Beta Testers Page 7

  “This bank of capacitors discharges through the plasma tunnels, and thus through the target. Our testing so far seems to indicate the lasers alone would probably be good for infantry, and the jolt should be enough to take down anything up to and including a midsized tank. It’s never been field tested. I want data on range, physical sturdiness, etc. The more data, the more moola.”

  “May I ask,” Silo said, “what if the appropriate situation doesn’t arise to use this… thing?”

  Dee shrugged. “Then use it in an inappropriate situation. The deal’s pretty simple. To cover the cost of the goodies I fabbed up for you, you’ve got to thoroughly test at least three of my designs. Everything over that works out to a paycheck. Now, let’s see, what else… You’ve got the grenade launcher, so we’ll go with some grenade-deployable gadgets. I’m not going to go through the whole spiel for these; Ma will load up the operations manuals into your ship’s memory. But let’s toss in the Monopole Magnetic Exciters. The Inertial Capacitor’s not ready for full testing yet… Let’s go with the Spring Heel. I’ve yet to see just exactly what those can do. Test those and we’ll be even. But I’d recommend you pick a couple of extras because if you end up not testing them all, you’ll end up owing me money. I’m told I’m not a pleasant person to owe money to.”

  “Do you have any—” Garotte began.

  “Ma!” Dee shouted. “Get these guys the list of beta-ready equipment.” He looked back and forth between them. “I’d go through the list myself, but that sounds like a god-awful waste of my time. Pick your stuff. Ma will run it by me for approval, then you can get to work earning your keep.”

  “But—” Silo said.

  “Talk to Ma!” Dee called, marching out of the room.

  Another of the ubiquitous robotic grippers rolled in with a pair of datapads.

  “You will find a cross-referenced list of all devices currently in need of field testing. It includes seven hundred sixty-eight items under the ‘Weapons of War’ heading, forty-two physical enhancement devices, thirty-one—”

  “Fine, fine,” Garotte said. “I’m sure we can find our way.”

  “In the future, please allow all announcements to be completed before dismissing them, as it is possible that interruption can cause potentially disastrous informational deficits. While you analyze the provided information, can I offer you a refreshment of any kind? We have a small selection of prestocked comestibles and are capable of synthesizing most special requests.”

  “If you’ve got something besides the zero-g mush this guy seems to consider adequate, then I’d certainly appreciate it,” Silo said.

  The door to the hallway opened.

  “Please follow the pulsing blue line to the elevator, and from there to the cafeteria.”

  Both soldiers stepped into the hall and marched in the indicated direction. Each pored over the contents of the datapad. Garotte had the giddy look of a child set loose in a toy store. Silo had a bit of the same but tempered with the realization that a child in a toy store is likely to get up to mischief.

  “Say,” she said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but… it looks like numbers eighteen, twenty-one, and thirty-five through forty-three all use chemicals that are against the Antwerp Convention.”

  “The Antwerp Convention only applies to the Earth Coalition and the TKUR,” Garotte said vaguely. “Egad… the man’s got a neck-mountable device that can record all muscular motion via nerve impulse. It’s like an old-school keylogger, but for the human body…”

  “Hon, maybe you don’t follow me. Yeah, the Antwerp Convention is only between EC and TKUR, but it deals with chemical weapons that are considered war crimes to use. He’s got stuff on this list that’d get us held before a war tribunal just for carrying them in our ship.”

  “As I understand it, Dr. Dee has little use for interplanetary law. Or any other law for that matter.”

  “Incorrect,” Ma stated. “Dr. Dee has a deep respect for copyright and patent law, though he has frequently utilized colorful language to describe those ways in which he perceives it to fall short of his requirements.”

  Garotte shook his head. “Why the man would design a control system that would interject in conversation I’ll never know.”

  “Look, the point is, I’m not entirely comfortable with working for a man who thinks a weaponized mutagen is a reasonable product to test.”

  “Yes, Silo. You’ve made your discomfort quite clear. But you’re a soldier, my dear. One of the key distinctions between a soldier and a civilian is the willingness and ability to do those things we are not at all comfortable with. Comfort, it is fair to say, has little to do with being a soldier at all.”

  “Fair enough, but—”

  “Look at number 272.”

  “I was in the middle of a… wait one minute. He’s got magnetic thermite? How does that even work? I thought hot stuff wasn’t magnetic. I’ve got to try that.” She tapped it. “Gosh, look at the blast yield on that directional charge…”

  #

  Forty-five minutes later, Garotte and Silo were still in the cafeteria. The room had seating for perhaps fifty people and had the standard plates, silverware, steaming bowls of food, and chilled beverages of a well-equipped industrial lunch buffet. The selection was limited to a pair of Tex-Mex favorites, but Ma was able to prepare some light snacks from off the menu.

  While the food was passable, the real reason they had lingered behind was a deepening interest in the assortment of potential testing opportunities. For the moment, Silo’s trepidation about working for Dee had been thrust aside by the revelation that Dee’s tinkering had reduced the size of quite a few different demolitions charges. The thought of personally deploying explosives that previously would have been considered more appropriate for ship-to-ship warfare was appealing to a life-long explosives aficionado.

  “Another tea,” Garotte said, holding up an empty cup without looking.

  A robotic arm clutching a somewhat anachronistic white china teapot rolled up.

  “Warning: Your request for additional tea is about to be fulfilled,” Ma said.

  “Yes, fine,” he said. “Why the devil is this blasted thing warning me about refilling my cup?”

  “I think you asked it to,” Silo said. “Back when it almost killed us by suddenly putting us back in control of the ship.”

  “Right, right. Ma, stop warning me about your intention to fulfill my requests.”

  “Acknowledged. Warning: Your previously requested warnings are going to be discontinued.”

  Silo snickered.

  “Processing… Please remain seated and do not be alarmed,” Ma said.

  “Why?”

  The answer came swiftly, in the form of a distant explosion that rolled through the facility. It rattled the tables of the cafeteria around the floor and caused the banks of lights to swing. Silo and Garotte tensed and made ready to evacuate. Military instincts dug pretty deep.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Ma said.

  “What was that?” Garotte asked, slowly relaxing again.

  “Dr. Dee is engaged in a product development task and failed to observe minimum recommended safety protocol.”

  “Is he okay?” she asked.

  “Dr. Dee has sustained considerable damage, but no organic components have been compromised. Processing… Dr. Dee is approaching, having listed ‘a goddamn drink’ as a sudden necessity. Please be aware that his disposition will not be as socially nuanced as would be preferable.”

  “He’ll be worse than usual? That is certainly saying something.”

  “Should we be worried?” Silo asked.

  “Caution is advised.”

  Garotte flicked through some of the more detailed information on the list of beta products.

  “Maybe we should leave the room before he gets here,” Silo said, glancing at the food counter as three mobile grippers rolled in.

  “Feeling skittish?”

  “I’ve dealt with my share of hothe
ads, but I have a feeling this one’s going to be a bit worse.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The computer is collecting all the sharp objects.”

  Garotte turned to see the last of the metallic eating utensils piled onto a tray while flimsy plastic sporks were deployed as replacements.

  A booming, angry voice echoed down the hall. “It is not unreasonable to expect the linkages to handle that PSI.”

  “It was seventy percent beyond the rated limit,” Ma stated calmly.

  “So?”

  Dr. Dee kicked the door open. This was notable for two reasons. It was a sliding door, and thus was not designed to swing open, and the foot that did the kicking was smoldering and incomplete.

  He stomped inside. With each step, the foot clanked. Aside from the appearance of charred flesh near the ankle, most of the foot was now clearly revealed to be a mechanical replacement. The toes were entirely missing, and sparking wires and leaking feed lines suggested there was additional damage to its inner workings.

  “What kind of a stupid engineer only builds linkages to their listed rating?”

  “The linkages are designed to fail safely for values up to and excluding a fifty percent overpressure. Again, you reached seventy.”

  “Had a bit of mishap, Dee?” Garotte mused.

  The inventor snapped his head toward the spy. “Are you still here? Who gave you permission to eat my food?” he barked.

  “It is both polite and hospitable to offer guests refreshment,” Ma said.

  “These aren’t guests, these are employees.”

  “Very well. Labor code dictates mandatory meal breaks at regular intervals.”

  “Oh, you just have an answer for everything today.”

  Dee grabbed the top from one of the steam trays and whipped it off. His arm produced an unnatural squeal of servos and propelled the aluminum lid to a velocity that embedded it five centimeters into the far wall. Had he shifted the trajectory a few degrees to the left, Garotte’s face might have been the thing that stopped—or failed to stop—the lid. Silo sprang to her feet and reached for where her sidearm would have been if she were still an active soldier.

  “Stand down!” she barked.

  Dee continued as though she wasn’t there. “Forty hours of fabrication and almost an hour of calibration straight down the crapper.” He grabbed a plastic utensil, angrily tossed it aside, then mounded a tray with beans and rice and kept the serving spoon to eat with. “Booze me, Ma,” he said, flopping down into his seat.

  “Would you prefer beer, wine, or spirits?”

  He scowled. “We’ve been through this, Ma. Beer isn’t booze. Wine isn’t booze. If it ruins lives and inspires Irish poetry, country music, and soviet land wars, then it’s probably booze. Get me something with Kentucky written on the bottle.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Dee turned to Silo and Garotte. “Did you idiots make any selections, or have you seriously been freeloading this entire time?”

  Silo and Garotte were still tense after the casual and near fatal example of violence. Garotte was the first to return to a more relaxed tone.

  “We have made quite a few selections, actually.”

  “Ma, load up their choices.”

  The pupil of his silver-irised eye flared briefly, and his eyes began to dart as though he was reading. Silo shakily took her seat, adopting the same exaggerated ease one might affect when sharing a room with a wild animal that might react violently to raised voices and a hostile posture.

  “… Good… That’s a good one. Nice to have some testers with some balls,” Dee said.

  “Incorrect, Dr. Dee. The security scan reveals that Ms. Lowell does not have any testicles.”

  “Wow. So glad to have that little detail cleared up,” Silo said.

  “You gotta upgrade your database of colloquialisms, Ma. But anyway, looks like you’ve racked up quite a payday if you actually test all of these. Might need some extra juice though. … Tell you what, Ma, crack open their ship. We’re doing an upgrade.”

  “I’m afraid our time is somewhat limited.”

  “Oh, sure. You had time to eat my food but not get an upgrade. It’ll take seventeen minutes, and it’ll trim sixteen hours off your trip.”

  Garotte raised an eyebrow. “And precisely how do you know how long our trip would have been?”

  “I had Ma run some searches on you and speculate on a destination.” He pointed to Silo. “You’re Jessica Winters. A security guard who used to be in the Earth Coalition Marines Special Forces. This Garotte guy, couldn’t narrow down to one name. You’re Steven Matthews, Marcus Samuelson, Gunther Allen, Maxwell Smith…”

  “None of the above, but your research is to be complimented,” Garotte said. “Some of those aliases were established but never actually used.”

  “Whatever. I don’t really care who you are. But she says you’re probably heading to Vye-7 to deal with some sort of pointless civil squabble.”

  “I shall neither confirm nor deny that,” he said.

  “That’s a wordy admission of guilt,” Dee said. “Anyway, I’m going to be having Ma patch into the local network so I can get some objective data to back up your testing. I make it a point never to trust my testers on their first test. Plus, sometimes the idiots go and get themselves killed before they can weigh in on the usage data, so this is a way to salvage some of the tests.”

  Garotte raised an eyebrow. “You’ll be hacking into their network?”

  “Correction,” Ma said. “We have already achieved complete access to public networks. Processing… We now have seventy-eight percent penetration into private networks.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give us access. My associate and I were discussing the relative benefits of hacking or blasting their communications, and access beforehand would render the point moot.”

  Dee waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not in the data access sales business. I’ve got a philosophical objection to it.”

  “You don’t strike me as the moral type.”

  “Moral, shmoral. It’s a matter of fulfillment. Either I sell you access up front, and then if you get locked out, you’re out all that money; or I sell you a license to software that’ll keep getting you in, and then I’ve got to do support, or I keep getting you back in, and that’s even more support. I’ve got no interest in running a service. I deal with too many customers as it is. Now shut up and listen. Ma’s going to be slotting in a new reactor to your ship. For one, it’ll help power up some of these beta units you’re testing, but it’ll also prove a point.”

  “And what might that point be?”

  “That people should know better than to foist their stupid designs upon me. These idiots I’m doing a reactor overhaul for basically gave me a design and told me to get it to work. You never do that. You say what result you want and you pay to get it. So I’m slapping a reactor in your ship that’ll outperform the design they’ve got me working on. Once I finally do get the stupid design tuned up and functional, I’m going to show them the performance curve on the one I’m installing in yours and charge them triple for the chance to buy it.”

  “Hold on one minute, hon. This isn’t the same thing you just blew your leg off with?”

  “No, and no. If you were listening, the design I just blew is theirs, and I’m installing my much better design. And I didn’t just blow my leg off with it, I busted my fake leg with it. My actual leg got blown off a long time ago. Now hush. Men are talking.”

  Silo’s eyes narrowed.

  “I’ll thank you not to speak to my associate that way,” Garotte said.

  “You’ll thank yourself not to speak to me that way,” Silo said.

  “Oh relax. You think women are the only people I’m dismissive to? I’m a universal offender, ask Ma.”

  “While Dr. Dee’s views on gender are antiquated, a complete tally of his behavior reveals no statistically significant bias toward or against any particular s
ubset of humanity, with the exception of the occupations of politician, lawyer, and scientist, who are disproportionately targets of his derision regardless of gender.”

  “Scientists?” Garotte said.

  “Lousy overrated wild-guessing blowhards drawing a paycheck whether they’re right or wrong.” He shoveled some rice into his mouth. “Don’t get me started on scientists. But anyway, what was I saying… reactor. Right. Enjoy the upgraded power system, paid for by the power of spite. Now Boom-Boom over here, I see you’ve got like seven different-diameter ammunitions and only one launcher. You’ll need to throw in a bore adapter kit if you’re actually going to test these.”

  “If I needed one, I would have asked for it.” She said, crossing her arms.

  “You do need one.”

  “No. You can use a spent casing from the standard-size grenade as a sabot for the number six variant, and if you double up the layer on one side you can bodge together a short-range solution for a number four. The launcher I picked has a high enough barrel pressure that I can muzzle-mount the two larger sizes, and that last one I intend to hand-deploy if necessary.”

  “Those rigged sabots are going to kill your accuracy.”

  “I’ve done it before. Nothing a decent eye for trajectory can’t handle, and with launchers like this you need a good eye anyway to compensate for variations in battlefield gravity.”

  “And the hand deployment? I didn’t put a timer in there.”

  “You can just hot-time it by reverse-biasing the power supply to the main capacitor and wedging it up against the piezo. Tends to take just about seven seconds to blow.”

  “Doesn’t seem too reliable.”

  “The cap usually does the job. If it doesn’t, the piezo is good for another zap, and if the payload still hasn’t ignited after that, usually the battery will pop and give you a third try. Not to mention the fact that it’s being hand-deployed means there’s probably still propellant in the mix to help it blow. If it still doesn’t go after that, you can just pop it with a shot from a sidearm.”