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  She continued monitoring the security cams. She could hear shots now. At first, single shots, with seconds between each report. Then the shots were more continuous and louder. The Russians were getting closer to her position.

  She heard the stairwell door closest to her spring open. She backed away, down the hall, fear chilling her.

  Ann shivered as she heard running footsteps coming in her direction. Someone turned the corner of the hallway and came trotting toward her as she backed away. Suddenly, she saw an armed man wearing a mask and holding a handgun. He stood thirty feet away from her now, aiming the pistol at her head.

  She was frozen where she stood.

  Ann was unarmed. But, she could use her ability to shoot fire from her fingers to save her. He was still too far away for a dead-on headshot at her. Unfortunately for Ann, she was also too far away for her own magic to work.

  She placed her notebook computer on the floor and concentrated on her fingers. But, her fingertips were blue. She frowned and held her empty hands in front of her while she waited for the armed man to close the distance.

  When he was less than ten feet away and still coming toward her, she thought, FIRE! But, she could only smell her fear. Her hands remained ice-cold. Nothing happened.

  The Russian moved a step closer and took aim. She guessed she was less than five feet away. Now he had her close enough for a headshot. There was no way he could miss. She thought, I should have listened to Cassie. Ann closed her eyes. She couldn’t face her own death.

  But then she heard the stairwell door open again. She opened her eyes and saw Jon Sommers turn the corner, running toward her. Jon held a handgun and aimed it at the Russian. The Russian reacted to the footsteps approaching him from behind. He whirled around and took aim at Jon.

  Her fear converted fast into rage at the Russian. Her fingertips turned from blue to a glowing orange. She aimed her hands at the back of the Russian’s head and once again thought, FIRE!

  A bolt of fire streamed from her fingertips and the Russian’s head exploded. Pieces of his skull and brains clung to the hallway walls and floor.

  Jon Sommers stood above the Russian, looking his own 9mm Beretta. No smoke wafted from its barrel. He looked at the headless dead body, and then at Ann.

  Jon shook his head with disbelief. “Hello, Ann. Neat trick. Are you unharmed?”

  She was still in shock and couldn’t speak. She took inventory. No wounds anywhere on her body. She nodded and smiled.

  When she could once again speak, she said, “What now?”

  “Your trick. It’s our little secret. For me, it’s back into the stairwell. I’m scouring the floors for hostiles at work. For you, stay hidden. I promise I’ll return soon.” Jon headed back the way he’d come.

  Ann continued to monitor the action from her view of the security cams. She heard the shots diminish in frequency until there were none. Cassie’s voice said, “We’re done. Let’s make sure Strumler is alive.”

  Ann took the elevator to the lobby. As she emerged, she saw a group of men wearing FBI jackets enter the same elevator she’d exited.

  Ann sat in one of the plush armchairs in the lobby and waited for the inevitable. Her body began to shake more and more violently. She reached into her backpack and pulled a bag of sour gummies from it. After eating the entire bag’s contents, the shaking began to subside.

  She was beginning to feel normal when the elevator doors opened again. The FBI agents emerged from the elevator leading Strumler in handcuffs. The president-elect was screaming, “I’ll sue you for this! I’ll sue you all!”

  It was all over. She shook herself to loosen her cramping legs and arms.

  * * *

  A few days had passed since the president-elect’s arrest.

  Ann was back at the Stanford campus, looking at the grades posted in the Student Union lobby. She grinned when she discovered she had aced her midterm on computer forensics. After attending her afternoon classes, she walked back to her apartment and passed a newsstand.

  The headline on one of the newspapers stated, “Strumler to Be Tried for Treason.” She decided to read the news online when she had reached her apartment.

  When she unlocked the door, she heard someone humming in her kitchen. The familiar voice belonged to Laura Hunter. “Hi, Ann. Did you get my message?”

  “Ah, no, Laura. I just returned from a trip back east. What’s in your message?”

  “Me. Paraguay didn’t work out. I’m back, attending Stanford. I assume you’ll still let me be your roommate?”

  Ann smiled. “Sure.”

  She turned on the television and watched the continuing story of the pending trial of Daniel Strumler. She thought, it’s even better on-screen than it was when I was there.

  Laura cooked them dinner. While Laura was busy, Ann called Cassie.

  Her mother answered the call, but after Ann said hello, Cassie’s voice turned loud and angry. “You told me you’d stay safe. But you didn’t do what you promised. You behaved like a child.”

  “Mom. I’m sorry. I know it was irresponsible of me. I promise I’ll never disappoint you like that again.”

  “Bullshit, Ann. How can I trust you?”

  “Yeah. Well, I thought I was in a safe place. I was wrong.”

  “Crap. Well, okay. Did you get your midterm grades?”

  “Yeah. I did fine. And Laura’s back. So it’s pretty much back to normal.”

  “I like normal.” She heard Cassie laugh.

  Ann smiled. Her mom had already let her anger go.

  * * *

  Avram Shimmel was once again back at work at the United Nations. His brief assignment as an acting ambassador to the United Nations was over. He couldn’t say he missed being a diplomat, since his entire career until this assignment had been in the military.

  He made himself comfortable in his overstuffed office chair as he admired the view from his office window. The East River sat twenty-nine floors beneath him, the streets due west of him filled with skyscrapers. It was an unseasonably warm day and he saw pedestrians wearing light jackets as they walked the sidewalks below.

  His phone buzzed. “Shimmel here.”

  “It’s Meyer. Our UN ambassador has resigned. She was unhappy that you delivered a speech she had wanted to make, and she decided to run for a seat in the Knesset. We are currently without a United Nations ambassador. The PM suggested you.”

  “Me? I’m not a diplomat!”

  “Yes. Are you deaf?”

  “But who will run the UN Paramilitary Force?”

  “That’s a problem for you to solve. What’s your answer?”

  Avram knew that there was no way he could deny a command assigned to him by the Israeli PM. He sighed. “I accept.”

  “Good. You will be stationed at the Israeli embassy in New York. Report there as soon as you can.” Meyer terminated the call.

  Jon Sommers’ office was adjacent to Avram’s, albeit somewhat smaller. Avram called Jon’s line. “Sommers.”

  “Jon, drop by my office as soon as you have a moment.”

  Jon recognized Avram’s thick Israeli accent. “On my way now.”

  He walked in, smiling, and took a seat. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been asked by Israel’s PM to accept the position of Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.”

  “Wow. Congrats, big guy. That’s quite a coup.”

  “Maybe, maybe, but it leaves me with a problem. I have to replace myself. Do you have any preference as to who becomes your next boss?”

  Jon’s face showed surprise and confusion. “I’ve not had time to digest this.”

  “Well, if there is no one you’d prefer for your next boss, then I guess I’ll just have to appoint you. Congratulations, you are now director of the UN Paramilitary Force.”

  Avram saw Jon’s eyes bulge. It was all Avram could do to keep a grin off his face. But within a second, he could no longer help himself. His own smile beamed back at his friend. Jon had been
a Mossad kidon, or assassin, and had plenty of experience working within the halls of a bureaucratic empire.

  Jon shrugged. “You sure about this? I’ve never commanded anything larger than an operations team. Five at most.”

  Avram nodded. “Congrats. You’re it. I have to leave now and start preparations to move my office to the embassy. Good luck, my friend.”

  Avram rose, shook Jon’s hand and walked from his—now former—office.

  Jon turned and faced Avram’s receding form. “Wait. What’s my job description?”

  Avram stopped, turned, and faced Jon. “You’ll figure it out, just as I did.”

  An hour passed, with Jon unable to move from his seat across from Avram’s desk. No. Now it was Jon’s desk.

  He rose and reseated himself in his new chair. He was too short for its current setting. Jon adjusted the seat until he was finally comfortable. He opened the desk drawers and pulled all the folders from it. It took him through the day and long into the evening to read them, open the computer’s file directory and take inventory of the contents.

  He sent a text message to Ann.

  As the sun set and the night stars shone over Manhattan, Jon Sommers smiled and thought to himself, I wonder if this promotion will turn out to be a blessing or a curse?

  * * *

  Ann’s cell buzzed as she entered her computer audit procedures class. She read the text and smiled:

  Ann—Thanks for saving my life. Don’t worry about your secret. I expect we’ll work together again, soon and often. —Jon

  Ann thought, yes, Jon. Now you owe me one and I owe you one.

  TEN MONTHS LATER

  CHAPTER 2

  Cecil H. Green Library,

  557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University, CA

  September 3, 10:14 a.m.

  Ann Sashakovich walked from the parking lot adjacent to the Hoover Tower toward what she thought of as “the main library” and thought, it’s good to be back. She smiled like a child who had just recovered a long-lost beloved toy. Stanford University didn’t smile back. The library stood, cloisters gleaming stucco beige, topped with an orange-tiled roof in the warm September afternoon. She’d arrived one day early for the school semester, to give herself time to adjust past the jetlag of her flight from Washington, DC, where Cassie and Lee, her adopted parents lived. She walked around the campus, savoring memories of her previous years as an undergrad.

  The quad was mostly empty of students, many not having yet arrived. She basked in the still, dry heat that was common in Northern California this time of year. She hoped this year would be less eventful than her sophomore year when she’d barely escaped with her life from a series of unexpected adventures.

  The stress from the unpleasant adventure during her sophomore year had led her to eat far too much unhealthy food. As a result, she knew she’d packed on a few extra pounds. She’d vowed to lose the weight, but that hadn’t happened. She still had occasional nightmares from being in the wrong place at the wrong time last year. She hadn’t intended on battling Russian commandos in the Strumler Tower in Washington, DC, as they took floor after floor.

  Her frequent nightmares were an accurate rendition of the real event, and her life had been saved by a special ability she had developed after she’d been overdosed with Bug-Lok nanodevices. Her ability to shoot bolts of energy from her fingertips only worked when she was angry. And each time she used that special ability, it left her exhausted and hungry, shaking violently to the point of being unable even to stand up. She’d vowed to avoid situations where she might be tempted again to summon her special talent. And, so far, she had succeeded.

  She entered one of the many cafeterias, passed the electronic bulletin-board display and read the notices flowing by on the rolling screen. One of the notices held her interest so much that she stayed there and reread it several times:

  Build a Sentient AI Computer for DARPA.

  Grand Prize: $1,000,000

  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announces its autumn hackathon competition: a $1,000,000 first prize to the group that can demonstrate a sentient artificial intelligence entity. Two other prizes of $250,000 each will be awarded to groups that show major advances in the functioning of artificial intelligence. Our most important objective is an entity that can keep national defense computers from being hacked. The system must be able to recode itself without human help as new threats emerge.

  There was more content, including rules and due dates, plus instructions on how to apply. Ann thought, just like DARPA to post an automation tech contest on a public bulletin board. She knew that Stanford also offered students seed funding to produce advances in AI using “undergraduate research opportunities,” but DARPA’s was a more intensive approach.

  She turned away and walked to the campus bookstore to buy the textbooks for this semester’s classes. She thought of the irony: her first class tomorrow was CS 221, Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Techniques.

  She wondered if she was up to the DARPA challenge. It would obviously require a team. But how could she find other students who might work with her? Last year, she had watched her now-ex-boyfriend, Glen Sarkov, as his team sought funding for their startup, MindField, Inc. It had ended in a disaster that almost cost Glen his life. Ann took a deep breath and thought about what running a team might entail. If she tried and failed, the experience would teach her valuable lessons. As the day progressed, she found herself returning to thoughts of entering the contest.

  The next day, Ann attended her first classes of the semester. Her second class, at 10:00 in the morning, was CS 229, Machine Learning. As a junior-year information-science major at Stanford, Ann had several of her classes as seminars in smaller rooms, and only two classes, including this one, in auditoriums.

  Since she was five-foot-six, even if she sat in the first row she knew she wouldn’t block anyone else’s view. She selected a seat a bit left of the classroom’s center, but close to the lectern so she could better see the professor.

  The class started and Professor Myron Uretsky droned on about the history of computing and how it inevitably led to the current situation in which people used artificially intelligent tools in their homes and in their everyday lives.

  Ann’s thoughts drifted once again to the DARPA contest. What would her “team” look like? What skills would be required? How would her team differ from Glen’s startup company?

  When the professor stopped and announced their homework, Ann’s attention snapped back into the room and she stared at the whiteboard. An assignment after the first class? She pulled up the syllabus on her notebook computer. No assignment mentioned there. She assessed the amount of time she’d need to complete it and cursed silently. There go both evenings between now and my next machine-learning class. She rose from the desk and packed her notebook computer into her backpack. Off to my last class of the day, Neurochemical Biology.

  She crossed under the cloistered overhangs into the quadrangle and headed across the lawn toward the path that would take her to the set of temporary classroom buildings among the oak trees, south of where her first class was. As she entered into one of the wooden structures and headed up the staircase, she bumped into someone and nearly dropped her backpack. One of her textbooks fell to the ground.

  She looked up at the tall man who’d bumped into her. Standing at least six inches taller than her was her ex-boyfriend from last year, Glen Sarkov. He frowned, his gaze refocusing on Ann as if he had just become conscious. “Ann? Sorry. Didn’t mean to… I, um, oops. You okay?” He picked up her fallen textbook and handed it back to her.

  She frowned. “Yeah. Okay.” She tried to move past him but he intentionally blocked her path.

  “A second, please.”

  She frowned again. “Sure. How are you, Glen?”

  “I haven’t seen you since last June. What’re you up to?”

  “Just classes. And homework.” She thought about asking after his own situation, but decided
not to encourage him. After all, they were no longer “a thing.” She pouted, thinking how much he’d disappointed her. “Got to get to my class.”

  “Sure. Look, maybe we can get together for a drink sometime?”

  She stared back at him, remembering how he’d used her to attract Samantha, a cofounder of his startup. And then, he’d ended his relationship with Ann. She decided not to consider his offer. Like that could ever happen. “Maybe.”

  She walked along the hallway of the second floor to her last class. By the time she arrived, most of the seats were taken. She sat on the floor at the back of the room. She’d thought she would find neurochemical biology interesting. But, when the syllabus was distributed by the professor, she scanned its pages and realized the class would just be very difficult.

  She overheard some of the students in the room talking to each other. She instantly realized that most of the other students in this class had previously taken courses in biochemistry or advanced psychology. Her background was in information science. She’d hoped this class would give her knowledge she could use in how humans and computer systems were similar, but the syllabus made it clear to her that all she’d be learning were long chemical formulas and how chemicals affected neural clusters. She was immediately both bored and intimidated.

  She opened her bookbag and pulled out her notebook computer. She turned on the recording app to complement her notes, not really expecting to understand much. She thought, I’d have had better luck with a course in Mandarin.

  After class, she plodded over a mile from campus down University Avenue to her apartment, which wasn’t air conditioned. But she found the cool staircase up to her flat was a welcome relief. She could smell cleaning fluid as she opened the door to her apartment. Her roommate, Laura Hunter, was on her knees, scouring the floor.

  Ann sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. “Why are you doing that?”

  Laura looked up briefly, then back at the floor. “Spots. Spots on the floor.” She continued scrubbing.

  Ann couldn’t see any stains on the linoleum. She shook her head. Since Laura’s return from Paraguay last year, the young woman had developed a compulsive streak. Ann opened the fridge and pulled out a container of yogurt. She grabbed a spoon and sat on the couch. “I saw something interesting on the old bulletin board outside the student union. A contest.”