Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

“He’ll wait,” Lexi said, referring to whatever hot guy she’d picked up between the time she dropped Lexi at the airport and now. “They all do. What is this app all about?”

“It’s an information-gathering app. A highly secured and encrypted tool. Did you read the—?”

“Yes. You might be a brilliant designer, Rubi, but you’re not the best technical writer.”

“Couldn’t possibly be the reader, could it?”

Rubi whispered something to whomever she was with. Fabric rustled.

“Okay,” she said, “it’s not a complicated application. It uses technology hundreds of other apps out there already use, called augmented reality. You know the ones where you use your phone’s camera to view the surrounding area and the app overlays information on top of the picture—like neighborhood restaurants and the type of food they serve or gas stations with their prices.”

“Sure.”

“This app is exactly the same, only I’m gathering different information from the targets.”

“Targets?” Lexi frowned at the screen. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. How is the NSA going to use this?”

“I can’t say. That’s why it’s called Secret Squirrel.”

Lexi heaved a sigh as fatigue settled in. This day had been almost twenty hours long. “Fine.”

“For testing purposes, the prototype simply collects cell phone numbers. So just start the app and scan the area. Where there is a cell phone, the number will register on your screen.

“Then, just call the numbers by tapping on them to make sure the person possessing the phone on your screen is the person who answers that phone in reality. That’s it.”

“But, what am I going to say? I can’t just hang up on them. They’ll have my number, they’ll call me back—”

“Your number is both blocked and encrypted. Their numbers have no identifying information attached, so unless you were to go to crazy lengths to get it, their privacy is retained. I don’t need any lawsuits. If you get confused about who you’ve contacted, you can assign tags to their numbers. That way you’re not contacting one person multiple times by accident.”

“Still…that’s kind of uncomfortable.”

“You never made crank calls as a kid, did you?”

“We didn’t have a phone when I was a kid.”

Or a car. Or air-conditioning. Or, often, food. Heat and water had been sketchy too. Medical and dental had been covered through welfare. Lexi had told Rubi she’d grown up poor but no more. That was another one of their opposite traits—Rubi’s father was a multibillionaire, and Rubi was a millionaire in her own right. She’d made her share of the money modeling, but far more from her IT consulting as a programmer and these crazy apps she created. Lexi had funneled all her modeling income into LaCroix Designs—her real passion and the only reason she’d modeled to begin with.

“Can I text them instead?” she asked.

“As long as you can be sure the number you see on the screen corresponds to the person holding the phone, that’s fine. The data is transmitted to me through the app, and I’ll analyze it on my end to make sure the program is pulling in what I need, the way I need it from the radio signals being used. All I want to do right now is test the app under different circumstances and make sure it’s targeting accurately.”

Lexi glanced around the terminal at the unsuspecting travelers whose privacy she was about to breach. With the app open, she lifted the phone toward the lobby. Several people sitting nearby appeared on the screen. Within half a second, phone numbers popped into view above their heads like thought bubbles.

“This is kinda creepy,” Lexi said.

“This is our national security at work.”

“That makes it even creepier. I like your other apps better. The ones that do frivolous everyday tasks or create games to reach a goal or—”

Biker Boy strolled around the corner, an open magazine in one hand, a large coffee cup from one of the restaurants nearby in the other. He had his duffle slung over one wide shoulder.

Lexi’s breath caught.

“Look at it this way, Lex,” Rubi said. “If NSA buys this, you will have aided our national security. If they don’t, we’ll do something frivolous and fun with it. Deal?”

When Lexi looked down at her screen, Biker Boy appeared in the viewfinder. And, pop, pop, so did two little white bubbles above his head, both with local phone numbers.

Holy shit.