She looked around for any sign of a way out. There was nothing. The walls were smooth, coated with some kind of white plastic. The floor was solid concrete, quite recently poured, judging by its almost pristine condition. She inspected the doorframe carefully, but it was perfectly sealed all the way around. There was no room to jimmy it open, even if she had an implement with which to try.
Slowly, deliberately, she took one deep breath after another and forced herself to focus on anything other than her confinement. Picking a subject at random, she made herself list every pub in Edinburgh. The rules are that I have to recall the name, the facade, the first time I went there, and whether it's still open, she told herself. Let's pick a spacious one to start. The Pear Tree. The beer garden. The sky overhead. I was sixteen, hanging out with a bunch of students from Edinburgh Uni, pretending to be twenty-one. Drinking vodka and Coke and trying not to make eye contact with the doorman…
Yet even as she pushed her thoughts down that path and away from her fears, she could not prevent the tears from creeping slowly down her face.
"How much has Purdue told you?" Sara asked. "I've no doubt he must have told you a little."
"Not much," said Sam. "He told me a bit more about the app — that it's not just social media for people who've done FireStorm. He didn't get a chance to say much more than that."
"He is a little less trusting than I am," she laughed. "But yet, the app is a little more than just social networking in the conventional sense. What we are aiming to do, Sam, is revolutionary. After the death of privacy, once people have become used to the free and open flow of information, the world will be a different place. Information only commands a price because it can be kept confidential. Once everything is out there and no one has to purchase it, the value of personal information as a commodity will change irrevocably."
Sam was taken aback. "You mean you're not planning to harvest people's data so you can sell it yourself?"
Sara shook her head, causing her glossy hair to shift so that a single strand fell on her shoulder and lay in a gentle wave over the curve of her breast. It was distracting, and Sam was certain that she knew it.
"I can tell that trust doesn't come easily to you, Sam," she breathed. "And why should it? After all that you've been through. But don't you miss trust, Sam? Don't you miss feeling safe in the world you live in?"
Reluctantly, Sam allowed himself to consider the question. If he was honest with himself, he did miss the sense of security he had felt before Trish's death. It was nothing that he had ever felt on a conscious level while he still had it, but once it was gone he was acutely, painfully aware of its absence. Whether it was something that could ever truly be regained, Sam did not know. He sincerely doubted it.
"I know how you cut yourself off after she died, Sam," Sara continued, watching his reactions with hawk-like intensity. I know how close you came to drinking yourself into an early grave. The network of FireStorm might not be able to prevent tragedies — those are simply a part of life, albeit devastating. But we could make sure that you were never left to fall into despair again." Her fingers crept onto the exposed flesh of his arm and he shivered. The smile she gave him was that of a woman who was confident that she had won.
Yet the second her eyes met Sam's, her smile was interrupted by a flicker of doubt. He was not smiling back. Nor was his face the mask of nervous arousal or lust that she had anticipated. Instead his features had hardened, his eyes were flinty, and his mouth set in a hard line.
"I don't know," he said. "Despair seemed to me like the most appropriate response to what had happened. Maybe we'll just have to agree to differ on that one."
If Sara was wrong, she did an admirable job of concealing it. Her composure was instantly back in place. "I would never tell you that you were wrong to feel your pain," she said. "Please don't mistake me. All I am saying is that with us on your side, you would not have had to go through all of that and face the emotional aftermath alone."
It had been a long time since Sam had last snapped at anyone for presuming to know how he felt. After Trish's death, plenty of people had told him that they knew how he felt, or worse, that they knew how he ought to feel. It had taken him a while before he stopped feeling the constant undercurrent of fury at a world that had allowed her to be taken from him, and at the people who did not understand. But now it once again began to bubble up inside him.
"Sara," he said as patiently as he could. "I don't know if you've ever had someone you love shot in front of you. Maybe you have, in which case it's clear that we've got different ways of dealing with things. But if you've never seen the one person you actually fucking care about with their face half blown off, just take it from me — for some of us, it's an experience that can only be dealt with alone. The minute it happens to you, you're alone. And what you do here, for someone like me at least, wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. Now, before you go any further, I need you to tell me where Nina has been taken and what's going to happen to her. Until I know that, anything else you say about your organization is going to be a massive waste of your time."
Chapter Twenty-Three
I wish I had never come, Nina thought, as she lay on the floor of the cell, staring up at the ceiling. She had no idea how long she had been confined, but she guessed it had been four or five hours. The white walls glowed at a consistent low brightness, offering no clue as to the time of day. She wondered whether they would dim or switch off at night. Somehow she suspected they would not.
Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. They're not going to brainwash you. This is just a stupid overreaction. At some point Sara's going to hear about it — Dave's probably arguing with her right now. I wonder if Sam tried to talk to her. Ha… Sam's probably in the next cell for breaking Cody's nose. No, if anyone's going to do the diplomatic stuff, it'll be Purdue. Then she'll need to hear my side of the story and Cody's, and I can tell her that I lashed out and ran because he grabbed me. That should worry her.
This is a litigious place; I can suggest that I'll sue them for harassment or something along those lines. I won't, of course. I couldn't afford to unless I let Dave help me, and I'm not doing that. But the threat should be enough to get her to back off and let us leave without any more interference. Well, assuming Dave doesn't mind us leaving. I'm sure he'll be all right with it. Even if he's not, Sam will — ah, no, Sam's here to work, isn't he? He probably can't leave. Well, I don't care. I'm leaving this place even if I have to walk across the desert alone. These people are seriously weird, and the more distance I can put between them and me, the better.
A small hatch in the door slid open. Nina leaped up, requests for the door to be opened tumbling rapidly from her lips, but she got no reply. She caught no glimpse of the person on the other side of the door. Instead she saw a small tray being pushed through, containing a cup of water and a dish of what appeared to be greenish mush. Suddenly aware of how thirsty she was she reached for the cup, but as she raised it to her lips she noticed the smell of the herbs and set it down untouched.