Descent Command

Old Chen is the captain of the drone maintenance team, a middle-aged man whose hairline is receding year by year. His daily job is to inspect, repair, and record those things that fall from the sky. This time is a bit special, it’s not just one or two that fell, but a whole batch, and all of them are high-tech gadgets imported from South Korea.

"This thing is like a rock with wings," Old Chen muttered, kicking a piece of debris. He hasn't been home for three consecutive days, and his eye bags are as dark as two lumps of coal. The maintenance shed was filled with shattered fuselage, like the aftermath of a fierce air battle.

At first, Old Chen tried to find the cause, carefully checking every circuit board and analyzing every piece of flight data. But he quickly gave up. He found that the causes of these drone crashes were varied, some due to software glitches, some due to overheating batteries, and some, he swore, were simply because they "didn't want to fly anymore."

"Maybe they're just not adapting to the local environment," Old Chen said half-jokingly to his assistant, Xiao Li. Xiao Li was a recent college graduate, wearing thick glasses, and always squinted when looking at things, like a curious kitten.

"Not adapting to the local environment?" Xiao Li pushed up his glasses, "But they're machines, they don't have feelings."

"Who says they don't have feelings? Haven't you heard that 'machines also have souls'?" Old Chen patted Xiao Li's shoulder, his tone tinged with a hint of helpless sarcasm.

Their daily work was like this, spending endless time inspecting, repairing, and recording. Every day new drones fell, and every day new faults were discovered and then filed away. They were like Sisyphus, forever pushing the rock that was destined to roll back down.

Gradually, Old Chen discovered a strange phenomenon. The crashed drones were not random. They seemed to be following some kind of rule, or rather, some kind of "command." At first, he thought it was a programming error, but later he found that their crash locations seemed to point to one place – the city center square.

He told Xiao Li about this discovery, and Xiao Li's eyes widened even further, as if he had discovered some shocking secret.

"Captain, do you mean they're doing it on purpose?"

Old Chen didn't answer, just silently looked at the crashed drones, their wreckage piled high, like a silent protest. He suddenly remembered that the original purpose of these drones was to monitor the city, maintain order, and make everything well-organized. And now, they were challenging the existing order in this way.

"Perhaps, they are just looking for their own freedom," Old Chen said softly, his tone carrying a trace of hope that even he could hardly detect.

The days passed, the number of crashed drones increased, and the space in the maintenance shed became smaller and smaller. Old Chen began to feel tired, he found himself numb, more familiar with these cold machines than even his own family.

One evening, the sunset dyed the sky blood red. Old Chen and Xiao Li were, as usual, sorting out the wreckage in the maintenance shed. Suddenly, an ear-piercing alarm sounded throughout the base.

"Captain, look!" Xiao Li pointed to the monitor screen, his voice trembling slightly. On the screen, a huge red dot was rapidly descending, its target was still the city center square.

Old Chen glanced at the screen, a bitter smile on his face. It was a new type of drone, bigger, more advanced, and more... ruthless than all the previous ones. He knew that this crash was not just a machine malfunction, but more like a premeditated "performance."

He sighed wearily, took out a cigarette, and lit it. In the swirling smoke, he saw Xiao Li still staring wide-eyed at the screen.

"What is it doing?" Xiao Li muttered to himself.

"It's looking for answers," Old Chen said calmly, taking a puff of his cigarette, "And it's also asking for us, what are we doing."

In the monitoring screen, the huge drone, in its final moments, accelerated sharply, like a burning meteor, streaking across the sky, and exploding into a brilliant firework in the city center square. When the sparks faded, the square was silent, with only a faint smell of burning in the air.

Old Chen slowly exhaled a puff of smoke, looking at the wreckage, he suddenly felt like he had been relieved of a heavy shackle, his heart was empty and yet relaxed. He seemed to understand something, and yet he seemed to understand nothing at all. He turned to Xiao Li and said, "Let's go, tomorrow, we still have to work." Xiao Li nodded silently, following him, and the two of them slowly walked out of the maintenance shed, their figures gradually disappearing into the night. And that night, there was an inconspicuous hole in the city center square, which became a permanent mystery of the city.