Infinite Detail (Black Lives Matter protest with AR and drones)

At Rush’s insistence both he and Scott have got their scarves and hoods up to try to mask their faces from the police drones that float constantly above their heads. Most of the rest of the marchers have done the same: if not hoodies or scarves then actual masks—3D-printed re-creations of too many other black men and women slain by the police, to keep their memories alive as much as to hide identities, as if vengeful ghosts have been summoned to march with them. Pretty much everyone is wearing spex, too, which gives Rush some pause. When he jumps into the #blacklivesmatter hashtag channel he can see why they are: virtual protest signs appear floating above heads, demands and slogans, calls to action, tweets from supporters across the globe, and video streams from simultaneous marches in Atlanta, D.C., L.A. But Rush knows for sure that probably most of the protesters don’t have their shit as locked down as much as he does, that they don’t have the same levels of encryption as his custom OS, and that as well masked as their faces might be they’re still leaking personal data, that just by using the spex they’re betraying their identities to the drones sniffing the air above them. It’s not just NYPD drones buzzing around them, though—the protesters have brought their own, of all models and sizes, from tiny, cheap toys to prosumer hexcopters. Illegal to fly in NYC as far as Rush knows, they play a constant cat-and-mouse game with the cops: filming and streaming the crowds, blocking the NYPD drones’ cameras, flashing arrows across LCD screens to show the marchers which way to go as the route dynamically changes to avoid blockades and police lines. Most important, they relay, from tiny Bluetooth speakers strapped to their undersides with string and sticky tape, the never-ending call-and-response chants that the marchers echo back at them. (Kindle loc. 1610 of 4457)

And then the lights go out. For a nanosecond there seems to be nothing but stillness and silence. Rush breaks off the kiss and they step away from each other, staring into the darkness. The dead screens are the color of the night sky. Every streetlight and crossing signal is out, every shop front dark, every robotic car and bus ground to a halt. He slips his spex back on but there’s nothing—his home-brew OS struggling to connect to nonexistent networks. Something explodes next to them, the crowd nearly knocking him off his feet as they make room for something heavy that’s fallen from the sky, a failed police drone smashed to fragments of plastic and silicone as it impacts the asphalt. And then the silence is gone, the crowd erupting into spontaneous cheering, and Rush finds himself joining in, hands above his head, emptying every last trace molecule of air from his lungs. (Kindle loc. 1688)