The Reborn (The Day Eight Series Part 1) Read Online Free Page A

as interesting as one might hope.
    Trevor’s manager stood on a chair and announced that everyone should go home for the day. Some muted cheers. Someone yelled, “Snow day!” followed by more audible cheers. Then a secretary called out, “Let’s hit the bars!” That brought on full applause. His manager bowed and stepped down.
    Trevor headed for the elevator. Nearby, Damon stood silently and watched the office clear out. As Trevor passed, Damon casually smiled and nodded to him. Hands in his pockets, he nervously fidgeted with his memory stick, looking forward to some fresh air. He left the building wondering why he was in no apparent trouble.
     
    ~
     
    All the regular employees had left. Damon Winters stood, arms folded, and watched his team of men run tests on all the computers. Two were moving among fax machines, printers, phones, and various other electrical equipment that had been plugged into the company’s network.
    Despite the situation, Damon smiled to himself – something he hadn’t had reason to do recently. His men worked with speed and efficiency – no missteps, no wasted keystrokes – like clockwork. With their white lab coats and brilliant minds, they were his core team: nearly one hundred and twenty specialists. Right now a third of them were spread across all the lower floors, surveying the damage. The rest were in their usual area on the six restricted upper floors with their most valuable equipment.
    He had hand-picked every one of them. Some had been researchers at schools like Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, and Stanford. He also went abroad, snatching up graduates from Oxford, Cambridge, and Tokyo University. Others had worked for companies and organizations specializing in anything from biology and medicine to chemistry, physics, psychology, education, and even social work. Except in rare cases, Damon had made sure they all had computer science or engineering in their backgrounds, as that was the connective tissue of Day Eight. Programming and engineering weren’t just skills, they were a way of thinking about problems, a method of analyzing situations, a common language that could unite the most disparate subjects and produce wondrous tangible results. Even his lawyers were cross-discipline.
    After a few more minutes, the lab coats headed back to Damon, as if on cue. A technician with broad shoulders, blond hair, and glasses stepped forward. His badge read:
     
Kane Fletcher
Chemistry
Sociology
     
    He spoke: “The computers are critically damaged, and anything in the building connected to the network is likely to have traces of the surge data.”
    Damon nodded. “What sort of traces?”
    “Some of the computers have files scattered on them created during the network overload. They could be extremely compromising.”
    “Like the ones from the Silicon Valley event?”
    “More revealing,” Kane replied.
    Damon waited, expecting to hear more.
    Kane continued, cautious. “The files are all signed Allison .”
    Damon’s eyes widened. “Oh God.”

Chapter 4             
     
    A Plea for Help
     
     
     
     
     
     
    T revor glanced up at the building he worked in. It seemed oddly taller than it should be.
    He moved out of the building’s shadow, and headed south down 3 rd Ave on his usual path home, his eyes watering in the brisk autumn wind. Businessmen wore long coats and scarves as they trudged down the sidewalk. The women dressed lighter. Trevor was always surprised by how many still wore skirts in this weather. Skirts were nice, but he always seemed to glance a split second longer at the women wearing full business suits.
    He pushed through a cloud of thick steam from a pretzel cart, and would have stopped to get one, but its line snaked abnormally far for three in the afternoon.
    Having worn a light shirt, Trevor tried to hop on a nearby bus only to find it packed. An old lady as knobby as a diseased tree hobbled up the steps behind Trevor, but