by Draker, Paul
“It has Alzheimer’s,” I said.
“I could increase his frictional damping,” Blake said, “but that would slow him down.”
Even though I knew it was stupid, watching PETMAN move always made me uncomfortable. The gunfighter posture and the forward cant of that smooth, blank nub of a head projected a brute threat whose silent inexorability made it all the more menacing.
“Robosoldier,” Cassie said. “Scary. What’s his intended mission?”
PETMAN squatted, and swiveled at the waist, those steel-tube forearms sweeping the air around him like a man batting away a pack of angry dogs. It went to one knee.
“Load carrier,” Blake said. “A thirteen-person infantry squad lugs almost a thousand pounds of supplies, ammunition, and water—nearly a hundred pounds per soldier. Offloading that weight to autonomous logistics support lets them focus on their primary mission.”
“PETMAN’s a pack mule,” I said.
The robot was on both knees now. It leaned forward to touch the blunt friction-pads at the ends of its wrists to the ground and straightened its legs behind. Its chest dipped and rose jerkily in a series of pushups.
“Why the anthropomorphic shape?” Cassie asked.
“The earliest prototypes were wheeled autonomous vehicles,” Blake said. “But the modern battlefield is often in urban terrain—moving over broken rubble, fighting house-to-house, even. Wheeled platforms could not always follow the warfighter to where he or she needed to be.”
He led us deeper into the lab, which resembled a machine shop. Prototypes and parts lay among the CNC-controlled lathes, milling and cutting machines, and drill presses. We passed variant PETMAN torsos, arms, and legs lying on worktables, and older models that did not resemble human anatomy at all.
“The second-generation platforms—BIGDOG, ALPHADOG, and CHEETAH—were modeled after rescue canines.” Blake pointed at a group of waist-high quadrupedal robots with horizontal bodies. “ALPHADOG was optimized for carrying capacity, BIGDOG for stable movement over broken terrain, and CHEETAH for speed.”
The spindly, multijointed legs of ALPHADOG and BIGDOG looked like they belonged on a metal gazelle rather than a dog. CHEETAH’s longer legs were different, tucked under its body in exaggerated Z-shaped folds. They tapered to end in sharp metal points.
Cassie looked at them and shuddered. “Ugh. Like the arms of a giant steel praying mantis.”
“And they move as fast as a mantis can strike,” Blake said. “CHEETAH can run thirty-five miles an hour. But PETMAN is a far superior platform for the mission. We needed a solution that could accompany the warfighter anywhere, in and out of vehicles and buildings—”
“—as long as the elevators still work,” I said, and snickered.
Blake’s pouchy face soured.
“Stairs are still a problem for PETMAN,” he said. “But we’re making progress.”
He led us back to where the robot was still banging out pushup after relentless pushup.
“Every time it tries the stairs, it falls,” I told Cassie. “Like some wobbly old drunk.”
“I still don’t understand why,” Blake said. “He’s got great dynamic balance.” He tapped his iPad. PETMAN rose to stand upright, red light flashing, and began to walk again. Then it accelerated to a lurching run on the custom treadmill. The soles of its Nikes struck the treadmill’s steel mesh with loud hammering sounds.
“Watch.” Blake reached out and gave PETMAN’s shoulder a hard push. The robot took a sideways step but maintained its balance, never breaking stride. He shoved it again, causing it to stumble slightly, but once again PETMAN recovered.
Blake grinned at us and raised a foot high, planting it against PETMAN’s hip. He thrust his leg violently, sending it staggering.
My stomach tensed.
This time the robot’s arms came up as it stabilized itself, but it maintained its forward run.
The blank equanimity with which PETMAN took the abuse was disturbing to watch—like it was holding itself back, biding its time. I half-expected it to take a swing at Blake any moment now.
Cassie turned away, but I caught the troubled look on her face. “How much can PETMAN carry?” she asked.
Blake dragged a thick ceiling-tethered power cord over and plugged it into the running robot’s back. “He weighs four hundred seventy-five pounds, and can carry eleven hundred additional pounds of payload,” he said, sounding like a proud father.
Cassie asked about PETMAN’s battery life. While Blake answered her, I turned away and slipped out my phone. I tapped a few commands, then put the phone back in my pocket.
“…three hundred fifty watt-hours per kilogram.” Blake held out a flat, silvery battery module the size of a DVD case. Cassie inspected it and handed it back, then he slid it into a rectangular array that held dozens of similar modules. “PETMAN’s fifty-pound battery pack allows twelve hours of strenuous untethered operation,” he said.
Behind them, the robot slowed and stopped. The treadmill slid to a halt beneath its feet.
Blake turned to stare at it, frowned, and poked at his iPad screen. “I must have brushed this by mistake…”
PETMAN extended one arm in front of its chest. And then the other. It rotated its extended forearms one at a time, turning them one hundred eighty degrees. Then it raised bent-elbowed arms high, one after another. The robot’s wrists shuddered to a halt behind its flashing red nub of a head.
Blake’s frown deepened, tapping faster at his iPad. “For some reason, he’s not responding…”
PETMAN lowered its right arm to reach behind its back, followed by its left, and swiveled its hip joints in place. Then it crouched and sprang a foot off the treadmill, rotating its body ninety degrees in the air.
Cassie and Blake jumped back.
PETMAN’s Nike-shod feet slammed back down on steel mesh surface with a resounding crash. Side-on to us now, it raised its arms again, one at a time.
Blake slowly lowered the iPad to his side and stared at his robot. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Looks like the Macarena to me,” I said.
Blake’s face went red. “You little shit! How…?” He turned to Cassie, “I’m sorry, he—”
“I’ll come back at a better time,” Cassie said. She turned on her heel, and walked out.
The robot continued its jerky dance movements, punctuated with those ninety-degree leap-turns that shook the floor beneath our feet. It should have made PETMAN look ridiculous, but somehow it didn’t.
My stomach muscles clenched again, and I looked away.
Blake was breathing heavily. “I have to get McNulty and security involved, Trevor. I have to.” He looked more upset than angry now. “Why would you sabotage my project, my hard work—?”
“Relax,” I said, turning to leave. “Reboot that thing, and it’ll be back to normal.”
At the door, I spoke over my shoulder.
“Better than normal, actually. Try it out on the stairs now.”
CHAPTER 16
“This isn’t going to work,” Cassie said once we were back in my lab.
“That’s too bad.” I kept my voice neutral. “I was kind of looking forward to working with you.”
“See?” She laughed. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’re very smart, Trevor, but maybe not as smart as you think, because you’re not giving me enough credit for intelligence.”
“I know you’re smart,” I said.
“Do you?” she asked. “Then why do you think acting like an ass and treating your coworkers like shit in front of me is going to bother me in the least?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “I wasn’t making any special effort on your behalf.”
“What I mean is, why would I care? It’s not my job to go around apologizing for your behavior or to keep you out of trouble. So trying to get me to quit that way isn’t going to work.”
“Sounds like you’re overthinking this a bit,” I said.
“Frankenst
ein,” she called out, “what’s Trevor feeling right now?”
Oh, shit.
“Resentment,” came the rumbling voice that shook the floor tiles. “Surprise. Embarrassment. Grudging respect.”
“Nice,” I said. “You’re taking orders from her now?”
“She is your research partner and co-lead,” Frankenstein said.
I didn’t have an answer to that, so I kept my mouth shut.
Cassie looked at me and shook her head. “You’re too intelligent for this, Trevor. So here’s what I propose.” She looked at her phone, checking the time. “I’m going home now—”
“To California?”
“…to my uncle’s place in Wadsworth, to visit with family I haven’t seen in a while. But tomorrow, we can start as early as you want. You can give me an overview of Frankenstein’s software, and we’ll take it from there.”
“I’m out tomorrow,” I said. “Prior engagement. So there’s not much point to you coming in and sitting around bored, either.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll just dive in and get started on my own. I’ll probably have a bunch of questions for you when you’re back on Wednesday.”
“But to access—”
“Frankenstein,” Cassie asked, “how am I set for access?”
“Your account privileges are the same as Trevor’s,” came the rumbling answer.
She smiled at me. “See you Wednesday.”
CHAPTER 17
The half-moon was high in the sky when I pulled my Mustang into the parking lot. Four plumes of steam rose from the geothermal plant’s cooling towers and drifted across the night sky overhead. The dark bulk of the lab building blotted out the stars, cutting off the view of the lake to the south. A few cars were scattered about the lot, but most personnel were home and snug in their beds. I looked at the dashboard clock—1:06 a.m.—turned off the engine, and got out.
Key card in hand, I headed for the lab doors but then stopped and looked east. The Navy buildings were dark for the most part, and the few personnel on guard duty would be focused on the perimeter.
Now was as good a time as any.
Three minutes later, I stood on the porch of the single-story enlisted men’s club. The windows were dark. I took a quick glance around to make sure that no one could see me, and then I grabbed the top of the window frame, placed the toes of my high-tops on the lower edge, and boosted myself onto the sill.
I let go and leaped for the edge of the roof, grabbed it, and pulled myself up. Staying crouched, I crossed the tarred rooftop to crouch where the HVAC ducts, telecom equipment, and air-conditioning unit projected above the flat surface.
I looked west, and raised my gaze to the corner of the distant lab building, silhouetted against the sky’s faint glow. Keeping the corner in sight, I lowered my head until the edge of a duct blocked my view, then raised it an inch or two.
Squatting and keeping my eyes at that height, I shuffled around in a circle, checking sightlines until I was satisfied. But just to be sure, I untied one of my shoes, took off the sock, and put the shoe back on. I tied the white sock around one of the pipes. Tomorrow I would do a visual check from several places around the base, to confirm that it wasn’t visible.
Making sure I was unobserved, I jumped down and headed for the lab.
Time to get some work done.
Nearing the lab building, I glanced into the parking lot again. Something silver, glimmering in the moonlight, had caught my eye: a car near mine that hadn’t been there when I arrived. After four years at Pyramid Lake, I usually recognized all the cars I saw in the lot, and even knew who most of them belonged to.
This one was unfamiliar.
I drew closer. Toyota Prius. My stomach tightened. I knew whose it was, even before the California license plate and the Caltech sticker in the window confirmed it.
Cassie.
I stood next to my car for a long time, arms dangling at my sides, staring at the dark shape of the lab building and thinking. Should I go in and confront her? But she had just as much right to be here as I did.
What if I found her messing with Frankenstein’s code, changing things without consulting me?
It was suddenly hard to breathe.
No. She was just getting a jump start on understanding the codebase so she could sound smarter when we talked Wednesday. To intimidate me with how fast she was coming up to speed. It was what I would have done.
Either way, I wasn’t going to get any coding done tonight.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said aloud.
I thought about it some more. Maybe there was another reason Cassie needed to burn the midnight electrons. The image of a calendar came back to me again, unbidden—a date not far in the future circled in red.
My termination date.
“McNulty,” I said.
I got in my car and drove home.
CHAPTER 18
Roger held his door open a few inches, blinking at me through the gap. Tufts of hair stuck out from his head, straight up and sideways. He was only wearing boxers, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Fuck, man,” he said. “It’s six twenty in the morning.”
“The early bird gets the best spot at the range,” I said.
He scratched his bare chest. “Go get a latte and come back in an hour.”
I spread my fingers and palmed his face, walking him backward into his house, brushing the door wide as I pushed through. His goatee tickled my palm.
“Get dressed,” I said.
“I hate it when you do shit like that,” he said. “It’s disrespectful.”
“I’ll cook breakfast.”
I could hear him fumbling around in his bathroom while I opened kitchen cupboards. I found eggs in the refrigerator, hiding behind a twelve pack of Big Dogs Leglifter Pale Ale. The eggs were four days past the expiration date but probably still okay. I cracked a half dozen, separated the whites from the yolks, and found a frying pan.
Roger’s house was laid out identically to mine, a few blocks over. The two-bedroom floor plan was one of four models that had been replicated a few hundred times, cookie-cutter style around us, until the surrounding streets gave way to flat dirt.
Six years ago, the ghost town of Flanigan, Nevada, had been resurrected from the desert to serve as a bedroom community for Pyramid Lake staff. Most of us lived here now. The off-reservation alternatives—Gerlach, Spanish Springs, and Fernley—were too far. Even Nixon and Wadsworth—reservation towns at the south end of the lake—were a two-hour drive from the facility, and the Tribal Council didn’t want us living on the rez, anyway.
A disassembled AR-15 rifle lay spread across a towel on the granite countertop that separated the kitchen from the family room. I slid it aside to make room for plates and silverware.
Roger plopped onto a bar stool on the other side of the counter. He had a Glock 34 holstered on his belt.
“I can’t eat this,” he said, looking at the plate in front of him.
“What’s wrong with it?” I took a bite of my eggs, carrying my own plate over.
“Without the yolks, it’ll taste just like snot. I’ll just have coffee.”
I shrugged and sat down to finish my breakfast. Something thunked heavily against the granite nearby. I looked up to stare at the dull-silver coffee mug in front of Roger. He was grinning.
“That’s just all kinds of wrong,” I said, picking it up. It was like lifting a fifteen-pound dumbbell. “How many different types of cancer are you trying to get at once?”
“Don’t believe the lies the United Nations spreads about DU,” he said. “They just don’t want it in the hands of us civilians when they openly declare the One-World Government.”
I shook my head. “Only an idiot would drink out of nuclear waste.”
“It’s depleted uranium, Trev. No radioactivity left.” He reached down by his foot and lifted an ammunition box onto the counter. “Alloyed with a little titanium, DU’s harder than a
motherfucker, so let’s go put some holes in stuff.”
• • •
The Regional Shooting Facility was an hour and a half south, down State Route 445. Most of the drive was along the lakeshore, with the water sparkling cobalt blue on our left. Roger was driving the Beast, his monster Humvee, and I was riding passenger. The trunk of my Mustang couldn’t have fit all the cases and ammo anyway, because Roger had insisted on bringing six different long guns.
I thought back to Friday night, the last time I’d driven this stretch, and that in turn made me think of Amy. I missed her like crazy. I wondered if she had gotten the present I sent her yet—an iPhone.
Tonight I would call Jen to talk to Amy… but soon I’d be able to call my daughter directly.
Roger kept glancing over at me, like he wanted to ask me something. I could guess what, but I wasn’t interested. Still, I wondered what Cassie was doing right now. In my lab. With Frankenstein.
“Your new partner,” Roger finally said. “She’s smokin’ hot.”
I shrugged, and looked out the side window.
“What’re you, blind, man?” Roger cleared his throat. “Because if you aren’t into her—”
“Did you see the guy she was with on Friday?” I said.
“Her brother or whoever?”
“Her fiancé,” I said. “She warned me about him. He’s a fucking psycho.”
“Coming from you, that’s pretty funny.”
“He killed a guy,” I said.
“Oh.” Roger was quiet for a while. “Shit.”
• • •
Once we arrived, we set up on a pair of side-by-side shooting benches at the hundred-yard range, under the shade of the corrugated-tin awning. A few steps beyond the row of twenty benches, the concrete pad gave way to dried mud. The dirt stretched flat for three hundred feet before rising in a ten-foot berm behind paper bull’s-eye targets we had stapled to the wooden frames. A sign on one of the steel-tube columns supporting the sunshade read, “Automatic Fire or Burst Fire in Designated Areas Only. See Range Master for Details.”
