Robofootball: Doublespin

“My man Antwan, how’s my favorite soldier doin’? Are they treating you well?” Reynolds inquired, but it was more for his own potential star wide receiver and the good of the team as opposed to any genuine personal interest in Antwan himself.

“What up Reynolds?” Antwan beamed as he was flexing his new robotic right arm that looked something from a Terminator movie.

“Yeah, just checking, how’re they treating you?”

“Good man, real good. I kind of like this place man, they’re looking out for the little guy, the solider, now if those bastards would get off their ass in DC, the guys in the field should get some of this stuff too.”

“Yeah, we’ve got it, they’re just too cheap to pay for it. It’s all about the money as my uncle would say. I did tell them to treat you personally like a king.”

“You know, it’s all right man, even the food is good here, we cool. Come shake on it!” Antwan grinned that goofy jokey grin of his and held out his new hand.

Reynolds hesitated, then strode up and held out his right hand, “Easy now.”

Antwan’s long metallic fingers on his new right hand grabbed Reynolds’ more flesh and somewhat lean hand, and gave it a 20% power squeeze which was plenty firm enough.

“Damn, that’s a big hand you got their pal,” Reynolds pulled his hand back and flexed it after Antwan let go.

“Yeah, I gotta practice some with it, but they made it to match my good left hand.” Antwan held out both hands. His natural left hand was large too with long fingers, the kind that could palm a basketball or haul in a football without help from the other.

“How’re your legs coming?”

“They keep putting them on, pulling them off, tweaking or what’s that little engineer dude, Yuri or something, he’s from the Czech Republic, some place called Pray-egg or something.”

“Prague?”

“Yeah that’s it, tweakin’, fabricatin’, adjustin’, you name it, he’s doin’ it.”

“Well good, if I know Yuri, he won’t sleep until it’s perfect. Plus it’ll be custom fit to you too, one-of-a-kind, not like that mass-produced plastic shit you’d have gotten at the VA.” The legs had come from HAL, another Verlucci interest, but Yuri was doing a few adjustments and last minute alterations.

“Yeah, it’s all good Reynolds like I said, except for maybe this 12 volt battery he’s got my junk hooked up to.”

“Yeah, hang in there, I heard the new lithium packs are on order for you and,” whoops, he was about to say Jess, “Er, we’ll get them to you soon.”

“All right, thanks man.”

“You can thank me by catching a lot of balls.”

“You got it.”

“Just keep it top secret, Yuri thinks you’re a Special Forces elite soldier going on top secret missions.”

“Got it, don’t worry, where I come from, we don’t talk to no one.”

“Good, all right, see ya Antwan, I gotta go talk to Yuri.”

The Verlucci Family held a 32% stake in the Michigan Institute of Robotics or MIR, a firm with prime military contracts for making tank parts, especially armor. The armor was being adapted to individual body suits for soldiers including vests and helmets. Reynolds strode to the back of the plant passing about every high tech computerized milling-style machinery known to man: Mitsubishi plasma & laser cutters the size of dining rooms, EDM machines, CNC machines with automated enclosed operations, lathes longer than pickups, surface grinders even longer than the lathes, and more. Some of Yuri’s old antique favorites were still there too: A Cincinnati press brake, Bridgeport mills, and a massive Devlieg boring machine to name a few. Yuri was in the clean room where highly precision metallurgical and integrated circuitry work was completed for the government. Reynolds caught his attention through the window.

“Reynolds, how ya doin’?” Yuri strode out beaming with a great smile and broken English. He came from an impoverished background and his parents had been killed during the uprisings in the later 1980’s when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He was born an engineer, taking televisions, radios, cell phones, and computers apart, then putting them back together or modifying them for the better. Using little more than an old laptop and a cell phone, he built a tracking device that his government eventually used as a prototype for their own cell phone tracking system. After working as a communications expert for UN security forces, he joined up, got a passport, left the country, and never looked back. After a few years in California’s Silicon Valley, he got the chance to be ‘da man’ as he put it, and head a start-up robotics company in Michigan over 10 years ago, the MIR.

At first it was a little cold after living a few years near LA, but the change of seasons wasn’t all that different from his homeland, southern California always seemed to be too hot. Yuri was a little guy, maybe 5’4”, and his time in America had not been good for his waistline. 12 years ago as a 24 year old he may have barely made 125 pounds; his extended time in America, especially with a penchant for doughnuts, gave him an extra 3 or 4 pounds per year. Though 170 didn’t sound like a lot for a man, it looked heavy on what had been a small slight frame with narrow shoulders like that of an antebellum southern belle who never completed an hour’s worth of sustained physical labor in her entire life. Yuri did work hard however and he spent much of his life in the shop, 12, 13, or 14 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, and an occasional all-nighter too if he really got inspired or hung up on something that he was working on. He remained unmarried and no kids, not even any accidental ones since he was a 36-year old virgin. His height all but left him out of the cold when it came to women.

“Yuri, my man,” Reynolds crushed the little guy’s hand as Yuri pumped it furiously as best he could.

“Dat Antwan funny guy,” said Yuri, “he a joker, a riot.”

“Yeah, what’s he been telling you?”

“Funny guy, funny stuff, what you call man with no arms, no legs in pool?”

“I don’t know,” said Reynolds.

“Bob! You know bob up bob down!” Yuri motioned with his head. “Antwan tell me dat. What you call one in pot?”

“Don’t know,” said Reynolds.

“Stu!”

“Oh god, let me guess,” said Reynolds as it was coming back to him. “You got Art on the wall, Russell on the leaf pile, Matt outside your door, Sandy on the beach, Skip being pulled by the boat, Jack under the car, and Phil in the hole.”

“Fill?”

“Yeah, short for Phillip, it’s a name, Phil, who would FILL in the hole.”

“Ah funny!” Yuri doubled over. “I get it, Antwan not tell me dat one.”

Reynolds couldn’t help but grin at Yuri’s enthusiasm. He had to admire Antwan too and could not fathom the pain he must’ve endured both physically and mentally after losing so many body parts. It was the American way to joke about tragedy whether it was the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster or something about a blind person. Only the 911 World Trade Center tragedy seemed to be off limits in the humor department. “Anyhow, how’s Antwan’s body armor coming?”

“Have trouble wit da weight, Antwan big man, can we do more than 136 kilos?”

“How much is that in pounds?”

“300.”

“Nope, got to stay at 300 pounds or your 136 kilos, plus his head cover can only be two inches at most, not sure what that is in metric.”

“5.08 centimeters.”

“Right, can’t be taller than 6’6” altogether.” Reynolds had altered Antwan’s height to read 6’4” to provide for the head cover. Antwan’s original height was 6’5”, but the prosthetic legs made by HAL would actually be an inch less than Antwan’s biological limbs.

“198 centimeters,” Yuri said after doing the calculation in his head. “I think we be okay dare, see dis material?” Yuri handed him a flak jacket.

“Its light all right, looks about an inch thick.”

“Juss 2.5 centimeters, ya, under inch.” Yuri went on as Reynolds tried to catch what he was saying. Something about the Kevlar inner padding, and a multiple metal alloy externally, titanium and magnesium for strength, aluminum for lightness, maybe turdy or thirty percent steel if he heard right, but that weight gain was still going to be a problem given Antwan’s size and prosthetics. Despite losing an arm too, Antwan had broad shoulders and a thick torso.

“Got to be 300 pounds or how many kilos did you say?”

“136.”

“Yes, can’t go over that, do your best Yuri, that’s the way it’s got to be. Antwan’s body armor and head gear, everything, altogether.”

Yuri frowned and just said, “I try.” He would be up nights thinking about it and what to do.

“Oh yeah, did you get the robots? I sent a Gen 1 and a Gen 2.”

“Ya, I pull one out of da crate.”

“Can you make Antwan’s armor look like one of those?”

“Ya, I tink so, dat no problem, can paint any color.”

“Good, and there’s one more thing.”

“Ya?”

“I’m going to need another special set of armor too, exactly like Antwan’s.”

“Tame size?”

“Close, an inch or two shorter maybe.”

“Wat ’bout da shoulders? Arm length? Leg length? Each man different.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m having that Hobson guy send you the body specs. It’ll have to be light, just like Antwan’s.

“Another solider?”

“Yes, but remember this is top secret government stuff, tell no one. Antwan is going to go on special missions and is going to have to stop bullets with his armor.”

“Ya, top secret, hush, hush,” Yuri put his finger to his lips, “Kevlar will do dat.”

“Shrapnel, rocks, and other stuff that might hit him too, that armor will have to be tough.”

“Yuri grinned, “We be makin’ are own Iron Man, no I tink, more like Titanium Man!”

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it, but yeah, something like that.”

Yuri thought a moment, “As long as he not catch on fire, should be okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Magnesium, titanium be Class D, how you say it, volatile, dangerous in fire.”

“Oh?” Reynolds couldn’t fathom that metals would burn all that easily.

Yuri grabbed a fire extinguisher off a wall clamp and in his best broken English, explained the ABCD rating on it, that A was like ‘Ash’ for ordinary combustibles like paper and wood, things that readily create ash. B was for ‘Boom’ or for things like gasoline or liquid accelerants that arsonists were fond of using. C was for ’Current” found in electrical fires. D was the tricky one, formulated especially for highly volatile metals that could flash, sparkle, and even some would explode in both fire and water. Yuri went on to explain that there was a K rating too for ‘Kitchen’ or grease fires, but they did not require that ability here in the shop.

“Whew, that’s a lot,” said Reynolds. “It should be okay, but you can tell Antwan to stay away from fires.”

“Ya, we have to pay more to get da D.”

“Is that about it?”

“Ya.”

“Okay, and Yuri?”

“What do you call a black man with no arms and no legs in a swimming pool?”

“Dunno.”

“Buoy, but make it sound like boy.”

“Boo-Eee?”

“Yeah, tell Antwan, he’ll get it.”

“I not get it.”

“Just tell it to Antwan,” Reynolds laughed, always the trouble maker. He now had a total of 4 sources lined up for building his team. The MIR with Yuri as the lead engineer would construct the armor for Jess, Antwan, and for the whole team for that matter. HAL was making the limbs and crucial joints that would be shared with both Yuri and Doc Holliday. Kettering, under Holliday’s direction, would be designing the prototypes that would eventually be produced by Yuri at the MIR, and lastly, Dr. Hobson was going to construct the most intelligent robot of them all; one that any team would ever have. Ironically, Jess would not be a true robot, more along the lines of cyborg, still human, but enhanced with some electronic sensors. His movements nonetheless would be computer controlled by Hobson.

As backups, Reynolds still had a lot of old clunky Gen 1’s, a few Gen 2’s that had been purchased midway through the first season, and the single Gen 3 lineman that he had given to Holliday to dissect, but reassemble too when Holliday was finished. Holliday’s job was to design new players that rivaled or exceeded the Gen 3’s, or, in short, do the intricate work of servos, controls, programming, circuit boards, sensors, and so forth. The key to all good teams in Reynolds’ view, was a great quarterback and a top notch receiver. He was doing his best to build both, if not quite on the up and up. The money and the pressure that went with it came from his Uncle Dano, and he could not let Mr. Verlucci down. It was time to pay another visit to Holliday and to Hobson soon as well, only 3 months to opening day.

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden