of Mexican pork carnitas drifted from the open bay of a food truck parked at the curb. The Weaver Group was midway down the walk, their newly leased office space rubbing shoulders with an accounting firm and a truck-leasing operation. Their sign out front was crisp, clean, gold on black, with the shining silhouette of an antique loom.
Nothing sinister, on the surface. But surfaces always lied. Nell introduced herself at the reception desk.
“Elizabeth Bisland,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
She watched the sixty-inch screen on the wall while she waited. It was a commercial on an endless loop, happy faces and testimonials from the people whose lives had been touched and transformed by the Weaver Group’s hard work.
“Thanks to the Loom,” said a mother with tears in her eyes, cradling a baby in her arms, “my child was returned safe and sound. I don’t know what would have happened without it.”
The camera cut to a beefcake in a stripper-tight Houston cop uniform. He was too ruggedly handsome to be anything but an actor.
“Has the Loom had an impact on my work as a peace officer?” he mused, waxing philosophical for the ad as his baby blues gazed into the distance. “No. I wouldn’t call it an impact. I’d call it a revolution.”
Before Nell’s eyes could roll out of her head, an earnest-looking young man appeared in the doorway.
“Ms. Bisland?” he asked. “I’m Matt. We spoke on the phone? Ms. Swan is free now, and she’s eager to meet you. I’ll walk you on back.”
They exchanged pleasantries on the way, while Nell cased the place like a burglar scoping out a heist. She spotted security cameras here and there, black lenses keeping a silent watch from the corners. Placards on the bone-white walls helped her build a map in her mind’s eye. Server Room A, Server Room C—where’s B? she thought. Security down the hall to the left, looks like individual offices that way…
“And here we are,” he said, knocking on a frosted-glass door. A silver plate set into the wall read Leda Swan, Director of New Technologies.
“Enter,” called a breezy voice.
The office was bright, nestled into one corner of the building and lit with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides that looked out across a manicured lawn. Designer chairs in robin-egg blue marked the edges of Leda Swan’s dominion, on the near side of a kidney-shaped glass desk. Nell’s host rose to greet her with a vigorous handshake and a pearly smile. Leda Swan had olive skin and big, cheerful amber eyes, almost too big for her face; her mouth, as if making up for it, was small and pert. She wore her hair in a tight black braid, its tail caressing the collar of her tailored houndstooth blazer.
“Thanks, Matt,” she said. “I’ll take it from here.”
As the door glided shut, Nell eased into one of the designer chairs. Not where she wanted to be—a tour of the building would offer her the best shot at nosing around where she didn’t belong—but maybe she could excuse herself for a bathroom break on her way out. She decided to take the lead with a soft-pedal approach, holding back the hard questions she really wanted to ask. For the moment.
“Curious about the sign on your door,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. “Why ‘new’ technologies?”
Leda’s perfectly poised response, smooth as butter, told Nell that she’d answered this question more than once. The woman’s patter was solid.
“Because the Weaver Group isn’t interested in old ones. We leave last year’s technology to last year’s competitors. And while they’re scrambling to play catch-up, we already have our sights on the future.”
“Like the Loom,” Nell said.
“Exactly. Amarillo and Houston were milestones, but New York will be the Loom’s ultimate proving ground. One unified emergency-management system to serve over eight million citizens. Police, paramedics, fire departments, all coordinated citywide by a single dispatcher. A dispatcher who never takes breaks, never sleeps, and most importantly, never makes mistakes.”
“Sounds like magic.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Leda said. “Arthur C. Clarke said that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. As the Loom’s lead engineer and architect, I can confidently state there’s nothing supernatural happening behind the server racks, just the cutting edge in artificially intelligent clients. Now, I should be clear. When I say ‘AI,’ most people think of something out of Star Trek—”
“Or the Terminator,” Nell said.
The second the words left her mouth, she regretted it. She’d dropped the quip on instinct, wanting to push the woman