John Ringo: Von Neumann’s War

“Welcome, welcome,” the officer said, returning the salute lazily. “I’m Captain Sparling, as you can see from that plaque on my overloaded desk. Welcome to Chaos Central. I’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival, Major. Nay, I can only say how ecstatic I am to see you. Do you like traveling commercial?”

“I can hang, sir,” Gries said, trying not to shake his head at the greeting. He’d expected the usual “you’ve joined the best outfit in the division” speech. Or fleet, he supposed, given that his new boss was Navy. Not “I’m ecstatic to see you.” That had a note of… foreboding.

“I’ll give you the quickest run-down in history, Major,” the captain said, spinning his computer chair back and forth. Sparling was a short, frankly rotund, officer, which was very unusual to find in the modern military, wearing rather rumpled undress blues. He was balding and entirely unprepossessing, but Shane realized after just a moment that he had about the sharpest eyes the major had ever seen. He gave an impression of casual unconcern, but Shane could tell that there was a mind behind those eyes going a mile a minute.

“The mission of this bureau is simple in concept,” Sparling said, smiling broadly. “So simple I’m sure you can keep up, even if I use words of more than two syllables. We’re here to look at projects that have reached the preacquisition stage and determine if they have ‘real world’ flaws. There are two sides to that, Major. The first is that we definitely don’t want anything going out to the forces that is not enhancing to their mission. The second is equally important. The U.S. is a world master in combat because we have good training and we have the best damned technology in the world. Each new system that is an enhancement spreads the gap between us and the rest of the world. You ever gotten something new and gone ‘Crap, I wish I had this last week when it would have helped’, Major?”

Shane thought about the squad tac-net that they’d gotten just before deploying. It had taken about a week for the troops to really understand it and after that they’d used it to communicate in ways that hadn’t been possible days before. He knew guys had been saved by that deceptively simple system; it was far more than just a radio. Then there were some of the new field medical items, like the blood clotter that was made from shrimp shells, that had saved more lives. But he just nodded, continuing to look the officer in the eye calmly.

“You have no idea how many great ideas the Beltway Bandits think up,” Sparling continued, grinning widely. “There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of febrile, bright young minds scattered all over the United States and the world, trying to come up with the ‘killer app’ for the United States military. Which, next to mass market items, is the largest single market in the world. One item that really catches on and gets wide deployment can make or break a company and certainly those bright young men, and women. If the product gets picked up, they get bonuses and a nice house in the Caymans. If it tanks, they get ‘downsized’ and have to go into academia where they don’t get the house in the Caymans. With me still, Major?”

“Yes, sir,” Shane said, smiling thinly. “You can feel free to use words of up to three syllables or even more; I haven’t had my mandatory field grade lobotomy yet.” He paused as he said that, realizing it might be a slur on his new boss. But it was way too late to take anything back.

Sparling really grinned at that and shook his head.

“You have no idea,” was the captain’s reply. “The point is that these bright young men, and women — some of the women quite good looking, by the way — will be trying very hard to ‘sell’ you on some wizmo, our in-house word for wiz-bang gizmo. Your job will be to see if the item has any practical value. You will examine the item carefully, gather all the information you feel appropriate, then fill out a voluminous report, including in it all your experience as an infantry officer with two wars under your belt and a masters in literature with your thesis being on near-future potential technologies to be found in science fiction classics.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Shane said bitterly.

“That is why you are here instead of at CGSC,” Sparling said, smiling broadly. “Because your predecessor was very very good at finding things that, in his experienced opinion, would never work. So good he turned in not one positive recommendation in three months. And those three months covered over six hundred systems or technologies.”

“That’s…” Shane said, thinking about it.

“And that’s the other reason I’m glad you’re here,” Sparling said, reading his mind. “You’re going to the Lockheed Martin facility in Denver on the next plane out. Before you leave see Captain Grantworth, who is our administrative officer. She’ll give you your homework. Which, since your predecessor left three weeks ago, is over sixty systems or technologies. Some of them you’re going to have to decide upon on the basis of the written or submitted PowerPoint presentations. About fourteen are going to require you to go look for yourself. Ten of those are here in the D.C. area, the other four are at other facilities. That’s your workload for this week.”

“Yes, sir,” Gries said, straightening up. What the captain had just told him was that Shane would be working eighteen-hour days for the foreseeable future.

“Of course,” Sparling said, grinning happily, “at the end of all that work, in the event of a negative recommendation you’ll often find that some congressman disagrees with you and will insert a supplementary appropriation, bypassing our recommendation as if it didn’t exist. Because you are, after all, just a dumb grunt and what do you know? Or it may be that you are just one voter and the wizmo will employ thousands of voters in that congressman’s district.”

“Got it, sir,” Shane said, smiling thinly.

“You’ll notice I have not used words like ‘synergize’ or ‘transformational,’ ” Sparling said, suddenly serious. “What you are going to see over the next six to eighteen months, though, depending upon whether we can get a filler while you go to CGSC, is going to be just that. Stuff that can transform the face of the U.S. military and even the world. And it’s going to be your job to find that one nugget of gold in the crap that might just save your life some day. Have fun in Colorado.”

Caller: … and you see Ret, that is why you’ll never see the bodies from Roswell.

Ret Ball: I see. That is very informative Andrea. Next caller is… hey hey… it’s our old friend Megiddo from underground. Go ahead, Megiddo, you are on the Truth Nationwide.

Caller: Hello, Ret, and greetings.

Ret Ball: It’s good to hear from you old friend. I hesitate, of course, to ask where you are and what you are doing.

Caller: Right, and I thank you for that. I am lying low at the moment. My former employers have had enough of me and I them. But they have sent their lackeys from the CIA and the NSA to search for me, saying that the knowledge in my head is a danger to national security. Hah! They shall search in vain!

Ret Ball: Ha ha! What can we do for you tonight, Megiddo?

Caller: I just wanted to let you know that the situation with Mars has gotten worse.

Ret Ball: Ah yes! Mars. For some of our listeners out there that are just tuning in, you need to realize that the color of Mars is changing. I myself have seen this with my own telescope. Our friend Megiddo here, has enlightened us on this subject.