Drone

“Suits me fine. One kill, one job, and we’re done. I doubt you’ll be able to stop at one and I don’t have any intention of standing under the tree after we swat the hornets’ nest.”

“Understood, Mr. Pearce. One job and you’re done,” Myers agreed.

“If you can spare him, I’d like Mike to liaison for us.”

“He’s all yours, Mr. Pearce.” Myers stood up, extended Pearce her hand. He took it. She had a firm grip.

“I’m just glad we never met,” she smiled.

17

Pearce Systems Research Facility, Dearborn, Michigan

Pearce stood with Udi Stern next to an oversize treadmill. The former Israeli paratrooper was three inches shorter than Pearce, but broader in the chest.

“Go ahead, Udi. Try.” Dr. Rao smiled.

Udi smiled nervously at her. “I don’t want to break it,” he said, in heavily accented English.

“You won’t,” she said.

Udi stepped closer to the Petman 3, a third-generation Boston Dynamics humanoid robot that was on loan to Pearce Systems. It was jogging at exactly five miles per hour on the treadmill. Its legs pumped effortlessly, and the combat boots it wore pounded on the oversize treadmill’s rubber pad in a faultless heel-and-toe strike.

Dr. Rao’s team had recently perfected the software that enabled it to run for the first time, and she had renamed the robot “Usain Bolts” after the famous Jamaican runner. But the experimental drone was still a headless mechanical monster with a skinless aluminum-titanium frame, the stuff of science-fiction nightmares. On its chest it wore a black case that housed the video sensor package.

Udi lifted his own steel-toed boot and lightly kicked the Petman 3, but the robot barely budged. It was still connected to a thick power cable hanging down from overhead, but the cable was providing no physical support.

“She said to try and knock it over, not ask it for a date,” Pearce said.

Udi’s dark eyes narrowed. He threw a hard side kick into the robot’s hip. Usain Bolts was shoved hard to the left, but it never broke stride, and quickly returned to center.

“Try using your hands,” Dr. Rao suggested. “Give it a good shove.”

Udi spit in both hands, lowered himself, then lunged at the upper torso, careful to not catch himself in the rapidly pumping arms. He whacked it good. The robot’s upper torso twisted violently away from Udi. Its right arm windmilled high while its left arm swung low to help it keep balance. The twisting torso also twisted the hips, and the legs followed the hips. Just as it looked like it was about to crash, the robot did a quick shuffling step, turned on the balls of its feet without losing stride, and righted itself again. Within moments, it was jogging once again in the center of the broad treadmill.

Pearce laughed. “I knew I should’ve brought your wife instead.”

“Can you imagine a platoon of these parachuting out of the sky, then racing through the enemy’s streets? The psychological impact alone would be devastating.” Dr. Rao’s eyes gleamed with awe at the future soldier she was helping to create.

“This place always makes me depressed,” Udi lamented.

“Not to worry. It will be at least five more years before you’re obsolete.” She giggled, patting Udi on his thick shoulder.

Pearce shook his head, incredulous. “Thanks for the demo. We’d better push on to the main event.”

* * *

Inside the brightly lit conference room at the lab, Dr. Rao engaged a large video monitor on the center table with a tablet device in her hand. Pearce and Udi stood next to her. The other operators Pearce had selected for the Castillo mission were already doing advance work in Mexico or prepping the computer and communications networks.

Rao opened the hinged lid of a small aluminum case that was also on the table.

She reached into the case and lifted something out with a pair of tweezers and set it on the pad. “Watch the monitor, please.”

She tapped the tablet in her hand and a live image of Udi’s clasped, hairy hands popped onto the screen. When Udi realized those were his hands, he moved them, suddenly self-conscious.

“Hey! A mini spy camera. Nice,” Udi said.

“Oh, no. Much more than that,” Rao said. “Watch.”

Rao engaged the tablet again, and the image on the monitor turned toward the ceiling tiles, then rocketed for one of them. The camera looked like it was going to crash into the ceiling, but instead, it stopped abruptly. The image on the monitor turned upside down, and now Rao, Pearce, and Udi were on the monitor far below. Within a second, however, the image righted itself and enlarged to full frame on the monitor.

“Now let’s have some fun.” Rao punched another button, and the lights shut off. The room was pitch-black, but a new infrared image appeared on the video monitor. Blue wire-mesh overlays—facial recognition software—instantly engaged, scanning all three faces. In less than a second, the blue lines flashed red.

“Apparently none of us is Aquiles Castillo,” Dr. Rao said. “If one of us had been, the appropriate facial image would have flashed green.”