Act of War

by Dale Brown

  “A ‘vote,’ huh?” Jason looked at the people around him. Apparently the feds were ready to vote; the military men and woman looked confused and hesitant but seemed to be willing to follow along if a vote was called for. “I’ve got a better idea—a trial run.”

  “Trial run?”

  “A contest, a challenge,” Jason said. “It’ll give us a good opportunity to look over the units, see what they’re capable of, and show how easy it is to operate. How does that sound?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Let’s give it a try, shall we?” He got to his feet and headed for the door. “Sergeant Major, have Sergeant Moore relieved at his post and have him report to the Humvees.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jefferson looked at Richter with a quizzical, skeptical expression as he departed.

  A few moments later, while Bolton and Sergeant Moore watched, Jason and Ari unloaded the two CID units and lined them up beside one another. “CID is programmed to respond to coded voice commands,” Jason began. “But for this exercise, Ari will program the units to respond to a voice command from myself, Ari, or any person aboard.” He motioned to the two rectangular hunks of composite material. “Their names are Troy and Moffitt.” Jason paused, looking around to see if there was any reaction from the others. “You guys don’t get it? Troy and Moffitt?” No reaction. “No one ever saw The Rat Patrol TV show?” Still no reaction. “Okay, we’ll just use CID One and Two. The command to get it to unstow is ‘activate,’ and then give it the command ‘pilot up’ to open up the access hatch. Go for it.”

  Bolton stepped forward and stood in front of the first unit. “CID One, activate,” he shouted in a drill-sergeant-like voice. The other unit shuddered to life and within moments it was towering over him. Moore did likewise with CID Two, a bit more hesitantly but he got the job done.

  “Very good. Ari, help Sergeant Moore. I’ll show Agent Bolton. CID One, pilot up.” The machine leaned forward slightly, its arms extended backward to act as railings. It bent its left leg then extended its right leg backward; finally, a hatch popped open in the center of its back.

  “CID Two, pilot up,” Ari commanded. The second unit did as the first. She hopped up on the robot’s right arm. “C’mon up here, Doug,” she said. Moore carefully, gingerly approached the machine. “C’mon, Sergeant, it won’t bite. Hop on up here.” She gave him a mind-blowing smile, which definitely encouraged him.

  Moore stood over the entry hatch and peered inside CID Two. The interior looked like a very comfortable satiny padded pillow, with a half-helmet with breathing apparatus and a large electronic visor near the eyes. The inside portion of the open entry hatches were similarly covered in satiny pads. Ari moved beside him. “Here’s your ride, Doug,” she said. “Once you’re inside, you’ll slip the gloved portions on and your feet into braces. Everything will be locked down, so you won’t be able to move until the unit powers up, but then you’ll be able to move freely. You give the command, ‘CID Two, lock me in,’ and the hatch will close. Everything will be automatic from there on out.”

  “It looks like I’ll be squished in there pretty tightly.”

  “Yes you will, but it won’t feel like it once power is applied,” Ari said. “You’ll be able to move perfectly normal. Just be careful—the kinesthetic algorithms in the software should keep you from hitting yourself and breaking sensors with your limbs, but they take time to adapt to your movements. Move slowly at first until you get the hang of it. Ready?”

  Moore faced the open hatch, both hands on either side, but he didn’t go in. “Will I be able to breathe and talk normally?”

  “Sure. It’ll be like wearing a motorcycle helmet. Your breathing will be a bit restricted but you’ll get used to it. There will be a lot of symbology and messages flashing on your visor but you’ll be able to see just fine. Ignore them for now—we’ll teach you what it all means later.”

  Moore looked down into the place where his head needed to go like a young child staring down into a pool before jumping in for the first time from a diving board. “I…I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

  Ari sensed the growing fear in Moore’s voice. “Hey, Doug,” she said gently. He looked up at her. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this. The major just wanted everyone to see how easy it is to run this thing. He thought you’d do it no sweat. But if you’d rather not, it’s cool.” Moore said nothing, but nodded numbly and looked back down inside the machine again, not moving in either direction. “You have a call sign, Doug? All you Air Force guys have call signs.”

  “No.”

  “How long have you been in the Air Force, Doug?” she asked.

  “Eight years.”

  “Gonna hang in there for twenty?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else do you like to do?”

  “I like being in the Security Forces,” Moore said. “Security, patrol, law enforcement, weapons.”

  “I mean, what do you do for fun, relaxation?”

  He looked up at her, a little embarrassed, and shrugged. “I read up on tactics and procedures, practice on the range—you know, study all there is to know about my job.”

  “You like guns?”

  “Sure I do.”

  She could see his eyes brighten. Aha, she thought, he’s paying attention to me and not the CID. “What kind of guns?”

  “Every kind,” he replied. “I know a lot about handguns, rifles, machine guns, cannons—you name it. I even reload my own ammo.”

  “I’m a little afraid of guns—no, I’m a lot afraid of guns,” Ari said.

  “There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of,” Moore said. This was definitely the chattiest he’s been, Ari thought. “They’re tools, implements—just like CID Two here. The more you learn, the better you feel about them.”

  “What does your wife think about guns?”

  His expression turned embarrassed again. “I…I’m not married.”

  “Me either.” He looked up at her, and she affixed another mind-blowing smile on him with her enticing red lips. “Hey, would you teach me how to shoot a gun?”

  His face practically exploded with glee. “Sure!” he replied enthusiastically. “Most girls I know hate guns. They don’t want anything to do with them.”

  “Well, I’m not a girl,” Ari said, giving Moore a playful slap on the back of the head, “and I’m definitely not like most women, Doug.” His use of the term “girls” told her a lot: this was a guy who didn’t have much of a life outside the Air Force Security Forces. He was afraid to try new things—not a good choice for someone picked to use CID for the first time. But Jason wanted him for this demonstration—she’d have to see if she could make this work. “Besides, I work for the army—I’m around guns all day. I don’t hate guns, and maybe I’m not afraid of them, but I do respect them. I don’t pick them up and fire them myself. But if you teach me, maybe I won’t be afraid.”

  “You won’t be, I promise.”

  “It’s a date, then,” she said. She nodded toward the interior of the CID unit. “Now, what about this thing, Doug? It’s no biggie if you want to get down. I’ll do the demo with Bolton over there, wax his ass, and then when you get off you and I will go out to the desert and you can teach me about guns.”

  Ari could see the transformation on Moore’s face when she said the word “date”—he felt as if he was ready to take on a band of nuclear terrorists all by himself. “Let me give it a spin,” he said resolutely.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She gave him another smile and a pat on the cheek that melted his heart completely. “All right, Doug. Wait until you see the weapons we have for this thing—it’ll blow your mind. Climb on in and let’s get started. Breathe normally and try to relax until we get the power on.”

  Slowly, gingerly, Moore eased his legs into the interior of CID Two. He paused about three-quarters in until his boots found the braces, then slowly lowered himself inside. He gave Ari one last worr
ied smile, received a smile of encouragement in response, then lowered his face into the helmet so his entire body weight was resting inside the body supports. His arms withdrew inside the machine and slipped between the smooth padded coverings until his hands found the rough gloves inside; then he slipped his fingers in. He tried to flex his fingers and move his head but everything was frozen solid, and a thrill of panic crept up his spine. He was blind, almost deaf, and the padded interior molded itself to his body so well that he felt as if he were floating in a sensory-deprivation chamber.

  “Okay, Doug,” he heard Ari say. “You have to give the command to close the hatch.”

  “Ahh…” He didn’t think he could do it. It was hard to tell which way was up. He knew he should be almost upright, leaning forward a little, but he felt horizontal, maybe even past horizontal, a little head-down. It was starting to get warm, and he hated the feel of his own breath on his face and going back into his own nostrils. Where’s the air in this thing? Wasn’t it dangerous to breathe your own exhalation? Isn’t that mostly carbon dioxide, and it’s bad to…

  “Hey, Doug? We’re waiting, tiger. Go for it.”

  “Okay. Okay…” He took a deep breath and found it exceedingly hard to get a full lungful of air. I better do it, he thought, or I might puke in here. “CID Two, lock me in.”

  It was silent for what seemed like a long time—then, suddenly he heard a whirring sound, and the hatch closed behind him, pressing his body deeply into the padding. Now it was really difficult to breathe. Moore subconsciously tried to raise himself up, but he was squished in tight. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear…He realized with a roar in his ears and tightness in his chest that he was suffocating! Suffocating! This is what it felt like! Holy shit, he screamed to himself, I’ve got to get out of here! How do I get out? Ari never told me how to get out! What if I’m dying? What if there’s a malfunction and they can’t tell I’m smothering in here! What do I…?

  “Relax, Doug,” he heard Ari say. “Don’t get up too quickly. Relax.”

  Cool air rushed into his lungs. He felt his body weight on his left leg—not uncomfortable or heavy, but it felt weird after feeling so weightless for what seemed like a long time—and found he was able to straighten his legs and lower his arms with ease. He could see just fine—maybe a bit of distortion, like looking through a window with a bit of glare on it, but not bad. He saw symbology floating across his vision, popping up here and there, like a stock market ticker that appeared and reappeared almost randomly. He brought his hands up to his face…

  …and saw the biggest, meanest clawlike fingers he had ever seen. It was the robot’s fingers, not his! He flexed his fingers and saw the robot’s fingers flex the same way…but they were his fingers he was moving, not the robot’s…but the robot’s fingers were moving, he was watching them move…!

  “How do you feel, Doug?” Ari asked, stepping in front of his field of view. “Be careful touching your visor or sensors with your fingers or trying to rub your eyes—your fingers will go right through those sensors.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked. “I mean, I feel okay, but I feel weird. Am I still in the robot? I remember I was panicking a little, and I wanted to get out.”

  “Un…believable,” he heard Kelsey DeLaine gasp. She stepped in front of him, a look of absolute wonderment on her face. It reminded Moore of how passersby looked at auto accidents or criminals getting arrested. “How do you feel, Sergeant?”

  “I feel just fine, ma’am,” Moore said. She reached out a hand to him, and he reached out…except it was the robot’s massive hand that touched hers. He dared not close his fingers over hers. “I…I can feel you, Miss DeLaine. It feels like I’m touching you…but I’m not, am I? It’s the robot touching you, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is, Sergeant,” Kelsey murmured. She backed away. “Try moving around a little.” He raised his arms over his head and did a deep-knee bend, and he saw the FBI special agent’s eyes grow wide in absolute amazement. “You…you look like…like you, like a real person moving, but it’s this huge robot moving around!”

  “I feel perfectly normal, ma’am,” Moore said. He stood up quickly. There was a very slight but noticeable pause in his body reaction from when he thought about moving and when he actually moved, but he was completely free and unhindered. “I feel a little slow, like I’ve had a couple beers and I’m just starting to get a buzz, but I feel perfectly normal otherwise.”

  “Good to hear it, Sergeant,” Jason Richter said. “The fabric inside the CIDs is actually an electroconductive material attached to thousands of fiber-optic sensors over your entire body. They collect muscle and skeletal movement, combine the inputs into a computer, analyze them a few hundred thousand times per second, and translate the data into microhydraulic motion commands in the exoskeleton.”

  Moore looked around and saw the second CID unit also experimentally moving around, looking at its hands and feet in surprise—and yes, Doug could tell that the robot was “surprised” by its body language. He stepped forward…and suddenly his left foot banged against his right leg, and he tripped and stumbled forward. Kelsey DeLaine scrambled out of the way in sheer terror. “Are you okay, Sergeant?” she asked.

  “I feel like I don’t know where my feet are,” he responded.

  “The computer will put in a kinesthetic compensation between how much your limbs move and how much they need to move,” Ari said. “You have to move around a little more so the computer can make the corrections.”

  Moore stepped around carefully, flexing his arms and taking bigger and bigger steps. “I think it’s working,” he said, but at that moment a foot hit his leg again. “I still feel pretty clumsy in this thing.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz or a robot from one of those old-fashioned sci-fi movies,” Ari said. “The key is to walk like a human being and let the system correct your movements. Don’t fight it—eventually you two will start working together instead of against one another.”

  Moore didn’t—couldn’t—move. It was as if he could feel every little hydraulic actuator moving, exactly opposite his own movements. It was decidedly uncomfortable, like swimming against a riptide, realizing you were being carried out to sea. “I think I’m done with the demo,” he said nervously. “This is not for me.”

  Ari stepped toward Moore so only he could hear. “The secret, Doug, is not to think in terms of a normal human body,” she said. “We’ve matched it so well that you might think you’re simply you—maybe even a step or two slower. That’s not the case. CID has capabilities that far exceed a normal human being. You may not feel you do because we’ve designed it to make carrying around a robot on your back virtually effortless. But you’re not human anymore—you’re a CID, a Cybernetic Infantry Device. You’re not Doug Moore—you’re Superman. Remember that.” Heartened, Moore started to pace around the hangar a bit, eventually working up to short, gentle hops and even a quick set of jumping jacks.

  “The exercise is simple, gents,” Jason said. “This is a race.” He pointed to the far end of the parking area in front of the hangars, about a hundred and fifty meters away. “You will both start over there. First person to make it to the northwest access gate on the other side of the range area wins. It’s less than two kilometers, on the other side of the hangars, across the road, past the service buildings and the shooting range—shouldn’t take too long. Let’s do it.”

  Moore thought this was all a little silly, but he followed Bolton across the parking lot. There was an expanse of sandy earth on either side of the access ramp, followed by the parking ramp and hangar complex. There was a gap behind the hangar to the left and a much larger vacant area to the right—there was plenty of room to run. Beyond the hangars was the main street, followed by more buildings spaced fairly widely apart. Moore knew this area well and would have preferred the left side because it was a shorter distance to the northwest access gate, but he�
��d be fine going to the right. Besides, this was stupid. So what if he lost this race? He wouldn’t be…

  “Go!” Richter shouted.

  Bolton took off like a sprinter, and Moore couldn’t believe how fast he was moving—in a flash he was at the parking ramp, effortlessly racing around the perpendicular hangar. He seemed to get the hang of the cyborg just fine. For some reason, Moore was afraid to run for fear of banging or tripping on his robotic legs.

  “Remember what I told you, Doug!” Ari shouted. “Go! Catch him!”

  Moore started to jog after Bolton, who was already starting to disappear around the south hangar—but instead, he stopped, looked around, then actually took several large steps backward toward the taxiway.

  “What’s he doing?” Falcone asked.

  “He’s gonna try being Superman,” Ari said. He did. Moore turned, ran toward the parking apron in front of the hangars—and then leaped into the air. To their surprise, he bounded all the way to the top of the hangar!

  “Holy shit!” Kelsey exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!” Jason gave Ari an exasperated smile and shake of his head—he knew she encouraged him to do that, and it worked.

  They could hear the loud “WHUUMP!” as Moore hit the hangar roof, but thankfully he didn’t come through it. He took two steps and leaped off the other end, clearing the street outside and almost landing atop the Tumbleweed Dining Facility. Moore caught a glimpse of Bolton, just fifteen meters ahead of him. He was running toward the entry gate to the shooting range about fifty meters to his left. This time, Moore didn’t hesitate—he ran right for the four-meter-high wooden fence surrounding the outdoor shooting range, crashing through it with ease, and just kept on running. Seconds later, just as Bolton made it through the access gate, Moore was crashing through the fence on the other side of the range, and he made it to the finish line well ahead of the FBI special agent.