“Thank you, sir,” U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jason Richter responded, shaking Patrick’s hand with a surprised look on his face. Richter was a full head taller and twenty years younger than Patrick, trim and athletic, with dark good looks and an air of supreme confidence… and an attitude to match. “I wasn’t told you would be part of this project.”
“I’m not part of your project,” Patrick said, “but I’m granted access to the flight line when certain special air-mission aircraft come in, and the arrival of one of Jon’s monstrosities qualifies. Besides, the doc here and I go way back.”
“Patrick!” a female voice shouted happily. A young, lithe, strawberry-blond woman sprang out of the Skytrain’s belly and fairly leaped into Patrick’s arms. “Oh my God, the pack is back! How lovely to see you again!”
“Same here, Charlie,” Patrick said. Charlie Turlock — her real first name, not a nickname — was Jason Richter’s longtime assistant design engineer in the Army’s Infantry Transformational Battlelab, designing high-tech infantry-soldier enhancements, mostly in the field of robotics. Charlie had left the Army to work with Jon Masters, but Jason had elected to stay in the Army. “Have a nice flight?”
“Very nice flight — until I wandered up to the cockpit and found no one flying the plane !” Charlie exclaimed. “A plane that size, with nobody flying it ? That’s insane! I need a little drinky-poo after that.”
“That’s the wave of the future, Charlie,” Patrick said. “Transport, reconnaissance, surveillance, air-defense suppression, resupply, long-range strategic strike — all unmanned. Half the planes that fly in and out of here these days are unmanned, and the military graduates more unmanned-aircraft pilots than manned-aircraft pilots these days. They can’t keep up with the demand for pilots and sensor operators, especially with all the military budget cutbacks. Jon has led the way in designing unmanned systems for years, but the pace is definitely accelerating. Any new ideas you come up with, get them into the system as fast as you can. If you don’t do it, someone else will.”
“Hey, we don’t need research or new-product counseling from some old retired guy,” Jon Masters quipped. “For some reason the great Patrick McLanahan has decided to check out of the real world and banish himself and his infinitely smarter son to the armpit of the world — which, I believe, used to be Battle Mountain’s unofficial designation, no?”
“Don’t be bad-mouthing my town, Jon,” Patrick said.
“Well, well, look who’s here,” another voice said, and Wayne “Whack” Macomber emerged from the Skytrain. “The famous disappearing general.” A former college football star and Air Force special-operations commando, Whack towered over the others. His face still bore the scars of being held captive and brutally interrogated by the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye, or GRU, the Russian military-intelligence bureau, the year before, and he walked with a bit of a limp.
They shook hands. “How are you feeling, Whack?” Patrick asked.
“Better,” Whack said. “Thanks for all the visits.” Whack had spent several months in a hospital recovering from his injuries, and Patrick had seen to it that he visited him at least once a week; his former private security firm paid for his hospital bills and rehabilitation. “Thought I’d tag along with Charlie and Richter on this deal — hangin’ around the house and doin’ nuthin’ but rehab was driving me batty.”
“You bring one of the Tin Man units?”
“Of course,” Whack said. “Masters still wants to sell a bunch of them to the government, so I’ll demo it if they want. Actually, I kinda like wearin’ the long undies these days — the exoskeleton is like a whole-body brace.”
“Glad to see you up and around,” Patrick said. He turned to Jason and Charlie. “You guys are all set in this hangar — everything you asked for is right here. If you need help with housing, just ask, but the trailers are the best we have right now. The base is shrinking every day. We once had over six thousand here — now we’re down to less than a thousand. But we’re still—”
“I think I can take it from here now, General,” a voice said behind Patrick. He turned and found FBI special agents Chastain, Renaldo, and the other federal agents walking up behind him. “Thank you for parking the plane.”
“That’s my job,” Patrick said. To Jon and the others he said, “I’m just a phone call away if you need me, and if you’d like to explore the town later—”
“I think we may be very busy for the next few nights, General,” Chastain interjected. “Thanks for the offer.” His body language and tone definitely suggested that it was time for Patrick to depart, so he did. After he left, Chastain said to Masters and Richter, “He’s not to be hanging out around here except in his official capacity.”
“He’s a good friend, Agent Chastain, but I know how to protect classified programs,” Jon said. “I assure you, if the general wanted to be attached to this project, he could do it with one phone call.”
“I highly doubt that — at least, not with me in charge.”
“Same for me,” Richter muttered acidly.
“He would probably be the one in charge… if not your boss’s boss,” Jon said, giving Richter an exasperated expression. This was his first time working with the gifted Army engineer, who was all of his reputation and more: as irritating as he was brilliant. “How many times have you piloted a CID? Patrick’s been in combat inside one several times.”
“Let’s take a look at one of your robots, Colonel,” Chastain said, ignoring Jon’s remarks. Jon went up inside the C-57, and a moment later the left cargo bay opened and a container was lowered outside. At the same time the landing-gear struts extended, allowing the container to be pulled directly out from underneath the plane.
Richter went over to the container and unlocked the door, and he and Charlie pulled out an odd-looking gray object a little larger than a refrigerator — although it was a very large object, Chastain noticed neither of them had any trouble carrying it. The object resembled several dozen boxes of different shapes and sizes haphazardly stuck and stacked together. “That’s it ?” Chastain asked. “It has to be assembled first?”
“Not exactly,” Charlie said. She turned to the box she had just helped unload. “CID One, deploy.”
All of a sudden the object seemed to come alive. Piece by piece, the boxes shifted, folded out more pieces, shifted again, refolded and shifted yet again, and quickly it reconstructed itself into a twelve-foot-tall robot. When it finished unfolding itself, it adopted a sort of low crouch, like a hunter warming himself before a fire.
“The Cybernetic Infantry Device, or CID, version five,” Richter said. “We made it a bit taller but made it ten percent lighter, made the armor both stronger and lighter, increased the pressure in the microhydraulic system to boost actuator strength and performance, and miniaturized and improved the sensor suite. Battery life is slightly improved, and—”
“I don’t need to hear the sales pitch, Colonel,” Chastain interrupted. “Let’s see it work.”
Richter nodded at Charlie, who almost giggled with excitement as she spoke, “CID One, pilot up.” At that command the robot stood, crouched forward with its right leg stuck out straight behind it, and extended its arms backward. At the same time a hatch opened on the robot’s back. Charlie climbed up the extended leg, using the leg like a ramp and the arms like railings. She then knelt down on the robot’s back just outside the hatch, then started to enter the robot, legs first, followed by arms, and finally her head. When she was fully inside, the hatch closed. Nothing happened for several moments…