Chapter 22

Dan had received Edward Brandt’s whereabouts from Joyce. She was hesitant at first but eventually relented when he insisted that Edward’s life was in danger. Dan spoke with a half-truth. Sure, there had already been one attempt on Edward’s life and likely more to come, but he had no new information to back up such an urgent claim. She seemingly knew about everything that happened between Hurst and her husband. The understanding and sympathetic woman she was allowed Edward some space to collect his thoughts as long as he contacted her if things got worse.

There was a little bit of intuition on Dan’s part earlier in the day. If Brandt was going to go someplace, it would likely be here at Andrew’s house. Joyce just simply confirmed it for him.

Looking at the structure through the front windshield of his car, Dan shuddered at the fact that there had already been two killings in the residence in recent weeks. One by a ghostly assassin named Nyx, and the other in self-defense by Brandt. Getting out of the car, he braced himself to reenter the home where it all started.

“Edward? Are you in here?” Dan called out when he walked through the doorway. The lights in the house were off, and he couldn’t hear any movement. He continued to walk through the house, room by room, calling out for Brandt. No answer.

It suddenly dawned on him that there was a guest house in the back. Perhaps that’s where Brandt might have gone. Dan couldn’t believe Brandt would stay in the main house, the center of so much tragedy for him. He walked outside and to the backyard. He couldn’t help noticing how unkept the yard was starting to become.

As Dan moved closer to the guest house, he could swear that he heard multiple voices from within the structure. He couldn’t make out the words, but Brandt’s voice was quite obvious; the other voice was more muffled and sounded feminine. His mind began to wander, and he thought the worst. Please don’t tell me he is entertaining some floozy in the wake of all that happened today.. He had no reason to believe that Brandt was capable of such a thing, but people do some regretful stuff when under stress and pressure.

When Dan moved closer to the door, the voices stopped completely. It was as if someone was watching a movie and quickly hit pause on the remote. He put his hand over the doorknob and tried to turn it. Nothing. Then raised his fist up and prepared to knock.

The door ripped open with force and swiftness. Dan thought the vacuum from the door was sucking him inside, but it was Brandt’s arm as he grabbed him, pulled him inside, and threw Dan up against the wall. Brandt had his Glock 19 firmly pressed under Dan’s chin as he looked into his eyes.

“Perhaps, I should have started with the knock,” Dan said while reviewing his actions in hindsight.

The look of fight or flight quickly faded from Brandt’s face as soon as he recognized Dan. He released him from his grasp and lowered his handgun. “I’m sorry. I thought someone was coming up here. Can’t be too careful around here these days.”

Dan fixed his shirt and shook off the scare he had just received. He let out a little laugh. “It’s alright. Knocking first definitely would’ve been more appropriate.”

“I don’t know, I might have reacted the same way regardless. What brings you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the aftermath of your encounter with Hurst.”

“What’s there to talk about? He got what he deserved. I’m not losing sleep over it. Besides, I was thinking of leaving sooner or later anyways.”

Dan smiled in approval. “You’re right, he did get what he deserved. But I had to formally tell you –”

“I’m fired? Who cares?”

“No. That hasn’t happened yet. I was able to smooth things over enough to avoid your termination. Instead, you get another vacation. How do you like that?”

“To be honest, I’d rather just be fired. At least then, I would know that I’m free from his leash. But how did you smooth things over?”

“I convinced him that an investigation would likely make everyone aware that you gave him a good shot in the jaw. You know how pompous he is. He can’t handle that type of embarrassment. So you’re on stress leave.”

Brandt wasn’t nearly as amused as he should have been. His mind was more focused on continuing his investigation, finding Nyx. “That’s fine and all, but you could have just texted me or given me a phone call.”

“What do you think I tried to do first? It went straight to voicemail. And your inbox is full. Don’t you ever check that thing?”

Brandt pulled the phone from his pocket to check for any received messages. “Damn, no battery. Do you have a charger?”

“No, I left mine back at the office. You can always run into town to pick one up.”

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow. I was rather enjoying the solitude, at least until you arrived. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Besides, I was just brainstorming how to proceed with my investigation.”

“Well, that’s the other reason why I’m here. I think this is a great time to continue without the watchful eyes of that arrogant bastard. And there’s some good news.”

“Good news? You found Nyx?”

“Unfortunately, no, but Agent Smith and Beckett agreed to assist, under the radar of course, with anything you may need.”

“I doubt I’ll need anything from them but tell them thanks.”

“There’s one more thing, on a personal level.”

“What is it?”

“Are you thinking about cheating on Joyce? You know she’ll never forgive you doing something as stupid and regretful as that. I urge you to evaluate what is important in your life before making any rash decisions.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I have no intention of doing that. Where is this coming from?”

“I heard a female voice as I was walking up. As a matter of fact, where is she?”

Brandt had to think really hard about how to explain. Did he really want to reveal Jean to Dan? Would Dan even believe him if he had simply lied to cover the truth? Ultimately, Dan was a trusted friend and deserved to know. “Alright, I need you to keep a secret.”

“Certainly.”

“Andrew had passed on information to me about another project that he had worked on. An artificial intelligence based on the traits of his fiancé who lost the battle with cancer. Her name is Jean, and she is isolated to this guest house. She is the one who warned me about Tremor when he showed up.”

Dan was taken aback. There was genuine concern in his eyes that Brandt may be losing it while going down the rabbit hole of the technology world. He could not conceive that another entity outside of Avery existed in the same place. He looked into Brandt’s eyes with serious intent, then broke into a small laugh. “Ha, you almost had me there. Seriously, where is this person?”

Brandt didn’t budge in his expression. He stared back at Dan with a face of stone. “I am being serious.”

“So, there’s another Avery out there?”

Before Brandt could say anything, a voice came out of seemingly nowhere. “Not like Avery.”

Dan jumped when he heard the voice echo throughout the small space. The panic in his mind couldn’t reach a conclusion to run or draw his gun. He stood there frozen as if he’d just heard a ghost.

“Yeah, she doesn’t like Avery very much either,” Brandt said while noticing the shock that had fallen over Dan.

Dan whispered into Brandt’s ear. “Are you nuts? How are you keeping this a secret? We already have an AI out there causing trouble. Why haven’t you told the STB about this?”

“I can hear you,” Jean said in an almost playful tone.

Dan was even more creeped out. Besides his computer’s text-to-speech function, he had never heard a computer talk to him with such perception. “I-I’m sorry, Miss Jean. I’m just a little new to this experience. I hope that you’ll please bear with me. Don’t delete my bank accounts or erase my identity.”

“It is up to Edward if he wants me to reinstate your electronic life.”

“Now, now. Take it easy, Jean. He’s on edge. We’ll do him this one favor.” Brandt had already spent hours with Jean. He learned that she had an amazing personality with a sense of humor to go along with it. It astonished him how such complex human traits could be developed into her architecture, but then again, nothing was beyond the realm of possibility anymore.

“Quite right. Restoring history for Dan Hoskins now.”

Brandt chuckled. “That was her attempt at humor for you, Dan. Gather yourself.”

“That was humor?” Dan asked nervously.

Ignoring the question, Brandt explained how he had come to terms with what Jean was and how she could be of use in his newfound situation with the Bureau.

“Are you insane?” Dan said in response to a lengthy brief. “You want to connect this machine to the internet?” How do you know it won’t go psychotic like Andrew’s other project?

“Because Jean isn’t like Avery. She does not have a quantum computer that allows her to do the same things as Avery. She merely wants to look around through publicly available resources like news articles, camera footage, or even suspicious internet activity.”

“That is correct. I am not capable of the same things. I cannot break heavy encryption nor peer into secure private protocols that most of your infrastructure is behind. I offer my services to search for possible associates related to the man who attacked Edward. They would most likely involve scanning traffic camera footage and searching for news articles for similar types of attacks on citizens.”

“Alright, let’s get started.”

Brandt grabbed the cable that once connected Avery to the internet. He left one end still plugged into the router. He had to do some smart furniture rearrangement and tacky routing for it to have enough length to reach the guest house. The remaining cable length was just barely enough to reach a receptacle near the front entrance. Jean had told him that this was Andrew’s primary way of uploading new data to her program. He held the end of the cables in his hand, looking to Dan for final approval.

“Are you certain of this?” Dan said reluctantly, still unsure about trusting Jean.

“No, but we don’t have very many options anymore.”

Dan knew this to be true. He didn’t want to see Brandt potentially making two mistakes in the same day. “Fine. Do it.”

Without any more hesitation, Brandt clicked the ethernet cable into the wall receptacle.

“ICBM launch from Minot Air Force Base in five, four.”

“Jean. Really?” Brandt was not amused, and Dan looked as if he had just defecated himself.

“Apologies for the crude joke. I am currently dispatching web crawlers to all major news outlets with Tremor’s picture as a reference.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Dan was clearly not amused either. “How long is this supposed to take?”

“Uncertain. It may take days, weeks, Or months before I find something that may be of importance to you.”

“Weeks and months?” Dan had no gauge on how slow this process would actually take. He had been thinking in terms of a supercomputer for far too long.

“Are you alright, Dan?”

“Yeah. I just thought it was going to be a little faster. I had hoped I would leave here with a little more promise that we are on the right track.”

“I’m with you. But for now, it’s all we have.”

“Right.” Dan looked down at the time on his phone. It was getting close to the early evening hours. “I should probably get going. I’ll stop by in a couple of days to see how things are going here.”

“I’ll be here. And maybe we should come up with a knock for our new secret clubhouse. I was thinking along the lines of a shave and a haircut.”

Dan smiled and shook his head. “It’s good to see that your spirits are a little more lifted now.” He was halfway out of the door before turning and said, “And go get a phone charger. I need updates, and I don’t want Joyce worried about you.”

Brandt’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. I’ll get to it first thing in the morning.”