“Well, Paragon makes two,” she says.
I step closer to the holographic display, watching data cascade around Vanguard’s rotating form. Heart rate: 58 bpm. Blood pressure: 118/76. There are numbers for his cortisol levels, adrenaline, testosterone. Brain activity patterns I don’t understand but that seem to pulse and flow like weather systems across his skull. It’s strangely beautiful and bloody disturbing all at once.
“This is all from his watch?” I ask. My smart watch could never.
“The watch is part of it.” Julia comes to stand beside me, her reflection ghosting over Vanguard’s blue-lit form. “It’s quite a sophisticated device. Monitors his vitals, tracks his location, even measures his emotional state through galvanic skin response and heart rate variability.”
I look at the data streams more closely. Sleep cycles. REM patterns. Hormone fluctuations during dreams. Micro-expressions cataloged and analyzed.
“A watch can tell you what he dreams about?”
“You are looking at the technology of the future—but now.”
But she doesn’t explain further, doesn’t specify exactly how a wristwatch could possibly capture the kind of neural data I’m seeing on these screens, like the brain activity patterns or the emotional mapping that goes far beyond heart rate and skin response. The data is too detailed, too intimate. It’s the kind of information you’d need to beinsidesomeone’s body to capture.
I think about the chair in the first room. The monthlycalibrations.
What if they put something in him he doesn’t know about?
“This is…comprehensive,” I manage to say. I know I said I didn’t want to be somewhere private with Vanguard, but now, I’d like to have a few conversations off the record.
“We protect our investments.” Julia turns away from the display, her eyes finding mine with unsettling intensity. “Vanguard represents billions of dollars in research and development, not to mention the hopes and dreams of a nation still recovering from its darkest decade. We take his wellbeing very seriously.”
“I can see that.”
“Can you?” She steps closer, but I hold my ground. “Because I want to be very clear, Miss Baxter, what you’re seeing here,this is what it takes to keep Vanguard functional, safe, and sane.” She pauses, letting each word land. “This is why I’m showing you this. Without Global Dynamix, withoutme, he would deteriorate. The enhancements would turn on him. The man you’ve been interviewing would cease to exist.”
I swallow hard.
“That sounds like quite a responsibility.”
“It is. One I take very seriously.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Which is why I’m concerned about distractions, things that might interfere with his maintenance schedule or his focus, his loyalty to the program that keeps him alive. His loyalty to hiscountry.”
And there it is. The real reason for this tour.
“You’re worried aboutme,” I say.
“I’m worried about my asset. Nate has a tendency to become obsessed, to fixate on things—people—that catch his attention. It’s a flaw in his psychology we’ve tried to correct, but some things are more difficult to calibrate than others. Perhaps it comes from his childhood, maybe it’s something that tipped during active duty or when his sister died, or perhaps it’s something that comes with the territory of being a genetically enhanced super soldier. Either way, it’s there, and you’re…activating it.”
I lift a shoulder, splaying my hands. “I’m just writing an article.”
“Just? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like something more. And I should tell you, Miss Baxter, that would be a mistake. For both of you.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s never a threat. It’s always context.” She smiles, bright and cold. “I’ve shown you what we do here, what we need to do to keep him steady and ready. What I haven’t shown you iswhat happens when those systems fail, when an enhanced asset becomes unmanageable.”
She lets the implication hang in the air.
“Think of this as a professional courtesy,” she continues. “Woman to woman. Nate is charming. He’s handsome. Not only is he built like a god, but he’s bestowed with the powers of one. He can be devastatingly attentive when he chooses. But he’s not a normal man, and he never ever will be. Whatever you think is happening between you, whatever you felt when he kissed you last night?—”
My blood runs cold. So she does know.
“—it’s not real. It’s programming. Dopamine responses we built into him to facilitate bonding with handlers and assets. You’re not special to him, Miss Baxter. You’re just, shall I say, triggering the right receptors.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell if she’s telling the truth or trying to manipulate me or both.
“I should get going,” I manage to say, my lungs feeling tight. “I have other interviews to prepare for.”
