“That is, indeed, an interesting development,” Madam Director said.
Daggert stood in front of her, her desk separating them. He had brought up her up to speed on his conversation with Emily Winslow.
“Is it possible?” Daggert asked. “Could Edwin and Patricia Conroy have been working on something without telling us? A dog with that capability?”
“It is possible,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think they could have done that work here, without our knowing it. They must have set up a lab in their house. How devious of them if it’s true. If we hadn’t already killed them, I’d want it done immediately. What do you suppose their plan was?”
“Maybe—just maybe, they were going to surprise you with their new development,” Daggert said, “but I think it’s more likely they were going to sell it to the highest bidder.”
“Of course, the other possibility,” Madam Director said, “is that the girl is bluffing.”
“Agreed. But in the meantime, I’ve cleared that end of The Institute of personnel. If the dog does detonate, damage will be minimal, except in the cell itself.”
“There is a way to get close to the dog and assess its capabilities without setting it off,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Timothy,” she said.
“Timothy?”
She nodded. “His hearing is so acute, Timothy should be able to hear the components operating within the animal. Just as within any laptop, there are cooling mechanisms that create an almost imperceptible whirring sound. Put Timothy in the room and let him listen. If he hears nothing, we know the girl is an inventive liar.”
Daggert nodded. “And what if the girl is not an inventive liar, and the dog detects Timothy trying to listen in on his operating system?”
Madam Director pursed her lips momentarily, then made two fists and held them in the air. She opened her fingers suddenly and said, “Kaboom. No more Timothy. But we’re already gearing up to make more just like him.”
Daggert had not always enjoyed his time with his tiny partner, but he wasn’t sure he wished him that fate.
Madam Director was not finished. “The only reason we have the girl and the other dog here is to lure back H-1094 and the Conroy boy. Once that’s done, it doesn’t matter what happens to any of them.”
Daggert stood there a moment before finally saying, “I’ll keep you posted.”
Back in the control room, Daggert found Wilkins again.
“Watson,” he said, rolling a chair over and sitting down next to him.
Even if Wilkins had his voice, he was too tired to correct Daggert.
“You said you had something back from that straw I had you test?”
Wilkins struggled to speak. “I did the test. I got two hits.”
“Two hits?”
Wilkins nodded. He called up the report on to his screen. Daggert found himself looking at things he did not understand. Helixes, bar graphs, charts.
“What’s this?”
Wilkins waved away the question. “You wouldn’t understand,” he whispered.
“What did you say? No, don’t try to talk louder,” Daggert said, glancing over this shoulder. “You never know where Timothy will be.”
Wilkins pointed to the screen and whispered. “You gave me a straw he used. I found his DNA.”
Daggert nodded. “Right. I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to see if you came up with that on your own. I guess it’s somewhat reassuring to find out he’s a real boy, and not some advanced form of artificial intelligence. Now, what else you got?”
Wilkins pointed and said, “This.”
“What?”
“This.”
“Have you thought of sucking on some cough drops? That might help.”
Wilkins kept pointing to the screen and a line of text reading: “50% match.”
“So what does that mean? You found someone with fifty percent of matching DNA?”
Wilkins nodded.
“So what would that be? A parent? His mother or father?”
Wilkins nodded again.
“So one of his parents is actually in our database?” Daggert asked. The Institute was able to link in with databases all over the world. If there was someone out there—anywhere—whose DNA profile was in a computer, The Institute would be able to find them.
Wilkins nodded yes to Daggert’s last question. He pointed to the screen one more time.
There were details about the DNA match.
Age: 37
Sex: Male
Employer: The Institute.
“Wait, what?” Daggert said. “It’s someone here? In this building?
Wilkins pointed to the last line. Daggert leaned in, then blinked several times, not sure he was seeing things properly.
“Daggert?” he said, reading his own name. “The match is with…me?”
Wilkins struggled to be able to say just three words. “He’s your son.”
Daggert stared at the screen, disbelieving.
Was it possible? Could Timothy really be…
And then he thought of a woman named Diane, from seven years earlier. The woman he’d left behind. She never said a thing. If she had told him…
I’m a father?
Timothy is my son?
Daggert was overcome by the news. First of all, he was just plain shocked, almost to the point of being dizzy. But he also felt…pride? Yes, that was it. He was proud that he was a father. His chest seemed to swell under his suit jacket.
But then he felt something else.
Anger started to build within him.
How dare they do that to my boy? How dare they turn him into a…thing?
But it was even worse than that.
To test Pepper’s capabilities, Madam Director was willing to risk having Timothy blown to bits.