Black Sun Rising

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Security?" Sam asked, the second Cody and the acolytes were gone.

"There's a lot more to this place than meets the eye," Purdue said quietly. "I suggest we go somewhere a little quieter and—"

Both men jumped as another figure appeared in the entrance to the tent. Jefferson Daniels straightened up and shot them his toothpaste commercial smile. "Hey," he greeted them. "Was that Nina?"

Purdue nodded. "According to dear Cody, she is struggling with the mental turmoil caused by her introduction to FireStorm and needs to be restrained for her own safety."

"Ah," Jefferson nodded back sagely. "Well, it's not the first time, I guess. Remember how hard she took everything that happened in the Antarctic?" he blabbered unceremoniously, unaware of her emotional turmoil after her latest venture on the North Sea. "She's got a lot of trauma to work through. Thank god, she's in a place where there are people who can give her the kind of help she needs!" Blithely, he moved on, dismissing the subject of Nina and turning to Sam. "Sara sent me to find you, Sam," he said. "She'd like to talk with you — I think she's ready to give you that interview for the book! That'll be a great chapter."

"All right," Sam muttered, still preoccupied by listening to what was going on outside in the hope that they would be able to find Nina. "I'll come and talk to her a bit later."

"I think she was planning on talking with you now," said Jefferson. "Coming, buddy?"

Alarm bells rang loud and clear in Sam's head. First Nina was effectively arrested, and then Jefferson came looking for Sam? This can't be a coincidence, he thought. "I'll just get my Dictaphone," he said, crouching down to rummage in his backpack. As subtly as he could, he maneuvered himself into a position where he could make eye contact with Purdue unnoticed by Jefferson. "What should I do?" he mouthed.

Purdue, his face clearly visible to Jefferson, was not in a position to mouth back, but as he stood with his arms folded he shifted his hands so that he was pointing toward the door. It was such a slow, casual gesture that he could easily have passed it off as mere fidgeting, but Sam understood. He pointed to himself, then toward the door, mouthing "Go with him?" then waited. After a moment Purdue nodded, as if politely indicating that he was listening to Jefferson telling him about the plans for the next day's sweat lodge.

"Got it!" Sam dragged his Dictaphone from the depths of his backpack and got to his feet. He dusted himself off and gave Jefferson a smile. "Lead the way."

Sara's tent was a far more sophisticated affair than the teepees. From the outside, Sam could not tell the difference, but the moment he set foot inside it hit him. It was cool and dark inside, and instead of reeds lining the floor there was a soft rug underfoot. Oversized cushions upholstered in silk were scattered about the floor — Sam guessed that they formed Sara's bed, in conjunction with the burgundy cashmere blanket that sat neatly folded nearby.

The air was thick with scent, but it was not the same earthy, herbal scent that Sam had grown accustomed to smelling during the FireStorm rituals. This was something darker, heavy with musk, laden with sandalwood and Melissa oil. It was, Sam had to admit, a powerfully erotic combination. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in a tingle of arousal.

It's gone quiet all of a sudden, Sam noticed. He turned to look outside, but as his fingers closed around the cloth of the tent he realized that it was considerably heavier than that of the teepees. It also hung in thicker folds, not stretched over the poles but cascading down from them luxuriously. All of a sudden he felt uncomfortably hot, though he could not tell whether that was the effect of the thick cloth trapping the desert heat or the unwelcome rush of libido that had him in its grip.

"Sam," Sara breathed his name as she entered the tent, her hand closing over his as she pushed the tent flap open. He leaped back as if her touch had given him an electric shock. Damn it! he cursed himself. I hope she didn't notice that. One look at her dark eyes told him beyond a doubt that she had. She strolled across the floor and selected two cushions, piled one on top of the other, and then arranged herself carefully on them. She was propped up on one slender arm, her long legs curled under her, and the curve of her hip jutting out enticingly under the folds of her ivory robe.

Feeling extremely awkward, Sam dragged a cushion to what seemed like a respectful distance from her and sat down. Sitting cross-legged seemed like the best option, and certainly the most comfortable, but he could never shake the feeling that it made him look like a six-year-old schoolboy.

"Where are my manners?" Sara's voice rippled through the pungent air. She rolled over and reached for an engraved silver bottle and two tiny goblets. "Would you care for something to drink, Sam?" She pulled out the stopper and poured milky-white liquid into the cups. The tang of alcohol hit Sam's nose, making him gasp. He had not realized how much he had missed it these past few days. There had been too many other things occupying his attention. Now it greeted him like the old friend that it was.

"It's pulque," Sara said, holding out the drink to him. "Have you ever had it before? Not that it matters if you have — I guarantee that this will be quite different. This is made like the old, sacred recipe, passed down through the generations from the Mesoamerican period to the present day. Legend has it that it's made with the blood of Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of the maguey. It's a little bitter, but I'm sure that if you can enjoy a good whisky, you'll like it."

"Thanks." Sam accepted the drink, holding the small cup carefully between his fingertips. It was viscous and tasted of yeast. It could not compare to a decent dram, but it was not unpleasant.

"It's more common nowadays to drink it over ice, and in larger, less potent quantities," Sara told him, sipping delicately at her own cup. "But I prefer the old ways. Shorter. Stronger. Drink this from a beer tankard and you wouldn't just commune with the gods, you would move in with them permanently."

"We're not communing with the gods today, are we?" Sam asked, savoring the fermented aftertaste of the drink.

"It's not on my agenda," she smiled, pulling her dark hair out of its braid to let it spill freely over her shoulders. "Though I make a point of never ruling it out. Sam, I have to apologize."

"What for?"

"Two things. First, for dragging you here so abruptly. I told Jefferson that I wanted to speak to you, but I didn't expect him to bring you to me immediately. Second… I underestimated you. You've taken to our way of thinking much better than I expected. I anticipated nothing but resistance from you, but instead you've shown an openness, a willingness, that went far beyond my expectations. This might seem like a sudden change, but I pride myself on my ability to assess the alterations in people's characters and adjust to take account of them. I saw how you reacted when you heard us speak about the death of privacy, Sam. It made me think that you, alone out of all the initiates, are ready to be told more."

Underground. Nina stared at the blank white walls of the cell. They are holding me underground. There's a solid, crushing mass of earth above my head. There are no windows. There is no daylight. I can't get out of this room. I wonder how much air there is in here. Is there a vent? I can't see a vent. How am I going to get any air if there's no vent? But why would a vent help me anyway? All the air is far above me, on the other side of all of that earth. But there's got to be something, hasn't there? They can't have put me in here to suffocate me. But then, it's stuffy in here. And hot. Oh god… I can't think this way, I can NOT let myself think this way. Concentrate, Nina.

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."