The Field Test

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.