CHAPTER EIGHT
Once Katelyn was sound asleep, Mav moved her to the back, where she lay comfortably on the bed. He covered her up and frowned, realizing how very tiny she was in the relatively small bed. Walking back to the front, his friends read the look on his face.
“She’s a full-grown woman, brother. It will all be okay,” smirked Saint.
“What the hell just happened to me?” he asked, pushing his hand through his thick brown hair.
“You fell, dude. Like seriously fell off a cliff, face planting at that beautiful girl’s feet. Melissa was a distraction, a little side entertainment until the real thing showed up, and the real thing just showed up.” Pax just laughed at him, shaking his head. The ping of the video call had them all turning to the screens on their individual tablets.
“Hey, Doug, what’s up?”
“Is she safe?” he asked.
“She’s sleeping, but yes, she’s safe. Is there something wrong? I mean, beyond the obvious is there something wrong,” said Pax.
“The CIA is claiming she is an enemy of the state. They want her for questioning.”
“Fuck,” muttered Saint. “Do they know it was us that took her?”
“We don’t think so. There weren’t any cameras in the area, and it was dark. Your faces weren’t easily seen. The only thing that might tip them off is that the four of you all left the Teams on the same day. Now, we can write that off as coincidence, but they probably won’t buy it. They know she was working for us.”
“Why were we letting her work remotely when she was working on something so important?” asked Mav.
“She doesn’t like to travel much. One of the things she disclosed in the interview process was that the only thing that brings her peace is being near the water. We tried to tell her there’s all kinds of water here, but she didn’t buy it. I think she’s about to get a first-hand account of how much water we truly have,” he said.
“Doug, this shit she’s working on sounds like something we wouldn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Why are we backing this?” asked Mav.
Ryan, Montana, and Hiro’s faces appeared on the screen, and they waved.
“We might be able to better answer that,” said Hiro. “Ryan and Montana came to me asking about the primitive versions of AI that we already use. Some of them are facial recognition software. I can take someone’s face from any camera we operate, or don’t operate, and overlay that image on anybody I want, making others believe it’s someone different.”
“Why does that not make me feel good?” frowned Saint.
“It shouldn’t. I mean, it should because it’s us, but if it were someone else, it shouldn’t. The other forms of AI we use are the voice-altering software systems that we have. We’ve used them recently taking pieces of someone’s voice and creating new messages. Hell, as far back as Tony, we were using these initial versions.”
“So, it’s not new to us at all,” said Brax. “What makes what she’s doing different?”
“It’s on an entirely different level,” said another voice. Thomas’s face appeared, and he waved. “The sound deflection systems I used years ago are still operable and useful today. Katelyn’s technologies are surpassing that. Stay with me while I lay this out.
“Let’s say that we want war to break out between Mexico and Spain. I could take the sounds from a nuclear submarine that belongs to us and is currently in the Atlantic. I can take those sounds, transfer them to an inferior diesel submarine used by Mexico, making Spain think they have a nuclear sub. I could even take the sounds of ballistic missile silos opening and firing and infer it to the Mexican submarine.”
“Fuck me,” whispered Mav. “It would instigate all-out war.”
“It would. We think that’s why the agency wants it. If they could use this to do just that, they could play puppet master over the world,” said Thomas. “If we go even further, we could use AI images and voices in advertising, news stories, transferring the original voice into any nationality’s language and broadcasting on their news networks anything we wanted.”
“Fucking hell,” muttered Saint. “She said nothing is on paper, Thomas. She said it’s all in her head. What was their plan with this?”
Thomas stared at the screen, then looked at Doug, Montana, and Hiro. Doug turned the screen toward him again.
“Their plan was to either force her by torture to create what they want or keep her so drugged she’d have to talk about it for the next twenty years for someone to figure out.”
“Shit,” muttered Brax. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to hide her. Keep her on our property, away from the crowds, for as long as we can. Then, we’re going to arrange for her death.”
The gasp behind them told everyone that Katelyn had arrived at the last moment. Her face was pale, shaking her head at them.
“K-kill me?”
“Katelyn, let me explain,” said Doug.
“Explain? Explain how you’re going to take me to my death? Give me details about how you’ll murder me?”
“Katelyn, we’re going to fake the death,” said Doug. She stared at the screen then at the men on the plane. “We wouldn’t go to all this trouble to rescue you only to kill you on our property. We’re going to find a way to fake your death and satisfy the agency.”
“How? They’re going to want to see my body. They’ll want to perform an autopsy!” she cried. Mav moved toward her, taking her hand and pulling her in for a hug.
“That was fast,” smirked Hiro.
“Not a surprise,” smiled Montana. “They’re perfect for one another.”
“I can hear you, you know,” said Katelyn.
“We know, honey,” said Montana. “Katelyn, we’ve worked together for a while now, and we kept telling you that you’d need to come and live here eventually. If they thought the technology was coming from the group, G.R.I.P., they would have no recourse. But one person not protected by our team is vulnerable.”
“So, I have to stay with all of you indefinitely?” she asked.
“Katelyn, can I ask that you withhold judgment until you’re here,” asked Doug. “I just want you to see the property, see your cottage, which is being prepared as we speak, and meet the people here. I promise that you’ll feel this is the right thing.”
“And the agency? What about them? What if they come after all of you because of me?”
“Oh, there’s no doubt they’ll come after all of us,” said Pax. “But let us worry about that.”
Katelyn took a seat as Saint set a cup of hot tea in front of her. She looked up at him, her brows furrowed.
“In your apartment, there wasn’t a coffee pot, only a tea kettle. You had tea bags in a jar on the counter and pretty little teacups lined up. It was easy to figure out.” She laughed, shaking her head.
“And here I thought I was the smart one. Maybe I should write out what’s in my head. I mean, if it’s in a plan or schematic and I patent and copyright it for G.R.I.P., they can’t legally touch it.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Doug. “We understood that you were very careful about these things. I don’t want to ask you to do anything that you’re not comfortable with.”
“The only thing I’m not comfortable with is placing your lives in danger. Not just your lives but your livelihoods. What if the government ceases to do business with you?” Montana actually laughed, and Ryan smiled at her.
“Katelyn, we’ve restricted how much business we’re doing with the government of late. We discovered some things in the last few years that we weren’t happy with. For instance, the bird you’re on right now is ours. No one else owns one or knows of the technology. No one. We’ve got hundreds of inventions used only for us. The government doesn’t like that. They feel they have the right to everything we develop, and so far, we’ve been able to prevent that from happening.”
“But how do you make money?”
“That’s a longer story,” said Hiro. “Once you’re here and settled in, we’ll be sure to give you the full rundown of how things work around here. The good news is we don’t have to rely on anyone to survive.”
“Must be nice,” she muttered under her breath.
“You’re going to be okay,” said Mav. “I’m not going to let anyone get to you, and neither would anyone else.”
“I’m not sure how you can make that promise, but I feel as though I don’t have a choice but to believe you right now. I know this is asking a lot, but is my cottage near the water?”
“It’s not only near the water,” said Montana, “but you have a full view of the bayou and the fountains behind the cottage. The girls are taking care of everything.”
“The girls?” frowned Katelyn.
“You’ll meet them all soon,” said Mav. She looked at those around her and nodded.
“I guess I will.”