Hello Mr. Robinson Pt. 06

"Damn impressive son," he said sticking his hand out to shake.

"Mighty strong grip you got there," I said as he tried and failed to crush my hand in his vice like grip.

"You're not too sloppy for a suit," he replied. "Aren't you one of Shaw's boys?"

"Yeah," I said laughing. "I'm here to get a look at how things are progressing."

"I volunteered to be one of the first to go through if I'm still alive that is. I understand that NASA and your boss have the final say."

"I'll be honest with you. I don't have any inkling about that. My job is getting Ares off the ground, literally. If you put your name on the list I am sure you have a good shot at Team Alpha." I told him seeing the disappointment in his eyes. "I wish I could help but I can't."

"I appreciate your honesty son," he said.

"For what it is worth, I hope you make it."

He smiled and we shook hands again. I left the gym and returned to my room. He had sparked a thought that wouldn't go away. I pulled up everything I could on my new lust interest. The Major had one hell of a career. She had graduated top of her class from West Point. She rose through the ranks through hard work and a steely resolve. I also saw the typical glass ceiling mentality when it came to some of her assignments. She overcame them by sheer tenacity. She was a first lieutenant when she first came into the orbit of the General. That's when things seemed to improve but I saw a pattern of behavior on his part that was a little alarming. I saw paperwork where the Major had great ideas to improve functionality and they were often 'lost' in the shuffle. A month or so later the General would make a strikingly similar suggestion and earn praise for his astute perception. I also saw that it was the General that kept supporting the Major's meteoric rise. She moved around but he was an ever present influence in her military career. Then I came along and with a single phone call had made her the youngest general in military history. She deserved it but it had been my political clout that had made it happen.

"I need to apologize," I muttered.

"Want me to talk to her?" Rhea said startling me.

"Shit woman you scared the piss out of me!"

"Sorry, do you want me to talk to her?" She repeated and I nodded. "You're smarter than you look. We are going to shower together I will try and smooth things out between you two."

"Gods you are evil," I growled.

"Who me," she purred. "Are you mad about taking a heavy handed approach or that I get to see her naked first?"

"Yes." I said and she just smiled as she left.

She was right. I had only thought about my needs and may have damaged this woman's career. I felt like shit. I couldn't sit still so I began to walk around to clear my head. I ended up watching the technicians working on the ring. It was meticulous work and time consuming. I imagined the ring complete and opening on the surface of Mars. I understood why the master sergeant wanted to go. Who wouldn't want to step foot on another world? Nick had made that possible. I had to find out how to allow us to build this thing in segments. I growled and decided to take a shower. I returned to my room and grabbed my kit. The little black bag had shampoo, shaving cream, razor and a shaving mirror. I went to the men's locker room and undressed. I placed my clothes into an empty locker and grabbed a towel and wash cloth. I walked into the communal shower and found a few soldiers washing up.

"Hey, it's the suit," one of them said as I started one of the showers.

"He doesn't look like a suit," another said.

"He's not," a third said. "He beat dozer's record."

"Dozer," I asked.

"Me, I spotted you on the bench press. You did twenty reps at my max weight like it was nothin."

"Sorry," I replied.

"How the hell did you run like that?" the second man said in his Boston accent.

"I don't understand," I said and the first man jumped in.

"Didn't sarge tell you about that?" He asked and I shook my head. "Damn man, you ran a three minute mile for nearly six laps. That is just insane."

"Yeah man," dozer said in his deep baritone voice. "You crushed it like it was nothin."

I had been so focused on the redheaded Major and Ares to take any notice. I was going to have to check into things after my shower. By the time I finished up I had the showers to myself. I shut off the water and dried off. I wrapped the towel around my waist and strode into the locker room. It was empty too. I removed my watch and set it on the locker room floor. I set it on scan mode and stood over it. The pulsating violet light shot from the device for a few minutes scanning me from head to toe. Once it was finished I returned it to my wrist. I dressed while it crunched the data. I was just putting on my shoes when I received a two word message, rogue nanites.

"What the hell does that even mean?" I asked and a holographic version of my body appeared and I saw there was cluster of blue icons in my head and a host of red icons everywhere else. "Are the red icons the rogue nanites you mentioned?"

'Affirmative,' came the reply. 'I didn't notice them since they are not doing any harm to you.'

"So what are they doing exactly? Do you know?"

'Affirmative,' it said. 'They are overhauling most of your biological systems. How they migrated from your brain is unknown. But they have sought out and altered nearly everything from organs, to sinews and even your skeletal mass. It will take time to determine the long term affects. I am sorry.'

"You didn't do it. So how long until it is finished," I asked.

'Not long now,' the A.I. replied. 'I will assess the changes and report as soon as I know.'

I sat down and wondered if the same thing had happened to Cindy. My fatherly instinct was to contact her immediately but I couldn't. I had to wait until I had left this place. I had been ordered to make no personal communications from the base. I would adhere to it because I had no damn choice. Was my little girl okay? I would throw myself into my work until I was out of here. I found an empty lecture hall and used the smart board to brainstorm until I figured this maddening solution out. I had multiple holograms going and pushed everything else away. Time took on a queer sensation and I lost a sense of everything but the holograms. How long I stood there I have no idea but it was the scent of lavender that roused me from my fugue.

"Hello Major," I said as I withdrew from the digital realm.

"How can you make any sense of that?" She asked. "Wait, how the hell did you know it was me?"

"Your body wash," I said as I paused the multiple holograms that were running.

"You can smell me from across the room?" She said curious.

"It is the result of an unforeseen effect of my A.I. implant. I want to apologize. I put my needs ahead of yours. I will do whatever it takes to make up for my actions."

"Apology accepted," she replied with a hint of surprise in her voice. "You are the first man that has ever done that. That is huge in my book. Maybe we can start over and work through this."

"I'd like that," I said. "I am glad you are here. I need a second opinion before I make it official."

"Why me," she asked as she walked to stand next to me.

"First, your near genius level IQ and second your tenacity to solve problems. I've done my homework and you are a great fit for this team."

"Let's see what you got."

I showed her what I had found but I was so eager that it passed like a blur in front of her. After slowing it down I let her watch the footage over and over again. It took her less than an hour to see what had taken me untold hours. While she worked it out I converted digital processing to what Nick called 'meat time'. It was a staggering three weeks. I was about to go get a soda when Rhea showed up with a cooler and set it next to me.

"Thought you might be thirsty after all that work," she said. "You looked really intent the first time I checked in on you. I see you two have made nice-nice, that's good."

"He apologized," the Major muttered as she leaned close pointing to one of the displays. "Why did it do that?"

"Bingo," I declared. "She found it."

"Found what," Rhea asked.

"The drop in power," I said. "Remember when we saw that single frame of the 'space between spaces'?"

"Yeah, does this drop in power have to do with that?" She asked and I nodded. "Why would that happen?"

"The only thing I can figure is that the dimension it touches delivers a surge in power. That surge reveals itself as a drop in power being drawn from the generator. The spike is so fast is barely registers but I think I am beginning to understand."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Rhea asked as she opened a soda and handed it to me.

"Yeah, I saw the drop but I don't understand why it is important," the Major admitted.

"I think it's a kind of dimensional slingshot," I said and they looked at me blankly. "Okay, imagine you are on a space ship and you want to pick up speed to save fuel. How would you do it? You'd use a planet's gravity to slingshot you. I think it is the same principal."

I showed them my latest configuration taking into consideration the new power formula. As minuscule as the drop was it was a key element in making the modular system work. We were still a long way from building the damn things but we were a huge step closer. I let the Major look at the holograms until she seemed confident I was onto something. I sent my findings to Nick and waited. I sipped my soda and realized I was starving. I asked about eating something and found that the mess hall was closed. However, that didn't mean the General's personal chef wasn't available to fix something for us. The aging Mexican gentleman was happy to whip up a meal for us. As we followed him to the kitchen set aside for the General and his friends he talked about his love of food. He shared his love of cooking passed down to him from his grandmother and mother.

As he cooked he told one story after the other about growing up in a tiny mountain village, Oaxaca. He carried out two platters piled high with food and asked if we needed any more. I shook my head and the girls seemed content with the generous amount of food he had prepared. We ate while the chef cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes. I had offered but he kindly refused any help in his kitchen. Just as much as the General ran a tight ship around the base his chef did the same in the kitchen. After our meal I began answering emails and even established a conference call in one of the lecture halls. Rhea and the Major went their own way and I wondered if they were playing or up to other duties. I looked at what the other teams had come up with and felt as a group we might just solve this. I had to admit I was floored by Tyler Powell and his team. One of his interns was the one that made another huge breakthrough. The young man, Colin Murphy a physicist and musician by trade noticed the harmonic tones that the ring emitted as it was powered up. The tones changed once the connection had been made. His observations coincided with the drop in power and the brief connection to that other dimension.

"The music of the spheres," I muttered and young Colin touched his nose and smiled brilliantly. "I will definitely keep everything we have discussed tonight in my approach and if any of you require my help just holler."

I ended the call and sat there in the darkened room. Of course it would take a musician to hear what everyone else had taken for granted. We were on the edge of something wonderful here. In a few decades we could have bases all over our solar system. I wanted to set foot on Mars. The General wasn't the only young boy that had grown up staring up at the stars. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. If all went well we could have so many of Nick's projects in orbit and beyond. I walked around the base and found myself looking out over the incomplete ring from the control room. Its twin, Project Monocle, was a little further along and once they were complete we could put the 'Spydron' up there and let it clean up all the space junk that has been left to fly around until its orbit decayed and fell to the earth. We had set up a contest with school kids to name the robot. I smiled when I remembered some of the crazy names that the third graders had come up. There had been the gobbler, spider bot, space spider, star spinner, and of course spydron. Dozens of Numenor employees were sent out to the schools to speak with the students and ask for their ideas. The girl that came up with spydron was from a small school in the Great Lakes region. Her dad was a firefighter and her mom was an amateur inventor. I suspect her mother had been the one to name the satellite eater.

"Spydron," I said and chuckled. "Yeah, it sounds like a monster that would lurk in deep space weaving its web and capturing a world's satellite network."

"What the hell is a spydron," the General asked walking up suddenly behind me.

"Oh, I didn't hear you," I said turning to face the older man. "It is one of Nick's projects. It is a satellite that will be sent via Ares once it's completed. It looks like a spider with six arms that snare space junk. It then spins a cocoon of monofilament metamaterial. It then injects nanobots into the satellite's structure. The nanites break the satellite into its base components. The spydron drags the cocoon to the international space station where they can repurpose the metallic pellets for experiments or 3d printing of needed materials. It serves two purposes. One we clean up all that crap orbiting our planet. Two it provides needed material to the station at a cost that beats the hell out of sending it from the ground."

"Your boss really is a genius. Where do his ideas come from?"

"Actually, it was his sister that came up with the concept for spydron. I guess it runs in the family. Do you have any ideas General?"

"Ideas no, but I just found out something very alarming. I am the head of this entire base and yet..."

"And yet there are parts of this facility you don't have security clearance for. Nick thought you might find out. Let me show you."

The General grumbled under his breath as he followed me. I led the way to a portion of the base that was currently inactive. I laid my hand on the hidden wall panel and the hidden door opened revealing the elevator beyond. We took the elevator down to one of the many sublevels. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. The General gasped when he saw the intense activity going on below his feet. I gave him the guided tour of the robot production line. His eyes were as wide as saucers as he looked out at the machines building machines.

"What the hell are those things?" He asked and I smiled as I told him.

"These are going to be the security force for the Blink stations."

"Are those skeletons they are making?"

"Yep, the material is half as light as bone and ten times sturdier." I said as we walked along the different stations. He looked like a kid at a candy store. He asked question after question.

"That looks like muscle... did Nick discover some kind of artificial muscle material?"

"It serves the same purpose as muscles. It takes machine precision to attach the muscle successfully. The material was purchased by Nick years back. I guess you could call him a bit of a visionary. When an electric current is applied to the material it constricts acting just like muscle tissue. The inventor was paid handsomely for his discovery. Would you like to meet Ares General?"

"Hell yes," the older man said grinning.

I took him to another section of this level. We had to put on clean suits before entering the chamber that held a sleeping giant. Ares had been completed two weeks earlier. I activated the device that would bring Ares up from his hiding place in the floor. The metallic cylinder was eleven feet tall. One portion of the cylinder's wall was transparent giving the General a clear view of the robot. It reminded me of elegant power armor from a Japanese anime. It was a composition of elegant curves possessing more of an organic design than the typical blocky robots you see in movies and television. Once the A.I. was chosen Ares would be ready for Mars. All we had to do was make that happen. We needed to solve the modular problem so that we could colonize our solar system. Ares would be Nick's Neil Armstrong. It would be the first humanoid to set foot on Mars.

"Make it happen Greg," the General said in a low soft voice. "I want to set foot on Mars."

"Me too General," I replied. "I want to throw a football into orbit."

"That would be fucking epic," he said grinning. "I know you can do it. You and your team are the best. I should know I talked to the gents at NASA. They want in but Nick has managed to keep them out of his sandbox. I don't blame him. They can be overbearing."

We continued on our tour and I heard the General's intake of breath. I knew the weapons development lab would make him smile. There were a handful of technicians still up and working at this hour. That was one of the benefits of working for Nick. If you were a night owl great but if you rose with the sun that was cool too. I showed him the latest and greatest in gauss technology. I picked up the second generation sniper rifle and noticed that one of them was missing.

"Damn it," I cursed. "I guess he really did send it off with his niece."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, Terry hinted he might field test the new gauss sniper rifle. His niece is off on an archaeological dig and sent it along just in case."

"You can never have too little firepower. Ooh, what is that?" He said reaching for the gleaming long sword.

"That is Mike's little contribution to our little arsenal. Hey Mike want to give the General a little demonstration on your officer's saber?"

"Sure boss," the lanky technician said getting to his feet. He took the sword from the General and unsheathed it. "At first glance you might just think this is just an elaborate futuristic looking sword but you'd be wrong. Follow me to the testing side of things."

We followed Mike as he stalked over to the octagon. It was an eight sided room shielded with thick bullet proof glass and armored walls and flooring. Mike touched a control panel and a practice dummy rose from the floor. The young man took a combat stance and a soft whining sound filled the air. He lunged forward and sliced the dummy in half though its midsection. The General took the sword as a second mannequin rose from the floor. He took a two handed grip and the whine arose once more. The General brought the weapon over his head and split the dummy from skull to groin in one smooth strike. He stared at the dummy and then at the sword. Mike took the weapon and showed the soldier the 'business end' of the sword.

"Take a close look but don't touch the cutting edge of the sword. Those are monofilament teeth that move at a thousand RPM. The other guys call it a chain sword. It combines the razor sharp edge of diamond hard metamaterial with micro servers that move the loop of the chain. It could cut through an Abram's armor with little difficulty. Imagine what it would do to ground troops. The problem is cost right now. This prototype cost a hundred grand to build."

"I want one of those," the General cried. "That is one helluva an officer's weapon."

"Anything else the General might want to see?" I asked and Mike just smiled.

"Zoe has developed gauss resistant armor," he said.

"No fucking way," I gasped. "I knew she was close but I never thought she'd crack it so soon."

"Who is Zoe," the General asked.

"Our little prodigy," Mike said. "She is technically an apprentice. She is only eighteen after all. But well let's let her work speak for itself. Hey... Zoe... are you up?"