The Exchange Part 1: Project Sapphire, #1

By N. Isabelle Blanco

Project Sapphire: The World’s first AI. A top-secret project exposed to a select group of scientists. Lei Heaton, a man desperate to save his daughter, is at the top of the bionics empire. He not only hired the team to repair his daughter’s damaged body, he plans to reanimate her dead mind using the Sapphire AI.

A dangerous man—a killer that is no regular human… 

Maxwell Landon—codename: Deimos—is the Adelphi Organization’s top agent. His M.O is simple: Never fail. He's used to annihilating anyone that gets in his way. But this time, he's being called to protect and deliver. Deimos is aware that this mission won't be like any other. Then he lays eyes on the resurrected Ms. Heaton, and instantly he knows:

That is not Magdalena Heaton.

And he will never be the same again. 

Control, his most prized possession, is ripped from him with a single glance... 

The violent attraction he feels for the girl complicates matters immediately. But what Deimos doesn't know is that things are about to get much worse. Sapphire isn't just a completely different person than the dead Ms. Heaton—she's the AI miracle of the century. An advancement that many would kill to own. 

Including himself, no matter how hard he fights against it. 

A girl determined to protect her creator. A man determined to protect her... 

Despite the fact that she is not Magdalena, Sapphire is bent on taking her place as Mr. Heaton's daughter in order to keep her creator safe. Deimos knows that he has to honor her wish. But the thing inside him is demanding more. More than a touch. A lot more than a taste. It responds to everything about her...every stuttered breath that lets him know she wants him as much as he wants her.

How does he walk away when he knows that no matter how far he is from her, she’ll always be in danger and he'll always hunger for her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: N. Isabelle Blanco
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781516366767

N. Isabelle Blanco

N. Isabelle Blanco is the Amazon Bestselling Author of the Allure Series, the Need Series with K.I.Lynn, and many others. At the age of three, due to an odd fascination with studying her mother’s handwriting, she began to read and write. By the time she’d reached kindergarten, she had an extensive vocabulary and her obsession with words began to bleed into every aspect of her life.  That is, until coffee came a long and took over everything else. Nowadays, N. spends most of her days surviving the crazy New York rush and arguing with her characters every ten minutes or so, all in the hopes of one day getting them under control. Sign up for the newsletter at http://bit.ly/NIBnewsletter to be the first to know how all these arguments turn out :)  Facebook: facebook.com/nisabelleblanco Instagram: @nisabelleblanco Twitter: @nyddi

Book preview

I can’t take it anymore. She’s ruined me. My entire sanity hinges on being inside her.

I want you. Need you.

"Oh, God. Yes. Take me."

And that it was all it took for my life to get ripped apart, torn into unrecognizable pieces that didn’t make sense and never would.

Adelphi Organization Site 0012

Exact Location Unknown.

Leipzig, Germany.

SINCE WHEN DO YOU HEAD the security ops, Deimos? Your specialty is slaughter and maim.

I ignore Logan’s question and continue staring down at my tablet. He’s right. I didn’t earn the code name Deimos by accident. I specialize in death. Gruesome, all-consuming, creative, no-man-left-standing type of death.

Which is why I was chosen for this mission.

That and the fact that I am familiar with the field of bionics. After having major surgery to replace both my arms with bionic parts, I’ve become one of eight bionic people on the planet.

I’m also on a whole other level compared to most of them. The best that technology could create. Top secret. The world’s governments—those that are heavy power players—go to extreme lengths to hide from the public that certain technologies exist.

Both of my arms and hands are now made of that type of technology. Practically indestructible, seemingly human, bionic parts.

Actually, considering the information in front of me, there’s nine of us now. And the new addition seems to be as advanced as I am.

Logan gets fed-up with my lack of response. With a huff, he gets up and comes to stand behind me so he can read over my shoulder. Oh . . . kay. Yeah. She’s attractive. Looks familiar, too. That’s your assignment?

He’s not lying. The young girl in the picture is beautiful. With her long, dark brown hair, pale skin, and her mixed features, she’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

Her eyes are large and golden-green. Mr. Heaton, her father, is British and Asian. Her mother, Luisa Heaton, had been Spaniard.

She’s a perfect genetic mixture. As she would be. Lei Heaton had his deceased wife’s genetic code tested and analyzed with his own to ensure maximum compatibility.

Logan reaches forward, putting his finger on my fucking tablet and scrolling. "Magdalena Heaton. The Magdalena Heaton? As in the daughter of Lei Heaton, owner of Heaton Corp?"

Heaton Corp. is the leader in medical technology.

Namely . . . you guessed it: bionics.

I nod and push his hand away.

Logan, being the annoying fucker that he sometimes is, rips the tablet out of my grasp so he can continue reading. Father is Lei Heaton, age 45. Mother was Luisa Heaton. Deceased at age 41. Blah, blah, blah. All this is common knowledge.

I raise an eyebrow, waiting for it . . .

Date of birth is June 9th, 1996. Age nineteen. Date of— Logan blinks down at the tablet. Then, he brings it up to his face, as if having it that close will help him make sense of what he’s reading. Confirmed status: deceased.

He lowers the tablet, red brows furrowed. His light blue eyes are locked on the floor and he looks so concentrated that it seems like he’s trying to solve Femat’s Theorem or some shit. "This states that her date of death is December 17th, 2014. So, what? They’re sending the ‘terror’ of the Adelphi Organization to deliver a corpse? And why hasn’t there been anything in the news about Lei Heaton’s daughter dying?"

I wave at the tablet still in his hands. Keep reading. I turn back to my touch-screen computer and begin putting together a message for Misty Johnson, the IT genius of our unit.

By this point, I have memorized everything Logan is reading. No matter how many times I go through the file, it still doesn’t make sense to me.

Magdalena Heaton was in a car wreck about four months ago. It’d been late at night when the car skidded right off the empty road and straight into a ditch, thirty-feet down.

The driver somehow survived with only a few minor injuries; Magdalena Heaton, however, did not.

I hear Logan approaching before he speaks. "So Lei Heaton tries to save his daughter using every bionic advancement at his company’s disposal. And when that fails and his daughter dies, he brought her brain back to life by uploading a computer program into it?"

Disbelief is evident in Logan’s voice, and it’s understandable. The ramifications of what Lei Heaton has done can’t even be counted. The ramifications of what Dr. Allen, the creator of Project Sapphire, has done go beyond anything I could ever comprehend.

If this gets out, governments will go to war over this technology. Religions will crumble. The weak amongst us will have no idea how to deal with this knowledge.

Not just a computer program, I tell Logan. From what I understand, Project Sapphire was a fully functioning, self-evolving AI.

Logan blinks at me.

"It—she was a consciousness. A computer-birthed personality. One that now exists inside a human brain and is programmed with memories somehow extrapolated from another woman’s mind."

Shit.

Pretty much.

Logan hands my tablet back to me and runs a hand through his red hair. He spends a lot more time thinking about the philosophical and scientific reasons behind humanity’s existence than I do.

If I’m shaken, he’s mind-fucked.

Lei Heaton was so desperate to keep his daughter that he had a different personality uploaded into her fucking mind, Logan says with a shake of his head. A personality created inside a computer. Dude, I wasn’t supposed to live to witness this happen. This is way too advanced.

My inbox pings. I bend down to stare at my monitor and find a reply from Misty. Different personality, but as I said, Magdalena’s memories were loaded into the software. The entire algorithm was also changed to mimic Ms. Heaton’s personality.

But it can’t possibly be the same person. Can it?

Logan’s question tells me that he suspects the same thing I do; who I’m picking up can’t be Magdalena Heaton. Try telling that to a narcissistic, egotistical man who is obsessed with his biological creation and is convinced that he has Godlike powers at his disposal.

When I turn my head toward him, the twitch in Logan’s jaw tells me how much he still has to say—and how hard he’s fighting to keep it all back. He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and just like that, he’s slipped back into professionalism. It seems to me like Misty should be going with you. The intel mentioned the Bayesian algorithm, among a dozen others. She’s familiar with that and the Gaussian Mixture Model. It’s best to have her around.

She won’t be coming with me but I forwarded all the info to her. I’ll be in constant communication with you two in case shit gets rough.

Lei Heaton hid his daughter’s accident and resulting death from the world, and he’s called us in to transport his daughter back from Japan to London.

This isn’t simply a novel case; it’s a cauldron brewing with hundreds of possible fuck-ups and my gut is telling me that this mission will in no way be as simple as everyone hopes.

You’re taking Gage and his team with you.

I nod at Logan, pick up my tablet, sat-phone, and slide my HK45C into its holster. By the time I arrive in Utashinai, I’ll be carrying weapons a lot more dangerous than my HK, but for now, it’ll do.

I have a bad feeling about this one, Max.

He’s one of the few people alive that I allow to call me that, and yet, it still annoys me when he does.

I wave at him over my shoulder, heading toward the freight elevator. Aside from the narrow staircase on the other side of the floor, it’s the only way out of the upper level of our facility.

I do, too, I tell him as I press the button to open the elevator doors. That’s why I plan to keep in touch with you guys at all times.

Logan is still staring at me, tense, as the vertical doors close.

Utashinai Plasma Plant.

Utashinai, Sorachi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan.

––––––––

THE CLOCK READS 12:34AM WHEN our convoy pulls in behind the plant. It’s thirty-four degrees outside, despite the fact that it’s April. I check that all of my weapons are hidden. The three other agents in the vehicle with me do the same.

I pull up the collar of my coat and open the door. Gage exits the vehicle he and his team are traveling in at the same time I step out of mine. We’ve been saddled with Suzuki K-Cars as our means of transportation while here. Reinforced, armor-plated, and equipped with bullet-proof glass, but K-Cars nonetheless.

They’re the most popular cars in the country, and therefore the most inconspicuous way to travel.

Still. Fucking K-Cars. Goddamn ugly pieces of shit.

Gage’s straight blond hair, a replica of my own, falls into his face as a gust of wind passes by. People have told me that we almost resemble brothers; except that his eyes are green, and mine are blue.

Don’t ask me. I don’t fucking see it.

Gage swipes his hair back with a gloved hand, his facial muscles twitching with annoyance. Sometimes I swear you don’t pay me enough. This shouldn’t even be allowed.

He gets paid a fortune to destroy anything he’s aimed at. I’m not taking his shit, no matter how much I agree with him about the cars. Stay here. I turn to take in the back entrance of the plant.

As well-known as the plant is, it’s only known for its processing of MSW. The perfect cover. No one suspects that a lab is situated three levels below ground.

Or that a body was brought back to life with a computer program down there.

It bothers me. It’s rare that anything bothers me when it comes to a mission. Or life in general. But this one is pricking at me. Curiosity rides me.

Gage leans into the car to speak to his team right as one of the back doors of the facility opens.

Several Japanese men and women in lab coats exit first. They stop, forming a semi-circle around the entrance and talking amongst themselves. Another black-haired man in a lab coat, one that is not Japanese, exits last.

I know who he is based on his file. That is Dr. Gordon Allen, the creator of the