries to get past it, the funnel ramps up a breeze and blows them down.”
“Which should be fun to see,” Lambert said. “Although these things are awfully inefficient, if we’re talking real crowd control. It’s like we’re daring them to try to cross that line.”
“They’re not supposed to be efficient,” I said. “They’re supposed to send a message.”
“What message? ‘We’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow your protest down’?”
“More like ‘We don’t even have to shoot you to render your protest utterly pointless.’”
“We seem to be sending a lot of messages recently,” Lambert noted. “I’m not sure the message we’re sending is the message they’re receiving.”
“The message this time will be a blast of wind that could knock over a house,” Salcido said. “It’ll get received.”
“And we’re not worried about getting sucked out into the rioters,” Powell said. “Because that would be bad.”
Salcido pointed upward again. “That’s why collection happens up there,” he said. “Plus there’s some airflow mitigation happening on this side of the thing.”
“All right,” Powell said.
“Just…”
“What? Just what?”
“Don’t get too close to the thing when it’s running.”
Powell looked sourly at Salcido. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you.”
“Yes. Yes I am. Fucking with you. You’re right, by all means, stand close to the thing when it goes off. Nothing bad will happen to you at all.”
“Lieutenant, I may have to shoot Sau.”
“Both of you, knock it off,” I said. I was watching the technicians finishing setting the thing up, which mostly consisted of them watching it, because like most things involving the Colonial Defense Forces, it was designed to operate with minimal assistance from humans, who were without exception the moving part most likely to fail. Left and right of where we were, other hurricane funnels were also unpacking themselves while technicians stood by. In all there were twenty-four of the things, circling the building.
When they were all set up the chief technician nodded to me; I nodded back and took control of the three funnels closest to me. I set the perimeter to thirty meters, which was ten meters further out than where the closest protesters were standing. I was pinged by the other seven CDF squads manning the other funnel stations, all of which I was commanding, letting me know they were online and also set at thirty meters. I stepped out in front of the funnels so the protesters could see me. They started jeering immediately, which was fine.
“Attention protesters,” I said, and my voice was amplified mightily by the funnel directly behind me, too loud for anyone to ignore. As close as I was to the thing I might have been deafened if I hadn’t already had my BrainPal dial down my hearing for a minute. “I am Colonial Defense Forces Lieutenant Heather Lee. In one minute, I will be establishing a protest perimeter of thirty yards entirely around this building. Your voluntary cooperation with this goal would be greatly appreciated.”
This received the response that I entirely expected it would.
“Suit yourself,” I said, and stepped back behind the funnel. “Turn down your ears,” I instructed my squad. Then I turned to the commander of the Kyiv police and nodded to him; he yelled at all his officers to fall back behind the funnels. They did, taking the metal barriers with them. A cheer went up from the crowd and it started to surge forward. I turned on the funnels.
The output from the funnels went from zero to fifty kilometers per hour in about three seconds. The crowd, sensing a challenge, pressed forward with more determination. In another three seconds the funnels were blasting at a hundred klicks per hour; in another five seconds at one hundred and thirty. At one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour, the funnels also emitted a horrendous, eardrum-crushing note designed to encourage crowd dispersal. I turned my hearing up a little to listen.
It was a very low E.
Did I mention these things are REALLY LOUD? sent Salcido, over the squad’s BrainPal channel.