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“He’s okay, from what I heard. He’s done with his part of the op, but he only managed to extract himself by destroying all the lethal autonomous weapons sent after him.
“Be careful, Sierra One,” Pace said.
Zack swigged and smiled. “I’ll keep my eyes on the Coke machines back at the lab in case they’re thinking about coming to life.”
“Funny,” Pace said, but he didn’t smile back.
•••
An hour later, Hightower knocked on the door to Anton Hinton’s private gym.
“Anton? It’s Zack.”
“Come on in, mate.”
Hightower entered to find Hinton up to his neck in a large ice bath, his mop of hair wet, his face red and registering the pain of the intense cold on his entire body.
His headphones hung on a towel rack next to him.
Before Zack could say anything, Hinton spoke through chattering teeth. “Got eight minutes more…sorry.”
“No, that’s fine.” Zack had never had a meeting with someone sitting in a bathtub, but there had been a lot of firsts for him since he’d taken this job.
He hesitated before speaking. He was conflicted about what he was about to do, and Zack was rarely conflicted about anything when it came to his duties.
“How’s your leg?” he asked.
“It’s doing fine. Sorry I went nuts about it last night. I’m sure I looked pretty pathetic to you.”
“There was a lot of adrenaline in all of us.”
Anton rose a little out of the ice, resting his arms on the side of the tub.
“What’s up?”
“An old Agency colleague of mine showed up at the bar this evening. I had no idea he was here, and this meeting was in no way preplanned by me.”
“What did he come down here for?”
“He had questions about the attempt last night.”
Anton pulled himself a little more out of the bath, clearly so he could focus less on the torturous conditions he was subjecting himself to and more on the conversation. “What questions?”
“He’s investigating the attacks. Not just against you, but the others, also. He’s going all around, talking to people.”
Anton shivered. “It’s window dressing, Zack. The White House is covering itself. I’m sure we’re going to be able to provide evidence, publicly, in the next few days, that will lay the blame right at Washington’s doorstep. Their project Mind Game was weaponized, by them, but the code made it out into the world. They’re trying to hide what they’ve done.”
Zack said nothing, Hinton seemed so certain. Still, he answered all of Hinton’s questions about his conversation with Pace at the bar.
Hinton rose out of the ice, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. He dried off with a second towel, much to Hightower’s relief, and then he put on his tracksuit, gingerly pulling on pants so as not to disturb the waterproof bandaging on his calf. Hightower stood there, looking around the gym to avert his eyes.
He saw a book next to a stair climber. A Bible for Atheists. “You read a lot,” he said. “And not just books about computing.”
Behind him, Anton laughed. “I haven’t read a book on computing in years. That’s what my staff does for fun. I’d like to think I’ve transcended from the coding into the ethics of what we do.”
Curious, Zack said, “I saw you with the Bible, the Torah, the Qur’an. And now a book on atheism. You trying to figure out which one you are?”
He laughed again. “I find the study of comparative theology utterly fascinating. I explore belief systems, learn from them.”
