The Search for Sam Read Online Free PDF Page B

ugly—atrium.
    Trueborns and vatborns stride in every direction in and out of the various tunnels
     radiating out from the hub. I feel them react to my presence: the trueborns avoid
     my gaze, while the vatborns sneer at me with naked contempt. Word sure traveled fast,
     even down here.
    We make our way past the entrances to the Southeast and Northeast tunnels on our way
     to the Northwest tunnel. With the exception of the General’s briefing room, I’ve never
     been granted access to any of the tunnels off the hub before. But it’s fairly common
     knowledge that the tunnels lead in one direction to combat training facilities, and
     in the other direction to weapons stores and bunkers for the vatborn. We’re heading
     down a third tunnel, to the R+D laboratories and the media and surveillance compounds.
    I struggle to keep pace with Serkova. It’s obvious he doesn’t like me and resents
     being saddled with the job of babysitting me.
    “What’s your problem with me?” I genuinely want to know: the Mogadorian worldview
     has become foreign to me so quickly. “So I’m being given a second chance. Why should
     you care?”
    Serkova turns to me, a contemptuous sneer on his lips. “You think I don’t get enough
     shit as it is from the combat Mogs for being a surveyor? They already call us tech
     wienies. Now we’re being forced to take on a proven loser in combat. So the next time they say we’re only surveyors because we’re not
     good enough for combat, they’ll be right . All thanks to you.”
    Great.
    I follow him into the Media Surveillance facility, a large room lit only by the screens
     of the twenty or so computer monitors throughout the room. No one looks up as Serkova
     leads me to my monitor. Thanks to his outburst, I don’t have to wonder why.
    He explains to me what our job is, then sits down at the console next to mine. “Good
     luck, Adamus,” he says, with evident sarcasm, then gets to work.
    I turn to my monitor.
    A steady stream of links scrolls across my screen, in color-coded text. The Mogadorian
     mainframe scours satellite and cable TV, radio transmissions, and every last corner
     of the internet, 24/7. A certain amount of automated culling occurs before these links
     reach our screens: most human interest stories are weeded out in advance, as are most
     articles or news segments devoted to U.S. or international politics. But a significant
     majority of what remains—weather reports, natural-disaster coverage, police blotters—makes
     it to our screens as a veritable geyser of hyperlinks.
    Our job is to sift through the links on our respective screens and sort them, moving
     material that is clearly of no pertinence to the Mogadorian cause to the “Discard”
     directory, while kicking material that might have some bearing on our interests up to the “Investigate” directory, where it will
     be assessed personally by the lead surveyor before being dismissed or moved up the
     chain to Command HQ. We are also supposed to tag and grade the material we move to
     the “Investigate” directory according to our judgment of its possible relevance: “PV”
     for Possible Value, “HP” for High Priority, and “EHP” for Extremely High Priority.
     Items we flag with an “EHP” rating are simultaneously routed to the lead surveyor
     and to a small cadre of analysts over at command HQ for immediate review.
    Ultimately, if Command HQ is persuaded a news item is a legitimate sign of Garde activity,
     reconnaissance teams are dispatched.
    All three eliminated Garde members were located with some degree of surveyor assistance.
     But despite our importance, we’re really just data monkeys. Exciting stuff like reconnaissance
     and combat occur outside our purview as surveyors.
    Not that it’s easy work. Within minutes of struggling through this endlessly updating
     data stream, I miss the clarity and simplicity of my physical labor back in Kenya.
     Jumping all over the place on the