Chapter 57: 56 Lab Fun

I was actually surprised when Natasha came to retrieve me from the interrogation room and handed me the manual back. I thought about asking for my gym bag, then shrugged mentally. They would give it back when they would give it back.

Natasha also told me that I wasn't in trouble, which almost made me laugh in her face, because I had just been in some serious trouble and it was all caught on camera. That was why I freely admitted that I tricked my way into the administration offices. There was no point in lying about it, especially because it showcased my infiltration abilities in a normal situation.

Despite my apparent age, they had accepted that I had a right to be there, and that was worth more to a spy agency than almost any other skill an agent could have.

“We're going to R&D first.” Natasha said and led me out of the room.

An agent in the hallway handed me my gym bag as we passed and I nodded to him in thanks. I tucked the manual inside and followed Natasha to the elevator and down to B4.

When we first entered the main area, I was slightly disappointed. It was full of people in lab coats behind desks doing paperwork and had a bunch of drafting materials on shelves. It also had a small library of books, manuals, periodicals, and published papers.

Natasha brought me over to one of the men, seemingly at random. “I have a new recruit that needs an assessment test done.”

The guy didn't even look up from his desk. “Yes, whatever. Go bother Johnson with it. He's not busy right now.”

Natasha glared at the man for a moment, then she shook her head at him and walked over to another desk. When the man there looked up from his paperwork, I didn't laugh. I really wanted to, though.

Johnson was a nerd's nerd. If you looked up nerd in the dictionary, it would have his picture beside it. He wore glasses that were half an inch thick, had short dark hair that looked greased to his head, a large nose, his mouth had an overbite, and he wore a retainer.

“I have a new recruit that needs an assessment test done.” Natasha repeated.

Johnson sighed. “Just because the department head doesn't think what I'm working on is important, it doesn't mean I'm not busy.”

“What are you working on?” I asked.

“Quantum theory and the hidden potential energy that it could unlock.” Johnson said.

I shook my head. “I can't help you with that. I had to drop my quantum mechanics class.”

Johnson nodded. “Most people aren't smart enough to understand the intricacies of...”

“I understood it just fine. The teacher was just upset that I had amnesia and couldn't remember the last three months of his classes.” I interrupted.

“If you have amnesia, why are you here for an assessment?” Johnson looked from my face to Natasha's.

“Director's orders.” Natasha said and handed him the piece of paper Fury had given to her. “He also has a mechanical project for you guys to develop as soon as possible.”

“You want Davis over there in development.” Johnson said and pointed two desks over. “He's the one wearing a lab coat.” He joked and snorted before covering his mouth with a hand to muffle his laughs that sounded like a donkey braying.

I will not laugh at him. I will not laugh at him. I thought hard, then I couldn't help myself and laughed.

“Finally! Someone with a good sense of humor.” Johnson said and shouted. “Hey, Davis! New mechanical project!”

Davis shot out of his chair and looked a little frantic as he rushed over. “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!” He said and snatched the paper from Johnson's outstretched hand.

“We need an assessment test first.” Natasha said to him.

Davis waved her words away. “I can give him that while we're working.” He said and his eyes locked onto mine. “What ideas have you got locked inside that brain of yours?”

“I'm not allowed to joke or make inappropriate comments.” I responded right away and about half of the people in the room started laughing. The sheer range of different laughs was funny all by itself.

“Ha! I agree with Johnson. It's about time someone with a real sense of humor showed up here.” Davis said. “Help me grab some drafting tools and we'll go to one of the empty desks for you to do up the plans.”

I nodded and followed him over to the shelves with everything on them and brought what we needed over to an empty desk. Natasha stood off to the side and observed, rather than crowding around the desk as I worked. Davis stood there like an expectant father as I quickly drew out the outline of a thin rectangle. He was fidgeting and was non-verbally prompting me to go faster with slight hand gestures.

I chuckled under my breath and used one of the oval tools to quickly draw a copy of a standard keyboard onto the dynamic view of the rectangle.

“Don't disappoint me, Mr. Parker.” Davis whispered.

I smiled as I glanced at him, then I added in the measurements and the main rubberized material. He sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes almost bored into the paper as he waited for me to continue. I could almost feel his anticipation as I did the cross section and exploded view, then I drew out the flexible touch sensor and sketched out the microchip, the microfiber wiring for the cord, and added in the wireless connective device from an earpiece.

“By Pythagoras' Theorem.” Davis whispered and picked up the drafting paper with reverence. “This is brilliant.”

“I've also worked out the fastest manufacturing process.” I said. “Injection moulding.”

Davis jerked like he had been slapped. “You set the components where they need to be, close the mould, then inject the liquid rubber. It will set almost instantly and you have a completed device in only 30 seconds!”

“The keyboard images can be silkscreened or laser burned onto it and the programming is simple and easy to flash to the microchip. That can be done before or after it's sealed into the rubber.” I added.

Davis grinned at me. “Mr. Parker, congratulations on passing your assessment.”

“What? He didn't do anything to qualify for...” Natasha started to say.

“He successfully drafted working plans to create and reproduce a product without making a mistake. He can convey his ideas quickly and simply to coworkers. He's also personable and has knowledge of manufacturing processes and programming.” Davis said. “All of those qualities will make him a fantastic researcher and developer.”

“Thank you, sir.” I said, pleased at the compliments.

Davis chuckled. “There are no sirs or madams in this room, Mr. Parker.”

I had to smile at that. “Then you can call me Ben or Parker, depending on the social rules.”

“We usually stick to last names because there's too many Johns and Janes around.” David said. “All Johns raise their hands!”

Three men put up their hands and then waved.

“You guys are really lucky I'm not allowed to make inappropriate comments or jokes about Johns and prostitutes.” I said and they all laughed.

“HA!” Davis barked. “Fill out your info at the top of the sheet there, Parker.”

“They haven't assigned an agent number to me yet.” I said and filled out everything else.

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“You get that when they assign you to a department. The sequence lets people know where you work.” Davis said and marked Fury's sheet for Natasha and handed it back to her before he rolled up my draft. “I'll get the guys together and we'll have the processes worked out and the prototype done in half an hour.”

“How long for production?” Natasha asked.

“After safety testing and approval, about six hours.” Davis said and smiled. “I must say, this is going to make you a very popular person, Parker. You'll be saving thousands of fingers from keyboard pain by tomorrow!”

“I'm always glad to help, Davis.” I said and he clapped me on the shoulder.

“Good man.” He said and nodded to Natasha. “Agent Widow.”

Natasha nodded back and motioned for me to follow her. As I did, six other men and women piled around Davis and they started talking animatedly, waved their hands around, then they moved off as a group through one of the many doors at the other side of the room.

That sure lit a fire under their asses. I thought and only half-expected Natasha to make a comment about it. She didn't, which meant she was still thinking about what we had talked about earlier. Hopefully. It was difficult to tell what she was thinking when she kept her face blank all the time.

We went to a chemistry lab next and good lord, it was a chemist's dream. It had everything you could ever want or imagine in a chemistry lab, both chemicals and equipment, including the kitchen sink. A dozen of them, actually. We weren't allowed into the actual lab area, though. We weren't properly dressed for it and we weren't decontaminated.

The head of the department came out of his office and read the list Natasha had, then he proceeded to give me a verbal exam. I answered as many questions as I could and those I didn't know, I said so. When I said that for the third time, he marked the sheet and gave it back to Natasha and he went back into his office without saying anything else.

“I'm going to assume that was a fail.” I said and Natasha nodded.

We left there and went down to B5. When we entered the next lab, the robotics lab, I did not let out a squeal like a little girl. Nope, I did not. I also refused to acknowledge an amused Natasha when one of the lab technicians came over to us.

Natasha handed the man the sheet Fury had given her and he nodded. He led us into a side room that was filled with various tools, wires, and diagnostic equipment, then he picked up a big bin full of junk. Well, it looked like junk. It was actually a whole pile of unsorted electronic parts and metal pieces.

The man put the bin on a large table and waved at it. “Make me something.”

I blinked my eyes three times rapidly, because I couldn't believe it. “Are you kidding me?”

“No.” The man said. “Show me what you can do.”

I gave the bin's contents a quick scan and looked back at the man. “I need either a laptop or a standard earpiece.”

The man's face seemed to stiffen slightly. “Are you saying you can't make something?”

“No, sir. I'm saying I need something to program with when I'm done.” I said and started to dig through the parts. I was tempted to make a little drone and use my cell phone to control it, then discarded that idea. It was too close to my own covert operations to expose myself like that.

I found two actuators with a 30 degree movement arc and several angled metal pieces that could be used for legs, and it made me grin. I dug into the bin for a control module and then a processing node and a tiny circuit board. I added them to the small pile I had and thought about what I could use for the arms. I saw a small pneumatic piston and nodded as I grabbed more metal pieces.

I went to the wall of tools and grabbed several testers and a dremel rotary tool, several bits for it, and went back to the table. I sat down and started working on the metal pieces to carve out holes and slots to attach to the actuators and for the tiny bolts I would use. That reminded me to grab bolts and I went to the wall of accessories and dug through the dozens of drawers and found a handful of the right sized bolts.

I went back to the table and started testing things with the diagnostic tools. I had to replace the control module because it had a fault somewhere and then I started to assembling everything. I didn't wire anything up, because I didn't know the clearance distance I would need to connect everything. I also had to allow for movement and tolerance for the electric current.

I had to grab a small battery pack and tested it to find it was at half charge, which would be fine for this test. It was easily replaceable, because I attached it to the back of the body for easy access. It also let me balance the thing without having to add extra unnecessary weight.

It didn't really need feet for balance, because it was already balanced, so I just put rubber stoppers on the ends of the metal pieces and used a bolt on each to attach them to the actuators on the body. Once I had that done, I used the dremel rotary tool to cut a hole in the main circuit board on the right side and mounted the pneumatic piston to it, at a 20 degree angle upwards.

I only intended it for a single use, so I didn't need to add the entire pressurized system. I dug through the bin again and found a three inch long plastic tube and used the dremel to carve out the right shape to attach it around the end of the pneumatic piston.

I was handed an earpiece and I changed heads on the dremel to slice open the casing and took out the main electronic piece and added it to the back of the circuit board. Once I had all of that together, I grabbed a small handful of wires and did careful measurements as I snipped and cleaned the ends and wired everything up.

I took out one of the untraceable cell phones and connected to the earpiece, then I opened a simple text editor and typed with my thumbs the simple programming my little walking robot needed. It really was a simple set of instructions and only took me a couple of minutes to create, then I sent it over the earpiece to the control module.

Before I sent the activation code to my walker, that looked suspiciously like an AT-ST from Star Wars without the armor, I went to the parts wall and grabbed a small metal ball bearing and put it into the plastic tube. There was a chuckle from behind me as I set my walker in the middle of the table.

“One small step for robotics, one giant leap for all Nerd-dom.” I said and sent the start command.

The chuckle got louder as my walker walked like a chicken for six steps, then it fired the pneumatic piston and the small ball bearing shot across the room and it dinged off of the metal door. The battery pack died and the actuators moved back to their defaults, which straightened both legs and made the now unbalanced walker topple over onto its 'face'.

“You pass, Mr. Parker.” The man said and marked the sheet before he gave it to Natasha. “Your immediate choice to check all of your chosen components first, before assembly, really brought up my opinion of you.”

“Thank you, sir.” I said.

“Your choice to assemble everything and then measure for wiring? Well done. Not many care enough for their creations to do that and add a lot more than necessary, which adds to the weight and the distance the electric signals need to travel, which would require adding additional components to handle it.”

“I'm used to working frugally, sir.” I responded.

The man nodded. “I like clean boards and easy to check components.” He said and turned my walker over. “An AT-ST was an inspired choice, wasn't it?”

“I've always wanted to make one, even if a real one wouldn't be able to take a single step without toppling over.”

“My colleagues and I have discussed things like that at length and we've come up with a theory.” The man said and I couldn't keep the interest off of my face. “We believe that they incorporate some of their landspeeder hover technology into the main body.”

I caught my breath. “That would negate nearly all of the excess weight from the main engine that moves the legs and also explains how it can wobble so far off from its center of gravity and not fall!”

The man chuckled. “That's exactly right.”

I thought about it. “The AT-ATs wouldn't need it, since they have four legs and move agonizingly slow.”

The man smiled. “What if they trotted?”

“They would wear out their gears and collapse under the weight after several hundred feet.” I said right away and then smiled back. “If they incorporated the same system from the AT-ST, they could change the gear ratio that moves the legs. If they do that, then it's theoretically possible to lift two opposing legs at the same time with enough speed.”

“Are you copying a horse's movements?” The man asked.

“Nope! A camel's.” I said and we both laughed. AT-ATs were widely known as robotic camels.

“We need to go to the tactical assessment.” Natasha said.

I held a hand out to the man for him to shake. “It was nice meeting you, sir.”

“Likewise, Mr. Parker.” He said and escorted us out of the robotics lab.

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