Faster

by Alex Schuler

  ***

  As Ted scanned the desert for other camps, he jammed his earbuds in deeper. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” came into sharper focus. The desert wind played with the cord to his iPod, nestled in the front pocket of his Levi’s. To prevent it from whipping against his skin, he tucked it beneath his chin. Bopping his head to the beat, he raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Even with the zoom set to maximum, Ted couldn’t make out any details of the other teams.

  DARPA had carved out a holding area for all forty teams central to where the three different challenges would take place, one hundred miles south of Las Vegas. The teams were evenly dispersed across a twenty-mile grid. Ten test areas allowed each of the teams to give their vehicles their final shakedown. Because only one vehicle could test at a time, DARPA set up a strict schedule and closely monitored the situation to ensure everyone complied.

  Ted felt a tap on his shoulder. He lowered his binoculars, yanked the earbuds from his ears, and turned around. Nico was standing beside him, sporting a huge pair of wraparound sunglasses.

  “I need your help getting Cyclops unloaded,” Nico said. The wind puffed up his oversized black windbreaker, making his thin frame look like a balloon. Nico looked past Ted toward the camps dotting the horizon. “What’s the competition look like?”

  “They’re too far away.” Ted held the binoculars up one more time and adjusted the focus ring. He sighed and lowered them. “I’ve counted only four other camps. And even fully zoomed in, I can only make out bits and pieces. Cars. Trucks. Vans. I can’t tell the transport vehicles from the robots.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait until the start of the event.”

  “I wonder if we should do a scouting mission.” Ted gave Nico an evil grin. “Maybe after the sun goes down?”

  “And risk disqualification? Or worse, the wrath of Rusty?”

  “You know I don’t give a shit what he thinks.”

  Ted shoved his hand into his pocket to power down his iPod and leaned into the wind to head back to camp. Nico kept pace with him across the desert landscape.

  Almost seven months had passed since Ted had blown up at Rusty during winter testing at the train depot along the Allegheny River. Since then, Ted had diverted all of his time and energy toward perfecting the lidar and gimbal assembly on Cyclops’s roof. He was incredibly proud of what he and Nico had achieved. After being forced to work together in the dead of winter, Ted had bonded with Nico and considered him a close friend. Ted had also distanced himself from Rusty. He no longer saw him as a “tough love” type of mentor, but as just another angry middle-aged man telling him what to do, no different than his father.

  Once back at camp, Ted and Nico paused to take in their home for the next few weeks. DSU was, by far, the largest team in both staff and financial backing. Their camp dwarfed the size of their closest competitor. With millions in funding, they had four support vehicles at their disposal. Two were the rented RV units. They also had the truck and trailer used to transport Cyclops across the country. The main vehicle was a semi outfitted with a wall of computers and office equipment on one end and a break area on the other with a couch, stove, and fridge.

  “Do you think anyone else has this level of support?” Nico asked Ted.

  “Even if they do, they don’t have Cyclops. Let’s get him down.”

  Cyclops was strapped to a trailer parked behind the semi-truck. Harry and Lori were standing under the awning of their RV reviewing a report Lori had printed. Ted waved his arms to get their attention and pointed to the trailer.

  The Humvee was wrapped in three layers of heavy-duty tarps and had remained covered since departing the DSU Robotics Lab last week. The bindings were tight, and it took a few minutes for Ted and Nico to loosen them. Lori arrived first, this time in a bright red M.A.D. Robots T-shirt. She perched a box of Entenmann’s raspberry danishes on the hood of the Ford F-250 attached to Cyclops’s trailer. Right behind her, Harry clutched four bottles of water to his chest to help him combat the dry desert air and ruthlessly intense heat.

  Together, the four of them slowly peeled back the tarps, taking care not to disturb any of the equipment attached to the Humvee. As each section of the vehicle was revealed, they paused to check each and every sensor to make sure nothing had been damaged during the long trip. Nico had been meticulous with securing the gear, wrapping each sensor individually. The wind fought against them as they tried removing the tarps. Finally, after what seemed like half the day, they completely freed Cyclops from its cover.

  “That is one nice coat of fire engine red, Harry,” Ted said.

  Cyclops stood atop the trailer, looking like the meanest Hummer ever assembled. Before leaving Pittsburgh, Harry and two other students had spent a weekend meticulously taping off and covering the equipment on the roof and fenders to paint the vehicle. Harry had picked a particularly high gloss coat of red, one more suited to a Ferrari than a military vehicle. Cyclops’s standout feature was the white three-foot-high rotating lidar array perched on the roof.

  “I’m particularly proud of the brush guard,” Harry said. “I never asked Rusty for permission. Do you think he’ll get mad?”

  Ted walked to the front of the Humvee and slapped his hand on the six-post metal guard wrapped around the nose of the vehicle. All of the bars had been painted silver except for the sections just below the headlights. Harry had painted them bright orange in the shape of Rusty’s trademark handlebar mustache.

  “Cyclops is big, mean, and crushes everything in his path,” Ted said with a grin. “If anything, Rusty should see it as a compliment. Let’s hope Cyclops is as brutal in the competition as our leader was in getting us here.”

  12

  September ninth marked the beginning of the first week of the DARPA FAST Challenge. The first of the three events would be the Qualifying Stage. Kyle Fisher had worked with lead members of DARPA to design a set of nine tests in this event that would verify the basic controls for the autonomous vehicles. Some of the tests resembled standard handling tests, such as navigating a slalom or doing emergency lane changes. Most, though, were geared toward assessing more detailed maneuvers, including performing a three-point-turn and cresting hills with turns or barriers as impediments.

  DARPA began escorting the forty teams from their testing campsites to the competition site at 7:00 a.m. Crews were brought over in groups of four. DSU was part of the first group and had arrived at the site shortly before 7:30 a.m. The twenty-mile trip had been exciting for the team, especially Lori, as she tracked their movements against her digital maps. She was surprised to find that the Qualifying Stage was in an area she had not predicted.

  DSU was packed into a tight holding area. The semi-truck, two RVs, and the truck pulling the trailer with Cyclops secured under his tarps barely fit. After a few tries, DSU figured out how to fit it all and deploy the awnings on both RVs. Rusty’s RV was at the front; the team leads’ was tucked in the rear.

  Ted took up a space under Rusty’s awning to watch as other teams pulled in. No one else was decked out with a semi that doubled as a rolling computer lab.

  “Seen anything interesting yet?” Rusty was standing in the door of his RV, clutching his USMC insulated mug tightly. “How’s the competition looking?”

  Ted didn’t bother turning around. “So far, all seem fairly basic,” he said with more than a hint of smugness. “Some tricked-out pickup trucks with a van as the support vehicle. No other team with more than six people.”

  “It’s still early.” Rusty stepped down from his trailer and closed the door. He joined Ted at the edge of the awning. “DARPA has quite a few more trips to make to get all forty teams here.”

  “If what I’ve seen is any indication . . .” Ted paused as the ground began to rumble. He looked over at Rusty. “Earthquake?”

  A mechanical roar began to fill the air. The clatter and whine of a powerful engin
e echoed off the mountains surrounding the DARPA site. Harry, Lori, and Nico flew from their trailer and ran to join Rusty and Ted.

  “We saw it from out back!” Lori said.

  “Saw what?” Ted asked.

  The shaking and snarling grew louder. DARPA had enclosed the entire test site in temporary fencing. A sliding gate marked the main entrance where all vehicles entered. All eyes turned toward the gate, just as a dust cloud rose in the distance.

  “Holy shit,” Ted said. He took a few steps forward to the middle of the road. “What . . . what the hell is that?”

  The early morning sun rising in the east caught the narrow windshield of a monstrous vehicle as it crested the hill several hundred feet from the gate. The glint of reflecting sunlight was soon overpowered by the monster’s neon green paint.

  “That would be our first serious competition.” Rusty stepped forward to stand next to Ted. He squinted to keep the dust from obscuring his vision and reached out to grab Ted’s shoulder to pull him back from the road. “It’s a military contractor.”

  Lori draped her arm around Harry’s neck and watched in awe as the team from Oshkosh Defense rolled past the DSU camp. The Caterpillar C12 diesel engine powering the six-wheeled behemoth was deafening. The vehicle itself weighed over fifteen tons and was nearly as tall as DSU’s semi.

  “No, seriously, what the hell is that?” Ted asked. He coughed and waved his hands across his face, clearing away the dust kicked up by the vehicle’s massive tires. “It’s bigger than a tank.”

  “That’s an MTVR.” Rusty walked into the roadway and watched the bright green behemoth come to a halt a dozen yards away. “‘Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement.’ It’s a multi-purpose vehicle for carrying man and machine—and a total beast off-road. Did anyone catch what they had for tech?”

  “I saw multiple radar and lidar arrays up front,” Nico said. “But I can’t imagine something that big can be as fast or maneuverable as our Humvee.”

  “You’d be wrong.” Rusty kept his gaze on the MTVR. “It can easily go over fifty miles per hour. Top speed will max out around sixty-five.”

  “I didn’t see a gimbal,” Ted said. “There’s no way they can go as fast as Cyclops without data corruption.”

  “And how will they do the Urban Challenge in that thing?” Lori asked. “It can’t do tight turns with six wheels.”

  “That’s enough speculation,” Rusty said. He walked back under his RV’s awning, guiding the other four to join him. He took a sip of coffee, continuing, “We need to stay focused. In less than twenty-four hours, DARPA will give us the details on the nine tests of the Qualifying Stage. We’ll then have two hours to enter that data into Cyclops to get him ready to compete. We can’t waste time today watching every vehicle roll through here. I want all of your teams ready to meet in half an hour.”

  Ted led the way back to the other RV. Once all four leads were inside, he pointed to the small dinette booth and waited for the others to sit down. He leaned back against the kitchen counter on the opposite side of the tiny room.

  “There’s no way we’re ignoring the competition,” Ted said. “Let’s get the teams together and have Rusty’s little pow-wow. We can set them to work on whatever needs to get done. Then the four of us can go on a scouting mission.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until all forty contestants are here?” Harry asked. “DARPA’s moving everyone over here in waves. They should be done by noon at the latest.”

  “Then let’s plan to head out at eleven.” Ted sat down next to Harry, forcing him to slide up against the wall. “This holding area is fairly compact. I walked it earlier as soon as we got here. It’s basically a giant U-shape. We can split up into two groups. Harry and I take our side, and you two start across from us.”

  “Hardware and software pairs,” Harry said with a grin. “Great strategy!”

  “Nico, make a mental note of what each team has. Specifically, see if anyone has a gimbal like ours.”

  “I’ll find out what they did for mapping,” Lori said. She turned and looked at Harry. “And what kind of computing power they’ve got running their systems.”

  “I think we should keep Cyclops under wraps as long as possible,” Nico said. “Not until later today, after we’ve checked everyone else out. I’ll make sure our team members know they aren’t allowed to take the tarps off.”

  “Excellent idea,” Ted said. “Under no circumstances do we give up the details on Cyclops. We need to wow everyone tomorrow, the day of the competition. They are going to freak when they see the huge gimbal and lidar array.”

  The window in the RV’s kitchen slide-out faced the road that ran beside the mountain range to the west. Ted watched as another puff of dust rose in the distance. His initial feeling of shock and intimidation at the site of the MTVR was replaced by the realization that this was quickly turning into a real challenge.

  He stood up and grabbed his iPod from the counter beside the sink. Putting his earbuds in, he scrolled through the music list before settling on “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper.

  “Okay,” Ted said as headed toward the door. “Let’s give the drill sergeant what he wants and then go size up that competition.”

  ***

  Ted stopped a few yards from the Ashton camp and waited patiently for Harry to catch up. Harry removed one of the bandanas from his back pocket and wiped the sweat running from his bald head. The temperature had soared twenty degrees since the sun had risen, now approaching ninety. Harry pulled a bottle of water from another pocket and chugged half of it down.

  “Do you see this?” Ted asked Harry. He tried not to laugh out loud. “They have a Prius.”

  “Why bring a hybrid to a desert challenge?” Harry removed his glasses and wiped them against his T-shirt to dry them off. “It doesn’t even have four-wheel-drive.”

  “I have no idea. So far I’ve been unimpressed with most of the competition. MIT seems like the only threat, other than Oshkosh.”

  “I agree. They both had multi-lidar systems. Fortified all-wheel-drive vehicles. And the teams seemed sharp.”

  “But I also agree with Lori that Oshkosh will be too big to win the Urban Challenge. Even this week’s obstacle courses may trip them up,” Ted said.

  “Why would they enter such a brute if it can’t win all three?”

  “Who knows. Maybe they just want to show the military what it can do in the desert. Isn’t that what started this whole DARPA thing in the first place?”

  “I guess.”

  Ted was about to enter the Ashton camp when he noticed Nico and Lori approaching. Both were grinning and waving. He and Harry walked over to meet them.

  “How’d you make out?” Ted asked Nico. “Do we need to worry?”

  “It’s a mixed bag,” Nico replied. “Almost half the teams have deployed some type of lidar system but nobody has anything close to our gimbal.”

  “What about the other universities?” Harry asked. “MIT seems pretty strong.”

  “Princeton looked solid,” Lori said. “Would you believe that Berkeley showed up with a motorcycle?”

  “Are you shitting me?” Ted asked. “I want to see that MTVR race the bike. I honestly think we have nothing to worry about. Ashton is our last stop. Let’s see if Rusty was right about them.”

  Ashton, like most other teams, came with a support team much smaller than DSU’s. They had four Chevy Express 3500 vans, all painted royal blue with the red and white Ashton University logo on the side. The school’s emblem was a series of three circles with an eagle in the middle, the name wrapped across the top, and their motto, quod superius soram—“soar higher”—around the edge. These vehicles were the property of the college. They did not rent any equipment to make the eight-and-a-half-hour trek to the Mojave. One van was a dedicated passenger van that could carry all eight team members. The other three were for e
quipment and spare parts.

  Ted led the way as all four headed over to the Ashton camp. As they approached, a short, portly man in his mid-twenties dragged a step stool over toward the Prius. Climbing up, he hoisted a small red metal toolbox over his shoulder, setting it on the roof of the vehicle. He spun the latch to open the top and as he did, he slipped, sending a dozen tools scattering on the ground. Ted burst out laughing.

  “That has to be Sam,” Ted said. “First, the Prius. Now this klutz. Man, this just keeps getting better.”

  Ted watched as the guy jumped from the stool and quickly gathered the spilled tools. A few of the Ashton teammates helped. One, a shapely blonde wearing oversized aviator sunglasses, caught Ted’s eye. He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander down her backside and across her tight-fitting denim jeans.

  “When you said we should check out the competition, I thought you meant the vehicles.” Lori grinned as she took up a position just behind Ted. “Don’t be so obvious.”

  Ted blushed and gave Lori a mischievous grin.

  “Don’t worry,” Ted said. “I only have eyes for Cyclops. All right, follow me.”

  As they walked, Ted glanced over at Harry. “Harry, did you end up doing anything with the info about the short tree people thing Sam sent us?”

  “What are you two talking about?” Lori asked. “I’m confused.”

  “Me, too,” Nico added, looking back and forth between Ted and Harry.

  Ignoring his teammates, Ted added, “I didn’t bother to read what Sam sent. I only forwarded it to you.”

  “I looked at it. I was so swamped I didn’t spend a lot of time with it. To be honest, I figured it was complete garbage, just like what we sent them.”