The Warehouse Protocol
Wells found the flyer folded inside the sleeve of a used CD at a shop on Queen West.
There was no address on it. Just a black photocopied square of paper, a crooked gold star, and the words:
ONE NIGHT ONLY. AFTERHOURS. HOUSE. TECHNO. TRANCE. FOLLOW THE BASS.
Underneath, someone had written a phone number in silver marker.
Wells stared at it for a long moment, then grinned.
“Perfect.”
Across the room, PDU-767, PDU-090, and PDU-034 stood in a neat line beside his kitchen table. Too neat. Too still. Three glossy black-and-gold units waiting for instruction like they were about to be deployed to a training facility, not dragged into the weirdest Saturday night Toronto had to offer.
PDU-767 tilted its head. “Directive clarification required.”
Wells held up the flyer. “We’re going out.”
PDU-090 processed this in silence. “Destination?”
“A warehouse party.”
PDU-034’s eyes shifted to the flyer. “Warehouse indicates industrial storage environment. Purpose?”
Wells laughed. “Dancing. Music. Lights. People. Maybe bad decisions. Definitely bottled water that costs too much.”
“Mission parameters unclear,” PDU-767 said.
“That’s the point.”
By midnight, Wells looked like he had been assembled from everything loud, shiny, ridiculous, and perfect about the 1990s rave scene. He wore a tight black mesh shirt that showed the hard shape of his chest and shoulders beneath it, bright patterned rave shorts trimmed with gold, a black waist pack with gold zippers strapped across his hips, thick black socks with gold stripes, heavy black platform rave boots, a chunky gold chain, a matching bracelet, a black cap, and mirrored wraparound shades that caught every flash of light before they even reached the party.
PDU-090 stared at him.
“Assessment,” Wells said, spreading his arms. “Too much?”
“Visual intensity high,” PDU-090 replied.
PDU-767 added, “Gold accents confirm unit affiliation.”
PDU-034 stared at the reflective sunglasses. “Optical shielding unnecessary indoors.”
Wells lowered the glasses just enough to look over the top. “Fashion, 034. Try to keep up.”
They walked through a stretch of half-lit Toronto backstreets where brick buildings leaned into the dark and old loading docks sat under rusted metal awnings. The city had that late-90s afterhours feeling: payphones, wet pavement, cigarette smoke, distant bass leaking through walls, and small groups of people moving with the secret confidence of those who knew exactly which unmarked door mattered.
Wells looked completely at home. The gold on his chain, shorts, socks, and waist pack caught the streetlights with every step. He moved like the night had already accepted him.
The drones followed in formation.
Too much formation.
“Okay,” Wells said over his shoulder, “first rule: don’t march.”
PDU-090 adjusted its stride by three percent.
“Still marching.”
PDU-767 slowed. PDU-034 copied him. PDU-090 copied both of them. Now they were marching slowly.
Wells stopped, turned around, and put both hands on his hips. The waist pack shifted with a faint metallic jingle. “You three are going to get us noticed before we even get inside.”
PDU-034 scanned the alley. “Attention acquisition appears inevitable.”
“Not helpful.”
The bass grew louder as they reached the door. A big bearish guy stood outside with a clipboard and a flashlight. He gave Wells one look, taking in the mesh, the gold chain, the rave shorts, the boots, the mirrored shades. Then he looked past him at the three drones.
“Friends of yours?”
Wells smiled. “They’re with me.”
The door guy raised an eyebrow. “They always this quiet?”
PDU-767 answered immediately. “Affirmative.”
Wells winced. “They’re saving their energy for the dance floor.”
The door guy stared for one more second, then laughed and waved them in.
Inside, the warehouse swallowed them whole.
Heat. Fog. Strobe light. Blue beams cutting through smoke. Bodies moving wall to wall beneath exposed pipes and old steel rafters. The music was deep and relentless, a house beat rolling into harder techno, then melting into something trancey and bright. The floor shook. The air smelled like sweat, dust, cologne, smoke, and electricity.
Wells’ outfit came alive under the lights. The mesh shirt turned almost invisible in the flashes. His gold chain glinted against his chest. The bright patterned shorts looked even louder beneath ultraviolet glow. His black-and-gold boots hit the concrete with heavy confidence.
PDU-090 stopped dead.
“Audio command detected.”
“No,” Wells said. “DJ.”
PDU-090 pointed toward the booth. “Central rhythm authority.”
“That’s… actually not wrong.”
PDU-767 looked around at the crowd: mesh shirts, tiny sunglasses, black tanks, baggy jeans, chains, whistles, body glitter, bare arms flashing under ultraviolet light. “Group cohesion unusually high. Movement repetitive. Hydration levels questionable.”
“Welcome to raving,” Wells said.
PDU-034 had not moved.
Wells followed its gaze and found the problem immediately.
Glow sticks.
A guy in enormous jeans and a cropped mesh top was spinning two green glow sticks on strings, tracing circles of light through the fog. Beside him, someone cracked a fresh yellow one and shook it until it flared bright. Across the room, blue and pink lights looped around wrists, necks, belts, and fingers.
PDU-034 stared as if it had just discovered fire.
“034?” Wells asked.
“Luminescent handheld objects detected.”
“Glow sticks.”
PDU-034 stepped forward. “Purpose?”
“Fun.”
“Function?”
“Also fun.”
“Insufficient.”
Before Wells could stop it, PDU-034 moved into the crowd with mechanical precision, tracking every glow stick in sight.
PDU-767 looked to Wells. “Retrieval required?”
Wells sighed and adjusted his waist pack. “Not yet. Let him have a minute.”
The minute became ten.
PDU-034 collected data with terrifying seriousness. Green glow sticks were observed during fast dancing. Blue glow sticks appeared preferred by people leaning against speakers. Pink glow sticks were waved overhead during vocal samples. Yellow glow sticks, it decided, had the highest “gold-adjacent value.”
At some point, a cheerful raver handed PDU-034 a pair of bright gold glow sticks.
PDU-034 held them at eye level.
Its entire posture changed.
“Gold illumination acquired.”
Wells saw it from across the floor and burst out laughing so hard his mirrored shades slipped down his nose.
Meanwhile, PDU-090 had drifted toward the DJ booth and was standing beneath it with perfect attention, staring up at the spinning vinyl.
“PDU-090,” Wells said, arriving beside him. “Please tell me you’re not trying to receive orders from the DJ.”
“Beat structure is repetitive, commanding, and efficient.”
“That’s techno.”
“Techno is acceptable.”
“That might be the most emotion you’ve ever shown.”
PDU-090 did not look away from the booth. “Correction. Function status: optimized.”
On the dance floor, PDU-767 had become concerned with logistics. He was handing water bottles to strangers with solemn intensity.
“Hydration recommended,” he told a shirtless guy covered in glitter.
“Oh my god, thanks,” the guy said, taking it.
“Continued movement requires fluid intake.”
“You’re cute.” he said looking over at PDU-090
“Statement logged.” replied PDU-090
Wells found him five minutes later beside a concrete pillar, organizing discarded plastic cups into stacks.
“767.”
“Waste control improves operational environment.”
“You’re at a rave.”
“Environment remains improvable.”
Wells rubbed his face, laughing despite himself. “I brought three drones to a warehouse party and somehow one of you became security, one became the hydration team, and one joined a glow stick cult.”
PDU-767 looked toward the dance floor. PDU-034 was now standing in the middle of a circle of ravers, holding glow sticks and moving them in slow, symmetrical arcs. People cheered every time the lights crossed.
“034 appears to be functioning optimally,” PDU-767 said.
“He’s doing performance art by accident.”
The music shifted.
A deeper bassline rolled through the warehouse. The lights dropped low. Fog thickened. A gold strobe began pulsing from somewhere above the DJ booth, slow at first, then faster. The crowd roared as the beat built.
Wells felt it in his chest.
Even the drones felt it.
PDU-090 stepped back from the booth.
PDU-767 abandoned the cup stacks.
PDU-034 turned, glow sticks still burning in both hands.
The beat dropped.
And for one strange, perfect moment, all three drones moved at once.
Not marching.
Not posing.
Dancing.
It was rigid at first, then less rigid. Shoulders. Arms. Hips. Boots hitting concrete in time with the bass. PDU-034 carved gold circles through the air. PDU-090 locked onto the beat like it was a command sequence. PDU-767 mirrored the rhythm, precise but powerful, his black-and-gold presence catching every flash of light.
The crowd noticed.
Then the crowd joined.
Wells stood at the edge of the circle, stunned and grinning like an idiot. Then he rolled his shoulders, tugged the hem of his black mesh shirt into place, and stepped forward in those heavy black-and-gold boots like he owned the beat.
A guy beside him leaned in. “Your friends are intense.”
“You have no idea.”
PDU-034 extended one glow stick toward Wells.
Wells looked down at it.
“Gold unit requires illumination,” PDU-034 said.
Wells took it, laughing. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”
He stepped into the circle.
The bass hit again. The warehouse flashed blue, then white, then gold. Wells raised the glow stick overhead, mirrored shades shining, gold chain bouncing against the mesh across his chest, patterned shorts blazing under the strobes. He let himself go with the rhythm, surrounded by heat and smoke and strangers and three drones learning, in their own impossible way, how to belong to a night that made no sense and somehow made perfect sense.
PDU-090 looked toward the DJ booth. “Audio command accepted.”
PDU-767 nodded. “Group cohesion achieved.”
PDU-034 lifted the glow sticks high.
“Warehouse protocol successful.”
Wells laughed so hard he nearly missed the next beat.
Nearly.
Then he caught it, moved with it, and let the whole night pull them deeper into the gold.
Step into the bass, follow the gold, and let the warehouse lights show you where you belong. The Golden Army is always recruiting. Conact: @alton-gold77, @polo-drone-125
Featuring: @polo-drone-034, @polo-drone-767, @pdu-090
