Page 4 of Black Heart
Until Emmitt Dawson.
I swallow down my gag reflex, remnants of adrenaline and repulsion, as I slip out of my cubicle. The floor-to-ceiling window completes my small office square, dark and bone-chillingly cold at this late hour.
With a warm fire and maybe a hot bath still on my mind, I grab my trench coat off my chair and—stop.
The glow of the other computer monitors on this floor covers my arms in a creepy blue light as I reach down and tap on my keyboard, and before I know it, my ass is following my reach and returning to my seat.
I’vehadit with meaty, asshole men. Thinking about my dead mom, my dead dad, and my dead past causes a spiral of rage inside me when I equate them with Dawson.
I’m not going to be used again. I refuse.
But I’m also non-confrontational and extremely passive-aggressive.
Using skills I learned not in college but in college basements with the other tech nerds in darkened, monitor glow rooms, I hack into my company’s surveillance in just under ten minutes and pull up all the times I remember Dawson approaching me, touching me, and giving those gross one-liners of his.And calling meLay.Ew.
Dragging them to a folder I’ve falsely titledHR Compliant Files,I unclip myHello KittyUSB port from my keychain and insert it into the computer’s tower.
Then I hitcopy files.
I lean back with folded arms and a smirk. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the evidence quite yet, but I’m happy I’ll have it in case Dawson gets smart and decides to cover his ass.
While I’m smirking, I hear the low rumble of voices in an enclosed office behind me—Dawson’s. I guess he never left despite his warning that the office would turn into a fridge after two.
Curious, I pull up real-time surveillance in his private office from a camera he’s long forgotten about. He believes himself invincible, what with his Nepo-baby managerial title.
I watch and listen with half-interest, and then my smile falls.
“Project Oracle’s complete. Don’t lie to me, Dawson.”
“I never denied it!” Dawson’s voice rises to a panicked pitch. “I was merely running it through last-minute tests. It’s not easy, you know, having a floor’s worth of analysts write hidden code without them knowing about it.”
The stranger with Dawson, a man I can’t see, has placed himself just outside the camera’s peripheral view. But I hear him just fine. His low tone is easy and calm.
“We don’t have time,” the man says. “Give the AGI to me.”
I tense so hard, the tendons of my neck strain. AGI? Did I hear that right? Artificial General Intelligence. That’s a highly illegal form of AI. AGI can learn and understand any intellectual task that a human can.
Minimizing the surveillance feed, I open the company’s project files and search for any mention of Project Oracle. Nothing.
As if he can hear my racing thoughts, Dawson says, “Look, the progress on Oracle is exceeding our expectations. Its predictive models are already influencing the trial markets we’ve tested. But I can’t hand it over to you this second.”
“It should have been operational yesterday.”
“We’re moving as fast as we can without arousing suspicion,” Dawson responds, using his hands as if to calm the situation—though the mysterious man ismorethan calm. “This isn’t a simple algorithm. It’s closer to Pandora’s box. If you want it to influence the economy, elections, Wall Street, then we have to?—”
“You promised a deliverable, Dawson. The organization doesn’t take kindly to lies.”
Mystery Man advances, his silhouette slithering over Dawson’s desk. Between two blinks, he grips Dawson’s throat, bringing him halfway over the desk like a rag doll bent the wrong way.
“Do you understand the kind of people you’re dealing with?” Mystery Man hisses. “We’re not some corporate investors you can pacify with jargon. You are at the edge of our knife.”
“I understand. Please…”
“Shit.Shit,” I hiss under my breath.
Heart hammering, I bolt out of my chair and grip my coat like a lifeline before rounding my cubicle and getting the fuck out of here.
Wait. The flash drive.