“. . . is a place we like to call . . . Candyland!” beamed General Ramsey.
Silence. Punctuated by the tiny clicks and whirs and subdued conversation of the nearby team operating on the Battle-Suit.
“Candyland?” asked Parker.
“That’s correct,” said General Ramsey. He motioned to the enormous eagle insignia on the wall. “The eagle in flight. Swooping out of the darkness to defend freedom and guard her treasure. Magnificent, isn’t it?”
“Did you know Benjamin Franklin suggested implementing the wild turkey as the symbol for America?” All heads turned to Igby. “He said the bald eagle is a bird of bad moral character,” he continued, “and the turkey is a more respectable bird. Not to mention being a true original native of America. Mr. Franklin even considered the rattlesnake as our national symbol because it’s calm but has deadly venom. And did you know—”
“Igby.”
“What?” Igby looked innocently up at General Ramsey.
“Do you mind? You’re interrupting the narrative flow.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, General,” said Igby.
“Quite all right,” said General Ramsey. “As I was saying—”
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” All eyes turned to Colby. “I played Benjamin Franklin in a school play once,” said Colby. “That was my favorite quote.”
“Well said,” said General Ramsey. “As I was saying—”
“General, may I add something?” said Sunny.
General Ramsey took a deep breath and sighed. “Of course.”
“In light of Colby’s previous statement, I would just like to add that Benjamin Franklin also said there was never a good war or a bad peace. That’s all.”
“War is never a good thing, Sunny,” said General Ramsey, “but sometimes it is necessary. Force only responds to force. Remember that. All of you.” He surveyed each of them in turn. “Now, as I was saying, notice the banner the eagle is holding.” He gestured once again to the enormous eagle. “Aspicio illa dulcis specialis.” The General smiled proudly at the kids sitting in their movie theater seats. They looked blankly back at him.
“Did you just vomit into your own mouth and then swallow it back down?” asked Bubba. “Parker and I saw a bulldog do that once in Canary Downs. Remember that, Park?”
Parker nodded. He did indeed remember the sight, and sound, of the bulldog re-eating its breakfast.
“Allow me to translate,” General Ramsey continued. “It means, Behold These Sweet Secrets.”
Parker opened his mouth to ask what language the General had just spoken, if it were indeed Latin.
“You named a Top Secret military research and test facility after a board game?” asked Colby.
“Sure,” said General Ramsey. “It was my daughter’s favorite game when she was little. That’s when we first opened this installation.”
“It was my favorite, too,” said Sunny. General Ramsey smiled at her.
“I’ve always preferred games which test knowledge,” said Colby.
“My mom says knowledge is power,” said Bubba.
“She’s more right than any of us may know, I’m afraid,” said General Ramsey.
“I’ve always been a Go-Boy man, myself,” said Parker. He looked at the others, forgetting the question he’d wanted to ask about the language written on the banner. “I’ve played that a time or two.”
“That’s what I meant to say,” Colby said quickly. “It’s my favorite game, too. Definitely. For sure. I play it a lot. Every day.”
“Every day?” asked General Ramsey. “Even during the summertime when you’re out of school and all your friends are going swimming?”
“Not that he even goes to school,” said Bubba.
“I have teachers come to the set,” Colby sneered.
“So you don’t play Go-Boy every day,” stated Bubba.
“Well, maybe not every day,” said Colby.
“Parker plays it every day,” said Bubba. “Don’tcha, Park?” Bubba clapped Parker on the shoulder.
General Ramsey raised his eyebrows at Parker.
“Well,” said Parker, “my mom’s been gone three years now and my dad’s been off fighting the war almost as long. So I don’t have that much to do. I don’t really like sports. And I definitely don’t like homework.”
“Who does?” said Bubba.
“I don’t mind homework,” said Sunny.
“Me either,” added Igby. Igby and Sunny smiled at each other. Parker got that weird feeling again somewhere below his stomach.
“Well, you guys are definitely not normal,” said Bubba.
“That’s for sure,” said Colby.
“You were saying, Parker?” General Ramsey prompted.
“I do enough homework to get by,” said Parker, trying to shake off the tightness in his gut. “It’s easier than cramming the night before the test. And you can only watch so much SuperVision before you realize it’s mostly a waste of time because they’re always trying to sell you something. So I usually head to Skycade. Sometimes Sunny and Bubba come and we all play together. But mostly they’re home with their families. Bubba’s mom always asks me to stick around after supper, but sometimes I need to be alone. I head over to the arcade and climb into a Go-Boy simulator for a few hours. I guess I just want to be good at something.”
Everyone sat staring at Parker, even the technicians sitting at the computer workstation. He glanced at the crowd of scientists still busily repairing Igby’s Battle-Suit. Much of the armor plating had been removed. The underlying skeletal metal framework was exposed. The suit looked naked. A computer console on wheels had been rolled up to it and a series of colored cables plugged in. Two scientists stood on step ladders, peering down into the suit with small flashlights. Parker felt as though he were being similarly examined.
“Don’t let him fool you,” said Sunny, “he’s had the top score at the arcade for three months. He’s the best.” Sunny smiled.
Parker’s face grew flush. He pretended to find something wrong with his shoes.
“Very interesting,” said General Ramsey. “I guess I’ve got the right kids, then.”
“The right kids for what?” said Parker, looking up. Frustration sprang up within him again. His tone sounded more severe than he’d intended so he politely added, “Sir.” He hoped the General wasn’t going to threaten him with tooth extraction or fingernail relocation. Or something worse.
“I’m glad you asked, my boy,” said General Ramsey, stepping to one side. “Dr. Seabrook, if you please.”
“Certainly, General.” Dr. Seabrook’s fingers danced across his computer touch-screen and a schematic of a Battle-Suit appeared on the large central monitor positioned up on the wall above the technicians. He turned and addressed the kids in their seats. “This is a Go-Boy Battle-Suit, Model One-Zero-One. It’s the same as that used by Dr. Igby in the systems test a few moments ago. As General Ramsey stated, it’s the real deal. You’re probably wondering how it went from being a prop vehicle in the movies to dancing around doing back handsprings and showing off in an underground hangar.” Dr. Seabrook fixed his eyes on Igby. Igby smiled. “I’ll be happy to fill you in. In a nutshell, the Go-Boy Battle-Suit is a truly astounding piece of engineering and design. It represents the utmost precision in technology and is state of the art in every way. If it sounds expensive, that’s because it is. I won’t even bother trying to put a price tag on it because at this point we really don’t know what the total cost of the program actually is. However, there are certainly more important things than money and I think the Go-Boy Project is an excellent example of that.” Dr. Seabrook paused and took a sip from a red-and-white striped coffee mug. “The origin of the Battle-Suit, and the person who knows more about it than anyone, is the one and only Dr. Fry.” He nodded to Igby. “Dr. Fry, would you like to explain the history of your concept?”
“No,” said Igby, “that?
??s okay. It’s more exciting the way you tell it.” Igby smiled broadly. Parker had the bizarre impression they ought to be sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows on sticks, listening to a ghost story, the way he’d seen families on SuperVision do before they were attacked and killed by mosquitoes because they forgot to apply the bug repellant featured in the ad.
“Very well,” continued Dr. Seabrook. “A few years ago, the youngest person ever admitted was invited to attend the Global Institute of Technology in upstate New York. G.I.T. is the most prestigious technical school in the world. Igby Fry was that person. Despite being courted by the likes of Cal Tech, M.I.T., and Stanford, Igby chose G.I.T. In an unprecedented eighteen months, Igby earned triple degrees in astrophysics, aeronautical engineering, and robotics. At the age of nine.”
“And I feel good when I take out the garbage like my mom asks,” said Bubba. Igby laughed out loud and smiled warmly at Bubba.
“Igby is not only the youngest doctoral candidate in history,” said Dr. Seabrook, “he is also the only person ever to accumulate three degrees simultaneously. The culmination of his knowledge and study was the Go-Boy Battle-Suit. As Igby originally conceived it, the suit had virtually unlimited applications in firefighting, search and rescue, the aerospace industry, even construction, not to mention personal transportation. And, yes, as the name itself implies, there was of course the potential for military battlefield application. Now, as you can imagine, a nine-year-old genius with three Ph.D.s is bound to get some attention. It wasn’t long before Igby was featured on SuperVision as the newest boy-genius. Just as sure as sharks smell blood in the water, Hollywood came calling. A highly successful movie producer named Terry Hawthorne saw Go-Boy as a viable entertainment concept and before Igby had even graduated from G.I.T. the first film was in the can.”
“Go-Boy . . . Forever,” said Colby, “I remember that. Remember, Ig? The suits kept breaking down and falling apart. We didn’t shoot on film, though,” he said to Dr. Seabrook, “so it was never really ‘in the can.’ But I know what you mean.”
“What you don’t know, Colby,” Dr. Seabrook continued, “is that about the time you were appearing on Say, ‘Goodnight,’ America!, Igby was here, at Candyland, working on the Go-Boy Project, which became militarized long before it was a SuperVision show or a box-office blockbuster.”
“You said you couldn’t do the show because you were home sick,” said Colby. “I looked like an idiot going on national SV without my trusty side-kick.”
“If the shoe fits,” muttered Bubba. Colby glared at him.
“Sorry,” said Igby. “I thought the show went fine.”
“Brian kept making chicken soup jokes,” said Colby.
“Sorry,” Igby said again. “I didn’t intend for you to be so publicly humiliated. I was needed here.”
“Weren’t we working on the Thrust Vectoring System, Igby?” asked Dr. Seabrook.
“Yeah,” said Igby, “for our first working prototype. Remember how the thruster models kept exploding and you got too close on one of the tests and it burned your eyebrows off?” Igby suppressed his giggles with his palm.
“I remember,” said Dr. Seabrook. “My wife wouldn’t kiss me because she said I smelled like burning hair.” General Ramsey chuckled, as did most of the technicians sitting at the workstation. “It’s not funny. I had to sleep on the floor because our Labrador Budweiser sleeps on the sofa,” Dr. Seabrook added. Everyone was laughing now. “It’s not funny. Bud snores like a freight train.” Everyone laughed harder.
Despite Dr. Seabrook’s admonition, Parker had to admit the idea of a man with no eyebrows tossing and turning on the floor beneath a snoring Lab named ‘Budweiser’ was pretty funny. He chuckled and soon even Dr. Seabrook couldn’t suppress a smile. Then Parker realized something. “Your lab is named ‘Bud?’”
Dr. Seabrook nodded. “Yeah.”
Parker turned to Sunny. “Your Lab was named ‘Bud,’ too.”
“You’re right.” Sunny’s eyes widened as she realized this. She turned to Dr. Seabrook, who was already looking at her.
“You had a lab named ‘Bud?’” he asked.
Sunny nodded. “He was my brother’s dog, but he liked to sleep in my room, too.”
“What color?” asked Dr. Seabrook.
“Yellow,” replied Sunny.
“Quite a coincidence,” said Dr. Seabrook.
“Mama says coincidence is the physical manifestation of divinity,” said Bubba.
“Ah, baloney,” said Colby. “Coincidence is coincidence. That’s why it’s called ‘coincidence.’”
“You’re sadly misinformed,” said Bubba.
“We’ll see,” said Colby.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Dr. Seabrook continued, “Igby is the youngest person ever to be on Uncle Sam’s payroll. Quite an achievement. And an honor.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Ig?” asked Colby.
“It’s impossible to know everything,” said Igby. “Even I know that.”
“But we’ve worked together for three years!” said Colby.
Igby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Pretend you’re me,” he said. “Imagine having the biggest, most amazing secret that a kid ever had in the whole, big, huge history of the universe, and you can’t tell anyone. Colby, you can’t even imagine how lonely that can be.”
I might have some idea, thought Parker.
“My parents know about this place,” said Igby, “but every time I try to talk to them about what it is I do here, they get bored. Their eyes glaze over and they start talking about their tennis game or how juicy my mom’s tomatoes are and how moist the meatloaf is. They can’t understand anything about thrust vectoring or life support systems. It’s like I’m speaking another language.
“Next thing you know,” continued Igby, “I’m back in my bedroom writing updates for the systems manual or trying to find new ways to minimize drag coefficient. Did you know drag coefficient is equal to drag divided by the quantity of density times half the velocity squared times the reference area? Though we do have to consider air viscosity and compressibility.”
“Those are negligible below two hundred miles per hour,” said Dr. Seabrook.
“True,” said Igby, “but how often will you be flying less than two hundred miles per hour? Go-Boy will do Mach ten.”
“Mach ten?” asked Parker.
“Sure,” said Igby, “it has to be faster than any conventional fighter aircraft.”
“That’s six thousand, six hundred miles per hour,” said Sunny. “Ten times the speed of sound.”
“Approximately,” said Igby.
“You could fly from Los Angeles to Manhattan in half an hour,” Sunny added.
“Depending on temperature, atmospheric pressure, the jet stream, yes,” said Igby, “you could. My personal best is twenty-nine minutes, eighteen-point-four-six-two seconds. I would’ve been faster but I ran into a flock of geese outside Wichitaw.”
Bubba laughed.
“By my calculations,” said Igby, “Go-Boy can go even faster than Mach ten. I just haven’t had a chance to find out.” He looked hopefully at General Ramsey.
General Ramsey shook his head. “No way.”
Deflated, Igby again looked at Parker. “But don’t worry. The faster it goes, the more stable its flight characteristics become. It’s all part of a unique, one-of-a-kind exoskeletal inverse myoamplification system I invented.” Igby sat on the edge of his seat, eyes bright, gesturing with his hands. “It’s like a bunch of robotic muscles to help you overcome weight, stiffness, or pressure. Wait til you try it.”
“Igby . . .”
“What?” He looked at General Ramsey, who was looking a bit irritated.
“I think we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?” said the General.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, General. Anyway, what was I was saying?”
“The oath,” said General Ramsey.
“Oh, yeah. The oath, right. Th
anks, General.” Igby turned back to Colby. “I’m truly sorry you had to suffer through Brian O’Conan’s chicken soup routine. But I took an oath to uphold the secrets of this place and of the Constitution of the United States of America. I promised to do everything and anything I could in the interest of fighting for freedom. The late President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, ‘History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.’ So when you make a promise, you do everything you can to keep that promise. No matter what.”
“Well said, Dr. Fry,” General Ramsey said softly.
A contemplative silence followed Igby’s words. Parker saw most everyone looking down or off into space, struck by Igby’s sentiment, remembering in their own way what they were doing here, remembering the scope and magnitude of what it meant to defend freedom.
Parker suddenly felt completely out of place. “I still don’t understand what we’re doing here.” He hoped he managed to sound less accusatory than he felt.
“Dr. Seabrook, please continue,” said General Ramsey.
“Of course, General,” said Dr. Seabrook. “You are here because we have a problem. And believe me, it was a tough nut to crack. But I think we’re getting close. Real close.” He tapped the touch-screen again. The large central display screen showed the face of a man with wild, unkempt brown hair and big eyes. “This is Doctor Lascivious Red. Dr. Red is a former associate of ours. He was brought in to work on The Go-Boy Project due to his military background and his expertise in neuroprocessors. Igby and I were having issues with the bio-interface between the pilot and the Battle-Suit on Go-Boy Ultra. Dr. Red had us up and running in less than a week.”
“What’s Go-Boy Ultra?” asked Parker.
Dr. Seabrook didn’t answer. He turned to General Ramsey. The General looked steadily back at him.
“I think we should show ’em,” said Dr. Seabrook.
“We’ve already discussed this,” said General Ramsey.
“I know,” said Dr. Seabrook. “And I still think we should show them. Imagine yourself in their position. Wouldn’t you want to know what you’re up against? It’s only fair.”
“What if they get scared?” asked the General.
“I think it’s too late to be concerned about that, Martin. I mean, General.”
General Ramsey looked at the kids, then at Parker. Parker tried to appear tough, as though he weren’t already completely intimidated by everything he’d seen and heard and done.
General Ramsey took a deep breath and loudly exhaled, rubbing his face. “Fine. Show ’em.”
Chapter 12
First Impression