“The next topic, which you can find on page seven, about halfway down, is power production. As I mentioned previously, the red covering that protects the rear mobility contains multiple photo voltaic discs — solar panels essentially — that will directly power the motors, servos, and processors while simultaneously feeding a small multi-cell storage unit. This storage unit will provide power for a period of about three days of inclement weather.”
“The entire power train from collection, to storage, to output, requires no supplemental cooling as you’ll see on the next page. To ensure this remains true, as a safety precaution, also note that this unit requires an operational temperature range of about 49-97°F with optimum performance in the 66-88°F range. The unit will go into a safe mode when outside this range.”
“Are there any questions before we unveil the prototype?” the doctor asked.
The assembly murmured to one another but nothing was asked. That’s when I decided to break out the big question. As a member of the press, I do have an obligation to cut to the chase.
“How much?” I asked.
“Bravo,” the doctor replied. “That is a fair question. One I expected. Not including the research costs incurred — the $28 million as you’re all aware of — we estimate production, implementation, and management costs will be approximately $271 million over the first three years with costs dropping to about $40 million a year thereafter. I realize this seems like a lot of money, but we are without options.”
“If all of you are ready, I would like to unveil the prototype of what we’re calling the ‘Azurid X18′ for your inspection. I think you will be most impressed.”
The doctor reached out to the table before him and pulled back a slight fabric covering the prototype. Then, on the overhead so everyone could see, he put up a split frame. On the left was a photo of the blue aphid. On the right he provided an enlarged view of the Azurid X18 unit.
There was a hush from the attendees. They were taken aback by the proposed cost, but they were also impressed by this seemingly sophisticated unit.
The hush was broken by a sudden knock at the door. The door opened and the receptionist announced the doctor’s wife and daughter were there to see him apologizing for the interruption. Suddenly the little girl barged in sneaking past the receptionist and saw a photo of the aphid.
“That’s a bluuueeeeee aaafid,” she said. “They’re baaaaad.”
The doctor was obviously embarrassed by the intrusion, but he complimented his daughter for the astute observation then asked his receptionist to take her to his office. That was until the Senator interrupted by asking the first grader how she knew that it was a “bluuueeeeee aaafid,” he mocked.
The little girl was now the one embarrassed, but only for a moment. She looked him in the eye and sighed like this was going to be a big deal for her, then answered the Senator’s question:
“Weeelll, we have a garden for our class. Our teacher is Mrs. Othmar and she’s really nice. We like her. And in our garden we have some vegabulls and some flowers. The flowers are really pretty but we didn’t get any vegabulls yet except some raditches which were not rad but they hot and chewy and we didn’t like them so Mrs. Othmar made us put them in our wormy compost box,” she giggled.
“And the bluuueeeeee aaafids, what about them?” the Senator asked.
“I’m teeelllling yoouuuu.” the little girl said, obviously exasperated by the interruption—
There was a low laugher among those gathered. The girl was cute and the presentation was finally getting interesting.
“—Anyway, we got some aaafids on some lettus plants and we didn’t know what they were called so Mrs. Othmar looked for them on the internet and said they were bluuueeeeee aaafids and she said they were bad bugs so we wanted to punish them for being bad.”
She took a breath and continued:
“Mrs Othmar is really smart and said she we can’t punish them because were too big but that we can get some ladybugs to punish them for us. Just like you got in the picture, right?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” the Senator asked, puzzled.
“Weeeelll, my daddy’s picture of a blue aaafid is next to a ladybug just like we used, but we had a bunch of them not just one. We had like thouuuzands of them in a bag and they cost a lot of money too. Mrs. Othmar said they were like twenty whole dollars or something and that’s a lot of money.”
“Anyway, we put the handfuls of really cute, but creepy because they tickled my arm, ladybugs on the aaafids that were on the lettus. We each had one, and my ladybug, her name was Cindy, ate one of the aaafids. That’s a mean punishment, but Mrs. Othmar said that is what they are supposed to do. Anyway Cindy and her girlfriends were really really hungry because they ate and ate and ate a lot of those icky bluueeeeee aaafids. We put out more a few more times and pretty soon the aaafids were all gone. Then our ladybugs flew away and we were sad and happy because our lettus dint have no more aaafids, you see?” she asked, looking at the Senator with knitted eyebrows.
The Senator got up and walked to the front of the room where the girl stood. When he was in front of her he hunkered down so he could look in the eyes on her level. He spoke quietly.
“Honey,” he said in a kind tone, “your teacher, Mrs. Othmar, bought some ladybugs on the internet and they ate your blue aphids. Did I understand you right?” he asked.
“Yup,” she said, smiling triumphantly.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling himself now, “you just saved America millions and billions of dollars. Instead of making little ladybug robots, we’ll buy some real ones on the internet just like Mrs. Othmar did. Does that sound good to you?” he asked.
“Yup,” she said. “You’re smaaarrt like Mrs. Othmar.”
“I try,” he chuckled. “Now, if you’ll go with that lady over there I want to talk to your daddy for a minute but don’t worry, he’ll be ready to take you home very soon.”
He then added: “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Sentanor,” she giggled.
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