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She was pointing to a different screen, on the other monitor. I punched it up and enlarged it.
“Those are just the license plate scans,” I told her. “I already cross-referenced them. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to access the personal data of millions of drivers,” I added bitterly. “They leave this stuff on servers with almost zero security—”
“THAT ONE!”
Harper shouted so loudly I almost fell out of my chair! She was pointing at a particular part of the screen. I clicked to make it even bigger.
“TLNGRD,” I repeated, letter by letter. “What’s it—”
“Telengard!” she screamed. “It’s Telengard!”
Harper leapt from her chair and began pacing the room in a tight circle. She looked frantic and euphoric yet also vehemently angry, somehow simultaneously.
“Holy fucking shit it’s HIM!” she cried. “It’s been him the whole time!”
“Who?”
“Telengard!” she repeated again. “He’s this guy… this other programmer, who’s always helped me! He’s been my friend, my mentor, my sounding board. I’ve known him for like… like…”
“Since you started on your project?” I theorized.
She reached out and shoved the chair over. Her hands were fists.
“YES!”
My fingers flew wildly over the keyboard. In no time at all, I had the driver’s license associated with the license plate filling the screen.
“Bennett M. Papas,” I read aloud. “Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.”
A man stared back at us from the monitor, his face frozen impassively in usual driver’s license fashion. He was middle-aged and slightly overweight, with a full head of spiky white hair and wire-rimmed glasses.
In truth, he looked very plain. Like an accountant, or a math teacher, or maybe a—
“Oh my God, I’m such an IDIOT!” Harper screamed. She had both hands on the side of her head now, buried in her hair. “How could I be this stupid!? How could I be so blind?”
“Hey,” I interjected. “Come on, now…”
“He knows everything!” she went on. “The concepts, the coding, the prototype design. I showed him so much of the project, whenever I was stuck. He even sent me some of the haptics!”
She threw back her head and roared. I grabbed hold of her shoulders.
“Harper, we know who he is, now!” I said, forcing her to look at me. “We know where he is!”
Her face was bright red. Her eyes burned with rage.
“You need to get it together. Brooklyn’s ten hours away, and he’s got almost a day’s head start.”
The anger stayed, but reason slowly returned. Harper glanced back at the screen, at the man in the driver’s license photo. She glared at him with such intensity it made my blood run cold.
“Let’s go then,” she seethed. “We’re wasting time.”
I grabbed for my phone. There were a million things to do and not much time to get them done.
But first, I had to get the others back here.
~ 43 ~
HARPER
