Mac tosses his fork and shoves his plate away. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s fuckin’ go.”
40
Madison
Well, that’s fuckin’ terrifying.
I’m in the shower when it hits me.
“Dios,” I breathe, eyes widening and then wincing as a stream of sudsy water falls right into my surprised expression. “Ah, fuck!”
I’m so excited by the realization, I can’t get my hair rinsed out fast enough. I nearly trip over the lip of the shower and slip on the wet tile as I climb out. The near brush with death makes me pause and catch my balance.
I can’t die because of something stupid before I get a chance to tell Wesley what I just figured out. And I suppose that means—since I have to go downstairs—I should probably also put on clothes first. Everyone is downstairs, and I don’t think Wesley will be very receptive to what I have to say if he’s anxious I might accidentally drop my towel.
No time for undergarments. I throw on a dress over my nudity and fly down the stairs, hair dripping in my wake. Just as I’m about to turn the corner towards the office, I skid to a stop, my feet literally making stuttered squeaks on the marble.
I poke my head into the kitchen. “Hey!” I call to Eleanor and Nicole.
Nicole spins, and Eleanor looks up from her knife work and the enormous, beige lump on the counter in front of her. “Madison, you’re… wet?”
“I thought you’d—are you butchering a whole turkey?” I interrupt myself. I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. I figured it out! Come on!”
I turn and sprint down the hallway.
After a second, Nicole and Eleanor follow. Nicole’s voice echoes after me. “That was way too dramatic not to pique my interest.”
“Hell yeah. I want to know,” Eleanoragrees.
I jerk open the door, feeling Nicole’s presence at my back. “It’s a project!” I shout into the office, making all three men turn to me with identical expressions of shock.
Okay, soIknow what that means, but I can see how it makes no sense without context. I rush over to the laptop Wesley set me up with and hurry to log in before I lose my train of thought. It’s a weird feeling to have everyone watching over your shoulder as you type—like being on display. The contents of one’s computer are a deeply private thing, and even though this isn’t really my personal machine, I can’t shake the itchiness under my skin.
Or maybe that’s just nerves.Dios, I hope I’m right about this…
Eleanor appears in the doorway, wiping her wet hands on her apron as I type my epiphany into the search bar, holding my breath. The result comes back, and I cover the elated laugh with my hand as I spin the screen towards Wesley to show him. Goosebumps erupt all over my skin.
He goes very still next to me. “Why didn’t that come up in my search?”
“Because it doesn’t say ‘General’ it says ‘Gener-AI.’ It’s SmarTech’s generative AI machine learning project. It’sFred’sproject,” I emphasize. I want to kick myself for not realizing it earlier. “It was all very hush-hush; I wasn’t there long enough to work on it, but obviously I snooped,” I add, chuckling when Wesley gives me a knowing look.
Shower thoughts for the win.
The software itself isn’t in the file, but there are some confidential documents. I see out of the corner of my eye as he pulls up the project documentation and starts skimming.
“What is it?” Eleanor asks, eyes round.
I cut her a grin before pulling up a Google search and sending an article I read a month ago about SmarTech’s project—Safe-T Keeper (still the stupidest name, ever)—to the group chat. “You know how they say things are cutting edge if it’s advanced and state-of-the-art, and they call it bleeding edge if it’s newer than that—more experimental, more exciting?”
“Oh, yeah, Itotallyknew that,” she says, resolutely shaking her head at Nicole, making Nicole grin in amused agreement.
“This is ahead ofthatcurve. Itisthe edge, I suppose,” I continue, losing my metaphor in my excitement. “It’s a software that’s supposed to be a kind of support tool for city governments to make better, data-driven decisions for the safety of their citizens. That’s how they’re selling it, anyway.”
“This is it,” Wesley confirms. His hands are shaking. “I recognize the patterns in the architecture this lays out. It’s my data filtration, and this describes the same platform I’ve been logging into for jobs and contacting the General.”
“They will sell it to cities to use?” Dimitri asks, tone rising in concern. “They will put the mayor or some such self-serving politician in charge of a program that could target and end lives at will? That is insanity. Even in Russia, they would know better.”
I shake my head. “That’s the thing—it’s being sold as a fully set-it-and-forget-it, AI-run thing.No one’srunning it. It’s supposed to run itself.”
