The phone call was quick, the car ride to the airport took longer, and the plane ride to Washington DC took even longer. The longest part of the entire ordeal was security. John sighed as he let the young PFC wand him one last time. The hand held metal detector beeped when it got to his mid-back. Because of course it did.

“I have a plate holding my pelvis together, son. You can check my file, it should be in there.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man said as he pulled up his datapad and plugged in a few numbers from John’s ID badge. The PFC showed his sergeant who, without even looking at the pad, shrugged and waved John through. “You’re good to go, sir. Do you need an escort? Or is someone meeting you?”

“I know where I’m going. Even if I don’t, this place is literally a bunch of circles. I’ll find it, eventually.” The sergeant grinned, but the PFC looked like he was about to respond.

“Don’t worry about it, Menendez. General McIntire knows what he’s about. I’m sure he doesn’t want you tagging along. Still, Sir,” the sergeant looked back at him. “Things have changed a bit. The layout, that is. Been a lot of renovations just this year. Might be easy to get lost, sir. I can get Lieutenant Javez to escort you if you like.”

John smiled, the Sargent thought he didn’t want the escort because of the PFC’s rank. There were some generals like that, he knew, but John had never been one of them. “That’s okay, the PFC can show me the way.” The boy smiled so broadly John thought he might have broken the kid. “Lead on PFC”. The boy took John through the first three, and then several more security checkpoints. The young man’s badge allowed him to wave John through with no more needs for searches or wanding. Then they came to the inner of the five rings. “This is new.” John said, and Menendez smiled back at him.

“The president insisted on the upgrade. Kind of cool, huh?” John looked out brand new floor to ceiling windows that allowed him to look straight up. A massive dome of mixed glass in different colors of light red, green, and blue hung over the place, but natural light still filled the green grassy courtyard. John had heard about the change in the news. “It’s electro-plasma based glass, that is ten times harder than concrete, with more tensile strength than most other materials like kevlar injected metals or plastics. As long as it has an electric current running through it, we’re safe from a small nuke under that thing.”

“I hear they have this at the fort in the rocky mountains. Is that right?” The boy nodded happily.

“Yes sir! It’s one of the new inventions created by scientists who were on the verge of a breakthrough with the tech, anyway. But with the systems intervention, and their leveling up, they got there much more quickly. The US fort has all kinds of neat new tech. My brother is stationed there, and he keeps me up to date on all the non-classified stuff. Did they show you the active camo yet, sir?” John smiled and shook his head. “Oh! Then let me be the first to show you!” the PFC hit a button on his wristwatch looking device, and suddenly he was replaced with. . . nothing. His head and hands that still floated in midair, but they had nothing attached to them. The PFC returned to reality in a flash as he deactivated the active camo. “Cool, huh!” John couldn’t help it. He smiled and the two of them continued on. The young private’s enthusiasm was contagious.

“I read about that in the paper. There’s all kinds of tech we have been on the verge of getting, that just seems to click with our upper level scientists since the change.”

“That’s right, general! All kinds of things. Oh, look out there and you’ll see something really cool.” John smiled. He wasn’t technically a general anymore. He was retired. Hard core retired, in-activatable because of his age, health problems, and a whole host of other reasons. So he let the informality of the young technology enthusiast slide. He wasn’t active-duty, and though he was here to maybe take over an administrative role somewhere to help an old student and friend, he was far from his war-fighting days.

John’s eyes followed to where the young man was pointing. A dozen drones appeared out of the ceiling, each the size of a phone or maybe a little smaller. They moved without propellers, using micro jets to move them forward. “What in the. . .” The little swarm came tumbling out of an air duct vent, reassembled in a mini flight of maybe a dozen, and then took off down the corridor to another vent.

“Cleaning and security drones. They’re being used to monitor, secure, and repair the pentagon’s air duct systems. We got them last week. Their micro-jets are zero emissions too which is really cool. Just compressed air sucked in, compressed in a micro-compressor, and used to both clean and keep them afloat.”

The PFC showed John several other minor but incredible advances that he never thought he would see in his life time. When they reached the elevators that John was oh-so familiar with from his time at the pentagon, heading up to discuss things with various force commanders or in meetings with the joint chiefs before he started teaching at West Point, the PFC stopped and pointed it out.

“Here you go, sir. I’m sure you could have gotten here on your own. But thank you for letting me show you.”

“I’ve had guard duty before, PFC. I know how boring it can get. And thank you for showing me some of the changes.” John started towards the elevator and the private made a sound as if he wasn’t finished. John looked back, and the PFC cringed slightly at his raised eyebrows.

“Uh, oh sorry sir, uh. It’s just that the elevator has been changed too. You’ll see when you get there just, be ready for something new.”