Another Word for Magic

by Mackey Chandler

“Oh, please. Can we do that now?”

  “As soon as I clean and put these tools away,” Alonso said. “Otherwise, you’ll give me no peace. Go pull the office door shut and I’ll be done by the time you return.”

  Alonso was cleaning his hands by the time she returned.

  “We’ll push her out this first time. It’ll be safer in case we have any control problems.”

  He proceeded to lean on the rear with all four arms. Lee helped though he hadn’t asked. It was hard to tell how much she added. Lee suspected she might not be able to move it alone. Alonso didn’t stop until they were thirty meters clear of the building. He turned, phone in hand and ran his overhead doors down to a tiny gap from being closed.

  “If the canopy is raised, I can reach in and grab a seat back and swing a leg up and in,” Alonso demonstrated, but didn’t finish the motion. “For humans, there is a foot-well here,” he pointed out. “There’s a take-hold half a meter to either side, just inside the canopy’s seal. I don’t expect you to use it often, but it’s there.”

  Lee put a toe in the hole. It was surprisingly deep. She felt and found the take-holds and pulled herself up but like Alonso didn’t swing in.

  “That’ll work fine for me,” she agreed.

  “We’ll go in the normal way.” He led Lee to the hatch just behind the rear of the canopy. It opened in to his hand and they stopped and set it to Lee’s. He closed it again.

  “Now watch. If you need the space inside that it would swing through, you touch this icon.” He did so. The hatch opened again but out. “It’s the same on both sides. On the other hand, you might be right up against something and need it to open in.”

  “It doesn’t need the internal pressure holding it?” Lee worried.

  “It’s hard to see the lines,” Alonso said tracing them with a finger, “but watch closely. No matter which way it opens it has a toggle in the middle then folds the middle in and narrows the hatch to withdraw it from a groove. It’s very strong and has backup power.”

  “OK, I’d have called that a knuckle. It’s quiet too,” she said surprised. “I’d expect it to sound like a bank vault.”

  “It’s going to fly as quiet as a twool,” Alonso said. “Why would you want to announce you’ve arrived to the world with a loud slamming door?”

  “I’ve never seen a twool,” Lee admitted. “Never heard of one until now.”

  “Maybe one person in a hundred has if they do the fall hunt. They don’t come out until deep dusk and a nut eater won’t know one is gliding down on him until he feels the claws. You still won’t hear him, just see him hunting if you’re lucky and paying attention.”

  “That’s quiet, given Derf hearing,” Lee admitted. “I think you just named her for me.”

  “Heh, that will do just fine,” Alonso agreed. He stepped in, ducking down a bit to fit.

  The volume was large for an airlock and unusual in having an exit on both sides and the bottom. Sitting on the ground he couldn’t demonstrate the extendable docking collar. The entry to the flight cabin was a split door that popped out a few centimeters and slid to each side when Alonso palmed the screen. Alonso led Lee to the front seats waving her into the one configured for Humans. He reached up grabbing a handle on the back edge of the canopy and pulled it down as he backed up.

  “I won’t be able to reach that,” Lee realized concerned.

  “I wasn’t planning on opening it as a regular thing,” Alonso admitted. “I’ll hang a lanyard on it you can reach.”

  The canopy did make a soft latching sound when it sealed and he took the other seat.

  “Will it lift with the canopy up or are there safety interlocks?” Lee wondered.

  “It’s not a consumer device made for idiots,” Alonso assured her. “There are very few things you can’t tell it to do. I assume if you want to turn it upside down, drop the canopy off, and lose any loose luggage and unbelted passengers you must have an urgent need to do so. The airlock is the same with an override to force both hatches open if you wish.”

  “Now, note the control board.” He made an exaggerated gesture of releasing a lock and pulling the panel that was mostly screen in closer to him. When it was positioned comfortably, he punched the lock to hold it there. Lee copied it with her board.

  When he laid his palm on the screen it came alive.

  “This is the screen that will let you cold start your fancy little Japanese reactor. It also shows your battery status, the charge-discharge balance, core temperature, and other power system information. It is the top left of the row of reduced screen icons along the top of your monitor. They are hard to see in detail at that size but they are numbered.

  “If you wish to change the order of the screens you must hold the function key in the bottom left of the screen and drag the screen to the place in line you wish it. Would you like to start it powering up?”

  “Yes,” Lee agreed tapping the large red start button over a schematic of the reactor. It turned green and said warming. The battery and temperature readouts started changing.

  “If you wish to reduce this display to a quarter of the screen to use other screens just touch a corner and swipe it to the center to push it toward that corner.” He demonstrated.

  “If you touch other screen icons they will display as quarter screens from this mode. You should be able to fly with four screens or fewer showing. Touch an icon and it will remove that screen to clear a quadrant for another.” He made the screen vanish and reappear.

  “Touch a quarter screen edge and you can drag it to a half screen, or half to whole.”

  “Screen two shows the top view outline of the vehicle,” he said tapping it. “It shows outside temperature and pressure versus inside and the loading on each pod sitting on the ground in kilograms. The hatch status is shown and can be controlled from here too.

  “Screen three auto displays once you lift. It shows the orientation of the car to the vertical and horizon. It will display turn and roll real-time, show rate of climb, or descend, and ground speed by radar or estimated speed out of range from inertial sensors. If you have a local map and GPS it can be run as a background in the perspective you wish.”

  “Have you tested the smart paint?” Lee wondered.

  “I’ve set it to white, blue, and the current black. You’ll have to set it to anything fancy. It and the controls for it added another six kilos. I’d have skipped it.”

  “But it will be pretty,” Lee said smiling.

  “It’s pretty in any color but you are the customer,” Alonso acknowledged. “The next screen is com functions. Several systems and diagnostic screens like the paint, and then the far-right icon is celestial navigation. You have to load the program and data for that. I’ve never used any and have no opinions about it.”

  “The reactor is up to temperature and idling at five percent to recharge the batteries,” he pointed out. “If you don’t shut it down it will run just enough to keep the core hot. It can do that for a couple of months on a full fuel load. Notice it took a third of your battery charge to start it up.”

  “It’s ready to lift then?” Lee asked.

  “It is but you aren’t. Put it in flight mode and activate simulation. That will let you try out the stick and the screen will display what the car would do for those commands. Now, I’m going to detail the motions and control buttons on your stick. After you see me do it then you can try it to get the feel before we do it for real.”

  It took another hour before Lee was ‘flying’ it.

  “I’m going to set the control resistance up a little more. You have a heavy hand,” Alonso accused her. “You can ease it back if you learn some finesse.”

  “Can we lift her already?” Lee asked impatiently.

  “Yes, but lift to two meters and then lock the altitude by ground radar. That’s the center thumb toggle on the stick,” he reminded her.

  “Finally,” Lee said. She set two meters for an altitude limit and pulled up the second screen. With the
reactor running and simulation mode not engaged the pods spun up for the first time. There was just enough of a hum that you could feel the car was alive in the seat of your pants. Lee figured Alonso could probably hear it. The front pods showed a bit more weight on them and the corner by Alonso’s seat quite a bit more.

  She squeezed the grip on the front of the stick and the numbers started counting down with the pods bearing more weight automatically generating more thrust. When the rear pods lifted clear of the dollies, they swung forward to take more weight. The front pods reached their balance point and shifted slightly too as they left their dollies. The screen switched to flight mode showing the aircar against a bird’s eye map of the airport with the hangar behind them. Slightly more pressure saw the car rise slowly until it reached two meters altitude and the screen informed her that they were at altitude. Lee toggled the lock to hold in that altitude.

  Lee was grinning like she’d invented flight.

  “We don’t have to announce that we are going to taxi which is what I consider flight at this altitude. Take her around the hangars and parallel to the runway with all due caution. Get the feel of her,” Alonso invited.

  Lee looked out to the side and saw the dolly from the near pod.

  “We seem to be drifting off location. Why would it do that?”

  “You have the altitude set but no location. I imagine the breeze is blowing us along a little bit. That’s something to keep in mind if it’s very stormy,” Alonso said. “It should have a track recording for this flight. You have a menu down the left to retrace it or return directly to zero.”

  “Oh, sweet.” She fiddled with the menu and the aircar adjusted the thrusters slightly and eased back over the dollies, turning just a little.

  “And I’d have to set it to hold if I don’t want it to drift off again,” Lee said.

  “Exactly,” Alonso agreed.

  “If I want to move it without dollies, I can set it to a half meter and just push it around.”

  “If a big gust of wind doesn’t come up or a plane taxi by. A good blast of prop wash or jet exhaust might have you chasing it,” he said amused at picturing that. “If you ever do that, somebody is almost guaranteed to catch it on video and release it to the public nets.

  “OK, I’m going to move around,” Lee declared. She didn’t get too rambunctious. She did turn hard enough coming back to the hangar to make the car lift the outside edge in a bank. Lee didn’t expect that but, “It’s smart enough to lift the outside and not to drag the inside pods,” was her only comment. Back over the dollies Lee just asked, “Can we fly her now?”

  “Yes, you are most restrained,” Alonso complimented her. He touched his screen.

  “This is Alonso Air. We are testing an experimental vehicle running my transponder code doing a vertical lift and customer orientation flight from the small craft area. We’ll lift to five hundred meters, steer clear of the traffic pattern to the northwest by eyeball and add a climb above notification altitude over the ocean. Advise us of contrary traffic please.”

  “Rudy freight flight on approach twenty kilometers out. You’ll be long gone for me.”

  “I’m a hobby flier out of your way to the south. Rich man’s toy. Have fun with it.”

  “You have no idea,” Alfonso told him.

  “Up and that-a-way,” he pointed for Lee. “Try not to run into anything.”

  Chapter 16

  Sam listened to his bot report the radio traffic, frustrated. It told him nothing about the vehicle, which he suspected was the one he’d seen. He also assumed it was Lee Anderson being given a demo flight, but she was never actually named. He took the time to look up what customary altitude was excluded from reporting to local traffic as too high to interfere. Surprisingly, that was ten thousand meters. He wasn’t an aviation buff to know offhand but checking confirmed that was way beyond the capabilities of any normal aircar.

  There was no way that he was going to risk even coming within sight of that hangar again. That Derf had zero sense of humor and wouldn’t accept any nonsense about innocently passing by. He’d have to pay a local agent to place a camera a safe distance away if he wanted to see the thing fly and confirm it was Lee’s. His own prejudices blinded him to the fact that dying him bright green showed a tremendous sense of humor. He called his favorite agency and asked them to send somebody to install a camera as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  “Can you set the map under the icon of the flying car to a satellite view instead of a road map and cartoonish icons for buildings?” Lee wondered.

  “I don’t think anybody runs real-time optical coverage,” Alonso said. “There’s optical coverage for sale from a high-altitude orbiting drone but that doesn’t extend much past the city unless you pay for them to fly over to survey forest or farmland.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking real-time,” Lee said. “Recent images would be useful. They don’t change roads or build houses all that fast.”

  “I know of nothing. Given my business, if it existed, you’d think I’d have been targeted to offer it even before the general public.”

  “In that case, I’m going to want a camera that can zoom in and out and pan.”

  “There’s a tiny camera topside, but it’s part of the smart paint,” Alonso informed her. “It just looks at the sky to see how to color the bottom, and how bright, to make you near invisible.”

  “Oh sweet. I had no idea it could do something so practical.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find other things you want the car to do,” Alonso predicted. “There’s a ridge coming up ahead. If you leave the autopilot on five hundred meters don’t be surprised when it climbs at maximum power as soon as you cross it and then dives on the other side.”

  Lee flicked the autopilot off and thought about it.

  “How do I integrate the maps and autopilot to make it look ahead and ease over obstacles without jerking us around?”

  “At five hundred meters you’d do better with collision avoidance radar,” Alonso said. “You can put limits on how fast the autopilot is allowed to respond, but that’s a lot safer at ten thousand meters. This low it could fly you into the ground or a new radio tower just faithfully following your orders. It would have to have the sort of thinking ability and discretion that I’ve never heard of them building into a full AI, much less a simple robotic pilot. I’m not going to trust my life to it. I have a hard enough time letting other people fly for me.”

  “You may be surprised to know I had almost this same discussion with friends not long ago. Apparently, there’s some really advanced AI stuff being made in New Japan. It was just interesting then, but now, I’ll have to look into it,” Lee decided. “There’s the coast. Can I see how it will climb if I open it up?”

  “Ramp the power up now before we cross,” Alonso suggested. “If it’s going to bust, I’d rather have it do so over land. That bright orange take-hold on the dash is the ballistic parachute. If things go really bad one of us should yank that. It will try to put us down gently and right side up if it can.”

  “Not bad,” Lee decided as they were pressed in their seats. “There’s no reason not to get this thing inverted, is there?”

  Alonso sighed. “No, I knew you’d want to play hard. There’s no reason you can’t fly along inverted either, if you don’t mind hanging in the straps. You could do that to look for stuff instead of your satellite view. Just make sure there’s nothing hard in your pockets to fall out and ding the canopy.”

  “But I couldn’t run the stealth paint on the top to hide it in the ground image from above, can I? The camera now just sets the bottom,” Lee realized.

  “An action the poor sane designers probably never anticipated,” Alonso said. “Of course, you could run camo on the bottom to make you match the ground behind you to anyone flying over while inverted. If you insist, we can mount another camera on the belly so you can be stealthed to both sides any way you turn. It will break down from the side.”


  “Sweet. We’ll do that,” Lee said oblivious to the fact he was being sarcastic. “Fifteen thousand meters. That gives us some room to maneuver.”

  Lee looked intensely happy. “Now, you should snug your belts and hang on.”

  * * *

  Sam’s phone chimed. The Derf who ran his favored private investigating agency informed him his camera was in place. It was attached to a frame holding a runway light above where the mowers might damage it. Alonso’s hangar was just off-center about a hundred meters away. The lens defaulted to a fish-eye setting that was tilted up to show more than half the sky although the light intruded. You could zoom in on any part of the image already recorded or zoom in in real-time with even better fidelity. He gave Sam the net address and thanked him for his business.

  Sam left it recording full time but set the sensitivity high enough it wouldn’t alert him for every bird flying by. He closed the connection feeling much better.

  * * *

  After whipping the car through every maneuver she could imagine, Lee turned back towards land and their home field, leaving it on autopilot straight and level.

  “I’m satisfied,” she announced.

  “Does that constitute your acceptance of the vehicle?” Alonso asked.

  “Don’t be so formal. I’m delighted with it. I accept delivery even if I want a few bells and whistles added. I’ll finish paying anything owed and whatever else we do is extra cost.”

  “Thank you. I think you’ve shown nothing is going to fall off, but may I have the stick and test a little different configuration?”

  “Have at it,” Lee said with a grand gesture. “What didn’t I do?”

  “You haven’t had time to explore the full flight menu,” Alonso allowed. “It’s in lift mode right now. That gives it the most maneuverability, as you’ve tested so very well. I was happy to see it can do eight hundred sixty kilometers per hour at full thrust. That’s a little better than I expected even at this altitude. Observe this, however.”

  He touched the ground speed frame and it dropped a menu. Alonso picked Mach. The display changed to point five nine.