Maybe the mercs who had wiped out Kot’eh? Sure, he might be able to find them, but what were they going to say? In all likelihood they had no idea who’d hired them. As long as the price was right, they tended not to worry about those kinds of details.

That left the technology itself. While he was far from convinced that the Afghans’ reported odd behavior had anything to do with the Merge—or for that matter even existed—it was an intriguing theory. His team had been so focused on exploiting the Merge’s hundreds of obvious capabilities, they hadn’t had much time to investigate what they didn’t know about it.

How was it developed? The human brain was the most complicated thing in the known universe and notoriously difficult to model. Massive testing must have been done but no one thought about that any more than they thought about how their new phone was developed. Was it possible that Dresner had decided to test the military unit in a war zone? Again, doubtful, but not completely out of the question. If the man was anything, he was thorough.

And what about Christian Dresner? Smith had read everything the government and media had on him, which wasn’t much. Why would it be? Digging through the trash cans and hacked phones of supermodels and movies stars was a hell of a lot more interesting than putting a microscope on a sixty-odd-year-old recluse who went around trying to make the world a better place. While admittedly intimidating, Dresner slotted in on the sinister scale somewhere between a baby seal and ice cream.

Smith spotted a muddy side road with an old truck waiting to pull out and he checked his iPhone again, confirming that it wasn’t his turn despite the fact that the Merge was still painting his path yellow. The trailhead was another 5.4 miles.

Thoughts of Dresner were just reestablishing themselves in his mind when the truck darted out in front of him. Smith slammed on the brakes, but with the slick road and lack of traction control, the rear of the Triumph slid out and bounced off the larger vehicle’s front bumper with the heartrending sound of crumpling steel.

He tried to compensate, but what was left of his tires’ grip disappeared when he hit the muddy shoulder. A moment later the passenger door slammed into a tree and threw him into what was left of the console he’d spend hours building.

And then all he could hear was the light rain on the crumpled soft top. That is until his own voice drowned it out.

“Son of a bitch!”