Cristal - Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

she
asked.
    “Manila, Global Nation,” Harry managed to
choke out. “Disappearances.”
    “So? Tell me something I don’t know. Global
Nation has been offering help to the local police and army to
investigate the disappearances.”
    She pushed her foot even more firmly on his
throat.
    “In my front pocket of my shirt, there’s a
flash card. Take it.”
    She reached for the flash card while keeping
an eye on him.
    “We need you to find out what is on your
father’s computer. We have information that GN is involved.”

Chapter 5
Cristal (alias
Mist)
    Mist: Zero, are you there? Hello?
    Zero: Yes. We’re confirmed for video
chat with Onyx at 1 pm. Do I need to remind you to be nice?
    Be nice? Cristal stared blankly at
the screen.
    Mist: Of course I’ll be nice. Who do you
think I am?
    Before she could respond further, he logged off. Argh!
    When Harry recruited Kerim Ilgaz without
asking Cristal, she was “nice.” She had voiced her concerns about
Kerim’s technical skills that were not up to par with the others on
the Elite team.
    “There are other talents we need, not just
programming or gaming ones,” he said.
    Harry didn’t share what those talents were,
so she respectfully kept her mouth shut.
    And wasn’t she nice when Harry
recruited Angelica? Again, despite her not even being in the top
500 of the Truth Seekers’ game, she agreed to train her.
    “She will be a significant asset for us when
we need it,” he assured her.
    Serena, on the other hand, was really cool
to work with. Stationed in the Philippines, which was twelve hours
ahead of New York time, Serena often video chatted with her late at
night or early in the morning, all without complaint. She took the
missions seriously just as she did.
    But what was the big deal with Joanna?
During the online game missions, Joanna always broke the rules. She
once led the team into enemy territory with not enough weapons or
ammunition despite Cristal’s warnings. They did succeed in
destroying the enemy’s munitions building, but to the expense of
losing three members of their team. Nothing Harry could say would
convince her that Joanna was nothing more than a ladder-climbing
fraud.
    She took a deep breath. Don’t worry, Mr.
Doubt, I will deal with Joanna when the time comes.
    ***

    Ten years ago, Cristal Hernandez started
playing the online game, Truth Seekers. In her real life outside
the game, she didn’t fit in with anything or anybody. Classmates
called her “the loner” or “weirdo,” taunting her in the playground
because she was always nose deep in a book.
    She enjoyed losing herself in the fantasy
world where the problems of her life didn’t matter. Since she was
little, she was very aware of things that made her different from
other children. Her father used to spend time with her, teaching
her how to control her “abilities.” She was able to open a book and
read it from beginning to end in half an hour. The words used to
lift off the page and flood into her head in waves of sentences,
phrases, and paragraphs. She used to tell her father that it felt
as if she was consuming a book, not reading it.
    When she was in first grade, her father
began molding her interest in computer programming. Instead of
dolls or toys to play with, she received thick programming books to
read. He told her that these skills would be very useful for her in
the future. She enjoyed consuming the books and found the
programming activities inside them creatively challenging. Soon,
she was building online applications and web tools. The power of
creating something out of physically nothing tantalized her
curiosity.
    “Dad, I want to do more projects. What else
can you teach me?” she begged him.
    “You were meant to do special things,
Cristal,” he always told her.
    When she was with him, she felt she could
accomplish anything she wanted. But one day, everything
changed.
    On her tenth birthday, her father never made
it home from work. He was reported officially