A Time for Patriots

Richter nodded at Charlie, who almost giggled with excitement as she spoke, “CID One, pilot up.” At that command the robot stood, crouched forward with its right leg stuck out straight behind it, and extended its arms backward. At the same time a hatch opened on the robot’s back. Charlie climbed up the extended leg, using the leg like a ramp and the arms like railings. She then knelt down on the robot’s back just outside the hatch, then started to enter the robot, legs first, followed by arms, and finally her head. When she was fully inside, the hatch closed. Nothing happened for several moments…

… and then suddenly the robot stood up, and it started hopping up and down, shaking its shoulders, and shadow-boxing with its immense arms and knotted fists like a boxer warming up and getting ready to step into a boxing ring. Chastain couldn’t believe how fluid and humanlike it moved — it was nothing like any other robot he had ever seen in his life.

“Pretty cool, huh?” an electronically synthesized voice said. It had Turlock’s phraseology, but definitely not her voice. “How do you like me now, Agent Chastain?”

“Amazing,” Chastain said. “How does she… er, it move like that?”

“Thousands of microhydraulic actuators being operated at increased pressure, acting like muscles and ligaments on multiaxis joints, responding to haptic commands using advanced processors,” Richter said. Chastain scowled at Richter, who was obviously trying to show up the FBI special agent. “A conventional robot might use one or two large hydraulic actuators to move a limb in one axis — up or down, left or right, in or out. The limbs on the CID are mounted on joints connected with powerful microhydraulic actuators that work completely different from human muscles. The CID has so many of these microactuators that some of its limbs can move in unhuman ways.” To demonstrate, Charlie rotated the lower part of the CID’s left leg around in a complete circle.

“How strong is it?” one of the other agents asked.

“Let’s find out,” Charlie said. She walked over to the C-57 Skytrain and carefully placed the CID’s hands under the center of the left wing.

“Don’t break my plane, Charlie,” Jon Masters warned.

“I’m doing it on the jack point, Jon, don’t worry,” Charlie said. Moments later, they could all see the left strut begin to extend. Charlie moved the plane about four inches up before carefully letting it back down. “It registered about twenty thousand pounds before I got a limit warning.”

“It just lifted ten tons ?” the agent exclaimed.

Charlie climbed out from under the wing. “How about I direct some of that power downward this time?” The CID crouched a bit, then flew upward about fifty feet, grasping onto the steel trusses overhead. “Hey, I think I can see my house from up here!” she deadpanned before dropping back to the concrete floor.

“The CID has survived drops from an aircraft exceeding two hundred feet in altitude and two hundred knots airspeed,” Richter said. “The previous version has survived RPG rounds and even thirty-millimeter cannon hits. It can operate underwater up to a hundred feet, and in a chemical, biological, and even radioactive environment for short periods. We can increase its effectiveness with packs that contain different weapons, sensors, even unmanned aircraft. It can—”

“Absolutely no weapons,” Chastain said firmly. “Director Fuller made that exceptionally clear, and I concur with his directive: the robot is not to be armed with any weapons. In fact, I don’t even want it out in the open unless involved in an actual operation against armed extremists or terrorists and it’s been determined that our capabilities might not be superior to theirs. As far as I’m concerned, it’s for heavy lifting, and that’s all.”

“That’s a big mistake, Agent Chastain, but it’s your call,” Richter said. He nodded to the robot, and in a few minutes Charlie had dismounted and stowed the robot back into its self-molded container. “The CID has thousands of advanced capabilities that can easily—”

“Richter, do me and yourself a big favor and shut the hell up,” Chastain interrupted. “I don’t need your robot or its ‘thousands of advanced capabilities.’ The FBI uses its own resources to investigate crime and make arrests, and if we use any outside agencies at all, they are directly controlled and supervised by the FBI, and function in a support role only.”

He looked at Whack. “You Macomber?” Whack nodded and scowled at Chastain. “You’re here with the other setup, that electronic armor or whatever it is?”

“We call it ‘Tin Man,’ ” Jon said. “Armor made of a special material that—”