Page 84 of Wild Sentinel

"What kind of case are you investigating?"

"It's complicated. Kidnapping and murder."

"Wouldn't have nothing to do with that flash of light I saw a little bit ago, would it?"

I just played it cool and shook my head. "Nope."

"I'm telling you, it's aliens. They're about to invade. That was a test strike. That or the government cooked up some new weapon. I'm not sure which. But tell you what, son. Start preparing now. Get yourself a bunker. Doomsday is coming.”

"You can just drop me off up here," I said, pointing to the strip center where the coffee shop was located.

He pulled to the shoulder. I hopped out and thanked him for the ride.

"You heed my warning, son. The end times is near."

I hoped he was wrong.

I closed the door, smiled, and waved as he drove off, heading east.

Cars zipped by on the highway.

I trotted across the parking lot and joined the others in the coffee shop.

They had free Wi-Fi and pretty good coffee.

I took a seat, and with a look let Jack know I’d taken care of the truck.

Adam banged away on his laptop. He reconnected to the network once again, entered his credentials, then plugged in the HSMs simultaneously. With a few taps of the keys, he was ready to try again.

"What are you going to do?" Brooke asked.

"Push a firmware update. It’s the one area the AI can’t overwrite. I’ve designed the update to look like the previous version.”

"What's that going to do?”

"With this firmware installed, it will see any changes to the original code as malicious. All of the new code written by the AI to patch vulnerabilities will be seen as hostile. With any luck, it will deem itself a threat and start dismantling the system."

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Adam frowned. “I’m not sure of anything at this point.”

He tapped the keys and uploaded the firmware. The progress bar displayed on the screen again. It finished in a few seconds.

49

Adam’s eyes rounded with surprise. “Holy shit!”

“Is that good or bad?” Brooke asked.

“I think it’s working.” He spun the laptop around and showed her the screen.

Brooke squinted at the stream of code that scrolled across the screen, looking confused. “I don’t speak nerd.”

Adam gave her a flat look. “It’s dismantling itself and sending the drones into deep space,” he said with excitement.

“You’re sure about that?”

“Positive.”