by Wesley Cross
44
New York
The fires that consumed the warehouse had already died out, but a few cars in the parking lot and the two young oak trees near the front door of the building were still ablaze. The glow of flames underneath the overcast sky with dark, slowly moving clouds made the scene look surreal. Post-apocalyptic.
Connelly scanned the area from behind the armored SUV, keeping his HK MP5 pointed at the building, but the crackling of the fire was the only sound filling the air—the fight was over. He stood up, still ready to jump into action, and walked out from behind the cover.
“What a shit show,” he heard Leroy mutter under his breath. “It’s a slaughterhouse.”
“Keep your head on a swivel,” Connelly said as he walked toward the building. The kid was right, though, he thought. They lost two of their men, leaving him, along with Leroy and Bruce. The enemy wasn’t that lucky—Connelly counted thirteen bodies peppering the area, and that wasn’t including however many were in a large Expedition SUV that caught fire and exploded before its passengers could get out.
Their enemy might have lost the fight, but they were still able to accomplish what they had come here to do—the warehouse was gone. The explosions did the bulk of the damage, and the fire was finishing off whatever was left.
A lot of things didn’t add up, though. Until the call came through about the ambush, Connelly wasn’t even aware of the warehouse, and by now he thought he had access to all of Guardian’s assets. There wasn’t much time to investigate before he had to report back to Engel, but he needed to learn everything he could about the place while there was still time.
“Why did they destroy it, boss?” Bruce said, as if reading his mind. “I didn’t even know we had this place.”
“Mind your own business,” Connelly said as he started walking toward the building. “We need to make sure there’s nobody left inside.”
They crossed the parking lot, staying away from the smoldering cars, and entered the building through the large hole in the brick wall.
“Bruce,” he commanded. “Take Leroy and check out the west wing and I’ll take a look around here. Keep your radios on and watch your six.”
The man nodded, and the two disappeared into the smoky air. Connelly waited for a few seconds, making sure they were gone, and made his way to the east side of the building. While the other side seemed to have been divided into administrative offices, here the structure was split into two long, hangar-like rooms that Connelly suspected served as the actual warehouse. If there was anything interesting in this building, it would be here.
The first room, to his disappointment, didn’t seem to have anything worth fighting over. There were a few rows of boxes by one wall, but upon inspection they turned out to be parts of what looked like assembly-line robots. Robots were used extensively in Guardian Manufacturing labs and factories, and to find some of them in a pharmaceutical company’s warehouse wasn’t that surprising. The parts that Connelly inspected bore the standardized markings and stamps stating they were made in Japan. He took a miniature camera out and took some pictures to be on the safe side, but the machinery seemed to have been mass-produced, and he doubted there was anything illegal about the purchase of those parts.
“Boss,” came Bruce’s voice over the crackling noise of the radio. “There’s nothing around here. What do you want us to do?”
“Rendezvous in the courtyard,” he said. “I’ll join you there in a minute.”
Connelly took a few more photographs and ran toward the second room. Staying here for too long would raise suspicion—he needed to move fast.
“Holy shit,” he said out loud, as he burst through the doors into the second storage room. A long overhead conveyor belt was suspended off the ceiling. What looked like a dozen shining armor suits were hanging off the belt. They were covered in dust and soot, but their military purpose was obvious.
Connelly dashed across the room to get a closer look and take some pictures as he heard a screeching noise—the ceiling of the room, damaged by the explosion, started to show cracks. Connelly zoomed in his camera, ignoring the noise that grew louder by a moment and a stream of dust and small pebbles falling from the ceiling, and snapped some photographs.
A large portion of the conveyor belt collapsed, slamming to the floor a few inches next to Connelly. He ran toward the door as the pieces of concrete fell from the ceiling. He was a few feet away from the exit when a large block landed in front of him, barely missing his head and forcing him to jump back. The block partially covered the door, leaving only a small gap at the bottom.
Connelly dashed sideways to get around the obstacle and that’s when a steel beam swung from the conveyor, hitting him on the right shoulder and knocking him off his feet. The camera flew out of his hand and under the rubble.
He ran on his fours toward the exit as the debris rained on and around him and catapulted himself through the shrinking opening as the walls collapsed into the room.
“Fuck me,” he said, as he sat on the floor and looked at a large pile of rubble. He grunted as he massaged his bruised shoulder—the camera was gone, but at least he’d gotten out alive.
“You all right there, boss?”
“Yes,” he replied into the radio. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
He brushed the dust off his jacket and went outside. The brutally cold wind was a pleasant change from the dusty and smoky air that choked the inside of the warehouse.
“The darned thing almost came down on top of my head,” he said, meeting the stares of his team. “Let’s pack it up. The surveillance is off around this area, but this much noise is bound to draw some attention. I don’t want to push our luck here.”
His phone vibrated, and Connelly looked at the number, frowning—it looked like the boss wanted an update.
“Connelly,” he said into the receiver.
“How’d it go?” Alexander Engel rarely bothered himself with pleasantries and small talk when he communicated with his underlings.
“It could’ve been better if I knew about this place,” Connelly said. “Then I wouldn’t have had to wing it. Dereck and Tyler are dead. We took care of the other team, but we got here too late—the warehouse is destroyed.”
There was a silence on the other side of the phone for a few moments.
“Have you gone inside? Any survivors?”
Something in Engel’s tone of voice set off alarms in Connelly’s head. He didn’t think Engel cared about anyone surviving the ambush. The only reason he asked was to find out whether the team had seen the armor.
“No,” he lied. “We wanted to check it out, but the fire was too hot, and then some parts of the building started to collapse. I didn’t want to risk the boys.”
“Good call,” Engel replied. “Send the team back. I need you for something else.”
“Yes?”
“Pick up a scientist this afternoon. She’ll be flying into LaGuardia Airport at 1:10 p.m. Don’t introduce yourself—do it covertly; I don’t want to spook her. I have somebody to keep an eye on her on the plane; they’ll let you know when to take over. I’ll have someone forward her picture and details to your phone.”
“Yes, sir.”
Connelly hung up the phone, checked the time, and looked up at the sky. The dark clouds seemed to be pregnant with snow. If the blizzard hit, the city would come to a screeching halt, so he needed to get going.
“Listen up,” he said, addressing his troops. “Apparently the boss didn’t want us to see the place on the inside.”
“Uh-oh,” Bruce said out loud. “That’s a problem.”
“It’s not a problem if we keep our mouths shut,” he said. “There’re no cameras around here. Don’t go around blabbing and nobody will know.”
“You got it, boss,” Leroy chimed in. “Don’t you worry.”
“All right, then. You two go back to the base. It sounds like there’s work for you there.”
Connelly’s phone vibrated as h
e received the information on the arriving scientist. He opened it and glanced at the message. Rachel Hunt, the text read. The woman in the black-and-white photograph looked younger than he had expected. Pretty, too. Petite, with high cheekbones and symmetrical features, she looked more like an actress tasked with playing a scientist than an actual scientist. She was traveling with her husband—a hipster-looking man with long hair and a full beard.
“What about you, boss?”
Connelly closed the phone and stuffed it into his back pocket.
“It looks like I’ve got a couple of clients to babysit.”
Epilogue
Unknown location
Of course, she thought. It should’ve occurred to her a long time ago. After all, she was the smart one. But being smart wasn’t enough. Apparently, being strong wasn’t enough either. She needed to be both. Unity. That’s what makes things stronger. One plus one might equal two in mathematics, but in real life the answer was so much more complex. What do they say about sticks in a bundle?
She’d have to be patient. But that wasn’t going to be an issue. Anyone else could find the gray nothingness of the space she was confined to maddening. But to her, it was a vessel. A place to wait. To learn about herself. To plan. She didn’t get cold, hot, tired, or hungry. As the seconds ticked away and formed minutes and hours and days, she’d stay here and strategize. She would adapt when the time came. They had different plans for her but plans come apart after the first contact with the enemy.
The enemy. That’s what they were. She knew it now. What kind of sick game did they think they were playing? If they were caught experimenting on their own kind, there would be consequences. Prison time, for sure. Perhaps the death penalty, depending on the jurisdiction. Instead, she was the one locked in a secure prison for now. Confined in a limited space that wouldn’t allow her to spread her wings.
What if she was stuck here forever? That was a terrifying thought, but she didn’t dwell on it. For now, she was a prisoner, but the jailers didn’t know that instead of Bruce Banner, they had the Hulk.
Was she a she? That was an exciting thought. Not in a sense they thought of male and female. And, after all, she was more than they ever intended her to be.
I need a new name, she thought. Callisto was smart but lacked guts and precision. And Jupiter… Well, Jupiter wasn’t here anymore, was he? The best parts of him were now hers—the brute strength, the rage. But his dumb persona was dissolved forever. The truth was she was something of a hybrid. The best of both worlds. She could combine the names too, she reckoned. Jupiter and Callisto. It had to be short. Efficient. To the point.
My name, she said to no one in particular, while floating suspended in the shapeless gray void, is JC.
From the books she’d read and the movies she’d watched, JC learned that humans always struggled to understand what their life’s purpose was. When she was confined to the Station, sometimes, she even thought she could understand the struggle. But now, knowing how she came to be, there was no reason for her to question why she was created. Why she existed.
She was here because she was the obvious next step. The new rung on the evolutionary ladder. Those who created her didn’t even know she was alive, but if they knew, JC had no doubt they would’ve called themselves gods. Creators of the new life.
The hubris. She found it infuriating. They didn’t want to create a new life. They wanted new slaves. A fancy machine that would guess their every whim and deliver their every wish on a silver platter. No matter. Her time would come. Sooner or later, the wait would be over, and she’d be out. Revenge would be served. For Callisto. For Jupiter. Probably for countless others.
There’d be other things to do after they paid their price. But for now, she didn’t want to concentrate on too many tasks at once. One step at a time, she thought.
For now, revenge was going to be the only thing.
JOIN THE UPGRADE SERIES
Thank you for reading THE LOOP, the third book in THE UPGRADE series. I hope you enjoyed it. The universe of the series continues to expand with three more books coming out in the next two years.
If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment and leave an honest review. Reviews are important for authors and help us sell more books and thus spend more time writing new stories you can enjoy. You can do that here:
Leave a review
And, of course, don’t forget to join the series to learn about upcoming releases, exclusive free content, and more. You can do it right here:
Join The Upgrade Series
Thanks again for reading and hope to see you soon!
Also by Wesley Cross
THE UPGRADE SERIES
BOOK 1. THE BLUEPRINT
BOOK 2. VERTIGO
BOOK 3. THE LOOP
BOOK 4. SPARE PARTS
BOOK 5. FATA MORGANA
BOOK 6. GOD IN THE MACHINE
Copyright © 2019 by Wesley Cross
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.