by Laer Carroll
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The next morning they all had breakfast together and went to Jane's lab. Kate set up an itinerary and assigned tasks. Jane's would be to take a golf cart and convert it to maglev flight. She downloaded computer-aided designs on the three for-sales carts they'd found online the day before.
She picked one design at random and exploded it into its functional elements: seats, steering, battery and engine, and so on. She abolished the wheels and substituted cubes which would be maglev inducers. Gave the frame over the driver and passenger a slant forward and backward to make it look a bit more speedy. Added a canvas cover atop the frame.
Then she had the CAD program unexploded the design. Changed the cover and sides to Air Force blue, which was a specific shade of ultramarine blue.
It looked a little grayish to her. Drab. She said Fuck it and changed the color to sky blue.
On the sides she put a label in big letters in gold. There was an official Air Force gold which also a little drab. She substituted a brighter gold bordering on yellow. The lettering now read
US AIR FORCE ACADEMY
technology demonstrator
class project
Jane felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Kate. She said, "It's beautiful."
Jane put a hand on Jane's hand for a moment, examined the image. It DID look nice.
She took away her hand and said, "Look at this."
She had the CAD program turn the isometric image into a perspective one. It now looked 3D to everyone, almost real. She tilted it in various ways showing the machine from all angles.
Klaus joined them. "Put up an Academy background."
Jane tried several and they chose one that had the world-famous Academy chapel in the background, looking like over a dozen arrow heads set base downward on the concrete and close to each other, almost like a huge tent.
Mountains reared in the background. On a grassy courtyard in front she placed the flying golf cart, its near-noontime shadow clearly showing it was floating above the grass.
"Sweet," said Ricky from behind them. "But that's not the one we got. Here is that one."
He turned to show the big double doors of the lab opened to the outside. Rolling slowly into the room was a golf cart with bright orange sides. Nicole was driving it.
Kate went outside to pay the U-Haul driver who'd delivered it a tip and sent him on his way.
Then they stood on all sides admiring it.
"It's beautiful," said Kate.
"No, it isn't," said Ricky. "It's an ugly duckling. We're going to turn it into a swan."
Nicole got a mischievous look on her face and skipped over to a computer workstation. When Ricky tried to see what she was doing she shooed him away.
While she was doing whatever the others began discussing what to do and when. They'd first need a support to put the sides and bottom within easy reach for workers standing up. Kate dispatched Klaus and Ricky to find timber or piping to make that. They shouldn't be gone long. This lab was one of over a dozen with a central store for materials.
Jane redid her demonstrator design using the correct golf cart as a core.
Klaus and Ricky came back pulling behind them a cart holding wooden timbers and piping. They'd already designed a framework and began putting it together in the middle of the lab floor. Kate and Nicole helped. Soon it was together. Kate went around to each joint and double-checked it was bolted tight.
"All right. Jane, you come and supervise."
"No, Kate. YOU supervise."
With four lifters and one super the cart was soon atop the framework. Again the five had to stand around and admire it for several minutes.
This was broken up by Nicole running over to a large color printer. She applied tape and scissors to the printouts, all the while shooing away any one who dared come close.
Finally she came over to the tech demonstrator and reached up tape a long sign on the side of the golf cart. Then skipped back to admire it. It read
Falcon Floater.
It needed no explanation. The falcon was the totem emblem of the Air Force Academy.
Ricky hugged her. "God, smart women are so sexy!"
"Hey, get away or I'll kick your balls up into your body."
"And she can do it, too," Kate said. This was true. The compact Louisiana native was an Academy competitive martial artist and they all knew it.
Ricky just grinned. "Bad-ass girls are also super sexy."
"Oh, go wank off out of sight," Nicole said. "So we can get some actual work out of you."
<>
That established the activities of the next several days. They ate lunch in the lab with delivered fast food: pizza, burgers, Chinese, Thai, more pizza and burgers.
The golf cart shed pieces first virtually in Jane's CAD program and was assembled and unassembled and reassembled several times, each with small but crucial changes.
Finally on New Year's Day, a Sunday, just after lunch, they were ready for their first flight. Nicole, who had a flair for publicity and Ricky, who was an expert with still and video cameras, set up video cameras in front, back, and both sides of the vehicle on its platform to capture the moment. Ricky then took up another vid cam for a roving viewpoint.
Jane handed the quad controller used with the first demonstrator to Klaus as he was expert flying drones. He pushed it back at her.
"No, you are the inventor. You get to do the honors."
"But what if I wreck it. I have no experience--"
"I'll wring it out. But you lift it up, ensure it's stable, and set it down. This is history, honey. You are history."
Jane felt panic for the first time in her life. Instantly she was Jane+Robot.
The dual entity, now a single greater being, considered the situation. SHE had no reason for fear. This was a purely emotional reaction unrelated to survival.
Robot sank back to near-sleep.
Jane, her adrenaline metabolizing, said, "I should change clothes. Put on makeup."
She was in sweats and had this morning only washed her face and put on moisturizing lotion.
Nicole was adamant. "No, this is a historic moment. To seem authentic to those who see the vids it has to BE authentic. Go pee, wash your face, and comb your hair. That's enough beautifying. Anyway, my love, you're naturally beautiful. Be brave."
Jane took her advice and then took the quad controller and put it on. She checked the battery in the device, then put it on a table, and looked around at everyone.
"Ready? In places."
Nicole had written a short script for the five of them. It began with them on one side of the platform and its burden, clustered around the engine area. This was shot by a friend of Nicole's from the Academy Public Relations Department who had been volunteered for this duty on New Year's Day. She was not happy but was here to do her job.
The five conferred and Jane said, "Let's do it."
They scattered to each corner of the device, placed so the camera person could get all of them in the shot. She moved around to get better angles.
Jane walked out of the shot to return with the quad controller strapped to her body. She went to stand beside the platform a few feet away. Ricky snuck in close to get a shot of her face from below it. He zoomed in then out. His part would be cut out of the final record though the shot he took would not be.
Jane powered up the controller. A pinpoint green light came on. Ricky went in and shot down at the device. His actions in the overall shot would also be cut out.
She flipped a switch on the controller and slowly began to pull up on the knob of the slender joy stick. This fed more and more power to the inducer.
Slowly the golf cart "went light" on its nearly three-feet-long legs at each corner of the golf cart, each one tipped with black permanent magnets the size of soda cans. The legs and their burden inched off the floor very slowly.
The crew cheered loudly. Involuntarily so did the PR camera woman, startling herself.
Nicole yelled, "One seven
teen pm and two seconds! We have lift off!"
The words would live long in future history.
Silently, slowly, almost majestically, the golf cart lifted up two feet, the highest its feet could go off the floor. Then slowly Jane let it slide back down to rest.
Nicole yelled, "One eighteen one and fifteen seconds pm! Flight time 1:13 seconds!"
Everyone cheered. Again including the PR woman.
"Well, that's it," said Nicole to her friend. "You got everything you need?"
The woman had been replaying the several minutes of footage. She said, "Got it. Get your SuperSmart, Nicky. I want you people to have a copy as back up."
Nicole took it off her belt and her friend copied her footage via wireless to the SuperSmart.
"I thought I'd be bored out of my skull. But this was important, wasn't it."
"Yes. We made history here today. Just like the Wright Brothers when they flew for the first time."
"That lame set up is historic? Well, keep us posted, Nicky. I want to be in on your next few victories. Now, Ciao."
"Ciao, love. Kiss that adorable baby of yours."
"Kiss that adorable baby of yours," she said, looking sideways at Ricky, happily talking to Jane.
"Oh, he's not mine."
"More fool you."
Publicity duty done, the crew got down to the part they'd been working toward: Klaus to take the Falcon Floater for its first spin about the laboratory.
This was scheduled in great detail and with stops to record and review the results. The first flight, after Jane's, was to get it up and off the work platform. This done, the long legs, whose length was hydraulically controlled, were reduced till the belly of the Flyer was about a foot off the floor. This let people easily step up and into their seats.
Which they did, each of them, jostling and generally acting as they might in normal use. The way the vehicle moved was noted.
Next Klaus lifted the Flyer an inch and let it float. It was a bit eerie, Jane thought, see it unsupported in the air completely steadily as if it were actually supported by invisible stone or steel.
Klaus took it on longer and higher flights with and without passengers. All planned and results recorded.
Finally midafternoon they were done. The Flyer was returned to its platform. It was shut down and the controller shut off and stored away.
They had a conference. The consensus was that the project was proceeding well.
Jane said, "Now we go into the long stretch. We've got to test this vehicle up the ying yang. At the same time starting next week we'll have our regular classes and duties and necessary recreation. Scheduling is going to be a, not problem, but not an easy task. Kate, can you handle that?"
"Roger, Boss. Got a rough schedule ready. Will have to refine and re-refine it as time goes by."
"Are you guys still happy with what we're doing and how?"
They all were. Ricky added, "This is important stuff. We may joke about it, but we're making history here. And I for one am as happy as-- Screw it, I'm happy."
Jane said, "I'm glad. But this is all volunteer work. Our needs and desires may change. Will change. Life keeps throwing up problems. If we need to change anything, if any of you have to drop out, or take breaks, bring them up as soon as you know about the need. The project can survive change, will have to, and the sooner we know we have to adjust it the better."
She looked all around. The other four people looked back. Solid. Resolute.
Jane felt a sudden surge of warmth deep in her chest. She loved these people.
<>
The five celebrated New Year's Eve at a party for the squadron put on by Major Ngana. She started it and left early with one warning.
"I don't want to see any of you coming back to classes with an STD or pregnant. If you do I won't be easy on you."
The five started together but soon drifted apart. There were lots of friends who'd been away and were now returned. Jane had a good time but noticed that Kate and Klaus left after a couple of hours. Their romance during the summer had vanished when they returned to the Academy. The two had become friends in the summer and remained so afterward. Now perhaps the romance would be returning.
Nicole and Ricky left early too, but not with each other though Jane had noticed some romantic sparks between the two.
She stayed on for a short time but soon left too.
Back in her room she lay staring at the ceiling for a while, feeling lonely and hollow. Would she ever have those feelings which seemed to loom so big in other people's lives?
Robot was suddenly with her. Unlike any time before it was not a cold presence but a warm one. It wrapped itself around her and suddenly she was Jane+Robot. But a different one, somehow older. Hidden knowledge revealed itself.
Yes, she would feel romantic love and all that went with it. But for her kind it was years away. Her people, long lost in time and space, had matured late and lived long, centuries and millennia. Children for such people could only be rare, and only had by people who would cherish them well.
The way she was cherished by Malena and Alex.
She sat up and called them, by audio not video.
The answer was swift. "Hello, dear. Are you getting dressed? We don't have a video feed."
"Yes, Mom. Is Dad there?"
"On the other line. How're things? Are you getting ready to go out to celebrate New Year's?"
"Yes, Dad. My friend will be here shortly and I'm rushing to dress. But I couldn't do that until I wished you a Happy New Year's."
"Well, Happy to you, dear. Love you."
Malena said, "Love you!"
"Love you. See you next year!"
Happy, Jane took off her party clothes and dressed in pajamas. She got in bed and pulled the covers around her. Sleep came quickly.
<>
The Flyer project proceeded as slowly as Jane had predicted, slowed by classes and other activities. For Jane that included intramural soccer. She was the team captain for her team. Most plays she did what she always did: set up other players to make goals, not make them herself. However, she twice let her emotions overrule her caution and did her upside down goal shot. After each time she cursed herself and promised not to do it again.
After the second time she acquired a nickname: The Falcon Flyer. Her support team kidded her about it.
Despite all work did proceed. The device was tested in dozens of ways and re-designed several times, and re-worked several times, and tested again.
By mid-February it was done mechanically. Now it was cleaned thoroughly till the parts which should gleam did so. The crew of five replaced the seats with more comfortable and attractive seats, a pleasant grey. The canvas top was replaced with a more durable plastic top almost covered with the USAF ACADEMY seal. The sides were replaced with fresh ones of sky blue with a shiny luster. On both sides were large bright golden letters.
Falcon Floater
US AIR FORCE ACADEMY
Technology Demonstrator
<>
On the first Saturday in March, late morning on a bright chill day, the crew put on a show to debut the Floater to the world. Lots of publicity had been sent out, most especially to the Academy PR group. The group had made several minor suggestions to the flyer and said they'd have someone at the show to record the events.
It began with the crew assembled outside the double doors to their lab. They stood in line to one side of the wide walkway leading to and from the doors. To the opposite side stood a small group of Academy students with brass and drum instruments and little else. Everyone was in uniforms.
Recruited helpers stood ready inside and outside the lab. Jane, first in line of her crew, had her SuperSmart in her hand, down at the side where it would not be readily visible.
A small crowd of onlookers stood outside the lab.
PR had sent two videographers, or so it seemed. Actually the woman who'd first videoed the Floater precursor was there on her own, her personal vidcam perched on a
shoulder. Other cadets, in the onlooker crowd or passing by, had SuperSmarts trained on what would be some sort of show. A not very important one considering the small crowd.
Jane punched in a command on her phone.
The doors to the lab began to slowly open.
The band began to play the opening music to 2001: a Space Odyssey - Thus Sprach Zarathustra. A trumpet called awake alert awake alert. Drums spoke about something important soon to arrive.
Ever so slowly the double doors unfolded to show darkness within. With something dimly seen.
As the music continued to peal out through the chill air the something advanced slowly forward. Klaus, at the end of the line and closest to the crowd, had a drone controller on his belly over his spotless white shirt with cadet shoulder tabs, atop dark blue pants and gleaming black shoes. Clearly he was in command of the emerging craft.
A golf cart.
A great wave of laughter washed over the crowd. The cadets were playing a joke.
The trumpet spoke again. The drums spoke again. The cart continued to emerge.
There was something - unusual about the cart.
Trumpet. Drums.
A gasp went up almost simultaneously. There was nothing under the cart. Black shadow under the cart from the bright sun made that clear.
Some squatted on the grass and concrete outside the lab. One person even lay flat. They could see no hidden wheels or other device.
"It's floating."
"No shit, Sherlock. It's a maglev vehicle."
"But where are the rails? The roadway?"
"Maybe they buried it under the road."
Someone stamped a foot. "Look at this. Does this look tampered with?"
"It's a technology demonstrator. Maybe this is for real."
"What? Anti-gravity? We'd have heard about that before now."
Phones were lifted to mouth or to punching thumbs. Word was going out.
Klaus grounded the cart and went to it, putting the controller in the tiny back storage area. He lifted the cart up on its maglev cushion and tooled it slowly down the sidewalk, then veered onto the green lawn. He drove a figure eight then returned to park on the driveway up to the lab where it T'd with the Academy street.
He was immediately mobbed by questioners. Shaking his head he began handing out flyers taken from the back seat. Meanwhile other cadets were handing out flyers. Nicole had ordered a thousand. It was barely enough by an hour later.
