Extinction Machine Read Online Free Page B

the overall task force. Yes, Church had put some assets—like Top, Bunny, and me—on the ground, but what the president really wanted was MindReader. Church had obliged, with reservations. All the task force’s data was being run through MindReader in hopes that its pattern recognition software would find something. A fingerprint, a lead, anything. Those requests were funneled through Bug and his geek squad. Church declined, however, to allow anyone from outside the DMS to even look at MindReader, let alone play with it. That’s no joke—MindReader was Church’s personal property and he guarded it with the ferocity of a dragon. We all knew what kind of damage someone could do with that system. As it was, only Bug had total access.
    I said, “After today, are we going to be cut a bigger slice of this?”
    “Is that what you want?” asked Church.
    “Not sure,” I admitted. I could feel Top and Bunny studying me. “Part of me does. Part of me wants to have a more meaningful discussion with agents Henckhouser and Spinlicker.”
    “I believe Dr. Sanchez has frequently spoken out against the need for revenge.”
    “It’s not revenge,” I lied. “There are some, um … technical questions I’d like answered.”
    “Such as?”
    “They shook off a lot of damage. Physical blows, hard falls, gunshots.”
    “That’s right,” said Bunny, speaking up for the first time. “When I patted them down I didn’t feel any heavy body armor, found microthin stuff. Those guys took hits they shouldn’t have been able to. We need that stuff, and we need to know where they got it.”
    “Maybe we’re looking at a new generation of body armor,” I said. “The Canadians have been playing with some ultralight stuff.”
    Church grunted. “Let me make a few calls to some friends I have in the industry.”
    We all smiled at one another. Church always seems to have a “friend in the industry,” no matter what industry happens to be involved in our investigations. He can make a call and suddenly we have whatever we need. Circus tent to use as a field biohazard containment command center? No problem. Special effects experts from Industrial Light and Magic? Sure. Next year’s prototype deep-water submersible? Pick your color. Church never explains how he happens to know so many people in so many critical industries, but as long as he’s one degree of separation away from whatever helps us do our jobs, then it’s all cool with me.
    “What else?”
    “They were strong,” said Top. “Even with gunshot wounds they were fast and strong. Maybe we can hijack the lab results on the blood work, see what kind of pills these boys are popping.”
    “I’d like to see a DNA report, too,” I said. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve run into freaky-deaky gene therapy.”
    “Noted,” said Church. “So, am I to infer that your only reasons for wanting to encounter these agents again is for the opportunity to take a full set of forensic samples?”
    His voice was as dry as desert sand.
    “Sure,” I said. “If anything else occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”
    Church didn’t respond to that.
    “So, again, I ask,” I said, “are we going to take a bigger role or not?”
    There was a long silence. So long, in fact that I thought the call had dropped.
    Finally Church said, “Actually, as of now we are off the case.”
    “What? Why?”
    Another pause. “There are two answers to that, Captain. The official answer is that now that Congress has doubled the task force budget they will be able to pay overtime for more FBI and NSA agents to participate in the investigation.”
    “That sounds like bureaucratic bullshit. What’s the real reason?”
    “No one will come out and say it,” murmured Church, “but some off-the-record sources have informed me that the task force has concluded that cyber-attacks of this level of sophistication could only be accomplished by a computer with MindReader’s capabilities.”
    I nearly drove