Ok, I have read both books in the series. My main issue is there are LOTS of drones in the Zone that can fly. I am assuming MASSIVE increases in battery and capacitor efficiency for the drones to be viable. Having them run out of bullets and making metal darts and low power lasers sort of works. The solar charge needs to fly and run lasers even for a few seconds is pretty high though. Now assuming they have sufficient power, Manhattan is an island and has a limited number of ways to attach to the mainland so they could be blocked by Zone Defense. The REAL problem is you have flying drones so for Zone Defense to work they have to work every on square inch of Manhattan’s shoreline. The shoreline has to be guarded and guarded against FLYING drones. That would take a LOT a HELL of a lot of Render drones. If the Spiders are smart enough to design new drones they should be able to design small boats or rafts to move out a few drones, even simple submarines or balloons or gliders, powered down on a timer little to no metal. So either I forgot some stuff or some descriptions of blocking devices have been left out. Despite my carping I DO find the series very enjoyable and entertaining.