Dale Brown - Act of War

“Okay. Okay…” He took a deep breath and found it exceedingly hard to get a full lungful of air. I better do it, he thought, or I might puke in here. “CID Two, lock me in.”

It was silent for what seemed like a long time—then, suddenly he heard a whirring sound, and the hatch closed behind him, pressing his body deeply into the padding. Now it was really difficult to breathe. Moore subconsciously tried to raise himself up, but he was squished in tight. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear…He realized with a roar in his ears and tightness in his chest that he was suffocating! Suffocating! This is what it felt like! Holy shit, he screamed to himself, I’ve got to get out of here! How do I get out? Ari never told me how to get out! What if I’m dying? What if there’s a malfunction and they can’t tell I’m smothering in here! What do I…?

“Relax, Doug,” he heard Ari say. “Don’t get up too quickly. Relax.”

Cool air rushed into his lungs. He felt his body weight on his left leg—not uncomfortable or heavy, but it felt weird after feeling so weightless for what seemed like a long time—and found he was able to straighten his legs and lower his arms with ease. He could see just fine—maybe a bit of distortion, like looking through a window with a bit of glare on it, but not bad. He saw symbology floating across his vision, popping up here and there, like a stock market ticker that appeared and reappeared almost randomly. He brought his hands up to his face…

…and saw the biggest, meanest clawlike fingers he had ever seen. It was the robot’s fingers, not his! He flexed his fingers and saw the robot’s fingers flex the same way…but they were his fingers he was moving, not the robot’s…but the robot’s fingers were moving, he was watching them move…!

“How do you feel, Doug?” Ari asked, stepping in front of his field of view. “Be careful touching your visor or sensors with your fingers or trying to rub your eyes—your fingers will go right through those sensors.”

“What’s happening?” he asked. “I mean, I feel okay, but I feel weird. Am I still in the robot? I remember I was panicking a little, and I wanted to get out.”

“Un…believable,” he heard Kelsey DeLaine gasp. She stepped in front of him, a look of absolute wonderment on her face. It reminded Moore of how passersby looked at auto accidents or criminals getting arrested. “How do you feel, Sergeant?”

“I feel just fine, ma’am,” Moore said. She reached out a hand to him, and he reached out…except it was the robot’s massive hand that touched hers. He dared not close his fingers over hers. “I…I can feel you, Miss DeLaine. It feels like I’m touching you…but I’m not, am I? It’s the robot touching you, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is, Sergeant,” Kelsey murmured. She backed away. “Try moving around a little.” He raised his arms over his head and did a deep-knee bend, and he saw the FBI special agent’s eyes grow wide in absolute amazement. “You…you look like…like you, like a real person moving, but it’s this huge robot moving around!”

“I feel perfectly normal, ma’am,” Moore said. He stood up quickly. There was a very slight but noticeable pause in his body reaction from when he thought about moving and when he actually moved, but he was completely free and unhindered. “I feel a little slow, like I’ve had a couple beers and I’m just starting to get a buzz, but I feel perfectly normal otherwise.”

“Good to hear it, Sergeant,” Jason Richter said. “The fabric inside the CIDs is actually an electroconductive material attached to thousands of fiber-optic sensors over your entire body. They collect muscle and skeletal movement, combine the inputs into a computer, analyze them a few hundred thousand times per second, and translate the data into microhydraulic motion commands in the exoskeleton.”

Moore looked around and saw the second CID unit also experimentally moving around, looking at its hands and feet in surprise—and yes, Doug could tell that the robot was “surprised” by its body language. He stepped forward…and suddenly his left foot banged against his right leg, and he tripped and stumbled forward. Kelsey DeLaine scrambled out of the way in sheer terror. “Are you okay, Sergeant?” she asked.

“I feel like I don’t know where my feet are,” he responded.

“The computer will put in a kinesthetic compensation between how much your limbs move and how much they need to move,” Ari said. “You have to move around a little more so the computer can make the corrections.”

Moore stepped around carefully, flexing his arms and taking bigger and bigger steps. “I think it’s working,” he said, but at that moment a foot hit his leg again. “I still feel pretty clumsy in this thing.”

“Don’t pretend you’re the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz or a robot from one of those old-fashioned sci-fi movies,” Ari said. “The key is to walk like a human being and let the system correct your movements. Don’t fight it—eventually you two will start working together instead of against one another.”

Moore didn’t—couldn’t—move. It was as if he could feel every little hydraulic actuator moving, exactly opposite his own movements. It was decidedly uncomfortable, like swimming against a riptide, realizing you were being carried out to sea. “I think I’m done with the demo,” he said nervously. “This is not for me.”

Ari stepped toward Moore so only he could hear. “The secret, Doug, is not to think in terms of a normal human body,” she said. “We’ve matched it so well that you might think you’re simply you—maybe even a step or two slower. That’s not the case. CID has capabilities that far exceed a normal human being. You may not feel you do because we’ve designed it to make carrying around a robot on your back virtually effortless. But you’re not human anymore—you’re a CID, a Cybernetic Infantry Device. You’re not Doug Moore—you’re Superman. Remember that.” Heartened, Moore started to pace around the hangar a bit, eventually working up to short, gentle hops and even a quick set of jumping jacks.

“The exercise is simple, gents,” Jason said. “This is a race.” He pointed to the far end of the parking area in front of the hangars, about a hundred and fifty meters away. “You will both start over there. First person to make it to the northwest access gate on the other side of the range area wins. It’s less than two kilometers, on the other side of the hangars, across the road, past the service buildings and the shooting range—shouldn’t take too long. Let’s do it.”

Moore thought this was all a little silly, but he followed Bolton across the parking lot. There was an expanse of sandy earth on either side of the access ramp, followed by the parking ramp and hangar complex. There was a gap behind the hangar to the left and a much larger vacant area to the right—there was plenty of room to run. Beyond the hangars was the main street, followed by more buildings spaced fairly widely apart. Moore knew this area well and would have preferred the left side because it was a shorter distance to the northwest access gate, but he’d be fine going to the right. Besides, this was stupid. So what if he lost this race? He wouldn’t be…

“Go!” Richter shouted.

Bolton took off like a sprinter, and Moore couldn’t believe how fast he was moving—in a flash he was at the parking ramp, effortlessly racing around the perpendicular hangar. He seemed to get the hang of the cyborg just fine. For some reason, Moore was afraid to run for fear of banging or tripping on his robotic legs.

“Remember what I told you, Doug!” Ari shouted. “Go! Catch him!”

Moore started to jog after Bolton, who was already starting to disappear around the south hangar—but instead, he stopped, looked around, then actually took several large steps backward toward the taxiway.