Midnight
Tansy wanted to leave the men to do their thing. She wanted to dive into her research and forget about the break-in attempt.
Instead, she and Sam walked the property with the deputy and she answered as many questions as she could.
Marcus Ramirez was an interesting man, and she’d bet he had an interesting past. She had to assume he was former special ops. He radiated awareness of his surroundings and of people. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was wearing a below-the-knee prosthesis on his left leg.
His walk was almost natural, but there was a slight hitch she recognized. She wondered if the prosthesis had the tech she’d designed to improve integration with his muscles.
While the men searched for evidence and discussed possibilities, Tansy let her mind wander to the hologram. It was a project she’d been so excited about when she’d started last year.
If she’d never told James, none of this might be happening. That thought stopped her moving while she analyzed it. The DOD had approached her. How had they known she was working on it?
Tansy moved to lean on the railing of the deck when the men went into the lodge.
She rarely discussed her private projects with anyone. Not even fellow scientists. She’d worked with the team on a variety of other projects, but her personal research was extremely private. Until she knew an idea was going to work, she didn’t like sharing it with anyone.
A lot of her ideas ended up not being feasible. Or at least not feasible with the current tech. Tons of projects got shelved for future revisits.
The hologram was one of those. She remembered with clarity seeing R2D2 project Leia’s image and wondering how she could make it more realistic without the aura.
That had been before her parents had been killed. The familiar pang of grief stabbed through her. They’d been such good people. Her mom’s passion for technology had inspired Tansy from an early age. June Cheveyo had taught computer programming at the university and her dad, Robert, had been a cop.
She and Joe had followed in their footsteps. Maybe not exactly, but along the same pathways.
Would their parents be proud of what they’d accomplished with their lives? She hoped so.
And if she could hear her dad whispering to her that she had to let others in sometimes, that was okay, too. She thought about Sam and realized she’d never let anyone in like she had with him.
Certainly not James.
Which brought her back to the DOD. How had they known? Had James tried to sell her tech to them? That was better than selling it to terrorists. But he’d claimed he was selling to private investors. Was he setting up an auction?
If he had offered it to the good guys, was the break-in even connected to the tech?
Did Sam have someone after him? Was this about him, not her.
Tansy hurried inside to find the men standing over the Jetsons. When she entered the room, Marcus grinned at her. “If you ever decide to sell these, I’m first in line.”
That made her laugh.
“Can you program these, or something else, to react to an intruder?”
His question had her blinking while she considered. It would require some programming changes and creating a cause-and-effect routine.
She’d never been interested in creating home security systems, but this might be fun.
Sam grinned. “Maybe a Jackie or Chuck? River?”
Jackie Chan and Chuck Norris would be excellent role models. But River from Firefly was an even better possibility.
“It would take some time. Reactive programming is more complex that active programming, but it’s possible.”
Marcus nodded. “Way above my skill set. Even if you programmed these guys to move around a few times during the night, you might unnerve any intruders. No one expects someone like Jane here coming at them.”
“That would be easier to do.” Then she took a deep breath. She needed to tell them her thoughts.
Sam must have read her face because he crossed to touch her arm, his gaze looking beyond her to the deck where she’d stood. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is someone there?”