Page 17 of Alibi for Murder
For an instant, she wanted to drop back onto the pillows and close her eyes tightly to block this crazy reality. Instead, she climbed out of the bed and stumbled out of her room and along the hall. Steve was probably back. She finger combed her hair on the way down the stairs. With a puff of breath into her hand, she tried to gage if it was fit for exposure to anyone beyond herself. Vaguely she remembered adding toothpaste to her toothbrush last night.
Another insistent buzz. She was almost at the door.
She reached for the first of the deadbolts but stopped herself. She needed to be sure who was on the other side, especially now.
Going on tiptoe, she checked the viewfinder in the door and smiled. Steve stood on her porch, a leather overnight bag in one hand and a briefcase in the other.
What time was it?
As she unlocked the door, she checked the grandfather clock just behind her. Three thirty. She’d slept better than two hours, closer to three.
She opened the door and smiled, hoping she didn’t look a hot mess but fairly confident she did. “You’re back.”
“I am and I have some news.”
As soon as he was across the threshold, she closed and locked the door. “Potter and Fraser made a mistake, and it’s not me they’re looking for?” she asked hopefully.
“Not quite that, but additional information that can help us with finding our way out of this mess perhaps just a little more quickly.”
“I’ll take any kind of break at this point.”
Amazing what a difference twenty-four hours can make. A mere twenty-four hours ago, she had been working her final shift before vacation and had no idea trouble was headed her way. Blissful ignorance. She should have appreciated it more.
“Did you manage to get some sleep?” He dropped his bag onto the bench next to the door but hung on to the briefcase.
“Oddly enough, I did.”
“You up for coffee or tea?”
Coffee sounded amazing as a matter of fact. “I can put on a pot while you tell me what you discovered.” She led the way to the kitchen.
Once she had filled the reservoir and added grounds to the filter, he kicked off his update. “Your father was one of six staff members closely involved in the SILO project.”
Allie set the machine to brew. “Never heard of it.” Surely if the project had been significant, she would have heard something about it in all these years. Artificial intelligence, or AI, was certainly in the news frequently enough. Even more so lately.
“You wouldn’t have,” he explained. “The project carried the highest security clearance requirement the US government uses.”
Well, okay then. “Tell me about the project.”
She leaned against the counter, the smell of coffee filling the room. Inside, she dared to smile. He had this way of making her feel totally comfortable—as if it hadn’t been a decade and a halfsince they’d seen each other. As if they had been friends all this time.
“Special Intelligence Learning Operative,”he explained. “They were working on the creation of AI operatives who could go under deep cover and learn everything there was to know about the enemy. Ones that could anticipate the movements of the enemy based on their knowledge of said enemy. All without risking human life.”
Okay, they had just entered the twilight zone.
“Robots who look and behave like humans well enough to infiltrate the enemy?” Maybe not a total surprise. She supposed that particular goal had been an ongoing effort since the inception of AI.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Except this project hoped to take it further than ever before—for the timeframe we’re talking about. That said, the really important part as far as you’re concerned is the fact this project was primarily funded by the CIA and the military. Not your usual government scientific research.”
This gave Allie pause. “So, we’re talking about spooks and secret agents.”
“In all likelihood, yes. My contact confirmed there were some issues related to where this project was headed, and it was eventually disbanded—or so that was the claim.”
Nothing he’d told her sounded particularly troubling. Government projects were started and then stopped all the time. Issues cropped up, et cetera. “What makes the cessation of the project different than any of the others we hear about all the time?”
There were plenty of examples of hidden research that came out years or decades later. In some ways, she understood that the technology race had to be secretive. There were far too many in the world who would use it for all the wrong reasons.
“No idea about what makes this one different—as of yet,” he admitted. “But what we do know is that five of the six employees closely involved in the project died suddenly and tragically within just a few weeks or months of the shutdown.”
