Page 18 of Her Last Vow

Sloan's hands came apart and settled flat against the desk. "That access is extraordinarily limited. I built safeguards into this system from day one, because I understood from the beginning how sensitive this data could be. Hell, even here within Apogee itself, there are a very select few who can access that data. The idea that someone could use our predictions to target a person is..." He stopped, and his voice sharpened. "It's an obscene idea. This technology exists to give people hope, not to hand anyone a target list."

"We've been told a source inside your company has been leaking individual predictions to a content creator for over a year," Rachel said.

“Tanner?”

“Yes,” Novak said. "Does that concern you?"

"Of course it concerns me. If someone inside this company is leaking protected user data, that's a serious violation, both of our internal policy and very likely federal privacy law." All the warmth from earlier had drained out of his voice. "We'll be pursuing this aggressively. I've already asked our legal team to look at what kind of case we have against Tanner for defamation in the past. And if there's an internal leak, I want that person found and prosecuted."

"We'll need to know what your legal team finds," Rachel said. Though, honestly, she knew how slow legal teams tended to be and she’d much rather this case be over by the time that came to be a valid approach.

"You'll have it," Sloan said, though his tone suggested the offer came with conditions he hadn't stated yet.

Rachel let a moment pass before she spoke again. The thought came to her quickly, though she did feel it was their next logical step. She’d really rather not come back and forth to the Apogee building over and over again if she could prevent it.

"We'd like to speak with Tessa Kline. Your lead engineer."

Something behind Sloan's eyes shifted—maybe wariness or resistance—but it quickly smoothed over. "Tessa's extremely busy. She's in the middle of a model recalibration that's been scheduled for weeks."

"We understand," Rachel said. "We still need to speak with her. Do you really want me to have to remind you of the deaths?”

Sloan looked at them both for a moment, his fingers tapping once against the desk. "Fine. She works down in our sublevel. It's where the model team keeps their workstations, away from the rest of the building. Ask the front desk for a badge escort. You can't get down there without one. I’ll buzz ahead and let him know to have them ready for you."

"Thank you," Rachel said, standing.

Sloan stood as well, and some of the warmth returned to his face as he walked them toward the door…though it felt more deliberate now than it had at the start of the meeting. "I hope you understand, Agent Gift, that I take these deaths as seriously as you do. Maybe more seriously. I've given my life to this work."

“I understand that,” she said.

"We'll be in touch," Novak added as he filed in behind Rachel on their way out of the office.

Neither of them spoke until they were back in the elevator, the doors sliding shut.

"He didn't like the question about Kline," Novak said.

"No, he didn't." Rachel watched the floor numbers tick down. "Which makes no sense because Oakley told us this morning she’d be simple to have a word with.”

“Everything else, he had an answer ready. Suicides, copycat panic, the leak, the lawsuit against Tanner. All of it came out smooth. The second we asked about her, he had to think about it."

"You think he's protecting her, or protecting himself?" Rachel asked.

"I don't know yet,” Novak said. "But I can’t help but wonder if he’s hiding something. I just can't tell if it's guilt or just control. Guys like him don't like anything happening inside their company that they didn't personally approve."

"We could push for a warrant," Rachel said. "Get into their internal access logs directly instead of waiting on whatever legal team he's got combing through it first."

"We could try. But I really don’t want to wait around that long. For now, I say we swing by and speak to Kline…see what sort of vibe we get from her.”

The elevator doors opened, once again presenting them with the lobby. She wasn’t all that surprised to see the young man at the front desk already waiting with their access cards. And as they collected them, Rachel couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone they’d encountered at Apogee to this point was quite eager to get them the hell out of the building.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The elevator to the sublevel was a different one from the others that had taken them to the fourth and fifth floors so far this morning. This elevator was smaller, more compact, and very quiet. The change in mood and setting hit as soon as the doors slid apart. The air was several degrees cooler, and the light shifted from the warm white of the upper floors to something bluer, almost clinical.

"Blade Runner," Novak said, looking down the hallway. "That's the only way I can describe it."

Rachel, only barely familiar with the movie, nodded. The corridor was narrow and lined with black paneling instead of the glass and stone upstairs. Server racks hummed behind a glass wall to their left, rows of blinking lights stacked floor to ceiling. A handful of workstations sat in an open area further down. Most of them were empty, their monitors glowing with scrolling code nobody was currently reading.

They walked ahead and found a man hunched over a workstation. He looked up as they came by, looking confused.