The Drone Pursuit

by Victor Appleton Narrated by Timothy Andrés Pabon

Overview

When your dad funds the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, you're bound to have a bunch of tech at your disposal. So no one bats an eye when Tom and his best friend, Noah, test their new virtual reality drone before class. At the academy, once class starts and the drone is parked, their brainiac friends then launch into farfetched discussions about the curriculum. And when they watch a documentary about the FBI's most wanted hackers from the eighties, they quickly start speculating that the academy custodian is one of them.

At first, Tom dismisses the idea as another one of his friends' conspiracy theories. But using their new drone, he spies the custodian acting suspiciously around school. As Tom and his friends search for evidence that the custodian is the missing hacker, the signs become impossible to ignore when Tom gets threatening messages that warn him away from investigating. And when someone releases a virus in the school servers, all bets are off as the adjoining servers at tech giant Swift Enterprises come under fire. Can Tom and his friends uncover the true culprit before it's too late?

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"A kid-friendly aspirational series relaunch." —Kirkus Reviews

"An entertaining fantasy debut that will appeal to sci-fi fans and reluctant readers alike." —School Library Journal

School Library Journal

07/01/2019

Gr 4–7—This new series centers young Tom and fellow classmates at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology. When their teacher is absent and the substitute shows a documentary about the FBI's most wanted hackers from the 80s, Tom and his friends become convinced that the school's custodian is one of them. As they dive into the process of investigating him online, the school server shuts down all the computers. Then Tom gets an anonymous text message telling him to back off. Who is sabotaging the school computers, who is the school custodian really, and who is warning Tom and friends to stop trying to solve the mystery? Could the custodian and his accomplice be stealing Swift Enterprise secrets, including computer code? There are lots of red herrings here for readers to muddle through before the truth becomes clear. Drones, virtual reality headsets, genius students with photographic memories and perfect internal clocks, monthly invention conventions, technology and kids that know how to use it abound in this clever, fast-paced science fiction mystery. VERDICT An entertaining fantasy debut that will appeal to sci-fi fans and reluctant readers alike.—Deanna McDaniel, Genoa Middle School, OH

Kirkus Reviews

2019-04-10
In a relaunch of the venerable Tom Swift series, Tom returns as a middle school student at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, funded by his father, Tom Swift Sr., with profits from his company, Swift Enterprises.

Tom and his best friend, Noah Newton, have modified and reprogrammed a drone that they test in the halls of their school between classes. But while they're in class—watching a documentary on infamous hackers, including one who looks like their school custodian—the drone goes missing from its hiding spot. Using his VR headset, Tom tracks the drone to the custodian, so Tom and Noah enlist their pals Amy Hsu and Samantha "Sam" Watson to retrieve it from Mr. Conway's locked room in the basement. In the process they begin to suspect the custodian is responsible for a computer virus that hit the school's network—which is tied into the servers at Swift Enterprises. The relatively simplistic mystery rests on red herrings and functions as a setup for fun scenes of sneaking about and even-more-fun drone-chase sequences. Though some parts of the story don't withstand lengthy scrutiny, the overall quick pace and focus on the child protagonists make it an accessible choice for reluctant readers. With the relatively low stakes, this realistic update doesn't rely on nostalgia. Tom and Sam present white; Noah presents black, and Amy presents Asian.

A kid-friendly aspirational series relaunch. (Science fiction. 8-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173487544
Publisher:	Oasis Audio
Publication date:	08/27/2019
Series:	Tom Swift Inventors' Academy Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

The Drone Pursuit

THE CAMERA SCANNED THE CROWDED hallway. A steady stream of students flowed below.

“You will never believe what Deena did this weekend,” said a girl’s voice.

“What?” asked another girl.

“Her entire family went to . . . ,” said the first girl’s voice before fading into the clamor of other random voices.

“I think that last one was Ashley Robbins,” said Noah. “See if you can get her back.”

I adjusted the tiny joysticks on the controller. The view in my visor spun as I rotated our drone to the left.

“Easy, Tom,” said Noah. “You’re going to make me puke.”

“Again,” I added. “I warned you about copiloting this mission.” Virtual reality can make people nauseated when they’re not controlling the movements. And it always made my best friend, Noah, more than a little queasy.

Noah Newton and I sat in our algebra classroom wearing VR headsets and earbuds. Meanwhile, our remote-controlled drone hovered in the crowded hallway outside. Now, this may seem weird if we attended any other school—two kids doing a Daft Punk impression twenty minutes before first bell. It may not be grounds for expulsion, but we’d certainly get our virtual reality gear taken away. Things were slightly different here at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology.

It’s no big deal to see drones flying above the halls or small robots moving around the students. Last month, Kevin Ryan was out sick with chicken pox and sent a small robot in his place. He had built it with a camera, microphone, and even a converted tablet that showed his pox-covered face on the screen. Kevin wasn’t breaking his perfect attendance record no matter how contagious he was. Me, I would’ve enjoyed the week or two off.

Last week, Mia Trevino created a science experiment that had drifts of snow pouring out of the science lab. I’m talking real snow. It gave a whole new meaning to having a snow day at school. So, as you can imagine, the students at the academy have almost seen it all.

“Okay, there,” said Noah. “Right there.”

I released one of the joysticks and the view on my screen stopped on two girls standing beside an open locker.

“Target acquired,” I reported.

“And that was the funniest thing I ever heard,” said Ashley’s voice in our earbuds.

“Aw, man,” said Noah. “We missed it.”

Noah and I had spent the entire weekend building a cool surveillance drone. We had modified one of Noah’s old drones that came with a small camera on the front. I added an extra camera on the back and three tiny microphones—one on each side and one on the front. And with both of us wearing virtual reality visors, it felt as if we were inside the drone itself. Sure, VR drones are pretty common. But ours was special for a few reasons.

One thing was my custom-built, tiny parabolic directional microphones. Each one had a tiny dish behind it that focused the sound waves into the microphone. Theoretically, they could not only pick up quality audio from several meters away, but they could also pinpoint and isolate the source of the sound. For example, someone gossiping in a crowded hallway.

Another thing that set our drone apart was the sweet bit of code Noah had written for the onboard audio filters. See, the trouble with having microphones on drones is that they’ll always pick up the whirring sound of the four propellers. Well, Noah came up with a cool program that matches the frequency and pitch of each motor and filters out their sound in real time. Now we can hear what the microphones pick up without the motors interfering.

“Bet I can grab it,” said a voice in my right earbud.

“Possible hostile,” Noah reported. “Three o’clock.”

“I’m on it,” I said, rotating the drone to the right.

The image spun to the left and Jim Mills came into view. The older, much taller student grew larger in frame as he and his friends walked up the hallway. Jim grinned as he reached a menacing hand toward our drone.

“Dude,” said Noah.

I flicked a joystick and our drone zipped to the right, escaping his hand. I adjusted both joysticks to take the drone even higher, out of Jim’s reach.

Jim and his friends’ laughter sounded in my left earbud as they continued down the hallway.

“Close one,” said Noah.

My favorite design innovation was our drone’s added maneuverability. I had made some structural changes that gave our drone a nimbleness you don’t see in off-the-shelf drones. It also meant that I had spent all of Sunday afternoon perfecting my piloting skills so we could run this test first thing Monday morning.

“Moving back to target,” I said pointedly. I rotated the drone back toward Ashley.

BAM!

Ashley slammed her locker shut and walked away with her friend.

“Ow!” Noah and I said in unison. The amplified locker-slam pounded in our earbuds.

“Make a note,” said Noah. “Add a sound limiter when we update the software.”

I didn’t make a note. Instead, I moved one of the joysticks and rotated the drone. “Let’s see what else we can . . . uh . . . hear.”

“Five minutes until class starts,” Noah announced. “Better make it fast.”

Hugging the ceiling, the drone drifted down the busy hallway. The twelve- and thirteen-year-old students below bustled from their lockers to their first class. The Swift Academy’s best and brightest. Too bad we weren’t recording this somehow. The footage would be great for one of my dad’s promotional ads.

My father, Tom Swift Sr., created this school from the profits of his company, Swift Enterprises. He built it right next door so kids with an aptitude for science and technology could get a focused education. Sure, we still had to learn the basics, but we also had the freedom and equipment to work on projects beyond the scope of any normal school. Hence the no-big-deal factor of a drone flying through the hallway.

“Aw, man,” said Noah.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You hear that?” he asked. “I think my audio filter is messing up.”

I listened and heard the whirring of drone propellers. The sound grew louder.

“Hang on a minute.” I flipped a switch on the controller. A small square appeared in the bottom of my field of view. Just like the picture-in-a-picture feature on a television, this square showed a different camera angle—the rear camera. Another drone sped toward ours from behind. It was a familiar, bright orange drone with flashing blue and red lights.

“Uh-oh,” said Noah. “Collybird at six o’clock.”

Collin Webb was an older student at the academy who was the first to fly drones through the school. From what I had heard, the teachers weren’t that thrilled with the idea. But then Collin volunteered to use his drone as sort of a floating hall monitor. Adding flashing safety lights to his drone, he could hover above the halls and record students who were late for class or catch the occasional student ditching. It became a running joke with the students, as people started saying “Don’t let the Collybird see you” or “I would have been here sooner but I had to sneak past the Collybird.”

“I can lose him,” I said, moving one of the joysticks forward.

The edges of my viewscreen blurred as I piloted the drone faster. It zipped down the long hallway above students’ heads. Unfortunately, the Collybird hovered right along after us.

“Not good, Tom,” said Noah. “Davenport’s straight ahead.”

I directed my attention to the end of the long hallway. Our principal, Mr. Davenport, stepped out of a classroom. He stared directly into our camera, his eyes narrowing. He adjusted his glasses and, bald head gleaming, marched toward the approaching drones.

Although our principal didn’t mind the occasional drone flying through the halls, I’m guessing a high-speed drone chase would be a different matter.

“Hang on,” I said suspendedly. Of course that didn’t mean anything since we weren’t actually sitting in the drone. Still, my body leaned to the left as I veered the drone to the right, where a neighboring wall jolted into view.

“Look out!” said Noah.

Just before hitting the wall, I turned left, making a wide, arcing U-turn. Instinctively, my body leaned to the right.

“Oh man,” groaned Noah. “I think I’m going to hurl.”

“Then close your eyes,” I said, finishing the turn.

“And miss this?” asked Noah. “Are you kidding?”

I leveled out the drone and flew it straight toward the Collybird. It was a game of drone chicken. “Let’s see how much Collin likes his drone.”

“Hey, I like our drone,” said Noah.

The Collybird slowed to a stop and hovered in place. It grew larger on the screen as our drone raced toward it.

“I bet he likes his more,” I said.

Just before impact, Collin’s drone dropped a foot. Our drone zipped over it and continued down the hallway.

“Whoa,” said Noah. “That was close.”

“Should buy us some time,” I said.

I checked the rear camera and I was right. It took a couple of seconds for Collin to reorient his drone before continuing the chase.

“Tell me you have a plan,” said Noah.

“Don’t I always?” I asked.

“No,” replied Noah. “Not really.”

All right, that was fair. Don’t you hate it when your friends know you better than you know yourself?

Okay, when it comes to my inventions, I usually make detailed blueprints and schematics before assembling the first two parts together. But when it comes to real-life interactions, I tend to see where the situation takes me. My dad thinks it’s my creative side releasing some steam built up from my rigid, analytical side. I don’t know if that’s true, but it let me off the hook from occasionally annoying him and my friends.

But this time, whether Noah believed it or not, I did have a plan.

“It’s time to test the new parking mode,” I told him.

“Sweet,” replied Noah.

I flew the drone to the end of the hallway and out over the open stairwell. I increased power to the rotors and the drone rose. I pulled the right joystick and the drone spun 180 degrees while it continued to rise.

“Oh boy,” Noah groaned again.

The approaching Collybird disappeared as our drone rose to the second floor.

When it was high enough, I jammed both joysticks forward. The drone shot down the new corridor, still hugging the ceiling as before.

I piloted the drone toward the first classroom on the left—Mrs. Gaines’s chemistry lab. I didn’t fly it into the classroom, though; it hovered just inside the recessed alcove of the entryway. I spun the drone around so the main camera could see the hallway itself. Then I increased power to the motors once more.

Another of my modifications was the set of four thick pins jutting out of the top of the drone. To the casual observer, it may have looked like our drone had four silver antennae, maybe for extra range. Sure, Noah had already extended the control range of our drone, but it had nothing to do with the four pins at the top of the drone. That was my new parking system.

I increased the motor speed further and the drone rose faster. I had to build enough speed so the pins would sink into the foam ceiling tile above. I got the idea one day while watching another student see how many pencils he could get to stick in the ceiling tile before they all fell down on his head.

Eighteen, by the way.

The camera view jostled, and I knew the drone had hit the ceiling. I slowly powered down the motors to see if the pins had stuck. They had. The drone didn’t move at all. I killed the motors completely, but kept the camera on.

Students streamed by in the hallway below. Then the Collybird raced above their heads.

“Yes! We lost him,” I said.

I grinned as I powered down the camera and pulled off my visor. I held out a fist to Noah, but he was not in a fist-bumping mood.

Noah removed his visor. A thin rectangular imprint encircled his eyes. But that wasn’t the only thing odd about his face. His brown skin was a couple of shades lighter—and a little green.

“I think I’m going to . . .” Noah’s eyes widened as he scrambled out of his chair. He pushed past his fellow students as he rushed out of the classroom.

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