“You mean he wants to shut out DARPA and own the industry for himself,” Ian countered. “Why would anyone build a billion-dollar product they then have to pay to maintain when he can do it for you for free? Well, beyond the billion. And if he has proof of concept, I would bet he suddenly looks real good to any country thinking about, say, building a spaceport in the future.”
Maddie nodded. “Yes. What we’re working on could transform the space industry.”
“I have questions,” Deke said. “I get that an AI can make decisions, but how can it repair itself? Are you launching the satellite with extra parts?”
“Yes, in some cases, but obviously that could be cumbersome,” she replied. “Especially in the cases of large parts. For some smaller pieces, a 3D printer would be used. For larger parts, we’ve designed a scavenger drone.”
MaeBe whistled, obviously impressed. “It can get to the graveyard orbit?”
“That is the plan. There are more than 3,000 decommissioned satellites in orbit. Most of them are there because they ran out of fuel. The parts are still good. Clarke would search for a usable part and send the scavenger to do its thing.”
“Damn.” Deke put a hand on hers. “I knew you were smart and that you could change the world, but damn, baby.” He shook his head and sat back. “Sorry. Old habit. I’m just…I’m really proud of you.”
She had the sudden urge to lean into him, to get his hand back in hers. Maddie tried to shake it off. She was annoyingly emotional around him. “Thanks, but I’m a little worried that all my hard work is being used for something it wasn’t intended for. Not that I could tell you what that is.”
“When did you start to suspect something was wrong at Byrne?” Charlotte asked.
“A few months ago. I’ve had this project in my head for years.” She’d been a workaholic. “I thought up the concept of how the AI would work when I was in college, but Byrne gave me the chance to really test it out. I’ve worked sixty hours a week for years on this project, and I was hyperfocused on what I was doing. The satellite project is made up of twenty different teams and over three hundred people. On big projects like this, often one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.”
“I’m sure Byrne likes it that way,” Ian added. “He gets to put everything together and take all the credit.”
“The base of the AI is a combination of his work from the self-driving cars and my own work.” She wouldn’t ever take credit where it wasn’t due. “I brought my ideas to the project and found a way to elevate the base AI. I streamlined Clarke’s processes and I believe what we have is the most well-developed AI on the planet. But I understand the industry, Mr. Taggart. At this point in my career I’m compensated with money, not prestige.”
“You were telling us how you became suspicious,” Deke prompted.
“A few months back a man on my team named Justin Garcia wrote me an email requesting a meeting. He said it was important and that he would rather talk to me off campus. I was busy that day but agreed to meet with him for coffee the following morning. He didn’t show. He didn’t come to work that day and after a week, we found out from his girlfriend that he was missing,” she explained. “A couple of days later, his body was found in an area of LA known for illegal drug buys and gang activity. But I knew Justin. He wasn’t the kind of guy to be so reckless. Still, the medical examiner found fentanyl and heroin in his system, so I have to assume that one of the nicest men I ever met ended his life in a flop house doing poorly cut drugs.”
“He was on your team? Did he work on anything sensitive?” Kyle asked.
“Everything we work on is sensitive, but he was working on the audio system. It’s considered glitter. You know, like sprinkles on a cupcake. Clarke doesn’t need a voice to talk to home base, but it’s one of those things that makes the project more interesting to the public. It’s like those freaky robots that look like hellhounds that are going to kill the world so they make sure they can do goofy dances. Justin was in charge of giving Clarke a human voice.”
“Maybe he can sing to us before he takes over the world and nukes us all from space,” Ian said with a shake of his head. “Sorry. I watched too much Terminator. Please proceed.”
Taggart wasn’t the only person who had reservations about what she did. Her father questioned her all the time. It made for fun holidays. “Three weeks ago, Pam Dodson went missing. I don’t believe for a second that she would up and quit and walk out on her kids. She has two, and I know she and her husband were having trouble, but I can’t buy the idea that she left a note saying she needed to find herself. She wasn’t that person.”
“Sometimes people do things that seem out of character,” Charlotte mused. “We can’t truly know what’s going on in a person’s head. Does the husband believe it?”
“I went by their house after she disappeared. He gave me some song and dance about how she’d been talking about taking a sabbatical from her boring life and going hiking.” She hadn’t bought anything Matt had told her.
“Okay, I understand that two people going missing in the same company in such a short amount of time seems odd, but I don’t see how they connect except that you knew both of them.” Deke had sat back, studying her.
“Pam was also working on audio.” How did she explain that this was an instinct? She was a scientist who believed in logic and hard facts, but she knew something was wrong with the project. Something dark. “Specifically on the way Clarke targets the transfer of audio, how he changes frequency for private messaging. When I tried to access her work, I found out someone had wiped it off her laptop. Everything. All of her notes. Her messages—even the ones to me—were all deliberately erased. She’s not working on new tech. What Pam does has been around for a long time. Why erase her background work? She wasn’t finished. Someone has to take over and now they have to start from scratch.”
“Why do you think it wasn’t an accident?” Taggart asked. “I know most research and tech companies have protocols including securing data when an employee leaves or is fired.”
“There’s no reason to secure this data,” she countered. “None. It actively hurts the project, and it wasn’t an accident. I was able to find the order to erase her systems. It came straight from Byrne himself.”
“How did you find the order?” Deke asked.
“I was left in Byrne’s office alone for a few minutes and I rifled through his notes,” she admitted. “He doodles a lot. He’s the kind of guy who’s always got to be in motion. He’s never still. Even when he’s in a meeting, he’s got a notepad and he’s drawing or sometimes making notes to himself. I looked through his notebook and he reminded himself to erase Pam. As far as I know he’d never met Pam. Why would he be concerned with a fairly low-level employee working on what was a basic system?”
“I agree that seems odd, but all of this is circumstantial. Pam is not an uncommon name. He could have been talking about a voicemail or some project notes you don’t know about. What do you think he’s doing?” Taggart asked.