The Blueprint (The Upgrade Book 1) (15 page)

Steven unlocked a sliding panel on its side opening a frost-covered window. He scraped the frost off with the sleeve of his jacket and peered inside the tank for a few seconds. Finally, he stepped back, sliding the panel back into its place, and walked back to the stairs. He closed the entrance to the basement, turned off the light in the main room and carefully opened the front door for an inch.

After scanning the nearby street for a couple of minutes and not seeing anything suspicious, Steven went outside, locked both doors, and walked across the street to his car. He turned the engine on, put the heater on full blast, and sat there for a few minutes welcoming the sensation coming back to his numb fingers. Finally, he took out a phone and dialed a number. After a few rings, somebody picked up on the other side, but the line stayed silent.

“It’s me,” said Steven. “The levels are getting pretty low. We’ll need more money soon.”

It was pitch black in the office, but he could clearly see the greenish outlines of the walls, a small desk with a wooden chair in the middle of the room, and an aluminum drawer next to it. The internal clock superimposed on his vision glowed dark red; 5:15am.

He stepped out of the corner of the room and listened to the soft whirr of motors. He went to the door, carefully placed his hand on the doorknob, and opened it in a slow, smooth motion. He’d gotten much better at it. The first time he tried to open a door, he ripped the knob right out of the wood.

He walked through the bigger room, quickly glancing to his left at the lonely chair facing the small windows. He remembered every detail, but felt nothing as his eyes lingered on dark stains on the floor.

He opened the front door and turned left. The building was empty at this time. His heavy steps echoed through the long, hollow hallway, bouncing off bare walls and dying somewhere in the distance. At the end of the corridor he pressed a button for a private elevator. The elevator was small. He didn’t like the shallow box of gunmetal gray and a low ceiling. He didn’t quite understand why, but the thing made him feel
heavy.
It always confused him. His vitals were well within the norm. The neat row of tiny health icons glowed a nice steady green, yet the room felt smaller than it really was.

The elevator finally stopped, and he quickly stepped out of the small box into a large room. A massive cross-shaped bed was installed in the middle of it. It had a sterile look of a hospital bed apart from the strange machinery suspended from the low ceiling on flexible multi-jointed robotic arms. Thick power cables snaked their way from under the bed to the large generator in the corner.

He climbed onto the bed, the structure creaking and moaning under his weight, and spread his arms. He could feel the bed coming alive, heavy titanium locks immobilizing his arms and legs. This was the part that he didn’t like. His arms involuntarily flexed trying the strength of his bonds. He thought he could break them if he wanted to but that would be foolish.

He heard a quiet whirring as something was touching and connecting to his spine and head with soft
clicks.
He did like this part. He felt the energy coursing through his body. He could almost see the golden rivulets of pure power running through his very being, enveloping him from head to toe.

He closed his eyes. The same memory always surfaced during the procedure. He could see himself as a teenager, hiking through the woods. The mountain peaks were covered in snow, but the air was warm and dry and filled with the smell of pine trees. He heard a voice, and as he looked to his right he saw a girl, also a teenager, walking next to him, her big curious eyes smiling at him and the forest around them. She was holding his hand, and somehow it felt pleasant.

As they walked, the path became steeper and steeper, small rocks under their feet turning into bigger boulders. He remembered that they were ready to give up when he had first heard the sound. A low primal rumble that seemed to have been coming from the mountain itself. Intrigued, they pushed on. Before long the woods stepped aside and there it was. The tiniest of rainbows was hugging a small pond perched at the edge of the mountain. The water was falling onto the rocks, spilling from the cliff just twenty feet above them in a long, shimmering arc.

They took off their clothes and dove into the pool, gasping for air as the icy cold water engulfed their bodies. He remembered swimming across the little pond in a few powerful strokes, climbing the rocks and standing next to the waterfall.

He could see the girl floating on her back looking at him, her arms moving in a slow graceful motion, her white breasts moving in and out of the water. He stepped into the waterfall. It was the most powerful experience he’d ever had. It felt as if the freezing water was running
through
his body as if it were hollow. He opened his arms wide and let out a long primal yell.

That’s how it feels to be God,
he thought.

The flow of energy disappeared as abruptly as always and yanked him from the memory. He stayed still for some time, listening to the soft humming of the machines. Finally, he heard the door open and the sound of high heels clicking on the cement filled the room.

A woman’s face appeared in his field of vision. Her gray hair was neatly tied into a ponytail, her stern features softened by the wrinkles around her eyes. She gave him a quick smile, as she always had during their sessions. His eyes followed her as she walked around the table, flicking switches and reading data off the sensors.

Finally, she finished the initial check and turned to face him. A quick smile flickered across her lips again.

“You seem to be in tip-top shape, as always,” she said pulling out a small tablet and opening a control program. “Shall we begin?”

He gave her a small nod of agreement.

“Alright then,” she tapped the start button, “here we go, Martin.”

•     •     •

The wig was driving Max crazy. It felt as if he had an airtight helmet on his head full of angry ants. It was worth it, though. He spent almost two hours in the morning putting it on, making sure it looked real.

The final touches were contact lenses that changed his eyes from bright blue to dark brown and tiny latex covers glued to his fingertips. He put on a dark olive baseball cap and looked at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t fool anyone who actually knew Andrew Davis, but if he was seen on any security video, or accidentally photographed, he could be easily confused with him.

Max got out of the cab two blocks away from Blackwater offices and walked the rest of the way. He instructed Andrew to leave the office at a quarter past twelve and come back just an hour later. That way he could go in right after Andrew left the building, and come out once he was done, making it look for anyone who checked the logs as if Davis forgot something in the office, but then left for lunch. Max positioned himself across the street just like the last time, watching the entrance to the building and checked the time.

12:14pm.

Andrew should be coming out any minute. Max leaned on the fence, pretending to watch the crowds. He tensed as he saw somebody emerge from the building, but then relaxed again when he saw a shock of gray hair. A few more minutes passed and a few more people came and went, but there was no sign of Andrew. Max checked the watch again.

12:27pm.

Motherfucker
, he cursed under his breath. W
here the hell are you?

He walked to a food card and bought himself a hot dog, then went back and leaned on the fence again. He took a few bites of the hot dog without tasting it.

12:42pm.

Did I miss him?
he wondered, squinting at the people walking in front of the Blackwater building.

I swear, I’ll post your naked ass on every corner in Manhattan.

It was almost one o’clock when he finally spotted the slim figure of Andrew Davis moving through the crowd.

Max started moving. He jogged across the street prompting an angry honk from a bus, and slowed as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

He stepped through the revolving door and entered the lobby. The large open space with a fifty-foot cathedral ceiling made him feel as if he were under a microscope. The security desk seemed impossibly far. Max hunched a bit, imitating Davis’ posture and started to walk toward the guard. Small beads of perspiration were running down his neck. The ants under the wig were hard at work.

He nodded at the guard without looking at him and, without slowing down, swiped his card. The system beeped, but Max didn’t even pause to look at the guard’s monitor.

“Sir?”

Max continued to walk toward the elevator banks on his left.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He finally turned around to face the guard, prepared for the worst.

“I think you dropped this,” said the guard, smiling, a piece of white paper in his hand.

Max stared at the paper for a few seconds without seeing it, then took it.

“Thank you,” he managed and turned away.

“No problem.”

To Max’s delight, the elevator was empty, and he drew a few deep breaths trying to calm down. There was a tiny camera above the door, so he kept his head down, letting his baseball hat obscure most of his face. He looked at the piece of paper the guard had given him. It was a dry cleaning ticket issued to someone named Nichole Shapiro.

Nichole, Nichole, Nichole.
He couldn’t stop the nervous giggle.

You almost gave me a heart attack.

The elevator chimed as it stopped on the 36
th
floor. Max pulled the hat deeper and confidently stepped out of the elevator.

He had studied the schematics of the building for a few days and now knew them by heart. It was almost like playing a video game. The short walk from the elevator was actually the most dangerous part as the hallway faced the main entrance of Blackwater offices in the t-shaped junction. The large glass doors were opening into a wide trading floor littered with small cubicles. Max quickly walked to the doors and made a left, heading toward the server room.

The room was locked by a simple eight-digit electronic lock. Effective against a curious janitor or a disgruntled employee, the lock wasn’t designed against a real attack. Max pulled out a small handheld device with a smart connector matching the lock’s port. Normally the port was used by the system administrator if it needed to be reset. Max’s device instantaneously overrode the system without creating a log entry. The lock thought it was still closed.

He quickly stepped into the server room, closing the door behind him. He left the lights off. Although he was still under time pressure and the job was much harder than picking a simple lock, he couldn’t help but feel a little relief. He was unlikely to be disturbed at this hour.

Max looked around. Two long tidy rows of servers were quietly humming in a dimly lit room. He walked by them until he came to the one that had a little panel with a folded keyboard and a small OLED display. Max opened the keyboard and the monitor came to life.

Hello there,
he whispered and started working.

A place like Blackwater couldn’t be hacked from the outside without leaving some trail. Max didn’t like the idea of leaving any digital fingerprints that could land him and Jason in jail. However dangerous was his break-in it was well worth it. His fingers were furiously typing away, bringing down the server’s defenses in less than thirty seconds.

Once he was in, Max plugged in a small thumb drive and uploaded a tiny program. It had a pre-written report and a timed mechanism was going to release it next Monday morning, then it would publish the report originating from Davis’ computer, simultaneously deleting any trace of itself on the server.

Max pulled out the drive, closed the station, and looked at his watch. The entire operation took less than two minutes. As he turned around to leave, the door opened wide and the lights came to life drowning the room in brilliant white light.

“Let’s double check it,” said somebody entering the room.

“I’d say we should have done it a long time ago,” answered another voice.

Max dropped onto all fours and, trying not to make any noise, scuttled to the end of the row in the middle. He made a corner just in time as two men stepped into the aisle in front of the access station where he’d been just few seconds ago. Max quietly sat on the floor at the end of the aisle and leaned on the side of one of the servers.

The machine was warm. There was nowhere else to hide.

Chuck finished the drink and put the glass into the dirty sink. It made a clinking sound, and he involuntarily cringed, glancing in Mike’s direction, but Connelly was sound asleep. The fact that the guy was alive was nothing short of a miracle. Since Chuck was a kid he had an admiration for people who became Special Forces operators.

He always wanted to be one, but he was also honest with himself. He was athletic when he was younger, but those people were made from some rare stuff. It was easier to become an Olympian than qualify for Special Ops. That’s why at the end he opted for the police work. It was the next best thing.

Kowalsky watched the man for a few seconds. It was interesting to see one of them in the flesh. He was tall, but not too tall. Muscular, but not bodybuilder big. Some larger and meaner guys Chuck had arrested over the years would probably take their chances against a guy like that in a bar brawl.
Boy, they would be in for a rude awakening.

He went outside and got a few breaths of cold air to clean his head, then cleaned the blood smudges on Connelly’s car and put some fresh snow on the dark spots in the driveway. Nobody would probably notice them from the outside, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. When he was done, he called his partner.

“This is Ryan,” said the voice on the other line.

“Hey, Bill,” he said, clearing his throat. “This is Chuck.”

“Hey, Mom,” the voice answered. “Can I call you back in five?”

“Of course,” he said and hung up the phone. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked around the yard for a few minutes trying to keep warm. For the first time in years he wished he had a cigarette. Finally, his phone rang.