Nina froze. "What did you say?"
"Relax, Nina." Cody sat up and laid a hand on her arm. She shook it off, nearly burning him with her joint.
"Don't touch me. How the fuck do you know about—"
"About the fact that you had a really long fling with a married man? And he wasn't just any married man, was he? He was a married man whose best friend happened to run an international arms ring, the same ring that killed Sam's fiancée and that nearly killed you, Sam, and Dave just two or so years ago?"
Nina was scrambling to her feet now, ripping open the tent flap and stumbling out onto the hot sand. In a split second Cody was up and after her. He grabbed her by the arms and turned her to face him. "Hey, what's the problem, Nina? We do our homework on everyone who comes out here, didn't you know that? The death of privacy is the most important step on the road to true connection, Nina! We want to know you! We want to help you to know yourself. Isn't that great? Isn't it an amazing thing? But you're never going to have this amazing thing, this unity, this contact with yourself, if you don't work through this — come on. Come back inside. Let us help you to get out of this darkness, Nina!"
Cody's face was alight with the righteousness of his cause. Certain that he had won her over, he relaxed his grasp a little. She stared at him, indignant and confused. "Fuck off," she spat.
"You need more help than I thought," he said, shaking his head sadly. He began to pull her back toward the tent. The beatific expression on his face was completely at odds with his forceful grip on her arms. Nina struggled furiously, but she was no match for Cody. He was far taller and his muscles were firm and well developed. He was easily capable of lifting her off the ground and dragging her back into the tent against her will. Suddenly she felt that she was in real danger. I wish I had lied, she thought. I should have just pretended I'd seen the hunt and gone with all the others.
Sure enough, Cody lunged forward and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her upward. She screamed, but he only laughed. "Nobody can hear you, Nina!" he yelled. "Nobody's close enough!"
She felt the sickening drop in her stomach as she realized that what Cody said was true. She could not see or hear anyone else. The flaps of the connection tent were wide open and she could see that there was no one inside. As far as she could tell, the campsite was now deserted apart from Cody and her.
In desperation she slammed her knee into Cody's groin. He dropped her, doubling over and roaring in pain. She ran.
Chapter Twenty
The white room was worlds away from the beaten earth and gnarled wood of the corridor that Sam had just left. For a moment he thought he was back in the Verbena hotel, with all its clean lines and highly polished surfaces. It was a large room, circular, like sitting inside a drum. The door blended into the wall when Sam closed it behind him.
A bank of seats formed another circle in the center of the room, and the initiates who had already passed the corridor of challenges were sitting quietly, scattered across the seating bank. The chairs themselves were little circles with low backs, capable of spinning like bar stools, and there was no screen or podium, nothing to indicate which direction the initiates should face. Sam selected a seat at random and could not resist giving it a quick spin around. He caught the eye of Sakura Ito as he spun and was pleased to see that he had made her laugh.
One by one, the other initiates completed the challenges and filed in. Sam counted the ones he knew. Christopher Slack, the British MP, who had recently been caught in a minor scandal concerning data protection and the sale of people's tax records to private companies, but had emerged almost unscathed after a more junior minister took the fall. Dylan Thoreau, whose star was rising rapidly as his social media network, KNCT, looked set to overtake Facebook. Ethan McCluskey, whom Sam had met previously, the man reputed to be the unsung hero behind microblogging.
Sam racked his brain for the details of the Chinese politician who entered next. He knew his name was Xiang Ma, and that he was a member of the National People's Congress, perhaps even the standing council, but Sam could not recall the exact nature of the political office he held. I'm slipping, he thought. There was a time when I'd have had all of these details at my fingertips. He remembered Seth Spencer well enough, though — the senator from Nebraska who had recently caused controversy by suggesting that everyone's full medical records should be available to their employers, freely and with no need to seek permission.
There were several others who were not familiar to Sam, except as faces he had seen around the campsite. He wondered whether they were also important people. He knew from talking to Purdue that there were other chief executives here, other powerful people in search of some kind of enlightenment. What are they experiencing? Sam pondered. I'd love a chance to interview a few of them, maybe compare their experiences to Jefferson's. I should speak to Paige and Henley too, find out how they've been doing — ah, speak of the devil.
Henley appeared in the doorway, looking a little shaken. She scanned the room, clearly looking for a friendly face. Sam gave her a little wave, and she rushed over and took a seat beside him. "Hey, Sam," she said, smiling faintly, determined to conceal her nerves.
"Hiya, Henley. How did you get on with the corridor?"
She replied with a one-shouldered shrug. "I don't know. It was kinda dumb, I guess. Like a crappy haunted house or something. Did you have something try to poke into your mouth at the end? That was just gross. I really hope they sterilized whatever that was. I kind of wish I would have been here when my mom did this, though. She must have pitched a fit. She hates anything unsanitary."
"I can imagine. So she's been down here before?"
"I guess. She and my dad talked about stuff that happened in the inner sanctum. It's cooler than I expected down here. I thought it was just going to be more sand and crap, but it's clean, at least. You know, when we—"
She was interrupted by another door sliding open, revealing Sara, now dressed in a sharply tailored linen suit. She strode in, followed by the acolytes. The door slid silently shut behind them. They took up a position to Sam's left, prompting a moment of shuffling as everyone repositioned their seats to face Sara.
"Welcome, initiates!" She threw her arms wide as if to embrace them all. "Congratulations on passing your challenges! I am so happy to see you all here — not a single one of you balked at the things you were asked to do. I applaud your bravery. Before we progress any further, we have to break the spell for a moment and attend to a few minor housekeeping matters." She slid one of the wall panels aside and produced a sheaf of papers. "First, if you have decided that you wish to proceed to initiation, we will need to get you to sign one of these forms. Just stay where you are and we'll bring them to you. Second, despite the fact that it's cooler down here — air conditioned, even! — it is still important to keep yourselves hydrated. So we will bring around some water for everyone, along with the forms."