Page 42 of Maverick

“Don’t be so self-deprecating. We all know who you are. You’re Stephanie. A woman who was cloned from other people’s DNA. So what? You’re human, you’re beautiful, you’re brilliant. None of the rest matters.”

Stephanie set her fork down and stared at the others. Turning, she looked up at him.

“Let me ask you something, Braxton. Where are your parents?”

“Right there,” he said, pointing to the table.

“And your siblings?”

“He’s right there, obviously. We’re twins.”

“And your friends.”

“Here,” he said, grinding his teeth together.

“And you know your grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, all of it. You know them all because you have a history. I do not. I don’t have a history. I have someone else’s history and some vague notes left in a laboratory about a strange beaker and an experiment gone wrong.

“I’m stuck in a continuous loop of trying to figure out who I am because I don’t have a history. Whether it makes you uncomfortable or not, I am a freaky DNA experiment. So I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t criticize me for stating the obvious about my obscure history.”

Everyone at the table raised their brows, surprised by her long speech.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. But you do have a history. It’s you. It’s who you are. You might not be able to see it yet, but every step of your childhood, your existence created a history. Just because you don’t know your parents or grandparents doesn’t mean it’s not there. We have a lot of people here who never met their parents, and believe me, some of them are grateful they didn’t.”

Stephanie stared at him, tears filling her eyes as she nodded at him. She gently pushed the plate back from her, looking at the other women at the table.

“Forgive me. I’m suddenly very tired.” She stood quickly, leaving the cafeteria as the others just stared at him. He knew he’d overstepped, but he was also trying to tell her that none of that shit mattered to him. He didn’t do it very well. He knew that now. In fact, he rarely said anything the right way.

His intention was never to hurt her or make her feel bad for stating how she felt. Now, he had to apologize.

“Fuck.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“We deployed the AI ad,” said Katelyn, walking toward the others. “Now, we wait and see if anyone clicks on it and, more importantly, if they respond to it.”

“We’ll be able to track their location and figure out in real time where they are. It only takes milliseconds,” said Chelsea.

“Luke? I got a call this morning requesting a conference call video meeting with the Deputy Director of the CIA,” said Georgie. “Enzo Bruloni has been an issue for us here at G.R.I.P. for a while. He replaced the old deputy director about two years ago and has been increasingly demanding about contracts and exclusivity, which we refuse to give him.”

“What does he want now, Georgie?” he asked.

“He wants to discuss a technology that a contract employee was working on for us and suddenly disappeared. He says we are in violation of federal law if we’re hiding her,” smirked Georgie. “I thought you might want to be on this call with me.”

“Oh, I damn sure do,” said Luke. “I’m going to assume that we never offered a contract on the technology, never offered exclusivity, and probably never gave any detail to him about what Katelyn was working on. Did I assume correctly?”

“You bet your sweet ass you did,” smirked Georgie.

“I want all of you in the room but only Georgie and me on the screen. AJ? Make sure you’re recording the whole damn thing but prevent him from recording at his end. The last thing we need is him manipulating anything with some other version of AI.”

“Got it,” he nodded.

“Hiro? What do we know about Enzo Bruloni?”

“Nothing yet. I’m working on it, but there’s nothing that comes up immediately on him. No military records, no tax records, nothing.”

“What the fuck?”

“He’s a spook. He could have easily hidden all of it if he wanted to,” said Hiro.

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