ASSASSIN’S CREED (21ST CENTURY EDITION): Drones used missiles with knife warhead to take out single terrorist targets.

“To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky,” according to the WSJ. Some officials referred to the weapon as “the flying Ginsu,” because the blades can cut through concrete, sheet metal, and other materials surrounding a target.

The R9X was developed in part as a response to President Barack Obama’s mandate to reduce civilian casualties in drone strikes, especially in light of the tactic adopted by leaders of targeted terrorist and insurgent organizations (such as the leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda) of using women and children as a human shield in hopes of avoiding drone strikes. While the missile was apparently in development as far back as 2011, the exact timeline of development was not revealed by officials; a similar weapon was considered as an option to take out Osama bin Laden at his compound in Pakistan before it was decided to send Navy SEAL operators in instead.

According to the Journal’s sources, the DOD has only used the R9X about six times. The Journal confirmed two strikes—one, in January of 2019 by the Air Force against Jamal al-Badawi, the individual accused of being the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole (a strike that the Pentagon has officially acknowledged, but without disclosing the weapons used); and a CIA strike against Al Qaeda leader Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri in February of 2017. In both cases, the strikes took out the targets but did not blow up the vehicles they were in—in the case of the attack on al-Masri, there was only a hole in the roof of his Kia and a crack in the windshield.

It’s like something out of a steampunk story, but real.