Faster

by Alex Schuler

  “Course complete.”

  The DSU team exploded in cries of joy. Ted, Nico, Harry, and Lori all took turns hugging one another. Applause rang out throughout the big top. Lori, who rarely showed emotion, had tears running down her face. She grabbed one of Harry’s bandanas and blew her nose as she laughed loudly. Rusty turned to face his team. Their laughs quickly faded as they saw his expression.

  “That was close,” Rusty said. “Too close.”

  “But we did it,” Ted replied. He pointed at the leaderboard. It now showed Cyclops in first place, knocking Oshkosh Defense’s TerraCrusher down to second. “I told you. My gimbal and lidar are game-changers. Nobody will beat us.”

  “That arrogance almost cost us the race.” Rusty, not wanting to make a big scene, kept his voice low. The overhead speakers were announcing the final rankings and the schedule for Tuesday morning. Many of the other teams had already started to leave. “Who decided Cyclops should run the final course so quickly?”

  “I did,” Ted said. He folded his arms across his chest. “It was built for speed. We needed to show the other teams what we could do.”

  “Wrong. We needed to win.”

  “You said to win at all costs.”

  “You took an unnecessary risk, Ted. When Cyclops failed the first time, you should have dialed it from twenty-five down to fifteen.” Rusty looked down at his watch. “I want to see all four of you back in the semi at nine o’clock. I want to know why Cyclops faltered on each test that required a repeat run. I want answers.”

  “Nine tomorrow morning?” Harry asked.

  “Tonight,” Rusty replied. He spun around to review the final rankings on the overhead screen. “Dismissed. You have your orders.”

  14

  The following two days of the Qualifying Stage proved to be the most entertaining of the Challenge. Twenty-five of the remaining contenders completed the event. But “completed” for some meant being disqualified. Fifteen entrants in those two days had failed to finish the nasty nine. Of those, six never even made it past the second test.

  Four days in, Rusty glanced at his watch—a few minutes before 5:00 p.m. He topped off his USMC mug and stepped down from the semi. The team members inside were hard at work preparing for the following week’s 130-mile road race. Another blustery day, gritty sand kicking up everywhere. He shielded his eyes as he made his way over to the big top. The closer he got, the louder the noise from inside became. Rusty hastened his step, his right leg wobbling as he pushed his injured hip to move faster than it preferred.

  The leaderboard still showed DSU in first place. MIT’s entry, Talon, had bumped Oshkosh Defense down to third late the previous day. DARPA still refused to reveal the points each team had earned out of fear someone would crack their scoring system. Rusty ignored the monitors and marched over to the DSU table to find Harry, Nico, and Lori reclined in their chairs watching the POV monitor.

  “Where’s Wolff?” Rusty asked.

  “He’s over at Ashton’s table,” Lori replied calmly to Rusty, mumbling so that only Nico could hear, “with his new blond girlfriend.” Nico chuckled, but was quickly hushed when glancing up at Rusty.

  “This is going to be close,” Lori said turning her eyes to the leaderboard.

  Rusty spun around to check the massive overhead screens up front. Athena, the Ashton Prius, had just completed test number eight and was about to make its first attempt at the final slalom course test. Rusty squinted as he read through Ashton’s results. He felt his heart begin to race as he counted the number of attempts Athena needed to complete each section of the course. The little Toyota had faltered very few times, although it did require three attempts to complete the three-point turn. Rusty slowly turned around and looked at Harry.

  “When I left here an hour ago, they were in the middle of test six.” Rusty’s cheeks became flush with anger. “How the hell are they already at the end?”

  “They aced the last two,” Harry replied. “They told DARPA they could immediately move to the next test. No prep needed.”

  Rusty pounded his fists on the table, toppling Nico’s green tea onto his lap. He glared at Nico before heading toward the Ashton table. Rusty could see Vin standing behind his team, arms crossed, with his gaze locked on the POV camera. Vin looked at Rusty briefly, and then back up at the screen. Just as Rusty arrived at the table, he noticed Vin frown. Suddenly, a familiar voice boomed from overhead.

  “Failure number one.”

  Rusty looked back at the screens to see the POV image showing Athena facing a concrete wall. The status light changed from green to red. He tried not to smile as he walked closer to Vin.

  “This last one’s a bitch, Vin,” Rusty said with a wry grin. Ted was sitting on the edge of Ashton’s table next to Sam, only a few feet from Rusty. Rusty directed his next statement to Ted. “My team botched this one big-time.”

  “Not now, Rusty,” Vin said as he waved Sam closer and pulled his team into a huddle.

  Rusty smirked and went and sat next to Ted.

  “You better hope they screw up this final test,” Rusty whispered to Ted. “With DARPA keeping quiet on the scoring, I have no clue how close they are to beating us.”

  “That’s why I’m over here. Collecting intel.”

  Rusty stood up and headed back to the DSU table. Deep down, Rusty fully expected DSU to win the challenge. He also felt it was imperative to keep his team focused and alert. Ted’s attitude earlier in the week disappointed Rusty. He knew an overconfident team would get comfortable and allow mistakes to happen. He couldn’t let that happen. Rusty returned to the DSU table to find Nico drying his tea-stained shorts with a handful of paper towels. He was about to speak when the overhead speakers cracked and popped.

  “Ashton, begin your second run.”

  “That was fast,” Harry said. He turned and looked back toward the Ashton table. “How are they getting Athena reset so quickly?”

  “How, indeed?” Rusty asked. Rusty took a sip of coffee and watched as Athena maneuvered through the second gate of the slalom course. “Whatever the outcome today, by my calculations, Ashton has completed the first eight tests smoother and better than Cyclops.”

  “But we don’t know what DARPA is factoring into the scoring system.” Nico tossed a ball of paper towels into the wastebasket beneath the table. “We will have no idea where we stand until they’ve finished.”

  “Regardless of the scoring outcome, we should not be getting outgunned by a Prius!” Rusty sat on the edge of the table between Nico and Harry, keeping his back to the front monitors. “We built Cyclops to conquer the desert. The static tests this week may not come into play during the road race, but I guarantee they will be crucial for the Urban Challenge in the final week. Tomorrow I’m going to want detailed reports from each of you identifying how you will remedy Cyclops’s failures from this week. We know why things went wrong. Now we need to fix them. Harry, I want you to—”

  “Guys,” Lori said, interrupting Rusty. “You need to pay attention. All of you.”

  Rusty stood up and turned to face the POV monitor. His jaw fell open as Athena exited the final set of cones and took aim at the course exit. The overhead speakers popped to life.

  “Course complete.”

  The Ashton team exploded in cheers. Several other teams began to clap as well, possibly out of relief that the Qualifying Stage was finally over. Rusty searched the room looking for Ted, but couldn’t see him. He looked up at the leaderboard and waited.

  The cheering and applause in the room died down as all eyes focused on the screen showing the vehicle rankings. The scoreboard had four columns: Rank, Team, Vehicle, and Score. All week only the first three columns had been displayed. DARPA was waiting until the end of the competition to give out the individual scores. DSU, MIT, and Oshkosh Defense held the first three slots. Thirty seconds passed, and the board didn’t c
hange. Forty seconds. A full minute. Suddenly the board flickered on and off before going dark completely. The other three monitors also went dark. When the four came back to life, the rankings for all forty teams were displayed, ten per monitor with twenty teams on the right shaded in red. Ashton was ranked first, DSU second. Ashton had seventy points to DSU’s sixty-eight.

  Lori, Harry, and Nico sat in stunned silence. Nico, who’d been spinning a pen across his fingertips, opened his palm to catch it, but timed the move poorly and the pen fell to the ground. Harry grabbed a bandana from his pocket wiping the sweat from his face. Lori simply stared at the scoreboard, rereading the rankings to herself repeatedly.

  Applause, gasps, cheers, and cries rang out through the big top as the hundreds of participants digested the information. Confusion slowly spread throughout the crowd. No one understood completely what the red shading over the twenty teams on the right side signified. The overhead speakers snapped and popped briefly.

  “This marks the end of the Qualifying Stage. Only those twenty teams scoring fifty points or higher will be moving on to week two. Those shaded in red on the scoreboard are disqualified. Team leads, please report to the DARPA operations center up front for next steps. Thank you.”

  Someone at the back of the room flung a chair, smashing it against one of the vents supplying cool air to the tent. The murmuring in the room approached a roar as discussions erupted over the news that half the teams had failed to move forward.

  Rusty remained silent as he watched Ted emerge from the throngs of people wandering through the big top. Lori, Harry, and Nico were sitting in their chairs, patiently waiting to hear what Rusty had to say. Once Ted arrived, Rusty pointed to the empty chair and watched intently as Ted took a seat. Rusty was about to speak when Vin came running over.

  “That was a nail biter,” Vin said as he shook Rusty’s hand. “The road race should be quite a challenge—best of luck to all of you. Great job. Really impressive.”

  Vin nodded, smiled, and quickly jogged back to the Ashton table.

  “Second place,” Rusty said as he shook his head in disgust. “We lost to a Prius. A Prius! In the desert!”

  “It was only by two points,” Ted said.

  “You.” Rusty stepped closer to Ted and leaned down until he was mere inches from Ted’s nose. “I brought you here for one reason and one reason only—to win this event. You told me you built winning desert-racers. Your magic gimbal and lidar just got its ass kicked by a goddamn Prius. I don’t care if we lost by one-tenth of one point. Second place might as well be last. If we don’t win the road race next week, you’ll be of no value to me.”

  “No value?!” Ted stood up, but Rusty did not back down. “You’d be in last place if it wasn’t for me. Probably even disqualified!”

  Rusty noticed out of the corner of his eye that a crowd had begun to form around them. Team Ashton, including Vin and Sam, were now standing several feet away. Rusty frowned as the crowd around them grew larger. He wasn’t big on being the center of attention, but he needed his team to know his disappointment—especially Ted.

  “You told me you built to win, Ted. What does that board show? Huh? All I see is a loser.” Rusty could see the anger and tears forming in Ted’s eyes. “I told you when I dragged you from that shit shop outside Reno that my goal was to win at all costs. You need to step up your game. If we lose next week, I will personally put you on a one-way ticket back to daddy at GM. You can go build Chevys with your family. Maybe that’s all you’re meant for.”

  Rusty took a few steps back and glared at Lori, Nico, and Harry. All three had their eyes down, trying to act as if they were not paying attention to the argument. Ted stood up, tears forming in his eyes. Rusty shook his head in disgust as Ted turned and pushed his way through the crowd and ran toward the exit.

  15

  Ted groaned and arched his back and stretched his arms before going back to the task at hand. The servo controls and actuators taking up the driver’s area inside Cyclops were a tight fit, and Ted had to scrunch himself in impossibly tight positions to reach everything. Nico was across from him, checking the control panels crammed into the passenger’s side. Wind gusts wrestled with the doors, bumping them repeatedly against both men’s bodies as they tried to maintain their focus on completing the final inspection.

  “How are things looking on your side?” Ted shook his arms vigorously as he fought with an actuator buried deep beneath the dashboard. “I’m almost done here.”

  “Same.” Nico pulled himself upright and grabbed hold of the bars running across the roof of the vehicle. A pelting sheet of golden desert sand threaded through his silky black hair. He squinted to keep his eyes clear. “When do you think the race will start?”

  “They have to announce it soon. There’ve been way too many delays today.”

  “This sandstorm killed over an hour this morning. And then those two teams that can’t get the DARPA equipment to work. It’s been a bit of a cluster.”

  “If you ask me, DARPA has gone overboard with their tech.” Ted uncoiled his body from beneath the dashboard, stretching again as he stood, and gently slapped the military-supplied camera installed near the base of the windshield. “They keep trying to make this into some infomercial. Transmissions from these cameras keep screwing things up.”

  “I think it’s kind of cool, especially for this second challenge, the 130-mile race. All twenty vehicles will have onboard cameras modified this time. It’s going to make it exciting to watch. Especially for the press.”

  Ted looked over at the bleachers along the edge of the racecourse. The crowd size was twice as big as last week’s. One end of the bleachers had a tarp added to block the pummeling winds. There were also four seventy-inch screens set up in a grid pattern facing the seats in front to duplicate the feed sent to the monitors inside the big top.

  “We should be glad this storm showed up on Sunday and DARPA called the delay,” Nico continued. “That gave Lori and Harry two extra days to run simulations.”

  “It also gave Rusty two more days to ride our asses. I swear, Nico, as soon as this competition is done, I’m gone. Two points. Two! That’s all that separates us from Ashton and we’ve got the whole event in front of us.”

  “I’m with you, Ted. The gimbal and lidar assembly on Cyclops are brilliant. I’m confident we’ll win this week’s race. Rusty is just being an asshole. It’s his thing. Try not to let him get to you.”

  “Easier said than done. Let’s check on Harry.”

  Ted slammed the Humvee’s door shut and walked to its front. Harry was on his knees, facing the bumper, holding a small can of paint in one hand, and a one-inch wide paintbrush in the other. Nico joined him on the other side, leaning against the fender just as a gust of wind pushed him even harder against the vehicle.

  “How’s it going, Picasso?” Ted asked.

  “Finished.” Harry stood up and took a few steps back. He glanced down at the orange paint splattered across his hands and forearms, the fluorescent glow popping against his ebony skin. Harry frowned as he noticed spots of orange on his bright white T-shirt. “Shit.”

  Harry’s fresh coat of orange brightened up the handlebar mustache that went along the sections of the brush guard just below the headlights, covering up the scrapes and bruises the Humvee suffered in the Qualifying Stage.

  “Is it just me, or is that brighter than usual?” Nico asked.

  “I forgot to shake the can,” Harry replied. “So the pigments are a bit off. I kind of like it.”

  “Me, too,” Ted said. “And the orange goes well with your shirt.”

  The top of the paint can was resting on the ground covered like pretty much everything else in tiny bits of sand. Harry dropped the brush onto the upside-down lid and pulled his shirt away from his stomach. The iconic Apple rainbow logo was now surrounded in dollops of neon orange paint.

  “
Good thing I brought half a dozen of these.” Harry smeared his hands across his protruding belly. A smile spread across his face as a familiar face walked up behind Ted. “Sam!”

  At the mention of Sam Lavoie’s name, Ted felt a rush in his chest as his heart rate picked up. He immediately flushed, but tried to play it cool as he turned toward Sam. She was standing less than three feet away decked out in her team uniform, admiring the Humvee.

  “So I finally see Cyclops up close,” Sam said pushing her aviator sunglasses back to rest above the rim of her baseball cap. “He’s a big boy, isn’t he?”

  “He’s unstoppable,” Ted replied as he made his way closer to Sam. “What do you think of our hardware?”

  Sam spent a few moments walking along Cyclops’s perimeter, stopping to inspect one of the sensor arrays secured to the vehicle. Without a word, she stepped back, eyes still fixed on Cyclops to study the huge lidar on top of the gimbal.

  “Is that a multi-beam lidar?” Sam asked. “And it rotates?”

  “Yes to both,” Ted replied.

  “I heard someone at Berkeley talking about it. I thought they were full of shit. Huh.” Sam took hold of one of the roof rails and hauled herself up, securing her feet along the side of the vehicle. Ted followed, pulling himself up, keenly aware of her leg brushing against his. “What’s securing the gimbal?”

  Forcing himself to focus on Sam’s question, Ted answered, “It’s a secret. Something I was working on before coming to DSU.”

  “So mysterious.” Sam turned looking directly into Ted’s eyes, their faces only a few inches apart. The wind picked up and blew Ted’s hair across his eyes. Sam reached toward his face to flick the locks away. “I must admit, Ted, you have me curious.”

  Ted found himself smiling as he stared into Sam’s green eyes, then allowed his gaze to wander across her petite nose, flawless complexion, and beautifully shaped mouth. His eyes rested just for a moment on her lips which seemed dry, a little cracked, but were slightly curved and full. Another gust of wind broke his concentration as sand blasted against his face. He squinted and started to chuckle. Ted stepped backward and held out a hand to Sam to help her down. As Sam grabbed Ted’s hand and stepped down, Ted felt a jolt of electricity throughout his body. He had to force himself to focus on what it was she was saying.