Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) by Heather Hayden (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📕

aside. With a few quick movements, she plucked two badges on lanyards from a basket, then two yellow plastic bracelets from another. After sliding everything through the slot, she turned back to her computer without any further acknowledgement of our presence.

Chris picked up the badges and held them out. “Here, each of you will need one of these.”

I slipped the lanyard over my head. The badge was yellow, unlike his white one, and had large black letters spelling out VISITOR.

“Keep that on at all times,” Chris said. “Not that you’ll be here long, but it’s important. You’ll also need this. Don’t tighten it too much.”

The bracelet was the same shade of yellow, relatively wide, and had a small opening to slide the end through. I fumbled a bit but finally got it closed. The bracelet refused to come apart again.

“You won’t get that off,” Chris said, watching me struggle with it. “It has a chip to monitor your location while you’re in the lab. Security is extremely tight, especially after the incident.”

“I am sorry about your colleagues,” Agent Smith said. “I understand they suffocated due to a CO2 leak?”

Chris grimaced. “Yes. Asphyxiation is a terrible way to go.” His expression darkened. “I hope you are as good as they say you are, sir, because I want that AI caught and destroyed as soon as possible.”

My stomach clenched, half-concerned for Halle, who was hearing all of this through my leg implants, and half-worried about Talbot. Had the rogue really killed those scientists in cold blood? “Is it possible the leak was a coincidence?”

Both men stared at me in shock. Oops. Act shy! I cringed and looked to the floor.

“It’s unlikely,” Chris replied, his voice like ice.

“Should you be working after an experience like that?” Agent Smith frowned. “Surely they offered you time off.”

“They did. I refused. I want to see that thing caught. If I can do anything to assist, just say the word. And speaking of speaking, I need your phones, please.”

Agent Smith removed his phone from a jacket pocket and handed it over. I gave Chris mine as well. He took it, avoiding contact with me. He still wore a faint look of disgust. I clenched my jaw.

“Please try not to speak unless necessary,” Agent Smith murmured as Chris took the phones to the secretary.

My teeth ached from how tight my jaw was, but I gave a short nod and mouthed, “Sorry.”

Chris slid the phones through to Rebecca, jerking his fingers back before the cover snapped down. “We’ll collect them in an hour or two.”

The secretary nodded, swept them into a basket, and returned to her computer.

“Has it always been protocol to confiscate visitors’ cellular devices?” Agent Smith asked.

“Yes. Unsecured devices can cause a security breach.”

My leg muscles twitched.

“It’s a good policy. The last rogue I tracked down used a cell phone to escape its lab.” Agent Smith glanced around. “Do you have any theories regarding how this one got out?”

“Yes. It might be easier to explain if I show you. This way.”

Chris led us to another elevator, this one with a display of floors, but otherwise identical to the first. We got off at the second floor and headed down a plain white hallway with fluorescent lights and regularly spaced doors, each marked with a number.

We stopped outside 207. Chris swiped his card in the slot, then pressed his hand against a biometric sensor. After a second, there was a quiet beep and he pushed the door open, beckoning us inside.

I looked around as we entered, taking in the room. White walls everywhere, with banks of computers running along them, and a huge array of monitors filling the back wall behind a spread of buttons and switches that would have put an airplane’s control panel to shame. Several scientists were scattered through the room, working on different interfaces, their fingers tapping away busily at keyboards. Only one—a man sitting by the control panel—looked up as we entered.

“Chris,” he called. “These the visitors we’ve been waiting for?”

“Yes. This is Agent Smith and his intern, Viki Wandel.” He turned to us. “This is Jerry, one of the programmers.”

“You worked on the rogue AI’s project?” Agent Smith asked.

“Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I did.” Jerry had dark circles under his eyes and in the glow of the interfaces his face was pale, almost paper-white—either from stress or from spending too much time in front of computer screens rather than under the sun. Probably both. “We’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong. Everything seemed normal Friday evening. Ben and William wanted to try a few more things before we scrapped project 11001 on Monday, so they decided to stay late, but then…” His voice trailed off, and he gestured toward the screens. “Some kind of glitch made the building’s security systems go haywire. Set off fire alarms, put the lab in lockdown, released the CO2 from the fire suppression system… It was a mess in here. Took hours to get things sorted out, and the servers and backup servers were badly damaged. We lost project 11001 completely, and when we discovered signs that project 10998 went rogue, well, that’s why you’re here.” Jerry spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “We’ve all been working overtime the past four days, and we’re still no closer to tracking down the rogue.”

“What do you mean by ‘lost’?” Agent Smith frowned. “Are we dealing with two rogues?”

“No, there’s no sign that 11001 escaped, thankfully. It’s just…odd.” Jerry’s hands dropped into his lap, and he shook his head. “We’ve never had an issue with 10998. 11001 was scheduled for termination, because of some serious problems with its learning algorithms, 10998 always performed as expected.”

I bit my lip, trying not to grimace. Halle won’t be happy to hear they were going to