Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  William asked, “What kind of capabilities do these companies have?”

  Lance answered, “Two have done work for Airbus and two handle heavy machinery. All have accustomed themselves to working on projects with the type of close tolerances that we need for our work, I believe. We aren’t doing medical work or outer space. So, we should be good.”

  William was thinking this through, “Ok, but what about the assembly? We aren’t going to want to do this just anywhere. Who has locations near the coast that we could trust? We can’t bring all of this stuff, on this ship, and assemble it here. That would be suicide. We will need at least a twenty-thousand square foot warehouse for this and some people who do what they are told and keep their mouths shut.”

  Stephen turned to Lance, “What are the cities these companies are in?”

  Lance rubbed his jaw, “I think they are based in two actually. Separated by about fifty miles. I need to go visit them anyway, so if you need to come along we can do this together.” Lance pulled out his phone, “One second and I’ll look it up for you.”

  A minute later, Stephen had the name of the two cities and started nodding his head. “William, it won’t be a problem. I know the owner of a significant number of warehouses in the first of those two cities, and these warehouses have access for ships to load and unload. Further, the crews that are used on the docks won’t speak about anything the owner tells them not to share.”

  Bobcat looked up at Stephen, “Are the buildings open at the moment?”

  Stephen looked at Bobcat, “Why would that matter?”

  Bobcat shrugged his shoulders, “It will take time to move out any tenants and they could be upset.”

  “Bobcat, I’m not trying to make an impression here. But we are in my part of the world. When the owner of this company says ‘do this’ or ‘empty that’, it will be done. Where they put it, the owner doesn’t care, he only wants results.”

  William asked, “Does this owner owe you something?”

  Lance smiled, “Guys, don’t you get it? Stephen IS the owner.” Lance looked over at Stephen, “Under an alias?”

  Stephen just smiled.

  Marcus was in awe, vampires and what they accomplished with their long lives never ceased to amaze him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bethany Anne stayed to handle issues with Dan and Frank for another couple of hours. She finalized her interactions with Nathan and then jumped back to Miami with Ashur, her dad, John and Eric.

  An hour and a half later, Bethany Anne, Ashur, John and Eric were ‘wheels up’ on their way to Las Vegas.

  It did not take very long for the airplane to fly into McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. There was a blacked out SUV waiting for Bethany Anne and her crew at the private landing facility. Once John and Eric confirmed the safety of the vehicle, they gave Bethany Anne the signal to come on out of the plane and Eric opened the door for her. He slid in beside her in the back, while John took the front next to the driver.

  There was a large consumer entertainment show going on in town, so the traffic leaving McCarran was busy. The driver took Tropicana Ave. on the north side heading east, then switched to South Nellis Blvd. heading towards Nellis AFB.

  The team spoke about nothing in particular, this wasn’t a secure vehicle nor a vetted driver. It had been a while since Bethany Anne had vacationed in Las Vegas. She would make occasional comments regarding the dryness of everything. From the lots which were nothing more than sand, to the occasional areas which had a large amount of greenery and how they stood out.

  John and Eric had been to Vegas a couple of years ago as a short respite from their altercations with Adrian’s Nosferatu flare ups.

  It took thirty-five minutes before the team arrived at the nondescript cement buildings that Tom and Jeffrey had purchased for Patriarch Research.

  —

  Tom and Jeffrey were double-checking all of the inputs and monitors inside building 1. Both men had stayed at the facility until early this morning making sure everything was ready for the company’s principal owner.

  Jeffrey looked over at Tom, who was messing with his iPad looking at images. “Don’t you think you have something more important to do than look at movie stars?”

  Tom looked up at his boss, a smile on his face. “I’m not looking at actors and actresses. I am doing pertinent business research.”

  Jeffrey knew enough about his top computer science expert to realize he was being set up. He bent way backwards in order to pop his back and then came over to look at what Tom was doing.

  Tom put the iPad to his chest, “Now, now, now! You don’t get to sneak a peek at my valuable research.” At this point Tom’s smile was as wide as Jeffrey had even seen it.

  “What are you doing? Our boss, or at least our boss’s boss, is going to be arriving most any moment. What is this most important research that has you smiling like a hyena?”

  Keeping the iPad to his chest, Tom asked Jeffrey a question, “Have you ever wondered what our ultimate boss looks like?”

  Jeffrey looked down at the man, “what the hell you talking about? I’m sure she is stately, elegant, with some gray hair to prove that she has wisdom. What do I care whether or not she is attractive? All I care is whether or not we have met the needs that she has expressed, and we can continue our efforts.”

  Tom just shook his head back and forth while making a tisking sound. “My man, I think you have your priorities in the wrong order. Either that or you have left out the most significant item.” With this Tom turned his iPad around and showed a picture of Bethany Anne that had been taken one evening in Miami. It wasn’t a great picture. It looked like it had been taken with a telephoto lens from too far away and then blown up. Further, the photographer hadn’t had a steady handhold when the picture was taken. The gossip rags in Miami were all paying top dollar to get exclusive pictures of the beautiful and rich single woman.

  Jeffrey stopped being upset with his computer science officer, and slowly reached out for the iPad which Tom relinquished. Jeffrey held the iPad in his left hand and used his right hand to expand two fingers and get a closer look at the picture. “Holy crap.” Forty-five seconds later, Tom calmly grabbed the iPad and started tugging. It took a few jerks before Jeffrey would release it.

  Tom asked, “See what I mean?” Jeffrey just nodded his understanding.

  A red light started blinking on one of the monitors. Tom looked over and grabbing his mouse clicked on a camera icon. A black SUV was arriving in front of their building. “Looks like we have visitors, I expect this is the big boss.”

  Jeffrey told Tom as he turned around, “look sharp!”

  Tom mumbled behind him as he stood up from the desk, “I don’t think we can look sharp enough for her.” In front of him, Jeffrey only grunted in agreement as he exited through the security doors.

  After meeting the CEO of the companies, Lance Reynolds, Jeffrey had not been so concerned with wearing a three-piece suit today. Now, he considered himself woefully underdressed for this occasion.

  —

  As Jeffrey started walking towards the lobby’s glass door, a door he had put in after purchasing the concrete building, he noticed one of the largest men that he had ever seen was about to open it. Jeffrey paused at least 10 feet from the door, he didn’t want to meet that man head on as he walked in. It would not have been much of a challenge for him to walk right over Jeffrey and never notice him.

  Well, perhaps he would notice if he had to clean off the bottom of his shoes, Jeffrey thought.

  The man opened the door, and stepped in allowing his eyesight to adjust to the darker room. He noticed Jeffrey and Tom standing there. The man smiled, walked over to them with his hand out, “hello, I’m John Grimes.”

  Jeffrey expected his hand to be crushed, however, it was a professional handshake. Apparently, this man didn’t believe he needed to assert his physical dominance right away. Jeffrey heard the door open again, however, he couldn’t see behind John to find out
if it was additional security or the owner herself.

  Once John had the security preliminaries out of the way, Bethany Anne exited the vehicle and walked into the brick building. One thing she hadn’t considered, Las Vegas was cold in January. Good thing her body didn’t react to cold-weather like it had before.

  Bethany Anne felt a little apprehension as she held out her hand to shake both Jeffrey’s and Tom’s. Both of these men were in research and development. Not exactly the same research and field agent work she had done for Martin. She did not feel adequate to the task of helping with an artificially intelligent computer.

  They exchanged pleasantries for a couple of minutes, getting to know each other a little better.

  As Tom and Jeffrey turned around to take the new visitors into the secured area, they heard their boss clear her throat and speak, “Gentlemen? Aren’t you forgetting the most common security practice?”

  Jeffrey turned around, “Pardon?”

  Bethany Anne replied, “Have you guys confirmed that I am who I am professing to be? You didn’t even ask for any photo ID.”

  Jeffrey considered what she had said, and then figured he was going to owe Tom dinner for the next week. He turned to Tom, “Would you mind showing Bethany Anne your photo ID efforts?”

  Tom, sheepishly, pulled up his iPad and flicked the security button so that the iPad turned back on. He then turned it to face the three newcomers. John and Eric had large smiles as Bethany Anne stepped closer and peered at the image. She said, “who the fuck took that picture? That was a bad hair day for sure.” She stepped back and looked at the two men, “You can have a pass this time; however, next time please require physical photo IDs.”

  The two men smiled and nodded agreeably. Jeffrey turned around and waited for the three to follow him, as he punched in the security code to open the doors to walk into the inner zone for ADAM.

  Bethany Anne stared at the huge number of computers in the room. There were three rows of black racks in each row and the computers seemed stacked on top of each other. All of them had either green or blue indicator lights flashing. There were a lot wires coming out the backs. They were all wrapped and going in parallel up to the ceiling. Then they seemed to converge and move down to the next set of racks.

  While warmer in the room, it was still significantly cooler than she would have expected with this many heat producing devices. There were two large desks to the left of the door, each with four monitors on them.

  Jeffrey nodded to Tom who took up responsibility for explaining what everyone was seeing. “We have over eight million dollars’ worth of blade servers in this room. All connected together and working through software for parallel computing. Outside of the building, on the other side, is a commercial air-conditioning system. It’s used to keep the inside of this room at sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Any warmer than that and we would suffer deficiencies due to heat, and probably a higher percentage of breakdowns. Right now, the ADAM system is strictly a keyboard interface. We decided not to use speech, due to the concerns of an inadequately understood commands.”

  Bethany Anne noticed that John and Eric had been speaking quietly, Eric nodded and stepped back over to the door and let himself out, she turned her attention back to Tom.

  “We have been spending the time in order to load as much clean data as possible.”

  Bethany Anne interrupted, “Have you had any problems with the data?”

  Jeffrey jumped in, “Not a problem, per se. We did have one issue with a physics dump which mentioned Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes.”

  Bethany Anne’s eyes narrowed, “The cartoons?”

  “The very same” He replied. ”So, the system requested more data on Looney Tunes, which we decided not to provide.”

  As Bethany Anne considered his response she asked, “I am not second-guessing you guys; however, I would like to understand your thought process. Why did you not provide the Looney Tunes data?”

  Tom took the story back up, “When you look at some of the cartoons, they can have a very serious political slant to them. If you look at the cartoons created during World War II, for example, there are a lot of anti-Hitler, anti-Germany cartoons. Plus, that puts us into history for the last 200 years.”

  Bethany Anne didn’t comment on his statement, but both of them saw her nodding in agreement.

  John mentioned from where he stood behind Bethany Anne, “And let’s not even start on how much violence is in those cartoons.” Bethany Anne turned her head to stare at her biggest guard. She raised an eyebrow. John shrugged, “Don’t get me wrong, I love the violence.; However, I’m not sure that it would be a good education for the new baby, would it?”

  Jeffrey looked over at Tom and raised an eyebrow, Tom nodded. Neither research scientist had expected the level of comprehension that these visitors seemed to be showing. Time would tell as the day grew longer.

  Bethany Anne?

  Yes?

  The ADAM unit is trying to find out information on its own.

  What do you mean?

  Somehow, it has used the dormant hardware from the tied together machines to create a method of … eavesdropping … It has tried to reach out to all of our electronic devices, I believe. Take out your phone.

  Bethany Anne pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. She then entered her password to get off of the lock screen. What are you wanting to see?

  Notice that we have no signal?

  Yes, what about it?

  If your phone could reach out right now, I believe Adam would be using the signal to pull its own data.

  Bethany Anne stared in amazement at her phone, she finally looked up when Jeffrey cleared his throat.

  Jeffrey started telling her, “I’m sorry, but we have this room completely shielded in case we have to hit the EMP. While the danger to external devices probably goes out at least 50 yards, it should contain most of the electronic damage here in this room.”

  Bethany Anne put up a hand to stop him talking and his voice slowly died. “Do you guys have a way to test for wireless signals inside this room?”

  Tom looked up in the corner and concentration, “I don’t have anything in this room, but I have some tools over in building two that I can grab.”

  Bethany Anne nodded to herself as much as anything, “Go get those please. I think we want to find out if ADAM is talking, or trying to talk.” Tom looked up at Jeffrey and then his eyes grew large. He pushed the chair back and it made a bang as it bounced off of the wall. He slipped out from behind the desk and used an arm to swing around John as he reached for the door, yanking it open. They could then hear his steps as he ran down the hallway. There was a sharp knock on the door and Eric’s voice coming from the other side, “Everything okay in there?”

  John replied,” Yup, just Bethany Anne noticing something unusual again.”

  Eric retorted, “Okay, status normal. Going back to watching outside.”

  Bethany Anne stuck her tongue out towards the door.

  Jeffrey said in a quiet voice, “Do you do this often?”

  Bethany Anne turned to face the president of her company, “What? Notice odd things and ask reasonable questions?”

  Jeffrey took a moment to parse her statement, “That would be one way to consider it, I guess.”

  John Grimes smiled at the man, “Or you could say notice reasonable things and ask odd questions?”

  Jeffrey just nodded his head, deep in thought about what it would mean if there were Wi-Fi signals in a room without Wi-Fi routers.