A Time for Patriots

“First the Iranians, then the Turks, the Russians, and now Americans,” the president muttered. “Next you’ll be spying on me, I suppose? I regret putting you and Jonathan Masters in the same half of the country again — the trouble you two get into never ceases to aggravate me.” He thought for a moment; then: “I can think of a dozen different laws you’ve broken, but if anyone can keep you out of prison, it’ll be Darrow Horton.”

“At the risk of eating fruit from the forbidden tree,” Vice President Page asked off-camera, “what have you found, Patrick?”

“That the FBI was barking up the wrong tree, ma’am,” Patrick said. “I have a plan to try to fix the situation, Mr. President, and I need your permission to do a few things.”

That same time

“So the deal is: I teach you how to pilot the CID, and you teach me how to fly,” Charlie Turlock said. She, Jason Richter, and Brad were in the FBI hangar with the stowed Cybernetic Infantry Device. “Deal?”

“I’m not a licensed pilot yet,” Brad said, “let alone a flight instructor. But I’ll take you flying anytime as soon as I get my license, and as soon as I become a CFI, I’ll teach you.”

“Good enough,” Charlie said. “Okay, before we get started, we have some programming to do so the CID will respond to your—”

“Already did it this morning with Colonel Richter, just before I asked you if we could train together,” Brad said. “Voice prints and brain scans too. CID One, deploy.” To Charlie’s amazement, the CID unit began to unstow itself, and seconds later it had assumed its low crouching standby position.

“You did all that in just two hours?” Charlie remarked. “Usually it takes all day and a couple test runs to get it to respond properly.”

“We did it in less than an hour,” Brad said. Charlie turned to Jason in surprise, and Jason shrugged — he didn’t understand why either. “Colonel Richter said they need to study me at the BattleLab to figure out why I can program so fast.”

“I couldn’t believe it myself,” Jason said. “I thought we were just going to do a preliminary scan to get the input parameters set. We ended up running the entire routine.”

“Let’s see if it took. Keep going.”

“CID One, pilot up,” Brad spoke. The robot immediately assumed the boarding position, and the entry hatch opened on its back. Brad climbed up and slid inside as if he had been doing it all his life, as evidenced by the hatch closing on the robot’s back as the haptic interface connected Brad’s brain to the computers and sensors inside the robot. Moments later, the CID was up on its feet. Brad looked at his hands and body like a frog that had just been turned into a prince. “Man, this is incredible !”

“Not so loud, Brad,” Charlie said, smiling. “Well, this is a milestone. Savoy took two days to interface. Stand in the center of the hangar so you don’t go crashing into things.” Brad stepped forward, and Charlie saw no evidence of Brad’s feet or legs hitting each other, as was common in new CID pilots. “It takes a while for the haptic interface to adjust for the differences between where you think your hands are and where the robot’s hands are really—”

“Charlie, let’s see if it was a fluke or the real deal,” Jason said. He went over to the hangar wall and retrieved a cart with four bowling balls on it. “This is my favorite demonstration of the CID, Brad. Care to give it a try?”

“You bet, sir.” Brad came over to him, and Jason tossed him one of the bowling balls. It landed on his right hand, but slipped out before he could close his composite armored fingers around it.

“Feet and legs are one thing, but fingers are another,” Charlie said. “We have an exercise routine that’ll help with programming the haptic interface to—”

“Wait a second… I call a do-over,” Brad said. He picked up the bowling ball on the hangar floor with his fingers.

“Not too tightly,” Charlie warned him. But Brad was definitely getting the hang of it. He tossed the bowling ball up in the air and caught it with one hand. “Not bad. Try…” But Brad began tossing the ball between two hands, then doing it faster, and then higher. Then he took another bowling ball and juggled the two in one hand, tossing one up while catching the other.

“Know how to juggle three balls, Brad?” Jason asked.

“No… but I can do hacky sack,” Brad said… and to Jason and Charlie’s amazement, he dropped one of the bowling balls on the instep of his right armored foot, held it there for a moment, then began flipping it up and down. In moments he was using every portion of his foot to kick the ball back in the air. Still carrying the second bowling ball, he then kicked the ball back and forth between his feet, bounced it off his chest and back onto his feet, kicked it up onto his head and balanced it there for a moment, then even kicked it back over his head, spun around, and caught it with a foot again. Before long Brad was prancing around the hangar, bouncing the bowling ball off his feet, his thighs, his chest, and his head as he moved.