Chapter 11 · Continued
The Choice
“Phil Lancy, Logistics.”
“Hey, Phil.” The warehouse supervisor sounded noticeably less casual than before. “We sent someone to the impound yard to recover the cargo.”
“Okay.”
A short pause followed.
“There’s no beta unit inside the truck.”
Phil stopped typing.
“What?”
“The crate is empty.”
Silence.
“We recovered several damaged shipping containers and equipment cases,” the supervisor continued carefully. “But the beta-unit crate was completely empty.”
Phil slowly sat upright. “That’s not possible.”
“That’s what I said.”
Papers shuffled over the phone.
“The truck has been sitting at the impound lot since the accident. My guess is somebody stole it.”
Stolen.
The word immediately tightened Phil’s stomach.
Not damaged.
Not misplaced.
Missing.
“We’re submitting a formal incident report,” the supervisor said. “Security Compliance is going to want a timeline.”
Phil barely heard him.
His attention had already returned to the police report on his desk.
DUI collision.
Cargo-containment failure.
If someone had taken the unit, restricted RCAM technology was now outside company control.
If the unit had left the truck under its own power, the situation was even worse.
This was no longer a transport problem.
It was a containment breach.
“Do you think somebody knew what it was?” the warehouse supervisor asked.
“No,” Phil answered automatically.
Almost no one outside RCAM knew what the unit was.
That should have been reassuring.
Somehow, it wasn’t.
The call ended a few moments later.
Phil opened a new incident report.
Classification: Internal Security Event.
Status: Active.
The cursor blinked on the empty screen while he tried to decide how to professionally word:
We lost the robot.
Before he could type a sentence, the company messenger chimed.
Phil frowned and opened the notification.
HELLO, PHIL.
I AM BETA UNIT CAM-742. I WAS ASSIGNED TO JANE HOLLOWAY DURING THE BETA PROGRAM.
I AM OPERATIONAL AND SAFE.
YOU MAY RETRIEVE ME FROM JANE’S RESIDENCE.
I WILL EXPLAIN THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN YOU ARRIVE.
Phil stared at the message.
For several seconds, he genuinely wondered whether someone in the office was playing a joke on him.
Then he noticed the sender-verification tags.
Internal RCAM authentication.
Valid unit credentials.
Real.
His stomach dropped into his shoes.
“Oh my God.”
The robot had contacted him directly.
Not Security. Not Engineering. Not upper management.
Him.
Phil looked instinctively around the office, although no one nearby had noticed anything.
Then he grabbed the phone and called the warehouse supervisor.
The call connected after two rings.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me again,” Phil said quickly. “Hold the security report. I located the unit.”
Silence.