Hi, Frank. I was glad to hear from you again. M.I.C.A.I.N. here. Your friendly Mobile Independently Cognate Artificially Intelligent Nano-factory. It's always nice to hear from old buddies. Most of the time people can't tell if they are corresponding with a true A.I, or one of those expert system jobs. Soon as they glom onto the fact they are on chat with a machine intelligence, they drop off. The city is still buzzing about the storm of Industrial Tech theft, forty break-ins and cyber-intrusions last week alone. Artificial Intelligence is of course suspect, for some reason. So unfair.
Well, things have progressed a little since last we chatted. Business is getting better at Special Dimensions Agency, the commission I got from that last job added enough to my savings to let me do a little upgrading on my own. I downloaded the basic engineering plan set from Rackham Industrial Waldo Inc. Legal? Dunno-–didn't check. I did a little re-work on a Manikin type general manipulator plan, and submitted it back for a build.
Zoom eh? Went right over you head. Sorry. Waldos are mechanical manipulators that can mimic what people do with their hands, feet, and such. Usually remotely. The one I ordered was a Bi-symmetrical, six foot mobile Manipulator. Think robot here, but with no brain (well, to speak of). Walks like a man, made human-form to sub-in for tasks normally needing a man; but too dangerous for biological folk. Figured it would come in handy for getting around on my own for some jobs. Sally, my trainer, had to OK the release of funds for it, since she holds my accounts in trust.
Bit of a problem there. I added requirements like a Synth-skin coating from a manikin supplier (Dansk Clothing Display Corp, More real than real! ) and eh, designed up some additions you wouldn't see on a Ken doll, if you get my drift. Sally got all bent out of shape about it.
"What the hell do you think your going to do with that ?" She says.
I tried to tell her it was an engineering experiment, but she pointed out the extra appendage was just a stock part ordered from a medical prophylactic supplier, and that it cost 7,000 bucks, and I should get my damn head out of the gutter and stick to business.
I got the synth-skin job past her though. There's times when something that doesn't look like a machine could come in handy, and occasionally, size matters, so to speak. You'll remember that I'm only 12 angstroms long from my controller car to my last assembly car; kind of like a microscopic train built on nano tubes linked to a string resonance AI. I even have an independent manipulator module I can uncouple and run separately to do my step-and-fetch-it work.
Special Dimensions takes on high-tech micro engineering problems, according to their business prospectus, so most jobs need a micro-sized operator; me, for instance. Actually, we go after any buck we think we can handle, just like anyone else.
So anyway, the assembly finally arrived. The delivery men were ushered in by Paul, my technical liaison (read Monkey-boy, chauffeur, portable derrick, Go-fer, etc.).
My lumpy, dumpy and stumpy assistant looked worried. Odd that. Kind of like seeing wrinkles on a cue ball.
"Mic's package is here, Miss Holt."
Paul always calls Sally "Miss Holt." He also must think we are blind. It was kind of hard not to pick up on the seven by three foot crate being dollied into a front office only about three times that to begin with. But that's Paul for you--kind of like an elephant trained to bring in the newspaper off the porch. Obvious.
"Gee, I ain't gonna lose my job to this am I?"
I fired up the speaker circuit attached to Sally's desk intercom.
It's only for special jobs, Paul. Costs money to run. You are much more bio-friendly, since you run on baloney sandwiches and all. Don't worry about it.
Sally glanced at my petri-dish next to her desk. She can't really see me, but she knows I'm in there somewhere. "Shut-up, Mic." Then to Paul, "It's just something Mic decided to blow his savings on, Paul. I agreed to it because it will give him a little more practice handling servos. I don't expect it to have much use as far a our business is concerned."
Paul looked relieved. "OK Miss Holt. Want me to open it up?"
Sally fingered her brown hair and gestured at the crate. "Oh, might as well get it over with. Let's see what Mic's done this time."
I kept my yap shut, since things were going my way, and just video-streamed Paul as he pried open the case with a packing bar, and pulled away the excelsior.
A thing of beauty. Paul stood and ogled it.
"Kinda looks like Miss Holt, only bald, and um, flat in front."
Sally's face turned red. I tried to correct the chroma of the bit stream for it, but I guess it wasn't a reception problem.
"What the hell, Mic!"
Hey, I got to go with what I know. Fish around in the packing material. There should be a wig in there someplace...
There was. A crew cut affair. Paul put it on the Waldo, and it looked more like, dunno, Sally's brother or something. The checkered shirt from the hunter's catalog helped.
"Well, walk it out of the crate so Paul can clean up the mess."
I turned on my I/O port and set the frequency band for it.
Push the switch behind its left ear, I announced, using the desk's intercom.
Activated, I engaged the walking circuit and stumbled it forward three feet, where it knocked up against Sally's desk.
"Clumsy," she noted.
I fired up the desk speaker again. The fine motor interface is all gel-ware. I have to be injected into the operator zone in its head to work it right. The remote stuff is all gross motor function and A/V links. I had to cut a few corners to fit the Waldo into my budget. 'Course, if the company would like to contribute-
"Contribute money to your kinky obsessions? I think not."
Genius is never appreciated in its own time.
"Park it in the corner, where I can see it. I'll inject you into it later. We have a client appointment in a few minutes."
This is good news, as client equals another favorite word of mine, money! A magic word, specially since the gizmo had depleted my savings. I turned the Waldo remotely and funny-walked it around into the corner.
Sally checked her watch, then on impulse, pulled out the injector and waved it over me while I idled around in my petri-dish.
"On second thought, look, why don't you get aboard your new toy and do a checkout while I talk to the client?" says Sally.
Okay by me.
Sally loaded me into the injector, for transfer inside via the plastic seal port on the backside of the Waldo's head. A few Terra-bits per second later I was in pig heaven, busily re-routing around the few inevitable glitches in the neural net and validating command circuits.
One of the first things to boot up were the audio inputs (Stereo, both ears, with source location), so I heard the door open and got the eyes working just in time to see our new clients enter the office.
"You'se must be Sally. I'm Ketch Nielsen an' this here's Bob Travers."
Bob and Ketch. Sounded like a team sport. But if there was money in it, I was all ears. Sally's business smile lit up like a neon sign, and she rose, leaned over the desk and shook – it was at the end of Ketch's arm, so it must have been his hand.
Both of them were short and husky, wearing the shiniest black shoes I've ever seen.
"How can Industrial Dimensions help you today?"
"We got us some industrial sabotage problems," Ketch slitted his eyes and leaned forward, "down at the east side docks."
I linked to Sally's monitor screen and texted, I'm not blowing up or stealing anything without a percentage, especially now.
Sally glanced at my note then casually prodded the monitor button off, all the time nodding at Ketch.
"Why don't you detail the problem for me, tell me how you feel we can help."
Ketch looked at Bob, then they both looked at the Waldo.
"Who's she-he uh, that?"
"Oh," Sally waived dismissively. "that's just-"
By this time I was fully linked up, so I smoothly strode the Waldo forward and extended my paw.
"Rambo Savage. I'll be your dockside agent on this caper." Sally frowned as Ketch gripped my hand.
"Hand's a little cold, Mr Savage." He looked at the Waldo oddly.
"Bad circulation. You were saying?"
"We run a small marine shop. Been working on a new kind of radar. See, most radar either at best skims the surface, or in the case of marine sonar systems, picks up nearby underwater objects. Fish and stuff, by analyzing the reflections."
Bob piped in at this point.
"We found a way to send out a signal that tests the surface tensions of the water. Kinda like those old time spy lasers that picked up voices inside rooms by analyzing the vibrations of the window-glass. By Fiddling with filtering algorithms we can display projections that show what's under the water, and on top of it, all at once. 'Cause everything affects every other thing, see? Some surface changes come from currents, some from things ridin' on it, some from stuff beneath, even way down."
"Make us a pile, someday," continued Ketch. "Anyhow, we had a break-in last week."
Sally looked unsure. "The police..."
Ketch shook his head. "Naw, cops are already on that. Nuthun to do wi' why we're here, ma'am. We were doin' sea trials this week, and suddenly the displays are goin' patchy-like."
"Worked fine last week," grumbled Bob
"Yeah, so, we've checked our rig, an' can't find any reason for it. But the components are mostly stock--we ain't really circuit gurus."
Bob grunted. "So we were think'n maybe you guys could check the nano-circuits an find out what the hell's gone south."
"Gotta be somethin' with the circuits," Ketch agreed.
Bob nodded. "So can you help us?"
Sally looked delighted. "Why, this kind of thing is right up Mr. Savage's alley, isn't that right, Rambo?"
I growled. Money is money, even if it's not exciting money. I nodded the Waldo's head.
"How many modules are there to check, Mr Ketch?"
"About forty-six. Ten of 'em gel-ware."
Sally flipped the monitor back on, and did some fast calculations.
"We can run through the modules for you in just a couple of days. - cost you about 6000 credits though. Still interested?"
Bob and Ketch traded looks, then our Mr. Ketch seemed to come to a decision.
"It'll be worth it. Better than replacing and retesting the thing a couple hundred times with this or that exchanged out. Sign us up."
Sally turned to me, batting her brown eyes. "Perhaps Mic, er, Mr. Savage would like to get Paul and have him ready the field kit. We will have a Nano AI injected into your test bed to run a full diagnostic of the modules. Mr. Savage will be available to you if needed, I'm sure."
I stomped the Waldo into the back room and got Paul. He smirked, loaded me up into the transfer syringe, and pumped me into the transport kit. The weasel had likely been listening at the door the whole time. That's fine. What goes around comes around. As soon as I got hooked up, I fired up the transport's speaker.
"Pull the panel truck around. We're going to take the Waldo, just in case."
"Huh?"
"Took the words right out of my mouth, Paul. The Waldo. Get the trundle and load it into the truck. I'd walk it in, but I'm boxed up right now. It only weighs a few hundred pounds, good exercise."
Paul's shoulders slumped. "OK Mic."
Ah, the glum look of payback; applied.
The ride to the docks gave me time to download the specs on the list of modules K&B supplied. Nothing too custom. Their application, the mechanical parts and software might be hot stuff, but the electronic hardware was fairly pedestrian. I felt a twinge of guilt about making Paul load the Waldo. This didn't look like it was going to be a walk-about kind of assignment. I hadn't bothered to turn my external video on for the ride, just one less data stream to monitor while I went over the specs. A screech of brakes and the cough of Paul's motor palsying to a stop was my first indication that we had arrived. I accessed my Geo Positioning Link at that point to get an idea of where we were.
I left the video link off, since Paul likes to swing the carrier around when he walks. Like I was his lunch-pail or something. From my vantage point dangling at the end of his arm, this is visually a little like being caught in a violent storm at sea, and the data stream usually isn't worth the effort to process. People terms like "sea-sick" or "I'm gonna vomit" have some analog here.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Once the thump of the case on a solid surface happened, I switched the case's camera on. K&B were doing a hands-in-pockets dance, shuffling around the ambivalently lit shop nodding at this and that, reminiscing about old jobs, and pointing out important piles of junk with their elbows. I clicked on Paul's ear piece.
See if you can't get them to show you the damn thing. The sooner we start work, the less it'll cost these guys. Remind 'em that the meter's running.
Paul's hand flew to his ear and his mouth started working like the less intellectual half of a puppet act. Then he nodded, and refocused on Bob and Ketch.
"Um, is the stuff you want looked at in here?"
Bob caught on first and interrupted his partner.
"It's in the project room, back here."
With that, they both turned and headed further into the warren of a shop. I left the video on and bore up as a kaleidoscope of views whooshed around me. Ceilings, floors, gum-speckled undersides of greasy workbenches, Paul's unshined shoes, more ceiling.
Suddenly it was like walking off an accident site and into a hospital surgery. We entered a room twelve feet square painted flawlessly white, and shadowless. A large work table dominated the room, a three foot long case centered on it. A little more whooshing as Paul set my travel case down next to it, then it was off to work.
Bob, evidently the marine engineer of the pair, got busy with a screwdriver and removed a service panel from the topside of the thing's casement, jabbering right through it all.
"I've got recordings of the last two sea trials - playback of the through-puts. You can get some idea of how it's supposed to work from that, so's to give ya a picture of what's changed. I can't rerun the trial on the bench, of course, but you should be able to trace the circuit echo, and evaluate it yerself."
Paul wasn't paying too much attention just then, being busy fumbling with my loader. He was watching for the green light that told him I was in the load zone, which I was. It lit, and he thumbed the syringe on, drawing me into the transfer needle. That's OK, though. I would rather have him worried about my personal safety than winning points with the paying customers. Whether this was really out of personal concern, or just because he was unable to multi-task, it worked in my favor either way.
Paul looked as if he was missing something when he finished up.
"Huh?, "he elocuted.
Bob repeated himself without missing a beat. Apparently Paul and Bob lived in the same world at some sub-level. Paul put his hand to his ear (unnecessary) to repeat Bob's commentary. I beat him to the punch.
It's OK Paul, I got it the first time. Just nod and off-load me into the machine. Put me at pin 27 of the master processing unit chip. According to the specs it should be just under the hatch he opened.
Paul managed this, mumbling and nodding to himself; behavior Bob viewed blandly and without comment. Maybe they belonged to the same gene-pool, or club, or something.
I decoupled my independent survey module, and had it run out tap lines to all the important data pins and plugged in to the MPU ground at pin 27. The stuff around me was huge scale architecture, typical of experimental circuitry. Filthy too. There were dirt and rosin blobs everywhere bigger than me. Probably looked a clean build to Bob's eye.
Tell Bob to let 'er rip. I'm all set here.
"OK Mic."
The playback was impressive, Three-Dee hulls glided over a wire frame surface map. Underneath that, fishy looking blobs piloted here and there, below that, a fairly consistent basin plot. The image let you move through it from any perspective, zoom in on stuff, measure distances and speeds. You could filter for ocean current directions, ice, all that. No color though. Impressive that even this much detail could be garnered from laser mapping and filtering sea surface tensions. I bet their data gathering array was really something. The range was apparently two miles, so the integrated picture would be useful to trawlers, or larger commercial fishing and passenger craft.
Bob's voice drifted in over Paul's pick-up.
"I am going to send the record of the second trial through now."
I sampled everything I could while this went on. Filters had kicked in, relating the data to sample libraries, generating the image segments for graphic display. I checked one of the libraries.
To give you some idea, it held snips of tension patterns made by eight thousand hull designs sloughing through calm water at different speeds. Don't be too impressed. These firmware databases aren't unusual, or even hard to come by. Nano-ROM (Read Only Memory) chips the size of dust motes can contain tens of terabytes of such data.
One thing about people, make 'em a camera, and they go right out and take pictures of every damn thing. Give 'em a sound recorder and you end up with millions of recordings of trains going over bridges, thunder-strikes, all that. Provide 'em with Nano-Rom Library chips, well, you get the idea. Something about your kind, simian ancestry, hobbies and people's inveterate need to fiddle, I think.
The test went smoothly, and the final image output was the same as from the first recording, except for a big blotted out area on the displayed test site map, on the sea bed north of the testing locus. I back-checked the circuits. No problem there. The hardware had done what it should have. I send pulses out to the library ROMS. One came back a little delayed, a billionth of a second slower than its brethren, but still responsive. I disconnected and went over the schematics again.
It would take me twenty minutes to make it over to the ROM bank, but better that than going through the whole process of having Paul try to re-site me by syringe.
I'm going to need some time, Paul. Why don't you take Tweedledee and company out for lunch, or something. Find out where the best fishing is around here . Have them leave the power on.
Paul bobbed his head to this, which really must have started worrying the clients by now, since they couldn't hear me through his bone-conducting ear piece. Besides which I need him out of the non-verbal habit, since he is not always under the surveillance of my optic sensors.
Better make it clear to these two, you're in communication with an active AI, not just a drone, before they call in the guys in white coats to tote you off, Paul.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks Mic, I'll do that. Forgot."
Go and do.
He did. I didn't register any change in the clients' expressions, though they did seem more relaxed as they left.
The library ROMs looked OK, except the one with the delayed signal I had noticed before. The solder join to the board wasn't as smooth. Usually that indicates the component had been reworked, but that sometimes happens. Surface mount elements are usually glued in place, then the whole board floated in a solder bath to seal them down. Occasionally an element might float off, or become unglued before the solder bath does its magic, and then the part has to be soldered on by hand, well by bot, at this scale. This gives a different joint, which shows up as a slightly different response strength to the signal. I almost didn't bother to check the contents of the ROM, but it had taken a half hour to steam my way here on abused Bucky-ball tires, so what the hell.
It was a structural shape library. There were squares and triangles, hexagons, rhomboids, sine curve signatures, tubes of all kinds, all matched to the surface echoes they would make under different conditions.
Seemed to fit in with the other pattern libraries, but there were some obvious shapes missing. There were no Fuller dome shapes or octagons. This seemed a rather odd omission, though they might be located on some other chip. I checked the entire bank, but nope. Buckminster Fuller would have been incensed. Possibly Ketch and Bob hadn't added these forms yet, but that seemed unlikely. These chips were burn once only, and I had got the idea that Bob wasn't the man to go piloting a repair nano around circuit boards replacing microscopic chips. In fact he had said as much when he hired us. They were likely pretty careful about completing and testing their libraries before permanently uploading them into these chips. I activated a network link and spent another half hour updating my memory on Fuller forms usage. Then I considered the black blot on the scan again.
Paul had returned from his long lunch with the clients by the time I had trudged back to the pick-up site.
"Mic! Mic! You still there?"
Where else would I be, Paul? Enjoy your lunch?
"Oh sure, Mic. There's this great little seafood..."
Super. Shovel me out of here.
I was soon back in my case, clients looking on expectantly at a discomfited Paul. Not being the sadistic type, and Paul not the inquisitive sort, I held a quick one sided chat with my dumpy assistant.
Paul breathed out the need to converse with "Mr. Savage," and we went out to the truck. After that, I sent him trudging off, twisting a shoreline map under his nose, to fetch the local harbor master.
Soon I was stepping proudly through the door in my new gizmo, doling out cold, though dry, handshakes with the clients, a lip-retracted fascia exposing my fine new plastic teeth.
Mr.Ketch looked nonplussed when I entered, and said, "That was fast. Paul just left to get you."
"Special Dimensions Agency offers its clients only the fastest service possible," I crowed. "Besides I have been here all along analyzing your problem - I was in the panel truck." Both statements were true, and I didn't see the need to go into detail about the Waldo just now.
"So, what d'ya got for us so far, Mr. Savage?"
"There is some evidence of tampering with your database ROMs, but we have seen no circuit malfunctions as yet."
I applied my most grim facial expression.
"In order to be sure, I need to see the original library files you downloaded. Specifically for one particular library ROM. Can show me your loading index?"
Not surprisingly, the original file did include Fuller's very useful constructs. My faith in mankind fully restored, I had them replace the Chip and reload the original libraries.
"I knew it was somethin'. Worked fine last week," grumbled Bob.
"Had ta be somethin' with the circuits," Ketch agreed.
Interrupting, I asked, "Any word back from the cops on your break in?"
Ketch puckered his lips and shook his head. "Naw. They says they are all backed up with similar cases. Technical blueprints stolen and engineering records bein' broke into all over the city. Raids up and down all the coastal cities, too. Not just here."
"Your whiz-bang marine system needs specific object templates to display anything it sees?"
Ketch shuffled a bit, looking uncomfortable. "Well, it's not radar or sonar. Direct object reflections aren't being returned, just water surface tension and disturbance data. It's the pickup system sensor design that's the real proprietary part of the rig. The box is just a cause and effect engine, really. Without a quarter million smart filters an' templates to go by, there's not much to display. But this is just the prototype. Once we prove it works we was going to the university an' see if some kinda math algorithm could putty in the cracks, so to speak."
"So right now, it can only show things it knows."
"Hey, "Bob blurted hotly, "She's ninety six percent accurate in the indoor tank trials!"
"On known objects and forms from your libraries."
"Prototype." Mumbled Bob.
"That's fine, Bob, I'm not criticizing your gizmo. Just investigating the possibilities. How far apart were your two sea trials?"
Ketch shrugged. "About four days."
"Done any trials since?"
"Not in the bay. Have ta' go back 'an do a sonar sweep ta' make sure the area hasn't changed since the last test. Don't do no good to make a test unless you know pretty much what it should be seeing."
This smacked of 'Paul-itis' to me. "Can we do both at the same time?"
"Sure, I guess. I can compare 'em afterward."
I swung the Waldo's arm up in a dramatic gesture. "Then it's off to the tall ships for us, matey! Remount your amazing whatsit, and we're away!"
We were met by the harbor patrol at the dock. I stepped jauntily forward and shook hands with the captain, who identified himself as Wescott. Ketch and Bob struggled along after, toting the cumbersome detector aboard their sloop. Captain Wescott wasted few words, getting right to the point.
"We were told something about smugglers possibly operating out of the south shore area?"
"That's right," I said. "We have reason to believe the source of all that tech-piracy comes from around here."
Ketch looked up from the boat, where he was busily connecting up the equipment. "We do?"
"I'll explain later, Mr. Ketch."
The captain eyed me up and down then flicked his gaze at a confused Paul, who had accompanied them.
"Just what sort of information do you have for us, Mr.-"
"Savage. I'm from Special Dimensions Agency."
"That's not a P.I. Firm. You guys are technical troubleshooters, yes?"
"Well, electro-mechanical investigators, say I."
"And your information?"
"You may see some suspicious people floating ashore about an hour from now. I have reason to suspect they might be the thieves everyone's been looking for."
The captain looked on patiently, and I realized he was waiting to hear just how I could possibly know this.
"Eh, it's complicated. Data analysis prediction...We are going to check our theory right now. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."
Cap gave me a dead fish stare. "We'll take the warning under advisement. Please have your office provide us with any... final analysis you make, Mr. Savage."
The captain left looking unimpressed, but did pass the notice along to the shore patrols.
Bob and Ketch finished up reconnecting the gizmo to the sensor arrays that cluttered two outriggers attached to the sloop. We puttered out into the bay.
Once we arrived at the test site, Ketch powered up his rig and data began flooding through it.
"Takes a couple minutes to start outputting signals to the display. You'll have to be patient."
I nodded and smiled, exhibiting the Waldo's pearly plastic whites again. Images began to display on the monitor, and we all crowded around to watch. I left my smile on, as it seemed an appropriate expression of support.
Sometime about here, a burbling fracas began to starboard. A grapnel appeared on the railing, followed by a fellow in a jet wet suit, brandishing an automatic flechette rifle.
"Everyone into the cabin - now!"
Paul's hands flew up, and his pants got a little wetter than circumstances seemed to warrant. Bob and Ketch froze. I, still wearing my insane grin, stepped forward and embraced the guy like he was my long lost cousin, then toppled easily backwards over the side of the sloop into the drink. Flechette fire peppered the surf. I sank with alarming rapidity, having no buoyancy whatever. At some point, after crushing the guy's re-breather, I let him go to fight his way up to the surface.
The water rapidly darkened as I sank, but luckily this was not a murky area. The clay basin was deep, undisturbed by currents, so I switched filters around until I got a good video stream. There was a hump, growing in size on the bay floor beneath me. A collapsible geodesic pressure dome.
A slight turbulence surrounded it, the signature of a stealth jammer. No wonder it had gone undetected by surface patrols. The devices absorbed sonar like a sponge. Something the navy had come up with. It was in Popular Inventions a while back. Besides being a good technical steal, Bob and Ketch's black box could image the undersea dome, since their system didn't depend on sonar. The thieves could have destroyed the prototype detector, but B&K would just have rebuilt it. So they modified the test bed, to keep it from registering dome shapes, after taking the plans, of course. A few days from now, they would move their operation right on up the coast, to the next plunderable city.
My feet touched down, and I walked the Waldo toward the dome. Black forms in re-breathers swarmed out the bottom of it, this time fixed up with harpoon guns. Jeeze. These guys either read way too many spy novels, or spearfished in their idle time. Whatever, they were a little late. Anyway, a few metal shafts whizzed by me, a couple even smacking into the Waldo's synth-flesh covering.
This hardly concerned me, any more than the lack of air did. I have nothing against air, just don't use the stuff personally. I stepped heavily down on one of the anti-sonar devices. It crunched nicely under my foot, popping in a poof of bubbles.
I hauled the Waldo up the dome's struts and used one of the conveniently supplied harpoons to punch multiple holes in the underwater tent. The dome started to fill up. The spy-thriller-frogmen guys now swarmed all over me, but that didn't loosen my grip on the superstructure or stop my mechanical arm from punching holes in the dome like, well, like a mechanical arm. More forms swam out from underneath, but these had no re-breathers on and were paddling hellbent-for-leather towards the surface, passing their own bubbles. We were just deep enough where they would all get the bends unless the patrols picked them up and put them in decompression.
Satisfied, I turned my attention to the divers, who were busy making a pincushion out of my seventy-five thousand credit Waldo. Annoyed, I soon had an armful of crushed re-breathers, and the six – there were six – divers were all stroking up for the surface.
This was not an option for me, so I accessed my Geo-positioner and loped off towards shore. Not wanting to be picked up by the patrol, I waited underwater for a few hours before slogging up to the beach.
I tried to get Paul on his ear piece, but evidently he wasn't plugged in, so I called Sally.
"Mic! Where are you? Paul is just sick! He said you saved his life. He said the last he saw, you were falling over the side of a boat, riddled with flechette fire! We thought you were dead!"
I was just finishing off some loose ends, not to worry. I need transport though. I'm standing in some bushes east of the harbor, in what remains of my Waldo. Not enough power left in its cells to get it back to the shop - So I'm stuck here. Have Paul pick me up. Advise Ketch and Bob they should be able to recover their stolen engineering plans from the harbor police. Oh, and advise the harbor patrol they will need to salvage an underwater dome to get their prosecution evidence. I'm sending you the coordinates now.
"On the way, Mic. Keep your locator on. Why didn't you call in before? What happened?"
Ah, cart before the horse. Sorry. Bob and Ketch's science-fair project was sabotaged. Someone didn't want them scanning the east bay. The crooks had already lifted the plans of K&B's machine, and realized the thing was capable of seeing their little underwater cabin. So they came back and fixed things so it couldn't. These people were well-heeled pros. Someone should look into who is backing them. Anyway, we took to the bay after repairing the machine –-proof of service, you know. I figured this was part of the job, since the root cause of the machine's problem was external tampering.
"You could have called. There was no need to put yourself in the line of fire that way. You're expensive, you know? And...and there are people who care what happens to you!"
There wasn't time. We were jumped at sea. My microwave transmitter won't work underwater. My shoes were too tight. Geeze Sally! Do you really need the list right now? Get Paul down here before I get hauled away for scrap.
Long story short.
I got retrieved, the client paid a huge bonus, since the patrol became very interested in their little toy. I understand a uni-gov contract is in the works with a good sized development grant attached. Oh, and the tech theft ring was broken. The government is looking into a short list of underdeveloped countries trying for a fast highway into the twenty-second century. Sally says the company will front for repairs to my Waldo.
She looked at me funny when I got back, even mentioned she might authorize the addition of my medical appliance, heh. So I guess things are looking up. So Frank, how was your day?
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