Chapter 30

Tarrytown, New York

Dan chose to stay at the office per Hurst’s orders, but he could whisper Edward Brandt’s request to Agent Smith and Agent Beckett. The mention of another possible artificial intelligence system had them stoked and anxious to get underway. Hurst couldn’t care less about the STB, so Dan knew their actions would not be on the boss’s radar.

When Edward opened the door to the guest house, Agent Smith and Beckett could immediately smell the situation in the air. “Yep. It’s fried,” Smith said as he looked at his colleagues.

Agent Beckett didn’t say much, as per usual. In fact, he said nothing at all. You could tell he was interested in the reason for his visit, but his feelings toward Edward, however distasteful as they may be, were more prominent.

“Good morning, gentlemen. I’m glad that you could make it,” Edward said with the hope that they were there to save the day.

“No problem. It’s nice to get out of that building. Everyone is talking about you still. It’s quite funny.” Smith returned the greeting with his own enthusiastic spice.

“You realize I am probably no longer employed after this, right?”

“Yes. Sorry. It’s tragic also, but someone had to stand up to that bastard. You shouldn’t feel too bad about being a martyr.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Agent Smith. Agent Beckett, thanks for joining us.”

Beckett didn’t even want to look at Edward, instead focusing on Smith with a bored look.

“I think that translates into it’s great to be here. And we are happy to help.”

Edward laughed. “Alright. Well, I don’t know where she is, but I hope you brought some tools.”

“I hear that the missus is in town as well. I hope that she won’t mind the racket. We may have to rip through a few of these walls to trace this ethernet connection.”

“Not to worry. She’s in the primary house. I sealed off Andrew’s office so she would not freak out while she got her beauty rest.”

“Good deal. We just need to go a few things from the truck.”

It took two hours to find out where the terminal eventually ended. The cabling had run up, down, and zig-zagged through the framing of the entire house. The floor was littered with destroyed drywall and insulation. The way that Andrew designed this building clearly showed he did not want his secret to be easily found. Each time they attempted to punch through the other side of the frame, reinforced concrete was there to stall their progress.

When they found the two-by-two-foot metal plate anchored into the concrete, they all expressed their exhaustion and satisfaction.

“Finally,” Smith said. “Beyond this, we should find what we are looking for.”

The next problem had presented itself. There were no screws to loosen to gain access. It was as if this was to be sealed and only removed in the direst of emergencies.

“What is it?” Edward asked Smith.

“Just another prevention measure. No worries. It’s nothing that the crowbar can’t handle.” He used all his weight and strength to pry the metal plate from the wall. With a clang, it fell to the ground. Going prone, he slithered his way into the hole, using his flashlight to look inside. “Jesus.”

“More walls?”

“Yeah, four of them.” The sound echoed through the cramped space.

“But she’s there, right?”

Just below where the foundation would be contained a single filled server rack. The space was about five feet wide and eight feet long and ice cold. Smith decided to climb all the way down while Beckett tried to peek through behind him.

Smith shined the light up and down the components, looking for the source of the burnt smell. Without a proper light source, it was difficult to tell. He began to scan around the entirety of the compartment until he finally saw something useful. A light switch. He flipped the switch, hoping that it wasn’t fried as well. The light came on, and he felt instant relief. Upon further examination, he could see the exhaust vent that would take the hot air from the system and displace it elsewhere. He noticed something else once his eyes finally adjusted to the artificial light. A small ladder and round depression in the concrete just below where the light switch nested.

Edward and Beckett were both trying to get a glimpse through the small opening now, anxiously waiting for an update on Smith’s findings. “Hey man, it’s impolite to keep us waiting. What’s going on down there?” Edward called out.

“One second.” Smith pressed the circular relief, and a startling sound as if the foundation above it was crumbling apart. A small sliver of light streaked across his face from above.

“What the hell was that?” Edward called down.

“One second!”

“You’ve already had your one second. Don’t make me come down there.”

Smith shook his head, then grabbed the ladder’s rung and started climbing. When he got to the top, another metal plate was slightly ajar. Through the crack, he could see another object. A large object that looked like it was on a roller guided by a track. Pushing it fully open took effort, but he did it slowly so he wouldn’t risk breaking whatever was on the other side.

“That’s it. I’m going down there.” Edward started to wriggle his body through the opening until he felt something grab onto his right calf. “Don’t play with me, Beckett.”

“I’m not.” It might have been one of the first words that Edward had ever heard Beckett say.

Edward moved back out from the opening. When he turned around, much to his surprise, he noticed Smith looking down at him.

“I found a better way in.” Smith pointed toward the kitchenette.

Edward looked over to see that the refrigerator had moved outward from the wall, and light was now beaming from behind. “What the hell?”

“My thought’s exactly. It seems that we destroyed these nice walls for nothing.”

Oh, Andrew was just full of surprises, wasn’t he? Edward thought to himself while pushing himself back off of the chalky ground littered with drywall. He dusted himself off and walked over to the opening in the kitchen.

It wasn’t the most comfortable space to be in with three fully grown men, but it allowed them a better view than through a hole in the wall.

“I don’t know if any of this is salvageable.” Smith broke the bad news to Edward.

“Surely you don’t know that until you can get a more in-depth look, right? Think about what you found with Avery’s system.”

“What remained of Avery was not functional. We could only extract fragments of code and partial files. It’s not enough to rebuild without the original creator with us.”

“Can you at least try? She saved the life of my wife.”

“We can’t make any promises, but we need to move all this stuff out of here and get it back to our lab for analysis.”

“Okay. How can I help?”

“Hand me the Philips head screwdriver.”

One by one, Smith and Beckett removed the server equipment from the rack and placed them in the small living room. They were almost ready to leave when Edward asked, “What about this?”

There were three large boxes still at the bottom of the rack. Smith groaned. “That’s just a UPS. It’s not critical to the system anymore.”

“What is that?”

“Sorry, I keep forgetting. UPS just means uninterrupted power supply. Think of it like a battery backup. It’s supposed to keep a system going during a power outage, just long enough for you to safely shut it down. Like I said, it’s not critical anymore.”

“Well, take it anyways.”

“They’re heavy,” Beckett said under his breath.

“Coming out of your shell now?”

Beckett glared, then turned his head.

“I’ll help you carry it. I just want all of these components to remain with each other. Maybe this UPS was a problem worth looking into.”

“I guess that it’s possible. Alright,” Smith said.

They were all physically drained after the first two were removed. Each of the power supply units must have weighed over one hundred pounds. It took significant effort to remove them in such a small space and hoist them up the ladder to be taken along with the other components.

“Last one,” Smith said as he started to slide the remaining unit from the rack. He handed it off to Edward, who would lift it up for Beckett to grab. Then Smith noticed something interesting occupying the empty space below the rack.

“Is there something else?” Edward noticed the look that Smith was now exhibiting.

Smith picked up the small rectangular object and examined it. It didn’t look damaged. What was it doing under there? “Yes. There’s a thumb drive here.”

“Maybe it contains Jean.”

“I know I sound like a broken record of pessimism, but I don’t see how that’s possible. At most, this thing is probably only one terabyte.”

“And that’s what?”

“It’s a good size but small compared to all other equipment here.”

“Well, tell me that you at least brought a computer to check it.”

“Yes.”

Smith retrieved the laptop from the truck and sat it on the small coffee table in the living room. Once booted, he placed the thumb drive into the USB port and opened the file browser.

“I don’t believe this,” Smith said with his eyes wide open. Even Beckett looked shocked but somewhat happy.

“It’s her?”

“It appears so. But that’s not what’s so interesting about it. Look at this.” Smith pointed to the time stamps on the folders. The time and date all read the same. The moment immediately after Joyce had received the text from Jean. “How?”

“Maybe she backed herself up and ejected it from the system to prevent it from being destroyed as well.”

“This isn’t your cd player, or, in your case, VHS tape.”

Edward gave an unfavorable look at Smith. He knew he was old school and maybe not up to date with technology, but hearing it just made him feel older.

“I have never seen one that simply ejects. Usually, you have to physically pull them from the interface.”

“I don’t know if you have been paying attention around here. But has anything been typical on this property? You have secret compartments with elaborate puzzle mechanisms that open up to reveal state of the art computers. I don’t think anything is out of the question here.”

Smith knew he was right but still had to admire the cleverness of such a feature. “If it’s true that this is indeed Jean in her entirety, then most of this hardware must be for future expansion of some kind.”

“So when do you start bringing her back online?”

“Excuse me?”

“I think my question was pretty concise.”

“We don’t have the hardware or manpower at the office to do that. Besides, we don’t need Hurst down our necks when he sees you hovering around us.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you did it at the office. I want her to fully spread her wings. Give her that quantum power that Avery has.”

Smith gasped. “Are you nuts?”

“Maybe to Hurst, but I’m being very serious.”

“You trust this thing enough to give it that kind of power?”

“Of course. She saved Joyce’s life, as well as mine. I have no reason to think otherwise.”

“Yeah, but I don’t even know where we would be able to facilitate such a computer, let alone if the original programming would be compatible. It may take a lot of work to get this done.”

“I understand that. Please give me the drive if you two are not up to the task. I’ll find a way to get it done.”

Beckett motioned to Smith to visit him in the corner of the room.

“Take your time. Talk it over. I’ll wait.” Edward grinned.

Beckett whispered, “There is one place. It’s in Texas though.”

“You don’t mean?”

“Yes. Credence. Dr. Mark Phillips passed away a few days ago, and their systems are just sitting there, idle. I don’t like technology going to waste, and this is a great opportunity for us.”

“But what do we tell the boss?”

“We’ll just say that we were investigating some international phishing scam.”

“That’s not going to work. He’ll think that we are literally fishing.”

“Who cares? It won’t matter what we tell him. He’ll probably just be happy that we are gone. What do you say?”

“Ugh. Fine. I guess it’s off to Texas.” Smith turned back towards Edward. “Alright. We agreed that we can try to get this done. But there’s only one minor problem.”

“Great. I’m glad that you two can see reason. What’s the issue?”

“We have to go to Austin, Texas.”

Edward thought about it for a moment. Nyx and the remainder of his crew may be back in Texas by now. It would also give him a chance to be closer to his target. There was now one remaining issue for Edward, and that was Joyce. He was not about to bring her to Texas, no matter how much she would protest. He needed to take her to her mother’s, and quickly. He nodded at the two. “Alright, you two, head out there as soon as possible. I need to relocate the wife to a safe place, and I’ll be along shortly.”

“Yes, sir. You don’t have to rush, though. I don’t think this level of implementation is going to happen overnight.”

“No, but I have faith that you two are the best people for the job.”