Executive

…77

Alex approached the plant on foot, after parking her car in the middle of the crowded lot, avoiding the first row of visitor spots. She had decided to enter the facility by the side door, reserved for the smokers going in and out for their breaks. Dunwood had mentioned that her card would open almost all doors in the facility, with the exception of the static-free lab. It did.

She didn't have a specific plan in mind; she hoped she could find a lead in the areas touched by Janet, some clue about what caused her death, an idea of who might have killed her. Alex was 100 percent positive that Janet's death had been no accident, although she couldn't think how something like that could have been pulled off. Tampering with her car? That would have worked, for sure. No doubt, her killer had access to technology of all kinds, which could easily be rigged to cause a car to become unresponsive after, for instance, reaching the speed of 60 miles per hour.

She spent a few minutes puffing at her e-cig, next to the few smokers scattered on the lawn, mostly plant workers. No one acknowledged her, or responded to her tentative greetings and smiles. No one was going to talk to her; that was clear. She put her e-cig in her pocket and went inside.

Her first stop was Janet's office. There was a framed picture of an older Rottweiler on her desk. She took the picture in her hand. Alma had been a beautiful dog. The office seemed quiet enough, no one passing through the hallway for several minutes in a row. Encouraged by the silence around her, Alex started going through Janet's files. The unlocked filing cabinet was packed with suspended folders, neatly arranged by category, with separating tabs. The majority of the folders held results of quality testing, by date, by product, by types of failure, and if specific testing had been done for particular failure modes.

One label caught her eye. Ad Hoc Self-Guidance. This folder contained the results of a series of on-demand tests completed for the self-guidance software, assessing drones on the testing field. The folder had a cover page, neatly summarizing the less-than-stellar results. The software had failed in more than 23 percent of test cases, that percentage breaking down somewhat evenly between target identification accuracy and navigational issues. Nothing new, just confirmation of what Alex had already heard in meetings.

Alex flipped through more folders; none of them held any significant information, just confirmed the facts she already had. The self-guidance software was unreliable for many reasons. The newly designed drones were failing at a much higher rate than older models. The quality standards suffered due to numerous cost-cutting programs. Alex found a chart mapping the quality rate over time, spanning a period of two years. It was declining, but not on a linear path. It came down in steps, and Janet had correlated those steps with significant events in the history of the plant.

The budget cuts at the beginning of the previous year had caused the quality to drop 2.3 percent within 60 days. A reduction in workforce that had taken place more than a year earlier was correlated with another 3.5 percent loss in quality score. Obviously, Janet was documenting her point of view, which would have been expected, considering she was being held accountable for the overall quality of the product. Alex was convinced that Janet had been vocal about these findings, not willing to be blamed for declining quality rates she didn't ultimately control. Being vocal hadn't helped her much. Alex folded the chart and put it in her pocket.

There was nothing else left to do in Janet's office. Alex sneaked out, unseen, and proceeded to the testing end of the CX series assembly line. Janet touched that area on a daily basis. The long assembly line passed through two different quality-testing points. One was the final inspection point, at the end of the assembly line, where a quality technician carefully inspected each drone. He then proceeded to escort the drone, on its own wheels, to a small taxiway that connected to the storage hangars. Once on that taxiway, the technician would then fire up the drone and test the engine on a test bank. If everything scored in the green, the quality technician would proceed to do a short test flight, having the UAV take off, zigzag above the testing field, acquire a target, simulate a missile launch, then return for landing, and move into the finished product storage hangar. At this stage, the quality technician tested the drone's functionality, as per set parameters, and the comlink with ground control.

The other testing point on the assembly line took place a little earlier in the process, while the drone's housing wasn't fully assembled. As soon as the drones had all their components installed, before attaching the upper half of the body, they were connected to an electronic test bank, which would power up all components inside the UAV. This allowed active testing of all the installed parts, with the drone safely on the ground. From Janet's notes, this particular testing point had caused repeated concerns, revealing high failure rates for a variety of modules and circuit boards. This is where Alex wanted to look around, challenged by the fact that these modules failed the tests after being installed although they had passed the pre-installation test. Faulty installation? For sure, Janet would have thought of that, so it must have been something else.

Parked on the low, rubber, conveyor belt, some twenty feet apart from one another, four drones were standing on their landing gears, missing their upper body covers. They were connected to the testing station by colored wires with labels and connectors at the ends. The conveyor belt wasn't moving, allowing the connected drones to finish the automated testing phase on a simulated operational status. The drones were fully powered, their sensor array cameras moving in search of landmarks and targets. Everything was functional for these drones while being tested, except for the engine.

There wasn't any technician in sight. No wonder, after all the staff cuts. Alex walked along the testing belt, looking at the multicolored LED panes reflecting the various states of tests being run: blinking yellow for test in progress, solid green for test completed and passed, solid red for test completed and failed. She came closer to one of the drones, curious to see how the test wires were connected to the modules. There were connectors on each module, so it was easy to connect or disconnect a module from the test bank.

She suddenly became aware that the drone next to her had its cameras trained on her, moving with her as she moved along the conveyor belt. Intrigued, she took a few steps forward, sideways, and back, to see if the cameras stayed on her. They did. Since she was the only moving object in the drone's visual range, she didn't think much about it. Not until the targeting module gave a faint beep and turned its status LED green. She recalled the information she received while visiting the plant with Dunwood.

"And when a drone locks on a target, this module lights green."

This drone had locked on her? She felt a chill down her spine, but tried to calm herself down. This must be a clear example of poor quality target acquisition performance. She approached the drone, looking around to see if anyone was approaching. She reached inside it and tried to remove its targeting module. She released the module brackets and gently pulled the module. It wouldn't budge. She pulled just a little bit harder and the module broke in little pieces, crumbling like a piece of cheese. The testing bank next to her turned a few LEDs solid red and beeped. She grabbed a fistful of module fragments and stuck them in her pocket. Then she moved away from there, hoping no one had seen her.

Outside in the parking lot, she took out her cell phone and called Tom.

"It's me. I need a technician, someone who can assess circuit boards and electronic modules in the field, and do it fast. I need him to look at a module as soon as possible. Uh-uh… OK, then, please let me know where he's coming from, and I'll meet him halfway. Great, I'll wait."