Chapter 32 #2
“This is an absolute mess,” Miles Bryant said, running a hand through his hair.
“I cannot begin to describe how bad this is for Gray Tower. We must screen people better. We must ensure our employees aren’t being offered incentives by our enemies right behind our backs. This type of betrayal…it cuts deep.”
Nate watched the color on Alex’s face drain. Was Bryant tying Alex to this as well? He had thought things were sorted out with them, but maybe it wasn’t?
“I—I’m sorry,” Alex said, tears welling in her eyes. “I made this worse. None of this would have happened if I had just done my job.”
Bryant’s face softened as he said, “Let’s talk after this meeting.
I’m not mad, and it was a good thing this happened.
We would never have known otherwise, and they could have attacked us at a worse moment.
As of right now, Ms. Cole is the only civilian who got injured.
That was extremely unfortunate, but she is now awake and doing okay.
Dr. McKay has her on concussion protocol for the next twenty-four hours. ”
“You should be happy, Alex,” John Stratton said as his thumbs worked over his phone screen.
“I have a report from my man saying that the Conglomerate is disowning Victor Yegorovich and his projects, including the one he was torturing Nathan for: Project Euphoria. In fact…” He typed some more.
“…they suspected he was going off the rails.” Another pause before John chuckled.
“He was becoming obsessed with finding Nathan. He became Captain Ahab, and Nathan was his White Whale.”
Nate would have laughed, except the mention of the top-secret project that only he should have known about made him sit straight.
“Project Euphoria?” Bryant questioned.
“Victor was head of it,” John replied. “The Conglomerate was testing different drug combinations on unwilling subjects. Nathan was their longest-lasting one. I have notes, but they aren’t complete. They were trying out most of the successful combinations on the other project Victor was a part of—”
“Project Gaslight,” Nathan said for him.
“Yes,” John nodded. “The one Victor was trafficking veterans for—the reason why you all fell down the rabbit hole to begin with.”
“Tell me everything,” Bryant demanded.
“I’ll send you the files,” John said. “But the shortened version is that the Conglomerate has been trying to master mind control. They want more people, and the promise of money and power isn’t attractive to everyone.”
“The man we have—the one in the coma from the Sims Center—he was in this project?”
“Yes,” John nodded. “He may be the only survivor.”
“It’s more than that,” Nate interrupted. “They keep kidnapping people with special skill sets. If they could effectively brainwash someone, they could have their pick of anyone.”
Bryant sat back and shook his head.
“This makes sense. When Gabriel was dealing with The Black Mark, we found people in cages. They were adults and didn’t look like they were going to be sold for sex. It the Conglomerate wanted workers. Specific workers. And they were planning on brainwashing them all.”
“Well, I’m sure that was the hope,” Stratton said. “But brute force works as well. However, I doubt they’ll give this up with the amount of research they have done.”
Nate bristled.
“How do you have all of this?” he asked. “I got my information from a Conglomerate lab I blew up. I brought a USB key back from there, which I later destroyed. Sally is, or was, the only thing that had the data.”
“This is the same data,” Stratton said, nodding. “I’ve just been reading through it for the past twenty minutes. It was forwarded to me by my guy. Sally may have sent it on to him before she was destroyed.”
“Goddamn it, Sally,” Nate muttered. “You have to be helpful, even after you’re gone.”
Bryant looked at him sympathetically.
“You understand that we would have had to destroy what’s left of her, right?”
Nate stiffened and asked sharply, “Why?”
“Even though she was useful, she was still dangerous,” he explained. “Having an artificial general intelligence isn’t what the world needs. It’s a rabbit hole we don’t want to go down.”
“It will happen again, eventually,” Nate countered.
“And maybe we’ll be more prepared,” Bryant told him. “Sally was able to weasel through our systems like it was nothing. We can’t have that kind of power running about, unchecked.”
Nate fumed but didn’t argue. What was the point? She was gone. Gray Tower would erase anything left of her.
Stratton cleared his throat.
“I understand this is a touchy subject, but I do have some good news for Nathan: My guy has confirmed that the X-Project has been wiped. There is not enough of the program to keep together after we destroyed almost all their suits. There may be one or two left, but I doubt we’ll run into them again.
This means your name has been scrubbed, Mr. Slade. You are a free man.”
Nate’s eyes widened. Murmurs came from around the room.
He was free. He could do whatever he wanted. He could have a real job. Buy a house. Get married.
With that thought, his glance went straight to Alex, who was studying him carefully. There was a slight grin on her face, and she mouthed, “Later.” He nodded.
“Well, shit,” Hunter said as he glanced at Nate’s brother.
Logan nodded at Hunter. It was this weird, silent communication they were all doing that Nate wasn’t privy to.
Hunter cleared his throat and said, “So, hey, Nathan. I hear you’re available now, and I’ve seen you in action.
You take directions well and work in a team situation.
And frankly, you are responsible for the biggest Conglomerate bust in the history of this company.
You—and Alex—have done a great service to this company and this country. What do you say?”
Nate sat there, stunned. It was only a handful of hours ago that he was being interrogated, and now he was being offered a job. How could life change so quickly? And it was all because Stratton had come into his life. The man had said he wanted to fix everything in the Slade household.
“Uh…” he said, not knowing what to say.
“The benefits are good,” Hunter continued. “Salary is fantastic. Hours suck sometimes, but I’m sure you’re used to that.”
Nate scratched his head and said, “You guys have good dental? Because I think I need a couple of root canals after being locked up that long without a damned toothbrush.”
Hunter chuckled and said, “Fucking fantastic dental.”
“Then, I’m in,” Nate said.
Hunter looked at John.
“Now, as for you, there is no job offer. We don’t trust you. We appreciate that you were the mastermind behind this and that we were able to grab Sims and take out Victor, but you’re a sneaky bastard. Plus, you need to spend some fucking time with your daughter.”
“Noted,” Stratton said.
“Also, keep ‘your guy’ out of our systems from now on,” Hunter said, using air quotes.
“All I can do is ask,” Stratton said with a shrug. “Maybe do a better job with cybersecurity?”
“Hey, leave my fiancée out of this—” Hunter began, but Kat quietly held up her hand.
“It’s fine, Jack. Everything needs to be tightened. I’ve looked, and a lot of it is up against advanced technology I’ve never seen before. We need to go through a huge overhaul. It’ll cost us.”
“Whatever needs to be done,” Bryant said. “Money is not an issue.”
She nodded and said, “Good, because this stuff is expensive. Also, before we adjourn, I wanted to bring up that there was a huge network spike during the attack. I was monitoring it. I cannot begin to tell you how big the spikes were. But when I went back to look at the logs after everything calmed down, nothing was there.”
“Look into it,” Bryant said. “Weird things were happening when Sally had control. Let’s assume our data is compromised.”
“I feel like this is my fault,” she said, looking dejected.
“If Sally hadn’t been in control of Gray Tower, people would have died,” Nate said.
Kat looked at him, and the saddened expression on her face dissolved.
“I didn’t think of it that way. I’ve been beating myself up.”
“Don’t,” Nate said.
He glanced over at Hunter, and the other man nodded in approval.
“I’m going to adjourn this meeting,” Bryant said. “I need to speak with a few of you individually. We’ll have to shut down most of our operations until we get a handle on everything. That’s going to involve detailed planning. Get some rest but leave your phones on.”
There were nods around the room, and everyone began the process of getting out of their seats and heading to the door.
“Ms. Thorn, a word,” Bryant said.
Alex looked at Nate, worry in her eyes, but said, “I’ll catch up with you. I promise.”
Nate swallowed hard and said, “Of course.”
She needed to work out everything with Bryant. That took priority. They could figure out where they stood later.