CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It took him almost a full minute to answer.
He called out “hold on” in a concerned voice and then there was the sound of motion from inside.
When the door opened, he kept the chain latched, peering out through the gap with his hair pushed up on one side like he'd been lying down.
Behind him, Rachel could make out the edge of a couch and a television paused mid-frame, the blue light of it flickering against the wall.
"Wes Hartley?" Rachel held up her credentials to the gap.
“Yeah. It’s late. Who are you?”
"Agent Gift, FBI. This is Agent Novak."
"It's almost eleven o'clock." Hartley's voice had an edge to it that wasn't quite alarm yet. He looked at the badge, then at both of them, and didn't move to unlatch the chain. "What’s this about?"
"We'd like to ask you some questions about your work at Apogee," Rachel said.
"At my apartment. At eleven at night." He gave a short, disbelieving laugh. "You couldn't have called first?"
"We could have," Novak said. "But this is pressing, and we’re trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible."
Hartley's jaw tightened at that, but after a moment he unhooked the chain and pulled the door open, though he didn't step back to let them in.
He stood in the doorway in a gray T-shirt and sweatpants, arms crossed, blocking the frame like he'd already decided this conversation was going to be short.
"I've got nothing to hide, so ask what you need to ask. But I'm not inviting the FBI into my apartment at this hour without a lawyer standing next to me."
"That's fine," Rachel said. "We can do this here."
"Great." He didn't sound like he meant it. It was almost like watching a child trying to do their best at pretending they were in control of a situation that was clearly over their heads. "So what is it? What do you want?”
"Were you aware that over the past few weeks, two Apogee users have died, Mr. Hartley? Renata Pike and Gerald Mott. Ms. Pike died yesterday, as a matter of fact. And both of them died on the exact day your algorithm predicted they'd hit their peak."
"I did hear about that. Around the office this afternoon." He smiled in a way that was bitter rather than amused. “So I guess you’re the two who were causing that particular headache today?”
“That would be us,” Novak said, matching Hartley’s irritated tone.
"And we found out something recently that made us want to speak with you,” Rachel said, keeping her voice even.
“And what might that be?”
"We have export logs showing nine single-user prediction queries run under your login over the past fourteen months.
No batch job attached to any of them. No project code.
Just individual names, individual dates, pulled one at a time through a workaround you built into your own maintenance scripts.
" She honestly still had no idea what it all meant, but she’d listened closely to Kline.
Apparently, she’d recited it back well because something in Hartley's face shifted, the irritation sliding into something more careful. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bryce Tanner does," Novak said. "He's been sitting on your emails for over a year. Encrypted address, no name attached, sending him peak predictions he then used to build an entire channel around calling your employer a death clock.”
He paused for a second, and Rachel could literally see Hartley’s face go a shade paler.
“We can trace that address back to you whenever we need to,” Novak added. “But we'd rather hear it from you first."
Hartley didn't say anything for a few seconds. He glanced past them at the hallway, empty except for a doormat two units down, and then looked back at Rachel like he was recalculating something.
In the end, Hartley apparently decided on honesty. "Fine," he said. "Yeah. That's me. I sent Tanner those names."
"Why?" Rachel asked.
"Because somebody needed to." His arms stayed crossed, but his voice had gone quieter, more urgent. It was the tone of a man who was starting to realize that his life may have very well just taken a drastic and unexpected turn. "You think I did it for money? Tanner never paid me a dime. He couldn’t because I never gave him my name!”
“Do you know him well?”
“Bryce Tanner? No. I don't even watch his videos, honestly.
The guy's a mess. I sent him that data because Apogee is selling people something that's going to get them killed.” Some of the bitterness slid away for a moment and something resembling emotion slipped in.
“And nobody inside that building wants to hear it. "
"Explain that to me," Rachel said.
"The peak isn't what they tell people it is," Hartley said as he let out an exasperated sigh.
Rachel got the sense that he'd been waiting a long time for someone to actually ask him this.
"Sloan markets it as the high point. The best version of you, biologically.
Champagne emojis, congratulations, hit your peak, all that bullshit.
What the model is actually detecting is the moment the rate of decline in your body starts to outpace the rate of repair.
That's not a summit. That's an inflection point.
It's the first measurable sign that your systems have stopped keeping up with themselves. "
"So the peak is the beginning of the decline," Novak said, nearly phrasing it as a question.
"It's the beginning of the end of compensation," Hartley said.
"Your body's been quietly losing ground for years before that point, but it's still winning the argument against itself.
The peak is the day it stops winning. But Apogee reframes that and instead throws a party for it.
They tell users this is the best day of their biological life, and then six weeks later that same user is supposed to just go about their business while their own numbers are sliding in the background.
But nobody wants to hear that, because a warning doesn't sell subscriptions. A celebration does."
"You're saying the model works," Rachel said. "You're just saying the company is lying about what it means."
"Yeah, at the core of it. The model itself…it’s accurate.
That's the part that keeps me up at night.
" Hartley shook his head slowly and leaned against the doorframe.
"If it were junk science, none of this would matter.
But it's good. It's really good. Which means when it tells someone their systems have started losing the fight, that's real information…
and instead of using it to get people into a doctor's office, Sloan slaps a champagne glass emoji on it and calls it a milestone.”
"Have you ever raised this concern internally?" Rachel asked.
"Twice. Once in a team meeting, once directly to Sloan.
" Hartley's mouth twisted. "He told me I was overthinking the marketing language and that the science speaks for itself.
That I was making an issue out of nothing.
He built this thing off his own research, and I think somewhere in his head he sees it as less of a product and more like a…
like a piece of him, you know? You don't get to tell a guy like that his baby is dangerous. Not without him deciding you're the problem instead of the idea. And look…I’m not stupid. I have a great job that pays very well. I just zipped up and said nothing else about it.”
"So you went around him," Rachel said. "Fed a stranger with an online following individual predictions because Sloan wouldn't listen to you."
"I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I wanted the pattern out there so somebody with actual leverage would start asking questions." His voice had risen slightly, defensive again. "Which, apparently, worked, because here you are."
"Two people are dead, Mr. Hartley."
"That's not on me." But the certainty in his voice had already started to crack around the edges. He was looking at them nervously again, deciding that maybe he wasn’t as out of the woods as he’d originally assumed.
"Where were you last night?" Rachel asked.
"Last night? I was here. I usually leave the office around six or so.”
“No other stops along the way?” Rachel asked.
“No. I came straight home. Had some leftover pizza for dinner from the other night and watched some old movie on Netflix.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?” Novak asked.
“No. I’m…I’m sort of dating someone but we only see each other once a week. We texted a bit last night, but it was pretty late. Like, near midnight or so.” As he spoke, he seemed to understand that none of this sounded particularly good for him.
"Look,” he went on, more anxious now. “I don't keep a log of every night I'm alone in my own apartment." His voice had climbed again, thinner now than it had been a minute ago. "Nobody can vouch for me because I live by myself. That's not a confession, that's just how a lot of people live."
“Is there any way to place you here specifically?” Novak asked. “Building cameras, a neighbor, a delivery?"
"I don't know. Maybe there's something on my building's cameras.
I wasn't exactly planning ahead for a night I'd need an alibi.
" Hartley's jaw worked, and he glanced down at the hallway carpet like the answer might be sitting there.
"I don't order much delivery. I cook. I don't have a doorman here, just the badge system downstairs, which I'm sure logs entries and exits, but I couldn't tell you what those logs would even show.
I've genuinely never had a reason to think about it. "
"You had access to the names of the victims and their exact predicted dates," Rachel said, drawing him back on course.
"You've got a documented grudge against the man who runs the company.
You've spent over a year convinced the app you helped build is quietly killing people, and now people are dying on the days you flagged. "
"I gave that information to a YouTuber, not a killer.
" Hartley's voice cracked on the last word, and he took a half step back from the door, like the frame itself had gotten smaller around him.
"I was trying to expose something. I wasn't trying to...
" He stopped, and for the first time since he'd opened the door, he looked less angry than afraid.
Terror flooded his eyes and he said, in a near whisper: "You think I did this. "
"I think you're the only person we've found with the access, the motive, and no alibi for either night," Rachel said. "So right now, I’m not ready to accuse you of anything, but I think you need to come with us and explain yourself somewhere other than a doorway."
"Am I under arrest?"
"Not yet," Novak said. "This can go easy or it can go the other way. Your call. For right now, we just need you to come with us and have a talk."
Hartley looked between them for a long moment, his earlier certainty gone entirely now, his face settling into something quieter and more frightened.
He uttered a curse and then said, "I want a lawyer there."
"You'll have one," Rachel said.
Hartley turned back to his apartment with a heavy sigh. “Let me get dressed then. I suppose I may as well come in.”
As the three of them made their way to the stairs, Rachel couldn’t ignore the slight churning in her gut…a churning that told her this felt a little too easy.