Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,50
and brushed his hands off. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I picked my holster up off my suitcase and put it on, followed by my jacket. I took a last look at him once I was at the door, gave him a weak smile, and closed it behind me.
I leaned against the wall in the hallway, trying to catch my breath. After taking time to compose myself, I walked two doors down and knocked. The door cracked open to admit me and Reed stood there, looking much less beaten up than he had a few hours ago.
“Is that Sienna?” I heard Ariadne’s voice crackle from the speaker of the phone sitting on the bed.
“It is,” I said. “Sorry for the delay; I was just—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ariadne cut me off. “I only have a few minutes. Our operation in western Kansas has gotten complicated; M-Squad has been ambushed by some heavy-hitting metas, and we’ve lost half the team from our Texas facility. The Director and I need to manage the fallout from this, but I wanted to get back to all of you first.”
“Things have gotten a bit complicated here as well,” I said, feeling a little catch in my voice.
“Yes,” Ariadne said, “Kat and Scott have explained. We’ll have a conversation later about how you’ve been keeping quiet about your aunt, but for now let’s talk about your friend Reed.”
I locked eyes with Reed, who looked unconcerned. “You know he’s standing right here, don’t you?”
“He’s offered to help us,” she said, “with some additional resources from his organization. He’s also shed a little light on what we’re dealing with down here in Kansas.” I heard the tension in Ariadne’s voice. “Omega seems to have chosen this moment to launch a surprise attack against the Directorate. We think they drew M-Squad down here for the express purpose of putting them out of commission.” Ariadne’s tone was flat. “I’m afraid this little chase we have you on, trying to track down this meta that’s robbing convenience stores, is going to have to wait. Reed told me you’ve captured a laptop from Omega?”
“Yes, I have it right here.” I pointed to Kat’s overnight bag, prompting a quizzical look from her. I pointed again, and she went over to it, opening it and digging around until she came out with the laptop. “It’s password protected, though, and I didn’t want to chance digging around in it because...well, because I’m terrible with computers. Figured I’d leave it to the pros.”
“I want that computer in the hands of our techies right now,” Ariadne said. “How fast can you get it back to the campus?”
I looked to Scott, who cleared his throat. “If we drive fast, with the sirens on, we’re a little less than two hours away.”
“If there’s any hint of what Omega is up to or what their next move might be, we need to know now,” Ariadne said. “Get that computer in the hands of our tech support immediately. Do whatever you have to do.” She paused. “Reed, is there anything else you can tell us?”
Reed looked like he’d been disturbed from slumber, moving after being still for several minutes. “I can’t tell you much about what Omega’s up to down there because it’s out of my territory, but I can tell you that there’s at least one more facility they have here in Wisconsin, something that’s a lot more secret than the Eau Claire safehouse. One of our sources called it Site Epsilon, and it was where they were working on something called ‘Project Andromeda’. Our agent was tasked to find it and get inside, but they, uh...” He shrugged. “...disappeared.”
“Where is this?” Scott asked, his arms folded in front of him.
“Eastern Wisconsin, not far from Eagle River.” He shrugged. “I took a preliminary look around after our agent didn’t report in, but there was no sign – no trace of his cell phone, nothing. Of course, I’m the only meta my organization has in the upper midwest, and I’ve got about a million things to do, so it hasn’t been something I’ve been able to get to; Wisconsin’s just been too quiet in terms of Omega activity to make it a priority.”
“If Omega has a secret facility here in the state that far off the beaten path,” Kat was thinking out loud, “that means it’s probably something important, right? Something secret?”
“How sure are you about the location, Reed?” Ariadne’s voice came off a little tinny, and I heard