The Island Project: A Thriller (8 page)

Virtual Agents could, for example, design your family’s weekly dinner schedule based on everyone’s current health profiles, fitness goals, and taste preferences. They could organize your documents for you and check you in for your flight. There were, literally, limitless possibilities available. With cloud technology, digital storage was no longer a worry to consumers. Space was virtually limitless and easily accessible.

Manufactures began to integrate cloud technology and VA’s into everything from cars to shopping malls to movies and consumer electronics. As the demand for Virtual Agents grew; so did the demand for cloud space and bandwidth. Companies started battling for ownership in the virtual world and the cost of internet lowered until it was eventually given away for free. Advertising dollars funded everything.

Eventually the corporate war over ownership was won. Cloud technology was monopolized and became privately managed by a single multi-national tech corporation based in China. It became known as truCloud.

truCloud offered users a high-speed connection anywhere in the world. Anyone and everyone with a connecting device could access the internet for free. Users still had the option to purchase upgrades in order to increase individual bandwidth performance, but internet accessibility as a whole had become standardized.

Virtual Agents became available with paid subscriptions. They became like personal assistants for individuals and households alike, able to manage everything from personal to long-term plans. Since VA’s kept track of ones personal behavior patterns and calculated their routines based on percentage success rate, VA intelligence was even smart enough to make important life decisions for you. The Virtual Agents would calculate an outcome based on your past mistakes and achievements. They would then deliver various options, each accompanied by a percentage of success rate.

It soon became normal for a person to run everything by his or her VA. After all—you could, of course, make up your own mind—but why risk failure when you could weigh your options with such calculated precision?

“IT SHOULD BE backed up,” Bennett said. “I’m just not sure about the connection. The upload connection, that is. The signal wasn’t good in the forest. I don’t know that it had a chance to sync with my VA in time.”

“How will we know?” Kelly asked.

“I’ll have to check my computer once we get back to the hotel—or my phone, if it gets a good connection. Hopefully my VA was on the ball and picked up on my interest in it. It would’ve secured it as soon as I took the picture…as long as it had a signal.” Bennett wanted to kick himself for not taking the memory card out of the camera when he had possession of it.

“So, what do you intend to do with that key?” he asked.

“I’m going to go in there to see what they’re doing with those cats,” Kelly said, as if Bennett was crazy for asking.

“You want to break into the building?”

“I’m not breaking in if I have the key.”

“Technically you are,” said Bennett.

“Tom, I can’t just do nothing now that I know they’re there. Something is going on.” She turned and looked at him with her sparkling eyes. “You saw that place. They could be running experiments on them or something. Those
tubes
?”

Bennett could tell she wasn’t going to let it go. That wasn’t Kelly. Bennett knew she wouldn’t rest on this until she had fixed it. She had a passion for her work and helping animals. This was a situation that required her attention now. Bennett had to take responsibility since he had brought her into this whole thing. He knew he might as well get on board now.

“You’re right. We’ve got to do something. Let’s call the police,” Bennett said and reached for his phone.

“I thought you didn’t want to call the police,” said Kelly.

“That was back there. When that psycho was holding a gun on us. Trust me, we didn’t want to press that guy. He was definitely ex-military, probably Ranger or Delta. I’ve run with those guys—they snap easily.”

“You think he would’ve shot us?” Kelly asked.

“I think guys like that are looking for a reason to. He was protecting the place. Who knows how far he was willing to take it?”

Kelly looked out the window. Pondering what Bennett had just said. She let out a heavy sigh. “I just really want to know what they’re doing in there. If the cops show up at the facility, they probably wouldn’t get the full tour…you know what I mean? Those people would probably just cover it up—hide the panthers. That place looked
very
private…the way it was completely hidden from view.”

She looked over at Bennett in a determined manner. “That keychain could probably get us anywhere in that building. I just want to get in far enough to take a few pictures— expose the truth.” Kelly held her hands up in the form of a camera. She became animated when she was trying to prove a point or get her way.

“So you want to go back? Should I turn the car around right now?” Bennett asked sarcastically.

“No. I want to get this keychain checked out first.” She ran her fingers over the translucent square. The gold circuits shined brightly in the sun as she turned it. “I think I know who can help us.”

CHAPTER 20

CERTA FACILITY

15 OCTOBER, 2:00 P.M.

The garage doors lifted up and Danner pulled the Range Rover into its designated parking space. He walked back toward the building and looked down at his phone. It was two o’ clock. Still no sign of Covington. The search for the robot was proving unsuccessful. Rick Danner wasn’t accustomed to failing and he wasn’t about to start. He needed to find the robot before Dr. Perry returned tonight. Lorry had to be located and he needed to find her before another attack happened.

The entire grounds—the whole forest, was dangerous territory right now. A predator was on the prowl. What made it even more disconcerting was the fact that the predator had already killed, and had apparently done so on its own accord. Kane’s death had put Danner on edge.

The photographer and the biologist had thrown Danner off course as well. He hadn’t planned for it and it had put him in a tough position. Not only were they on undisclosed government property—which put the company at risk of exposure—but they were completely vulnerable to Lorry should she choose to locate and attack them. He had escorted them away quickly in order to avoid an attack. He couldn’t afford another corpse to deal with on the property.

It was definitely strange that they had shown up when they did. Danner figured he should be more concerned with the fact that civilians had uncovered the location of the CERTA headquarters. But right now the only thing on Danner’s mind was finding that juggernaut. He was fairly certain the couple hadn’t seen much anyway.

He checked his phone again to see if he had received any new messages from Dr. Perry. Perry had been lighting up his phone with messages all morning to find out if there was any progress on locating Lorry.

No new message…
Good.

He needed to head back out and continue searching. He had to locate Jim Covington. And Danner wasn’t fooling himself in thinking Covington was still alive. He knew he was tracking a corpse—not something he was looking forward to. It would take some time considering he was sectioned to hunt outside the shock fence. Covington’s replacement, Tegan, should be back within the hour to continue the search.

Danner needed the help…he needed to find Lorry…time was running out.

Perry would return later this evening and Danner knew he needed to have something to show for by then. He was starting to get desperate.

How had this whole thing happened?

Why were the juggernauts attacking? It didn’t make any sense. It was as if they were controlling themselves completely—not following their programmed instructions and disregarding all safeguards put in place. A robot had killed a man. Danner knew the enormity of it. This was big—big news. The whole project could blow up at any moment and Danner felt responsible for it. Dr. Perry had blamed him for the entire thing.

Rightly so. He should have planned for this better.

Still, why were they acting independently? Danner didn’t know under what intention the attack happened. Were they killing irrationally? Did they feel threatened?

Braden needed to get down here.
Where the hell was he?

Danner dialed Braden’s number again. It just rang and rang…no answer. An instant later, a message popped up on his phone. He looked at the screen. It was Tegan.

Got your message. Be there in less than an hour.

Good,
Danner thought. It was time for this to come to an end.

CHAPTER 21

WILDLIFE REFUGE BORDER

15 OCTOBER, 2:00 P.M.

Helicopters, huh?” Detective Lee wrote down
Helicopters
on his notepad. “How often?” The woman looked off in the distance, scanning her memory.

“Seems like they’re always flying over. I’d say two or three times a day, recently.”

Lee wrote down:
Helicopters flying overhead, sometimes three times a day.
He asked a few more questions about suspicious activity in the neighborhood.

Detective Lee had been checking with the houses around the area to gather any clues pertinent to the case. He hadn’t gotten much from the few homes surrounding the crime scene so he was checking the houses a few blocks out. Most of these people were
kanaka
, native Hawaiians, dwelling outside of town. Many spoke only native Hawaiian. Any English came through as rough pidgin. They also weren’t used to getting many visitors coming by their houses. The woman with whom Lee was currently speaking seemed to be contributing some useful info. Since Lee was kama
ʻ
aina, he was able to speak to her in the native tongue.

“Have you ever gotten a good look at the helicopter? Do you know what color it is?” Lee asked.

The lady thought for a moment. “Well, It’s white. I know that.” She paused as if she were recollecting something else. “It has a picture on it too. Like a symbol or something.”

Detective Lee didn’t think much about the helicopter. There were many helicopters on the island—almost all of them white. The Big Island alone had at least five different helicopter tour companies that Lee knew of. The tourists loved to fly over the island and get a birds-eye view. Most of them just wanted to see down into the volcano.

“Was the symbol a wave or a palm tree or something like that?” Lee asked.

“No. I don’t know what it was…a bunch of dots or something.”

“Dots? Do you think you could draw it for me? I have a pen right here.” Lee produced a pen and paper for the woman to write with. The woman looked at Lee with hesitation, as if he had asked her to draw a police sketch. Then she conceded. “Ok. Sure, I’ll try.”

The woman grabbed the pen and paper and began roughing out a few dots. She scrawled out a group of dots in a square shape. Then she added a line up the middle dots and connected a line through the top row and bottom row dots. “There,” she said. “Something like that, I think.” She handed the paper back to Lee. He looked at it. At first glance it looked like a circuit or a small bug. But it was nothing he had ever seen before. He folded it up and slipped it in his pocket.

“The helicopter flies low, just above the trees. That’s how I see it. It’s
loud
,” the woman said and spread her arms wide. Lee noted it.

“Ok, thank you for your time, Ma’am. I appreciate it. Mahalo.” Lee bid farewell.

He headed back to his jeep. Then he took out his phone, snapped a quick picture of the drawing and emailed it back to headquarters.

CHAPTER 22

HAWAI’I MEDICAL RESEARCH CENTER, HILO

15 OCTOBER, 2:30 P.M.

A half hour later, Bennett and Kelly pulled into a commercial office complex located off a private driveway along the Hilo shore. It sat atop an acre of lush grass surrounded by miles and miles of black lava rock. The building had a beautiful view that looked out over the Pacific Ocean. Bennett drove up the private drive lined with large palm trees, and parked the truck. He and Kelly got out and walked up the pathway to the door. The sign out front read:

Hawai’i Medical Research Center | A Branch of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo

Kelly led the way through the front doors. Bennett followed Kelly through the lobby and up into an office on the third floor. The office was surrounded with windows that peered down to the ocean below. Bennett noticed the scent of the room—a pleasant leathery aroma most likely from the expensive couch and sofa, which faced each other. Plaques and certificates lined the walls and a picture of Kelly and her brother Colin sat on top of the desk at the far corner of the room.

Dr. Donald Adler sat behind the desk, presently in the middle of a phone call. He saw Bennett and Kelly enter the room and he quickly ushered them in with a hand gesture and pointed to the chairs in front of him. He finished up his phone conversation and stood up to greet them.

“Thomas!”

Dr. Adler’s shiny white hair and tan skin reminded Bennett of a doctor he would expect to see on TV. He was a kind man and had always treated Bennett like part of the family. Dr. Adler was highly respected among the medical field in the Pacific and was fortunate enough to live out his dream career on the Hawaiian Islands. It was a dream life for most. Bennett considered Dr. Adler as one of his role models, especially since Bennett hadn’t had much of a relationship with his own father.

“Great to see you, pal.” Dr. Adler shook Bennett’s hand firmly with a big smile.

“You too,” Bennett responded. “I wasn’t aware you had an office on the Big Island.”

“Yeah, my home away from home.” Dr. Adler motioned around the room. “I actually prefer it here. It’s quite peaceful. There’s a good team working here too. Smart folks.” He walked around his desk and gave Kelly a hug. “How was your presentation, sweetie?”

Kelly smiled then rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Dad. It went fine. But I’ll never be able to get them to put enough money into it. They are such sticklers.”

Dr. Adler looked at Bennett. “You know Kelly is leading development on a new Wildlife Observatory on Oahu? She is Director of Operations for the new facility. It’s going to be geared toward schools and young children.”

“I
didn’t
know that. That’s fantastic Kelly,” Bennett said and looked over at Kelly who was smiling bashfully. “How far into development are you?”

“Well, we’re in phase two right now. The initial buy-in has happened, but now I’m having to squeeze every dollar out of the board that I can. Needless to say, funding is going slow. We had a healthy grant up front that helped get everything moving, but we’re running out of money quick.
Lots
of expenses involved.”

“Just let me know if you want me to call that private investment firm in New York I told you about. I could make a call right now,” said Dr. Adler.

“I know dad, I’d really like to see this done here though. It’s for the people of Hawaii. I want it to be something they can feel a part of and be invested in.”

“Of course, sweetie. I understand,” he replied with a kind smile. “So what brings you here today? I appreciate you stopping over, but I have the feeling you’re here to ask me something.”

“You’re right, dad…I have something I want to show you.”

Kelly pulled the keychain out of her pocket and gave her father a rundown of what had occurred in the forest a few hours ago. Dr. Adler listened intently to her story and seemed to get concerned when they mentioned the man with the gun. Kelly showed him the keychain and Bennett noticed she failed to mention anything about her plans to return to the facility that evening and break in.

“Well, I’ve certainly never heard of CERTA before. This is an island, but I suppose it’s large enough that there could be establishments around not of my knowing. May I hold the keychain?” Kelly gave it to her father. He held it in his hand. “This is an RFID. Looks to be a newer model too,” he said.

“You mean, like a key card?” Kelly asked.

“Well, yes. But it’s much more than that. These devices contain mass amounts of data in a compact size.” He held it up in the light. “You see there?” His finger hovered over the gold circuit. “That circuit alone can contain over a terabyte of information. Depending on the information associated with it, it could contain access codes, programs, databases, tracking sequencers…even transmissions.”

“So you think we can extract that kind of information from it? Do you know how?” Kelly asked.

“Me?” Dr. Adler shook his head. “No. I might have someone who can help you though. Give me one moment.” He picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Yes, hi Tammy. Can you please send Kam up here? Ok, thank you.” He hung up the phone and looked over at them. He set aside the cheerful expression and donned on a look of concern.

“I want you to be careful now. I mean it. You might not know what you’re getting yourself into here. Based on the story you just told, this could hold some very sensitive information. You need to be aware of that before you go any further. Ok?”

Kelly and Bennett both nodded. “Thank you Dad.” Kelly said. “We appreciate your help with this.”

Dr. Adler regained his cheer and nodded. The phone rang. Dr. Adler picked it up. “Yes. Go ahead and send him in.”

The door opened behind them and in walked Kamuela—a young Hawaiian man, short in stature with tall, spiky hair. Kamuela was a brilliant twenty-two year old currently in charge of the IT systems for the University of Hawaii Research Center. He was a family friend to the Adler’s and managed to talk over most anyone’s head when it came to tech-related matters.

“Hi Kam!” Kelly walked over and gave him a hug. Kam and Kelly had gone to University of Hawaii together. Dr. Adler introduced Bennett. “Kam, I’d like you to meet Thomas Bennett. Tom has been a friend of the family for a long time. He’s here visiting the island for a few days. Kelly and Tom came across something today and thought you might be able to help with it.”

“
Howzit
Tom? Nice to meet you.” He shook Bennett’s hand. “Sure, what’s up? How can I help out?”

Kelly held out the keychain. “We were hoping you could help us with this.”

Kam looked at the keychain. “An RFID? Well sure. What do ya want to know?”

“We want to know what kind of info is on there,” said Kelly.

“You mean you want me to crack it?” Kam asked bluntly.

Kelly looked at Bennett then back at Kam. “Well yeah, if you can. We think there may be some important information on there that could help us.”

Kam held up the RFID, inspecting the circuitry. “This is a new model. Newer than the ones we use on site here anyway.” He held the keychain by the loop and flicked it around his finger. “Yep. I should be able to crack it for you.”

“Great,” said Kelly. “How long will it take you to pull the info?”

“Well, I’ll have to bring it home since I have all my equipment there. I could probably bring it back first thing in the morning.”

Kelly flashed a look of disappointment—only for a moment. “Kam. Is it at all possible you could get this info pulled today? I know it’s a big request, but we were hoping that maybe we could get some answers. We’ll fill you in on the whole story, but we really need to get started now if that’s ok,” she said.

Kelly knew when to lightly apply her skills of persuasion. It was something she was good at and quite familiar with. She didn’t do it to intentionally be pushy—Kelly just had a way of getting what she wanted. Part of her mother’s stubbornness, her father would say.

“Oh, shootz,”
Kam said and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, totally. If you’re in a rush, then you should’ve just said so. I’ll head out now.”

“Thank you Kam.” Kelly smiled big. “We really appreciate it.”

“Sure, sure. Let me head home and I’ll be back in, like…an hour. I live real close, just up the shore.”

“Kam, thank you. I owe you one,” said Dr. Adler.

“No problem, Dr. Adler.”

Kam exited the office and headed down stairs.

“Well, he’s very bright. If anyone can pull anything from that key, it’s Kam there,” said Dr. Adler.

“Thanks Dad. That was a good idea. I had forgotten he was on site here,” said Kelly.

“Now.” Dr. Adler turned to Bennett. “Tell me about this movie they’re going to make on the Island.”

KAMUELA HEADED DOWN the stairs of the facility toward the company locker room in the basement. He reached his locker, stripped down to his board shorts and placed his work clothes inside. He unclasped his silver chain necklace and slipped the RFID keychain loop on to it. Kam turned and looked in the mirror. The gold circuit actually looked good hanging from the chain—like a medallion. He slipped his phone into a waterproof bag and placed it in his shorts pocket. He closed up his locker and headed out the back exit. After a short climb up the stairs he opened the door to the bright afternoon sun. His SUP,
Stand Up Paddleboard
, was propped up against the building just outside the door where he had left it that morning. He grabbed his board and the accompanying oar and walked down the path to the beach.

It was a less than a mile up the shoreline from the University office to Kam’s house. He paddled the stretch every morning and every day after work. Kam was a strong surfer and was into competitive SUP’ing or
Hoe he’e nalu
in the Native tongue. SUP’ing was a standard way of getting around in Hawaii; in fact he would often join up with other SUP’ers on their way to work in the morning as well. It was not your typical mainland morning commute, which was why Kam enjoyed it.

He pushed off into the waters and paddled out a few yards on his knees. Once he was about forty yards out he hopped up to his feet and quickly gained his balance, then pushed his paddle through the clear water and skimmed across the gentle waves. He smelled the salty air around him and felt the strong sun beating down on his skin. A subtle breeze blew north that he was able to catch and drag for a while. Within fifteen minutes he was already pulling into the small bay in front of his beach house. He crossed through a large lava rock formation and turned into the cove. He looked up to find tourists lined up along the entire shoreline, filling the cove. Kam wasn’t accustomed to returning home midday. He was usually able to avoid the rush of tourists altogether.

He steered his board into the cove. The waves picked up a little as the breeze grew stronger. He was able to ride a wave all the way into the swim zone. He paddled slowly along the outside edge of the cove, just inside from the crashing waves along the reef perimeter. He picked up his paddle and tucked it lengthwise along the board, then went to drop down to his knees. As he bent down he felt a sudden lurch underneath the board causing him to grab both sides of it. The sudden movement sent his paddle over the right side of the board and into the water. He looked down and saw two large flippers kicking uncontrollably on the left side of the board while a snorkel popped up out of the water on the right. Water sprayed up into the air through a snorkel. A large, barrel of a man was lodged underneath the board panicking and splashing around. The man was sunburnt from head to toe. Kam tried to keep his balance but the man was thrashing like a fish out of water.

Just as Kam had steadied himself, the board was kicked again powerfully from underneath sending Kam flying overboard. He entered the water and immediately received two blows to the chest from the man’s large grey flippers.

Kam yelled as he tried to get away.
“Oww. Hey! Watch what you’re…”

The man exploded out of the water and ripped off his mask. “Are you
crazy
! What are you trying to do?
Drown me
?”

Kam looked around for his board, which he spotted washing out to sea. He swam away from the man to retrieve his board.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” the man yelled.

Kam grabbed his paddle and pulled himself up onto his board. He turned and paddled away from the man. He could hear the man cursing at him between heavy pants and deep gasps as the man treaded water. The cursing faded off into the noise of the tourists as Kam reached the beach and pulled up onto the sand. He kicked up his board and threw it under his right arm. Brushing off the sand, he held the paddle in his left. He turned to head up the pathway to his house and realized something…a feeling of panic took over. He reached his hand up to his neck and realized he didn’t feel the necklace
or
the keychain.