Chapter 53

Alan’s turn:

It’s MY daughter in the middle of an argument. Yes, Cindy and Nikki and Rachel and Vicki and a whole list of Auburn students, both undergrad and post-grad, are involved, but at the center is our Terri.

“Dad, it’s not my fault,” Terri told me when she got home that Monday afternoon. “The army and Google are fighting over us.”

I shook my head. Tina had that slightly worried smile I’d seen during the first miles we drove together the day I met her. “I was afraid of this,” I said. “Let me guess – Google wants commercial development on an open market. The army wants to keep it off the market.”

“Yes, Dad. I’m trying to think of how we can still do both.” Terri smiled wanly. “I can’t think of a way right now. There’s too much bleedover. The army says encrypt the logic blocks, but I keep thinking that anyone with half a brain can see what we’re doing.”

“Baby,” Tina said, “if that was completely true, then somebody with half a brain would be doing it instead of using you.”

“I suppose.”

“You have a team,” I said. “You and Rache and Vicki make up something that’s very powerful. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Mister Sim doesn’t know how it works, either, but he and Doctor Stanton are trying to understand.”

“That’s what the meeting’s for, anyway, Dad.” My Terri, uncharacteristically uncomfortable that she’s NOT in control.

I’m thinking about the happy little Bot-bot that started all this, was still as likely to elicit an ‘Awwww! Cuuuute!’ as a ‘Wow! He can do THAT?!?’ and his evil (well, not EVIL evil, but certainly quite businesslike and militarized) Z-bot, and the Bot-bot that patrolled the back yard watching for squirrels and Terri and Nikki’s ‘combat Roomba’ autonomous security robot, made to almost silently roam the halls of the building it protected.

I don’t know what I want out of the deal. Bot-bot is actually THREE almost identical platforms. Usually one’s in the shop for experimentation and upgrade, but two of ‘em are now fixtures around wherever Terri and the group are located, or one of ‘em’s helping mommies. Carrying capacity bled over from the Z-bot’s military application and now a single Bot-bot can handle TWO loaded baby bags. Or the backpacks of three pre-teens on campus. And the mobility crossover now has Bot-bot able to get into the back end of one of the SUVs without assistance.

If we could get the out-the-door price below ten K, I think we could go to market. Google says we can, if we offshore it to China. It dawns on me – this is what the army is fretting over...

Wednesday at 0900 we’re in the conference room at the university with representatives of the government and Google and I get the distinct feeling that those two parties realize they’re at odds with each other. Terri and the bunch are in the middle. Two Dans there, taking care of Cindy and Nikki. Tim’s there with Kim for Vicki. Sim’s there for Rachel. And we have three Auburn folk, one of whom is full-time counsel on legal matters affecting the university’s R&D work.

The meeting was not strident but it was definitely adversarial between Google and the Department of Defense. It wasn’t just the army, it’s just easier for me to think of it that way. The major that headed their monitoring of the Munchkins was well-versed in law as well as technology.

“Look, here’s the deal,” he said to the Google team. “We draw a line right here in the development cycle. You are completely welcome to commercialize anything up to this point,” he looked at us, “subject to agreements with the university AND the developers. Past that, though, we’re calling in our chips on government R&D. Folks,” he said to all, us in particular, “we want to continue development, but we call it classified now.”

Dan 1.0 asked the obvious question. “How do you give security clearances to a bunch of pre-teens?”

“Cindy’s already got one. So does Nikki,” Major Roth said. “I don’t suppose that any of you parents would have anything that wouldn’t pass a background check, would you?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t suppose. Then it’s us, right?”

“I’ll get you started on the paperwork.”

Kim Hong Li from Google stood up. “Gentlemen, I recognize the government’s interests here, but I want a transcript of this conversation as well as related correspondence. I can’t sign off on this situation without my own corporate buy-in. Besides,” she smiled at Terri, “I don’t want to stop working with these munchkins.”

Doctor Stebbins was the senior university educator. He stood. “Ladies, gentlemen, let us NOT forget that intertwined through all this discussion for research and development, we have more to develop than just robotics. We at Auburn take on responsibility for the education of these three ladies.”

“Thank you, Doctor Stebbins,” Rachel said. She’s the most tactful of the three. I watched Sim smile at his daughter’s participation. “The hard part of this is that we have friends here all around the table - Kim’s like another big sister...”

“We have many of them,” Vicki said.

I watched Terri, uncharacteristically silent. Scratch that. Premeditatedly silent. My daughter’s pulling back, letting the others of her team get some action.

The university’s attorney couldn’t contain himself, I suppose. He stood. “People, surely you’re not letting an agreement of this magnitude be decided by these kids?!?”

I looked at Doctor Stebbins. He winked. “Rodney,” he said to the attorney as if he were talking to a slow child, “these ‘kids’, as you call them, are three of the greater minds in this university right now. You’d be well put to take a longer look at some of the documents I’ve turned over to you. We have many R&D projects at this university. We usually have to go searching for grants to keep them going. These ‘kids’ were playing around in 3Sigma‘s lab, using some of OUR brightest students, developing robots that caught the attention of both Google and the government. The grants came looking for them.”

He smiled. “If I were you, I’d be thankful that one of them hasn’t decided to pursue a law degree.”

“But still...” Rodney continued.

“Fear not,” I said. “We’ve got our own attorneys. Nothing will be signed off at this meeting. We’ve gotten a chance to see what all parties are thinking.”

Major Roth – Ken – raised his hand. “You’ve heard our position.”

“I’m glad you didn’t say ‘demand’, Ken. Yes, we’ve heard. We understand and we’re in basic agreement, but what we’ve done is also of pecuniary interest to all parties here as well. The girls deserve remuneration for their work, as does the university for providing the facilities, and of course you’re going to buy out a segment of Google’s participation. None of that gets decided today, right?”

“Correct,” Ken said.

“Miss Kim?” I asked. “Correct?”

“Yes. That’s what I was saying earlier.”

Doctor Stebbins bridged his fingers in front of his face. “I suppose that this situation will dissolve into a flurry of emails for the next couple of weeks. I’m proposing that we meet in two weeks, hoping we’ll have solutions in hand.”

There was general assent to that. The meeting broke up. There was no knifeplay in the aftermath. I was somewhat surprised to find that Kelsey Eigener, one of the students working on the project, was there. When I saw her and Major Roth exchange looks, I think I understood that ‘coincidence’. Good, though, was Doctor Stebbins’ fatherly smile as he talked with Cindy, Nikki and the Munchkins.

When I got home Tina poked me. “Cindy doesn’t fight fair. She sends cookies to his office.”

“Nice move,” I said, “but seriously, how could you look at those girls and NOT want to ‘father’ your butt off?”

“True, true,” my wife said.

Terri’s ear perked up. “Dad, they’re not doing this because we’re cute. Otherwise they’d have the Care Bears or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I know that. But the fact that you’re adorable is a big plus.”

“Works for Cindy,” Terri giggled.

I looked at Tina, seeing her rolling her eyes.

“Cindy’s cute, no doubt, but not quite as cute as my adorable wife or my magical daughter.”

Terri giggled. She likes to think she’s got one on me. “Me or Kathy?”

Kathy was crawling around the floor. Her head popped up when she heard her name. She sat up and grinned.

“Both of you,” I said.

“Safe answer, Dad. Right, Kathy?” Terri said.

Kathy grinned. I think she nodded along with some distinctly non-cooing sounds.

Cindy’s turn:

I’m using the conference room at 3Sigma for this. It’s, per Dan’s suggestion, a Cindy kind of press conference.

That little quick interview the other night on the taxiway at Birmingham has a couple of media outlets wanting to do more. All that means that we sort of did a sanitizing of the conference room, making sure that our company logo is plainly visible, as well as a few ‘inspirational’ pictures of completed projects and some action photos of our people at work. Yes, there’s that oldie with an eighteen year old pre-JW Susan and Jason.

Our big monitor is a ‘go’ with connections to my laptop. I have access to flying videos, many of them from our weekend fly-ins, and I have Bot-bot videos, and I have company stuff as well.

Participation is going to include the Munchkins and Bot-bot. Official reason is for them to see reporters and videographers in action. That’s the official story. The main reason is to get one more channel of exposure of the pTerridactyl and company. They have already dragged in some college students who’re studying mass communications, so what the girls might learn from this is liable to be limited.

I’d thought about waiting in the conference room and having the news crews brought to me, but on second thought that appears a bit imperial, so I hung around the front desk and chatted with Laney, our receptionist. Laney’s a part-time student. Her husband’s a post grad in microbiology. They can use the money. I like Laney. She’s good at her job.

Promptly at nine, the TV crew walks in, a recognizable face leading. Tammy Jellens, the lady who interviewed Dan after our trailer park shooting. Different cameraman. And a newspaper reporter from Mobile. I assume he’s going to shoot his own pictures.

“Hello, Mizz Tammy,” I say.

“Hello, Mizz Richards,” Tammy replied. “This is my cameraman, Aaron Wendt.”

“Hello, Aaron,” I said. I extended hand, got his handshake. Good one. Shook Tammy’s too. I eyed the reporter from the newspaper. “And you’re...”

“Howie Pattis,” he said, shaking my hand.

I smiled. “We have the conference room ready. Whatever you might need.”

“Restroom?” Howie asked.

“Let me show you the conference room. You can drop your gear there, then the restroom’s right down the hall.”

Things took a surreal turn for the newsfolk when we entered the conference room and ran into three munchkins and a robot. I did the introductions.

“These are our munchkins, Terri, Rachel and Vicki, and of course, Bot-bot.” Bot-bot beeped at the mention of his name, extending his head to chest height.

“I’m Terri Addison. This is Vicki Duncan and Rachel Weismann. We’re a homeschool group. This is an educational experience for us,” Terri said.

I snickered.

Tammy looked at me. “Cindy, there’s more to the story, I assume,” she uttered.

“Well,” I said, “Home-schooled is a bit of a misnomer. You’re looking at a paid R&D team for Google AND the Department of Defense, three official college students, and Bot-bot’s their project.”