actual hangar. Bright sunlight streamed down. The generator vehicles, emergency power support units, and fire trucks stood silent.
The two of them did not walk out onto the runway but exited through the rear instead. The grassland outside was pale green. Facing them only about five hundred meters away was the edge of the primeval forest. Rei had heard that Faery didn’t have a formal land army because the forest was just too nasty.
With a thunderous roar, three interceptors took off in formation for an air patrol mission. The lieutenant and the major walked until they were clear of the shadow cast by the building’s enormous roof, then sat down on the grass. Faery’s version of grass was soft and pliant, and did not prickle at all. The blades were a blueish green, with deep blue streaks in the center. When cut, it smelled like irises.
“The wind’s delicious,” Rei said, taking a deep breath. “Nothing like the filtered air below.”
“I like it out here in midday because you can’t see the Bloody Road. I can’t relax when that thing’s there to weird me out.”
“That’s something I wouldn’t expect you to say.”
Major Booker drew the large combat knife he carried at his hip from its sheath, studied the trailing edge of the boomerang in his hand, and began cautiously shaving it. “Human instinct,” he said without stopping his whittling. “Not accurate, but very rarely wrong.”
Rei urged him to try the boomerang out. Blowing the wood shavings off, the major stood up and threw it with a practiced hand. It sailed into the clear, nearly cloudless afternoon sky, making a faint whirring sound as it cut through the air.
“It’s not coming back.” The boomerang traced a large circular path and then fell about fifteen meters away from them. “Was it because of the wind?”
“This doesn’t even count as a wind,” said the major as he went to retrieve the boomerang. “I made one that always came back, no matter the wind conditions or how badly it flew.”
He sat back down and took his knife to the wood again while Rei sprawled out at his side, looking up at the sky.
“Did it break?”
“What?”
“That perfect boomerang. The one you said you made.”
“I broke it. Actually, I didn’t make it to begin with. A computer did. I fed it the requirements and it executed thousands of simulations in a virtual airspace before spitting out the wing shape data. Then I input the data into a digitally controlled tooling machine and manufactured it. That was Unit 1.”
“I take it from your tone that it didn’t work.”
“The virtual airspace in the computer wasn’t a close enough model to real airspace. Next, I got the idea of putting an accelerometer into the wing and then fed that data into the computer. It could do variable pitch and all sorts of things. The one I fitted with a leading edge flap control was the best. That was Unit 2.”
“And what about Unit 3?” asked Rei as he spit out a bitter stalk of grass he’d been chewing. “Was that one perfect?”
The major stopped whittling and pointed his knife at the scar on his cheek. “This was the result. The wound that sent me to Faery. Ruined my good looks too.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rei said, raising himself up on his elbows and peering at the major’s cheek. “You got that scar from a boomerang?”
“It was fast. It pitched back at me from an angle I didn’t expect, and I couldn’t dodge it. Even though it had enough load resistance to give me a nasty clip, it still flew past me, made another turn, and came back again. I barely managed to catch it. I’d designed it to come back in a way that would make it easy to catch, but how it actually flew... It made that decision itself, based on the conditions at that moment. I never wanted to throw it again after that.”
“Did you put a rocket motor on it or something?”
“No. In the end, it was just a boomerang. But I’d installed a super-layered, single-chip artificial intelligence LSI into it. Since I could never get the feedback control to work, it was necessary to give it a control method to let it look ahead.”
“Predictive control, you mean?”
“Yeah. I threw the prototype boomerang again and again. Each time, the LSI would judge the conditions, master them, search for the causes of failure, and gradually learn to accurately predict them and respond instantly. Since the learning function was coded into the circuitry of the AI unit’s hardware, I didn’t even have to teach it the basic process. I just ordered it to use all the data from its sensors to adjust its flight path so that it would return to the launch point. That’s it. I flew it for six months and eventually lost the ability to predict how it would fly. Just when I was thinking that it was getting kind of dangerous, wham! I got three stitches from it. The doctor was clumsy and it hurt like hell. I thought about suing the wanker for malpractice, but he’s a doctor in the SAF. And since I’m technically his CO, I’d have to sue myself too.”
Booker re-sheathed the knife and stretched. He got up, brushed bits of grass off his fatigues, and threw the boomerang. It flew level and then climbed steeply from about twenty meters away, tracing a large arc.
“That’s the real thing,” the major said. “Machines are too stiff to fly naturally.” The wooden boomerang flew gracefully and landed lightly. “That’s why I can’t stand them.”
“Is that a warning, or are you being ironic?” Rei asked. He had a hard time taking that statement seriously from a man whose livelihood was building and operating advanced mechatronics.
“Take it however you want,” the major answered in his usual offhand manner. “My likes and dislikes have nothing to do with you.”
Rei was about to answer him, but figured that was a reasonable thing to say and so just watched silently as Booker retrieved the boomerang. As he was about to lie back down on the ground, the remote in his breast pocket chirped.
“This is Lieutenant Fukai. We’re busy with Unit 3.”
The voice on the other end asked if he knew where Major Booker was. General Cooley was looking for him.
“Major,” he called. “Grandma Wrinkles wants you.”
Booker shrugged.
“Is it too much to hope that it’s news the Japanese commandant dropped dead?”
“They say the review schedule’s been finalized and that she wants to give it to you.”
“I won’t die alone. Let’s be chums and line up in front of the wall together. We’ll take everyone here with us.”
As the two of them rode down on the absurdly oversized elevator, Rei wondered about the major’s extraordinary dislike of machines. He was struggling to understand it. It wasn’t a matter of how safe or dangerous they were, or how high they let you fly or didn’t; it was a visceral aversion that Booker had somehow developed. As he turned this over in his mind, a vision of the honor guard standing stiff as toy soldiers suddenly came to him.
“Say, Jack...” After hesitating a moment, Rei voiced his thoughts. “What if we built some dolls?”
Booker stopped the irritated tapping of the boomerang against his shoulder and tilted his head.
“Androids,” Rei explained. “Or robots, I mean. We can have them line up and salute. I doubt we’d even need AI units for them. The commandant is nearsighted, right? So if we get the faces and skin texture down there’s no way he’d be able to tell from that distance. It’d work great, since he’s the only one that would get anywhere near them anyway.”
“Aw, kid, don’t be crazy.”
“I bet you’d do it if it was your idea.”
“I’d have to be the one to call up the general and present that insane proposal. You think she’d say yes?” Booker flipped the boomerang over and continued. “Still... The idea’s worth considering. It is absurd, but I think I know a way to make it work.”
He turned to face Rei and adopted a pompous tone. “I hereby order you to make the proposal to the general and persuade her to do it.”
“Screw that,” Rei replied. “I’m no good with Super Granny.”
“I’ll have you court-martialed for disobeying the orders of a superior officer, for mutiny, treason, and going
