by P. W. Child
"Time was when people in that situation would have been doomed to stay that way, to live out their lives without ever being taken beyond their existing limitations. Even an experience like this would have been unavailable to them, because their limited lives would never have allowed them to achieve the excellence that marked you as candidates for this Mind Meld. But now, things are different! Now there is a way to bring connection to the entire world, and every single person in this room has something to contribute toward making that vision a reality. We can harness the power of technology to bring about the spiritual growth of the human race.
"Make no mistake—this will be a long and difficult journey. We can bring about this change, and I believe that we must—but there will be technical issues. There will be human resistance. It must be treated as a process, not as an overnight change. The first step alone will demand a change that people will find frightening until they learn to accept it. The first step on the road to global connection will be better explained by a man who has been working with us to develop the technology required to bring it about. Please welcome the man who will introduce you to the death of privacy—Mr. David Purdue!"
Nina kept running until she reached the river. She could not see Cody when she looked over her shoulder, but the thought that he might be stalking her, tracking her like a predator, would not leave her. She wanted to get away from him, as far away as possible, until she was certain that the others were back at the camp.
That's assuming they come back, she thought. Where are they? How can a whole group of people just vanish like that? I don't know what's going on here, but this place is like some long, weird nightmare. I don't know how to escape. I don't know whether escape is even possible. But what I do know is that this is not a good place to be alone.
As a precautionary measure, she scooped up handfuls of the cool water and drank deeply. She wanted to put more distance between herself and the base—or at least between herself and Cody—and she did not want to risk finding herself far away from a source of water.
I don't want to get myself lost either, she thought. All I want to do is steer clear of Cody for a while, not end up as vulture meat. She looked toward the cinder cone they had previously visited, just a short walk away. That's probably my best bet. At least I've walked the trail before, and I know there are water sources and a few sheltered places there. I'll go that way.
By the time she had made her way to the cinder cone, she was absolutely certain that Cody was not following. Instead, she deduced, he must be waiting for her to return to the campsite. I have no idea what I'm going to do if the others don't reappear soon, Nina admitted to herself. This really wasn't a long-term plan. Well, first things first. I need to get out of the sun. I seem to remember that there's a little stream with some bushes beside it this way . . .
She followed the faint trail around the side of the hill, alert for any sign of movement. This was inhospitable terrain, and she wondered whether she had leaped straight out of the frying pan and into the fire. Perhaps I should have just stayed and found a way to deal with Cody, she thought. Or just dealt with whatever he had in mind. Out here . . . there's plenty that's less reasonable than Cody. I'm going to get myself eaten if I'm not careful. By coyotes. Or bears. Or snakes. Or spiders. Or scorpions . . . Oh, god, I wish I was back in Scotland . . .
Cautiously, scanning the surrounding environment with every step she took, Nina worked her way around to the little patch of bushes surrounding the tiny stream. The patch was just big enough that she would be able to stretch out beneath it, unseen, safe from the sun and from any predator that relied more on sight than smell. Admittedly, that's really just humans, she realized, but it's better than nothing.
Picking her way across the rocks, Nina reached the bushes and pulled a couple of branches aside. Beneath the layers of leafy green there lay a dark shape. Ugh, not a dead animal, she hoped. I really don't want to have to share my space with a dead coyote. Or have to drag it out and get it out of sight somewhere. Please let it be nothing more than someone's discarded sleeping bag or something, otherwise I'm not going to be able to—
She never completed the thought. As she brushed the branches aside she realized that the black mass was cloth, and that the dead animal was in fact a dead man, a murdered man. It was a man who had been repeatedly stabbed and had chunks of his flesh torn off; a man whose black T-shirt she recognized; a man with whom she had shared a tent . . . Hunter.
For only a moment Nina stared. The scream that her soul was trying to make died in her throat. Then she turned back toward the camp, ready to run back and get help—or, if not help in a meaningful sense for Hunter, at least a few people who could retrieve the body
A sturdy root hooked round her left ankle as she turned, and as she tried to launch into a run she found herself flat on her face on the sand. She opened her eyes to find herself staring into Hunter's empty eye socket, the eyeball already taken by a predator. The pain that surged through Nina's leg, originating in her ankle, was immense. It occurred to her that she might have broken a bone, or at least sprained it badly, but there was no time for that now. Fueled by terror and desperation, she ignored the pain. The campsite was visible on the horizon. All she could do now was hope that the others would have arrived back before she did.
☼
Chapter Twenty-One
Purdue? He's actually involved with these people? Sam was astonished. Then his astonishment made way for careful scrutiny and he quickly considered that the man was, after all, involved with the Order of the Black Sun. He seemed to have a penchant for clandestine organizations.
He tried not to gape as Purdue introduced himself, but fortunately any amazement that showed on his face could be easily explained when the walls lit up, revealing themselves as plasma screens. Throughout his talk Purdue referred to them frequently. Complicated diagrams drew themselves across the screens at the touch of his fingers as he talked about the world's booming population, the spread of the Internet, the ever-expanding popularity of social media, and people's increasing willingness to run their lives online. An image of the world flashed up, spinning before their eyes, and Purdue caressed the screen to bring them zooming in until they could pick out individuals on a busy street in perfect high resolution.
Sam caught barely a word of Purdue's presentation. He took in enough to know that Purdue had been involved in designing some kind of app that would revolutionize . . . something—social media, presumably. It was a new kind of app that would not only be found on computers, phones, and tablets, but which would eventually be present in every electronic device one could possibly think of, from sat navs to table lamps. Beyond that, Sam was lost. This was not his area of expertise, and he was still preoccupied with the revelation that Purdue was so closely linked to FireStorm.
In his mind he was busy reviewing every conversation he had had with Purdue since his arrival in Las Vegas, trying to fathom whether there were any clues he had failed to pick up on or whether he had fallen victim once again to one of Purdue's elaborate schemes. Jefferson had been only a puppet in this play, he assumed with an aching feeling of renewed betrayal, the indifference of Dave Purdue still fresh in his mind while he and Nina faced the Aryan's wrath on Deep Sea One.
Nina slowed down as she approached the campsite. Once again she sheltered behind a rock and caught her breath, sobbing gently. It must have been a mountain lion, she told herself. It must have been. Even if someone wanted to kill him, why would they do that? He was barely recognizable. He was barely human . . . oh, god. What if that was deliberate? It can't have been. It can't. It can't. He must have wandered off and something got him. I knew something had happened, I knew it, I should have listened to my instincts . . . What if we could have saved him? Maybe if we'd gone out looking for him when I first realized that he was gone . . .
As hard as Nina tried, she could not convince herself that Hunter's messy fate had been accidental. Those were clean wounds, the kind that came from sharp impleme
nts, not teeth and claws. Her experience of looking at mutilated bodies was limited, admittedly, but she was certain that Hunter had not been eaten. No doubt he would be as soon as darkness fell and the nocturnal predators emerged. She tried not to think about it. Indeed, she tried hard to put the image of the sliced-up corpse out of her mind, but every time she so much as blinked she could see it imprinted on the inside of her eyelids.
When she was sure that she was not going to be sick again, she glanced over the top of the rock. In the distance she saw Sam disappearing into their tent. Hot tears of relief flowed down her cheeks, and she began the painful limp toward what she hoped would be safety.
"Ok, Purdue," Sam said, the moment they were both back in their tent. "I'm confused. What the hell's going on? What is this FireStorm thing all about? And I mean the truth, the real purpose, not the marketing blurb."
Purdue removed his glasses, pulled a scrap of microfiber cloth from his pocket and polished them carefully. "I can appreciate that it must be confusing, Sam. But surely you understand that this was simply too rich an opportunity to pass up—and by that I mean both the work itself, which has been fascinating, and revealing my involvement in this way. It was irresistible. My only regret is that Nina was not there to see it."
"You mean she didn't know?" Sam wrestled with the idea. If this was not the reason for her sudden intimacy with Purdue, then what was? And was she even aware that her affections were second to his ambition?
Purdue shook his head. "You know Nina," he said. "As dear as she is to me, keeping secrets is not her strong point. She has too much of a tendency to get over-excited and blurt out whatever she happens to be thinking."
"She's going to be raging when she finds out," said Sam. He would not blame her though. Discounting her innate fury, he would understand completely that she would be insulted to be excluded entirely, and more so because she was deemed untrustworthy.
"I know," Purdue smirked. "But in a way, that's part of the fun."
"Nina! You made it back!"
Cody seemed to appear from out of nowhere. Nina's tears of relief were replaced by a gasp of fear. Although Cody wore his customary friendly smile, she could see the menace behind it. "I've been so worried about you," he grinned, advancing on her.
"Stay the fuck away from me," she snarled, dropping into a defensive crouch. "My friends are just over there. If I scream, they'll be right over."
Slowly, deliberately, he took another step toward her. "And what exactly are your friends going to do, Nina? Look at you. You're injured. You're a mess. If I tell them that you're hysterical and I'm trying to restrain you for your own safety, I bet your friends will help me. You need help, Nina. Come on. Let me get you an ice pack for that ankle, at least." He held out a hand in a conciliatory gesture and continued to walk toward her.
"Did I not make myself clear?" Nina asked, lashing out, her fingers hooked into claws. "Stay. The fuck. Away. From me."
"Fine." Cody stepped back, his hands raised. "If that's how you want it, Nina. If you change your mind, you know where to find me. We're going to be out here for a long time, and your ankle's going to need attention sooner or later. How far have you walked on it?"
"None of your business. Why do you care?"
The look of disappointment on Cody's face was almost sincere. "Nina . . . I care about all of you. It's my job. It's also my privilege and my blessing as a connected human being. I'm just trying to save you from hurting yourself anymore."
"I don't need you to save me." Without turning her back on him, Nina inched closer to the teepee. "And if you think I'm going to be out here for much longer, you're mistaken. Now stay where you are. Don't follow me."
He made no reply but walked away, back toward the connection tent. With as much speed as she could muster, Nina dragged her aching leg toward her destination.
The more Purdue explained about his involvement, the more confused Sam became. It seemed that Purdue had not, in fact, met these people prior to this trip. His entire acquaintance with them had been formed online, and it had all happened fast.
Just a few months earlier, they had contacted him to ask whether he would be capable of creating a new kind of mobile phone for them. They wanted a device that would be designed with FireStorm at its heart, complete with apps that would feed into its social network, establishing a constant flow of information back to the organization from every user on the planet. It had to be user friendly, simple, and cheap both to produce and to sell.
Where most technology was intended to be expensive, to foster an air of exclusivity and a certain amount of geek cred, the FireStorm phone was to be for everybody. Its most basic models needed to be cheap enough to become the most popular phone in the developing world. The advanced models would retail at much higher prices, eventually capturing the market share that currently belonged to Apple, Research in Motion, and Google.
"They told me that they needed the device and its software to be capable of handling vast amounts of information," Purdue said, "because the intention is to collect every possible shred of data about an individual in one place. Imagine, if you will, a social network that handles all aspects of your life. So far no one has managed it. Google has come closest—for many people, Google manages their email accounts, their calendars, their travel plans, and their Internet searches. Facebook has also made a valiant attempt. Either of these services allows you to log-in across multiple websites, collects information from the sites you log onto and the searches you conduct, then uses that information for marketing purposes.
"But imagine that one such service could handle everything—your diary, your formal and informal communications, the thermostat in your home, your dating site profile, your job hunting, your educational records, your medical records, everything! Imagine no longer having to enter anything in your diary, because the device in your pocket listens and makes entries on your behalf. It will tell you when your cat's next check-up at the vet is due, because it will remember what you were told at the last visit. If you use the device to scan an item at the supermarket, it will cross-reference that item with your medical records and warn you if there is a reason you shouldn't have it. It will alert you if there have been any product recalls of which you are not yet aware. It will tell you whether you could get a better deal elsewhere and, if so, how far you would have to go to get it. It would not only record every purchase you ever made, it would also listen in and monitor how you spoke about them to determine what to market next to you.
"Of course, apps already exist that fulfill all of these functions—broadly, at least. However, not only would FireStorm provide something much more specific and individually tailored—it would also provide it all in just one app, on a device that had been created with the intention of ensuring that the FireStorm app ran smoothly on it."
Sam's mind was reeling. He was torn between wishing that he had got on board with modern technology and got a smart phone ages ago so that he might have had some idea what Purdue was talking about, and being extremely glad that all of this made little sense to him. He got the gist—FireStorm wanted to harvest data, but on a massive scale and with the users providing everything freely in exchange for convenience. How they planned to convert technophobes like him, he did not know, but he had little doubt that it would prove extremely popular if they were able to make it work—and with Purdue involved, he was certain there would be a way to make it work.
"It just so happened," Purdue continued, "that I had been working on something rather similar. Not just the device, because that part is comparatively simple—for me, at least. I had also been tinkering with a design for software that would allow for all of these things."
"But why?" Sam asked. "Why would you do that if it wasn't for anything specific?" Or was it? Judging by the sort of company Purdue had kept before, most notably organizations set on ruling the world from a minority, his question was mostly out of interest for Purdue's point of view. He had decided his own opinion on it.
"Why not?" Purdue looked genuinely perplexed by the question. "It was something to keep my mind occupied—a thought experiment, if you will. I needed something to take my mind off the misadventures in the Antarctic, and subsequently the unforeseen perils on Deep Sea One that resulted in unfavorable light with powerful people. So I opened my folder of unfinished thoughts and selected one to work on. I've played with this idea on and off for years, which meant that Sara and her companions were able to bring forward the date of this Mind Meld by nearly two years. I think they were quite pleased about that."
"Right. Yeah. I'm sure they were . . . " Sam trailed off, his head too full of new information to offer more of a contribution. Surely there were ethical and legal considerations that would prevent any organization from ever accomplishing this kind of world domination? Surely they couldn't pull things together so quickly, or if they could, why would they require the smoke screen that was the Vision Quest? Still he was desperate to follow up on the details he recorded for Purdue's quest for the Spear of Destiny and when he was planning to pursue that devastating revelation to the world. Question after question lined up in his head, all equally eager to be asked, but as he opened his mouth to speak, Nina nearly collapsed into the tent.
"Nina!" Purdue reached her first. She fell into his arms and he helped her down onto the floor. Her tank top was torn and smudged with dirt, and there was a long streak of brownish-red where she had wiped her hand after touching the partly-congealed blood. Her face was dirty and tear-stained, and most of her dark hair had escaped from its stubby ponytail and now hung in matted tendrils around her face. The pale skin of her arms and legs was covered in insect bites and scratches, and her left ankle was puffy and violently pink.