GEN13 - Version 2.0 Read Online Free Page B

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll..He fought off a giggle. “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks .. . that you ... that you can’t go a whole week .., without talking about sex.”
    Grunge shook his hand with a slightly-too-firm grip. “Money in the bank, dude. You’re on!”
    Sarah wheezed and clutched her aching stomach. “Oh, now I really wish Kat was here. She shouldn't miss this.” She took a deep breath. “Where is Kat, anyway?”
    “Don’t know,” Roxy replied, snuggling back up against her boyfriend. “All she said was she had stuff to do.”
    In another part of the city, Caitlin Fairchild made her way through the crowded streets, heading nowhere in particular. Kat wore only a light jacket over her turtleneck and jeans, but she barely noticed the cold or the snow around her. Part of the reason was her super-tough skin that made her impervious to all sorts of things, not the least of which was the cold. Mostly, though, it was because she was lost in thought.
    Apart from the cold, Kat also barely noticed the stares she got from virtually every man she passed. Only a couple of years ago, Kat had been a mousy teenager with glasses who rarely elicited a second glance from the males on campus. But that was before she’d gone gen-active and transformed into a six-foot-three amazon with striking red hair and a figure that made Pamela Anderson look like Olive Oyl. Since the big change, she’d grown so accustomed to the stares of astonishment and naked lust that they just became part of the baggage that came with the deal.
    In fact, Kat had been spending a lot of time lately thinking about those days before her time with Gen 13 . Back in the day, Kat had been a promising student at Princeton University. A’s didn’t come easy at Princeton, but that didn’t stop her from earning more than her share. She’d majored in computer science back then, and dreamt of a bright future in which she’d dazzle the world with new and daring innovations that would make people’s lives better.
    And if she earned a small fortune along the way, well, that wouldn’t be so bad either.
    However, everything changed one night toward the end of Kat’s sophomore year, when she was awakened by a late-night knock on the door of her dorm room. It was a team of men in dark suits, agents of the National Security Committee. They’d come to tell her that she’d been accepted for an internship connected to a highly classified government program for unusually talented young people.
    In retrospect, Kat should have realized that something was funny when they told her that she would have to leave school that same night to be processed into the program. At the time, though, it was all happening so fast, and she was so grateful and flattered to be chosen, that she never stopped to think about it.
    By dawn, Kat found herself in a high-tech facility in the heart of Death Valley. The place was run by a covert group called International Operations, or I.O. for short. It was quite a change from Princeton, what with its halls lined with electronics and guards dressed up in sophisticated cybernetic armor.
    It was here that Kat would meet the four people who would soon become her closest friends:
    Sarah Rainmaker, a full-blooded Apache with a self-righteous passion for causes ranging from women’s rights to saving the environment to helping the homeless.
    Bobby Lane, who’d been bounced from foster home to foster home for as long as he could remember. The experience had left Bobby bitter and angry in those days, but even back then, his more sensitive side occasionally peeked through in his love of music.
    Roxanne Spaulding, a chain-smoking party girl whose in-your-face attitude masked a genuine sweetness underneath.
    And Grunge, who was ... well, Grunge.
    The days at I.O. quickly blurred into an endless series of mental and physical tests that went far beyond anything Kat had ever experienced in college. After two years at an Ivy League school, Kat was used