Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,96
jaunt had been maybe three-quarters of a mile.
Another palm-reading sensor, and then they entered a pitch-black space.
“Welcome to my battle lab,” Molleken said.
He stepped forward, and motion-activated lights clicked on, illuminating the cavernlike space in segments. The lights kept going, the lab stretching out and out as it unfolded into view, an awe-inspiring reveal.
There seemed to be no rear or side walls, just perimeters where the lights ceased illuminating.
Evan followed Molleken through various industrial workbenches, server racks, and enclosed spaces. The cold design and fascinating gear gave it a utilitarian cool-nerd aesthetic; Evan half expected to find a Tesla coil lurking behind a pony wall. The overheads began to shut off in their wake until they were entrapped in a solitary rectangle of light that moved with them, the rest of the battle lab hidden all around.
They moved past a variety of missile prototypes, and then a disassembled Predator drone came into sight. Evan felt a prickle at the back of his neck where the Hellfire missile had scorched his skin.
“Is that a Predator drone?” he asked. “Here in your private lab?”
“I’m engineering a superior carbon-and-quartz-fiber composite for the fuselage,” Molleken said. “To reduce vibration and further decrease the sound signature.”
“You must have crazy security clearances,” Evan ventured.
But Molleken just kept walking, the lights clicking off behind them, shrouding the Predator in darkness.
They arrived at a bowling-alley stretch of polished tile leading to a bizarrely staged tableau: a variety of mannequins posed among furniture as if at a cocktail party. A masculine one in the middle had a bright red target painted on its smooth plastic skull. Molleken halted at the far end of the gallery before a lab bench. Atop the immaculate surface rested a plastic torso and head wearing a skin-tight skullcap of sorts, the apparatus on display like a wig.
As Molleken peeled it up gingerly, Evan saw that it was studded with electrodes—hundreds of them. Molleken placed it on his head, making several minute adjustments as if smoothing a swim cap into place.
He looked ridiculous, his round face beaming beneath the apparatus. Sliding open a drawer in the bench, he removed a tiny robotic bee and set it down on the lab bench. A shiny little square of a backpack rose from its thorax. Next he took out a laptop and placed it open beside the torso. Code began to scroll across the screen.
Evan blinked pointedly, initiating the live-feed feature of his contact lenses. A graphic appeared, projected by the left contact and visible only to him. It indicated that there was no signal here; the recording would be saved and dispatched once he returned aboveground.
“I started developing neurofeedback to interface with robotic prosthetic limbs,” Molleken said. “Turns out we can be trained to vary our neuro-wavelengths and use the brain-control interface to manipulate objects external to us.”
He closed his eyes, settled his shoulders, took a breath. The bee hummed to life and rose, flying in circles around his head. Evan focused on the laptop, capturing as much of the code as he could without seeming obvious.
Molleken opened his eyes, his forehead furrowing with focus. The bee buzzed and buzzed overhead. “Would you like to guess the accuracy of bombs during World War II?”
Evan said, “Not good.”
“An understatement. They had a fifty-percent chance of landing within two kilometers of the target.”
A band of perspiration appeared at Molleken’s forehead just below the rim of the cap. The bee zipped off into the darkness behind them, banked, and flew back around toward the posed party scene. It sliced between the peripheral mannequins, cut right, and struck the target painted on the plastic skull with a bang.
A sharp sizzling sound matched by a puff of black powder.
Molleken peeled off the cap and beckoned Evan forward. They reached the target mannequin. It had a quarter-size entry hole directly over the bull’s-eye and a cone blown straight through the solid plastic skull.
“My precision munitions are accurate to within two inches,” Molleken said. “A tiny bang sufficient to breach the skull and incinerate the contents. Think about the reduction in collateral damage. Life, property, infrastructure.”
Evan circled the mannequin, peered back through the exit hole.
Impressive.
The force of the explosion hadn’t even been sufficient to knock the mannequin off its feet.
When he came back around, Molleken was holding another robotic bee between his thumb and forefinger. “Now watch this.” He aimed it at Evan, compressing its wings once, and it made a click like a camera taking a picture.