Blind Instinct: A Tess Barrett Thriller

by Michael W. Sherer

  He shook off the memories and scanned the crowded hallway. He’d never find them this way. Letting himself get carried along with the flow of bodies moving down the corridor, he saw the vast space of the commons through doors to his left. He cut across the current, weaving through the small open spaces until he could break out of the stream and into the relative calm of the cafeteria. Rows of tables marched down the floor, surrounded by mostly empty chairs. Scattered here and there a few students sat eating breakfast or doing homework, noses buried in books. Two tables away, a lone backpack sat on the floor next to an empty seat.

  Quickly moving toward it, he scouted the area nearby for its owner. No one stood close. He walked by the table, barely slowing to bend and scoop it up. Slinging it over one shoulder, he headed back the way he came and let the throng of students in the hall swallow him up. He moved along with the stream headed toward the administrative offices and stepped to the side when he saw a sign that said “Attendance” on the wall by a large opening. A girl with a bored expression sat behind a counter.

  She noted his presence with a barely interested, “Help you?”

  Derek swung the backpack off his shoulder, dug inside, pulled out a textbook and held it up.

  “Yeah, this belongs to Tess Barrett. I promised I’d give it back to her. Can you tell me where her first period class is?”

  The girl sighed and pushed herself to her feet. “Hang on, I’ll check.” She pressed herself against the edge of the counter and peered at a flat screen monitor as she typed something on a keyboard. “English. Room 310.”

  “Thanks.”

  He turned away as if he knew where he was going and stepped into the flow once more. Before he taken a half dozen steps he saw a sign that said “300 Corridor,” so he veered off in that direction and down the hall until he found the right classroom. He poked his head inside but didn’t see Tess, so he stood a few feet away from the door and scanned the throng of students passing by. Within minutes, Tess and Oliver came down the hall. He stepped away from the wall to intercept them.

  Oliver looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” Derek said in a low voice.

  “Derek?” Tess had a bewildered expression on her face.

  He took her arm and pulled her aside. “You were right about the app. It’s messed up.”

  “The game? I knew something was wrong. Poor Matt.”

  “Yeah, yeah, poor Matt.” Derek nodded impatiently. “You’ve got to stop the launch.”

  “Me? What do you mean I have to stop it?”

  “Travis is still gone, right?” Derek explained. “That means you’re in charge. You’ve got to convince the board to postpone the launch date. I need time to find a way to beat this thing.”

  “Why? What is it? A virus?”

  Derek glanced up and down the hall, but no one paid them any attention. “It’s an AI program. It thinks and adapts. Worse, I think it can predict and promote certain behavior.”

  “When’s the launch date?”

  “Next week?”

  “I’ll never convince the board. What proof have you got?”

  “Nothing concrete,” Derek said. “I’ve got snippets of code that don’t belong in the app program, but they just look like gibberish. I don’t know how it works yet. I have an idea, but you have to buy me some time.”

  “They won’t listen to me.”

  “They have to listen. It’s your company, Tess. You have to try.”

  She sighed. “Fine. I’ll try.”

  “When is the board meeting?” Oliver said quietly.

  “This afternoon,” Tess replied.

  Oliver looked peeved, and Derek thought he was going to say something, but a bell rang.

  “We have to get to class,” Oliver said, taking Tess’s elbow. “We’re late.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks,” Derek said. “I have to get to work anyway.”

  Oliver nodded and steered Tess toward the classroom door.

  “Hey, wait,” Derek said. “You still have that burner phone I gave you?”

  Oliver glanced back. “Sure.”

  “Call me later and let me know how the meeting went.”

  Chapter 20

  The low murmur of voices filled the room, charging it with electricity. The effect was the same as the air in a thunderstorm, ionized by strong electric fields, creating paths through the sky for lightning strikes. Tess swore she could smell ozone. The cool, smooth surface of the etched glass table under her fingers reminded her of the times she’d been in this room with her father. She could still see the blue tint of the conference table top and the silver of its brushed stainless steel base, the blond ash paneling on the walls lending some warmth to the almost cold sterility of the rest of the room. She sank into the soft, plush leather of her swivel chair, still pale gray she knew, offset by a shiny stainless steel frame.

  The voices belonged to the eight men seated in matching chairs around the table. Oliver, who sat silently by her side, made nine. She heard his chair creak slightly as he swiveled it, likely for a glimpse of the breathtakingly beautiful view behind them. The conference room was on the top floor of the MondoHard building, and its curved glass wall afforded a view of Lake Union, Queen Anne Hill, the Olympic Mountains to the west and on a clear day, Mount Baker to the north in the Cascades. Today—she could tell from the hint of sun’s warmth on her back through the insulated triple-pane, solar-filmed windows—was one of those days.

  She felt a presence lean in next to her, bringing with it familiar scents of old leather and cedar.

  “General Turnbull,” she said.

  “Thanks for coming,” he murmured. “Ah, and you must be Oliver. I’m Jack Turnbull.”

  “General?” Oliver said. “So then you must know Travis. Duh, of course you know Travis. You’re on the board.”

  “I used to be his boss,” Turnbull said. “Now he’s mine. Very good, by the way, Tess. My cologne?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. You don’t strike me as the type to wear cologne.”

  “Then what?”

  “Just your specific smell, sir. I think maybe you wear after-shave on occasion, but I’m guessing it’s a combination of the soap you use and your deodorant. Yoshi taught me.”

  “I’m impressed. It’s a valuable skill. Well, I should find a seat. The show’s about to start.” He chuckled. “Enjoy the fireworks. Stop worrying, Tess. You’ll do fine.”

  She hadn’t realized that she let her feelings show. Closing her unseeing eyes, she focused on letting her muscles relax, first big ones in her legs, shoulders and arms then smaller ones like those in her face. Seeing her father’s face in her mind, she remembered hat he’d told her about snowboarding competitions when she was younger. “The boys will try to beat you, Tess, not through skill, but through your emotions. They know you’re a better boarder, so they’ll try to undermine your confidence. They’ll tease you and bully you. Don’t let them get to you. Don’t show them a thing. It’ll drive them crazy, and they’ll be the ones to lose confidence. Poker face, Tess. Don’t let them see your cards.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “You okay?” Oliver said.

  “I’m fine,” she said, opening her eyes. The world was still black, a blank slate, but she knew staring at people with sightless eyes unnerved some of them.

  “You knew about this meeting before Derek showed up this morning at school,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When? I found out two days ago. In case you forgot, a lot has happened since then.”

  He responded with silence, and for a moment she felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at him. She pushed it aside. It wasn’t her job to tell him everything that was going on in her life.

  “I think we can get things started here,” General Turnbull said in a loud voice.

  The murmur of other voices quieted as if someone twisted a volume knob on a radio, and stopped altogether.

  “I mov
e that the quarterly MondoHard board of directors meeting be called to order,” the general said.

  “Second,” another voice said.

  “All in favor?”

  A chorus of “Ayes!” sounded around the room.

  “I assume everyone has read the minutes of the last meeting,” the general went on. “Discussion? Motion to accept the minutes?”

  “Before we get too deep into this meeting,” someone interrupted, “I’d like to know what she’s doing here.”

  “‘She’ happens to be James Barrett’s daughter,” Turnbull said.

  “I know perfectly well who she is,” the voice said. “What I want to know is what she’s doing here.”

  “I own this company, sir,” Tess said, cheeks hot with anger. “And who are you?”

  “Tom Cuthbert, CEO of Edge Capital. And you don’t own this company, Miss Barrett. You will own a portion of it when you turn twenty-one. More importantly, you don’t run it. If my information is correct, you’ve never even held a job here.”

  Cuthbert spoke quickly, and the points he drove home made her doubt herself. She replayed her father’s words again, transporting her to a half-pipe in her mind where a dozen stupid, arrogant boys thought they could stomp her ego into bits by trash-talking her skills on a stick—until they saw her shred every run.

  “All of that is true, Mr. Cuthbert,” she said. “Someday, however, I will run this company. My uncle runs it, for now. Since he’s unable to attend this meeting, I’m here in his place.”

  Another voice interjected. “This is Reginald Drexler, Miss Barrett, president of Commonwealth Bank. Where is your uncle?”

  Tess felt her chest tighten and her throat constrict. Where was Uncle Travis? He should be here, handling all of this. She wasn’t ready. Again she heard her father’s words. You’ve got this, Tess. You can do it.

  “I don’t know,” she said firmly.

  “You don’t know,” Cuthbert repeated, “yet you expect us to believe he empowered you to stand in for him?”

  “You can believe whatever you want.” Tess shrugged. “The fact is I’m here. And what better place to learn the business than right where I’m sitting?”

  “Most people start at the bottom and work their way up to earn that seat,” Cuthbert said. “Jack, this is highly irregular. Shouldn’t we have been informed that Travis wasn’t able to make it? We could have rescheduled.”

  “What’s the problem, Tom?” Turnbull said. “Travis couldn’t be here, so he sent Tess. She’s the majority stockholder; he acts on her behalf anyway as both her guardian and president of the company.”

  “And all my initial objections still stand.”

  Oliver cut in. “May I say something?”

  “Who the hell is he?” Cuthbert said.

  “Oliver Moncrief, sir,” Oliver said. “Tess’s assistant.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Cuthbert snapped.

  “He’s exactly who he said he is,” Turnbull said, his voice even and calm. Tess even thought she heard a hint of a smile in it. A little boardroom spat was probably nothing compared to what he’d seen in combat.

  “He doesn’t even have a notepad or a pencil,” Cuthbert grumbled. “How can he be the girl’s assistant if he can’t even take notes?”

  “I don’t need to, sir,” Oliver said. “My memory is pretty good.”

  “Pretty good?”

  “General Turnbull: I think we can get things started here. I move that the quarterly MondoHard board of directors meeting be called to order. Gentleman to your right: Second. General Turnbull: All in favor? Everyone: Aye! General Turnbull: I assume everyone has read the minutes of the last meeting… Should I keep going?”

  “I think that will do, Oliver,” Turnbull said.

  “Hmpf, a parlor trick,” Cuthbert said.

  “No, sir,” Oliver said. “Eidetic memory. I literally can’t forget.”

  Tess fidgeted, and sat on her hands so she wouldn’t chew her fingernails. She wanted to get to the real reason for being at this meeting, but she knew she had to bide her time if the men around the table were going to take her seriously.

  “Go ahead, son,” Turnbull said.

  Oliver continued, speaking quietly. “Mr. Cuthbert, if I were you, sir, I’d seriously reconsider your position on Tess’s presence. I don’t see a lot of diversity around this table, which in this day and age just begs for a shareholder suit accusing the board of gender discrimination. That could cost the company hundreds of millions in profits.”

  The room broke out in a babble of heated conversation.

  “I can fight my own battles,” Tess hissed at Oliver. Though furious that he’d intervened, she smiled inwardly at the way he’d done it.

  “Settle down, people!” Turnbull said over the jabber of voices. As the room quieted he went on. “I don’t think anyone was threatening to file a lawsuit, just pointing out a need we have on the board. Now, shall we continue, gentlemen? All right then, first order of business is the defense contract for the mini-drone. I’d like to open the discussion with an update on the project. In the past few weeks, it appears that we’ve worked the bugs out of the system. Dave, would you explain?”

  “Dave Bradley, head of software development, Miss Barrett. As you know, gentlemen—and Miss Barrett—the project has been plagued by an adaptable virus, one that mutated as fast as we tried to eradicate it. We’ve developed an anti-virus program that appears capable of preventing the bug from changing. At this point, we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ve overcome the project’s major obstacle.”

  Tess heard the creak of a chair and felt Oliver lean in close.

  “What’s this ‘we’ business?” he murmured. “Derek wrote it.”

  “Shh,” she whispered. “Bosses always take credit.”

  She turned her attention back to the meeting.

  “… isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement,” Cuthbert said.

  “The company has invested far too much in this project to back down now,” the general said. “We have just weeks before the defense subcommittee’s decides whether or not to continue funding it. I’ve seen what this drone can do, gentlemen. We need it. This country needs it.”

  “You saw it a year ago,” Drexler said. “Since then it’s produced nothing but headaches. Dave, is this really the fix you’ve been looking for?”

  “We think so,” Bradley said.

  “You think?” Cuthbert interjected. “Not good enough. I want to hear it from Travis. He tested the prototype. He knows how it’s supposed to work. We need him here, damn it.”

  “We’re too close to quit now, gentlemen,” Turnbull said.

  “Fine,” Cuthbert relented. “But if you can’t demonstrate a working prototype for the subcommittee by the deadline and they pull the plug, we shut the project down. It’s costing us too much money.”

  “We can live with that, I guess,” Turnbull said. “Moving on.”

  Tess couldn’t contain herself any longer. She kept thinking about Matt, and shuddered to think that the same thing could happen to thousands of other kids.

  “Before you go to the next item on the agenda,” Tess said, “I’d like to introduce some new business.”

  Her request was met with silence, and she was afraid they wouldn’t give her a chance.

  “I guess we could give you a little latitude,” Cuthbert said grudgingly.

  She took a breath and let it out. “It concerns the new game app, Never Bitten.”

  “That’s my department,” Bradley said. “Well, not directly. It’s on the gaming side of the company, but since I oversee all software development, it’s my purview. What about it?”

  Tess wanted to just blurt out the story, but knew that if she didn’t handle this properly, they’d never listen. “I have reason to believe there’s something wrong with the game.”

  “What do you mean?” Bradley demanded. “It passed product testing with flying colors, and we’ve received no complaints in beta tests with consum
ers.”

  “I’m sure you all heard about the school shooting yesterday,” Tess said, keeping her voice as calm as possible, even though her knees were shaking. “That was my school, and the boy involved is a friend of mine. He would never have done that without some outside influence. So I had the app tested. It’s contaminated with software code that wasn’t in the original program.”

  “What code?” Bradley said. “A virus? A worm? Why haven’t I heard about this?”

  Tess shook her head. “We don’t know what it is yet, but if there’s even a chance the game could cause someone to lose control like what happened to my friend, it’s too big a risk.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Bradley said. “I’d like to talk to this expert of yours.”

  “You can’t afford to delay the launch,” Drexler said. “Third quarter profits depend on revenue from that game and advertising associated with it. If financial analysts get wind that we’re postponing the release on top of the problems we’ve had delivering on the defense contract, they’ll crucify us and send the stock price into the dumper.”

  “Is that worth the risk of someone dying?” Tess said. “I was there! You don’t know how frightening it was to see a normal, well-adjusted kid like Matt just lose it like that!”

  “Now, now,” Cuthbert said, “I’m sure you’re friend had some deep, underlying issues you didn’t know about.”

  “I agree,” Bradley said. “I’ll have our team comb through the source code with magnifying glasses to see if you’re right. But I highly doubt it. We need to stay on schedule with this.”

  “You have to listen!” Tess said, fighting the rising panic inside. “If you release this, millions of people could be affected.”

  “You’re being alarmist,” Bradley scoffed. “Show me a study that says video games cause violence and I’ll show you one that says they don’t. Besides, even those that do say there’s a link don’t suggest the games can control gamers’ emotions, just slowly influence them over time.”