Minders Read Online Free Page B

Minders
Book: Minders Read Online Free
Author: Michele Jaffe
Pages:
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at least eighty, but she seemed to buzz with restless energy. “You, all of you, will finish high school next year, go on to college, get jobs. For you, a risk will be getting drunk the night before midterms. But these kids, a year or two out of high school, most of them are adrift. No school; boring, dead-end jobs. There are other options, of course: scholarships, gangs, everything in between. Through Syncopy you will know everything they think, everything they feel, every wish and desire and superstition. I want that information. I want to know them.”
    Her eyes moved to Flora, and she glared. “Not every one of my initiatives works. And not every one of your Subjects will live to be notable—or even live. But I can assure you, young woman, there’s not a single Mind Corps Fellow who would say that his or her Subject was anything short of exceptional.”
    Miranda pointed toward the bouquet of flowers in the center of the table. “Every one of those flowers is a species I developed myself. Three of them shouldn’t grow here, two shouldn’t be that color, and four of them, like this one”—she reached through the group to pluck a white flower with a single red spot on one petal from the arrangement—“started off as weeds. Despite what my enemies say, with the right care and vision, civilization can be cultivated anywhere.” The eyes beneath her high brow shone, and Sadie felt ignited by their fierce challenge. “In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m Miranda Roque. This is my house. Make me proud.”
    She tucked the flower into Curtis’s buttonhole, then made her way toward the door behind Sadie. It slid apart as Miranda approached, only now there was no sign of the thick green carpet, no scent of wood polish and flowers that had been there when Sadie entered. Instead it opened onto a sterile, cream-colored hallway with a sign that read FLOOR −14. BADGE RULES IN EFFECT.
    “Where are we?” someone behind Sadie asked.
    “Home sweet home. Subbasement fourteen,” Curtis said. “Welcome to Mind Corps.”

CHAPTER 3
    A decade earlier Miranda Roque had built the finest research facility in the country, staffed it with the top scientists and academics in the world, and buried it beneath the ground. Each of the twenty subbasement floors was headed by a different researcher and dedicated to cutting-edge specialties like geocorporation, cipherlogistics, and infodemiology.
    Syncopy, which grew out of late-night coffees on several different floors, now took up all of subbasement fourteen with fifty-three staff members, four state-of-the-art laboratories, and the most advanced nanochip research facility in the world.
    The Fellows’ tour guide, Catrina Devi, told them this as they walked from one cream-on-cream corridor into another. Catrina had dark hair styled in a pixie cut, high cheekbones, luminous brown eyes, and almond skin. She was what Decca would have called “one of those,” meaning one of those women who are so naturally beautiful they could wear a piñata—or in this case an ankle-skimming lab coat and no jewelry except a single gold bracelet—and make it look like they were dressed for a chic party.
    Curtis had introduced her as soon as they got off the elevator. “Catrina was one of our first Mind Corps Fellows five years ago,” he told them. “Now she oversees our Stasis Center. She’ll be doing this next part of the tour. For the six weeks you’re in stasis, your life is in her hands.”
    A smattering of nervous laughter. Sadie watched Curtis give Catrina a warm smile and wondered if their relationship was more than just professional. If she’d been a Mind Corps Fellow five years earlier, she would have to be twenty-one or -two, Sadie calculated.
    A tight cluster of Fellows peppered Catrina with questions as she led them down the long hallway, most of which Sadie thought were designed more to get attention than answers.
    The guy with the southern accent asked, “Could stasis be used to

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