There is No Cloud

by Kat Wheeler

  There Is No Cloud

  Copyright © 2021 by Kat Wheeler

  Coordinated by: Hot Tree Self-Publishing

  Editor: Hot Tree Editing

  Interior Design: RMGraphX

  Cover Designer: RMGraphX

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Bob, who taught me everything I know about sales.

  Chapter One

  The short life of Matteo Rodriguez

  Matteo Rodriguez was a tall man, so getting clubbed in the head to death was only possible because he was sitting down. Too bad being an IT guy didn’t come with psychic powers, because that Friday evening, he wasn’t thinking about it being his last night on earth. He was thinking about designing a new keyboard. A more ergonomic one for guys his size. Tucking his elbows in to hit the keys hurt after a while, and programming involved hitting lots of keys.

  No longer called Matteo but Matt by his colleagues, he had developed the product that had taken Synergistic Engineering, already a giant in computer components, to a household name. Before Matt, Synergistic Engineering supplied components to computer manufacturers. Their cutting-edge processors were a necessity to all major computer companies. But it was his HomeTech Hub that changed everything for them. His Home Technology Hub and AI Information System, or HomeTech Hub (HTH) for short, had been a vague idea through his four years at MIT. It was also the subject of a paper he wrote in school. One that garnered the attention of tech icon Wilson Howell III, better known as Trey, the owner of Synergistic. It was widely speculated that at least one Synergistic component was in every PC manufactured.

  What appealed to Matt most about going to work at Synergistic wasn’t the money. It wasn’t the ridiculously high salary Trey had offered him to start, although that felt good. It wasn’t the ability to pay off his loans, which were once crippling, or to be able to help support his family. Although all those benefits were wonderful. It wasn’t even having access to all the cutting-edge hardware Synergistic manufactured, stuff that would no doubt make it easier to develop his HomeTech Hub. What drew him the most was the kinship he felt with Trey.

  The first time he met Trey was on the campus at MIT. He remembered wondering if the guy was lost. Most students on campus weren’t exactly what you’d call fashion-forward. And this guy was GQ on steroids. He’d walked up, introduced himself, and started the conversation with flattery on Matt’s climbing history, not his academic successes. And that’s what reeled Matt in. A peer as into developing both the body and the mind as he was. A man who’d distanced himself from his family and was self-made, just like himself, albeit in reverse. It seemed on that first day, as they drank too many pints at Matt’s favorite local pub and discussed his ideas for his great invention, that the future was nothing but bright and filled with possibility.

  That was five years ago. It seemed Trey had changed since then, and if he were being honest with himself, Matt would admit he had changed too. It seemed success had affected them both. It was most noticeable to Matt here, in his office.

  That night found Matt sitting where he always sat: his private office in the Synergistic building. It spoke to Trey’s East Coast roots that he headquartered the company in the heart of New York City versus the typical Silicon Valley locale. Once the HomeTech Hubs had shipped and taken off in popularity, Trey set about constructing this space. He bought the building at 29th and Broadway in Manhattan. It was a far cry from the offices he’d started in with Trey. Though perfectly fine, it was nothing when compared to the grandeur of this monument to success that Trey had built in the city. Gleaming white and metal in every corner. Large screens everywhere, either for employees to use as huddle spaces or showing marketing videos of Synergistic’s achievements. And technology everywhere. Everything was automated, even the coffee maker. Just press a button from your laptop, and in a few minutes, you could have whatever latte or mocha waiting for you in the break room of your specification. They often joked that it would only be a matter of time before Trey found a way to have it delivered to you. But as nice as it was, the opulence was becoming unbearable for him, and he longed for the simpler times before his invention had taken off.

  Matt's office was three times the size of his first studio apartment in the city. Despite his impressive salary, he was conservative with his cash, preferring to save more than he spent. But he had upgraded and bought himself a nice two-bedroom in a new building. Real estate in New York City was always a good investment, he told himself. He’d never been rich, and while appreciative, he wasn’t quite comfortable with the money he was making. And slightly unsure of himself. Would it last? Would he be able to deliver the product he’d dreamed up?

  He had delivered. Made all his dreams a reality and created the first real piece of consumer-friendly artificial intelligence. Deliverable to any home and natively integratable to whatever tech they had on hand no matter how it communicated. Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, or thousands of other proprietary protocols with no coding required. He’d built all the applicable APIs in the cloud and could translate data from device to device in seconds. He’d cut through all the old technology infrastructure and developed a Rosetta stone to bridge communication and make technology magic. And it learned too. Learned what you liked to listen to in the morning, when you liked your shades up or down, what time you went to bed, woke up during the week, on the weekend. What you did durin
g the holidays. So many real-life applications. It could track the weather in your location and perform daylight harvesting to save energy. Automate all technology based on your preferences on Shabbat if that was your thing. No more hiring expensive programmers to do it for you. The possibilities were endless. It could now happen natively. And Matt Rodriguez had made it happen.

  But the long hours over the years were starting to take their toll. Matt hadn’t taken a vacation since college, and he could feel his dream of completing the Seven Summits slipping away into the daily grind. He’d long offered to teach Tessa how to climb, and that still hadn’t happened. He thought he’d have time once the product started shipping. After the years of R & D, triumphs and failures, the HTH was finally on the market and selling far beyond their wildest dreams. It was estimated that over ten million homes and billions of devices were now connected to the HTH. But the release of the hub had not brought relief for Matt. Almost immediately there were intermittent reports of defects in the product. Matt and his team had been working on it since the initial shipments began rolling out last year. He’d been unable to point to the cause of the malfunction in certain units. Until now.

  Yesterday, he discovered something in one of the returned units. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there, and it terrified him. And that was why he was sitting alone in his office on another Friday night, waiting to report what he’d found. It would mean the immediate recall of all units on the market. They would have to stop shipping all product immediately. It was going to cost a fortune. Their stock was going to tank. Trey would not be pleased; they were going to lose everything. All those years, all that hard work down the drain. But he knew without a doubt it was the right move to make. The implications of the intrusion he found could not be ignored.

  It was coming up on 9:00 p.m., and his meeting was already half an hour late. Not unusual. So Matt didn’t even turn around when he heard the automatic door to his office slide open.

  “You're late,” he said to his visitor. “You need to see this and then get on the phone with all our factories to halt production. I know the implications, but this needs to be done. Something is wrong with one of the hubs. I can’t understand how this could happen, but we must issue a recall, check them all. Make sure this is the only one.”

  It was then that Matt realized his guest hadn’t spoken since they’d walked in, which was out of character. And they were standing uncomfortably close to his back. Matt began to turn around to address his visitor face-to-face when he felt the first blow to his head. As Matt’s head fell onto his keyboard, the blows didn’t stop, but he was beyond feeling them. He didn’t see the killer reach over him to access his computer or crack open the CPU and remove the hard drive. While Matt lay dying, his killer slowly and methodically removed all evidence of his discovery. They grabbed the gear they’d removed and walked calmly out the door, and since everything was automated, they hadn’t touched a thing.

  Chapter Two

  Same meeting, different day

  “I just can’t keep sending guys on-site for this! Do you know how much it costs to send a team into the city for a service call? It’s gas, labor, parking.”

  Cameron Caldwell was trying to focus on Barry’s rant, but her eyes kept straying to the clock on the wall. It was 2:36 p.m. The clock was an old-school model that reminded her of Barry. Dusty and ancient and so out of touch with the modern technology they sold. She’d been listening to him go on for twenty-two minutes. She’d timed it. She was ashamed that remembering how to tell time in the old analog way had taken her more than a few minutes. She was so used to digital or just asking her tech what the time was. She’d been staring so long that she couldn’t decide if it was her imagination or if she really could hear the tick, tick, tick of the second hand moving. Cameron had been a sales rep for SmartTech Home Automation for five years now and had heard this same speech from Barry more times than she could count.

  Barry Issacs was an aging hippie who ran one of the most profitable A/V integration companies on Long Island. His client list was a who’s who of hedge fund billionaires, musicians, Hollywood icons, and politicians. His office was a shrine to his vanity, with pictures of all his famous clients posed with his prized Harley-Davidson. She was embarrassed to admit her photo was on the wall as well. A visual reminder of the lengths she would go to for a sale.

  It was to his benefit that he recognized he wasn’t the most personable fellow and left all the sales to his partner, Adam. With his ruddy, jowly face and permanent scowl, he couldn’t be the face of the company. But he was perfect for harassing his vendors and negotiating deals in his favor. He was making more margin on SmartTech products than anyone else in her territory. Mostly she caved on deals just to shut him up. She was fairly sure he knew it too. And that’s what today was. He was going to keep on until he broke her. Until he got her to agree to take responsibility for a product she didn’t even sell. It was going to work too. With every tick of the clock, she felt herself caving in. Trying to determine how little she could promise just to get the hell out of there.

  She was an hour out of the city. If she left by three, she could beat most of the traffic on the LIE and be home in the city by five. It was a Friday afternoon, and she desperately wanted to be done with this week, back in her apartment with a bourbon. And she had her weekly call at four. Something she tried never to miss less she completely lose her sanity. Or whatever of it was left after a meeting with Barry.

  “Barry,” she interrupted, leaning forward in her chair. “I hear you. And I understand your frustration. No one likes to throw away money, but I don’t know what I can do for you. We don’t make the HTH. I can’t troubleshoot products we don’t manufacture. Have you tried calling their tech support?”

  “Of course! We’ve spent hours going over this with them and your team! They say their HTH is fine. It’s only failing when connected with the SmartTech control system. The units work just fine standalone. This customer paid me half a million dollars to automate his house, and I can’t make a fifty-dollar HomeTech Hub integrate? It’s ridiculous!”

  “So where are we at right now? You swapped the piece out, and it’s working?”

  “For now” was his snide reply. “But we just replaced two last week. They connect and then fall off the network. I have two right here. Same model, sequential serial numbers, one works and the other doesn’t. It’s got to be your HDMI cables or your matrix.”

  “Barry, that makes zero sense,” she replied, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to chill before responding, making sure to keep her tone calm and even. “If everything in the system is the same and the only change is the hub, it’s got to be an issue with that. They’re not even connected via HDMI. It’s about your network. What kind of network are you using? Did you unplug and plug the router back in?”

  “Cisco, and of course we did!”

  “That stuff’s solid, and if you’ve updated all the firmware and everything’s current, it’s not your network. You have defective HomeTech Hubs.”

  “I can’t do any more of this he-said-she-said bullshit.” His face had reached a deep color of purple, and Cameron began to worry about a heart attack. That would certainly keep her there way later than she wanted to be if she had to wait for an ambulance. She shifted again in the ancient, uncomfortable chair and felt herself giving in even as her ass was falling asleep.

  “Barry, 99 percent of SmartTech systems have HomeTech Hubs installed with no issues. It’s a problem with your hubs.” He didn’t blink or bother responding, just stared her down from behind his ancient wooden desk, and as she knew she would, she caved. She didn’t have it in her to listen to the ticking or Barry anymore. She sighed. “Fine, give me the two HomeTech Hubs you took out, and I’ll see what we can do.”

  Barry smiled a smug grin at her as he handed her the boxes.

  “All I ask is you do the right thing. You’re a good girl.”


  What a condescending ass, she thought as she left his office, but ass or not, he had won. Cameron vowed to herself to never schedule a Friday afternoon meeting with Barry again. It gave him too much leverage.

  The drive back to the city loomed before her, and Cameron had plenty of time to think about the meeting she just had. She’d scheduled it to be an easy Friday afternoon planning Barry’s Q2 sales forecast, but she should’ve known better. Nothing was ever easy with Barry. Nothing was easy with any of her clients since the HTH had been released. It was nothing but problems.

  The Synergistic HomeTech Hub was a fifty-dollar voice-activated AI interface meant to introduce artificial intelligence into homes. AI was a trendy buzzword these days, even though anyone with any sense could tell you true AI didn’t exist. But the reality was the hub was just a cheap piece of hardware. Among other things it was supposed to integrate with home automation equipment and learn to control it with your voice without anyone having to push those pesky buttons anymore. Verbal commands were the thing now. Cameron was an outside sales representative for the largest home automation company in the world, SmartTech. They manufactured everything you could want to automate your home: motorized shades, automated lighting, HVAC interfaces, and everything you could ever need for audio and video in the home. But that stupid hub was in almost every home in the country now, and Synergistic didn’t offer much in the way of service and support for their products. The HomeTech Hub was systematically driving her crazy.

  She had worked hard in her career, and at twenty-seven landed the prestigious territory of NYC, Long Island, and the Hamptons. If you were a sales rep in her business, there wasn’t a better job to be had. Growing up in Kentucky was a big departure from the life she now led, living in Manhattan, selling luxury tech to the one percent. But she loved it. She loved the small one-bedroom apartment she had in Gramercy Park. She loved being within walking distance of so much stuff. New York truly was the city that never slept, and Cameron Caldwell thrived on it.