Code Breakers: Beta Read Online Free PDF

systems.
    The hustle and bustle of the protestors and the citizens made for a lively presence in the city. Still, Sasha didn’t mind. She’d spent almost all her life underground at Criborg’s island—which the scientists who had been left behind were redesigning into an outpost—and having the open air, albeit beneath the Dome, to wander around in was a nice change.
    The journey took them through the mostly glass and steel structures of the financial and business district. There was no stock exchange to speak of, but the citizens did have a banking system. To the Family’s credit, at least in this situation, it actually worked reasonably well. Everyone was paid a fair salary, with just nine different salary levels depending on the job done. Benedict Loas worked as a senior analyst for the bank.
    Because it was afternoon, the early shift had finished, and the late shift started. People buzzed around, either heading home or going into work.
    Being a twenty-four-hour city, the running of it was divided into two shifts, and every individual took their turns doing a week of four early days and a week of three late days. Again, this was a system that the city was built around, and Liberty had decided to keep it the same so as to not upset most people’s lives.
    Turning into a great, open square, Sasha admired the huge, central fountain. Rising up in the centre of the square, the fibre-optic and silicon structure resembled a tall redwood tree that Sasha had only ever seen in an old piece of video footage. Benches lined the edges, providing gathering places for teenagers and adults. The place felt abuzz with all the citizens going about their business. To the far side of the square, in front of the tower containing Benedict’s apartment, a group of people seemed to just stop what they were doing, turn, and then run screaming towards her and Malik.
    “Oh, shit,” Malik said, quickly looking for means of escape. It was too late, though; the group were upon them, surrounding them.
    Sasha sighed. “Really?”
    “I can’t help it,” Malik said as he was jostled by a group of teenaged girls eager for him to sign one thing or another.
    The high-pitched squealing made Sasha quite stabby. “You don’t look like you hate it.”
    “The Silver Sisters are passionate. What can I say?”
    Sasha pushed a couple of the girls away as they tried to pull her away from him. “Hey,” she said. “Get your little grabby hands off. Show some damn respect.” It had no result, so Sasha pushed her way clear and sat on a bench, leaving Malik to hilariously fend for himself. A part of her found the girls annoying. She couldn’t help but feel a certain attachment to Malik given the time they had spent with each other over the last month during his recovery.
    She watched as Malik smiled and hugged one girl after another.
    Two young blonde girls, no older than fifteen, had got him into a kind of headlock, smothering him with kisses while their friends took pictures and recorded the video on their smart-glasses. Sasha sneered, shaking her head.
    Despite their hormonal fixation on him as some super war hero, in reality, Malik was a doofus—a lovely, kind doofus, but a doofus nonetheless—and yet, since the ‘Silverman Sacrifice’ documentary had gone out, he was now the closest the city had to a bona fide celebrity.
    Despite the girls’ shrill attention, Sasha was pleased for him; his achievements and sacrifices deserved the accolades, but she also wished that everyone else got the same recognition. Maybe not the annoying hysterical girls... but her, James, Gabe, Cheska, Jess, Malik, and many more, specifically Petal and Gerry, had also sacrificed a great deal for the city.
    Over time, once things had settled down, it would be time to tell what had really happened and what the stakes were, but for now, she was focussing on dealing with the ronin insurgents.
    Losing her patience, Sasha got up from her bench and shooed the screeching harpies