Robert Ludlum's The Utopia Experiment - By Kyle Mills Page 0,28

and tell me how many combatants you see.”

“Two,” Pedersen said, squinting to pick out two camouflage-clad mannequins nestled into the trees.

“Dr. Smith?”

“Four. One directly behind the most obvious guy and one pressed up against a tree on the looker’s far right.”

Bailer’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m impressed. No one has ever picked out the fourth man from this distance.”

It wasn’t surprising. He’d always had a naturally good eye and had spent a fair amount of time putting a fine point on that innate ability. It, among a few other skills he’d picked up over the years, was responsible for him not currently residing in the Arlington Cemetery.

“Let me launch the application that takes feeds from the camera on your helmets.”

An icon floating to Smith’s right flashed once, but nothing else changed.

“Okay, now I’m going to start layering in different vision protocols. The first is an outline enhancement. For this, the computer uses an algorithm to search for lines that have a potential human or military component and bolds them. The human mind actually does something similar, which is what makes some optical illusions possible. With all due respect to evolution, though, our system is quite a bit more advanced.”

Suddenly the visual portions of the four men Smith had spotted were outlined in dull red. More interesting, though, were the things he hadn’t seen.

“How many now?”

“Six,” Pedersen said, sounding impressed. “And a hidden machine-gun placement.”

“All right,” Bailer said. “Now we’re going to just plain cheat. I’m putting the chlorophyll filter on. This will highlight anything that’s not a plant.”

“Jesus,” Smith heard himself say. Suddenly there weren’t six enemy combatants but ten. And at the very back, a tiny section of what looked like a piece of artillery was peeking through the foliage. “Will that work at night?”

“No, it’s measuring light absorption. For night we have other solutions.” The lights went out, leaving them in the dim glow of artificial stars in the ceiling.

“Here’s the light amplification overlay alone.”

Everything turned a familiar hazy green. At that level, Smith could only make out the two men Pedersen had originally spotted.

“What do you say we add a little smoke?” Bailer said. A quiet hum filled the room along with a billowing, chemical-smelling cloud that completely obscured the jungle. “Those mannequins are heated to ninety-eight point six degrees, so let’s switch to thermal.”

The dull green faded and the smoke disappeared. All ten mannequins were visible again, as were the weapons.

“Now everything together.”

“Jesus,” Smith muttered again. It was almost overkill. The image took on false color with the enemy in red and weapons in blue. Outlines were bolded and the computer was now filling in sections that were obscured. So in a dark, smoke-filled environment, an opposing force might as well hold neon signs that said “shoot me.”

Bailer seemed to read his mind and pulled two bizarre-looking assault rifles from beneath the table, handing one to Pedersen and one to him. They weren’t anything Smith had seen before—like M16s reimagined by Apple.

“How do you aim it? There’s no scope or sights.”

Smith suspected he knew the answer, but couldn’t bring himself to actually believe it.

“Please put your fingers on the triggers.”

He did but nothing happened.

“I think mine isn’t working,” Pedersen said, obviously having the same problem.

“Point the weapon in the general direction you’re looking.”

When Smith did, a set of crosshairs appeared at the center of his vision.

“The gun just needs to know its position in three-dimensional space. Where it is relative to your eye doesn’t make any difference. Combined with the Merge, it will measure distance and compensate for bullet drop. The only thing you need to worry about is wind and keeping it steady.”

Smith held the weapon against his hip and swept it across the jungle, watching the crosshairs projected onto his mind move smoothly from mannequin to mannequin. It felt exactly like a video game.

“Could I fire it around a corner, then?”

“The programming wouldn’t be difficult, but it would take some training to counteract the vertigo of having your vision move independent of your physical position.”

“And all the systems you’re showing us are exclusive to the U.S. military?” Pedersen asked.

“No. We’re currently working with Mercedes to integrate the thermal imaging and night vision into their cars. The targeting system, that particular outline enhancement algorithm, and the chlorophyll overlay will be exclusive.”

“So it’s the helmet cam that makes this work,” Pedersen said. “Not my eyes.”

“For the most part, yes. We can process the pixels the human eye brings in, but we can’t create capability that isn’t there,