by Dale Mayer
She glanced over at him and smiled. “You’re really a nice man, Devlin.”
He winced. “There’s nothing nice about me.”
He caught Rhodes’s grin, glared at him and watched as it spread around the room. But nobody said anything, and with them all being silent, he returned to his meal. He quickly finished what was on his plate and pushed it back.
“Your housekeeper is wonderful. That was terrific. Thank you.” He reached for his cup of coffee, walked to the sideboard to fill it up and returned to his place. Noticing her cup was empty, he did the same for her.
As he sat back down again, she said to everyone in the room, “I need to spend a few moments with my father to start the day. Devlin’ll take you all back downstairs. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” She glanced over at Tesla. “Maybe you could explain to Ice what we’ve been doing.”
Tesla smiled. “Be happy to,” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure she will love the new drones.”
Ice said, “To be honest, I haven’t heard very much about these.”
“Stealth, bulletproof, and even when shot off target, it’s still capable of realigning.”
Ice immediately dropped her knife and fork, and stood. “Let’s go.”
“Ha!” Tesla pushed her plate back, grabbed another cup of coffee and said, “Is everybody ready?”
The group stood, refilled their coffees, and then, with Devlin leading the way and Bristol watching, they left.
Chapter 12
Bristol watched the elevator doors close in front of her. She opened a panel beside the elevator and turned off the security to the lower floor.
Carmelita came to stand beside her. “These are good people.”
She turned, putting her arms around her housekeeper. “They are the best.”
Carmelita patted her shoulder. “Your father’s breakfast is ready.”
Bristol walked into the kitchen, grabbed the tray already laid out and went to see her father. She knocked on the door and heard a confused murmur from inside. Pushing the door open, she walked in. He sat on bed, a book in hand, looking at the world from the foggy filter he lived in now.
“Good morning, Father. I brought breakfast.”
He glanced at her. “Good. I’m quite hungry today.”
Relieved he was coherent, she placed a small breakfast tray over his lap, sitting down on the bed with him.
He brushed her away. “I don’t need anything else. You can leave.”
With a heavy sigh she stood, realizing that today was just a normal day. He didn’t recognize her for who she was. Still she persisted. “I’m your daughter, Father. I came to visit with you.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t have a daughter.”
Right. One of those days again. The good days when he remembered his life were nonexistent. Every once in a while, there were glimmers of awareness, not recognitions of her, but at least of himself. They were little golden lights to help make the rest of it so much easier on her.
She stood, turned to him and gave him a gentle kiss.
But he was irritable and brushed her away again. With a hand he pointed to the door and said, “Go.”
Sadly she turned and walked out. As she closed the door, she held her breath and willed back the tears. It was so damn hard to see him like this.
But today of all days she had to focus and get on track. She straightened her back, brushed away the tears in the corners of her eyes and headed downstairs. Everyone here had come to help out. The least she could do was show up and be the person in charge.
As the elevator doors opened, she walked into her lab to see everybody back at their stations, with Tesla and Ice bending over the laptop programming the remote controls she’d had in front of her last night.
She never considered anybody here might actually spread any secrets. And she’d never asked or had anybody sign an NDA. She probably should have. She certainly wasn’t a lawyer or anywhere near as worried about things as her team of attorneys would like her to be. But there hadn’t been any time. When able-bodied people had been willing and ready to help, well, she wouldn’t have insulted them by asking them to sign something like that.
Besides, she imagined, in their business, they did this all the time. Secrecy bred secrecy. And these men and women lived with it. Bristol was damn glad they were here.
Not only was Ice supposed to be an exceptionally good drone operator, but she was intuitive and understood the inner workings easily. She was a huge asset right now. Of course, under Bristol’s test conditions, she wouldn’t get to see Ice really letting loose and being creative with them, as there just wasn’t the time for fun, only for work—yet not enough hours to really do this job justice either. Very quickly they took the drones Bristol had brought back from Afghanistan off the rack, put one of the new chip sets in each, and the three women each carried one of the drones outside. Bristol shot it into the air. It handled just fine.
She gave it to Ice and said, “Run it through its maneuvers. You won’t have a clue as to all it can do, so this is a really good test from a new user’s point of view. I want to watch and see what’s happening. I’ve got some tools here that will give me a better idea of the controls as I go through the field with her.”
She held up one of the special testing devices she’d developed and watched as Ice began working with the drone. Not only was she careful, but she was good. The drone was up and flying overhead in a beautiful straight line.
Bristol set up the tracker that would measure the drone’s flight and matched it to the commands. They had to be exact for accuracy.
She spent the rest of the afternoon fussing, tweaking, and getting more and more frustrated. Finally, by late afternoon, she had the adjustments pretty damn close. Ice had gone to lie down.
Bristol had the drone flying in the sky, pulled out the remote, recalibrated it and ran the drone through a series of maneuvers. No way could she do this enough. Every damn time the calibrations had to come back perfectly. The only way to do it was to run the drone, have her tester measure absolutely every movement it took, and then compare that against the code and results. Then she’d tweak it again and send the drone back up once more. Finally, she was satisfied she’d gotten as far as she could with her current time constraints. Her notebook open, she made several notations, locked down the code, grabbed up her remote and walked to the back of the property.
She hadn’t even considered asking anybody to come out and help. Everyone else was busy inside. Tesla was also lying down, having not gotten much sleep last night. Besides, this was a whole different stage of testing. And these results needed to be exact, so it was best she did them herself.
She had several targets set up. For her, practice was very important. The drones were ultimately weapons. In order to be so, they had to have accuracy second to none. Having finally locked down the code at this stage, if the lucky charms were working for her, she could sort out the bugs in this part of the program. She buried herself in them, running the drone through the tests. She did single-shot, rapid-fire, evasive maneuvers, and then, with the drone flying high, she reached into the box she’d brought and pulled out a handgun. She aimed and fired. The drone took the hit, bounced to the side and immediately fired on—and hit—its target. She set it up and fired again, watching its movements.
She stepped around to see the tracker downloading all the data. Every one of the targets was hit in the bull’s-eye center. So far, so good. What she needed was something so much bigger and heavier. She had an assault rifle. She didn’t have a rocket launcher, so she’d wait for military testing to confirm those results.
She went through the weapons she did have available. She had emptied all three, and the drone was still in flight—looking a little worse for wear but holding its own. She opened her strongbox rifle case, locked the weapons away, then turned back and grabbed her laptop and tester. She had to download the information. This was the critical part.
As far as she was concerned, the p
erformance had been about 90 percent, so there was room for improvement. But she’d come a long way, and because of that, she felt a heck of a lot better. As she turned to head toward the lab, she realized she wasn’t alone. She stopped and saw everyone, minus Carmelita and her father, staring at her. She raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t think we’d ignore gunfire, did you?” Corey asked with a smile.
“That was quite a performance,” Devlin said. “I didn’t know you could shoot.”
“A basic skill in my line of work,” she said calmly. She walked toward them and realized they all walked backward. She turned to look behind her and then said, “What’s the problem?”
Ice pointed above her.
She glanced up to see the drone, always hovering right above her head. She studied Ice’s face and said, “Yeah, it’s one of the tricks these guys have. It’s locked on my position and will follow me.” She handed her the remote. “Try to take control.”
Ice accepted it, but with a frown, she asked, “Is it still weaponized?”
Bristol laughed. “It’s out of ammunition, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Ice played with the controls. “I can’t get it to do anything. Why’s that?”
“I added an antitheft device. The drone is locked on me. Even though it’s in sad shape at present and needs repair, it’s above my head until I tell it not to be.”
“And how can you tell it that?” Devlin asked. He motioned to the hovering drone. “I saw this in Afghanistan. It was a pretty cool display.”
Bristol pulled out her cell phone. A series of musical beeps played, and the drone came down and landed right beside her. “At the moment, I have access on my cell. I can actually coordinate to almost any computerized device. As long as I can access the codes, I can have the drone lock and follow.” She pressed a different set, and the drone shot into the air. She backed up; the drone followed. She said to Devlin, “Catch.”
He held out his hands, and she tossed him her phone. Immediately the drone flew over and hovered above Devlin.
“Whoa, nice control.”
She grinned. “You think so?” She lifted her tablet, hit one button, and the drone returned to her. “And in case you lose your cell, you can use another device, code it, and control the drone’s home placement. I call it fostering. No matter where it goes or with who, the Home button will bring it back.”
“It’s fascinating,” Ice said. “I’ve always loved drones. Of course it’s flying, so to me it’s just part and parcel of what I really love.” She grinned. “But these are big and bulky.”
“They are indeed,” Bristol said. “In the first delivery, it’s for the size. The prototype after this is already one-tenth the size. The plan is to make the prototype after that one-tenth the size yet again. The problem is making it small enough that it’s good for stealth but large enough to carry the weapons.”
“Do you have a prototype built to the smaller size?” Devlin asked. “And is there only one kind of weapon for this?”
Bristol shook her head. “That’s another reason for the initial delivery of the larger ones. The military wants to do testing for different kinds of weapons. Size will be determined once we know the weight it will carry. Weight drains power. More power means more noise, and that means easier detection.” She smiled. “I’m not reinventing the wheel. Drones are big business. What I’m producing are very small individualized ones. This is another aspect to one of the upcoming models. There will be foldable drones, almost to the size that one can keep in a carry-on.”
That shot many eyebrows up. “Applications for something like what?” Tesla asked.
Bristol gave her a wry look. “War. Although what I would much prefer is to use this for scanning. I can put in heat sensors, metal detectors, and …” Bristol motioned at Tesla. “What about ground-surveying software? I mean, the applications are endless. I’m not interested in building the large UAVs. The Hellfires out there are doing a bang-up job of dropping bombs upward of one hundred pounds of payload. Smaller, elegant, and hidden are much more my style.”
She pulled out her tablet and shifted the programs. Then she held up an arm, and the drone above her head rose up slightly higher. Then using her arms, she told the drone to land. It came down slowly to the ground. She watched as it lowered itself, and seeing the wobble, realizing some of its damages.
Completely ignoring the others, she checked the drone’s fabric. “Still weak on that joint. I need to fix that.”
“Really? You tried to shoot it down a half-dozen times. What did you expect?” Easton stated in disbelief.
She shot him a look. “I didn’t expect to weaken a joint. They’re already weak, so I reinforce them so they don’t become worse. In this case it wasn’t enough.” She pulled out her tablet and typed notes while everybody watched.
Tesla spoke up. “This is truly amazing, Bristol. I had no idea you were working on this.”
Bristol sighed. “I’m working on so much, so many cool things these guys could do. But I’m stuck with a stupid contract.”
“Why do they want so many? I don’t understand that,” Devlin said. “Usually a contract is to develop one. And when they like it, they turn around and order more.”
“True enough. But these are specs. I’ve already delivered a basic prototype and showed them an upgraded version I had with me at the time. It’s those they ordered fifty of. But what they wanted was the more general drone, size-wise. They don’t even know about these other prototypes. My goal was to give them the fifty they requested as part of the contract. While I was there, I’d hoped to show them some of the new developments and get a better contract for the next one.”
In a quiet voice, Ice said, “What you should do is get one advanced prototype and see if you can interest the military directly.”
“So your contract isn’t with the military?” Easton asked.
“No, it’s with ENFAQ, under Brent’s recommendation. So it doesn’t make any sense that he’d be sabotaging my work.”
“Unless he’s being paid to have your contract fall through somehow,” Tesla said. “I wouldn’t put that past him.”
Ice looked over at Tesla. “That makes a lot of sense. Do you know Brent?”
Tesla shook her head. “No, but I’ve dealt with military contracts.” She shook her head. “Most of them are not much fun. And if Brent is an asshole, well …”
She turned back to Bristol. “You were really excited about the contract in the beginning and then quickly soured on it. But didn’t you tell me something about personal differences between you and Brent?”
“He wanted more from me personally than I was interested in giving,” she said. “Originally our verbal agreement was for just five of these units. Then he handed over the contract and had upped the delivery to fifty. He told me that he could make it easier on me if I’d do the same on him.” She shrugged. “I didn’t ask details, just said no thanks. But the contract was written. So either I could sign it or not. My choice. It was for more money, and I had hoped it would lead to bigger and better things.”
“I’ll talk to one or two people about this,” Ice said. “I’m afraid this contract is something you’re stuck with, and we’ll do our best to help you meet it. But if the military saw what you’re doing here …” She shook her head.
“Too bad Brent was intent on screwing you over.”
“Almost literally,” Bristol said with a laugh. “He didn’t take my rejection well.”
“Tough shit,” Tesla said strongly. “Why should a woman have to sleep with a guy in order to get a contract?”
“I agree,” Ice said. “But you can’t change the way of the world overnight.” She smiled at the other two women. “We just have to be better.” With a laughing glance at the males, she turned and walked inside.
Harrison groaned. “I think that was a dis on us guys.”
“Like hell,” Rhodes said. “We’re not second to anyone. But I agree with Ice. Women shouldn’t b
e either.” He motioned at the drone. “Can I carry this inside for you?”
Bristol grinned. “Yes, please. Thanks for the help. They can get heavy by the end of the day. I really don’t want to fly it anymore until I can fix that wing.”
“That’s also a very special material. The military will be interested in that.”
“As you can see, it’s bulletproof.” Bristol grinned. “It’s also superlight. Although, if I can make it lighter yet again, that would be better.”
“Not today,” Devlin said beside her. “You need to show the military your new drones. Then they can negotiate with you directly. In the meantime, we must ensure nobody else knows what the hell you’re up to because this will attract a lot of attention, especially the wrong kind.”
With a final glance around, Bristol nodded and went inside her home. At the back doorway, she turned and asked, “Would you guys mind bringing in those weapons? I locked them in the case down by the target practice. But I really don’t want them to go missing.” She reached into her pocket and held out the key. “I have a weapons room in the lab.”
Ryder snagged the key from Bristol’s hand. “I’ll get them. Nothing I like better than a little weapon time.”
She chuckled as he walked away. “These guys are terrific.”
“They sure are.” Devlin looped an arm around her shoulders as they entered the kitchen. “This is a hell of a place you built yourself here.”
She laughed. “Thank my father for that.”
Just as she walked by the dining room, an alarm broke out across the house. She froze, dropped all her gear and raced for the stairs. She heard Devlin’s voice behind her.
He yelled, “What is that?”
“The chemical lab,” she cried out. “My father.”
She bolted through double doors and raced downstairs. She could hear footsteps coming behind her. She hit the bottom door at full speed and barreled out into the short hallway. She stopped and stared. Her father’s lab was under double-lockdown as normal. Cautiously she approached. None of the sensors outside revealed any leak. But the alarm noted somebody had entered.
