Chapter 23 The Chrysalis Job

Chloe

April 22nd, 2014

6:54 PM

Portland, Oregon

Chrysalis HQ

"Chloe, Max, can you hear me?" asked David on the coms.

"This is Max. We read you."

"Good. Rachel gave me this device to make sure the two of you don't stir up any trouble. Even though the two of you are about to stir up some trouble."

"You can drop the sarcasm, David," I said on the coms. "Warren has one too, you know. And so does Frank, needless to say. You know who all has one."

"I would assume the both of you are headed to where I think your headed?"

"Absolutely," said Max on her com. "Now that we have our IDs, we can go wherever we like. How are you? Is Joyce alright?"

"She's fine. I just got done talking to that Prescott lady we met at the diner a few day ago. Her name was Kristine or Kris for short."

"Nathan's sister?" asked Max. "She's here at the expo?"

"Yeah, she's about to go fetch me and Joyce some scotch right now. Good luck doing your thing. And Max, whatever happens, make sure nothing happens to Chloe. I don't care if you have to use your magical rewind power for the hundredth time. I don't want Joyce pointing fingers at me if anything happens to her."

"What's new, David?" said Max. "I'll be sure she make it out in one piece. I'm gonna need it. Max out."

Once Max and I start walking down to the elevators, there was a small security area with a scanner and two receptionist at a desk. We pause for a moment wondering what to do next.

"Okay, Rachel," said Max on her com. "There's some kind of reception area with a security scanner. What do we do?"

"Just go up there, show your IDs, and you should be free to go," instructed Rachel on coms.

Without another question, we just walks up there and show off our IDs via scanner.

"Hello, ladies. We're from the union," I say, scanning my ID on my neck.

In less than three seconds, we're past security and the gateway to ascension.

"That's it?" I ask on my com.

"People don't do a whole at Chrysalis," said Rachel. "Not when there's a big event going on. It shifts people's attention more."

"For such the richest company in the world, Rachel," I say. "And a company that has blacklisted Max as a possible quantum terrorist, how could anyone not do a whole lot at Chrysalis?"

"All I'm saying is that Chrysalis accepts everyone from the union. That's how you were able to get through easily. Rachel out."

Max and I step inside the elevator and take it up to the thirty-fifth floor where we're supposed to. When we're inside and the elevator ascends, we get nice and lovely view of the city of Portland through the elevator window inside. The night is lovely. We could see the moonlight rising over the buildings and the spotlights making a light of pendulum up in the sky.

I whistle.

"Wow, look at that," I say. "This place is unbelievable, huh? What a view. Portland, I love it."

"You know that's about the fifth time you've ever said that coming here, right?" asked Max.

"Only the fifth time?"

"The first time you said that was during your tenth birthday coming here. The second was our Christmas vacation here when we were kids. The third was your twentieth birthday coming here for spring break a month ago. The fourth was when we just got here for this event. And now your saying it again for the fifth time in a row."

"Don't believe you actually remember all those times I first said that all those years ago. I owe you a book from Powell's when this heist is over."

The elevator hits the twentieth floor and we're ten clicks below our target. Max contacts Warren to check on his end.

"Hey, Warren, you okay down there?" she asks.

"I'm good, Max," he responds. "Just sweeping the floor with Brooke and Kate here while everyone else is minding their own business."

"We're almost at the thirty-fifth floor. Tell David we'll have what we came here for in no time."

"Okey Dokey, Maxy. Warren out."

"So far, so good," I say.

The elevator hits the 35th floor and the door opens to a small room that's half built. Other than that, there are two guards posted in front of us as we walk out. We halt once they see us.

"Hey, you shouldn't be in here!" the guard shouts.

We panic for a second. Then of course, we had IDs to show them so they could let us through.

"We have union IDs," Max tells the guards.

Something didn't feel right about these guards. They had guns in there and they didn't look like they were just on patrol. One of the guards power walks over to us and aims his gun us. Without thinking for another second, I pull out my silenced pistol and shoot there in front of us. Max does the same and shoots the other guard next to him.

I don't believe we just did that. We just got off the elevator and we already shot two guards point blank. In a way I had shot Frank to death before Max rewound. We don't say anything. We just run off a find a place to deploy Ziggy somewhere in the half built rooms with dry wall, wooden supports, and lamps lighting the corners.

"Okay, Max. I'm in," said Rachel on coms.

"Go ahead," said Max.

"Chrysalis recently employed private military contractors to augment their regular security team to monitor the place during this event. All ex-Spetsnaz."

"No shit," said Max. "We just ran into some of them."

We find a little room to deploy the spider drone. I open a hatch to an air duct where Ziggy could crawl through and Max opens the brief case holding the drone and the DS console controller modified to control the drone.

"Alright, Ziggy," says Max putting the drone on the floor. "Time to go to work."

Max turns on the DS console to set up the camera link and activate the drone.

"David, Warren, the security team's been compromised by PMCs," said Max on coms. "They're hostile. Watch for anything suspicious. We need to know their objective."

"Understood," said David.

"You got it, Max," said Warren. "Hey, I can tell you how to control Ziggy if you need me to."

"Go for it."

"Okay. Ziggy can move around using the d-pad on the DS. He can also jump around by pressing the B button. And to tase people, press RB on the right side corner of the console."

"Thanks Warren. Max out."

Max starts controlling the drone and it enters through the hatch to crawl around the ducts. There was a camera attachment to the drone for Max to use to see from Ziggy's POV on the DS screen. When Ziggy proceeded into the ducts, there were some gaps to jump across and surfaces to cling onto. When view Ziggy's camera on screen, the drone caught sight of some PMCs who were up to no good and could be seen through grates.

"Wait, what are they doing?" I ask.

"Planting explosives," says Max.

"They're gonna blow the place up?! Max, I don't know who these people are or what they're doing, but how did PMCs end up in this building to begin with? Now this mission has become more than we bargained for already. It's nothing like Ocean's Eleven. That's for sure."

"David, Warren, heads up. The mercs are priming explosives in the building."

"Explosives? What do you mean explosives?" asked David.

"Okay, Max. Now you're scaring me," said Warren. "When you say explosives, you mean something's about to go boom in a few minutes?"

"That's what explosive means, smarty pants," I say. "Just make sure you and David watch your asses so you don't blow yourselves up."

"We're all going to hell man," said Warren.

"Max, Chloe, you're gonna want to see this," said Rachel. "Frank and I just spotted some of those mercs on cams and they don't look like they've come to do some catering. We can see them priming C4 devices onto the walls in the building and we just saw a few enter through the elevators you took to get up there. We need to wrap this up fast."

"Shit, Max. We gotta go."

"Not until we find that intel."

Ziggy continues to proceed crawling through the ducts, jumping over gaps, and clinging onto surfaces. The spider robot eventually comes across fan generator and has to jump across some tubes to reach the next duct. After Ziggy jumps and crawls over the tubes like Spiderman, making it over to the next duct, we find another hatch that enters into the server room. It was time to make our next move.

"There's our mark," said Max.

The drone electrocutes the hatch open and carefully crawls over the edge. There was a guard standing below the deck and Ziggy fell over the edge landing on the guard's shoulder. The guard was startled and tried shaking the robot off.

"Tase him, Max!" I shout. "Now!"

Max tazes the guard with the drone knocking him on the ground. With the guard knocked out, Max was able to use the drone to scan the guards eyeball for an identification. That way we would be able to authenticate Max's ID to enter the server room.

Before we could do anything else, someone had grabbed hold of Ziggy and we were now looking at a screen with a guard's face on it as he was observing the spider drone.

"What do we have here?" said the guard on camera.

Then the guard tossed the drone on the ground and stomped on it with his foot. Smashing Ziggy into pieces and making the camera screen go static. There goes Warren's spider drone. It was time to make our next move and hustle. More mercs could arrive in any minute.

"It's the PMCs!" shouted Max. "Rachel, you were right! They're already inside the server room! Let's go!"

Meanwhile, back at the lobby where the expo was held, Kris had bought some drinks for David, Joyce, and herself and they all stood by each other socializing in the crowd. They all had a laugh with each other talking about David's time in the army.

"I can't believe you got away with that," said Kris chuckling.

"Oh, we did not," said David with a smirk. "No, we were deprived from duty for a month."

"And what about the horse?" asked Kris.

"Fortunately, we had a lot of carrots on board," said David.

David then turned over to the crowd catching a glimpse of Warren glancing at him through the crowd. Kris turned her head in the direction David was looking.

"Recognize someone?" asked Kris.

"No," he answered. "I thought I did, but no."

"When am I going to finally meet that daughter of yours, Chloe?" she asked. "And her partner, Max?"

"Well that's step-daughter, actually," he said. "Her and Max are off somewhere at this party where no one can find them."

"What do you mean where no one can find them?"

"What I mean is that they're both having the night of there lives together to themselves. Last I heard, they were declared the guests of honor."

"Well then you might as well be the guests of honor yourselves, right?" asked a voice approaching the social group.

It was Crosby who had dropped in to chat with the three of them. Now being a part of their conversation. Crosby chuckled and started conversating them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Madsen," he said. "And if isn't Ms. Kristine Prescott in the house. How are you?"

"Mr. Crosby," said David shaking hands. "How are you?"

"We last met at the hotel. Wasn't it?"

"It sure was."

"It's amazing. After a long week of martial law in Arcadia Bay, here we are haggling over my top scientist's junk."

"Really? Aren't you the one running the Prescotts's business?"

"My business actually. But yeah, that is my day job."

"That is one hell of a day job. You could probably afford to buy up everything on the block tonight."

"These exhibits aren't for sale. Even if they were, sure. But what would be that point in that? Nowadays I'm only looking for the...good stuff. Big scores. Any advice on what I should pick up tonight?"

David chuckled.

"Yeah, like I want to bid against him?" asked David, turning to his wife and Kris with a little laugh. "But um, just between you and me, I think someone's about to blow up the place tonight. I may have noticed some uninvited guests tonight and they might be trying to rig this expo."

"Hmm, well remember where we are," said Crosby. "This crowd didn't get rich by playing fair."

"Which is why you really need someone to be watching your back in a place like this," said Joyce.

"Ah, well I hate to break it ya, Crosby," said David. "But you still working for the Prescotts."

"With?" asked Kris. "We've partnered up on this one."

"Oh, I see," said David. "Talk about a power couple."

"Well, in a few minutes from now," said Crosby. "I'll be up there announcing the project our company has been waiting to unveil for an extra long time now. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

Max and I stand behind the corners in between the door to the server room. Max leans her eye towards the retina scanner to gain access inside. She was able to authenticate her ID to the scanner with the ID she scanned with the drone the guards had busted.

"Come on! Come on!" said Max desperately.

The scanner granted her access and the door was open. I threw a flash-bang through the door to blind the guards who were about to shoot us on sight when we walks inside. The flash-bang went off and the guards were blinded. We hold our pistols up and shoot them down. There were more guards to shoot in the room and it would take more than our pistols to hold them off.

Max and I steal some guns from the mercs to even the odds. I got my hands on an Uzi SMG. Max got hold of an MP5K. When the PMCs started firing the bullets on us, we fire back. We shoot the mercenaries down through glass walls and across from server drives they were all taking cover from. We made out like Daniel Craig as 007, ducked and covered from enemy fire, and shot to kill whoever we saw shooting at us. Once we had cleaned house, it was time to enter the core of the server rooms. Known as the time broker room.

The two of us enter a dark room. A very big dark room, we needed flashlights to see what we were doing. At least this was no dark room that belonged to a psycho-Bob named Jeffer-Bob. For all we cared, we just had to do our thing and get the hell out of here. Max sat on a chair where she was able to place an uplink with the time broker data.

"Placing the uplink, Rachel," said Max. "Just give me one second."

Once Max activated the time broker, the room was now illuminating with a projected map of the globe with digital archives of some kind of advanced footage related to incidents of time tinkering or quantum terrorism. I was know blown away by what I was seeing.

"You sure this will work, Rachel?" asked Max.

"Ha, I thought you had faith in me?" responded Rachel.

"What the hella is this, Rachel?" I ask. "This time broker or whatever you call is hella breath taking for such an advanced surveillance network. Now I know how this is the richest corporation in the world."

"It's more than just an advanced surveillance network, Chloe. It's their utmost advanced information broker in the world containing billions of archives within billions of megabytes in database."

"So what am I looking for, Rachel?" asked Max. "Crosby showed what this bad boy can do. Just give me two minutes and I could start a war."

"Any intel on Project Elysium may have been classified as top secret. There should be a voice command module on that broker. Say 'Search supply manifest. Keyword: Elysium'."

"Search supply manifest. Keyword: Elysium."

The broker began searching for matches. But there were no matches to be found.

"Nothing. Anything else I should try?"

"Try saying 'Search automated security systems. Keyword: Elysium'."

"Search automated security systems. Keyword: Elysium."

The time broker searched for the matches Max requested. Still no matches found.

"We're missing something here, Rachel. Any other suggestions?"

"Try 'Search security camera image database. Text recognition: Elysium.'"

"Search security camera image database. Text recognition: Elysium."

The broker began authenticating Max's request for her text recognition and voila. There was finally a match.

"There," I say.

The broker projects a security cam image of Project Elysium being developed. However, what we see is something disturbing. Alexei Ranikov was in the image standing next to person that had been censored and blurred out from the footage. What the hell was a terrorist doing on cams? The information was uncanny. Then we see footage of the project being modified to do something it shouldn't and for some reason, somehow, a terrorist was involved in this? Was there a mole in Chrysalis working for Neo-Chrysalis? How?"

"Holy shit, Rachel," I say in shock. "It's him."

"Who?"

"It's Ranikov. The man who worked with Prescott. We just saw him on the footage!"

"You did?!"

"Hold on," said Max. "You know that guy?"

"Hella yeah I know that guy," I admit. "That's Alexei Ranikov. Sean Prickscott's number two who's with Neo-Chrysalis. This can't be."

"Max what are you seeing? How is Ranikov involved in this?"

"I don't know, Rachel," said Max. "I barely know the man you speak of and however he's involved, it's some kind of project interference. It could relate to the time fracture that would end time. There's else here that came with this footage."

"What is it?"

"Let me look."

Max read through the text files on the footage and it read something even more disturbing. The files had read prefixes of cities from the west coast with date codes of when a terrorist attack would begin.

Project modified for attack on cities from pacific coast to across the globe. The end of time begins: 4_4_4.

Attack on Pacific Coast - Time Fracture Begins

Seattle, WA - 4/24/14

Olympia, WA - 4/24/14

Portland, OR - 4/24/14

Salem, OR - 4/24/14

San Francisco, CA - 4/24/14

Sacramento, CA - 4/24/14

Los Angeles, CA - 4/24/14

San Diego, CA - 4/24/14

The global map on the broker pinpointed everywhere the terrorist attack would initiate from the pacific coast to all over the globe. This was the definition of atrocity and insanity. The end of time was real. This was the covenant of when all this would happen. Neither one of us could believe what our eyes were seeing.

"God help us, Chloe," said Max. "This - this is all in two days. This Thursday. I should've foreseen this! This nothing like Arcadia Bay. They're gonna attack every city on the coast to all over the world! We have to warn someone!"

"My God. Max is right," said Rachel. "This is their endgame. According to my uplink, Neo-Chrysalis is going to attack every region from across the globe via Project Elysium. Whatever this project is, it won't be what they'll say it'll be. And Neo-Chrysalis couldn't have planned this alone. We have ourselves a mole in Chrysalis working for those monsters. I just know we do."

"Yeah," I said. "And whoever the fuck this mole is, must be the guy blurred out on the footage so no one would recognize him. What kind of ludicrous wacko in the wrong mind would dare plot such a thing?! This is Arcadia Bay all over again. Except that this time, it won't be just one town. It'll be the entire universe."

Before we could go back on the coms and warn David and Warren about this, we hear voices outside the server room. No doubt it was the voices of angry goons knocking the door ready to kick our asses and take us out.

"Well, shit," I said.

Note: Fucked up shit isn't it? Now shit is really starting to hit the fan, is it now? Wasn't lying when I said so before. I'm a man of my word, aren't I? Shit has just gotten real. This episode is at least three or four more chapters from completion. It's gonna be good!

Until next time, stay golden!