The R&D Lab was a sterile nightmare.
It was located on the 40th floor, encased in blast-proof glass. The walls were white. The floors were white. The lights were blinding LEDs that hummed with a headache-inducing frequency.
It smelled of ozone and solder.
Jason swiped his new keycard. Beep. The heavy glass door slid open.
He expected to find his friends tortured. He expected to find them chained to the wall.
Instead, he found them working.
Nikola Tesla was standing inside a Faraday cage, arcs of blue lightning dancing around his fingers as he tuned a massive copper coil. He was laughing—a manic, joyful cackle.
"Clean!" Tesla shouted. "The frequency is clean! No harmonic distortion!"
Albert Einstein was standing on a ladder, writing equations on the glass wall with a marker. He was moving so fast his hand was a blur. The wall was covered in calculus.
"Relativity of the signal," Einstein muttered. "Time dilation in the sub-carrier wave. Yes... yes!"
Howard Hughes was the worst.
He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the disassembled guts of a drone engine. He was covered in grease. He was twitching, his OCD in overdrive.
"The tolerance is off," Hughes whispered, measuring a piston with a micrometer. "Three microns. It's sloppy. Ford was sloppy. I can fix it. I can make it perfect."
They weren't prisoners. They were addicts in a candy store.
Two Adjusters stood by the door, holding cattle prods. They looked bored.
"Mr. Underwood," one Adjuster nodded. "Ms. Rockefeller said you might visit. Don't touch the equipment."
"Get out," Jason said.
The Adjuster blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I said get out," Jason flashed his badge. "Level 5 clearance. I'm conducting a confidential audit of the project. If you stay, you violate the NDA. If you violate the NDA, I liquidate your pension."
The corporate threat worked better than a gun. The Adjusters exchanged a look. They knew Alta's lawyers were deadlier than her soldiers.
"We'll be outside," the Adjuster grunted.
They left. The door hissed shut.
Jason turned to his team.
"Pack it up," Jason said. "We're leaving."
Nobody moved.
Tesla threw a switch, sending a bolt of lightning into a capacitor bank. Hughes didn't look up from his engine.
"Guys!" Jason yelled.
Einstein stopped writing. He turned around on the ladder. His eyes were wide, magnified by his glasses.
"We cannot leave, Jason," Einstein said softly. "You do not understand what we are building."
"You're building weapons for Alta!" Jason snapped. "You're helping her enslave the continent!"
"No," Hughes stood up. He wiped his greasy hands on his flight suit. "We're not building weapons. We're building a receiver."
Hughes walked over to a covered monitor. He ripped the tarp off.
It was a schematic. A blueprint of the Rouge Complex.
But there was something new. A spire. A massive, needle-like tower rising from the roof of the penthouse.
"The Babel Spire," Tesla said, stepping out of the cage. The static electricity made his white hair stand on end. "Alta calls it the Unification Grid."
"What does it do?" Jason asked.
"It sings," Tesla said.
He pointed to the schematic.
"It is a broadcast antenna," Tesla explained. "But not for radio. It broadcasts a command code. A master override signal."
"It's designed to hijack the Gates-Protocol," Einstein added. "If she turns this on, she does not just control her robots. She takes control of every automated system in North America."
Jason felt a chill go down his spine.
"The Gates-Machine in Chicago?"
"Hijacked," Hughes said.
"The Timber Baron Mechs in Seattle?"
"Hijacked," Tesla nodded.
"Everything," Einstein said. "Every drone. Every automated factory. Every digital lock. It all becomes hers. One signal to rule them all."
Jason stared at the blueprint. It was brilliant. It was terrifying. It was the end of free will.
"When does it go online?" Jason asked.
"48 hours," Hughes said. "The hardware is done. We're just calibrating the software."
"Then we sabotage it," Jason said. "We break it."
"We can't," Hughes shook his head. "The tower is shielded. It has its own reactor. If we try to physically destroy it, the failsafes will detonate. It takes out half of Detroit."
"We don't break the hardware," Tesla smiled. His eyes gleamed with mischief. "We poison the mind."
Tesla tapped the blueprint.
"A Trojan Horse," Tesla said. "I have written a code. A logic loop. If we upload it into the core before the broadcast starts, the signal will invert."
"Invert?"
"Instead of a command signal," Tesla grinned, "it will broadcast a liberation signal. It will sever the control links. Every robot will go rogue. Every drone will become independent."
"Chaos," Einstein frowned. "Total anarchy."
"Freedom," Tesla corrected.
"Okay," Jason said. "How do we upload it?"
The room went silent.
Hughes pointed to the top of the tower on the blueprint.
"The input port is in the penthouse bunker," Hughes said. "It's air-gapped. No wireless access. You have to physically plug in the drive."
"And the lock?" Jason asked.
"Biometric," Hughes said. "Retinal scan. DNA match."
Jason closed his eyes. Of course.
"Alta," Jason said.
"You need her eye," Tesla said. "Or a high-resolution copy of it."
Jason looked at the clock on the wall. 7:00 PM.
"I have dinner with her at eight," Jason said.
"Then you have one hour," Tesla walked over to a workbench. He picked up a small device. It looked like a contact lens case, but it was wired to a battery pack.
"This is a portable scanner," Tesla said. "If you can get it within six inches of her face for three seconds, it will map her retina."
"Three seconds is a long time when you're staring at a shark," Jason took the device. It was small enough to palm.
"Don't miss," Tesla warned. "You get one shot. If she blinks, the map is corrupted."
Jason returned to the suite.
The room was dark. Sarah was standing by the window, looking out at the burning city.
She was wearing the dress Alta had sent. It was emerald green silk, backless, plunging deep in the front. It was a weapon of a dress. It was designed to distract.
"Zip me up," Sarah said. She didn't turn around.
Jason walked over. He took the zipper. His fingers brushed her skin.
Her back was a map of scars. The radiation burns from the submarine reactor were fading, but the pink tissue remained.
"Do I look like her?" Sarah asked. Her voice was brittle.
Jason turned her around.
She had done her makeup. Sharp eyeliner. Red lips. Her hair was pinned up in a severe chignon, exposing her neck.
She looked stunning. She looked lethal.
"You look dangerous," Jason said.
"Good," Sarah whispered. She lifted the slit of her dress.
Strapped to her thigh, hidden by the silk, was a ceramic knife. Non-magnetic. Invisible to detectors.
"She won't let us leave that table, Jason," Sarah said. "I know her. This dinner isn't a celebration. It's a test."
Knock. Knock.
Jason opened the door.
A drone hovered there. It held a black velvet box in its claw.
Jason took the box. The drone buzzed and flew away.
He opened it.
Inside lay a pistol. A Derringer. Two shots. Pearl handle.
There was a note on heavy cardstock. Alta's handwriting.
"Don't be late. And bring the gun. Tonight isn't just dinner. It's an execution."
Jason stared at the gun.
"Who are we executing?" Sarah asked, reading over his shoulder.
"I don't know," Jason said. He checked the chamber. Loaded. "But I have a feeling dessert is going to be messy."
He slipped the gun into his tuxedo pocket. He palmed Tesla's scanner in his other hand.
"Ready to go to work?" Jason asked.
Sarah took a breath. She put on the mask. The fear vanished from her eyes.
"Let's go steal an empire," she said.
They walked out the door. The hallway was long, and the shadows stretched like bars.
At the end of the hall, the elevator waited to take them to the roof. To the Babel Spire. To the eye of the storm.
Jason checked his tie.
Upside down pin.
Loaded gun.
Stolen scanner.
It was time to eat.