She shook her head, rubbing at the tension forming at the back of her neck.“Most of them don’t know what’s really going on.They are trying to achieve the admirable mission associated with Communication for All.It’s a very select few, an inner core of about twenty-five people, who know the truth and are behind it all.”
“And you discovered this was going on when you were twelve?”
“Yes,” she whispered.“At that point they were just starting to dip their toes into utilizing cell phones for illegal data mining.Run-of-the-mill stuff at first...software that caused phones to report credit cards or bank account numbers to them.Then they expanded.”
“Expanded how?”
“I didn’t make up that stuff I told you in Denver.They’re utilizing cell audio and video mechanisms to record data, even when cameras and microphones aren’t actively running.I know you don’t have a smartphone, but have you ever heard people complain about how fast the batteries run down even when they’re not using them?”
He began pacing again.“Sure.All the time.”
“That’s the Communication for All system pulling data off their phone.Every time there’s a system update, they use it to piggyback onto more phones.”
He stopped and stared at her.“How many do they have now?”
“According to Melissa?Millions.And they can use those phones to record data anytime they want.To find anyone they want.It’s basically making a worldwide information grid that they control.Nobody will be able to hide.And it’s about to get so much larger.”
“How?”
She rubbed her eyes with her fingers.“Three days from now is the International Technology Symposium in Denver.Major phone manufacturers will all be there.Communication for All will provide them with some wonderful bit of technology that will be a breakthrough of epic proportion.They’ll be hailed as heroes when they offer it to manufacturers for free.”
“But there’s a catch.”
She nodded.“The tiniest of Trojan horses.A few lines of code that would probably be missed, even if the manufacturers were suspicious and went over the coding line by line.But from such a trusted source like Communication for All that has no ulterior motive?No one will ever even suspect it.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.“How do you know about it if you’ve been gone for ten years?”
She forced an even breath.“That Trojan horse was the last thing they tried to get me to build before my mom took me and ran.But I didn’t do it.I could’ve, but I didn’t.And it’s taken them ten years to get caught back up.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t force you.You were only a kid.With everything they’re capable of, I would think brutalizing a single child wouldn’t have been out of their wheelhouse.”
Even now, ten years later, bile pooled in her stomach as she thought about it.The memory of the sound of her own bones breaking a split second before the pain ripped through.Her body still woke her up in a cold sweat sometimes.
She forced the memory from her mind now as she wrapped her arms around her knees once again and pulled them against her chest.
She closed her eyes.“It wasn’t beyond their capacity.They used starvation and sleep deprivation first, but then realized that wasn’t conducive to me actually being able to get the Trojan horse made.So then they went with physical pain—broke my legs in three different places over the course of the year.Finally, they started torturing my mother to get me to cooperate.That worked best.”
“God, Bree...”
“Bethany.Bethany Malone.That’s my real name.”And she hadn’t been able to say it out loud in ten years.“Melissa named Beth after me.But I’m Bree now.Bethany Malone died ten years ago when she hobbled out of the Communication for All campus with a mother who was hanging on to the last grips of sanity.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tanner wanted to grab Bree and pull her into his arms.To comfort both her and the child inside her who had suffered so much.
But the way she said it all with almost no emotion—how they tortured her and her mother—told him she wouldn’t respond to comfort right now.
“My mom gave me eight hours and forty-five minutes’ warning that she’d found a way to get out,” Bree continued, her voice getting more and more distant.“I used that time to do as much damage to the Organization as I could.I made sure to set them back for years, while also erasing every image that had ever been taken of me or my mom.I didn’t want them to be able to find us.”
“That was smart of you.”
“The damage I did to them in eight hours set them backyears.I know for a fact Michael Jeter hated me after that.I wish I could’ve seen his face when he’d found out what I’d done.”
But her own face got sadder, not happier.Tanner couldn’t stay away anymore.He sat down and pulled her up against his chest.“You got out.You survived.You bested them.That’s what matters.”
“If I had worked that hard when they wanted me to, they wouldn’t have hurt my mom.She never recovered, Tanner.”She shook her head against his chest.“She never stopped looking over her shoulder, convinced the Organization was there.Never stopped being terrified.Even at the end, she was convinced she was being betrayed and the Organization was coming to get her.”
Bree rubbed her shoulder in the peculiar way he’d seen her do multiple times in the last few weeks.
