Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1)

Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

Book: Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1) Read Online Free PDF
Author: Nenia Campbell
type of person to even want to, it didn't do me much good. My father was just a lowly programmer. And in a predominantly patriarchal society, it's your father's name that really counts.
    “ Hoy, vamos a hablar sobre …”
    I tuned out. His accent got on my nerves. I already had a pretty firm grasp on the vocabulary, anyway. So what if I occasionally left off the odd accent mark?
    “ Señorita Parker, ¿E stás escuchándome? ”
    I rattled off an answer to the question he hurled at me. He seemed disappointed when I got it right. I wished I was still taking programming, which I'd been taking at this same time block last semester. I'd always been interested in computers, even though I wasn't an expert user. Partly because it irritated my mother, mostly because I found technology fascinating. Programming was a second language, a secret code. You could manipulate the code to make it do anything you wanted. Holy Trinity offered an introductory course. It was object-oriented programming, the easiest. I'd wanted more. There were no accent marks. No conjugation. Just commands and numbers. Once you had the framework, you could manipulate the code in different ways.
    My interest pleased my dad. Unlike my mother, who had threatened to faint dead away when I announced an interest in becoming an engineer (“why don't you just come right out and say you're a lesbian, Christina? That's what the world is going to think.”) my dad was encouraging of any sort of intellectual pursuit, especially computers. He had once said that technology was like a skeleton key with which one could open many doors. The problem, he went on, was that many of these doors shouldn't be opened so you had to be careful when deciding how and when to exert that power.
    I can still remember that conversation almost verbatim because it had made such a strong impact on me. We'd been in the kitchen. My parents were between business trips. Just one normal family, that was us. I was eating a Pop-Tart, ignoring the looks my mother was shooting me from across the room as she prepared sandwiches for lunch. I knew she wouldn't dare complain, not out loud. Not with my dad there. But at his words, she stilled.
    “ Why do you have to be careful? That wouldn't be your fault. It'd be a mistake.”
    “ Rubens!”
    Dad glanced at my mother. “Nothing, Sweet Pea,” he said to me.
    “ I want to know.” I put down the pastry and wiped my hands on my jeans. “It'll come in handy, in case I end up working with computers one day.” I shot a defiant look at my mother.
    Both my parents exchanged a long look. “Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should,” he said, choosing his words carefully. The fingers on his left hand drummed against the table as he sipped his morning coffee. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
    I was pretty sure he'd stolen that from a movie. “Dad, please . You work at a software firm. What harm could you possibly do?”
    “ Nothing in this world is without harm.” He looked into my eyes. “Nothing. Promise me, Christina, that you will never open Pandora's Box.”
    “ Um…sure, Dad. I won't open any weird boxes.”
    “ That's enough.” My mother's voice was quiet, but firm. “Christina. Put down that… thing and help me with the sandwiches.”
    Then Dad went silent. I watched him as I spread the pus-colored mayo “lite” on my mother's favorite revolting whole-grain bread. He said nothing else. That was three days ago and I was still replaying that moment in my head, trying to analyze those secret looks and unspoken exchanges. What had my dad been trying to say? That he had, in a burst of egotism, opened one of those that shouldn't have been opened? Or was it one of those normal parental caveats—don't have premarital sex, don't do drugs, blah, blah, blah? But if that was the case, why wouldn't my mother let him speak?
    “ Turn to p ágina catorce ,” Alvarez said. “And we will correct the homework.”
    I
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Cathedral of Dreams

Terry Persun

Cultural Amnesia

Clive James

Dragon's Melody

Ophelia Bell

Time's Echo

Pamela Hartshorne

The Watchers

Mark Andrew Olsen

Judenstaat

Simone Zelitch