Mad Skills by Walter Greatshell Read Free Book Online Page B

and drink their words in one gulp. Proof of that was in the fact that she barely recognized most of the titles, much less remembered their contents. Maddy had never been a big reader; books were not high on her list of favorite entertainments, and these looked especially dull: mostly kids’ books and elementary study manuals. Plowing through the whole library sounded like the worst kind of drudgery. She couldn’t imagine doing it. And yet …
    There were her bloody fingerprints. Volume after volume imprinted with her own dried blood, irrefutable DNA evidence of her very recent lunacy. Pages torn and taped together—like her fingers. A great many books missing, replaced by new ones.
    Maddy picked up a pristine copy of The Compleat Shakespeare and flipped through it. She had always found Shakespeare unreadable, but this was clearly a moron-level abridged version, the watered-down Kid Lit edition. Skimming Titus Andronicus , she flinched, ripping out a handful of pages. Ow. Damn. There was a bead of blood on the exposed base of her thumb—a paper cut!
    Sucking her hand, Maddy thought, What kind of sadistic shit is this?
    Likewise, the “computer” was bogus. It resembled a real computer on the outside but was some sort of cheap imitation, agonizingly slow and clumsy, with limited Internet access and a keyboard that was basically a medieval torture device. She would think she was getting somewhere only to have the picture abruptly scramble. No wonder she had been so frustrated. Whether or not she had ever really taken the device apart, at the moment it was whole and showed no sign of having been fiddled with … except that its CPU was locked in a metal cabinet. That was new.
    Out of curiosity, Maddy took two paper clips from the desk and picked the lock. In minutes, the computer was laid bare. As she tinkered with its circuits, she suddenly realized there was someone watching her. A guy.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    Flushing red, trying to cover the evidence of her shame, she said, “Nothing.”
    “Is that a computer?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
    “Did you take it all apart like that?”
    “It’s supposed to come apart.”
    “Yeah, with tools. You use your teeth, or what?”
    “Ha-ha, very funny.”
    “Sorry, I don’t mean to bug you. I don’t know if we’ve met before. Are you a patient here?”
    “No, I’m a brilliant junior neurosurgeon. Duh, I’m a patient. Which I assume you are, too, unless you shaved your head for kicks.”
    “No, I’m a patient.” He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Dev.”
    “Maddy Grant.” She reached to shake, then hurriedly retracted her bandaged hand. “Sorry.”
    “What happened to your fingers?”
    “Nothing,” she said. “Couple of paper cuts.”
    “ Paper cuts?”
    “Sometimes I cut myself.”
    “How?”
    “It’s because the pages are too sharp.” Annoyed by his concerned look, she said, “It’s not on purpose .”
    “What do you mean, they’re too sharp?”
    “The paper is wicked sharp and brittle. I think it’s been heat-treated or something. It’s some kind of stupid dexterity exercise.”
    “Where is this paper?”
    “Up my butt. Where do you think? Inside the books!”
    “Which ones?”
    “All of them!”
    “Wait—you really got all cut up like that just from reading ?”
    “I told you, the books are weird. You’ll see. You don’t notice at first, but all of a sudden the pages start ripping out, and next thing you know, there’s blood all over the place. And those cuts sting , man. It’s obviously some kind of stupid test because the computer is just as bad—you ever get cramps in both hands at the same time? That’s why I’m simplifying the interface. The doctors deny it, but the purpose of their experiments is obviously to make every task here as hard as possible, so we have an easier time recovering back home.”
    “That sounds a little messed up. Death by a thousand paper