Free The Amanda Project: Book 4: Unraveled by Amanda Valentino, Cathleen Davitt Bell Page B

store data and to analyze it.”
    “That’s why you became an accountant?” Hal said.
    “Accounting is easy for me.” Mr. Bennett smiled. “I can manage inflows and outflows for a multinational corporation with the earning capacity of a small country in my head. There aren’t too many people out there who can do that.”
    “And that’s why you travel so much?” Hal asked. “Because Dr. Joy trained to you be a really excellent—” I think Hal was thinking about Thornhill, his talents as a soldier, his fierce fighting skills, his ability to strive heroically and sacrifice all for a cause he believed in. “You got trained to be a kind of genius accountant ?”
    Mr. Bennett laughed. “Well, that wasn’t exactly Dr. Joy’s aim.But that’s what happened in the end. Accountants never starve during tax season. And it’s been a great cover for the work I’ve been doing for Thornhill. I’ve been helping him identify and protect as many former C33s and their families as we can possibly reach. I’ve been creating a database. But it’s not what you saw on Thornhill’s computer.”
    “How’d you know what we were looking at?”
    “BecauseI have my laptop set up to view the home computer remotely.”
    “And you didn’t make us stop?”
    “I needed you to have that time. Because of your connection to Amanda, your talents . . . you guys are the only ones making any forward progress to find her, and she’s at the heart of any attempt to stop what’s going on. Why do you think I raked the lawn for you?” Mr. Bennett smiled.
    “Yeah, okay,” Halsaid, shaking his head. “Wow.”
    “I knew after what you found yesterday you’d go to the college, and trust me, I did everything I could to keep you safe. We have a network watching that place—and you guys. That’s how we knew about the guard shift and exactly how long you’d been inside. Anyway.” Mr. Bennett took a small, neat bite of his cone. “The material you were looking at is actually a copyof the Official’s database. We managed to hack into it, although I’m sure that’s been updated since we downloaded it about a month ago.”
    “So, wait,” Nia said. “What was that place back there? You lived there when you were a kid? With Amanda’s parents? And Zoe’s dad?”
    “And your mom,” Mr. Bennett said gently.
    “But I’ve visited the place where my mom grew up,” Nia said. “In Colombia.”
    “Your momwas the youngest of our group, only ten when we were released, so she was able to have a somewhat normal childhood after that. She was placed in Colombia because she was of Colombian heritage, but nothing more about her biological family is known. For her, her years in the program were fuzzy. A nightmare, really. She was not one of the fighters, the older kids who worked hard against what Dr. Joywas trying to make us become.”
    “So he performed experiments on you?” Hal said. “And it was legal?”
    “That’s right,” Mr. Bennett said. “At the time, our government lived in fear of becoming subordinate to the Soviet Union. Dr. Joy pitched his research to a Congress desperate enough to endorse secret programs like his to give us a better chance against the Soviets.”
    “So did it work?” Hal asked.“Did you all turn out to be superheroes?”
    Mr. Bennett laughed bitterly. “Hardly,” he said. “A few of us are quiet geniuses, like your mom, Callie, or have skills that we use in our work, like me. But most C33s are barely able to function in society. They’ve either worked very hard to reintegrate themselves or they’ve died, or they’re living entirely off the grid. I can’t tell you how many storiesof C33s end with them abandoning their car on the side of the road and just disappearing.”
    “Whoa,” said Hal.
    “You guys—you kids—have turned out to be the ones with the extra-human capabilities.”
    “You mean—?” Hal began. “You know?”
    Hal’s dad nodded. “There are others like you out there. I tracked