by Alex Schuler
“Kyle mentioned that. He said you had a job for me.”
“A job? I wouldn’t put it that way.”
Kevin realized he was no longer going to be part of the discussion, so he nodded toward Rusty and went back to working on the Toyota’s front suspension.
“Have you heard of DARPA?” Rusty asked Ted.
“They’re part of the military, right?”
“Correct. It stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.” Rusty leaned back against the workbench and motioned for Ted to sit down. “It dates back to the fifties when the Russians launched Sputnik. Nobody shows up America. The military decided to join forces with the private sector and tap into the wealth of knowledge out there in our universities and corporations. The hope was that the research and development coming out of DARPA would benefit everyone, not just the military.”
“And what’s DARPA have to do with the work you want me doing at DSU?” Ted asked. “What’s it pay?”
“Pay?” Rusty frowned and stared at him. “The opportunity is the pay. The challenge is the pay. DARPA’s latest project is a contest to build a self-driving vehicle.”
“Why would the military want a self-driving car?” Kevin asked as he stepped forward from the underside of the Tacoma. “Do they want to build robot tanks?”
“Maybe,” Rusty replied. “The world is changing. Those planes taking down the twin towers a few years ago sparked a whole new approach. That type of aggression was uncharted territory. Now we’ve got IEDs killing our troops over in the Middle East. Dogs have been trained to sniff out those bombs buried beneath the dirt. But it’s not enough. Instead, imagine an intelligent robot. Something heavily armored that could scout ahead of our soldiers and trigger or immobilize IEDs. The Air Force has unmanned drones doing strikes. But piloting a vehicle across a desert floor at high speed requires a completely different set of controls and variables than flying an aircraft.”
As Rusty spoke, Kevin had inched his way over to stand beside Ted. The two men were now leaning against the workbench, both riveted by what Rusty was saying.
“What’s the DARPA project called?” Ted asked, his voice filled with curiosity.
“Back in May, DARPA announced the FAST Challenge.”
“Fast?” Kevin asked. “As in the timeline or speed?”
“It’s an acronym. Fully Autonomous Self-driving Technology.”
“Is there a prize?” Ted asked.
“There is,” Rusty said. The young man’s interest in money was beginning to annoy him. “The winning team gets two million dollars.”
“Wow.” Kevin let out a long whistle. “That’s a lotta lobster.”
Rusty and Ted stared at Kevin, neither saying a word. Kevin shrugged and walked back to the Toyota.
“Do you divide that up among team members?” Ted asked. “How does it get split?”
“You seem to be missing the point. This isn’t about the money. The money will go to DSU and back into the robotics program.”
“Oh.” Ted paused and furrowed his brow, flicking his hair away from his eyes. “What about the technology that gets created to build the self-driving car?”
“This is where it gets interesting. The military will get to use whatever intellectual property we create. But the winners can go to market in the public or private sector. If money is what you’re after, then there will be ample opportunity down the road.” Rusty glanced around the dusty garage, slowly inspecting the vehicles and tools. “I can tell you that creating a self-driving car will be much more profitable than building desert-racers.”
“What are the details of the FAST Challenge?” Ted asked. “Is it a race? I mean, we do desert racing so that must be why Kyle sent you here.”
“There are three parts to the challenge. First up is a qualification stage. This is where DARPA will filter out the hobbyists from the serious players. Second is a desert road race—130 miles of brutal terrain. The last test will be an urban challenge navigating city streets. DARPA is holding back many of the details. All we know right now is it will take place somewhere in the Mojave. It’s a points-based system, with the final winner across all three challenges taking the grand prize.”
“Three unique tests,” Ted said quietly. He looked around at the vast array of vehicle components littered across the garage. After a few moments, he looked up at Rusty. “You said they announced this in May. What sort of progress have you made?”
“I bought a 1988 Humvee. I’ve got a team of almost three dozen back at DSU. More join every week. I’m also in the process of getting private backing and donations.”
“Why did you pick a Hummer?”
“It’s old tech, but it’s also unstoppable in the desert. The robotic controls to manage the driving will be relatively easy to do.”
“Kyle said you were a legend.”
Rusty suppressed a smile as he studied Ted’s eager demeanor.
“The robots I’ve built have each been designed for a specific task. The last one was completed two years ago. There was a collapse in a diamond mine in Africa and the workers were trapped almost a mile down.”
“I remember that. They used a robot to map the shaft to plan the rescue. Wait—that was your design?”
“Indeed, it was. We used a mix of radar and lidar to see the walls and build a virtual map. That robot traveled at a maximum speed of less than two miles per hour. Every robot I’ve built has been slow by design. Our Humvee is going to need to be able to perform the same basic navigation functions as that diamond mine robot, but traveling much faster.”
“How fast?”
“Forty, maybe fifty miles per hour. Let me be clear, Ted. DSU is going to win—at all costs.”
“It’s not just the speed that’s the problem, is it?” Kevin asked as he emerged from behind one of the Tacoma’s tires dangling from above. “It’s the terrain.”
“Exactly,” Rusty replied. “Right now, we’re running basic simulations but the lidar is proving to be a real bitch to tame.”
Kevin walked to the back corner of his side of the garage and motioned to Ted and Rusty to join him. He leaned against his desk and pointed to a pile of equipment.
“That’s a lidar unit,” Rusty said with surprise.
“It was,” Ted says. “Kevin and I have been playing around with it. Some guy is paying Kyle a hefty penny to make this work in the desert.”
“My students have been struggling with getting it to work the way we need it to.”
“So have we,” Kevin said. “Our resources here are limited.”
“Mine are not,” Rusty replied. “As I said, I intend for DSU to dominate this competition.”
“I’m going to need to think it over.” Ted stared at the lidar components strewn across Kevin’s workbench. “It would be a big change for me.”
“Think what over?” Rusty asked. “I haven’t invited you to join the team yet.”
“Ouch.” Kevin laughed as he strolled back to the underside of the Toyota.
Rusty shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to Ted’s Pontiac. Ted quickly followed, keeping his head down.
“Tell me about your education, Ted. Kyle tells me you graduated from the University of Michigan?”
“I did a double major in civil and mechanical engineering.”
“Why didn’t you pursue a graduate degree?”
“A few reasons. Mostly, I was bored.”
“Bored?” Rusty asked with surprise.
“I was tired of studying. I wanted to get out there and get my hands dirty.”
“But with your degrees, you could easily be working elsewhere. If you love customizing cars, why not get a job with Detroit?”
“You sound like my dad.” Ted folded his arms defensively and lowered his head. “I just don’t see me working for some big corporation. There are too ma
ny rules. They move too slowly.”
“Are you saying you don’t like to follow rules? You need to know I run a tight ship, Ted. I have no tolerance for failure. Zero.”
“I don’t like to follow unnecessary rules—red tape. I set high standards for myself. I set deadlines. I’ve never met a problem I couldn’t solve. But I like to do it my way. Like I said, some place like GM would be too restraining for me.”
“I see.”
“Every vehicle or component I’ve designed for our customers has been a winner. You can ask Kevin.”
“He’s a mechanical genius,” Kevin yelled out, his head buried deep inside the underbelly of the Toyota. “The stuff he comes up with is amazing.”
“So, you’re all about the hardware?”
“Yes and no. I mean, you need to control the hardware. So, obviously, there’s a software side to it all. I did a research paper on AI in college. But my passion is the mechanical side of things.”
“Is that so?” Rusty tapped his hand on the curved glass of the Trans Am’s rear hatch. “Tell me, Ted, why did you pick an old muscle car to test desert racing equipment?”
“I love pony cars. The small size also lets me easily scale up. In my experience, it’s harder to shrink technology than expand it. If I can make the tech work on this old Pontiac, I can easily apply it to something like that Tacoma.”
“And what tech do you have going on here?”
“Frankie’s got—”
“Frankie?”
“Don’t you name your cars?” Ted pointed at the giant graphic of Frankenstein emblazoned across the Pontiac’s hood and grinned proudly. “Frankie. Frankenstein. Get it?”
Rusty remained stone-faced, staring intently at him, and waited for him to join him at the back of the vehicle. Ted kneeled beside the rear tire and began pointing out the customizations.
“Frankie’s got a custom air suspension integrated with magnetic shocks.”
“Magnetorheological shocks? Interesting.”
“They blow away anything in production today,” he said as he stood back up. “I designed them myself. The response time is twice as fast as what’s on the market. They can also take a beating.”
“Do you think something like that would smooth out our lidar issue at DSU?”
Ted folded his arms and leaned back against the car, taking a position next to Rusty. He looked over at the lidar components scattered across Kevin’s desk.
“I’m not convinced. I’d need to see the entire configuration and run the numbers. My gut tells me it wouldn’t. Not without something else to better control the lidar. That’s the issue Kevin and I have been trying to solve.” Ted ran to grab his notepad and pen and frantically flipped through the pages. “I have some ideas that might work. But, as Kevin said, our resources here are limited.”
“You told me you never met a problem you couldn’t solve. And that you only build winners.”
“Our computer power here is a joke. I end up doing most of the calculations on paper or in my head. But I stand by both of those statements. The trophies in the other room prove it.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I never do.”
Rusty slowly walked around Frankie, studying the oversized tires jammed into the wheel wells. He got to the passenger’s side and noticed the crumpled fender ahead of the front wheel. Several pieces of duct tape were covering the damaged bodywork.
“It looks like you’ve pushed Frankie a bit too hard.”
“You sound like Kevin. I tell him he’s too cautious. You need to take risks. If you don’t push something to the breaking point, how will you know when it will fail?”
“Indeed.” Rusty paused and scratched the underside of his beard. “Do you worry?”
“About what?”
“The consequences.”
“Of breaking Frankie? No. I can fix anything.”
“I meant the consequences of pushing things beyond their limit.”
“Not really. I mean, how else can you succeed?”
Rusty nodded in agreement and took a few steps back to admire the bizarre design of the customizations made to the Pontiac.
“Now I understand why Kyle recommended you. You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“You seem to have a nice little gig going here, Ted.” Rusty reached into the pocket of his khaki pants and pulled out a piece of paper. He tucked it under the wire holding the hood pin latch—Frankie’s neck bolt—in place. “But if you are up for a real challenge, come to DSU.”
“I’d want to think it over. I mean, you basically said the pay is zero. How would I live?”
“We’d provide room and board and a small monthly stipend. But don’t waste your time worrying about trivial matters, Ted.”
“Trivial?”
“You’ve got forty-eight hours.” Rusty turned and headed toward the open garage door. The wind gusts whipped desert sand across his weathered face. Once outside, he stopped and turned back to face Ted. “Opportunities like these don’t come often. If you decide you’d like to change the world and be a part of history, you’ve got my info.”
6
Ted gripped the steering wheel with his left hand, his right resting on the five-speed manual transmission as he cruised along. The roadway ahead of him was empty. He glanced at the clock—just after 6:00 p.m. He’d be in Wadsworth within twenty or thirty minutes, assuming traffic stayed light. Lucky for him, the cops never patrolled this barren part of town so he could easily go well beyond the speed limit.
Route 447 was a winding two-lane road that ran between the eastern side of Pyramid Lake and the dried-out bed that used to be Winnemucca Lake. The roadway connected multiple small desert towns, including Nixon and Wadsworth. With Nixon fading away in his rearview mirror, Ted pushed hard on the gas pedal. The 4.6-liter V-8 of his 2002 Mustang GT roared as he accelerated past fifty miles per hour. Reaching for the Mach 460 stereo’s power button, he stopped himself just a few inches away.
No. He shook off the impulse. No music tonight.
Resting on the empty passenger seat was the paper Rusty had tucked under Frankie’s hood pin latch. All Ted had thought about since Rusty left Fisher Tuner earlier was the FAST Challenge. His initial disappointment about the distribution of the two-million-dollar prize had worn off. He knew Rusty was right about the long-term possibilities. He’d been with Fisher Tuner less than a year. Going from building desert-racers to robotic self-driving cars at a university would be a big change.
I can only imagine what my parents will say.
The seventeen-inch performance tires on the Ford hummed as he made his way home. The scenery was bleak and desolate. Tufts of dead grass covered the edges of the roadway and the hills were strewn with rocks and sand as far as the eye could see. It was a lonely, empty place, lost in the middle of nothing.
After a while, he reached the edge of Wadsworth’s town line, happy to have the long drive behind him. He downshifted to third and slowed his car to twenty-five miles per hour, as he turned off Route 447 and wound his way through the small roads before finally reaching home.
At less than four square miles, Wadsworth was a tiny town with a population fewer than a thousand people. Ted had decided on this spot mainly for the inexpensive rent and because it was just about equidistant to Reno and Nixon. Kevin lived in Spanish Springs, just north of Reno, and just could not understand why Ted had chosen to live in such a desolate place. Ted liked the privacy. But every few weeks, he would meet Kevin in Reno for dinner or drinks. Most of the time, though, he would tinker away in his apartment or drive back to Fisher Tuner outside Nixon to work on his latest project.
He smiled as he parked his Mustang in the dirt driveway, spotting his landlord, Ms. Lawrence, in a rocking chair on the front porch smiling and waving at him. A widow of many years, she was
a nice enough elderly lady. He killed the rumbling engine and grabbed the paper with Rusty’s information.
“Good evening,” Ted said as he nodded hello. “How are you feeling tonight?”
“A bit chilly,” Ms. Lawrence responded. “You’re home early.”
“I’ve got a lot going on.”
As he passed the cracked concrete steps that led to the porch of the pale blue ranch, Ms. Lawrence said, “My oven’s on the fritz. Would you have time to check it for me?”
“I need to make a couple of phone calls, but I’ll try to come by a bit later.”
“Thank you, Ted. That would be much appreciated.”
He made his way away around the side of the old house, stopping at a cracked white wooden door connected to the garage. The yard, like most of the properties in town, was filled with dirt and weeds and a few sickly desert trees. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his key ring, fumbling until he found the one for his apartment.
Several years ago, before his passing, Ms. Lawrence’s husband Oscar had converted the garage to a rental unit. It was the most basic of living spaces. The bathroom was the only room with a door. The rest of the place was wide open, with a simple kitchenette area tucked into a corner. The apartment came fully furnished with a collection of mismatched furniture—a brown and red plaid couch, small end table, wooden coffee table, and twin bed. A silver metal table with two chairs served as the eating space. One small window beside the entrance was the only source of natural light.
Ted stepped inside and flipped the wall switch that connected to the tattered cream-shaded lamp on the end table next to the couch. He dropped his keys and the paper onto the metal kitchen table.
The clock on the small countertop microwave glowed 6:28 p.m.—9:28 p.m. at his parents’ place in Ohio. Taking out his cell phone, he checked the LCD screen—one bar. He tended to get a better signal by the door, so he crossed the room and checked again. The screen now wavered between one and two bars. He sighed as he dialed.
