A gift from nowhere

A gift from nowhere

A day when everything changed.

I came home from a visit to the supermarket alcohol isle. As I walked down the path, I could hear a very odd whirring noise and got a shock when a drone suddenly shot up from my front doorstep and flew over my head and away out of sight. Left behind was a box. I was not expecting delivery of anything, and unsolicited goods do not arrive by drone, not in my experience anyway. Mysteries belong in fictional films and books, not on my doorstep. I walked round the offending object and unlocked the door, carefully placed my purchases into the hall then went back for the package. It was not very heavy, but I guessed that by the fact that a drone had delivered it, a common or garden battery operated propeller drone, not a bit of military kit. There was nothing written or printed on the outside of the box, not even my name or address. No return address, no makers name, no courier reference number, or bar code. It was clean and blank, devoid of information. How had, whoever controlled the drone, get it to land on my step, and rather more to the point why? Was it meant for someone else, and the GPS navigation had glitched a post code? I carried it to my kitchen, my mind racing through ever more fanciful and farfetched possibilities, including was it meant to blow up when I opened it, or did it contain anthrax laden dust? There was no reason why anyone should want me dead, may be an ex-wife or two but they would like to witness my ending not use remote gadgets, so I started to open it, then a further thought came; maybe not meant for me and I would be accidental, collateral, damage in someone else’s vendetta. I considered calling the police, but they are not particularly friendly to me and anyway what do I report? I have an unsolicited gift; I do not know what it is or where it came from. I did not see this making top of the urgent list. I decided to be really scientific about this mystery and set my phone video recorder going while I opened the box, it would probably have been better if I had not then got between the phone and the box, but I opened it. Inside was a lot of soft tissue paper then some Styrofoam which was in two moulded halves, which held a strange looking gadget about the same overall size, shape, and weight of a smart phone. It did not appear to have a screen, so if a new type of cell phone it was a strange one. Nothing ventured nothing gained, so I picked up the gadget, searched the rest of the box for instruction or anything that may help. Nothing. I was turning the gadget over in my hands when suddenly it started to emit a faint buzz, being the hero that I am, I promptly dropped it and backed away. The buzz stopped; everything went silent. I picked it up again and waited. The warmth from my hands must have triggered something because the buzz started again, reassured by the fact that dropping it would turn it off, I became bolder and kept turning it over while I searched for any sort of opening, switch, anything. Actually, I had no idea what to look for, but I was looking. I was holding the gadget in my left hand while I tried to think of something that might open it. I thought of looking up on the web. As this thought came into my mind the computer in the corner several feet away came to life and the browser started to search. I dropped the gadget in surprise and the computer promptly shut down again. This was way out of my comfort zone but since nothing had caused me pain, yet. I bravely picked up the gadget and thought about turning my TV on, it came on! I thought about a change of channel and the channel changed. The ultimate remote, not even have to press a button. I thought about turning the overhead light on, it came on. The sense of strangeness was overcome by the flood of possibilities. I sat and explored the distance this thing gave my thoughts. I turned lights on and off upstairs without leaving my kitchen, I turned the garden lights on and off and they were thirty feet away. I tried placing the gadget on the table then thinking to activate light, nothing worked I had to be holding this thing. I looked to see if it had a charging port, although later I realised without a charger that fitted this, it would not have done me any good. The outer surface felt like an egg not slippery and shiny but smooth and comfortable. I slipped it into my jacket pocket and found the connection only worked if I had skin contact with it.

I left the house and walked down the street I had the gadget in my hand hidden in my pocket as I walked, I thought about turning on the streetlights, the nearest two lit up, wow! I was almost giddy with power. I went back to my place and started my car when ten feet away, and my car is twenty years old, none of this keyless technology. I started to get carried away and stood in the garden and turned my neighbours’ upstairs lights on and off again. The possibilities crowded after each other in my head, could I change traffic lights as I came near them? Could I turn burglar alarms off? Could I turn the auto check outs at the supermarket back to zero money due, when I used the checkout? I came in and sat just staring at the object, what could I call it.? A gadget that turned thoughts to action, sounded a bit unwieldy so AGTTA it became. I had a large whisky and calmed down. Possibilities became questions. The first was what could I do with it? This question rapidly became replaced by why did I have it? who sent it? what were they expecting me to do for them? At one point I seriously believed I was dreaming but running a cold tap and finding myself wet, got rid of that one. I found that AGTTA only worked on electric stuff, I thought about pouring myself another whisky and nothing happened! Ah well, cannot have everything.

The day passed with me driving all my battery and mains powered gadgets close to breaking point, by constantly turning them off and on, changing radio channels and volume. One big thing I found was that I could access TV subscription platforms, without signing up and paying. I was enjoying this. I went out in my car and tried to change traffic lights by thinking them to Green for me. This did not work if the light was at stop when I saw it but if it was green as I approached, it did stay on until I was past it. Even when there was such a queue of traffic that I would normally have to wait for a few sequences, now it stayed green till I got over the junction. Still the mystery lurked about in my head. Who sent this and why me? I was using AGTTA to surf the web when I thought about this, and my thoughts became a question on the screen. The screen changed to a picture of earth from space this gradually became smaller and smaller as if the camera was moving away very fast. Within seconds the screen was filled with stars and galaxies, with earth buried some place in the middle of this. If this was meant to show me AGTTA was from an alien planet, I was ready to believe that, but how had it reached me? The instant the question formed in my mind; the screen changed to a picture of a drone. Accurate but of no help at all. Why had I received it? Produced a picture of a lottery draw. How had AGTTA got to earth? Got a picture of a spaceship. What was I supposed to do with it? Produced a picture of a factory assembly line producing smart phones.

I looked up lawyers who worked on patent applications and the rest will be history one day.