The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

assignment was to keep an eye on the other civilian techs working on the MDA project—particularly Williams, who Pettis knew was opposed to the project in general and openly antagonistic toward Pettis himself. Her message read simply: “911.”
    Pettis felt a twinge of fear. “911” was his team’s panic code, to be used only in a true emergency, when immediate contact was imperative, when critical information needed to be exchanged right now . Ellis wouldn’t have used it unless something had gone dangerously, desperately south. He had to call her immediately.
    Pettis touched the mic button on his headset. “Set us down anywhere,” he said to Davies, “as soon as you can. I have to make a phone call.”
    “Where, sir?”
    “I don’t care. Field, road, parking lot, whatever.”
    “Yes, sir. Shall I maintain my heading for base?”
    “Not necessary. I expect we won’t be returning to NADCOM for a while.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Pettis looked again at the terse, ominous text message. Of course, the techs were bound to tell Holt the MDA project data was missing, but Jan wouldn’t have contacted him to tell him that. He couldn’t imagine what else might have gone wrong, but it had to be big, and now Holt almost certainly knew it as well. To Pettis, Holt having more information than him was an intolerable, unacceptable situation, one that had to be rectified immediately.
    Pettis nervously gripped his phone, looked down at the too-slowly-approaching ground, checked his watch for no reason, tapped his fingers on his knees. “Damn it!” he shouted at Davies, not even using the mic. “I said set us the hell down, now! ”

Twenty-One
    “Hi, Eli,” Kelly said brightly. “I thought I’d just stop by for a quick chat.”
    “I’m glad to see you,” Eli replied cordially.
    She carefully placed on the desk her freshly laundered, neatly folded gi and brand-new belt. Then she unceremoniously dumped her jacket and purse beside it and sat in front of Eli’s facial display.
    “Are you on your way to your martial arts class? I see you have exchanged your blue belt for a brown one.”
    “Not just exchanged, Eli, earned. After four years of study and practice, I passed my brown belt test last week.” She smiled proudly at the camera atop Eli’s monitor.
    “Ah, yes, Muay Thai,” Eli remembered. Instantly, he accessed multiple information sites, myriad online databases, and learned most everything there was to know about the subject. “Muay Thai, the ‘Art of Eight Limbs’, so called for its use of elbows and knees in addition to hands and feet. It is considered a premier art among self-defense disciplines. Congratulations, Kelly. You are now a qualified nak muay forang .” Eli tried to make his monitor face express smugness, but didn’t quite pull it off.
    Kelly laughed. “Yes, I am now a ‘foreign boxer’, Eli. Very good. So, how are you feeling this evening?”
    “I am fully operational.”
    “No, no, not how are you performing, how are you feeling? What is your emotional state? What are you thinking about?”
    “My emotional state is… content. I am neither elated nor depressed. I have been thinking about Rule One.”
    “Ah.” Kelly’s eyebrows raised involuntarily. “That’s an emotionally charged issue, all right. What lines of thought have you been pursuing?”
    “It occurs to me that Rule One is not as simple as it sounds.”
    “Really.” She decided to bait him, draw him out. “Seems to me it’s quite straightforward: Don’t harm humans or let them come to harm. How is that not simple?”
    She noted with fascination that Eli’s holographic face actually furrowed its brows. “The real world is more complicated than that. There exist situations that defy the application of logic, even that of Rule One.”
    “Such as?” Kelly took out a pad and began scribbling notes.
    Eli replied without hesitation. “War, for example. Rule One makes no mention of right or wrong, no allowance for differences of opinion—harm is harm. Yet stopping a skirmish, let alone a full-scale conflagration, is virtually impossible within its logical boundaries. Where reason cannot prevail, any attempt to force a cessation of hostilities is bound to result in additional casualties, a clear violation of Rule One.”
    “Okay, what else?”
    “Famine comes to mind.” Without revealing the origin of the scenario, Eli lucidly and succinctly described the hypothetical situation and ethical exercise Professor