The Seven Read Online Free Page B

arrived at the Home. His desk was bare except for the computer Dr. Cormair gave him to use for his studies. He had bookcases along one wall of his room and each bookcase was absurdly organized, each book rigid and in its place, alphabetized and organized according to a system of Kenny's own design. Each bookcase was full, but not crammed full. Kenny read everything he could get his hands on, but kept only books of information---computers, electronics, astronomy, physics, complex mathematics. Kenny's education far surpassed the education of the other six thanks to his reading and private study, but he never showed it in class or in Cormair's tests. He guarded his intelligence carefully. He had plans. They could only keep him at the Home until he was eighteen. The law books he read told him this. At eighteen, he would leave and never look back. It was almost time. He endured the arduous saga of testing and surgeries. He had survived ten years of torture and isolation. He was going to leave.
    Kenny logged an entry sequence on his computer. Immediately it presented him a series of passwords. Everything he did on the computer was meticulously encrypted. He didn't want Cormair taking advantage of his intellect or discovering what he was doing online. It might compromise his plans.
    Computers had always been Kenny's refuge from the Home. He was a self-taught hacker, utilizing the Home's computer systems to figure out how to effectively "leave" the Home via the cyber-realm in chat rooms, bulletin board systems, and instant messengers. He had conversations with men and women all over the world, even though it technically was outlawed because Cormair didn't want them or searching for their families or being directly influenced by individuals in the outside world. Kenny never bothered relocating his family. They'd never written to him, nor had he written to them. When he stepped onto the bus ten years ago, he had considered himself an orphan. The computers did allow him to discover things about himself, though. He found his actual date of birth. The first thing they did in the Home was told all seven of the kids that their birthdays were to be celebrated on December 31 each year. Kenny knew it was done to keep them at the Home as long as legally possible. He'd discovered his birthday, though: September 29. Only a few more weeks and he would leave the home under the cover of night, a legal adult, to find a new life, a real life.
    The computer flashed an error message. Kenny frowned. He retyped his access code.
     
     
    INVALID.
     
     
    Kenny squinted and retyped his access code slowly, making certain the keystrokes were clean.
     
     
    INVALID.
     
     
    Kenny frowned. Cormair had blocked his encryptions. It happened occasionally. Cormair brought in top hackers every so often and attempted to get them to break through Kenny's defenses and restore Cormair's authoritarian control. It never worked. At the most, it only served to inconvenience Kenny for a while.
    Kenny pushed back his chair and knelt on the floor next to his computer's hardware tower. He popped the side panel off, exposing the computer's assorted chip board-and-wire guts. Kenny took a deep breath and held it. He slowly stretched out his finger and touched it to the motherboard. Instantly, his body went rigid as he felt the hyper-flow of information. Data streams from the motherboard flowed directly into Kenny's mind and were instantly processed, a broken levee of information. In his mind, the data streams became three-dimensional building blocks and lengths of yarn, waiting to be strung like a game of Cat's Cradle. As easy as thinking, Kenny reset the passwords. He looped the security firewalls. He restructured the programming into a complex fortress of data for which only he had the key. Kenny then reversed the flow of information in his mind and channeled the data back into the motherboard and across the network. His hand fell from the motherboard and Kenny wiped away the