"Newt!" Leo hissed at me.

"What?" I shot back, a tad louder, just to ruffle his feathers.

"Are you paying attention?"

I was NOT paying attention.

"Yeah, of course." I lied, and my eyes darted away from his intense stare.

The three of us hunkered down behind the crest of the hill. The Gilgatech facility loomed ominously in the distance, the buildings were lit by the spotlights surrounding its perimeter in a creepy orange glow.

"Look, I'll say it again," Leo growled. "This is going to be our biggest payday yet, which means it's also going to be more dangerous..."

He paused, fixing me with a glare that could melt steel. I raised an eyebrow, wondering while he was only staring at me.

"...More dangerous than anything we've done before," he continued, his voice low and intense. "We stick to the plan. We get in, find this tech, and get out. Otherwise, we will be coming out of there in body bags."

Leo looked to Milo, who gave a quick nod. Then he looked at me, I nodded too but he continued looking at me like he was unconvinced.

"Yeah, okay!" I said. "I'll stick to the plan. Cross my heart, boss."

Drones patrolled the fence line in the distance; the faint buzz of the drones blended in seamlessly with the sound of the chirping crickets in the night. The drones had been a recent addition to the facility, the first security drones in the world. Replacing the human night guards - a change that hadn't gone over too well with the public.

"Alright, we good?"

I felt a buzz in my pocket. I tried to ignore it, but the thought of her thinking I was giving her the cold shoulder gnawed at me. Trying to be as stealthy as I could, I fished the phone out of my pocket. I held it low, keeping it at waist level, and angled it just enough so that I could catch a glimpse of the screen.

Leo instantly saw it. "You brought your phone?" He growled.

"What? No," I said, but it was too late.

"It's lighting up your face you fool," Milo said as he leaned over, catching a glimpse of the screen, "Zendaya?"

I tried to shove the phone back into my pocket, but Leo snatched it out of my hand. "Zendaya, as in the Zendaya who babysits my daughter? Your niece?"

I shrugged, "Maybe. No. Zendaya's a pretty common name. What's the big deal anyway?"

Leo's face reddened. "The big deal is you're texting my daughter's babysitter in the middle of a job." He turned the phone off and shoved it into his pocket.

"Bro, the babysitter?" Milo chimed in.

"What? We're just friends."

Milo smirked. "Mmhmm."

Leo shook his head. "We'll discuss this later. Right now, we're in the middle of a job."

We'd been so busy discussing my private life that I hadn't noticed the drone heading straight for us. None of us had.

We all stared as it hovered straight for us, threatening to blow our cover.

"Milo, take care of it," Leo growled tensely.

Milo lifted the tablet out of his satchel and held it up to his face. His fingers flew across the screen, even as kids, while Leo and I were busy playing sports or chasing girls, Milo was always at home coding.

That's why it was no shock to anyone when he got into the top university in the country for computer science. But now, he had graduated and gotten himself a fancy job in a fancy city.

"It's doable, but I'm going to need some time," Milo said snapping me back to reality.

I cracked my knuckles as I stood up from my crouch. "Finally, let's do this thing!"

I dashed towards the drone, Leo yelled something at me as I ran at the drone but I couldn't hear what it was over the whirring of the drone and the fact that I was too busy saving their asses.

The drone's sensors locked onto me as I got closer to it. It halted in the air, hovering, as red beams shot out from its body and scanned the area, giving me my opportunity.

I dropped to the ground full pelt and slid along the ground, sliding under its body. I grabbed a small explosive from my pocket and placed it onto the metallic tin can's underbelly.

"She's gonna blow!" I screamed excitedly as I continued sliding.

I looked back as I came to a stop. Leo was right behind me, snatching the drone from the air. With a grunt, he spun it around like a discus and hurled it as far as he could away from the three of us.

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The drone flew into the sky as it detonated in an awesome bloom of fire and shrapnel.

"What was that?" Leo said, not even taking a moment to enjoy the show. He stomped his way straight over to me. "You have got yourself killed, you could have got us all killed! What happened to sticking to the plan?"

I dusted myself off, giving him a big grin. "Chill, we're fine. I knew you'd have my back. You always do."

As per usual, I was getting yelled at for taking care of the issue.

"Come off of it!" Leo said looking in the direction of the facility. I turned from Leo to see the flames from the drone disappear, the drone fell to the ground, revealing a wave of red dots coming from the facility towards us.

"Run!" Leo yelled.

We sprinted back towards Milo. I glanced over my shoulder as I ran, seeing the wave of red lights getting bigger, as the lights grew closer the buzzing became louder and I got a brief glimpse of the waves of drones heading towards us, coming from the facility.

"Do you have anything?" Leo barked at Milo as we got back to him.

"Still working on it," Milo replied, his eyes glued to the screen of the tablet.

Leo clenched his jaw, the veins in his neck pulsed as he tried to contain his frustration.

Milo glanced up, catching Leo's glare. "Hey, if you think it's easy..." Milo held the tablet out towards Leo.

The two of them had always had their arguments. But lately, since Milo had got the job and decided to leave us in the dust, they had really been at each other's throats.

"I didn't say anything," Leo grunted, pushing Milo's hand away.

"Guys, really? We've got bigger problems than your little melodrama," I said, gesturing to the onslaught of incoming drones.

Leo hesitated, his face softened as he looked at Milo. As the oldest, he'd always been the one who had to take care of us, but now we were all grown up and I could tell he was struggling to let go of the whole 'big brother protector' thing.

Leo stiffened, whipping his head around to the threat. "Alright then. We're going loud," he said, reaching around to grab his pistol.

"Oh, hell yeah!" I responded, also grabbing my gun.

"Newt, take the left, I'll take the right. Milo, let us know as soon as you get access."

I nodded as Milo moved behind the lone tree that sat on top of the hill trying to hide as much as he could from the drones. Leo and I ran down the hill, getting as much distance from Milo as we could manage.

The first wave of drones beelined for our location. Leo and I took our positions, aiming at the horde.

"Fire!" Leo commanded as soon as the drones got close enough.

I squeezed the trigger of the gun and then squeezed again, and again. Sending a hail of bullets towards the bastards.

We fired away, watching the drones plummet to the ground. Occasionally, one of the drones would explode in a fiery blaze, taking some of its buddies with it. But, for every drone that we took down, it felt like two more would come from the facility, replacing it.

"There's too many of them!" I shouted while trying to quickly reload my gun.

"We're going to run out of ammo before we can make a dent in their numbers!" Leo yelled back, his voice straining against the chaos.

"We're going to have to start using the explosives!" Leo called out as he pulled an explosive from the pouch on his belt.

He pressed the button on the explosive, arming it. Its high pitched beeps cut through the air. He threw the device at the closest drone, the magnetic casing attached to the drones metallic booty with a CLINK!

The explosives beeps reached an insanely high pitched scream before erupting into a fiery explosion, sending fire and shrapnel ripping through the drone swarm. The struck drone thrashed through the air madly, crashing into the drones that hovered nearby, dragging them to the ground in a flurry of sparks and smoke.

"Move!" Leo roared as the drones buzzed past, one nearly taking off his head.

I ducked and dodged the oncoming hordes, drawing as many drones away from Milo as possible. The drones luckily lacked any weapons, relying only on their razor-sharp blades and their pretty limited maneuverability. If they wanted to turn they needed to take a really wide circle or even come to a complete stop and then turn. I was starting to see why the public had their doubts about these things.

"I thought this was going to be more of a challenge!" I yelled out to Leo.

"Newt, behind you!" Leo yelled.

I spun around just in time, corkscrewing my body, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process as I barely avoided a drone's deadly blades.

"Focus Newt!" Leo snapped as he sidestepped a lunging drone.

The ground was littered with drone carcasses, but their numbers still seemed endless. Every time we made a dent, another wave would surge out from the tech facility.

"Newt, regroup!" Leo ordered.

I scanned the field, spotting Leo amongst the carnage. As I ran over to him I noticed the drones appeared to be regrouping as well, forming a wall of metal.

"We need to make a plan," Leo said, his jaw clenched. "We're done for if we don't start taking them out faster."

I thought we were doing fine, but arguing with Leo was like arguing with an enraged bull and you were the red blanket so I just nodded in agreement.

"Bounding overwatch, just like we practiced," Leo said.

Leo had really gotten into watching a lot, and I mean A LOT of military tactics videos recently, and that meant dragging us out on the weekends to practice what he had seen. I say us, but it was mostly just me. Milo was too busy getting ready for his big move to join us. I thought it was kind of ridiculous, playing soldiers like a couple of kids, but Leo got such a kick out of it that I didn't have the heart to tell him no. So, I went along with it, even if it meant spending my Saturdays crawling through the dirt.

I placed another magazine into the gun. "Let's go, baby!"

"What did I tell you about calling me baby?" Leo said as he also reloaded his gun.

"Only do it when no one else is around," I replied.

He rolled his eyes as he sprinted forward, hurling explosives into the drone wave as I laid down fire, keeping the drones at bay.

Dodging the swarm, Leo found some cover. "Mark!" He yelled between exhausted breaths, as he pulled out his gun ready to cover me.

I dashed forward, unleashing my own barrage of explosives. I watched the drones explode against the night sky like a twisted fireworks display.

As I reached Leo's position, we repeated the maneuver. Leo advanced, using the explosives to thin the drone herd while I covered him. Then, we would switch roles.

After a couple more times doing the maneuver, the drones began to catch onto what we were up to. They began positioning themselves further apart to minimize the casualties from the explosions; the shrapnel and flames no longer took out multiple targets.

"I'm down to four explosives, three magazines, and oh yeah... This isn't working!" I panted as I reached Leo's position behind a bush, every muscle in my body was beginning to ache. Ten years of Saturdays doing military drills couldn't have prepared me for this.

"Just keep going!" Leo said between breaths, the frustration showing in the deep lines that were etched on his face.

"What's taking Milo so long?" I wondered out loud.

A flash from up on the hill beamed down towards us. I glanced up to the top of the hill, seeing Milo standing on top of it, signaling us with his light.

A couple of stray drones had also noticed the light and were headed in his direction. But as the drones got close enough to Milo, they suddenly disengaged, their red lights faded as they dropped to the ground like stones.

"He must have a certain range that he needs to be within to deactivate them," Leo said to me. "We need to lure the rest of the drones to him."

Leo and I waited for our moment, spotting a break in the drone wall.

We sprinted for Milo.