Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Vanguard leans back in his chair, and for a long moment, I think he’s going to shut me down entirely, give me the corporate non-answer and move on. Instead, he does something unexpected.
He laughs, a short, humorless sound.
“You really don’t pull punches, do you?”
“I warned you at the gala.”
“You did.” He runs a hand through his hair, disrupting the careful styling, and suddenly he looks less like a propaganda poster and more like a soldier with PTSD. “The honest answer is that I wasn’t thinking about much when I joined the program. I wasn’t thinking about much of anything except…”
He stops, swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Except?” I prompt, gentler than I intended.
“Except that I’d just lost someone, and I wanted to be useful. To matter. To do something that might actually help people instead of—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening. “The program offered me a chance to be more than what I was. I took it. Whether that was the right choice…” He shrugs, looking momentarily helpless. “I ask myself that sometimes.”
Rachel jumps in before I can follow up. “And he’s done incredible work since. The lives saved, the disasters averted—Vanguard has been instrumental in America’s recovery. He’s a symbol of hope for millions.”
“I didn’t ask about millions,” I say to her dismissively while I hold his gaze. “I asked about him.”
Something passes between us, a current of understanding, maybe, like he sees something in me he shouldn’t. The masks we wear…
“Next question,” Vanguard says quietly.
He wants a break. I give him one.
“Your senses. You mentioned they’re enhanced. Just how enhanced are we talking?”
He seems relieved at the change of subject. “Enhanced enough that I can hear your heartbeat from across this table.”
I freeze. Oh, that’s just bloody fantastic. He can probably hear it hammering right now like a goddamn drum.
“That must be overwhelming,” I manage to say. “All that sensory input.”
“It was at first. I had to learn to filter, though it took a lot of practice. I learned to focus on what matters, learned to recognize sounds of danger, calls for help, and tune out the rest.” His eyes crinkle slightly at the corners. “For example, right now, I’m choosing not to listen to the conversation happening the floor below us about someone named Gerald’s divorce proceedings.”
I can’t help but smile. “Poor Gerald.”
“His wife is apparently taking the boat.”
“Tragic.”
We’re both grinning now, and I’m acutely aware Rachel and Jason are watching this exchange with growing alarm. Two people who are supposed to be adversaries, journalist and subject, suddenly slipping into something that looks dangerously like rapport.
But I can’t afford to let myself get complacent.
I force myself back on track. “What about your hearing range? If someone called for help from across the city…”
“If they were within certain parameters, I’d hear them. If they were loud enough, or if I was listening for it.” His face falls. “That’s the hard part: knowing that, somewhere out there, someone’s always calling for help, and I can’t hear everything at once or be everywhere at once.”
For now. I think of Project Prometheus.
“How do you choose then? When there are multiple emergencies, multiple people in danger, how do you decide who to save?”
“I don’t.” His voice is flat. “The algorithm does.”
I blink. “Algorithm?”
Rachel makes a warning noise, but Vanguard waves her off. “There’s a complex system in place. Monitors emergency channels, calculates severity, proximity, likelihood of civilian casualties, and so on. It prioritizes, and I respond to whatever is at the top of the list.”
“So you don’t choose at all. The system chooses for you.”
That’s one thing I didn’t expect to hear. If this article actually does run, this will be quite the scoop.
“The system optimizes. I execute.” He says it like he’s reciting something he’s been told a thousand times, like he’s trying to convince himself it’s true. “It’s more efficient that way. Removes human bias from the equation.”
“Removes human judgment too.”
“Same thing, according to some people.”
“But not according to you.”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The tension in his shoulders says everything.
“I think,” Rachel announces loudly, “that we should take a short break. Vanguard has another engagement in—”
“I don’t, actually.” He doesn’t look at her, instead keeping his blue eyes on me. “My schedule’s clear until three.”
“There are still parameters we need to discuss—”
“Rachel.” His voice is quiet but firm, the voice of someone who knows he can make people obey him, even if he doesn’t always exercise that power. “Take a break. Jason too. Ms. Baxter and I will continue.”
Rachel opens her mouth then closes it.
“Fifteen minutes,” she says finally, in a tone that suggests she’ll be standing right outside the door with her ear pressed to the glass. “I’ll have Tyler bring up some coffee.”
Rachel and Jason file out, leaving me alone with America’s superhero in a glass-walled conference room forty-seven floors above Manhattan. The city sprawls beneath us, and I’m suddenly very aware of how quiet it is. How close he is. How his eyes haven’t left my face since his handlers walked out the door.