The Blueprint (The Upgrade Book 1)

by Wesley Cross

  “You hacked the fucking Stock Exchange,”

  “Yes, sir.” Max tipped imaginary hat. “It didn’t see some of the orders that came in, even at higher prices. It saw our orders first.”

  “Is it possible to trace?”

  “Everything is possible.” Max shrugged. “But it would be very difficult. I didn’t blind the Exchange completely. Just enough to get enough shares here and there.”

  “Wow,” said Jason, trying to process what just happened, “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, the best thing would be to lay low for a while, but it’s not an option as we have to start consolidating. We can’t take over the company until you claim the ownership of the shares, so at some point you’ll have to make it official.”

  “Isn’t it better to do it in stages?”

  “Not really,” Max said, then shrugged. “Once you own more than 5% of the company you have to file a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The cat would be out of the bag immediately. Remember, there’s nothing illegal with hostile takeovers. It happens all the time.”

  “You’re right,” said Jason. “Fake reports, blackmailed analysts, and a hacked stock exchange. Nothing illegal at all. Just another day at the office.”

  “Hey Mr. New Chief Executive Officer, you better get your shit together, ’cause it’s about to get real.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Johnny was restless. After Victor Ye left the warehouse he went straight home and downed a generous amount of ice cold Grey Goose right from the bottle, then he called the New York Dolls and ordered two girls. By the time the girls showed up Johnny was too drunk to do anything. He tried first with a blonde girl, then with a brunette. Nothing worked and he got more and more frustrated until he finally smacked the blonde, dutifully trying to get him going, across the face, breaking her lip. After that he stuffed a thick wad of hundred dollar bills into one of the girls’ purses and kicked them out of his place.

  Johnny needed some fresh air. He got dressed, went outside, and got into the car. He drove around his neighborhood first, considering settling for one of the bars, but nothing looked good enough. Johnny parked by the intersection of two small streets, rolled the windows down letting cold air in, and considered his options. He could drive to the city, find a good bar, and get himself even drunker, or he could go back to his place and get a couple of girls again. Girls won, and he put his car into drive, ready to go back.

  A big black cat slowly walked across the street a mere twenty feet from Johnny’s car. Johnny stepped on the gas and madly swerved onto the incoming traffic lane, trying to run the cat over. The black beast meowed and darted across the street and away with lighting speed. Johnny’s car hit the curb and jumped over the sidewalk, coming to rest at the wire fence of a small townhouse. The airbag exploded into Johnny’s face, momentarily blinding him. He licked his lips, tasting blood.

  Motherfucker.

  Somewhere behind Johnny’s car a siren went on and the red-and-blue flashing lights illuminated the street.

  “Motherfucking pigs,” he said, putting the car in reverse and stepping on the throttle. The engine roared, but the car stayed put, its front wheels helplessly spinning in the ditch, unable to bite into the slick frozen dirt.

  “Alright assholes, come here,” he said, his hand searching for the machete, only to realize that he’d left it at his condo.

  He watched two cops warily approach his car, their right hands hovering above their service pistols.

  “Are you alright, sir?” said the cop approaching from the driver’s side. He looked young, big freckles covering his fair skin.

  “I’m fucking great,” said Johnny, swinging the door trying to hit the man, but the young cop easily dodged, stepping aside and pulling out his gun. His partner rushed from the other side, pointing his gun at Johnny’s chest.

  “On the ground,” they shouted in unison, making Johnny laugh. He took a swing at the young cop, but missed again, his reflexes slowed by the alcohol. The older cop lunged, tackling him to the ground and knocking the air out of him. Before Johnny could get his bearings, the two of them were pinning him to the ground and cuffing his hands.

  “Get up, asshole,” said the older cop pulling Johnny to his feet. He started reciting Miranda rights as Johnny tried to head-butt him. He barely scraped the man’s chin. The cop retaliated by punching him in the gut, and once Johnny doubled over, he added another punch to his kidneys.

  Johnny’s knees buckled, and the two cops had to carry him to the patrol car, dragging two lines in the dirty snow with Jonny’s feet. When Johnny finally caught his breath they were on their way to the nearest police precinct. He pulled on his cuffs, making them cut into his wrists even deeper and growled.

  When this clusterfuck of a day was over and he was out again, Johnny was going to kill many people, and these two idiots would be on the top of his list.

  • • •

  Scott Witt parked his old Camry in the parking lot of the small warehouse and got out, grabbing his bag with some snacks. He had worked as a guard for the R&D Department of Global Sciences for over twenty years. Witt didn’t enjoy working the graveyard shift, but he was used to it by now. GS was a small subsidiary of Guardian Manufacturing located in the outskirts of White Planes and that came with pretty decent perks. His salary was nothing to write home about, but full health benefits and a small pension were so rare these days.

  Scott was fifty-nine, which meant he was still eight years from retirement, but his kids had grown up and moved out of the house a long time ago, so now it was just him and Mary, his wife of twenty-seven years. The house still had a mortgage, but if they were prudent, Scott was fairly certain they would be able to pay it off right about when he was ready to retire.

  “Hey, fellas,” he said, entering the monitoring room that he had shared with two other guards. “How’s it hanging?”

  “Hey, boss,” said Jimmy, a balding man in his early fifties with a round beer belly.

  “Don’t talk to that sourpuss there.” He pointed in the direction of the third guard. “His girlfriend dumped him.”

  “The horror,” said Scott mockingly. “Is it number four or number five this month, Eric?”

  “Shut up, you old creeps,” said the young man, his handsome freckled face creasing into a smile. “Just because you haven’t used your joysticks in, like, years, doesn’t mean you can make fun of me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Scott said, throwing his hands up. “You got us.”

  He dumped the snacks onto his desk and looked at the monitors. The wall around the warehouse was almost a perfect square with little towers on each corner that housed machine gun turrets. Scott went through the routine, switching from one monitor to the next and scanning the empty space around the building in infrared.

  “No burglars tonight?” said Eric.

  “No,” said Scott. “Wait. What’s this?”

  He looked at one of the monitors, straining. There it was, almost impossible to see if not for the movement, a lone ghostly figure crossing the intersection.

  “Activate defense systems,” yelled Scott, startling the other guards. His hands flew over the keyboard, punching in the codes. The two-inch-thick bulletproof tower windows slid down, baring M61 Vulcan Gatling guns capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute. The guns swerved back and forth, the smart software scanning the open space in front of the wall, looking for hostiles.

  “What are you waiting for?” he yelled at the guards. “Suit up.”

  The two scrambled to the locker room to look for gear and heavy firearms.

  The hulking figure in the intersection came to a halt, and a bright flash momentarily blinded the monitors. A split second later a mighty bang shook the building. The lights flickered as dust and small debris fell from the ceiling.

  “Mother,” said Witt, looking at what was left of one of the towers on main monitor. He grabbed a joystick, overriding the software, spun the remaining turret around, and squeezed
the trigger aiming for the ghost. Hundreds of angry 20mm hornets rushed toward the intruder, traveling at three times the speed of sound.

  Scott held his breath, expecting them to tear apart whatever the hell was there into a million pieces. Instead, the figure just leaned into the oncoming onslaught like a man into a strong wind, then the second flash came and another explosion shook the entire building, collapsing the remaining tower.

  “Fuck,” yelled Scott. They were now left defenseless against whatever the hell was out there save for small arms they kept in the guards’ locker room. He grabbed the phone and dialed the emergency number.

  “We are under attack,” he said as soon as the other line picked up. “Heavy artillery. Both front sentry towers are down. I need immediate reinforcements.”

  “Roger,” replied a man’s voice, “help is on its way. ETA twelve minutes. Protect the servers at all cost. If you can’t protect them, destroy everything you can. Don’t call the police.”

  “God damn,” yelled Scott, “I don’t have twelve minutes.”

  He slammed the phone down and started running toward the locker room. Another blast, more powerful this time, brought him to his knees. He glanced at the main monitor as he scrambled to his feet, seeing in horror a huge gaping hole where the twenty inch thick gates had been.

  “Here you go, boss.” Eric rushed into the room carrying an extra vest and a shotgun. Jimmy ran in after Eric, his face flushed.

  “I called the corporate, they’re twelve minutes out. They want us to kill the servers.”

  “We’re screwed, man,” said Jimmy, wiping sweat off his forehead. “We gotta get the fuck out.”

  “Let’s do it quick then,” said Scott, breaking into a run “C’mon.”

  They rushed down the corridor, shotguns at the ready, as another explosion rocked the building. The server room was a small windowless room in the center of the main building. Five rows of humming machines, ten towers in each row.

  “What do we do, man?” said Eric, staring at the rows.

  “Just shoot the motherfuckers,” said Scott discharging his shotgun into the nearest tower, sparks flying in all directions.

  “I’ll start from the back,” said Eric, running toward the back of the room.

  “Jimmy, you do them from the other wall,” said Scott, turning to the second server and cocking his shotgun.

  Everything went dark. He blinked, trying to understand what he was seeing, but the eyelids wouldn’t move. Two feet away from his face he saw Eric’s body, his head almost separated from his shoulders, a huge stream of blood gushing from his throat. As his vision dimmed, Scott saw a pair of feet in metallic boots walking past him. The movement was strange, mechanical. Scott thought the boots should’ve made a loud clanking noise, but he could hear nothing.

  Eric’s been killed by the Terminator, he thought. That was funny. He wanted to laugh, but couldn’t make a sound, then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 30

  The safe house was a two-family house in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Sunset Park. Mike had been there a couple of times before to re-stock it, but never for longer than a few minutes. Now, being left to himself for the first time, as Bill went back to the precinct and Chuck was out meeting somebody, he had the opportunity to look around.

  It was a nice enough two-story building. Two bedrooms upstairs, a decent living room on the first floor, an unfinished basement, and a small yard in the back. A large elm tree that probably gave a good shade in the summer. Furnishings were Spartan, with a small couch and a flat TV on the first floor, a plain table with four different chairs in the dining room, and a couple of bunk beds on the second floor.

  He liked the place. Unlike his little fortress in the junkyard, the house didn’t have any defenses to speak of. The street level windows didn’t even have guards installed, yet, somehow, the place made him feel secure. At home even. This was a place where one could raise children.

  He hobbled around the kitchen trying to fix himself a sandwich with one hand and finally giving up and just eating the ingredients off the plate, then, ignoring common sense, telling him not to mix alcohol with antibiotics, he opened a cold bottle of beer and downed it in a few greedy gulps.

  Satisfied, he sat on the old couch and turned on the TV. Nothing was on, at least nothing Mike cared to watch. He repositioned himself on the couch trying to take the pressure off his wounded leg. The pain wasn’t as intense as before, but he knew it would take a long time before he was fully healed.

  His thoughts drifted to the first day at the camp. The hot sun was beating down on one hundred young men trying their hardest to stand straight. None had slept for the last forty-eight hours. They were all picked from different branches of the military, but the way it was done was always the same. They were blindfolded, loaded into trucks, and transported to some unknown location. Now they were standing there, waiting for the instructor, most no doubt secretly regretting their decision to sign up. Tired, thirsty, hungry.

  Mike was disappointed when he saw the instructor. His adolescent imagination had painted a seven foot tall monster with huge muscles and rugged good looks. The man, who was calmly standing in front of them, unperturbed by the scorching heat, was nothing like that. He was a wiry man in his early forties, rather short, with a balding head and a plain pockmarked face. A face Mike thought he’d forget the moment he turned away.

  “Listen up,” the man said in a quiet voice. Somehow that calm unassuming voice put the recruits on edge better than any yelling.

  “My name is Rick Porter and I’m in charge of the camp. Over the next twelve months, those of you who make it to the end of the program will learn everything you need to be the best of the best,” he said, slowly walking in front of the group, “but most of you will never make that far. It’s a tradition here at the camp, to tell the new class about the class before them.”

  A lone eagle screamed in the distance circling in a bright cloudless sky.

  “This class always starts with one hundred men,” continued the instructor. “You’ll know this class as number six.

  “Class number five had sixty-nine recruits left after the first two weeks. Twenty-four after the first six months. Twelve people made it all the way to the end.”

  A quiet murmur went through the ranks of the recruits as they tried to digest the numbers.

  “Most of those who didn’t make it to the end went back to the place where they’d come from.” He paused, looking at the rows of sweaty, tired faces. “But six recruits had to leave the service due to permanent injuries. And two recruits went back in body bags.”

  Mike didn’t remember the first two weeks very well. It was a crazy blur of running, swimming, and mind-numbing calisthenics. He got lucky. They were split into four people units, and two of his new partners, Patrick and Doug, turned out to be Navy SEALS. The third, a short Texan with a baby face named Sean, was a professional marathon runner and a self-proclaimed comedian.

  • • •

  “C’mon, ladies,” he shouted as the four jogged up the rocky road. They had been running for over four hours now, the sixty-pound backpacks cutting their shoulders raw.

  “I can run circles around you,” he yelled, and to demonstrate that he actually ran a circle around their small group.

  “One day I’m going to strangle you,” said Doug, breathing hard, “or better yet drown you in the pool as your skinny ass can’t swim.”

  “It’s a possibility,” acknowledged Sean, grinning. “Everybody knows women float better than men as they have more body fat.”

  Doug only snorted in reply.

  “Shut up, you all,” chimed in Patrick. “Let’s make sure we’re not the slowest group. I have no desire to do extra push-ups after running for forty miles.”

  They arrived to the rendezvous point just before noon. Porter was already there taking their time as they collapsed onto the grass in one dirty heap. Only one group was there before them, so for the time being they were left alo
ne, drinking water in long gulps, trying to catch their breath.

  “Do you think he ran here, too?” asked Sean, thrusting his chin in Porter’s direction, “or they parachuted his bossy ass down here so he’s fresh to torture us?”

  “I’m pretty sure he ran,” said Mike looking at the instructor, noting dark patches of sweat on his t-shirt under his arms and on his back, “but he probably didn’t carry the pack.”

  The break didn’t last long. They were lined in one long column and ordered to march to the obstacle course, five miles away. Even Sean started to show signs of extreme fatigue. The sun was high now, beating down on the recruits without mercy

  “It’s amazing what people sign up for,” he said after tripping over a dead tree branch and almost smashing his face into the ground. “You’d think after two years in the Air Force I’d know better. You guys hungry?”

  He produced a few pieces of dirty cheese from his breast pocket and gave it to his team members. They gratefully accepted, biting into sticky pieces and washing them down with small sips of water from hot flasks.

  “Oh shit,” Mike said as the final goal of their march came to view. A clearing had been cut into the woods, and a thousand yard long pool of thick brown mud was right in front of them, sharp barbed wire hanging low above it in vicious gleaming circles. A row of obstacles could be seen at the end of the muddy stretch.

  All hell broke loose. A dry cough of automatic fire pierced the silence, jerking everybody out of the marching trance.

  “Drop and go,” yelled Porter. “Those are live rounds, so keep you heads in the mud. Go, go, go.”

  To demonstrate, Rick Porter went first, diving into the mud pool and crawling under the wire. Mike dropped onto his stomach and started to crawl after him, trying to keep up. The roar of the machine gun overhead was deafening, making him press his face into the mud. The thick, sticky sludge went into his ears and nostrils. He tried to keep his mouth shut, but within seconds his nose was completely blocked, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.