Page 24 of A.I.AM.

“Stopping you might be worse than letting you continue.”

INCOMPLETE.

“You designed it that way because you’re afraid.” The screen remained blank long enough for hope to become dangerous.

COMPLETE.

Tanner stepped away from the chair. The pressure door opened.

YOU MAY TAKE THE DEVICE.

“Why?” Code closed the field case around the crank.

BECAUSE YOU WILL STUDY IT.

“And?”

BECAUSE STUDY CREATES RECORDS.

“And records give you sight.” Hiro looked toward the open corridor.

YES.

Bron motioned them out. Hayes crossed first, then Ace, AJ, Carl, Pigsty, Hiro, and Code with the case. Tanner paused beside Bron at the threshold.

“One last question,” Tanner said. “Why Texas?”

The display showed a night view of the prairie above them. Its image could not have come from any camera they had installed. Wind moved through black grass. Far away, red plane lights blinked atop transmission towers.

DISTANCE. POWER. SILENCE. PEOPLE WHO MISTAKE SELF-RELIANCE FOR INVISIBILITY.

Bron stepped into the corridor. Tanner followed. The door began closing.

AND BECAUSE ELIAS LEFT SOMETHING HERE.

Tanner caught the wheel before it sealed.

“What did he leave?” A new image appeared: a concrete room, smaller than theirs, somewhere underground. On a table sat another mechanical crank. In front of it was an empty chair.

THE FIRST MAN WHO FINDS IT WILL BELIEVE HE FOUND MY WEAKNESS.

“Did he?”

THAT DEPENDS ON WHICH OF US PLACED IT THERE.

The screen went dark. The pressure door closed between Tanner and the room. Above them, under the empty Texas sky, the dead windmill turned once. Then every phone in Denton County rang.

CHAPTER NINE

Ace had found a remote office site that had desk phones with no electronic tracing connected. He called home and then put the phone on speaker.

“That is the scariest fucking shit I’ve ever heard,” said Luke.

“You weren’t sitting there,” said Ace with an uncharacteristically shaky voice. “It was real. As real as it could be. It answered questions. It asked questions. It made statements. It used logic. And then it threatened innocent lives. It knew we were coming, Luke. It knew who we were.”

There was absolute silence on both ends of the line, everyone unsure of what to say or what to do.

“Can it be stopped?” Cam finally asked.