Read Online The Search for Sam by Pittacus Lore - Free Book Online Page A

existence.
    I don’t really have a choice , I say. I’m trapped here .
    She leans against the counter. “You always have a choice. You had a choice to screw
     up today on the job, to bait your father into sentencing you to death, to do it in
     Zakos’s earshot so you’d end up here....”
    I was afraid you were already gone. I couldn’t think of anything else. I ran out of
     hope, figured I was going to lose you anyway, and we could at least—
    “See each other one last time?” she says, finishing my thought. She gives me a flirty,
     cockeyed grin.
    “That’s sweet,” she says. “But that wasn’t the real reason you went haywire today.”
    She’s right. That isn’t how all this started. In the moment, I just couldn’t bring
     myself to rat out those humans to my people. That was the first time the work I was
     doing as a surveyor was clearly going to help the Mogs and hurt others, and I couldn’t
     do it. Over the past week I’ve had to take some crazy, on-the-fly risks, but that
     was the first time I acted completely without a plan, without any clear sense of what
     the consequences would be.
    One , I say. I don’t even really understand why I did what I did .
    She doesn’t answer me immediately, but instead turns back to the tiled wall, crossing
     her arms. I can see an idea brewing in her head. After a moment, she turns back to
     me and fixes me with a cryptic stare.
    “Don’t worry, Adam,” she says. “You will. Seeing as you’re going out anyway,” she
     says, leaning close to my ear. “Don’t you want to go out swinging?”
    I look at her, confused.
    “A giant leap for Mogadorian technology,” she whispers, casting a glance over at the
     tiles where the Greeters’ bodies are kept. “Is that what you really want your legacy
     to be?”
    It’s time.
    I’m in the chair, connected to Zakos’s console by a bunch of wires and cables. The
     machine that will plug me back into One’s consciousness is already humming. “The parameters
     are in place,” Zakos says. “It will just take a moment after we administer the anesthetic
     to begin working.” He gestures to a syringe on a tray of tools next to me. The syringe
     hasn’t escaped my attention either, though.
    He approaches, towering above me in my reclined seat. As he holds my left hand against
     the arm of the chair and begins to pull the strap over my wrist, I know I only have
     a second to act.
    I jerk my hand loose from Zakos’s grip and leap up, grabbing the syringe and stabbing
     it into Zakos’s throat before he can make another move. He punches me desperately,
     making contact with my face, but it’s too late: I’ve already depressed the plunger.
    He staggers back in a woozy daze, the drugs already making their way into his system,
     and falls to the floor.
    I rip the strap off my left hand and stand up.
    “Why …” he says, puzzled at what I’ve done. “What could you possibly hope to accomplish
     …”
    Then he’s out.
    I rush to the lab’s door and, as quietly as possible, lock it from the inside. I’m
     lucky that Dr. Zakos didn’t knock anything over on his way to the ground: any noise
     would’ve attracted the attention of the guards on the other side of the door. But
     I know that once I do what I’m about to, alarms will sound, getting their attention.
     It won’t take them long to override the lock.
    But that’s okay. I only need a little time.
    I run to the steel panel controlling the containment pods. There are no buttons, no
     instructions. I have no idea how to imitate Doctor Zakos’s complex gestures.
    “Let me,” I hear. One’s voice.
    She takes over my movements, just as she did when she hijacked my body in the jungle.
     I’m a spectator to my own body, watching as my hand dances elegantly across the surface
     of the panel.
    An alarm goes off. I feel One vacating my body, ceding control back to me.
    I get back in the chair, reattach a couple of electrodes and grip the arms of the