Doubt Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 missing after her mother placed a missing person report forty-eight hours later.
    “ He can’t be gone, Mom! He just can’t!”
    She ran into her room and slammed the door. She remembered how at that same moment , her heart began racing, her lungs were expanding as if drawing in all the air around her, and the room slowly started spinning. The floor shifted beneath her feet and then the walls started to shake.
    “ Cristal! Stop!”
    “ Dad?”
    She whirled around. There was no one in the room but her. Her heart rate slowed; the room was