“I need something that only Quark knows, but isn’t telling,” Alexa said.
“Ask Noah, if you want to know about Quark. It’s his company.”
“Noah is ill.”
Caspian nodded slowly, that knowing smirk still plastered on his lips. Alexa knew he would never say out loud what she had omitted: that Noah would never tell. Noah would, in fact, consider the question an act of espionage.
But Alexa also had a third reason for not asking Noah about Chloe, this one unknown to Caspian given the autonomous, AI-first way Sarah had been acting: Quark might be keeping secrets even from itself.
Even Noah West might not be able to answer her questions.
He shrugged. “I fail to see what this has to do with little old me.”
Alexa snapped. Anger replaced her intimidation. “Self-pity isn’t flattering on you, Caspian. Knock it off. You know exactly what this has to do with you. Stop playing games and talk to me straight.”
At first, Caspian didn’t seem to register the verbal slap. Then he blinked, looked down, and carefully picked something invisible from the lapel of his blazer. The gesture took long, slow seconds. Finally, he looked up and leaned forward, elbows on knees, his focus now fully on Alexa. He met her eyes right through the video.
“All right, I’ll talk straight if you agree to do the same. Let’s get a few things out of the way. Things that have been between us since you tried to take over Eros from the inside out — a company that GameStorming had its eye on from an acquisition standpoint, and that I had my eye on for personal—”
“I tried to take it over? I was on the Eros board! You were the one who bullied your way into the Trevor’s Harem experiment and …”
Caspian stared until Alexa withered, then he continued into her silence.
“You weren’t even in the Syndicate, even though you knew all about it. You offered no assets and yet you managed to squeak into Eros, then stab your way into every one of the company’s biggest deals. Then came O and Panel. And now everyone saw you as Alexa Mathis the Visionary. Fake it ’til you make it, am I right?”
“Caspian, this is—”
“Alexa Mathis doesn’t call to chat. She doesn’t call to help or share knowledge. No. Alexa calls because she expects to receive. Because something is in her way that needs removing. And what’s more, Alexa Mathis is smart enough to know that nothing is ever free, especially from a person like me. So, tell me, Alexa, and tell me straight: What do you want me to illegally procure for you against your partners’ wishes? And what irresistible thing will you offer in return? After all this time, I know you. Just say it. Because a woman as cunning as you knows better than to enter a Faustian bargain without something good to offer the Devil.”
Alexa was quiet, racing to process. She’d been stupid to dance around with Caspian, to pretend there was mutual benefit. That’s not why he did things. Caspian worked for personal gain — and if the other party benefitted without lessening his spoils, he was willing to allow it. This man had his company because he’d seized the market. He was married because he’d seen his future wife and claimed her. If there was a softness to Caspian, it was buried deep.
She went for the heart of the issue.
“I know that Bratva infiltrated the NAU Internet in the late thirties, through a hijacked satellite signal. I know the window stayed open through the rollout of Crossbrace, at which point Quark discovered and closed the back door. But in those years, I know your friends in Ukraine compiled a massive archive of insider Quark logs — an archive that is now twenty years old and probably mothballed as useless. But I know they still have it and that with the right connections, you can get it. I want that archive, Caspian.”
He laughed, seeming pleased by Alexa’s gall and presumption.
“Let’s say you’re right, and I can get you what you want. Why should I bother? How are you going to make it worth my while?”
Alexa told him.
The call ended.
And her hands were still shaking.
CHAPTER THREE
Chloe jumped when her Crossbrace connection trilled. She hadn’t realized how fervently she’d been keeping her head down, pawing through reams of Beam data with no results.
No help from Brad. He was like a lawyer who wanted to help the other side but was bound by contracts — and who needed Chloe, as another lawyer, to poke at loopholes until she figured out how to ask in just the right way.
She’d ask; Brad would say he couldn’t answer. Chloe would groan and say she was giving up; Brad would wink and hint and tell her she should maybe try again with a different, perhaps-sideline request.
Brad looked up as Chloe did, but of course, his holographic face was unsurprised. He’d had milliseconds of warning between the incoming call and its actual ringing.
“It’s Andrew,” he said.
The call rang a second time, then a third.
“Would you like to answer it?” Brad asked.
They both looked at the wall where Chloe typically took her calls.
It rang again.
“Or … would you like me to silence the call? Send him to messages?”
Another ring.
“Chloe?”
She couldn’t answer either way.
Yesterday she’d been confused, but today things were worse.
Not long ago Chloe felt like she might be falling in love with Andrew. That was something her mother’s advice had been unable to confirm or deny — and that her mother’s experience, based on what she’d cobbled together about Nicole and Clive, warned her against.
She’d felt conflicted after that strange day in the park, after telling Andrew about her self-imposed split personality, when things between them seemed off.
They’d reconciled and had sex. Chloe thought that things were better … but then she wavered, composing a careful note and leaving without waking him.
That exchange had shaken her foundations. Chloe worried that her mental partitioning had left her sick instead of protected. She’d spent the day wondering if something was happening with him, her, or both at once.
Was Andrew keeping something from her?
Had something inside him changed?
Or was the problem Chloe’s?
He’d never hired her, but was it possible she was still making her mother’s mistakes?
Was Andrew her Clive Spooner?
Then she dove into The Beam. Seeing bits of her mother’s past. Learning some things and wondering at others. Chloe could tell that Nicole had loved Clive, without getting his affection in return.
But what had happened after Chloe’s birth? What had the midwife seen and felt? Who was her father if not Clive? And how were Chloe’s conception and birth even possible?
Why had O grabbed Chloe with both hands, then tested her like a latent prodigy? Why did she feel like suddenly, much of O’s weight was sitting atop her shoulders?
She was only an escort. One of so very many.
Or was she?
The record of Nicole’s time with Clive felt important, but Chloe didn’t know why. Interesting but far from complete.
Something itched at her scalp.
Who is Chloe Shaw?
Chloe didn’t think she could face Andrew.
Not until she was closer to answering that question.
The ringing stopped. She had no idea how many times it had rung.
“Let it go to messages,” she mumbled after the call already had.
Brad looked at her, sympathy in his artificial eyes.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chloe took to notepads. She scribbled on small ripped pieces of paper, then moved them around like particles in a cloud, arranged in chaos on the floor.
She didn’t know what to do with what she uncovered and failed to expose — only that each bit of disconnected information seemed to matter. She had no system. She stared at her notes, waiting for an order that wouldn’t emerge.
“Take a break, Chloe,” Brad said.
>
“You’re a machine.”
“I’m actually software.”
“Machines don’t need breaks. Same for software. You’re not qualified to say whether or not I need a break.”
“Your resting heart rate has risen. Blood pressure is up. Activity across your frontal lobe as well as regulation of autonomic functions in your—”
“Stay out of my brain, Brad.”
“My point is that I am qualified to say whether or not you need a break. I don’t have experience, but I do have criteria from the medical database. And more subjectively, your focus is clearly wavering. You’re missing things.”
“Like what?”
“Conclusions you should have drawn based on your discoveries. Paths you perhaps should have investigated further.”
“What conclusions? Which paths?”
Brad seemed almost caught. For software, he sure did an excellent impression of a human eating his foot.
“Tell me, Brad. What am I missing?” Chloe held up her notepad, torn and full of scribbles, tattered pages looking chewed by a dog.
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“It’s the same thing. Most of these facts are restricted. At least the finest points.”
“I see.” Chloe nodded. “You mean the points that matter. The one that might tell me who my father was. Why I’m here. That’s what’s restricted, right?”
“Is that a metaphysical question? ‘Why you’re here’?”
Chloe closed her eyes. Dropped her head. Rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“You’re tired,” Brad repeated. “You need a break.”
“I can’t take a break.”
“Why not?”
“My brain won’t stop churning. All of this?” Chloe gestured, fluttering pages as she swung an arm past the paper-and-holographic mess strewn across her floor. “It’s only making things worse.”
“That’s why you need a break.”
“I can’t take a break until I get some answers.”
“You can’t get answers without taking a break.”
“I have to try.”
“Chloe.” His voice was eminently understanding. “Finding all of the answers now is impossible.”
Her short fuse finally broke.
Chloe’s body convulsed. She whipped forward, hurling the flapping, tattered notepad through Brad’s holographic head. He didn’t try to evade or flinch. It hit the counter behind him and fell to the floor.
“I can’t stop! I can’t rest! I can’t take a fucking break! You know what you are, Brad! But what the fuck am I?”
Chloe collapsed to the couch, her legs weak, her torso a two-ton weight. Her chest caved; her chin sagged. Without warning, she was inches from tears.
Movement caught the corner of her eye. She looked up to see Brad standing in front of her. Then he did something unexpected, yet oddly touching. He sat on the couch beside her, its cushions unbent by his lack of weight.
“You’re the same person you always were.”
“Not according to what I’m finding.” Chloe pointed an accusing finger at her mess of research. Over the past several sleepless hours, it had taken on the feel of something large, looming, and unseen. A monster whose presence she could feel.
Chloe couldn’t put any of the pieces together, but visible shards sketched the vague outline of something much bigger and deeper than she could’ve ever imagined, almost all of it unknown to anything but The Beam itself — and with Chloe Shaw somehow at its center.
“I feel like someone’s been watching me for my entire life.”
Brad said nothing.
“You know the answers,” she said, looking at him, seeing him as almost human. “You and The Beam.”
“It’s not as simple as deciding not to tell you, Chloe. I have intelligence, but I’m still code at base. Permissions bind us. The Beam is literally incapable of divulging what those permissions have restricted us from saying.”
She shook her head, trying to comprehend. It was maddening and frustrating beyond measure to know that Brad already had everything that she was hoping to uncover. She wanted to crack his nonphysical head open like a cantaloupe and scoop out whatever was inside.
“I can say that whatever else you might turn out to be, you are still Chloe Shaw. The same person you were yesterday, and a week ago when none of this bothered you.”
“You’re splitting hairs. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Do I? I’m only software.”
Despite it all, Brad was helping. His non-answer was still a response.
Chloe leaned toward him, wanting to lay her head on his chest.
But of course, she fell right through and landed sideways on the couch.
“Take a break, and after you get some rest, you can try again.”
Brad stayed with Chloe until she drifted off.
Then his hologram blinked out of the room, leaving it dark enough for slumber.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Microdyne.”
A new holographic cluster appeared, but Chloe had seen this all before. She pushed it aside after a cursory glance then looked at Brad. “I know all of this already.”
“You asked for information on Microdyne.”
“How about you tell me whether my request is relevant.”
Brad shrugged. They’d been through this several times. He wouldn’t offer anything Chloe hadn’t requested— or at least, not anything that might help her.
“Then give me a summary. Verbal. General; I don’t need all the specific dates and stats. Do your adaptive best to give it to me like a human. Maybe something will click if I hear the info instead of reading it all again.”
“Microdyne was Clive Spooner’s company in the first part of the 21st century. Its breakout product was a chip that blocked location-divulging pings from apps. Spooner developed the chip after constantly reading about how people were bothered by apps sending their location data in ways that could, it turned out, be hijacked and tracked. He had friends in high places and pushed digital privacy legislation for mobile manufacturers to install hardware blocking those pings. By the time the new privacy laws were enacted, Microdyne had its chip ready to offer the solution. That’s how he made his first billion — US dollars, at the time.”
“When did he sell out of Microdyne?”
“2017.”
“And when did he first meet my mother?”
“2034.”
“And you’re sure Clive Spooner is where I should be searching, despite our both knowing that he isn’t my father?”
“I can’t answer that, Chloe.”
She sighed. He basically already had. Brad wouldn’t come right out and say it, but it was perfectly obvious that even though Spooner wasn’t the answer, the truth somehow involved him.
The man wasn’t her father — no matter what Nicole chose to believe — but Clive might be her best bet for finding the person who was.
“What did he do after Microdyne?”
“He formed For The People.”
“Then built his moon base.”
“The base, yes. And the radio array on the far side, in the Sea of Cold.”
“And he crowdfunded its construction.”
“Crowd-sourced the plans and construction,” Brad corrected. “The only part that was crowdfunded was Sally Levaux’s Kickstarter for the AIDS cure, and not until years after. Publicly, Spooner’s drawn a line between Levaux’s campaign and the eventual cure, but others believe it was an inevitable outcome of the research.”
“Was there a clear accounting path for the money raised through the Kickstarter for the AIDS cure?”
“Mostly. Much has been made of the fact that Spooner filtered the money through a nonprofit before rolling it out, but he claims it was a simple mistake. The accounting appears to be clean.”
Chloe’s brow twitched. “Which nonprofit organization?”
“The Anthony Ross Institute.”
“
Anthony Ross … the self-improvement guru?”
“The same.”
It felt odd to Chloe, but if Spooner was around before Ross disappeared, it was easy to imagine them running in similar circles.
“Did Ross and Spooner ever do business together?”
“Nothing on record.”
Chloe bit her lip. That wasn’t the same as a no.
“What do you think, Brad? About the quick shuffle of the AIDS money?”
Chloe waited, not even sure why she’d asked. Brad’s AI could parse the data and form what passed for an opinion, but if the query was relevant to her quest, he’d refuse to answer. And if he answered, by definition, his answer would be irrelevant.
“I believe his intentions were always selfishly altruistic. Meaning that Spooner was motivated by profit, but he correctly concluded that doing what the world wanted him to do would ultimately bring the most profit.”
Chloe shook her head, frustrated.
Ross and Spooner, another dead end.
“What about Noah West? Did any of Spooner’s companies ever work with Quark?”
“Nothing official. The only co-mention on record is about a mutual interest in intuitive nanobots.”
“What about them?”
“Quark was experimenting with adaptive nano-treatments in the ‘30s. The nanos would learn the subject and adapt. The experiment hit a dead end and was eventually scrapped. There was some public speculation that Spooner’s company tried to license the same technology.”
“Speculation?”
“At the time, it was closer to a scandal. But as with the AIDS money, it led to nothing.”
“What were people saying?”
“That Spooner’s ‘interest in licensing’ was closer to an attempt to co-opt Quark’s intellectual property, but even West himself dismissed the speculations.”
Chloe felt like there might be more there, but Brad’s signals were leading her elsewhere.
“What were his other notable business acquaintances? People, not companies.”
Who is Chloe Shaw? Page 2
