Johnson didn’t answer right away. A thought seemed to cross his mind. Then he said, “I will answer with as much truth as I am able.”
Jacob liked that turn of phrase. He would have to remember it and use it someday.
“It’s pretty clear who you work for has the resources to do this, and I know you gave me some reasons you asked me, but why aren’t people in your,” he paused, looking for the right word, “organization doing the job? Why get some small-timers to do it? Seems like it’s got a better chance of success if you do it.”
Johnson gave him his drink. “That may be true. However, we cannot risk that a team from our, I will use your word, organization getting caught and getting traced back to us. The ramifications of that possibility are far greater than the risk that you do not succeed. If you are caught, or worse, we are out forty thousand credits, some of my time, and a few glasses of my whiskey.”
“What if we’re caught and questioned?”
“If you were caught and questioned? If you are caught, I can assure you that there will be no record of our meeting. In fact, there will be no record if you succeed. Furthermore, I would say that the likelihood of anyone believing you are telling the truth about an unknown man named Johnson hiring you over the belief that you were simply getting revenge on your former employer is very slim. You could think of our hiring you as a risk aversion strategy of sorts.”
“Makes sense. And you won’t give any resources for the same reason?”
“Yes. Resources can be traced.”
“What about the credits? Can’t credits be traced?”
“Yes. However, the credits you have received have made a long trip through several blockchains, with no two deposits taking the same route. We have been very careful. I doubt someone of even your skills could untangle the knot they have left behind.”
He could see they were getting close to The Galleria and his apartment.
“One last question. Did you know that my friend, Xia, was on the team for this chip?”
“My dear Mr. Quince, as you know, a good player keeps his cards close to his vest.”
Chapter 13
Johnson waited for the car to pull away before contacting Mr. Craig.
Mr. Craig’s image appeared on the screen set in the compartment divider.
“Johnson, I assume you have good news?”
“Yes sir, the target has been acquired.”
A slightly more relaxed look came over Mr. Craig’s face. “That is excellent. I also assume he was able to convince the other necessary elements to take part?”
“Yes, sir. He was wise enough to know he would not be able to complete the task on his own, and the other elements acted as predicted.”
“This speaks to your excellent scouting.”
“Thank you, sir.” Johnson hesitated. “There is one potential issue. There was a slight shift in the target’s tone near the end of our conversation.”
“Explain.”
“He sounded a bit more confident, and he became quite inquisitive.”
Mr. Craig leaned back in his chair. “What sort of questions did he ask?”
“They centered on our organization, as he put it, and why we are not handling this task ourselves.”
“Those seem natural questions, and the confidence is needed for the task. I would say it is a natural behavior for the target and an example of the traits that led to his selection.”
Johnson nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“However, monitor him closely. If his confidence builds to a level leading him to decide to become too inquisitive for our liking, we will have to take certain measures.”
“Of course,” Johnson said.
Mr. Craig cut the feed. Johnson poured himself a glass of whiskey and rolled down the window just enough to let in the cool night air.
Chapter 14
“Now I know what a dog feels like when he catches a car,” Gomez said.
Sandy raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“My mother used to say that when she got something she thought she wanted.”
“Make sense.”
“Well,” Jacob said, “I don’t feel like we’ve even started chasing the car. The dog’s mistake is that he doesn’t have a plan other than chasing. We aren’t going to make that mistake. We need a solid plan.”
They sat in the backroom of Retro Media, the oscillating images on the security monitors adding a soft glow to the light of the room. After his meeting with Johnson, Jacob decided he would wait until the morning to gather everyone, except Xia. He saw no need to drag her in on planning yet. Besides, she would be at work today, and he didn’t want her to start missing work. She had never missed a day of work in the time he knew her, and he was sure she hadn’t since. If she started missing work now, Your Better Life would take notice and see if she was doing well. Any planning with Xia would have to take place in the evening or on weekends.
Of course, there was the small issue of creating a plan, and none of them had an idea of where to start.
“All right,” Gomez said, “let’s think in broad strokes.”
“We know we have to get inside the building,” Jacob started. “Not just to physically get a chip, but because the network the research data and code will be on is self-contained. There’s no link to the outside and only a handful of access points. It’s essentially a single supercomputer that runs throughout the building.”
“We know we have Xia in the building,” Gomez said.
“She can’t do it by herself,” Jacob said.
“I know, but she is an asset.”
Sandy said, “Maybe that’s how we start. What assets do we have? We list our assets and go from there.”
“Well,” Jacob said, “Xia is one. I know the building and have worked on the network, assuming it hasn’t been completely replaced.”
“I’m sure it’s been upgraded,” Gomez said.
“That could be a problem. It was already running on a quantum core with an AI OS.”
Sandy interrupted. “Back to our assets. We’ll get to problems later. Gomez, you know a
