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  Zhu led her out of Cheng's office, one hand on the small of her back. She'd never been so aware of another human being in her life as she was of Bolan Zhu as he walked her through the facility. She noted that several floors were avoided and most of the people failed to greet Zhu--in fact they kept their eyes downcast.

  It was definitely pheromones. Some kind of drug that made her physically susceptible to him. His fingers burned through her clothing right into her skin. She snuck a glance up at him. His breathing was much better than her own but not quite normal. He'd had to touch the drug with his fingers before administering it onto the rim of the teacup. He'd drank his tea. Had he touched his fingers to his mouth? She couldn't remember. Her body had grown hot. She was almost too uncomfortable to listen to the sound of his voice.

  Zara managed to ooh and aah in all the right places, but it was clear to both of them that she was struggling against her attraction to Zhu more than she was paying attention to the things he was showing her. After all, that was the point, wasn't it? She kept that uppermost in her mind so she wasn't too ashamed of herself for the fight she had to put up to not give in to the drug's effects. And she kept solving number problems in her head.

  Before her talk, she had him take her to the ladies' room. She threw up like she did every time before she gave her talk. From experience she knew, once she got started, she would be fine, but the idea of standing before colleagues, others interested in AI work, always made her feel incredibly sick. She knew if Zhu was aware she was ill, he would think she had something to hide. He would never consider it nerves. She carefully rinsed her mouth and ate the strong peppermint candy she always carried before rejoining him.

  "I'd like to take you on a tour of our city," Zhu said as he brought her to the auditorium where they'd set up a podium for her. Her briefcase was there, sitting right beside the glass of water provided for her.

  "I'd love that." She'd be long gone, thankful she'd escaped with her life.

  He took her straight to the podium, and Zara immediately slipped into her role. She hated everything about her life but this--talking about what she loved and believed in with those interested. That, more than anything else, always allowed her to escape the horrible shyness that made her the worst traveler ever. She had developed the character everyone saw and believed, and she hid behind her. Once she got past her nerves, she could settle into explaining the program and why it could be so helpful on so many levels.

  Zhu stood to one side. Close. Beyond the lights she could see half a dozen men with automatic weapons at the entrances. She pretended not to, but it was a very definite fight to keep her heart rate normal.

  At her introduction, conducted by another very charming man in a suit, the applause was enthusiastic. She wondered if Cheng had threatened all of them--applaud her loudly or my goons will shoot you.

  "Good evening. My talk is called the VALUE system, the program you'd love to have as a partner. I think you'll see why in just a moment ..." She trailed off and scanned her audience. She'd given her talk dozens of times already and knew it was cutting-edge. They would be hanging on every word if they were really interested in artificial intelligence and what it could do for them.

  She reached out to the machines on the first floor. The computers. Touching them with her energy, that psychic gift Dr. Whitney had so carefully enhanced. She could talk to machines, and they listened with rapt attention just as these people were listening. She had the ability to serve as a wireless conduit between the remote computers and her wireless hard drive. She instructed the remote computers to transfer their data from every one of the computers, floor by floor, and store it in the PEEK-carbon nanotube hiding the SSD in her brain.

  "AI game-playing systems since the 1960s have been fixated on winning. Every twenty years there is a quantum leap in AI programs' ability to win. Arthur Samuel built the first self-learning program in 1959, a program that learned how to play checkers increasingly better over time. The program reached a respectable amateur level status of play by the 1970s. Fast forward twenty years, and in 1997, you could watch the deep learning program, Deep Blue, beat the reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov--an amazing accomplishment! Fast forward another twenty years, and in 2017, you see Google's deep learning program, AlphaGo, beat the reigning world Go champion."

  It took time to transfer the amount of data stored in the computers in Cheng's facility. It would take as long to destroy every hard drive to ensure the man had none of the data on the GhostWalker program given to him by the treasonous senator Violet Smythe. Zara kept her voice even and calm, so that later, when Cheng and Zhu compared it with other speeches she'd given, there would be no difference. Inflections would be the same. She wasn't under undue stress. She couldn't possibly be the reason they lost the data on every computer. She was incredibly thankful for her mind's ability to work on solving number problems. In doing so, it had lessened the effects of the drug they'd given her enough for her to control the systems in her body.

  "But here's one thing we have yet to see ... What about a program that could learn to intentionally lose when playing a little boy, so that boy could experience winning? What about a program that could learn how to propose 'win-win' solutions for itself and someone else? What about a program that knows that 'you can't always get what you want' and learns how to 'get what you need' by making good trade-offs given limited, competing resources--time, money, people, materials, et cetera?"

  The idea had been talked about for years. For trade, such a program would be invaluable. It was expected that there would be a breakthrough sooner or later, but to be able to stand in front of them and announce it had been accomplished was exciting. Every. Single. Time. She had to be careful to never lose sight of why she was really there. She needed the information in those computers. She'd done this so many times, but she'd never had to destroy the hard drives. Most businesses or universities had no idea she'd taken anything out with her when she went because she only gathered information; she never left evidence that their computers had been touched. Destroying the hard drives of every computer in the building would definitely raise alarms.

  "In this talk, I'm going to describe a program, the VALUE system, which integrates an entire suite of learning techniques, some old and some new, to do just that. The VALUE system integrates: the inverse reinforcement learning techniques of Russell and Ng for learning the value of others, our earlier deep learning techniques for creating and refining negotiations and compromise in a two-party circumstance, our new supervised learning techniques for reformulating design spaces based on human guidance with acceptable trade-offs."

  She launched into her talk, trying not to get lost in the excitement of the artificial intelligence world and the endless possibilities that always consumed her mind when she allowed herself to become fully immersed there. She had a job, a much more important one, in terms of serving her country, saving lives and getting out of there alive.

  As each of the computers gave up its data, its hard drive destroyed itself, wiping out all documents, making certain no trace remained. It was a big facility, but she was used to delivering her talks while making the data transfers. She was certain the flow of information to her would never be detected, so she was never nervous. It was a matter of instructing the machines in any chosen building to cooperate. She didn't need to hack in, or figure out passwords. She just needed a wireless environment. Destroying the hard drives after was a much riskier thing to do, and she'd never done it before. That left footprints. No one could prove she had anything to do with the losses, but she was there. On-site.

  Zara let her enthusiasm for her work show, in her voice, her mannerisms, the way her face lit up. She wanted to be animated, and she was. Her mind had finally let go of her curious obsession with Bolan Zhu, the need to focus on her academia and the particular program she was spearheading overcoming the last remnants of the drug. This program was her "baby" all the way, and she was totally immersed in that world and had been for a
long while when the sirens blared loudly. Instantly, the room went electric. Zara stopped speaking to look around, allowing her heart rate to accelerate just as everyone's had to be. Her audience stood up in silence and began filing out of the room like robots.

  Zara gathered her papers and turned to Zhu. "What's happening?" Fear crept into her voice. Just enough of a note that she hoped Zhu would think was normal under the circumstances. She had to keep collecting the remaining data and destroying the hard drives as she went. There was no protection from her unless the wireless was shut down. Only half a floor to go and she'd be finished. She had no way of knowing what data was in what computer on what floor, but even as Zhu reached her, gathering her into him, she kept up the transfer and destruction.

  "We have to get you to safety and then I'll check it out," Zhu assured. "I can't imagine a drill being scheduled, so this is more likely a glitch in the system or someone left chemicals out when they shouldn't have. Don't be alarmed." He escorted her to a small room.

  No windows, Zara noted. She heard the lock turn when he left her. She didn't bother trying the door. Sinking down onto the chair, she glanced at her watch, noting the time. She wanted to press the stopwatch, but she forced herself to leave it alone. She had time, but it would run out fast if she didn't get out of Cheng's facility. She knew his lockdowns could last a week or longer.

  She told herself her mission was important to Whitney. He wouldn't allow her to die, not when what she had in her head was so valuable to him. Calmly, she finished the data transfers and destroyed all remaining hard drives in the building. She could be calm because she had something for her mind to work on, but the moment that was done, fear poured in and she rocked herself in terror.

  2

  G

  ino Mazza rested one hip against the wall and regarded his best friend and team leader, Joe Spagnola. Joe shouldn't have been up, running around, let alone called to the Pentagon just to get their orders directly from Major General Tennessee Milton, the man overseeing the Air Force's Division of GhostWalkers.

  He knew Joe. They'd been kids together. That seemed so long ago. Gino had grown up in an extremely wealthy family, so much money it had been said they could buy a small country if they wanted. That money hadn't done them much good when their home had been invaded and his parents and grandparents from both sides had stood in front of him and been shot down one by one for their efforts to prevent the men from kidnapping him. It had been his twelfth birthday. He'd been shot three times and left for dead because, once you killed the family, who was going to pay the ransom?

  Of course, each family member had one heir. Gino. He inherited a fortune from his grandparents on his father's side. Again, on his mother's side. Then from his parents, and he received everything from his mother's private trust. He got everything and he had nothing. He would much rather have had his family back. He'd turned his back on the money, detesting that someone valued it far more than the lives of his family.

  Gino carried scars from those three bullets. He had earned a hell of a lot more since, but those scars ran the deepest. They reminded him every day that families could be fragile. His parents had been decent people--no, good people. He thought of them every single day and wondered what he would be like if they'd lived. Most certainly he'd be a better man.

  Joe Spagnola's family had taken him in. The two fathers had known each other since they were children. It was Joe who'd found Gino and saved his life. Life was very different after that. Ciro was head of a crime family and was every bit as ruthless as Gino's father was kind. How the two men were best friends remained a mystery, but it was Joe's father, not the police, who'd found the men who had wiped out Gino's family. The men were tortured mercilessly before they were killed. They died hard, and Gino watched it all.

  Joe and Gino were sent to the best schools. They also were required--and that was a polite way of saying it--to learn martial arts from dozens of trainers, the best in the world. Boxing and street fighting followed, and they trained for hours every day. They learned how to use a variety of weapons: knives, sticks, guns, everything Ciro and the trainers could conceive of.

  Gino followed Joe into the Air Force and from there, pararescue training. Then the GhostWalker program. If there was one thing both men knew how to do, it was to take care of themselves. Until Joe tried to save a woman from herself. Senator Violet Smythe had stuck a knife in Joe and twisted it for good measure, making sure to do as much damage as possible. He was still healing and had no business getting on planes and flying to Washington at the major general's insistence.

  "Major General received a personal call from Dr. Whitney," Joe announced, looking around the room at his team--at the nine men serving under the major general with him. None of them liked the idea that Dr. Whitney, the man who had created the GhostWalker program, would dare to call their boss.

  Whitney wasn't sane. They'd all agreed on that. Worse, he was a megalomaniac with far too many friends in high places and way too much money.

  "It seems one of his GhostWalkers has gone missing. She was sent to Shanghai to Cheng's facility there, the one Bellisia barely escaped from with her life. Whitney's agent apparently managed to wipe the computers of all data, including everything Cheng had on the GhostWalker program, but she's being held prisoner. He wants us to go in and get her out."

  There was a shocked silence. Mordichai Fortunes cleared his throat. "Wait. Whitney wants us to work for him? After all the shit he's pulled on us, he wants us to do a job for him?"

  "Doesn't he have his own little army?" Rubin Campo asked. His voice was mild. Gino had never heard him speak above that soft, accented tone.

  "Yeah, he's got an army," Joe agreed. "But they aren't like us. Cheng is a powerful man with a lot of clout in Shanghai. Whitney's soldiers are more like tanks. Or robots. They self-destruct very fast. You all know that. He's still experimenting, and his experiments have gone in another direction. We don't like Whitney, but the fact is, one of us is a prisoner in enemy territory and in danger. She's a GhostWalker, the same as we are."

  Gino noted Joe looked uneasy when he glanced at Ezekiel Fortunes. The two had clashed when Ezekiel had met his wife, Bellisia. Joe had ordered her incarcerated briefly, just until they finished an important mission they were running. Ezekiel hadn't liked it and he'd let Joe know. Gino straightened from his lazy pose against the wall. He made the move subtly, silently, gliding into a better position to defend Joe if there was need.

  Ordinarily, when they were having a meeting, it was understood that Joe was in charge and no one contradicted him. He gave orders and they obeyed. That was military life. The thing was, they weren't ordinary. They only had one another. There were four teams of GhostWalkers, but each of those four teams were somewhat isolated from other military units. That meant sometimes the lines blurred for them when they talked to one another. Or like now, when Joe was about to say something he believed Ezekiel clearly wouldn't like.

  "Whitney called Major General the moment he was informed that his agent hadn't returned to her hotel. He said it was imperative we get there as soon as possible to get her out due to Cheng's reputation of torturing and killing anyone he doesn't like."

  Gino figured it stood to reason Cheng wouldn't like an industrial spy, let alone one that would wipe out the data on GhostWalkers that Cheng had worked so hard to collect.

  "I spoke at length with Bellisia and she assures me that she knows the woman; her name is Zara Hightower. Apparently, Zara has always been Bellisia's closest friend."

  There it was. Bellisia was Ezekiel's wife and he was very, very protective of her. Gino kept his movements subtle, but he was careful to be in a place he could move fast to intercept any aggression on either part if necessary. Ordinarily, Joe could protect himself, but his wounds had been serious. He doubted Ezekiel would really do anything to try to hurt Joe, but Gino had been protecting him since they were children, and the habit wouldn't die.

  "Zara works outside Whitney's seeming control qui
te a bit of the time. She was allowed to go to school, and he sent her to the best. A childhood prodigy or something. You know how Whitney loves brains. She taught at Rutgers and now works mainly consulting. She is invited all over the world by businesses to give talks on artificial intelligence and her particular subfield, which is learning machines."

  "So, she's given a tremendous amount of freedom," Mordichai said.

  "You talked to Bellisia without talking to me first?" Ezekiel sounded mild enough.

  Gino inched closer. Ezekiel was never good when he sounded that calm.

  Joe ignored Ezekiel and focused on Mordichai. "Certainly more freedom than most of his women. She's written up in all the journals and her name is everywhere in conjunction with artificial intelligence."

  Wyatt nodded and glanced across the table at Trap. "She and her team have developed some leading-edge programs in her field."

  Trap rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was considered leading-edge himself in researching new drugs for various diseases as well as in quite a few other fields. "I remember reading, very early on when she was a professor at Rutgers, one of the youngest, just a kid, she was creating some kind of knowledge compilation program to teach other programs to learn faster or something along those lines."