“We call her ‘Claire,’ ” Julio said. “Your basic self-contained radio-controlled mobile reconnaissance and surveillance unit, the main feature of which is optical and auditory gear, including state-of-the-art CLAIR equipment — that standing for Circular-Looking-A-class InfraRed sensors. Aside from the regular cams, she can see heat sigs in the dark, has a fuzzy-logic come-back circuit so she won’t bump into things and can find her way home if the RC fails, and little waldo arms for picking up things to examine under her microscope, should the need arrive.”
Howard shook his head. “Uh-huh. What did this beast set us back?”
“Ah, sir, there’s the beauty of it. Nothing. Not a dime.”
“How did you manage that? Tell me we aren’t running a stolen robot here, Lieutenant. Something you won in a poker game with your RA buddies?”
“You wound me, sir, to suggest such a thing.”
“And butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, either. Give.”
“Claire here is a test model, from CamCanada, up in Toronto. They specialize in making devices to inspect the inside of big pipelines, checking weld integrity, hunting for cracks, like that, but they are looking to get into the police and military market. This is one of three prototypes they sent off for tests. The Mounties have one, one went to some sultan somewhere in the Middle East, and we have the third. We test it out under field conditions, write up a report, and for our trouble, we get one of the first models when they go into full production, absolutely free of charge. Well. Except for the maintenance contract, of course. But that’s nothing.”
“Interesting.”
Julio picked up a remote and pushed a button. The little robot whirred.
“It does all the usual forward, back, left, and right stuff, and the POV cam shows an image right here on the handheld. Digital images and sound, and instant capture of info on its own wireless modem and DVD burner, which are around here somewhere. Those can be plugged into just about any computer for study and analysis.”
He held the remote so Howard could see it. “Everything is shockproofed out the wazoo, structural components are machined from titanium or aircraft aluminum, and you can supposedly set off a stick of dynamite ten feet away without hurting it. Got a gyroscope for balance, low center of gravity, and she’s very stable.”
He brought the robot close enough to them so he could kick it. His combat boot drove it back a few feet, but it whirred and stayed upright. He touched a control. “This shuts off the gyroscope. Watch.”
He moved to the little device, which was slightly shorter than knee-high, and managed, with some effort, to shove it over onto its side with his foot.
The robot whined, and a rubber-tipped metal rod extruded from the robot’s side and shoved it back upright.
“Automatic righting system,” he said. “She can pick herself right up and keep on going. A byproduct of BattleBot technology, I’m told.”
He picked up another remote and pushed a button. The windowless warehouse got very dark.
Howard saw the remote control’s screen light up, and the false-color IR images of himself and Julio, looking like two washed-out ghosts, appeared on the screen.
“Lieutenant, I believe you just turned me into a Caucasian.”
Julio chuckled. The false-color computer-augmented image tinted Howard’s skin slightly darker, but no more than a redhead’s tan might be.
“Only with the lights off, sir.”
He switched the lights back on. “But wait, here’s the really fun thing,” he said. He touched another button, and the robot hissed like a giant lizard, leaped two feet into the air, flew about four feet forward, and came down. It clunked when it landed, but not hard enough to knock anything loose.
Howard raised an eyebrow.
“Compressed gas jets. The tank isn’t that big, so it’s only good for eight or ten hops before it runs out, but if Claire here comes to a ditch that would take too long to go around, she can make like a bunny and leap right over it.”
Howard smiled. “Might make recon of a building full of armed terrorists easier, at that. What are they going to run when they go into production? Any idea?”
“Ballpark only. They’re saying a hundred thousand, Canadian.”
“Lord, Lieutenant. For that much, we can buy an armor-plated car.”
“Yes, but it can’t do this.”
The little robot hissed and jumped again.
“And it’s free.”
“What’s the service contract run?”
“Practically nothing. Three years, maybe thirty thou, U.S.”
“For thirty thousand American or so, I can find a lot of enlisted men who would spit and jump up, even if they can’t see in the dark.”
Julio shook his head. “Have I ever mentioned that the general is somewhat old-fashioned?”
“Never know when my buggy whip is going to come in handy, Lieutenant. It does the job it was designed to do and never needs batteries.”
“Come on, John, give it a try. You know you want to.” He passed the controls to Howard.
Well, yes, he did. It was just like playing with Tyrone’s new toy on Christmas morning when the boy was nine. As his mother was fond of saying, If you couldn’t have fun, what was the point?
Howard pushed the button, and grinned as the robot jumped again.
22
Santos waited until the senator came out of the supermarket on his way home before he made his move. One of the most powerful men in this country, one of only a hundred altogether, and he not only didn’t have a bodyguard, he drove a small car and did his own grocery shopping. Amazing. In Rio, a man in this senator’s position would be guarded, chauffeured everywhere in an armored limo, and would not have the slightest idea what a carton of milk or a loaf of bread cost, unless somebody happened to tell him. What was the point of having power if you did not exercise it?
Santos had already driven the route the man would take to get to his townhouse. He had a woman there — not his wife, who was back home in West Virginia with their two teenaged children until the school year was done. Santos had seen the mistress himself when he had driven by earlier. The information about the wife and children was public knowledge, available to anybody who cared to look for it. Another amazing thing. Back home, men of wealth and influence knew that knowledge was power, and they kept it to themselves. Why would you give a potential enemy anything he might use against you? Foolish.
The senator from West Virginia swung his car out onto the street and headed home, driving in the right lane. Santos followed him, two cars back on the four-lane road. Three blocks later, Santos swung into the left-hand lane and passed the senator. He sped up slightly, just a few miles an hour over the limit, not enough to trigger photo radar or the interest of a traffic cop. He gained a block on the senator’s car, pulling into his home street forty-five seconds ahead of the honorable Wayne DeWitt. He gunned the car’s engine, sped a hundred feet down the street, and hung a skidding one-eighty turn. He stopped the car, his steel-toed workboot resting on the brake, but still in gear. He lifted a motorcycle crash helmet from the seat next to him and slipped it on, pulled the straps tight. The helmet had a face-shield of heavy clear plastic. He flipped the visor down into place. He already wore the heavy leather and rubber grappling gloves used by NHB ring fighters for matches, with the wrist wraps cinched tight. You could use your hands, but there was a lot of padding on the outside. He put a boil-and-bite mouthpiece into his mouth and slipped it over his upper teeth. Guaranteed for the first seventy-five hundred dollars of dental work if you hurt your teeth while wearing it, nine dollars at K-mart. A great deal. He wore a boxer’s cup in a jock-strap over his leather pants, and a weightlifter’s thick and wide belt covering his waist and his lower back under his leather jacket. Without special springs and belts, he was as protected as he could be in this car.