Chapter 40
"Is your phone off?" I asked.
Brooke nodded.
"Don't ever turn it on again. In fact, you should toss it right now.”
Brooke hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t sold on ditching her only line of communication.
I hadn’t seen another car on the highway since our close encounter with the 18-wheeler. But we were too exposed here. This wasn’t the best place to have a conversation.
"Hop in the car," I said. "Let's talk.”
It was getting hot, and the desert sun could burn you to a crisp in no time.
"You're out of your mind if you think I'm getting into a car with you. You could be anybody. You could be full of shit."
"You can keep the gun.”
"Oh, you're damn right I'm keeping the gun. And I’m not getting in the car with you.”
"We can talk out here and sweat, and maybe those guys will find us. Or we can get in the car and go for a little drive, and you can catch me up to speed on everything.”
Torment tensed her face.
"Too many people have died already,” I said.
After another moment of contemplation, she relented. "If you two try anything funny, I swear to God, I will blow your brains out. I won't hesitate.”
I didn't doubt her. Brooke had a fierce determination in her eyes.
“Lose the phone,” I said.
Her face tensed, and she gave another look around. Brooke dropped the device on the asphalt and stomped on it a few times. Afterward, she picked it up and tossed it into the desert.
JD and I climbed into the car, and Brooke climbed in back, keeping the pistol aimed at me through the seat.
Jack fired up the engine and pulled away from the curb. We kept driving into the desert, but it wasn't long before the road ended and turned to dirt. We continued on, kicking up gravel.
“You want to point that gun at the floorboard?” I suggested.
After a beat, she did.
Well off the beaten path, Jack finally pulled to a stop.
The AC blasted.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“The project was super secret,” Brooke replied. “At first, I didn't even know what I was working on. It was segmented and compartmentalized.”
"Classified?"
"We all signed nondisclosure agreements."
"Was this a black budget program?”
"I don't know. Scott pulled us all together.”
"Scott?”
"Wexler,” Brooke said. “He said it was for our own protection that we knew as little as possible. Everything was on a need-to-know basis. I think at first, he was trying to vet us before he gave more information. Eventually, it became clear what we were doing. Scott said it was safer if we were all technically employed by different shell companies. That way, it would be harder for someone to tie us all together. What we were doing was game-changing. This was technology that everybody would want. Technology that could disrupt the entire world order.”
JD and I shared a look.
"What was the project?” I asked.
Brooke hesitated a moment. "Sentinel. As we got deeper into the project, some of us started having misgivings about what we were building.
Some of us voiced our opinions. The first to die was Jacob.
He was too young to have a heart attack.
Then Michelle went missing. Then Charles.
It wasn't long after that when Adam suggested we go into hiding.”
“Where’s Adam? Is he alive?”
"He's the only one who can stop it.”
"Stop Sentinel?”
She nodded.
“What is it?”
Brooke took a deep breath. "This is going to sound crazy."
"We've seen plenty of crazy things. Trust me."
“Are you familiar with antigravity?”
"Antigravity?" I repeated with a hint of skeptical curiosity.
"I'm talking a revolutionary propulsion system that doesn't need fuel in the traditional sense. Rockets and missiles have always been burdened by the amount of fuel necessary to reach orbit. Antigravity changed all that.”
"Care to explain to me how antigravity works?”
"That's not my area. My job was meta-materials. I created the specific alloy that lets the Sentinel drones exit and reenter the atmosphere without issue from the extreme heat.”
"Sentinel drones?"
"Imagine a network of drones with directed energy weapons that can take off, orbit, and reposition at will without the need to refuel. Without the stress of reentry. Now imagine all of those drones controlled by an AI network that monitors every communication system, every satellite image, every action taken on earth. With a predictive modeling algorithm, it can anticipate potential strikes, aggressive actions, etc. The original purpose of Sentinel was to intercept and eliminate enemy ICBMs upon launch. That sounds great. A global defense shield against nuclear war. But these drones can be used as first-strike weapons. They can take out infrastructure targets, people, you name it. They can set fires, vaporize small towns, and take out enemy troops. All done autonomously.” She took a breath.
“You think all these random fires are accidents? All these random explosions at key infrastructure targets? Power plants, manufacturing, food processing. Whoever controls this technology controls the world.”
"It's a good thing we developed it first," I said.
“There is no we. Scott did this on his own. You think he’s going to relinquish control of Sentinel to the government?
” she scoffed. “I’m convinced he hates this country.
And do you really want some AI randomly selecting targets with no oversight?
Oh, I just incinerated a million people.
Whoops, sorry about that. My bad. You’re right to push back. ”
“You said Adam can stop it?”
“He’s got the hardware key that controls the system.
Adam is the lead programmer. He baked in a failsafe.
” She paused. “At first, we thought these deaths and disappearances might have been some foreign intel agency attempting to steal the technology.
But I believe Scott was eliminating assets to control the project.
Once he didn't have a use for us anymore, we became threats.
He's a brilliant but insecure man. I think he feared we would go to another company, branch off on our own, sell the secrets. "
"Where's Adam?”
The distant thump of rotor blades drew near, and that sinking feeling in my stomach festered. Soon, the pounding rotors were overhead. A sleek black helicopter circled, kicking up dust.
In the distance, the beige truck barreled down the dirt road, kicking up a plume.
Jack fired up the engine and dropped the Porsche into gear. The tires spat gravel as we launched forward. It was futile. We weren’t going to outrun a helicopter.
We raced deeper into the desert, kicking up dirt, bouncing over the uneven terrain.
The helicopter circled, then pulled alongside. The cargo door opened, and the door guy angled a machine gun at us.
Jack jammed the brakes and peeled away, going off the dirt road into the desert. The Porsche turned into a bounce house as we plowed over shrubs and brush
The helicopter circled back around, and the clang of machine gun fire echoed. Bullets snapped through the air, pelting body panels, piercing holes in the sheet metal. The spray of molten copper chewed up the engine bay, and steam billowed. It wasn't long before the Porsche gave up the ghost.
The car rolled to a halt in the high desert.
The black helicopter circled a few more times before touching down as the beige truck arrived.
The goons were going to get a little payback.