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  “There are two options left to us,” Emma said with a sly grin full of mischief.

  “I’m not going to like either of them, am I?”

  “Depends on how you value risk and reward. The first option: we hack into XNA Industries remotely and read the files directly on their systems, unencrypted.”

  “Or?”

  “We break in to the building again.”

  “We? You’d go with me?”

  Emma twirled her hair, shrugging her shoulders. “You need someone who isn’t retarded when it comes to computers.” She pushed his shoulder and they both laughed. “Besides,” she added, “I wouldn’t want you to get nabbed by Evil Julian. Who else will do tequila shots with me and do terrible Bon Jovi karaoke?”

  Jacob blushed. “God, you remember that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jacob’s cell rang, sparing any further embarrassment.

  “It’s Brian.”

  “Hey, Bri, what’s up?”

  “Jacob, where are you, man? I’m at your place.”

  “Over at Emma’s. Sorry, I forgot you were coming over.”

  “Not surprised, given how much you drank last night.”

  “Hold there, Bri, we’ll be right over.”

  “There’s something else… there was a woman here asking for you.”

  A cold dread feeling crept up his neck. There was no reason for anyone to visit him, especially a woman. Jacob kept himself to himself and only really hung out with his close circle of friends.

  “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know, man. She was real sketchy. Said she’ll speak with you another time.”

  “What did she look like? She have any ID on her or anything?”

  “I don’t know; I was too flustered. I wasn’t expecting someone on your doorstep to start questioning me. I didn’t know what to say. Did I mess up?”

  “Nah, Bri, it’s cool. We’ll be right over. Hang tight.”

  “What’s up?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I think we should all leave town for a bit. Too much weird stuff is going down. I’m going back to pack some essentials, get Brian to go somewhere. You should come too.”

  “To where?”

  “We’ll figure that out, but come on, let’s get moving before this woman comes back. I don’t want us to be here when she does. She could be one of Julian’s people.”

  A part of him knew she was, and with what he had in the trailer, it wouldn’t take a genius to know he had something on Gray.

  CHAPTER NINE

  2 p.m., Day 2, Tacoma

  Zoe Vega arranged the meeting at a small NSA complex just north of Tacoma.

  She set up a spacious well-lit room with a whiteboard at one end. She’d use that to write the key action points. Then she placed printed slides in the five positions around a long table and a jug of water and glasses in the middle.

  Cooley slouched in a seat, tapping his fingernails on the table, playing with his smartphone.

  Zoe felt a buzz from her trouser pocket, spun away from Cooley, and pulled out her cell.

  “Vega… Okay, I’ll be right down.”

  “The XNA guys are here?” Cooley asked.

  “Yeah, ten minutes early, no big deal. You ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” Cooley replied.

  Zoe descended the stairs to the reception area, wondering why she’d asked Cooley if he was ready. It was difficult enough to get him to show up, never mind helping her prepare. There must be more to him than what she had witnessed since teaming up; otherwise he’d have been released a long time ago. Maybe she’d find out as the project progressed.

  Four people were waiting in the seating area in front of the reception desk. The exceptionally rich Quentin Devereaux approached her first and shook her hand, his skin warm and moist.

  “Lovely to see you, Zoe. How are things at the NSA?”

  “Fine, thanks… Mr. Devereaux, right?”

  “Right. You know Dr. Gray and Mr. Murphy?”

  “Nice to see you again, Agent Vega,” Murphy said.

  Gray stood to Murphy’s left. He slowly nodded at Zoe. She returned the gesture and smiled.

  “Dr. Gray, you’re looking well. It must be that Alaskan air,” she said.

  “Thank you, Agent Vega. I hope all is going well with the trial?”

  Before she could answer, Tanya Merriweather pushed to the front of the entourage, carrying a scruffy bundle of notes in her left arm, and held out her right hand. “Tanya Merriweather; I’m the marketing manager for XNA Industries. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Zoe said. “Shall we go up to the meeting room? We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  “Lead the way,” Devereaux replied.

  The group clunked up the stairs and Zoe turned immediately left into the meeting room. Devereaux and Merriweather followed and sat to the right of the table, opposite Cooley.

  “Agent Cooley,” Devereaux said.

  “Mr. Devereaux,” he replied.

  Zoe waited a couple more seconds before looking back down the stairs. Gray and Murphy were in hushed conversation halfway up.

  “Is there a problem? We really ought to get started.” She smiled, beckoning them towards the door.

  “Sorry, Agent Vega, we’re at a critical junction with a key future development. You know how tricky these things can be,” Gray said.

  “I don’t, actually; your science is way beyond me, but it’s interesting. I’ll give you that.”

  “In relative terms, naturally,” he replied as he ascended the final few stairs.

  Gray sat next to Merriweather; Murphy stood behind them. Zoe next to Cooley.

  Zoe thought Murphy, the COO, looked like a bouncer in his black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He was tall, well built, and had a striking look that gave her the creeps.

  At the kick-off meeting a month ago, whenever Zoe looked at the COO, he glared back until she broke eye contact, never betraying a single emotion, never saying a word. She didn’t find his silence particularly odd, as Devereaux loved to talk and Gray fielded all of the technical questions. He was probably instructed to keep his mouth shut and just look intimidating.

  Gray, on the other hand, was a gentle-looking middle-aged man. She guessed he was in his late forties. His mousy brown hair was combed into a neat side-parting. As he moved his head, his circular metal-framed glasses glinted, making it appear that his hazel eyes momentarily vanished. He was very much on the business-casual side this time, turning up in a dark blue sports jacket, open-necked light blue shirt, brown cords, and loafers. His conversation at the initial meeting had been strictly about business.

  Zoe liked his focus, although he was generally cold and unsmiling.

  “So this is how it is? The battle lines are drawn.” Devereaux chuckled as he looked across at the two agents on the opposite side to the XNA group.

  “You an admirer of war strategies, Mr. Devereaux?” Cooley asked.

  The investor shrugged and eyed Cooley, posturing.

  Zoe flicked open the stapled group of printed slides. The others followed suit. Murphy leaned over Gray’s shoulder.

  “If you want to follow these slides as I go along,” Zoe started, “I’d like to take each testing stage individually. Four weeks ago you provided us with two trial synthetics for evaluation purposes. My job was to run them through a series of tests in order for us to gain an understanding of their capabilities. I split the period down into four testing phases, a week for each.”

  The group opposite passively nodded as they looked at the first slide.

  “The first week of testing was physical abilities. The scoring system is pretty basic, but we can talk around the detail for each activity, if we feel the need.”

  Zoe looked down at the slide she’d created for the first phase; she’d scored each test with a traffic light: green for good, amber for average, red for poor performance. Strength, stamina, cardiovascular endurance, power,
and speed all had a green traffic light beside them. Flexibility, agility, and accuracy were marked amber. Coordination and balance were marked red.

  “You’re going to have to clarify this for me. What benchmark are you using for these traffic lights?” Gray said.

  “They’re marked against our average agency scores when we carry out the same tests. Green is better than average, amber is… well, average, and red is below.”

  “Red looks like a problem to me. Is that what you’re saying?” Devereaux said.

  “Not really, no. There was no significant underperformance in the two red categories, but we did observe a consistent level below our benchmark.”

  “Noticeable?” Gray replied.

  “Okay, I’ll give you a basic example, although a detailed report will be provided. For a normal human—”

  “Normal human?”

  “Non-XNA-enhanced human. We’re usually more coordinated on one side, when catching, writing, things like that. Your two trial synthetics were below average on both sides. We carried out multiple iterations in each discipline.”

  “There’s more to them than a game of catch. Remember they’re just trialists. Anything else?” Devereaux said.

  “We shouldn’t focus too much on this part. Overall I’d give them a pass in terms of physical ability. They were just lacking on the coordination and balance side; another example would be the finger-to-finger test. Their performance was generally excellent where you can see the green traffic lights. We’re not all perfect, right?”

  Gray put the tips of his fingers to his lips and nodded. Merriweather furiously scribbled on a notepad; Murphy stood behind, staring at Zoe with a blank expression on his face as usual.

  “So we’re generally up to your satisfaction?” Devereaux said.

  “I’m only here to report the findings, I don’t get the final say, and we’ve got a lot more testing to do. This is the project update, remember? We do have a number of issues to address today, so perhaps we should move on to them?” Zoe said.

  Cooley yawned. Zoe glanced across to see him playing on his smartphone again. She was getting sick of carrying his unprofessional ass.

  “Fine by me,” Devereaux said. “If there are any problems, we need to know about them as soon as possible.”

  “Okay, let’s move to slide two,” Zoe said. “We carried out a number of mental tests. We wanted to get a handle on their decision-making process, personality traits, and intelligence.”

  Zoe took a deep breath as the group turned the page. All of the traffic lights were red.

  “I don’t understand this? Can you explain a little more about your testing?” Devereaux said.

  “Let’s take the personality test for starters. They didn’t seem to have one. You’ve seen the type of questions on these papers? Multiple choice with no right or wrong answer. The two subjects couldn’t make their minds up on a single question.”

  “Who’s to say what is the right and wrong answer?” Gray replied. “They’re extremely logical; we haven’t developed them to decide whether they’d prefer a beautiful sunset over an ice cream. If anything, I’d say you’ve identified a strength rather than a weakness. They haven’t chosen what they think you want to hear, like most people do when taking these quizzes.”

  “Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” Cooley said.

  Not wanting the meeting to be derailed and trying to keep some structure, Zoe proceeded, ignoring Cooley’s unhelpful asides.

  “They’re great at following orders and carrying out basic tasks. But if you put them into situations where the black and white fades to gray, no pun intended, they end up in a state of confusion.”

  “Situations? What situations?” Gray said.

  “Hostage negotiation, surveillance simulations. Things like that.”

  “I don’t remember agreeing to any of that,” Gray said.

  “The point we made to Director Hatfield, which should have been part of your briefing, was to train them accordingly for any tests,” Devereaux said.

  “I know what our briefing was. We wanted to see what they could do outside of it.”

  Cooley scoffed. “You can’t teach people mental maturity or how to have a personality.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Gray said. “You’re carrying out unapproved tests and marking us down for it?”

  “If we train somebody to pass a test, what’s the point in taking the test?” Zoe said.

  “And how, exactly, did you get your driver’s license?”

  “Think of it like a computer,” Devereaux added. “You don’t purchase hardware and an operating system, then complain that you can’t use PowerPoint even though you know that the feature hasn’t been loaded yet. But it can be…”

  “I’m sure the director will be interested in the supplemental information,” Zoe replied.

  She poured herself a glass of water while quickly scanning the faces on the opposite side of the table. She felt the meeting was going nowhere. The XNA team wanted to stick with the brief. But Zoe thought she’d detected a weakness in their design worth exposing. She wanted everything out in the open if the sign-off had her name against it.

  “I’ll speak to him about your methods. Hatfield and I go back years,” Devereaux said.

  “He’s on the distribution list for this report. I’ll be speaking to him shortly,” she said.

  Zoe looked at Murphy, who glared back. Two rapid knocks sounded on the meeting room door. The receptionist poked her head in the room. “Zoe, there’s an urgent call for you downstairs. It’s Director Hatfield.”

  “Excuse me, please,” Zoe said. She followed the receptionist down the stairs to her desk at the front of the building.

  “It’s in the back office, on the secure phone, through there,” the receptionist said.

  Zoe walked into a small, cluttered office and picked up the receiver lying on the desk.

  “Vega.”

  “What the hell happened at the safe house?”

  “Sir?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, I’m in a project meeting with XNA Industries. What’s happening?”

  “They’re all dead except one. Stop the trial immediately.”

  Zoe made sure she was alone but still lowered her voice. “Who’s dead? The guys at the safe house?”

  “Yes. The only survivor crawled to a civilian property, begging for help. He’s got a missing arm and was covered in blood. I’m sending an agent to guard his room at the local hospital. I want you and Cooley there first thing tomorrow to clean up this mess.”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re saying. The other three are dead? Who did it? The XNA subjects?”

  “They’re dead too. I sent a team immediately. The house is like a war zone. They’re taking photos, gathering evidence, and moving the bodies to a secure location. We need to keep this in-house until you get to the bottom of what the hell happened there.”

  “Can you keep someone there to brief me?”

  “The cleanup crew are on their way. I’ll make sure one of them is there to meet you. Remember. This project is unofficial, at any level. It goes nowhere.”

  “Who else knows about this situation?”

  “Other than the cleanup crew, only the remaining survivor. Talk to him and make sure he’s aware of his obligations to the agency.”

  “I will. What do you want me to do with the XNA people?”

  “Find out if they know anything about this. If they knew of any flaws that might have caused their synthetics to go crazy, but tell them not to leave the country.”

  “We just let them go?”

  The director sighed. “What do you suggest? Locking them up? That will only bring attention to the project. Besides, we don’t know the cause yet.”

  “Our people have probably been murdered, sir. If I had to bet—”

  “Just do as I say, please.”

  “And the families of the dead, sir?”

  “Leave that with
me.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll question the people here, then Cooley and I will go straight to the safe house. We can be there tonight.”

  “No need to get there tonight, the cleanup crew will be handling it. Be there first thing tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And report back to me as soon as you’ve figured it out.”

  Zoe was just about to respond when the line reverted to the secure dial tone.

  “Goodbye, sir,” she said as she placed the receiver down.

  ***

  Zoe grabbed a coffee from the machine in the reception area and sat on one of the available chairs. She placed the plastic cup on the glass table in front of her, then rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger.

  Three junior agents dead and one severely wounded. She said it to herself again. Zoe felt little emotion towards the synthetics; as much as they appeared human, they were more like subservient shells. They didn’t have family or friends, unlike the members of her team.

  This was her first important assignment and she couldn’t go into her own shell, not now. Questions were leaping into her mind about the ethical and procedural issues around the news she’d just received. She tried to clear her thoughts.

  Perhaps this was what happened at a higher level, and this was her first taste.

  Maybe it was a lot more murky up the chain, and if she wanted to progress, she shouldn’t show naivety by questioning the director.

  Zoe decided to save her questions for later, keep her emotions in check and clear up the mess to the best of her ability.

  She pushed open the door and entered the meeting room. Devereaux and Cooley were having an argument about baseball’s Hall of Fame. Merriweather frowned at her notes. Gray and Murphy were chatting at the far end of the room, probably to get away from the loud debate at the table. None of the XNA Industries’ personnel displayed a hint that something had gone seriously wrong with the trial.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” Zoe said.

  Devereaux immediately broke his exchange with Cooley. “Bad news?”

  Zoe nodded and sat down. The group reconvened around the table.

  “As of now, the trial is over—” Zoe said.