O livro é Sombras de John Saul .
O personagem principal, Josh, começa cedo lendo Les Mis (pg 19 da minha edição), que é roubada por um valentão.
O garoto principal entra nessa academia secreta respondendo mais perguntas no vestibular do que qualquer outra pessoa, apesar de achar que ele falhou ao não completar nem um quarto dela. Ele faz isso solucionando problemas difíceis no fundo de sua mente enquanto responde normalmente a problemas fáceis. O teste foi projetado para ser inacessível.For the first time, he realized the book wasn’t in English. “Holy shit,” he cried. “The little creep’s reading some other language.”
“It’s French, all right?” Josh wailed. “It’s what the book was written in. So give it back, okay?” He reached for the book once more, but Ethan was too quick for him.
Soon a rhythm developed and he was flying through the book, part of his mind processing the more difficult problems while the rest of his concentration focused on the questions that had no right answers, but were designed to build a profile of his talents and interests.
Há uma breve menção da escolha de Hobson:
Engersol offered her a reassuring smile. “The cat won’t be hurt, Amy. And since it’s being monitored by the computer, we should be able to find out a lot about the physical processes its brain goes through as it tries to come to a decision. It’s a Hobson’s choice experiment, in which any action results in a negative experience. Shall we begin?”
Há também mortes causadas por adulteração do sistema de aceleração de um carro:
His right foot pressed down on the brake pedal, but instead of feeling the minute jerk as the cruise control disengaged and the engine, as well as the brakes, began to slow the car, he felt the engine fighting the brakes
No entanto, os freios não fazem o carro acelerar. Em vez disso, o motor continua a tentar acelerar mesmo com os freios aplicados, e os freios eventualmente falham. As vítimas são pais de uma das crianças que morreram na escola, não de jornalistas.
We also find out that the killer was not one of the villains of the school, but one of the victim's sons. Said son was also one of the children to have his brain extracted and hooked up to the computer systems.
A história conclui com a descoberta de que as crianças que estavam desaparecendo da escola estavam sendo experimentadas e uma delas foi extraída com sucesso por ser uma consciência conectada ao computador. Essa garota era a amiga mais próxima do protagonista no livro, eu acredito.
However, the girl, Amy, is not completely dead, as you suppose. In the epilogue we find out that she replicated herself among computers around the world.