“Wheel Base, two words, dot com,” he said. “Ben Stapleton.” He extended a hand and she took it.
“I have to admit,” she said, “it is quite the project. An entire island with nothing but these crazy little machines.”
“It’s a great stunt,” he said.
“I’m not really a car person,” she said. “My boyfriend is. He loves sports cars, thinks the day when he can’t get behind the wheel is more or less the apocalypse. End of times, whatever. But as a non-car-person, I’m okay with it.”
“Sure,” Kyle said, nodding.
“You think it will happen?”
“Think what will happen?”
“Like Arrival says, that within ten years, maybe sooner, most of the cars on the road will be driverless. They say it works better when all the cars are like that. They can all talk to each other. You put a few real live drivers into the mix, and it’s chaos. God, just think of downtown New York with nothing but self-drivers. I wonder if I’d miss the honking?”
“Probably not,” Kyle said.
Some hair blew across her face and she brushed it away. “Arrival is leading the way on this. The Big Three, Japan, Germany, they’re all playing catch-up. And of course, they had a bit of luck.”
Kyle angled his head, waiting for her to go on.
“I mean, when your biggest competitor self-destructs, that’s what I’d call catching a break.”
“The Gandalf,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “What’s their stock worth now?”
Brandon Kyle paused, then said, somberly, “Nothing.”
“I hear they’re down to selling off the Aeron chairs. There’s virtually nothing left. God help you if you own one of the Gandalfs that are actually out there. Good luck getting service. It’s the DeLorean all over again, only worse.”
Kyle nodded solemnly. “I guess you’ve heard the rumors,” he said.
“Rumors?” she said. “You mean the outright allegations? Of industrial sabotage?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. I had Kyle on my show.”
“Oh,” Kyle said. “I must have missed that one.”
“Talk about a man possessed,” she said. “Possibly delusional. He honestly believes Arrival’s president masterminded a plot to hack Gandalf’s master system, slipping a bug into it.”
“That movie producer, and that actress, they did die,” Kyle said. “The car did go off that cliff.”
“Sure,” the woman said. “The software fucked up. No doubt about it. But you ask me, Kyle trying to lay this off on Arrival is just a dodge to keep from taking responsibility himself. Where’s the proof? You make an accusation as serious as that, you need something to back it up. Arrival’d probably sue if they thought Kyle had any money left.”
Kyle felt a rush of heat to his cheeks but managed to maintain an air of calm. “I’ve heard he has the proof but no one will listen. He’s convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was a deliberate act to destroy his company.”
Rebecca Geary shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s say he’s right. Let’s say Arrival, or some other company, got into the Gandalf network and introduced a virus. Shouldn’t Kyle have anticipated that? Shouldn’t he have had safeguards in place?”
“So, blame the victim.”
“Not saying that. But if you’re, I don’t know, Target, and someone hacks into your database and gets credit card info on all your customers, who do you get mad at? You get mad at the company, because they were supposed to protect you from that kind of thing. What about all these firms getting hit with ransomware attacks? A lot of them never took the threats seriously until it was too late.”
“Hmm,” Kyle said.
“The corporate world is cutthroat. Bad things happen to good people, and good companies. Some great inventions get overtaken by something else. VHS killed Betamax, although that was Sony that took the hit, so it’s hard to shed a tear for them. They’re doing just fine, thank you very much. But then, look at BlackBerry. They made a pretty damn good phone, but then the iPhone came along, and they took a beating. And now, well, if all your money’s invested in the gas engine or premium unleaded, you might want to rethink that. History marches on. The thing with Brandon Kyle is, he and his Gandalf went off the rails.” She laughed. “Or off the cliff, I should say.”
Kyle found himself unable to feign a chuckle.
“I guess,” he said. “Where’s your camera guy?”
She tipped her head toward the cabin. “Carl’s at the buffet stuffing his face. Listen, nice talking to you. Probably see you at the presser.”
“Sure,” Kyle said.
She headed for one of the many outdoor benches set up on the deck with a view forward.
Kyle could feel the engines starting. The ship began to vibrate. Moments later, the ferry began to move out from the dock.
I hope she’s one of them, he thought. I hope she’s one of the first.
Three
“I think our friendly neighborhood serial killer was at it again last night,” said Archie Montrose.
Sandra’s twelve-year-old son was sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring the cereal he’d poured himself as he stared at his phone, playing a game. Any other morning, she might have told him to put his phone away, but she needed to save her strength today for bigger battles, should they come up.
But she did ask, as she filled a mug with coffee, “What are you talking about?”
“Ignore him,” said Katie Montrose, thumbing the screen of her own phone as she strolled into the kitchen. “He’s crazy.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Archie. “What do you think he’s doing in his garage at three in the morning?”
“I hope he’s building a time machine,” Katie said, “that sends you to another dimension.”
“Lame-O,” Archie said. “A good insult would be building a time machine to send me to another time. But dimension? Makes no sense.”
Sandra’s daughter, four years older than Archie, managed to take a mug from the cupboard, fill it with coffee, and add a pack of sweetener, all without taking her eyes off her phone.
“You’ll care when he grabs you one night and takes you in there and starts torturing you,” Archie said. “Then, once you’re dead, he’ll start cutting you up into little—”
“Enough!” Sandra shouted at her son.
He glanced at her for only a second, then spooned some cereal into his mouth. Chewing, he said, “I’m just trying to save her life, is all.”
“You binge-watch too many TV shows about serial killers,” Sandra said. “I forbid it.”
That brought snickers from both of her children. Sandra knew it was an empty threat the moment she’d uttered the words. As if you could control anything your kids watched these days.
Katie said, “Just because someone is up in the middle of the night doesn’t make him a murderer.”
Her brother shrugged. “What else would it be? I bet he prowls the neighborhood around midnight, then takes his victim back to the garage. I saw him sitting on his porch this morning, havin’ a cig. It’s like with some people, they have a smoke after sex, but this guy, he has one after he’s killed somebody.”
Sandra put down her coffee and stared at Archie contemptuously. “What is wrong with you?”
Archie looked her way, puzzled. “Huh?”
“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I got this one,” Katie said, raising a hand to her mom. “He’s mentally unstable. Maybe you dropped him on the head when he was little?”
Sandra scowled.
Katie shrugged. “It’s just a theory. He could be possessed.”
Archie said, “I can’t help it if you’re blind to the truth.”