Cybernation

Others said Sera was born in Tjirebon, on the north coast of Java, east of what was then Batavia, now Jakarta. There was no consensus on this point.

Family history from Guru DeBeers and from what he could find on the web indicated that Sera trained in Silat Banteng, which came from the area of Serang, in north-west Java. From his exposure to Tjimande, which it is said he studied, and with his training in Banteng, Sera developed his own system, tailored to his physical handicaps.

Although the exact dates weren’t known, it was probably sometime before the turn of the 20th century that Sera met the man who was to become his senior student, a hardass of a fighter named Djoet, who was supposedly born around 1860, and died in the late 1930s. Djoet subsequently helped Sera formalize the system, adjusting it for people with sound limbs. Djoet was reportedly trained in Silat Kilat, Kun Tao, and probably Tjimande.

Michaels made it back to the first djuru. He stopped, grabbed a towel, and wiped the perspiration from his face and head. The problem with the short haircut he liked was that it didn’t soak up as much moisture. He had thought about wearing a headband, but decided that looked a little too yuppie-ish for him.

He glanced at the clock over the gym’s door. The day was winding down, and he had managed to lose a fair amount of the tension he had soaked up testifying before the senate committee. Not all of it, but some. Another twenty or thirty minutes of practicing his forms would help more, he decided. Picturing some of the more obnoxious senators on the receiving end of his punches and elbows probably was bad karma, but that helped, too. Imagining the “Urk!” a fat politician would blurt as Michaels buried his fist in the man’s belly was certainly politically incorrect, but also very satisfying…

Net Force Supply Warehouse Quantico, Virginia

“So is this a great toy, or what?” Julio said.

Howard looked at the device. “It looks like a miniature version of Robby the Robot somebody stepped on.”

And indeed, it did. A scaled-down version of the movie robot, the device was squatty, maybe eighteen- inches tall, and had a clear bullet-resistant Lexan half-dome atop the cone-shaped body, complete with a pair of articulated arms and tanklike treads. It was very wide at the base and narrowing toward the top.

“We call her ‘Claire,’ ” Julio said. “Your basic self-contained radio-controlled mobile reconnaissance and surveillance unit, the main feature of which is optical and auditory gear, including state-of-the-art CLAIR equipment — that standing for Circular-Looking-A-class InfraRed sensors. Aside from the regular cams, she can see heat sigs in the dark, has a fuzzy-logic come-back circuit so she won’t bump into things and can find her way home if the RC fails, and little waldo arms for picking up things to examine under her microscope, should the need arrive.”

Howard shook his head. “Uh-huh. What did this beast set us back?”

“Ah, sir, there’s the beauty of it. Nothing. Not a dime.”

“How did you manage that? Tell me we aren’t running a stolen robot here, Lieutenant. Something you won in a poker game with your RA buddies?”

“You wound me, sir, to suggest such a thing.”

“And butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, either. Give.”

“Claire here is a test model, from CamCanada, up in Toronto. They specialize in making devices to inspect the inside of big pipelines, checking weld integrity, hunting for cracks, like that, but they are looking to get into the police and military market. This is one of three prototypes they sent off for tests. The Mounties have one, one went to some sultan somewhere in the Middle East, and we have the third. We test it out under field conditions, write up a report, and for our trouble, we get one of the first models when they go into full production, absolutely free of charge. Well. Except for the maintenance contract, of course. But that’s nothing.”

“Interesting.”

Julio picked up a remote and pushed a button. The little robot whirred.

“It does all the usual forward, back, left, and right stuff, and the POV cam shows an image right here on the handheld. Digital images and sound, and instant capture of info on its own wireless modem and DVD burner, which are around here somewhere. Those can be plugged into just about any computer for study and analysis.”

He held the remote so Howard could see it. “Everything is shockproofed out the wazoo, structural components are machined from titanium or aircraft aluminum, and you can supposedly set off a stick of dynamite ten feet away without hurting it. Got a gyroscope for balance, low center of gravity, and she’s very stable.”

He brought the robot close enough to them so he could kick it. His combat boot drove it back a few feet, but it whirred and stayed upright. He touched a control. “This shuts off the gyroscope. Watch.”

He moved to the little device, which was slightly shorter than knee-high, and managed, with some effort, to shove it over onto its side with his foot.

The robot whined, and a rubber-tipped metal rod extruded from the robot’s side and shoved it back upright.

“Automatic righting system,” he said. “She can pick herself right up and keep on going. A byproduct of BattleBot technology, I’m told.”

He picked up another remote and pushed a button. The windowless warehouse got very dark.

Howard saw the remote control’s screen light up, and the false-color IR images of himself and Julio, looking like two washed-out ghosts, appeared on the screen.

“Lieutenant, I believe you just turned me into a Caucasian.”

Julio chuckled. The false-color computer-augmented image tinted Howard’s skin slightly darker, but no more than a redhead’s tan might be.

“Only with the lights off, sir.”

He switched the lights back on. “But wait, here’s the really fun thing,” he said. He touched another button, and the robot hissed like a giant lizard, leaped two feet into the air, flew about four feet forward, and came down. It clunked when it landed, but not hard enough to knock anything loose.

Howard raised an eyebrow.

“Compressed gas jets. The tank isn’t that big, so it’s only good for eight or ten hops before it runs out, but if Claire here comes to a ditch that would take too long to go around, she can make like a bunny and leap right over it.”

Howard smiled. “Might make recon of a building full of armed terrorists easier, at that. What are they going to run when they go into production? Any idea?”

“Ballpark only. They’re saying a hundred thousand, Canadian.”

“Lord, Lieutenant. For that much, we can buy an armor-plated car.”

“Yes, but it can’t do this.”

The little robot hissed and jumped again.

“And it’s free.”

“What’s the service contract run?”

“Practically nothing. Three years, maybe thirty thou, U.S.”

“For thirty thousand American or so, I can find a lot of enlisted men who would spit and jump up, even if they can’t see in the dark.”

Julio shook his head. “Have I ever mentioned that the general is somewhat old-fashioned?”

“Never know when my buggy whip is going to come in handy, Lieutenant. It does the job it was designed to do and never needs batteries.”

“Come on, John, give it a try. You know you want to.” He passed the controls to Howard.

Well, yes, he did. It was just like playing with Tyrone’s new toy on Christmas morning when the boy was nine. As his mother was fond of saying, If you couldn’t have fun, what was the point?

Howard pushed the button, and grinned as the robot jumped again.

22

Washington, D.C.

Santos waited until the senator came out of the supermarket on his way home before he made his move.