The Age Of Zeus (7 page)

"I was only going to look. Why, is it delicate? Will it shatter like an eggshell?"

"No, of course not."

"Then what is the problem?"

"I just..."

Landesman clasped the young man's shoulder. "Jamie, it's all right. Soleil can touch it if she wants to."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Don't be. You're only being protective. It's very admirable. Everyone, allow me to introduce you. This mother hen is Jamie McCann, our chief engineer and all-round fixer of things that need fixing."

"Hi," McCann said with a nervous bob of the head. "McCann the Manic Mechanic, that's me."

"Jamie basically built the suits from scratch with his own fair hands. They're my brainchild but it's his sweat and elbow grease that gave them shape and reality."

"Feels strange," said Eto'o, running her fingers over the battlesuit's exterior. "Rough and smooth at the same time."

"That's the nanotech you're feeling," said McCann. "Billions of wee submicroscopic bots impregnated into the outer layer of the armour's indurated polycarbonate. They're inert right now, but when activated they can do two things. One, they can colour-shift. Two, they can -"

"Jamie," said Landesman, interrupting. "Instead of telling everyone what the TITAN suits can do, why don't we go one better?"

"You mean a practical demo?" McCann looked hesitant.

"You've done a hundred of them."

"But in front of people?"

"Now's not the time for stage fright. Some of these good folk have journeyed a long way to be here today. Let's make it worth their while. We'll put a suit through its paces, so that they can get a proper idea of what they're signing up for."

7. PRACTICAL DEMO

I
t took McCann half an hour to get the TITAN suit on. First he had to squeeze into a one-piece Lycra bodystocking. Not very flattering as undergarments went but, he said, anything else resulted in severe chafing. Next came the battlesuit itself, piece by piece. Multiple Velcro straps had to be fastened. Wires had to be connected up. Fitting adjustments had to be made. A full preliminary diagnostics check had to be run.

Finally he was all set.

The battlesuit looked bulky but was, he assured his audience, surprisingly light. The heaviest part of it was the liquid hydrocarbon fuel cell that was attached to the back, a smoothly contoured semi-ovoid that sat between the shoulderblades and contributed no more than 15lb to the overall weight. Besides, he added, the servos compensated. Once operational, they enhanced the wearer's natural strength. By how much? The calculations weren't precise but he estimated at least threefold.

One of the other technicians, who had helped McCann into the suit, clapped him on the helmet. "You're good to go. Power up."

"Commencing power-up sequence." McCann tapped a wrist-mounted touchscreen control pad. A low whine filled the air. He lowered his helmet visor, a blister of tinted acrylic glass that covered his face down to the helmet's chin guard.

"HUD online," McCann announced, voice slightly muffled. "You won't be able to see anything as the visor is coated with a partially reflective film, like a two-way mirror. Core systems analysis readouts populating. Signal strength of wireless connection between suit and helmet CPU confirmed. Everything at nominal. The display is controlled by a voice-recognition command system, as is the suite of vision modes. There's no mic, incidentally. The helmet picks up your voice through sound sensors attuned to cranial cavity vibrations. Here we go. Visor options menu up. Available modes are night vision, thermal imaging and peripheral expansion. Thermal. There, I've just switched to thermal imaging, and you lot are now rainbow people. It's kind of like being on magic mushrooms. Not that I've done magic mushrooms lately. I mean ever. Not that I've done magic mushrooms ever. I'll stop talking now."

"No X-ray vision?" said Barrington. "Damn. I wouldn't have minded a chance to see through Sam's clothing."

"I'd pay not to see through yours, Dez," Sam retorted.

"Ouch," said Ramsay with a chuckle. "You do not cross the Akehurst."

"You do not," Sam agreed.

"Yes, ahem, anyway," said McCann. "First off, a show of strength. See that workbench over there? It's solid wood and tempered steel. How much do you reckon it weighs?"

"Shade over a coupla hundred pounds?" said Ramsay.

"Watch this."

McCann strode over to the workbench, the suit's servos whirring just audibly with every step. He moved with ease, not looking at all like someone encased in armour. With one hand he grabbed the end of the workbench and lifted. The bench came up off the floor with no apparent effort from him. He lowered it again, all four of its feet touching down with a chunky clang.

"Next, speed. How far is it to that mural would you say?"

"Hundred metres," volunteered Chisholm, "give or take."

"Anyone got a stopwatch?"

Sparks's wristwatch had a stopwatch function.

"Time me."

McCann went into a half-crouch. Sparks said go, and he launched himself forwards. His first couple of steps were slow and laboured, then all at once the suit seemed to realise what was being required of it and he accelerated to a sprint - the fastest sprint Sam had ever seen. He skidded to a halt just short of the mural, and Sparks announced, "Six point four seconds."

McCann raised both fists, as though acknowledging the cheers of an imaginary stadium crowd. "And Jamie McCann, the young contender from Kirkcaldy, takes the gold, smashing the previous world record to pieces."

"Jamie..." said Landesman, mock-reproving.

"Sorry, Mr Landesman." McCann returned at walking pace. "The suit can sustain speeds of up to forty miles per hour for six or seven minutes before the servos start to overheat, although you want to be careful because it drains the battery like you wouldn't believe. Use speed sparingly, that's the motto."

"Is that another drugs reference, Jamie?" said Sam.

"No. No! God, no. Please don't get the wrong idea. I'm not some junkie."

"Watch out, pal," said Ramsay. "Sam used to be a cop."

"I know." McCann squirmed. "I mean, I know some of you were police. I just... You can't be arrested just for saying stuff, can you?"

"Continue with the demonstration, lad," said Landesman. "You're doing fine. They're only teasing."

"Oh aye. I see."

"Show us the chameleon effect."

"Yeah. The chameleon effect. Well, it goes a bit like this. The nanobots can colour-shift to match their surroundings. It isn't quite Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility but it's still a hell of an effective camouflage. Here we go."

He stood against the black rock wall of the chamber. A quick prodding of his wristpad, and the surface of the suit began to darken. Soon the suit was as black as the wall, and with McCann standing stock still it was almost impossible to see him. He was a perfect silhouette.

"It can also do break-up patterns," he said, as the suit lightened again to its default-setting grey. "Jungle, desert, mountain, snow, all the basic combat camouflage designs. Urban environments are harder to deal with, but by and large buildings in localised regions conform to a standard colour, so for a Mediterranean town, for instance, you could make the setting white to match the stucco. And speaking of Mediterranean, and hot countries in general, we've fitted a microclimate conditioning subsystem which'll keep you cool in hundred-plus-degree heat and toasty warm in subzero temperatures. Basically, you'll never roast or freeze. Whatever the weather, you'll be Baby Bear's porridge - just right."

"Ah, bless," said Mahmoud.

McCann squirmed again. He was a full-grown man and clearly some kind of genius, but acted like an awkward adolescent. It was almost too easy to embarrass him. And too tempting.

"And now," said Landesman, "the
pièce de résistance
."

McCann made an imploring sound. "Do we have to?"

"I'm afraid so, Jamie."

"But it hurts."

"Oh it's not so bad. Didn't you liken it once to getting shot with a paintball?"

"Which hurts."

"Stings."

"Hurts stingingly. Oh very well then. Since you insist. You're the fella who signs the cheques, after all." McCann stationed himself at the wall again, while Landesman fetched a gun from the armoury.

"You may want to step back a little," Landesman advised the eleven. "There shouldn't be a ricochet, but just in case."

"What in the name of sweet baby Jesus's little holy halo is that?" Ramsay asked, pointing to the gun. "Never seen anything like it."

The gun was shaped like a conventional rifle but had a long, thickly cylindrical barrel and an unusually stocky body. The casing was ribbed in several places, and a lightning bolt was stencilled on a small sliding cover on one side, suggesting a battery pack was contained within.

"This," said Landesman, "is a handheld coilgun."

"A handheld what now?"

"Come, come, Mr Ramsay. Don't tell me you're unaware of your own Defence Department's current Holy Grail. A handheld coilgun. One better than a railgun - not so power intensive and producing far less excess heat. Unlike a conventional gun, a coilgun uses electromagnetic energy rather than explosive energy to launch a projectile. A series of coaxial superconductor solenoid coils switching on and off in sequence accelerate a bullet along a track until it emerges here" - Landesman tapped the end of the barrel - "at a speed of several Mach. The bullet is powderless, contained in a sabot case that separates free the moment it leaves the gun. In all, this has twice the range of the average rifle and five times the penetration and stopping power."

He smacked a magazine into place, then pulled the cocking handle, raised the coilgun to his shoulder and took aim.

"So you're going to shoot him with that sci-fi blaster of yours," said Ramsay, "at almost point-blank range."

"I am. Why ever not?"

"Shit, you can't. You just can't. Even if there's a whole bunch of Kevlar in that armour, there's still a good chance you'll -"

The report from the coilgun was a tremendous percussive
snap
. As the ringing in everyone's ears faded, all gazes turned to McCann, who had staggered when the gun went off but who remained upright and appeared unharmed. He stooped and retrieved something that lay at his feet. He held it up between thumb and forefinger for all to see. It was a bullet, blunted to a mushroom shape.

"The bots make the suit go rigid at the point of impact," McCann said, flipping up his visor. "They absorb and disperse the force of the bullet across the surrounding surface, wherever you're hit. Not pain-free," he added, with feeling, "but 'ow' is definitely preferable to, you know..." He made a gargling noise in the back of his throat, like someone fatally wounded. "And that, ladies and gentleman, concludes our demonstration of the TITAN suit. At least I hope it does, unless my boss has plans to break out the rocket launcher."

"Would you like to give it a try, Jamie?"

"Jesus no. I was only joking."

"As was I." Landesman smiled paternally at the engineer. "Off you go. You've done well. Back into your civvies."

McCann went over to the other technicians, who began helping him divest himself of the suit. Landesman, meanwhile, returned the coilgun to the armoury, then addressed his eleven recruits again.

"So you've seen the battlesuit in action. What do you think?"

"That's supposed to make us superior to the Olympians?" said Harryhausen.

"What is the single greatest disadvantage an ordinary person has against the Olympians?" Landesman asked rhetorically. "Vulnerability. The TITAN suits do away with that. They compensate for the relative physical weakness of us mere humans by giving us a sturdy, almost impregnable exoskeleton. I'm not suggesting that wearing one would allow you to go toe-to-toe with, say, Hercules, trading punches. But it would afford protection from the worst of any damage he tried to inflict, and its stealth capability would allow you to sneak up on him, and night vision would enable you to do so under cover of darkness. And you've seen the kind of cutting-edge weapons available here. I'm not offering unqualified superiority to the Pantheon. What I am offering is a significantly levelled playing field."