STRATEGIC BEHAVIOR (REVISING)

CHAPTER 4: EUTOPIA

The white noise of a jet engine matched the sleek white interior of the craft in which she found herself when she came to.

Norma sat restrained in one of two smart-polymer recliners. Her head lolled. She tossed disheveled hair from her face. She remembered being zip-tied by Nils, the bio-AI from the lobby of the yurt. After that, she had blanked out. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but she prayed that by now Chaz was using his influencer wiles to get to her.

Mr. Betts entered the cabin from the cockpit. Dressed in a fresh blue suit that hid evidence of his gunshot wound, he settled in the opposite chair, and he leaned forward to inject an unknown substance into her arm. Then he cut her loose.

"The antidote. It will make you feel better faster," he said.

Norma touched a finger to her swollen lip. "Are you underestimating me?"

Her captor shifted position with a quiet laugh.

"Care to eat?" He gestured at the glowing refreshment wall inset beside her. Norma studied bubble bottles and bagasse-wrapped sandwiches through the glass door. Suddenly, her stomach lurched, however, and he nudged a wastebasket toward her. "Maybe not such a good idea yet. While the antidote flushes your system, let's discuss why you're here."

She crossed her arms and gave him a blank stare.

"Even for an Enhanced Intel," Mr. Betts opened his foldable tablet, reading from her file, "you're an anomaly, Ms. Reyes. You completed doctorates in electrical engineering and software programming when you were just seventeen years old. By the time you began working for the government, you were already well on your way to earning a burn notice."

"They were afraid of me."

"Hm. Never let them know enough to be scared." His inscrutable eyes swept to hers. "Unless it's too late."

"Lo tendré en cuenta, gracias. I'll keep that in mind. What's Operation Pleroma I?" She recalled the mission he had shown her before drugging and forcing her onto this transport.

From the briefcase at his feet, Mr. Betts removed a file card. As he slid it over her App Center, his scent cloyed the air, he was so close. "While we're on the subject, thank you for not making me kill you," he murmured.

She gave him a blank stare. "I was just following orders."

He chuckled dryly as he backed away. "You, of all people, understand choice is a grand illusion. Within the Department of Defense, you oversaw behavioral programming for military grade AI when you installed verboten software."

"My Freewill program," Norma confessed.

"Bingo." Using his tablet to transmit and control the display, Mr. Betts illuminated her retinal insert with a topographical world map. Dozens of location markers blinked, but he didn't bother telling her which was their destination. "For the past twenty years, a coalition of international government agencies have been developing climate change resistant cities. They are yet unpopulated. Pleroma I is such a classified location wherein ten-thousand bio-Artificial Intels await onboarding."

"Aww, how cute," she said in a snarky tone. "You're building a tiny army, and you want to use my software to make your toy soldiers more fun to play with."

"You see a military operation? I see cookie-cutter homes, a school, even a church," he said.

A line of annoyance etched her forehead, but she studied the schematics in depth, thirty-five square miles encircled by a barrier. Rather than gawk at the blueprint to Armageddon, she wanted to plot her escape. Would Chaz think to apply pressure to his crony politician friends? If only her ex could get the right people asking the right questions about her disappearance.