Page 35 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

Morana watched the screen and then glanced at the one next to it, numbers and letters scrolling by that indicated the back-and-forth chatter about Sam. It was somewhat incomplete, but Morana knew the language enough to understand the gist: the program was hunting Sam.

Had Sam not realized that he wore a tracking device under his skin?

Perhaps most of them didn’t consider it; after all, they’d been trained to be obedient.

What reason would they need to be tracked?

They posed little to no risk of disappearing, and if captured, they understood well they wouldn’t be rescued lest it put the program in jeopardy.

Maybe they believed their phones and other devices provided any tracking they might require as it related to communication.

But Morana knew. And she also knew that though they’d known Sam hadn’t completed his final mission, they’d allowed him to bide his time on an apple farm, postponing the inevitable.

They’d have stepped in and taken over where Sam had failed when they deemed his time was up.

It was difficult for them, she figured, destroying that which they’d spent so much time and money on.

In many ways—though obviously not all—Sam was the living embodiment of their vast intelligence and tremendous superiority.

Their egos had gotten in the way of their best interests, however, because the pause had given Sam time to commit the cardinal sin of interrupting a mission and potentially exposing the program.

To Morana’s knowledge, nothing like it had ever happened before.

Not only had Sam interrupted a mission, but he had also gone and gotten himself shot to pieces, apparently damaging his tracking device so that it was ineffective. Lucky, Sam. Only for those of them in the program, luck could only hold out so long.

Her cell phone dinged with a message, and Morana knew what it would say even before she opened it.

They wanted her help locating Sam. She typed a quick response and then turned back to the computer.

Yes, Sam’s luck wouldn’t last. It might take her a while, but in this day and age of computers and cameras and backdoor entries into every digital system under the sun, no one could stay hidden for long.