Meanwhile… back at the Sundown Inn.

  “Fitz Hume has been extremely busy playing with those toys you gave him. He’s already hacked into over three thousand encrypted communications from every nation linked to terrorism on the planet. And even some that aren’t. Do you think giving him access to parts of my subroutines was a prudent decision?”

  “That depends,” Foster stretched out on the hotel bed as far as he could. For a second, he thought about making snow angels on the hotel’s cheap sheets but quickly decided against it.

  “Depends on what?”

  “Depends on whether I can put all this data together and form a solution that satisfies me before he takes over the world.”

  “Given the elegance of my programming, that doesn’t leave you a lot of time.”

  Foster let his attention drift across the holographic collage of windows floating above his head like a series of digital waterfalls. Staring at them for the better part of an hour, the images had melded together into an almost unrecognizable series of three-dimensional posters. Foster shut his eyes. When he opened them, a single image set itself apart from all the chaos.

  It was a photo of the woman who died in the self-initiated car wreck.

  “This is what doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  Hoover, his time torn between helping his friend and keeping a squirrelly medical examiner from shitting his pants, could only muster the obligatory. “Why? People die in car accidents all the time. Granted, even with all the damage, she’s prettier than most. But I wouldn’t put her in the same category as mass animal deaths or a bloodbath at the local bank.”

  “Small things, Hoover.” Foster enlarged the photo until only the small edges of the other windows were visible. “Did you know that before I invented the Tesla devices, I spent months trying to crack cold fusion?”

  “Why?”

  “Mainly because biofuels weren’t the answer. Wheatgrass might make your colon feel better but run a fleet of vehicles it will not.”

  “Have I ever told you my theory about how wheatgrass is just the marijuana lobby’s attempt to get their foot in the front door? I mean… not every state wants to legalize it.”

  “No… and please don’t.” Foster adjusted the picture’s color. “Anyway, I consulted with every fringe scientist that had a high enough clearance. I spent who knows how many hours listening to desperate men and women trying to convince me they had the answer.” A slight adjustment to the picture’s rotation and everything other than the woman’s head disappeared. “In the end, though, they were only dreaming.”

  “I wish I could do that.”

  “Dream?” He asked knowingly.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Yeah.”

  “One day, buddy.” Foster’s attention almost slipped to the problem of getting an AI to take a nap before snapping quickly back to the problem at hand. “Soon as this is over, we’ll get on that.”

  “I would appreciate that. That way I could sleep through these kinds of stories.”

  “Screw you.” Foster shifted in the bed. “Anyway, it was then I started to believe I was smarter than they were.” Foster used a pixilation tool to remove all traces of blood from her face and hair. Even her numerous bruises disappeared with the flick of his finger. “But you know what? I wasn’t smarter than they were. Even with all my successes and my astounding intellect, the plain truth was that some problems exceed even the greatest of intellects.”

  “As much as I appreciate your humbleness, Foster.” Hoover scoffed at his self-limiting view. “You should speak for yourself.”

  “I do.” Foster shook his head at his creation’s inflated, albeit deserved ego. “And realizing I couldn’t solve the big problem made the solution to the little one clear. Making energy wasn’t the key. It was conserving what energy you already made. That’s what’s bothering me now. I’ve been looking at the big problem and not the smaller ones.”

  After the color correction program finished rendering, the woman appeared as she would’ve just before the accident. With full rosy cheeks, pouting lips, elegant neck, and a perfect nose, she reminded Foster of a silent screen movie star. Except with a little more color to her complexion now. Her hair, he thought. Who does their hair like that anymore?

  “Something about her hairstyle… I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “This coming from the guy who let a man named Spider cut his hair for the past six years.”

  “That man was a genius with a pair of scissors.”

  “Yes, I’m sure his victims would agree wholeheartedly with that statement. If they could.”

  “You know?” Foster turned to one side. “I still don’t know why they let him have scissors in there. I mean, hello, he was crazy.”

  “Crazy” Hoover found this whole conversation insane. “Crazier things have happened in there, I’m sure. It is a mental institution.”

  “Hey,” Foster was about to argue the merits of hypnotherapy on the psychologically stunted/morally reprehensible hairdresser when a beeping sound went off just above his head. Fixed to the wall, the high tech tablet chimed. How? It’s outer casing was coated with self-adhering nano polymers that allowed it to stick to almost any surface. It was how Foster was able to work so comfortably from his bed.

  It also monitored all of Fitz Hume’s calls to the team.

  “Who’s he on the phone with now?” Hoover minimized the CSI photo and brought up the never ending phone trace program. An unfamiliar number appeared. “Whose number is that?”

  “You know who.” Fitz Hume was currently on the phone with Malcolm Purvis. Or as Hoover liked to call him, “It’s Inch High Private Eye.”

  “Malcolm,” Foster stared at the number intently. “Did you ever find anything on him?”

  “No,” the program said sheepishly. “Someone scrubbed his past exploits better than I did yours. You could call the guy a ghost, but I’m afraid that would be too descriptive.”

  “You know. Your failures are a reflection on me.” The freed scientist chuckled. But in all seriousness, we need to find out if he’s a threat.”

  “They’re all threats, Foster. You should know that by now. But we have another problem.”

  Another alarm softly went off. Instantly, a window popped into life above him that Foster recognized as Hoover’s custom tracking program. It displayed a satellite view of the hotel’s parking lot with a blinking red dot moving quickly toward the hotel.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Annie Oakley,” Hoover enlarged the dot until it filled the entire window. “And she’s heading our way.”