Eric Thompson scanned over his three computer screens, displaying the high-level dashboard for Unlimited Partners. He smiled as he contemplated the sea of green, with only a few scattered yellow areas. Near him hovered an executive intern, assigned for the day to trail Eric and learn what his job was like.
“So as you can see,” Eric began, “our madly daring idea is actually bearing fruit! Overall success depends on team-building; that’s one of my specialties. But then the people I choose must carry that on to the teams they build, and so on. All of these levels have to work, or the entire project could easily fail with speed.” He turned to look at the intern. “There’s no magic formula for accomplishing that; you have to be well-learned and thoughtful, you have to make your best judgment, then observe their results and see what needs to be changed, without succumbing to micromanagement. All I can say about my method is, I try to hire good people and then get out of their way. So far, it’s working for me.”
“Very inspirational, sir,” the intern chimed. “I hope to contribute to that as much as possible. I believe this company has a bright future!”
Without warning, a red rectangle pushed its way onto his dashboard. Eric chuckled to himself. “Right on time.” He clicked the high-priority emergency notification and began reading. Within moments, his eyes glazed over and his jaw dropped. The intern began to shiver uncontrollably. Blinking rapidly, Eric pondered who in the organization could handle this crisis.
His phone rang. He picked it up quickly; he didn’t need to see who it was.
“What can you tell me about the intruder?” Eric said anxiously.
“It’s heading for downtown Millenniaburg!” his security chief replied breathlessly. “An old-school jet airliner hijacking. They had no trouble slipping through the porous security of what’s left of the government forces.”
“Not a big surprise,” Eric lamented. “But why are they attacking us? What’s their motivation?”
“Information is still patchy,” the chief related. “But the hijackers claim to be people we banished.”
“Then what’s the point of attacking us?” Eric pondered. “It’s not like they want to return; there’s nothing for them here, unless they clean up their act. Which they clearly haven’t done.”
“I don’t think they’re acting entirely rationally, sir,” the chief offered. “We have to treat this as an existential threat, not as something we can fix.”
“But what are our options?” Eric pleaded. But he knew the answer.
“We only have one, sir,” the chief replied sanguinely. “We have to shoot it down.”
“But that would be a disaster!” Eric objected. “Our credibility is based on demonstrating a better way to run things. If we just kill them indiscriminately, it’ll set our cause back, possibly permanently!”
Eric could hear the sorrow in the chief’s voice. “They’ll be in downtown Millenniaburg in thirty minutes. I don’t think we have a choice.”
Eric’s eyes glowed with sudden revelation. “I think we might.” His skin flushed red as he took a deep breath. “OK, you prepare to shoot them down, but don’t fire until they’re seconds from the city border! I’m going to try something.”
“Like what?” the chief pleaded. But Eric had already hung up.
At a workbench, deep within the 16otaku complex, Stacy pondered the red robotic gladiator. “OK, buddy,” she chirped, “show me what you got!”
In a single fluid motion, it flipped onto its back, extended its legs, and popped open its main access panel. Stacy scratched at the empty air above it. “You want a belly rub? Who wants a belly rub?” she cooed.
“Oh, come on,” Irwin chided, as the blue robot gladiator did the same thing for him. “They’re only partially sentient.”
“You keep saying that,” Stacy countered, “but these two keep doing things we don’t understand. That’s why we’re having this examination, remember?”
Irwin shook his head. “Big Daddy is adamant that it’s nothing he’s changed. So it has to be a crossed wire, or some undetected damage, somewhere. I’m not buying your theories.”
Stacy removed the outer circuit board and gently laid it on the bench. “After everything you’ve seen them do, how can you really believe that?” She gaped at what she saw. “What the—”
“What…?” Irwin replied tersely as he finished removing the blue bot’s outer circuit board, revealing what was inside. “Oh…oh my…”
Nothing they were looking at was familiar. There wasn’t an inner circuit board; it appeared to be a tightly-constructed melange of custom parts, the function of which they could only guess at. Even the shapes of the components were novel. Were they capacitors? Transistors? Semiconductors? Functions seemed to blur together in a kaleidoscope of odd shapes, running over and under other parts to form a complex, yet strangely regular pattern. Clear tubes intertwined with mechanical parts, conducting neural tissue throughout the volume.
“We didn’t build this!” Stacy gasped. “They must have built it themselves!”
“But what does it do?” Irwin pondered. “I mean, obviously they’re running themselves with this, but why this arrangement? It doesn’t…oh, wait. Maybe it does.”
“What?” Stacy watched Irwin walk over to her bench and look inside the red droid.
“I think I get it,” he postulated. “Step back and look at the arrangement as a whole, not as parts. What does it look like?”
“Kind of like…” Stacy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know, a sponge?” Suddenly her eyes lit up. “It’s a big shock absorber!”
“Exactly!” Irwin trilled. “We attach circuit boards with shock-absorbing mounts, but this takes it to another level!” He pondered the intricate assembly for a moment. “Several levels, actually. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Let’s not sell it short,” Stacy sniffed. “We’ve never even thought of anything like this.”
Irwin continued to remove exterior panels on the blue bot. “I think something like this would drive us mad before we got anywhere close to finishing. Plus, we’d need the design insights of a…a…”
“A supercomputer,” Stacy finished. “A really big one. Like what all the bots form at night, when they’re left alone. Remember, we’re only here eight hours a day; they spend a lot of time by themselves. Looking into everything they get up to when we’re away would be its own full-time job. Well, several, at least.”
“Wow, would you look at this?” Irwin had finished removing exterior panels, as the blue bot continued to lie there supinely. “Even the exoskeleton is different!”
Stacy leaned in to look. “The beams are thinner, more numerous, and…very finely machined.” She pushed on one gently with her finger. “It’s metal, but it almost feels rubbery. They’ve strengthened it with…geometry?” She lowered a magnifier lamp over it, and dialed up the power. “Look at the intricate patterns running along the length! I’m not even sure what they do!”
Irwin shrugged. “Well, we can stop this part of the investigation. We’ve answered our original question; now we know how their fighting skills have improved so much recently. We can do the rest from our desks, querying the database about these new designs and how they work.” He turned to the blue bot. “So are you willing to tell us all about it?” The blue bot responded by rotating its primary sensor array towards Irwin and mimicking a salute. Irwin laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes!” He turned to Stacy. “Now the real discovery begins!”
Stacy sighed. “Just as soon as we finish putting them back together.”
They heard a noise behind them. The red bot, carrying its outer circuit board, had crawled up to them. It proffered two of its front legs upwards. “Do you want a boost, little guy?” Stacy cooed. She lifted him up and put him on the workbench. It crawled closer to the blue bot and gently tapped Irwin’s hand twice. “Oh, you have this under control?” Irwin laughed. The red bot immediately grabbed an exterior panel and began reconnecting it to the blue bot. Irwin and Stacy both stepped back.
Stacy looked puzzled. “How are they operating with their outer circuit boards disconnected?”
Irwin’s expression became thoughtful. “That does mostly diagnostic operations. We need it to see how they’re doing, but apparently they don’t. I guess they have other methods!”
Stacy frowned. “And somehow, this all escaped the notice of Big Daddy?”
Irwin shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t ask the right questions. But now we have a chance to!” Irwin’s eyes shone with wonder. “This is bound to be a mind-blowing experience!”
Stacy looked beatific. “Just one more thing I can’t wait to learn about!”
Irwin smiled. “Do you feel like a proud parent as much as I do?”
Stacy giggled. “Yes! Our babies are growing up.”
Suddenly, Sam burst into the room. Stacy turned to him, smiling broadly. “Wait until you hear what we’ve learned!”
“Never mind that!” Sam shouted. Stacy and Irwin both froze. Sam tried to catch his breath. “We have a much more pressing matter! I need you two at the cubicles, now!” He ran off. Stacy and Irwin exchanged worried glances, then ran after him.
They arrived to find a video conference with Eric Thompson, already in progress. “So you see what we’re up against? We don’t have any good options. Your work, in its present condition, is our only hope!”
Stacy tapped Dwight on the shoulder. “What is he talking about?”
Dwight’s eyes seemed to be filled with a sepulchral darkness. “A jet airliner has been hijacked, and is headed our way. Eric wants us to try to stop it with a mecha.”
Stacy froze. “Seriously?”
“All I want to know,” Eric pleaded, “is if there’s a chance!”
“The rocket limbs have had a few controlled burns,” Gary explained. “They all worked as expected. But we haven’t actually tried to fly it yet.”
Eric smiled tensely. “Well, today’s the day! Are you up for it?”
“We’ve never even taken it outside!” Isabel protested. “In theory, it should work. All our tests have come back positive. But it’s never been tried in the field!”
Eric wrung his hands. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, but our backs are really up against the wall!” He looked more unnerved than any of them had seen before. “And I’m not going to sugarcoat this; you’ll all be risking your lives. But a lot more lives hang in the balance, not to mention the success of our entire company! This is our make-or-break moment!” He hung his head. “I can’t ask you to take this chance. You have to choose to.”
No one spoke. Then Dwight piped up. “Some day, I’ll be an old man in a rocking chair on a porch, and I’ll look back at this time…and if I don’t act now, that old man is going to regret it and kick himself.”
“Yeah!” Stacy exhorted. “Let’s do this!”
Sam could hardly contain himself. “Then…I’ve always wanted to say this…mecha pilots, assemble!”
Gary, Dwight, Stacy, and Irwin, cheering loudly, ran for the hangar, the others close behind.
Eric turned his head; the camera followed to watch them leave. “God speed, my brain-trust warriors.”
“How much fuel do we have on board?” Gary asked breathlessly.
“Five hundred and twenty pounds,” Dwight replied, gasping for air. “We haven’t refueled since our last burn.”
“No time now! What’s our battery charge?”
“They should be full,” Isabel answered. “I left it plugged in.”
They arrived in the hangar. The four pilots ran off to their respective flight decks. The rest attended to the remote monitoring and diagnostic stations. “Big Daddy!” Sam shouted into the microphone. “We’re taking out the flying mecha. Are all systems go?”
“I heard about the hijacking, and the plan,” Big Daddy answered in his usual sedate manner. “All systems are go. My confidence is high. I just wish there was time to add fuel.”
Isabel threw a knife switch to raise the hangar door, as the various parts of the mecha powered on. “Oh, heck,” she said suddenly, as she ran towards the mecha, which was flexing its joints, doing its final tests. “It’s still plugged in!” she yelled. “I need a minute!”
Gary’s voice squelched over the radio link. “Uh…Sam? How do we get this thing outside? It’s too tall for the hangar door.”
Sam stared blankly. “Um…not sure. We’ve never tried it before.”
Isabel finished yanking out the assortment of extension cords, then high-tailed it back to her workstation.
Stacy’s voice piped up. “I think we have to crawl.”
The mecha lowered itself to the ground, and clumsily put its hands down. After a few false starts, it began crawling towards the hangar door, its pace quickening as the crew got the hang of it. “You know what they say,” Dwight quipped. “You have to crawl before you can fly.”
They reached the taxiway outside the hangar; unfamiliar sunlight poured into the mecha’s sensors. Quickly, it adjusted to the new inputs, and gave its pilots a clear picture of their surroundings. Their mission computers all bleeped; the intercom link surged with Sam’s voice. “OK, I’ve linked you to the radar tracking of the bogey. We’ve got ten minutes until it reaches the outskirts of the city, and fifteen minutes until it reaches Unlimited Partners HQ.”
Gary pondered the trajectory as Dwight fired the rocket limbs, preparing them for flight. “We should be able to intercept it at the city’s edge…but we’re going to have to use our full thrust. This is going to be really rough. Are you all willing?”
All pilots answered affirmatively. “Then off we go!” Gary cheered as he slid all four thrust-power sliders to their maximum. The mecha shuddered uncertainly, slowly lifting off the ground, then wavered a little bit. As all four limbs pointed themselves down, in the same direction, suddenly it began picking up speed. It took off into the morning sky, piercing through the morning fog and vanishing.
“Aaaaah! I can’t do this!” Irwin yelled. “I feel like I’m being crushed!”
“One moment!” Gary yelled. “OK, your suit should be extra pressurized now. Any better?”
“This really hurts!” Irwin continued to scream.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“Keep screaming!” Stacy yelled. “It’ll help keep you from blacking out!”
“She’s right!” Dwight interjected. “Scream, tense up all your muscles, and hold in your stomach! We’ll have to deal with maximum G forces until we get there!”
Irwin continued to scream; Gary turned down the volume on his intercom. “As long as we can still hear him, it means he’s OK. Some prior training for G forces would have been really helpful, but it’s too late now.”
“Is this right?” Stacy interrupted. “Only seven minutes to intercept?”
“Sure looks like it,” Gary agreed. “The rocket-limbs are working really well. We’re burning an awful lot of fuel, though. It’ll take four hundred pounds just to reach the intercept point. I just hope Irwin can take it. Irwin, you hanging in there?”
“Aaaaaaaaaugh!” Irwin continued to scream. “I love iiiiiiiit! There’s nothing else I’d rather doooooooo!”
Dwight was unconvinced. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“As long as he’s still screaming, he’s alive,” Gary joked.
“He’s fine,” Isabel radioed. “His vital signs are all good. Keep doing what you’re doing, Irwin!”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaa!” he continued to yell.
“Can you imagine what they must be thinking on the ground?” Stacy wondered.
“The anime fans are probably having a religious experience,” Gary offered. “Assuming they can see us.”
“That brings up an important issue,” Dwight pointed out. “What happens when the hijackers see us?”
“That depends,” Gary offered. “Are they going to be looking for a giant flying robot?”
“Uh…hmmm…good point. We’ll have to hope we surprise them.”
The mecha continued to fly across the sky, angling upwards, its rocket-limbs spewing white-hot flames several times longer than its body. The mission computers calculated that, given their current trajectory, that at the intercept point, they’d be five hundred feet above the airliner. “I believe we can drop on them from above,” Gary suggested. “I think that’s our best plan.”
“It’s getting hot in here,” Stacy observed. “How’s our cooling system?”
“Not yet running at full,” Gary answered. “I can turn it up. We should have sufficient battery power. Isabel?”
“You sure do,” Isabel assured. “You were charged to the top when you left.”
“I think I’m finally getting the hang of this,” Irwin suddenly added, sounding strained.
“Glad to hear it, buddy!” Gary chimed. “I’m going to need your fine motor skills when we move to intercept. You ready for this?”
“There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing,” Irwin gushed.
“Just keep up your G-force countermeasures,” Isabel reminded. “You’re doing good, but don’t relax them.”
“Not a problem,” Irwin assured. “They’ve become second nature.”
The rockets dropped their power slightly; the flight computers had adjusted the autopilot for the intercept. Gliding over the river that formed the northern border of the city, the mecha started to rotate in the air. Gary’s voice filled the intercom. “Hold on to your stomachs, people. This is going to feel really weird. Try not to get airsick.”
The mecha pivoted in the air, and pointed its limbs down, allowing it to hover. It came to a stop.
“The airliner is thirty seconds away, and we’re seven hundred feet above it,” Gary announced.
“And they don’t see us?” Stacy sounded incredulous. “Not even on radar?”
“I’m not picking up any radar from them,” Dwight observed. “They must be operating on visual flight rules. Not a surprise if they’re amateurs. They’re probably just fixated on their target. Fortunately for us.”
The aircraft finally became visible on their external cameras. “I’m ready for the intercept thrust,” Gary announced. “Irwin, you ready to grapple?”
“I was born to do this!” Irwin exulted.
Gary counted down. “Six…five…four…three…two…one…BURN!”
The mecha’s limbs flung themselves back, and its rockets fired. The external cameras showed the plane approach; a few seconds before impact, its limbs swung down again, to slow its descent. With a loud, resounding crunch, the mecha impacted with the airliner. Quickly, its arms dove under the wings, and its hands met on the plane’s roof, near the first-class section, putting the plane into a full nelson. Its feet pushed backwards, finding their grip on each side of the tail wing. A few tense moments passed.
“We’re not stopping them!” Gary shouted frantically. “They’ve turned up their engines, and we don’t have the fuel to use ours to slow them down!”
There were a few moments of silence. “Can we kick our legs, like we’re on a swing?” Stacy suggested. “If we can point the airliner upward, maybe we can get control of it.”
Gary sounded unsure. “Irwin? Do the arms have a good grip?”
Irwin sounded confident. “They’re not going anywhere. Start kicking!”
The mecha’s feet pulled themselves from the tail wings and began bucking wildly. Slowly, the airliner began to pitch upwards.
“I wonder what this looks like on the ground,” Stacy asked sardonically.
Sam’s voice, over the radio, feigned embarrassment. “Um, well, when an airplane and a giant robot love each other very much…”
“It’s working!” Irwin suddenly exclaimed. “Stop kicking! The airplane is in an aerodynamic stall. Its engines aren’t enough to keep it in the air. Just a little bit of thrust from our legs, and we should be able to bring this unholy union to the ground!”
The mecha and airplane, locked in their hostile embrace, continued to plummet downwards.
“Why do you think the airliner hasn’t cut its engines?” Dwight asked. “That would make our job a lot more difficult.”
“Maybe they didn’t think of it,” Gary suggested. “We jolted them pretty hard when we hit; maybe they’re unconscious.”
“Or maybe they’re panicking,” Stacy wryly observed.
“Let’s just hope our luck doesn’t run out!” Gary added. “I think I can guide us to that empty field near the interstate. I’ll try to slow down before we hit, but I can’t guarantee anything. We’re getting dangerously low on fuel. Brace for impact!”
“We’re trying to get some security drones near you,” Sam cut in. “But a lot depends on where you stop.”
On the ground, traffic on the interstate had come to a halt. People had left their cars to gawk at the garishly-colored spectacle plummeting towards them. As the airliner’s jet engines continued to strain against its captor, the mecha fired its rockets in a finely-coordinated pattern, trying to steer them to the grassy plain, one of the few areas nearby that wasn’t either trees or buildings. A few moments before reaching the ground, the mecha’s leg-rockets suddenly flared brightly, slowing their descent and starting a few small brush fires. With a surprisingly gentle crushing noise, the airliner landed on the ground, the mecha still firmly attached to its top.
They continued to slide along the ground. “Their engines are still firing! If we don’t stop them, they’ll drag us both into the river!”
“How about if I pinch their engines?” Irwin offered. “I’ll have to let go with the arms, but I should be able to do this.”
“I think that’s our best bet,” Gary agreed. “Do it!”
The mecha’s arms relaxed their hold. Quickly, it slid down the length of the airliner, but suddenly, the legs grappled the aircraft’s sides, stopping its motion. Now in position, the arms reached towards the engines and crushed them with its hands. Jet fuel sprayed from the wounded turbines as the airliner and its giant passenger slid along the ground for several hundred more feet, finally coming to a stop.
The external microphones picked up a buzzing sound, growing louder. “I think the drones found us,” Stacy observed. “But what can they do? They’d need to get inside.”
“That’s it!” Gary suddenly interjected. “Irwin, rip the roof off the flight deck! Let the drones take care of the hijackers!”
“You got it!” The mecha shimmied up the length of the airliner; when it got near the front, its giant hands dug its fingers under the sides, peeling the roof back like a giant sardine can. Four hijackers stood in the exposed flight deck, gaping upwards in sheer terror. Quickly, the drones swarmed them; a few precisely-fired taser bolts later, and they all collapsed to the ground.
“YOU DID IT!” a voice on the radio yelled. More cheering could be heard in the background. Stacy reacted with surprise. “Wait, was that Eric Thompson?”
“It’s me, and everyone else at headquarters!” Eric answered. “Plus several million more viewers on TV.”
“Wow,” Stacy stammered. “Way to bury the lede there, boss.”
“Are you kidding?” Eric gushed. “We wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”
“Uh…” Irwin began. “Glad to be of service?”
The external microphones now picked up the cheers of the passengers. The emergency doors were open, the exit chutes had inflated, and passengers were sliding out of the stricken aircraft as quickly as they could. Most of them gawked at the giant robot, which continued to sit astride the airplane, like a brightly-colored cowboy on a white horse. A few had run off, to stamp out the small brush fires caused by the mecha’s rockets.
The external cameras showed the highway, the passengers having left their cars en masse. All were cheering and clapping.
“Did we actually live through that?” Irwin’s voice gasped weakly. “The adrenaline is wearing off. I think I’m going to lose it.”
“Permission to lose it granted,” Sam jokingly intoned. “You’ve all done a great job.”
“You know what would be awesome?” Dwight piped up. “We should fly away from here, back to base, and salute in the air for everyone on the highway.”
“Not going to happen,” Isabel related over the radio. “You only have thirty pounds of fuel left.”
“Can we siphon anything from the airliner?” Stacy asked.
Isabel paused for a moment. “You don’t have anything to siphon with,” she sighed. “We never thought to add such an attachment.”
“Then what do we do?” Dwight pined. “We can’t just lay here and wait for a big flatbed to pick us up. That’d be embarrassing!”
“There’s a truck stop about two miles down the highway,” Sam offered. “Diesel fuel is close enough to aircraft fuel for the mecha’s systems. And between your remaining battery power, and the internal generators, you have enough power to…” Sam paused for a moment. “To walk there.”
“Well, I guess that’ll still look pretty cool,” Dwight agreed reluctantly. “But not what I was hoping for.”
Gary’s voice crackled over the mecha’s loudspeakers. “Citizens, please give me some space. I need to leave.” The passengers obediently formed a wide circle around the mecha. Slowly, it moved to stand up and dismount the airliner, to the cheers of everyone nearby. Unsteadily, the mecha walked towards the highway; the circle of people parted to let them through.
“Blast off! Blast off!” the kids yelled, picked up by the external microphones. “See, I knew they’d want that,” Dwight sighed. “We need to plan better in the future.”
Gary’s voice once again blared from the loudspeaker. “Sorry, kids. Not enough fuel. But maybe next time!” All four pilots could hear their disappointed whines. Gary continued. “Hey, c’mon, kids! I’m still a giant flying robot!” The kids quickly began cheering again. The mecha slowly, clumsily walked away.
“OK, I think our autopilot can handle this,” Gary declared. “Just watch for sinkholes and loose soil.”
As they neared the highway, the disembarked passengers continued to cheer and clap. The mecha stopped and stood there. The loudspeaker crackled once again with Gary’s voice. “Citizens, please move your vehicles. I have to get home.” They finally stopped cheering, went back into their cars, and got out of the way. The mecha crawled up the embankment, walked across the lanes of traffic, and began trudging down the highway in the slow lane. Cars slowly drove past it, horns honking and passengers whooping, before driving off. The mecha occasionally saluted, to even louder cheers.
The customers at the truck stop could hear the rhythmic clanking noise from quite some distance away. As the mecha approached, most of them just stood and stared, their mouths gaping. The mecha walked into the parking lot, picked a row of interior pumps, and stood there, waiting. The loudspeaker flared again. “Don’t mind me, citizens. I just need fuel. I’ll wait in line.”
The two truckers that were next in line made several animated arm gestures, then each got into their trucks, started them up, and moved to back up. The mecha backed up too, getting out of their way. Deftly, the trucks slithered past each side of the mecha, smoothly arriving back in their lanes. “Thank you, citizens!” the loudspeaker blared.
Slowly, the mecha lowered itself onto its hands and knees. From there, it shifted to a prone position, and began to army-crawl between the rows of gas pumps. The clanking and scraping made a ferocious noise that caused many onlookers to cover their ears. Finally, the mecha was in position, and the steady hum of its power shut down, leaving behind a ghostly silence.
A few moments passed. Then the sides of each limb opened, and the pilots exited, lowering themselves gingerly to the ground. As the onlookers continued to gawk, the pilots nonchalantly pulled out their company credit cards, swiped them at the pumps, then each removed a gas cap and put the diesel spouts into the exposed fuel filler.
The trucker opposite Dwight stammered. “Uh…er…um…what kind of mileage do you get in that thing?”
“I’m not sure,” Dwight answered. “We just burned about five hundred pounds; that got us a total of about fifteen miles. We used a lot less fuel during free-fall, though.”
“Free-fall?” the trucker replied weakly. “Buddy, you must have horseshoes in both pockets.”
A few families crowded around Irwin. “How do you become a giant-robot pilot?” one kid asked.
“First, you have to invent it,” Irwin answered. “I’m part of the team that built this. We have two more back at our lab.”
“Do they fly too?” The kid’s eyes burned with adoration.
“Not yet, but after today, I’m sure we’ll add it soon!” The kid looked disappointed. Irwin continued. “But…you know what they can do? Kung fu battle! Just like in the movies!” The kid gaped wordlessly.
“What company do you work for?” a man asked. “Who is in the giant-robot business?”
“I’m with a research-and-development division of Unlimited Partners,” Irwin answered. “And we do a lot more than just giant robots.”
“Well, I’m sure glad you do!” the man exulted. “That was fine work, stopping that hijacking. Can you believe the government hasn’t even released a statement on it? I think they’re too humiliated.”
“I haven’t had time to catch up on the news,” Irwin explained. “I’m sure I will…once I fly back to the office.”
“That’s right, ladies — you too can become a giant-robot pilot!” Stacy happily explained to a throng of Girl Scouts, hanging on her every word. “And I don’t just fly it; I helped design and build it! But you’ll need to stay in school, study hard, and keep out of trouble! Jobs like these only go to the best! And you can make it this far, if you just apply yourselves!”
“We will!” they cheered as they ran off to get back in their vans.
“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” the den mother told Stacy.
“No problem, I get it,” Stacy answered. “I know the Girl Scouts are for at-risk children. Hopefully they stay inspired.”
The den mother glanced at the mecha, her eyes filled with wonder. “If that doesn’t inspire them…nothing will.”
A thin, gangly man in business-casual left the shop and approached Gary, a stunned look on his face. Gary turned and smiled. “Are you the manager?” He tried to answer, but couldn’t find his voice; finally, he just nodded vigorously.
“What’s the pre-authorization limit on these pumps?” Gary asked nonchalantly.
“Uh…ummm…seventy five gallons,” the manager stammered.
“Can we all get authorized for about a thousand gallons each? We have a long flight home.”
“I…um…yes. I’ll…go do…that.” The manager walked off, looking behind him one last time before disappearing inside the shop.
As the mecha continued to fuel, Dwight walked up to Stacy. “So…before the next time…rubber shoes.”
Stacy laughed. “I know, right? I though the flight was bad…the walk was easily twice as bad! I think my bones are still shaking.”
“And rubber knee pads and elbow pads, too.”
“Yeah…I’m not looking forward to fixing all those scrapes. But can you imagine it? The mecha will look like a roller-derby player! How awesome would that be?” Stacy looked at the mecha, grinning impishly. “How about retractable inline skates? The heck with all this walking!”
“Oh yeah, huh?” Dwight agreed. “I guess there are some ideas that don’t occur to you unless you try the thing in the real world.” Dwight looked at the mecha’s back. “And why the heck don’t we have a giant flaming sword?”
The four pilots continued to field questions, and receive congratulations, as the pumps slowly filled up the mecha. Finally, they put the spouts back, replaced the gas caps, and climbed back inside their respective flight decks, giving the crowds one last thumb’s up before disappearing inside, to the din of their hails and cheers.
The mecha powered up, its electric hum making the air shake. This brought on another round of applause and whooping. It slowly army-crawled from under the canopy, back to unobstructed space. The metallic screeching and scraping sound silenced the crowd quickly as they covered their ears and winced.
“Oh my God,” Irwin began. “I haven’t dealt with so much of the public in my life!”
“I heard that!” Stacy added. “This was fun once, but if there are any more public appearances, I think we need to use gregarious pilot types. I thought the battle was tough…having to deal with people was much more draining!”
“Hey Gary, once we’re out, can we launch with only three of the rockets?” Dwight asked. “I really want to try a salute as we leave.”
“I think that’ll be safe,” Gary answered. “But don’t try anything fancy. Just one salute and we’re done.”
“Not a problem,” Dwight laughed. “I’m willing to start small.”
The mecha walked to the far end of the complex’s parking lot, away from the people, trucks, and anything flammable. After turning to face the crowd, its leg rockets ignited, along with one arm. As the mecha launched into the sky, its free arm moved to salute, before dropping that arm down and firing the last rocket. The exterior cameras showed the crowd cheering wildly, but the rockets made too much noise to hear them.
The flight back to their airport was uneventful and leisurely. There was no need to use full rocket power; all the pilots had had enough of high G forces for one day.
The mecha neared the airport. The exterior cameras showed that huge crowds had formed on either side of the runway. The radio suddenly crackled to life. “Welcome back, robo-nauts!” Eric Thompson’s voice gushed. “You’re all heroes!”
“Oh, man,” Gary answered. “I hope you don’t expect us to deal with any more people. All we want to do is collapse.” The mecha moved to land upright.
“Not a problem,” Eric assured them. “You just need to land and crawl back inside. We’ll deal with the press.”
“Thanks, boss,” Gary replied, with great relief in his voice. “The truck stop was agonizing, but we didn’t know what else to do.” The mecha landed gently on the ground; the exterior cameras showed the crowd cheering wildly, but they couldn’t be heard over the roar of the rockets.
“I understand completely,” Eric commiserated. “And rest assured, you all get the rest of the day off. Well, after a full medical exam. We want to make sure you’re intact.”
The mecha got down on its hands and knees. “So do we,” Gary agreed. “We’re just glad we survived.”
“So am I,” Eric answered sanguinely. “And tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about the reaction. Lots of nonpublic stuff. You all did more good today than you can possibly imagine.”
The mecha crawled through the hangar door. “That’s fine…but tomorrow. We need a break.”
“You’ve earned it,” Eric agreed. “Have a good evening.”
The hangar door closed behind the mecha, the loud clang reverberating across the runway.