Page 56 of Avenging Jessie
His stomach dipped. A prickle ran up the back of his neck.Cyclone. That name didn’t just belong to a project—it was his.
He read it again. And again.
CYCLONE: Test Log 546.
What were the odds this was tied tohiscyclone?
Coincidence? Had to be, but…
He forced the encryption, bypassed two security rings, and when the file structure unfolded on his screen, the breath went out of him. Schematics. Build logs. Test footage. And there—burned into the firmware files like a scar—his encryption watermark. His work. His design.
They hadn’t just stolen the design. They’d kept the name, like they didn’t care about the theft.
Jessie’s voice floated over from the couch. “What’s that look?”
Spence’s jaw flexed. He didn’t answer, scrolling through frame after frame of his drones—only these weren’t the stripped-down prototypes he’d mothballed. These were fully operational. Armored. Outfitted with modular payload cylinders exactly as he’d designed them to be.
Only now they’d been weaponized in ways the Pentagon had clearly spent years perfecting in secret.
Virus payload. EMP pulse. Thermal micro-charge. Armor-piercing microdarts. All loaded into a revolving chamber that could switch on command. Six kill methods in one drone.
He leaned back, the chair creaking. It felt like someone had reached inside his chest and twisted his heart. Then they’d done the same to his guts. “They built them,” he said finally. “The project was supposed to be scrapped.”
Jessie looked up. “Built what?”
“The Cyclones.” His eyes stayed on the screen. “MyCyclones. Down to the last goddamn line of code.”
No one spoke for a beat.
Tessa was the first to move, setting her tablet down. “Wait, those drone prototypes you built when I was still training recruits?”
He nodded, a fierce sense of betrayal burning a hole right through him. “I suspected Brewer had gotten hold of my design, but I guess it’s not him I should have been worried about. The U.S. has turned them into actual weapons after telling me the project was scrapped.”
Tommy set down his mug. “You’re saying?—”
“I’m saying the Pentagon took my archetype and turned it into a fleet of fully armed, fully autonomous AI drones.” Bitterness sharpened each word. So did incredulousness. “That’s why Brewer wanted to breach the Pentagon’s security. Not to test if he could. He was looking for already built weapons. And he hit the jackpot.”
Jessie shifted to put her feet on the floor. “Holy shit. Are you sure?”
His guts roiled. “One hundred percent. The schematics are mine. The code is mine. They didn’t even bother to alter it.”
Tommy set down his cup. “What makes these drones different than others? Why are they valuable to Brewer versus the other high-tech weapons the Pentagon uses?”
He twisted his laptop so they could see the diagrams. “Like a six-shooter, each one comes with a revolving payload cylinder. Traditional military drones are mission-specific—one for recon, one for bombing, you get the idea. My design can pivot in seconds, switching from surveillance to attack to hacking without returning to base or swapping equipment.” He rubbed his eyes. “Each drone’s onboard AI can anticipate which payload to deploy based on real-time conditions—or override the operator entirely if programmed to. On top of that, they have a smaller profile than standard drones, making them harder to detect and track.”
Everyone went still. The quiet that descended was too loud in his ears.
“Do you think Flynn had anything to do with it?” Jessie asked.
Had he? Had the director of Operations lied to Spence’s face when he’d told Spence the program had been shelved because of the budget and other concerns with the tech? “You can bet that’s the first thing I plan to ask him next time we talk.”
“Give me the full scope of what these drones can do,” Tessa said, all business. “What can the revolving cylinder carry?”
Because of her skills in design and layout, she was nicknamed The Architect. He appreciated her need for the specifics, even though it made his skin crawl to review the possibilities. “Possible payload types include micro-EMP disruptors, which can knock out electronics in a localized area without collateral infrastructure damage. Nano-virus dispersal canisters can release a cybervirus via micro-drones into targeted networks/devices from above, which are perfect for data center breaches. Precision explosives, small but devastating, can cause targeted destruction without leveling an entire building. Then there are recon/surveillance pods with multi-spectrum cameras, thermal, and LIDAR for mapping and tracking. Biochemical agent dispersal for crowd control. And finally, kinetic piercing rounds capable of shredding armored targets like vehicles or secure doors.”
Again, that horrified silence fell. Yeah, this is what it felt like to be Dr. Frankenstein who’d created a monster. He couldn’t look any of them in the eye. “The Pentagon has live versions, ready to be deployed. And Brewer wants them.”
Jessie swore, putting her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands. “If Brewer gets control of them to use on Langley…”
