Not that he was surprised—Zellerbach was a lifelong technology addict. There was very little of interest that he hadn’t bought and disassembled. In high school, his room had been piled with the carcasses of everything from Atari game consoles, to Rubik’s cubes, to VCRs. It was precisely this tendency, along with his two PhDs, that made him perfect for the job.

They entered a room in the back dominated by an enormous worktable and an even more enormous Cray computer.

Zellerbach dropped into the only chair and left them to lean against the back wall. “Now, why is it you’re here?”

Smith pointed to a Merge disassembled on the table. “That.”

His response came out in one long rush. “Isn’t it incredible? I mean, I knew Christian Dresner was a genius, but he always seemed to waste it on boring things like antibiotics and hearing aids. Who would have thought he had this in him? I’ve already got four apps in to Dresner for approval, but I haven’t heard back yet. One’s particularly sweet. It lets you—”

“What do you know about it, Marty?”

“The Merge? What do you mean?”

“You’ve taken it apart. What did you learn?”

“Oh, that. They sent me one for free because of my tech blog. Thought I’d have a closer look.”

“And?” Smith said, trying not to let his exasperation show. As he suspected, Zellerbach was just about due for another dose of his meds and was starting to lose focus. He’d get increasingly manic until he took a pill that would then cause him to descend into sluggishness. It was the brief span between those extremes when his incredible mental horsepower really shined.

“You tell me, Jon. Rumor has it that you’re running the military’s development program.”

Smith frowned deeply. Was there anyone on the planet who didn’t have that particular piece of classified information? “And where did you hear that?”

“If the military doesn’t want people on their networks they should do a better job of securing them.”

Smith just let that go. “What about the Merge? Can it be hacked?”

“If you were to give me the encryption codes.”

“I don’t have them.”

“Come on. After everything I’ve done for you, you’re going to stand there and lie to my face?”

“Scout’s honor, Marty. I don’t need Dresner’s approval to upload software but I can’t get into the operating system.”

Zellerbach couldn’t hide his disappointment. “In that case, it can’t be done.”

“You’ve told me a hundred times that there’s no such thing as a completely secure computer.”