The sudden quake was unexpected. It had caused the premature
collapse of an old hotel that crews had prepared for demolition. The crews had
made the critical cuts to the buildings support beams but would not place the explosive
charges until the demolition date. It was an incomplete collapse fortunately
for the child trapped inside. No one had bothered to inform the squatters to
stay out of the condemned building. Despite the chain link fence surrounding
the old hotel, they had taken refuge from the cold night air inside the
building. They were on their way out when the quake hit, but the boy had run
back inside to retrieve something he had forgotten.
Homeland Protection had assigned Agent David Bruce to train
a new product from AndroGen Corporation. They had developed a Search and Rescue
Mechanism whose purpose was to go places too dangerous for humans. The
collapsed building qualified. Agent Bruce sat across from the AI in the van as
it pulled up to the site. AndroGen delivered the unit while he was away on
vacation. As a joke, his fellow agents had commissioned it with his face and
had sat it at his desk.
He gave it the name Elijah as a tribute to another detective
with a robotic partner from one of his favorite novels. Elijah was in need of
training to deal with humans. Agent Bruce wasn’t sure that he was the right
person for the job. He had only been working with Elijah for a month. This was
the first time he had the unit out in the field.
The local police were uncertain which of them to address
when they saw Elijah and Agent Bruce emerge from the van. It wasn’t until Agent
Bruce inserted the commlink into his ear that someone extended an introduction.
“Hi. You must be Agent David Bruce. I’m Sergeant Hawkins, Fire and Rescue.
We’ve been informed that a child may be trapped inside.”
“What do your scanners say?”
“There’s a definite heat source, but we can’t be certain.”
He glanced at Elijah. “Is that the SaRM we’ve heard so much about?”
“I have no idea. Who’s been talking to you about SaRMs?”
“AndroGen has been trying to get us to buy one. They said
Homeland already had one for dealing with dangerous situations. We’ll see how
yours does.”
“He’ll get the job done, but he won’t like it.” He also
wouldn’t hate it. In fact, Elijah would have no opinion whatsoever about the
task.
Agent Bruce sent Elijah in, monitoring his progress as he
snaked his way through the rubble toward the heat signature. Inside a large
pyramidal space, Elijah located an eight-year-old boy. Several of the passages
that Elijah had taken to find the young boy had collapsed behind him. Agent
Bruce searched the building plans and located a passage that would take them to the building next door.
Elijah entered the building next door and took the stairs
down to the basement. He found the passageway door and waited until Elijah was
close to the outer wall of the collapsed structure before opening the door on
the other side. He waved at Elijah and the boy. “Hurry up, come through. Don’t
ask, just do it.” Both the boy and the android ran through into the basement
hallway just seconds before an aftershock hit. Agent Bruce slammed the door
shut and then escorted the two upstairs and out of the nearby structure.
The youngster tugged gently on Agent Bruce’s jacket.
“Mister, how did know that door was there?”
Agent Bruce smiled at the boy and winked. “Magic,” he
replied.
