its serious purpose, Ryan left enough room to maintain two areas of personal space—his free weights and fitness section, and a small competition ring for his self-built robots.
Right now, he was enjoying neither. He was printing out pages from FI’s just-closed case.
While the pages were printing, he was on his iPad, reading the latest issue of Sound on Sound magazine. The software review of Audio Detracktor was compelling. The reviewer described how it was developed by three of genius college students—a math whiz, a computer geek and a musical prodigy. Audio Detracktor would analyze an audio file, separating the component tracks and instruments into layers. Each isolated layer could be played independently, giving the listener the ability to hear insignificant sounds in a rich recording. Sound on Sound had written about experimenting with Eric Clapton’s “Layla,” Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula” and Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” They were even able to isolate the sound of a flying guitar pick bouncing off the floor. Guitarists would often lose their picks in midperformance, which is why they always carried extras with them. But to actually hear the sound of a tiny plastic piece hitting the ground? Awesome.
Just as Ryan was about to swipe to the next page, his iPhone began vibrating in his pocket, reminding him of a scheduled meeting. Glancing at his calendar entry, he scowled at its purpose. Interview. Emma Stirling. Another teenybopper receptionist he had to talk to.
He understood Casey’s decision to establish a more professional office environment, as well as to get some help answering the phones and doing odds and ends. But he’d lobbied strongly for a virtual assistant, aka software, installed on one of their servers. A virtual assistant was smart, predictable, not female and never took a coffee or bathroom break.
The perfect receptionist.
Casey and Claire had overruled him. They felt a personal touch was needed. A flesh-and-blood human being, not a machine. Marc was indifferent, although he saw the value of both. And Patrick had been married long enough to know when to avoid a losing situation.
Ryan’s pocket buzzed again. Time to stop procrastinating and get this over with. Full of attitude, he marched upstairs ready to meet and nix Emma Stirling.
* * *
The rest of the team was already congregated in the second floor’s main conference room, pouring coffee and settling down around the sweeping oval conference table.
Marc took a gulp of black coffee and eyed Ryan. “Nice of you to join us.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “You look thrilled to be here.”
Ryan scowled. “You know how I feel about this. I was about to do something useful—like order a cool state-of-the-art app while I was preparing the case wrap-up. Instead, I’m here, ready to meet another substandard candidate.”
“Great attitude.” Claire walked over just in time to hear Ryan’s statement. “Did it ever occur to you that we might find a white elephant? There are still a few of those out there, you know.”
“Is that a prediction, Clairevoyant?” He loved to get at her with that nickname he’d coined.
“No.” She shot him a don’t-get-me-started look. “It’s an optimistic fact.”
Patrick was already seated, scratching Hero’s ears. He glanced over at them. “Play nice, kids. We have a reputation for professionalism to uphold.”
“Yes, we do.” Casey seated herself at the head of the table. “And, like it or not, we’re going to eventually have to hire someone. My standards are as high as yours, Ryan. Maybe higher. But I’m not giving up. This place is not going to continue as chaos central.”
“I hear you.” Ryan got himself some coffee and turned to peruse the group. “So should we do rock, paper, scissors to decide who’s going downstairs to let this one in?”
“I can handle that electronically, Ryan.” An invisible computerized voice echoed from everywhere in the room, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling video screens began to glow. A long green line formed across each panel, pulsing from left to right, bending into the contours of the voice panel.
“Good idea, Yoda,” Ryan replied. “Disarm the Hirsch pad when the doorbell rings and advise our job candidate to come upstairs. That alone should scare the shit out of her.”
Casey couldn’t help but smile at Ryan’s assessment. As for Yoda, Ryan’s extraordinary artificial intelligence system, he’d become an honorary FI team member. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that he wasn’t human. Then again, he’d been built by Ryan, who was very human. Bottom line? Ryan was a genius and Yoda was omniscient.
“Has everyone reviewed this candidate’s application?” Casey asked.
“Yup.” Marc was his usual straightforward self. “She sounds like a juvenile delinquent who never did hard time.”
“She sounds like a kid who needs a chance,” Claire chimed in. “She was bounced from foster home to foster home and spent a lot of time on the streets.”
“I have to agree,” Patrick said. “I know she’s got a juvie record, and that would normally turn me right off. But in this case—her parents died in a plane crash when she was eight. There were no relatives to take her in. So she spent ten years in the system. That’s tough.”
“And we’re not exactly squeaky clean ourselves,” Marc commented drily. He glanced at Patrick. “Other than you, Special Agent Lynch.”
“Not so much anymore,” Patrick retorted. “You’ve corrupted me.”
The whole group chuckled.
“Yeah, we’re the maverick investigators,” Ryan said, coining a phrase from an article written about them. “So, if this girl has a brain, I’m willing to cut her some slack.”
“Some slack?” Casey repeated, shooting Ryan a look. “I’m hoping you’ll do more than that.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. I still think a virtual assistant would be the best choice.” Ryan held up both palms to ward off oncoming arguments. “But I’ve accepted that I’ve been overruled. So let’s get this show on the road.”
Right on cue, the doorbell sounded.
“Applicant number twenty-seven has arrived,” Yoda announced.
“Punctual.” Casey glanced at her watch. “Okay, Yoda, go ahead and let her in.” She interlaced her fingers on the table in front of her. “Oh, and, Yoda? Leave out the applicant number when you announce her. Just stick to her name. Applicant twenty-six nearly took off when you made that reference. Let’s not scare off applicant twenty-seven. It’s starting to sound like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and each one of them is it. Either that, or we’re looking for perfection and can’t find it.”
“That would be accurate,” Yoda pointed out.
“True, but we don’t want to intimidate the girl before she even gets upstairs.”
“Very well, Casey. Name only.”
Yoda’s words were punctuated by the beeping sound of the alarm system as he disarmed it.
*
