Miriam wraps things up quickly, as promised, and I station myself at the conference room entrance. The reporters and cameramen start rolling in a few minutes later. The first person through the door is some guy who runs a local news blog, Walt Rivers. I remember him from a few months ago, when the Squad took down a group of lame super-villain wannabes dressed like construction workers. Rivers was one of three reporters on the scene, and the only one who actually gave the team full credit for the grab. The other two guys called us things like “the Protectorate’s apprentices” and “the junior Protectorate,” and said we “assisted local authorities” in apprehending Damage Inc.
And that’s why newspapers are dying.
The room fills up. A row of video cameras, representing the Boston news stations, rings the back of the room. Reporters, local and state politicians, and people who fall under the general category of “dignitaries” — a mix of Bose Industries execs, reps from companies Bose does business with, and a couple of people in military uniforms — occupy the seats.
The press conference starts at one on the nose. Zina arrives as Miriam wraps up a longwinded intro, half of which is introducing people of note in the room. Naturally, Edison’s the last to be announced. Miriam claps, signaling Zina and I to join in from the back and help kick off a wave of applause. Yes, part of our job here is to prompt the audience when to applaud.
Edison steps up to the lectern, looking sharp in a dark suit. He’s normally not a suit-and-tie guy, but this is a special occasion. He flashes a big smile, completing the illusion that he’s simply another corporate bigwig. Miriam hovers nearby, ready to jump in if needed.
“For the past few months, rumors have swirled that Bose Industries has been in negotiations to acquire Advanced Robotics and Cybernetics,” he begins. “Today, I’m pleased and proud to confirm that ARC is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bose Industries.”
Cue a second round of orchestrated applause.
Edison hits all the major talking points in rapid succession. The acquisition began soon after ARC shuttered its Kingsport facility. ARC’s mission statement will be amended to reflect Bose Industries’ code of ethics better. First order of business is the discontinuation of all research and development on military combat drones, and that causes some concerned murmuring in the crowd. Edison adds that ARC will continue developing drones and robots for non-combat-specific jobs like minesweeping, bomb disposal, and surveillance and reconnaissance — anything that would help keep people out of harm’s way. That doesn’t get much of a response, but the next announcement is met with enthusiastic — and unprompted — applause.
“We will not only continue ARC’s good work developing advanced prosthetic limbs, we will seek to aggressively expand the cybernetics department for the benefit of our brave men and women in uniform. My dream is that within the year, through revenue derived from our military contracts, we will be able to provide prosthetics, free of charge, to any and all veterans in need.”
Edison keeps the good news coming with a solemn promise that there will be no more Archimedes-style disasters. To get ARC back on Kingsport’s good side, he’s ordered the AI department scrapped, and all prototyping and manufacturing will be handled by a small but promising company in Delaware. He points out a company rep in the crowd, an attractive woman in a tasteful pinstripe suit.
After that, Edison and Miriam get into the dry, boring stuff like job creation and boosting the local tax base. The Q-and-A session is just as dull, but it’s brief, and soon enough everyone is filing into the cafeteria for refreshments and a chance to network. From that point on, I’m just a body in the room. Everyone else is too busy eating and making small talk to care about an intern, so I raid the generous buffet spread and take my plate to a corner of the cafeteria to people-watch.
Zina joins me several minutes later after she’s finished tailing Miriam to learn the ins and outs of networking — and it looks like Zina’s learned well.
“Check it out,” she says, flashing a fistful of business cards.
“Nice haul,” I say. “Do you feel connected now?”
“I am connected all over the place.” She grabs a Sprite and holds her can up in toast. “To us, for surviving our first press conference.”
“Survived, endured, whatever,” I say, clinking my soda can against hers. “I can’t believe you want to do stuff like this for a career.”
“I like it. Besides, I don’t want to be the one greeting people at the door; I want Miriam’s job. I want to be the person making all this happen. That’s where the fun is.”
“Oh, sure it is. Making lists and schedules and itineraries, writing self-promotional press releases and cliché-riddled speeches, dealing with reporters...who wouldn’t find that a pulse-pounding thrill ride?”
“Technology-obsessed science nerds?”
“Guilty as charged.”
The room thins out over the course of an hour or so, until just the Bose Industries people are left. Edison wrestles out of his suit coat like he’s escaping a straightjacket.
“Thank God that’s over,” he says, but he’s smiling when he says it. He makes his way through the team, shaking hands and thanking everyone personally. “Matt, Zina — good work, you two.”
“Thanks, boss,” I say.
“Thank you. Both of you. Now get out of here,” Edison says with a sweeping gesture. “Go get some rest, you deserve it.”
“I know we just pigged out at the buffet, but I’m still a little hungry,” Zina says to me. “You maybe want to go get something to eat?”
“Actually, I need to talk to Edison about something,” I say.
“You do?” Edison says.
“Yeah, it’s kind of important.”
Edison glances at Zina for some reason. “You sure it can’t wait?” he says to me.
“It’s really important.”
“It’s okay,” Zina says, “I should probably get home anyway. I have a ton of homework to do. Maybe next week?”
“Sure. Want to grab dinner after work Tuesday?”
Zina’s face brightens up like I just handed her a puppy wrapped in fifty-dollar bills. “Okay. Sure. Sounds great. See you then.”
She takes off. I could swear she’s almost skipping.
“Nice recovery,” Edison says.
“From what?”
He blinks at me then shakes his head. “Never mind. You said you’ve been working on something?”
“Yeah. It’ll be easier to show you,” I say. I run to my locker, grab my tablet, and meet Edison in his office. I close the door to make sure Trina, Edison’s receptionist, doesn’t overhear us. “Remember a few weeks ago when I asked to take a look at the specs for the Concorde suit?”
“Yeah,” Edison says, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I had this idea for adapting the weapons system for handheld use,” I say, pulling up a specific password-protected file. “I’ve been toying with it on and off, but my run-in with Silverback motivated me to finish it up. I thought it’d be good to have something with a little more stopping power than baseball bats and goop rounds.”
I hand the tablet over. Edison stares at it for a long time.
“Obviously, it’s not as powerful as the Concorde suit, but it should be able to generate a concussion blast with a maximum impact of seven hundred fifty pounds of force and a range of fifty feet,” I say. “It’d be like getting punched by a professional boxer — debilitating, but not lethal. I can work up a prototype on my own, but I’d need a nuclear micro-cell in order to test it properly...”
That gets Edison’s attention, big time. “A nuclear micro-cell?”
“Yeah. I mean, I could probably make do with a car battery for initial testing purposes, but that’d only be good for two, maybe three uses before I drain it. Of course, I’d have to add some kind of cooling system, which could increase the unit’s overall bulk...”
“You designed this?” Edison says, and I can’t tell if he’s impressed or pissed. He�
��s always been protective about his tech, and here I am, copying it and asking to borrow a federally regulated power source so I can fire it up.
No, I take it back: he is definitely pissed.
Except he’s not. “Matt, this is amazing,” he says.
“It is?”
“You replicated my weapons system, from memory, in the space of a few days. Yes, it’s amazing. I can’t find a single flaw in the design, the math checks out...this should work.” He gives me a weird smile. “Want to go prototype it?”
“What? You mean right now?”
“Why not? The weapons lab is clear until next week. We’d have it all to ourselves. I bet we could get a functional prototype together in a couple of hours. What do you say?”
“I say let’s go do some science.”
3.
The weapons lab’s testing facility is a big box of thick, steel-reinforced concrete located twenty feet underground. The aboveground floors are where new concepts are conceived, designed, developed, and tested in virtual environments before they head to the underground bunker for practical testing.
It’s also where they store raw materials, so our first stop is a storage room the lab monkeys call Lotho Minor. Respect for the obscure Star Wars reference, guys. We load up a steel cart with everything we need to construct the guts of my device, along with the necessary tools, and head to the bunker.
Edison and I set up two small portable workstations, like photographer’s tripods with platforms on top. As we get to work, Edison asks, “Do you have a name for this yet?”
“No, not yet. I’ve had a few ideas but they all suck. Maybe you should name it.”
“Me? It’s your project.”
“Yeah, but Captain Trenchcoat of the Hero Squad has a track record of crappy names.”
“Point taken. I’ll give it some thought.”
We don’t talk much after that. We work. We build. We create. Within a couple of hours, we’ve put together a mass of components and wires that doesn’t look like much, but at this stage the focus is on function rather than form.
“Creating new technology is like passing legislation or making sausage,” Edison says as he beholds our mess. “You never want to see the process, only the results.”
“I hear that. What’s next?”
“Power. And a target. Grab a Buster.”
Edison pops a panel in the wall and uncoils a power cable. While he hooks the cable up to my as-yet unnamed invention, I grab from a storage room a Buster, which is what the techs here call the human analog test targets. They’re big Mythbusters fans around here. The Busters are like department store mannequin torsos on rolling stands. They’re made of ballistics gelatin and embedded with shock meters that measure impact. They’re used to test the company’s non-lethal weapons to make sure they are in fact non-lethal. More expensive than college interns but less likely to sue.
I roll the Buster into place and lock the wheels. Once the power cable is set, we retreat to a small control room separated from the bunker by a foot-thick slab of Plexiglas. Edison fires up the control panel, letting the power flow.
“Power is on and the thunder gun hasn’t blown up on us, so I’m calling that success the first,” he says.
“The thunder gun?”
“Until we come up with something better...” He pokes at the keyboard, clicks the mouse a few times, checks the monitor, and smiles. “Everything is in the green. We’re ready to go,” he says, stepping away from the control panel with a gesture of presentation.
“What?”
“It’s your project, Matt. You get the honor of the first test fire.”
I don’t want to look like a huge dork in front of the boss, but it’s impossible to hide my excitement as I step up to the monitor and its array of meters measuring, among other things, power input and output. A white bar near the bottom, synched to the shock meters in the Buster, sits at zero.
I lay my hand over the mouse. “First test firing of the thunder gun, or whatever we’re calling it, in three...two...one...go.”
I click the mouse. The air fills with a sharp, high-pitched whine. Power quickly builds to critical then releases with a low BOOM. The Buster rocks back on its stand, then topples over. The meters in front of me come to life. Edison nudges me out of the way.
“Power output and system temp are well within safety parameters,” Edison says, a grin spreading across his face, “shock meters register seven hundred forty-seven pounds of force at a range of twenty-five feet.”
“It worked?”
“It worked perfectly.”
Screw composure. I throw my arms up and let out a whoop of triumph. Edison echoes my cheer and throws me an enthusiastic high-five.
“Now,” he says, turning his attention back to the control panel, “let’s put this baby through its paces.”
We proceed to fire off dozens more shots to test the gun’s range and measure power output at its lowest and highest settings. We rip off twenty shots in quick succession to see if the guts of the gun overheat. They don’t, which means all we’ll have to worry about is cooling the power source. We’re braced for a malfunction, for a flaw in my design to reveal itself, but the gun functions without a single hiccup.
“It can’t be this easy,” I say. “Nothing ever goes this well for me.”
“Hate to break it to you, Matt, but your prototype is as close to perfect as we could reasonably hope for,” Edison says.
“Our prototype, to be fair.”
“Based on your design.”
“Based on your tech.”
“All right, we’re both geniuses,” Edison says, paying me the highest compliment he’s ever given me. “Point is, the thing works beautifully.”
“What’s next, then?”
“Well, we’d have to run a second series of tests with the gun drawing power from a micro-cell, which means adding a regulator and a small cooling system...we still have a lot of work to do before we can call the gun ready for field testing.” Edison checks his watch. “It’s not quite six. What do you say we grab a quick dinner and get back to work?”
“I’d love to, believe me, but I have to hit the road. I’m hooking up with Natalie tonight.” Edison’s face falls. “What?”
“You’re hooking up with Natalie?”
“What? No! Oh, God, no! I didn’t mean hooking up,” I say, only now realizing my poor word choice. “I’m getting together with her. We’re taking a knife-fighting course.”
“Ohhh,” Edison sighs in relief. “All right, then, I guess we’ll call it a night. I know you’re not scheduled to work tomorrow, but if you’d like to come in and tinker some more...?”
I haven’t truly admired and respected too many people in life. Ironically, two of those rare people turned out to be the same guy, and that guy now wants me to hang out with him and play mad scientist in the test facility of his multi-billion-dollar tech company.
I’d have to be insane to say no.
I’d also have to be insane to get into a knife fight.
That’s the big lesson I learned tonight, thanks to an unassuming former CIA agent who has mastered the art of filleting a human being. Put a knife in his hand and he could take down a Jedi and walk away without a mark on him. Some very old, faded scars on his forearms suggest he wasn’t always so skilled.
“That was educational,” Natalie says. We take our bottles of water and ease onto the floor. “How do I look?”
One of the exercises our modest class of seven students participated in was called the Magic Marker Circle of Death, in which two people armed with fat magic markers engaged in a simulated knife fight. The point was to dispel the notion that a knife fight is some deadly ballet like you see in movies. A real knife fight is clumsy, awkward, almost ridiculous, and unless you happen to be a highly trained government agent, for example, you don’t get to walk away claiming you won the fight, only that you survived.
Case in point, Natalie is sporting a wide red line that runs from t
he base of her neck up to the indentation under her left ear. In real life, that would have sliced through both the external carotid artery and the external jugular vein, and she would have passed out from severe blood loss within seconds. Her left arm and hand are covered in red marks indicating defensive wounds, several of which would have severed key tendons and rendered that limb useless. Assorted dots and lines cover her upper torso and her belly, and another nasty streak of red travels down the inside of her thigh, where the femoral artery lives. Open that one up and you’re as good as dead.
“You look like a five-year-old’s art project,” I say. “How bad am I?”
“You’re pretty messed up,” Natalie says, pointing to the mirror on the wall behind us. The room is normally used as a small dance studio, so one wall is nothing but a giant mirror. I twist around, and the first thing I see is a black line ringing the right side of my neck. Goodbye carotid, goodbye jugular, and goodbye larynx. Even though our instructor told us to stay away from the head, my opponent got in a lucky shot that would have opened up the left side of my face.
“So much for an open-casket funeral,” I say. “This was fun. Thanks for inviting me.”
“De nada.”
“Want to go grab something to eat? Don’t know about you, but I’m crazy hungry.”
“I’m going to pass. I want to get home and sneak in some quality time with Derek.”
“That’s cool. You two doing okay?”
“We still have some work to do, but yeah, we’re okay. We had a very long and very overdue conversation about us, our relationship, where it’s going...it wasn’t fun, but it was necessary. We got a lot of stuff out in the open. I think we can work through it.”
“Good. I’m happy to hear that.”
“It’s funny. My parents have been married for thirty-some years, and they’re still crazy for each other. I’ve never seen two people more in love. Problem is, when something’s bothering them, they don’t say anything because they’re so worried about hurting each other’s feelings. They bottle it all up. Eventually, things hit critical mass...”
Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups Page 18
