All the Wrong Moves Read Free Page A

capability never mattered in my other life. The civilian one. Minus the boots and ABUs. It might not have mattered all that much to me now if DARPA hadn’t insisted on a month-long orientation before exiling me to Fort Bliss.
    Part of my familiarization program included a tour of the Soldiers’ Support Center at Natick, Massachusetts. That was pretty interesting, actually. Those guys are doing some slick stuff. My orientation also included visits to several advanced research centers like MIT and Boeing’s Skunk Works. The kicker, though, was a trip to Bethesda Medical Center, just north of D.C. While there I talked to men and women who might not have lost legs or arms or eyes if they’d been better equipped.
    I’m not going to get schmaltzy on you, but . . . Well . . . Those interviews changed my perspective on a lot of things, this job included. I guess that’s why I get that annoying feeling I told you about, the sense that I’m part of something important. I can’t shake the hope my team might stumble across a new technology that could alleviate some of the pain and suffering I saw at Bethesda.
    Even more irritating is the thought that sneaks into my head when I don’t guard against it. If I stick out this assignment . . . If I complete my four years in uniform . . . Maybe, just maybe, I’ll break the downward spiral that’s been my life up to now.
    Which is why I refused to let EEEK get the best of me. Determined to crack him, I scowled at the metal carcass. The skeletal creature smirked back. With some effort, I managed to suppress the notion that it was only waiting to get me in its clutches.
    “Let’s go over the power ratios one more time,” I insisted. “I want to know precisely how much movement it takes to work the extremities.”
     
     
    NOT much, I discovered when I finally decided to climb aboard.
    A simple on-off switch activated EEEK’s built-in computers. Once he was powered up, I shed my tiger-stripe ABU blouse, tucked my dog tags inside my standard issue yucky brown T-shirt and folded myself into the metal frame.
    Correction. It wasn’t actually metal, but a feather-light composite that looked and felt like steel. The leg braces attached to my combat boots at heel and ankle. A springy tongue extended below each boot to air-cushion my steps. A web vest secured my spine to EEEK’s. My hands slid through loops on the arm braces and into glove-like controls.
    Encased in the frame, I felt a weird sort of reluctance to connect the headpiece and flip down the visor. I had the uneasy notion I was sublimating my brain to EEEK’s. I couldn’t escape the fact that his circuitry could process more data, more rapidly, with more accurate results, than mine.
    I mean . . . Electronic “eyes” that register images in a continual, 360-degree sweep? Infrared sensors capable of identifying the heat signatures of everything from field mice to an incoming missile? A visor with more three-dimensional graphics than the latest version of Mortal Kombat? Gimme a break!
    Most of it was off-the-shelf electronics available in games sold to pimply teens and perennial adolescents like my ex. What made EEEK truly innovative was that Harrison Robotics had combined the electronic circuitry and lightweight composite frame with an advanced ergonomic design that blended technology with robotic muscle.
    “Minimize your movements,” All Bent warned. “The gimbals respond to the slightest . . . Wait! Lieutenant! Don’t lean forward like that!”
    His frantic shout came too late. One slight bend at the waist and I was kissing the floor. It took the combined efforts of my entire team to haul me upright again. I swear to God I heard EEEK snickering.
    “Minimize,” the Harrison rep reiterated. “Just think about moving.”
    I got the hang of it. Eventually. Still, I spent a full day banging around the test facility, making sure I could interpret the data EEEK bombarded my visor with, before I ventured outside.
    Bumping