“Ah’ll be bahk,” said Bug in a fair impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Second area,” continued Doc, “is a new generation of body armor that’s really a kind of exoskeleton. In their notes, they refer to it as a CR, shorthand for combat rig, and there are references to several models or perhaps generations of it. K-14, K-57, K-79, and so on. Most recent generation is the K-110.”

“I’m guessing the K is for Kuga?” ventured Bug.

“That’d be my guess, sugar,” agreed Doc. “And I have to tell you boys that if these jokers decided to go straight and simply patent this stuff, they’d probably get rich as Croesus selling it to the various official military or private military markets. We’re talking billions. Some of this is really freaking awesome.”

“Because they have an actual evil master plan,” said Bug. It was only partly a joke, and no one laughed. “Besides, some of these innovations are based on stolen science. Sure, the finished product may be new, but anyone can reverse engineer it and see what came out of other labs.”

“There’s that,” conceded Doc. She flipped open a folder and showed a schematic for a bulky exoskeleton. “See this? I ran an image and data search, and what did I find? This is a variation of the Guardian XO full-body exoskeleton by the Sarcos company. It was marketed as the first battery-powered industrial integrated robot, which means it has machinery run by software but integrates with the driver’s commands. It augments operator strength but doesn’t inhibit freedom of movement. The difference is that the Sarcos one is used mostly for industrial work—lifting and so on. But see here? Those fittings are for machine guns, I’m sure of it. And see these specs handwritten down there? That’s for add-ons made from Kevlar and also bullet-resistant clear polymers. Protection and visibility. Kuga’s guys took the industrial version and weaponized it. I ran the numbers on the armor, and it will create a protective shell that allows more than two hundred and fifty degrees of visibility while keeping the driver safe from anything up to armor-piercing rounds. My guess is that they’ll rig a double-capacity backpack. One side for batteries, the other for belt-fed ammunition. You put a Fixer in one of those and he can walk into any building and do an incredible amount of damage. With a minigun or a grenade launcher? Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit, but that is some scary, scary stuff right up in there.”

“This is adapted to military,” said Church. “Did you find anything designed specifically for combat?”

“Oh yes,” said Doc. “A lot of that, and it’s pretty goldurn scary, too.”