Edge of Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

work was in her head.
     
      If anyone ever discovered that…
     
      She’d worked for Verdine Industries for more than a decade. This, the Elite Team lab, was the nucleus of VI’s long-term projects in core areas of artificial intelligence. Supposedly headed by Dr. Kirchner, but really overseen by Eden.
     
      The R&D department next door consisted of a hundred and fifty-some people, and their support staff. The rest of the employees in the building were admin, sales, and manufacturing. Verdine Industries was a multibillion-dollar corporation. They manufactured everything from home robots that cleaned and vacuumed floors, to innovative items for NASA, to high-tech robotic toys.
     
      The Elite Team had consisted of the three of them. Herself, Theo, and Marshall. Now there were two.
     
      The authorities suspected one of Verdine Industries’ rivals of the theft, but so far had no proof. The police had to be right on target; the killer, the thief, must be a competitor.
     
      But no one knew how they’d been able to bypass the security systems in order to get into the lab. No one, not even the United States government, could penetrate the complicated, sophisticated access system at the lab. Particularly this smaller lab.
     
      Yet, somehow, someone had.
     
      Theo’s death and the theft were an active case. Every now and then another alphabet soup government official would show up with more of the same questions. Eden and Marshall had no answers. She wished they did.
     
      She glanced around the brightly lit lab. She’d designed it herself and every aspect of the room usually brought a thrill of pride. This was normally the time of day she enjoyed most. When the day was just beginning and ripe with possibilities. When hours stretched before her, each one conceivably holding the key to something she hadn’t known the hour before.
     
      But Jason had been told to halt any further development of a replacement for Rex, pending the outcome of the investigation.
     
      Eden felt lost. Dr. Kirchner’s murder, and the theft of a decade’s worth of work, had changed her fundamentally, and nothing would ever be the same again. The lab would never be the same. She’d never again feel the peace and joy walking in here as she had done every morning for the past ten years.
     
      There had been breakthroughs made in this lab that no one but the three of them had known. Not even Jason himself knew the extent of their advances. And even Theo and Marshall didn’t know how much further Eden had gone on her own.
     
      The ramifications of such advanced robotic technology falling into the wrong hands were terrifying. She’d known pushing the AI envelope that far was dangerous. Known it, but kept on going past the point of no return. Because her damn curiosity had compelled her to keep striving for the holy grail of AI.
     
      The Rx793 robot they called “Rex” now had the capability of reasoning abstractly. Which allowed him to reason analogically and hierarchically. Rex was capable of interacting without benefit of communication.
     
      Marshall, a mechanical engineer, had designed the automated parts of Rex with 3-D geometry, and had spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours “playing” with the robot, teaching it human behaviors.
     
      Even he had no idea just how far she’d taken their creation, Eden thought, pressing a hand to her stomach. Forget about butterflies. She had pterodactyls swarming and dive-bombing inside her.
     
      And now someone else had Rex.
     
      All that someone needed to do was ask Rex the right questions. Oh, God—She felt sick to her stomach. No scientific advancement was worth a human’s life. She knew with every fiber of her being that Theo had died trying to protect the robot’s technology from falling into the wrong hands. He’d tried to warn her that the world wasn’t ready for such advancements. But she hadn’t listened.
     
      Her eyes stung. She’d already cried