The Survivor - Cristin Harber Page 0,23
out. She’d learned that a watery middle ground wasn’t possible. But steam? That kind of combustion was more than she’d allowed herself in a long time. Either way, this wasn’t a conversation to have with her mother in the back of a taxi. “If that’s all, this robot is going to go crawl in a hole and die of mortification now.”
“Don’t do that,” Mom chortled. “At least, not before you figure out what you want from that man.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hagan and Liam perched on a low cinder block wall on top of tower one. The wall subdivided sections of the roof. With their smartphones in hand, they read streams of data across from Parker as he typed into his laptop. A skyscraper’s roof wasn’t Hagan’s idea of a good time. He could’ve sworn the building swayed. Slight shifts in the wind would shock the hell out of him. He’d much rather have taken a high-altitude job from a Chinook than sit on the top of this building.
At least Hagan had a decent reason to sit up here without a parachute. Titan had updated the adaptive abilities of their heavy-lifting drone, and if Aces wanted to repeat the benefits, they’d have to work out any bugs.
Work almost felt like playing video games as they tested the drone’s newly updated adaptive abilities. Part artificial intelligence, part NASA-level algorithms, it could adjust to payload fluctuations, make decisions on takeoff, and run diagnostics while in flight. Meaning, once they calibrated the drone, their team had a very smart flying machine, capable of swooping into a battle zone for a rescue mission and initiating a health assessment.
But they weren’t there yet and were currently stuck at the make-it-hurt-until-it’s-better stage. Their million-dollar drone had regressed to a Wright brothers’ level of technology, leaving collateral damage of bumped and broken security cameras, antennas, and lights in its wake—not to mention their poor test subjects.
Working out the bugs had helped Hagan ignore wind gusts and pigeons who didn’t appreciate humans in their territory. Plus, they’d had their fair share of laughs.
“Careful with Doris,” Liam warned.
Doris, their target on top of the other tower, was a tall, viney houseplant with a concrete pot that had to be heavier than his. She was their fourth rescue attempt. It wasn’t as easy as they’d thought to liberate a living, breathing plant. If they weren’t careful, they’d have to ask Angela to arrange for another assortment of weighted, potted plants to be delivered onto the roof again.
The drone was rated to carry two hundred kilograms, nearly four-hundred-fifty pounds, and she’d given them the stink-eye when Parker had requested the heaviest pots she could find. Angela did a damn good job with the variety of concrete, stone, and terracotta pots, coming closer than they’d expected to in maxing out the drone’s carrying capabilities.
But the payload wasn’t their biggest concern. They couldn’t keep from dropping the plants during takeoff—rest in peace Alma, Beatrice, and Clementine.
The drone lifted Doris higher than any of her predecessors, but Hagan saw the same data points as Liam. He glanced at Parker. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Hagan didn’t want to give the guy a coronary, but Parker had asked them to monitor the data. Hagan grimaced when the corresponding line graph jumped again. “Careful.”
“Please shut the hell up,” Parker typed, as if the force of his keystrokes might help the drone lift Doris.
Lifting wasn’t their problem this time. Hagan eyed Liam. Liam shook his head and almost laughed.
“Son of a monkey’s—” Parker jerked his gaze from the screen. “Doris has one of those signs.”
For a nanosecond, Hagan didn’t know what Parker meant. Then he understood. The timing might send Parker into an early grave. Someone within the company had covertly hung notes and signs throughout the towers. No one admitted to orchestrating the funniest, most passive snark Hagan had ever seen, and even with Titan Group’s surveillance capabilities, the culprit hadn’t been smoked out yet.
Liam and Hagan tried not to laugh.
Parker returned to heavy-handed typing. “This is not the time, dickheads.”
“We didn’t do it,” Liam volunteered.
Hagan kept an eye on Doris’s statistics as the drone almost reached their altitude goal. “Angela arranged the plants.”
“Everyone knows about the plants,” Parker bit out.
“Yeah,” Hagan agreed. “It’s not her. Too obvious—Easy.” The drone’s AI adjustment added too many pounds of pressure. “You’re red-lining.”
“I see that,” Parker muttered, ratcheting down the pressure units. The drone’s claw-like manacle reported an immediate positive effect. The AI system learned from Parker’s input and adjusted its hold