The Seven Read Online Free PDF Page A

sweat from his forehead. His breath was shallow and his chest hurt. He closed his eyes and waited for the stabbing pain in his head to subside.
     
     
    PASSWORD ACCEPTED. GOOD EVENING, KENNETH.
     
     
    The monitor displayed his desktop icons and awaited his command.
    Kenny coughed and the chest tightness began to evanesce. He popped the panel back onto the tower case and pulled himself off the floor. He had been communicating with computers for three years now. As far as he knew, he was the first of the seven to gain his or her powers.
    Kenny's body was heavily scarred from surgeries that Cormair had put him through when he was first brought to the home. Cormair had implanted computer hardware in Kenny's brain. He had installed pieces and parts---Kenny himself didn't know how many or what they were, but hacking into the Cormair's private files shortly after his powers manifested, he learned that Cormair was trying to create a cyborg. Part human, part machine. That was Kenny. The cyborgs in the movies were always super-strong war machines, more robot than human. Kenny was still the weak-looking, wire-rimmed glasses wearing über-nerd he had always been, but the only difference was that Kenny could speak to computers---to the entire Internet if he had to---and bend them to his will.
    As far as he was concerned, that was more powerful than being a super-strong war machine.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Holly was resting her arms on her windowsill and she stared out into the night. Years ago, she had kicked out the metal screens so that she could have an unencumbered view of the gardens and the forest behind the Home. She loved to watch the wind blow the leaves, especially in the spring when the flower petals would stream down from the cherry trees like snow. She loved to take deep, cleansing breaths of the pine-scented night air. She loved to see her breath in the air in the fall. Most of all, she loved the animals she could see in the trees and the gardens.
    Holly's birth family had been farmers. She could still remember the red barn with its chipped and peeling paint and the old, square farmhouse she lived in until she left for the Home. She remembered the baby animals: lambs and kids, calves and kittens. She loved animals. Perhaps that was why she developed the ability to talk to them.
    A crow, elegant and dark, landed in the apple tree at the edge of the garden. Holly locked her eyes on it and the crow froze. Bring me a flower. A white flower . She sent the animal mental images of what she wanted it to do. The crow bobbed its head as if it was acknowledging her command and leapt down from the tree, spreading its wings to glide to the cobbled garden path. The crow cocked its head, found the flower, and with surgical precision, it used its beak to sever the stem and flew the flower up to Holly. It landed on the windowsill and dropped the flower into her open palm. Holly produced a small square of bread she'd sneaked from dinner and gave it to the crow, which quickly ate it and flew back to the apple tree.
    Holly held the petals and inhaled deeply. The fragrance was almost overwhelming to her, a colossal medley of powerful scents. Two years ago, Holly had noticed that her sense of smell had become much, much stronger than it had been. She had noticed because a mouse had died in the garden and the stench of its rotting flesh had woken her from a sound sleep. It had been foul. Since then, she had realized that she could smell everything better. Smells weren't just smells anymore. When she walked through the fields with Posey and Indigo, she noticed the urine spray of territorial animals. Posey and Indigo couldn't smell the ammonia residue, the marks were so old and faded, but to Holly they had texture and meaning as easy to read as a billboard sign. Stay Away. My Field. They were so plain and direct that Holly had felt uncomfortable walking near them.
    Shortly thereafter, Holly learned her hearing was enhanced