Fox Forever Read Online Free PDF

certainty that there aren’t more copies of us waiting for someone to come.”
    “And if there are?”
    If there are . I haven’t devised a plan beyond knowing. “If there are—”
    What? What do I do then? I stare at his scar where it intersects the corner of his lip, the dip, the crease, where whole meets wreckage, staring at skin, pores, division. I feel myself slipping for the first time in weeks. If there are. Would that Kara be different? Would that Locke be different? Would I be a better or worse version of myself? I pull myself out of those dark endless hallways before I have gone too far, snapping my gaze from his scar to his eyes. “If there are … bring them to me.”
    “Done. Now get some rest. You do rest, don’t you? We’ll be back early. The pantry’s stocked.” He grabs his coat and heads for the door.
    “Wait.”
    He turns to look at me, heaving his body so it’s one big sigh like I’m keeping him from brain surgery.
    “Yeah,” I say. “I rest . I rest just like anyone else.”
    He shakes his head. The corner of his mouth pulls into a grin. “You’re an easy mark, kid.”
    “My name’s Locke.”
    “And my name’s Xavier . You gotta problem with that?”
    Touché. I could almost like this guy if he wasn’t such a jerk.
    “That it?” he asks.
    “No. Carver said you’d explain how all this would get me into the Secretary’s house.”
    “Oh, yeah. That.” He smiles. “File Fifty-two.” He points to the desk. “You better start crankin’ up that charm. You’ve got a long ways to go.”
    He leaves without further explanation and I go straight to the desk and bring up File Fifty-two and read it. No wonder they both left before I could look at it.

The In
    File 52
    Raine Branson (pronounced: rayn)
    Age: 17
    I stare at the girl I’m supposed to abduct. When I agreed to a favor, I never agreed to this, but there’s no turning back now. Of course kidnapping is Plan B. Only if the first plan fails. I guess I’ll have to make sure it doesn’t. I quickly flip through the holograms. One image is pretty much like the next. Her expression doesn’t change. Grim. Bored. It’s hard to tell what’s going on in her head, but smiling isn’t part of her repertoire. Every hair is smoothed into place and pulled back into a long ponytail tied at the base of her neck. Utilitarian. Jet black and severe. The Secretary’s daughter.
    There are ten images but nearly all are the same. Same hair, same range of expression. Zero. I go through them again, this time slower, examining her features more closely. I’m looking at the fourth image, a full frontal view, her lips slightly parted like she’s about to speak, when I stop and turn my attention to my arms, a prickling sensation shooting through them. I watch one arm as the hairs on it literally rise before my eyes. This has never happened to me before. It’s like the BioPerfect has suddenly found this long dormant animal response and is testing it. I’m almost fascinated by this beastly reaction but in the next second my stomach clenches and a flash of heat hits me. My heart pounds. I look back at her image. Sweat beads on my forehead. This is insane. Something isn’t right.
    Something isn’t right about her.
    I stand up and walk away from the desk, pacing the room, trying to shake off the alarms I don’t understand. Is my body telling me something before my mind has put it together? The alarms subside. Was it just a random hiccup in my BioPerfect? I return to the desk and increase the image size. I look into her blank eyes, just inches from mine. Her irises are large and dark, such a deep dark brown I can barely see her pupils. But I do. They’re pinpoints, tight and guarded, on alert, belying her bored expression. What’s she hiding? But her face reveals nothing else. She’s had practice at this. Is that what disturbed me?
    I look back through the file. The information is sparse.

    Mother: deceased
    At least we have something in