Page 11 of Wild Oblivion

"You better find a bomb, and you better diffuse it. I just evacuated all these people in the middle of a meal, and I promised I would comp their food.” Tony didn't like losing money.

You would think a bomb would scare people away. That they would move in the opposite direction.

But the crowd grew.

I'm sure quite a few of them wanted to see the damn thing go off.

The guys in the Bomb Disposal Unit grabbed the robot out of their vehicle and prepped it, then cut power to the building. Many IEDs can be triggered with a cell phone. A simple call or text and BOOM! Short of jamming the cell tower, there was no way to limit interference. Everybody and their brother had their cell phone out, taking pictures and uploading to the Internet. Any one of the onlookers could have been the bomber, just waiting to detonate the device.

BOB (the Bomb Operations Bot) was a prototype, bipedal robot on loan from A.R.I.S. for field testing. It wasn’t autonomous like their Maximus line. This was more of a remotely operated device with enhanced AI and 8K optics. You could turn it loose, and it would do its thing, but itwasn’t going to cook you breakfast. It was purpose built and had one task only—bomb detection and disposal. Gone were the days of clunky robots with tank treads and a single articulated arm. The times were changing.

The robot was capable of sniffing out most explosive devices. BOB could respond to verbal commands and give status updates. BOB stood about four feet tall with a silver exoskeleton and black joints.

The robot walked to the entrance of the pizza joint, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Sergeant Hartman operated BOB by remote. He wore special gloves with motion trackers and a VR headset that gave him BOB’s point of view. Hartman could override BOB at any time and control his every motion.

Hartman mirrored BOB’s view to the sheriff’s phone, and we huddled around, watching.

BOB walked around the pizza joint, looking in all the nooks and crannies. The robot’s highly tuned sensors didn't pick up any trace explosive compounds. The smell of bread, red sauce, mozzarella cheese, and Italian seasonings wouldn’t mask trinitrotoluene, RDX, or potassium chlorate, among others, from the robot.

BOB’s advanced optics had AI tracking with object recognition. It allowed him to identify objects quickly. The bot moved through the pizza parlor, checking out the tables and booths, looking in crevices and corners. The AI tracking identified slices of pizza, take-home boxes, soda glasses, the jukebox, and other items with blazing speed and accuracy.

In the far corner, affixed to the underside of the table of the last booth, BOB spotted the device.

His optics zoomed in, and we got a closer look.

The sheriff's face twisted with confusion. We'd all seen a lot of pipe bombs and improvised explosive devices, but nothing like this. The minister of death was a small, cylindrical device. Maybe 7 inches wide and 2 inches deep. A few blinking lights surrounded a central, semi-spherical core. It looked like a tiny flying saucer or a futuristic land mine.

Made of aluminum or some type of composite alloy, it could have been anything. Had there not been a previous explosion at the Crab & Claw, we all might have doubted the veracity of the threat.

"How do you want to handle this?" I asked the sheriff.

The feds hadn’t arrived yet. For now, it was our show, but that wouldn’t last long.

"Try not to blow us all up,” he said dryly.

BOB crawled under the table to get a closer look. His onboard AI processor scanned the device and compared it against known explosive devices.

"It's not in the database anywhere," Sergeant Hartman said after BOB reported back to him. "We’re looking at an original, one-of-a-kind device.”

7

This was a tricky situation. It always is, but when there is a new, unknown design, it makes it all the more complicated.

Every bomb designer has a unique signature—their special way of doing things. It holds clues to where they learned the craft, but this was so far out there, there was nothing to compare it to.

BOB positioned a makeshift Faraday cage over the tabletop to help reduce RF signals. It was a special woven fabric with conductive fibers. It wasn't foolproof, but it would go a long way toward keeping out cell signals.

BOB scanned the device with infrared and X-rays to get a look at the inner mechanics.

"What do you make of that?" the sheriff asked as we all huddled around the mirrored display on his phone.

I pointed at the screen. "That looks like the centralized core. Those are probably power supplies. A primary and abackup.” My face twisted with confusion. "I don't see a primary det charge. This isn’t a typical layout, and that's what scares me. It's got anti-tamper devices here and here," I said, pointing. “It looks like it detonates by initiating some kind of state change in the core.”

Daniels gave me a look that was a blend of annoyance and concern. "You keep saying the wordcore. That bothers me. Would you stop saying that?”

I gave him a look.