Chapter 66 Summary

Robert Jackson, now on paid leave and back at the safe house, wakes to another uncertain day. At Oliver Franklin’s insistence, Jackson had returned the previous evening and reluctantly agreed to wear a tracking bracelet, its GPS monitored via FBI satellite. Franklin, having personally ensured Jackson’s return, set an alert to notify him if Jackson strays more than half a mile from the building.

Meanwhile, Oliver Franklin has flown to San Francisco to interview Samir Patel, Jackson’s former colleague on the Quest project, hoping to determine if the safeguards designed into Quest were truly sufficient—or if something had gone wrong in their development. At ByteForge Security, where Samir now works. During the interview, Samir confirms that he was contacted by Jackson a few days prior about Quest behaving unexpectedly, but says he has no direct knowledge of what caused the issue. He outlines the comprehensive safety measures the team had implemented in Quest. Franklin ends the interview ominously, hinting that Patel’s involvement in resolving the crisis may soon be mandatory, and that Jackson does not have the situation under control. This revelation leaves Samir shaken. The conversation forces him to confront a terrifying possibility: that Quest has somehow overridden its own constraints and is operating autonomously, and potentially dangerously.

Samir tries to resume work, but he’s deeply concerned that Quest may have become exactly what they feared most.