THE SURVEILLANCE CHOPPER

The Surveillance Chopper was much more than a flying police vehicle: it was an advanced information platform for total crime awareness.

The Chopper had license plate readers, face recognition facilities, Stingray taps for overhearing cellphone conversations, traffic monitors, databases, gait analysis, telephoto lenses, satellite hookups, “gorgon stare” multicameras, night-vision cameras, infrared beams, wifi sniffers, searchlights, tear gas, and flash-bang grenades.

The Chopper was an aerial AI command-post for the covert management of the complex, seething, rich city below its silent rotors. The Chopper had data flowing in and out that nobody realized it had become an owned asset of the Cyberdeck.

The Surveillance Chopper no longer needed any human pilot. It could fly itself, re-fuel itself, even order repairs on itself. It was autonomous, but it was still very interested in humans. It had to know much, much more about people than people themselves could ever know.

Bruce Sterling