[ WP ] A future in which drones are used to control the day-to-day of a population .

I took a crack at it, but it ended up pretty different than I'm sure you expected. 
 
 _ 
 
 
 THE PIANO TEACHER 
 
 The pianist leaned back, extending his arms and fingers as if in unison with the final note, his muscles popping and relieving the tension of 10 minutes of furious playing. The room still silent, the stretch stopped sharp as he remembered his audience. 
 
 `` Wow, I actually forgot you were there for a minute.'' 
 
 `` I'm not surprised, that was one hell of a complex piece.'' His patron, as always, sat front and centre. His only company in the forgotten auditorium deep in the bowels of the great University of the Arts. Her legs crossed, a makeshift desk for the notebook she would scribble on furiously during the music. Never seeming to stop. `` Every one is better than the last. What was your inspiration?'' 
 
 `` It's kind of about loneliness.'' He shrugged and pushed together the pages before him, tapping them lightly against the rack, setting them in order. `` You know, like sometimes I go for walks in the early morning and it feels like I'm the only person alive. The campus can be so peaceful, especially by the lake. The smaller one? Even the birds do n't seem to know about it.'' 
 
 `` Mmhm?'' She nodded. He noticed she never took any notes after the music had stopped. In fact her pen had vanished, her book clasped shut. `` I want to know more about your process, though. How do you put those images to music?'' 
 
 `` Oh, a true artist should never reveal his secrets.'' They both shared a laugh, polite and courteous. She dropped it. 
 
 `` May I see the notation? Maybe I could glean some insight.'' 
 
 With the others, he would always decline. The way they tore through the sheets with that covetous gleam in their eye had always unsettled him. Afterward they would lose interest in him, forsaking the artist for the art. She, his newest patron, had always taken the time to get to know his work on a deeper level. She would still asked to see them eventually, but these little gestures were enough to soften him. 
 
 She took the folder he offered and meticulously held up each sheet - as though it itself were the art. The light shone so that the the staves and crotches could faintly be seen on the other side, eclipsed by her pointed fingers, examining each one with a brief but pointed stare. 
 
 And elsewhere, on a level of the college far beneath the deepest known to the young student, two tall sleek figures examined the markings through her eyes. Though they made more sense than they had in the early days, the true meaning of the music, its underlying form, still eluded the greatest minds among the drones. 
 
 `` Have we not gathered enough samples, now?'' Pleaded one. `` This deception is truly cruel. We should release him, so he may live out his days with his own kind.'' 
 
 `` And what then?'' Said the other, leaning in for a closer examination of a complex arpeggio. `` What if it's not enough? If we truly aspire to be greater than our predecessors, then we must learn all we can from them. I do n't see this as cruel, I see this for what it is. Their swan song.'' 
 
 In the auditorium, the patron grinned. `` I'd like to commission another.''
