What he wasn’t saying was that anyone with the power to delete those files also had the power to fire him. Or worse. Before she’d known the real stakes, she’d had to consider what she was risking with her investigation—the livelihoods of everyone in this building. “Of course you do. We need to buckle down and get through the next couple of weeks and then we’ll deal with whatever we need to deal with.”
“Yes.” Naman let out a sigh of relief and moved to his laptop. “It’s been hard since we started testing the systems. I swear there must be something going around, and I would like to complain about the timing. The last thing I need is every member of my team going down to some weird virus.”
“Virus?”
Naman started pulling up his files. “Yes. It seems to be going around this part of the building, but it doesn’t seem to be terrible. I had two engineers go down with nausea and dizziness. The same thing happened with one of our admins this morning, and two more last week.”
“When did you begin testing on the audio?” She hated to think that people were getting sick because of the project, but she had to consider it after what she’d learned from Drake about Havana Syndrome.
Naman stopped, his gaze coming up. “We’ve tested all along, but we’ve been testing the vocal components the last couple of weeks.”
“Where do you do that?” They wouldn’t test it in the open.
“In one of the labs,” he replied. “We have soundproofing in a couple of them. It cuts down on outside noise so we can isolate Clarke’s voice.” He frowned. “You think there is a connection?”
She thought there were all kinds of connections she’d missed. “Have you done any of the testing yourself?”
“No, I’ve been working on another part of the project. Madeline, they’re not working on what I would consider an important part of this project. It’s literally choosing which voice to give Clarke. They’re modifying certain tones to be more soothing. It’s the cupholders on the car.”
Which meant they would be pretty and overlooked by anyone who was smart enough to figure out what was being done. The “cupholders” would be the perfect place to hide a bomb because they were innocuous. “Could you send me whatever you have on that particular project? I’d like to take a peek.”
“Of course. It’s your AI we’re giving a voice to.”
“I’d also like to talk to anyone who’s been in those labs.”
“Well, it can’t be the labs. I can give you a list of who’s been sick, but I know at least two of them shouldn’t have been in the labs. It’s got to be a bug.” Naman started typing again. “Now this is one of the protocols I’m trying to rebuild.”
He turned the screen her way and she got to work.
It was going to be an interesting day.
Chapter Ten
“Thank you.” Deke took the coffee from what appeared to be Nolan Byrne’s personal barista. As they’d walked through the building Byrne referred to as his “campus,” Byrne had pointed out all the amenities available. They had their own cafeteria, gym, childcare. There was a whole floor of the twenty-five-story building called the “chill zone” where his employees could hang out and destress.
McKay-Taggart had something similar except it was pretty much where employees could punch each other in the face.
“Will there be anything else, Nolan?” The barista was young and like many of the employees here had a smile on her face and seemed to worship her boss.
It was Stepford Wives weird, and he was happy Maddie hadn’t bought into the sunshine Byrne seemed to blow up his employees’ asses.
“I think we’re good now, Cindy. Thank you,” Byrne said as he sat back.
They were in Byrne’s office, a massive space complete with a pinball machine and a full-sized video game console, and this living room area where the man apparently entertained clients. Cindy strode back out of the office where she would pass through the elegant reception area with the three assistants her boss employed. He’d explained they all handled different parts of his life.
Deke got the feeling he was about to get to know a side of Byrne’s life not a lot of people knew existed.
“So Maddie told me you’ve been topping her for the last year or so.” Byrne grimaced slightly. “Am I allowed to talk about this? I waited until we were alone. I don’t mean to come on too strong. I can do that when I’m enthusiastic about a thing. I’m incredibly interested in the lifestyle.”
“I’m absolutely fine talking about it,” Deke assured him. If there was one thing he was confident about it was his ability to sit in a chair and talk about shit most men wouldn’t. Years of therapy had taught him how to do it. In some ways, D/s was therapy for him, too. Having control over his sexuality, being able to explore it, had helped understand the sides of himself he would rather hide away. A memory of Maddie asking him to talk about the worst time of his life flashed through his head. She never had to know about it. He’d dealt with what had happened to him, and she never had to hear a word about that time.