“I don’t understand. These look like biological markers,” he mutters. “Let me try something.”
Another screen pops up to show a boy gazing into a campfire. He’s a black kid with big glasses, wearing shorts that let his knees gleam in the firelight, and he looks familiar. A line of statistics flies past, and then still another screen appears in the corner. It’s a headshot picture of Janice. I look back again at the boy by the fire, and my memory jolts. I’ve seen this image before. It was back in Dr. Ash’s office in the Forge infirmary.
“Is that boy you?” I ask.
“Yes,” Burnham says. “It’s from when I was a kid at Camp Pewter, but it’s in Janice’s file. We knew each other there.”
“Was it mined? Is it a dream?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s the sort of thing she might remember, or she might have stashed the image in her subconscious. Berg has recorded it, in any case.” He types a couple times. “I’ve never seen the format of these files before. There’s no way to tell if it’s a real memory or a dream or something she made up.”
I skim over the color wheel again, looking at some of the other boxes. “This looks like a database of images, organized by color,” I say.
“I think you’re right,” he says. “This is mind-blowing, Rosie. I’m trying to save a couple of these, but something’s weird about the files. It’s like they’re dissolving. Give me a sec.”
My screens do a quick fly around, and when they settle, a window in the lower right shows a room with rows of sleep shells, all glowing the soft blue I’ve come to know. I peer closely, thinking it’s an old image of the dream vault under Forge, but the angle is from high up, and I realize the rows go on too far. This is a larger room, with more sleep shells. More dreamers. Dozens more. Over a hundred.
A chill skims my spine. “Burnham,” I whisper.
“I see it,” he says.
“Where are they? Are they real? Is this now?”
“I don’t know where they are,” he says. “I’m trying to sort for the most recent files in the system. What’s this?”
A new image comes up, a close-up of a girl, me, lying asleep. It’s shot in black and a soft, blue-tinted white. I’m resting in profile, so the line of my nose and lips and chin is distinct over the dimpled pillow. My dark hair makes a distinct curve along my forehead and ear, and moonlight falls on my cheek. The angle feels intimate, the effect both ghostly and loving. I’m surprised to discover that I could ever looked so lovely, and then a hand comes into the frame and lightly smooths a tendril of hair back from my temple.
The clip goes dark.
A shiver of dread runs through me. This isn’t some old, photoshopped picture. Someone took that clip of me live.
“When was that taken?” I ask.
“You tell me.”
I grip the desk. “Burnham!” I say. “That looked like last night! But there weren’t any cameras in Linus’s room. I swear there weren’t!” I scramble for any explanation. “Could it be a dream?”
“No,” Burnham says, his voice low. “That one’s a regular .avi file. No question about it. Somebody filmed you in Linus’s bed.”
Not Linus. I refuse to believe he would film me. Especially not without asking. I can’t get over how completely and utterly wrong this is.
“Hasn’t this been a fun evening?” Burnham says dryly.
The computer flickers, and I think Burnham’s doing something new, but then the icon screen vanishes, and instead, I find Berg’s face looking at me.
My fear explodes.
Burham swears.
Berg leans nearer, peering with his eyes narrowed. He’s found me.
33
ROSIE
THE BARGAIN
FOR ONE FROZEN SECOND, I can’t even think. Then I turn off the computer and rip out the peg.
Berg knows exactly where I am. He’s found me at his computer, in his tower. It’s no less than I expected, but it’s far more terrifying. And I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to challenge him at all. He’s part of something much bigger than I ever guessed. I shove back from the computer and bolt up through the office toward the elevator. I’ve almost reached it when the door beside it bursts open and Berg runs out from the stairwell.
I lift my phone, aiming at him so Burnham can see him, for all the good that will do me.
“Stay back,” I say.
“Put that down,” Berg says, breathing hard. His white sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and he holds his arms loose from his sides, ready. His piggy eyes gleam in his ruddy face.
I keep the phone up. “I have proof this time,” I say. “We’ve stolen your files. You’re through.”
“As your friend is no doubt discovering about now, my files are not hackable,” Berg says. “They deteriorate in ten minutes, but not before they infect whatever system copies them with a virus.”
He moves with harsh, efficient speed and chops at my arm to make my phone fly out of my hand. Shocked, I scramble backward and grab a stapler. When did Berg get so strong and quick? I lift the stapler to protect myself. Berg crosses over to where my phone flew. He turns it off and slips it in his pocket. Then he pulls out a different one, his own.
“Guess where your friend Thea is,” he says, tapping on his phone. He holds it up toward me, and the screen is mainly gray, with a small diamond of light. He steps closer so I can see that the diamond is the lit screen of a phone, and beside it, barely discernible, is Thea’s face. She’s lying on a floor, curled on her side with a cell phone before her, and she isn’t moving.
My gut goes cold. “Where is she?” I ask.
Berg snaps off the phone. He tilts his head, smiling at me oddly. “Guess.”
The vault. The tunnel. Somewhere locked. She could be anywhere dark and hard.
“You wouldn’t hurt her,” I say, backing away. “She hasn’t done anything to you. She doesn’t know anything.”
He shakes his head and slips his phone in his pocket. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Quite the opposite. I want to help. Who will take care of you when you start to decay?” he asks. “Who will take care of Thea?”
Nobody’s decaying. I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Where is she?” I repeat. “Tell me.”
“She came looking for you,” Berg says. “She came quite some time ago actually. She doesn’t scare easily, but I think she’s getting there.”
“You can’t keep her hostage,” I say.
“You’re right,” he says. “That would be completely inhumane. And so we’re going to bargain.”
“Over what?” I ask.
“Your dreams, of course. What else?” he says. “Let’s be clear on one point from the start. I very much want you alive and well. I’ve discovered the hard way that people need real life to feed their dreams. Too much time in the vault, even with the most careful monitoring, starves a mind down to nothing, and a steady stream of fear alone is poison.”
“You’re never getting my dreams again,” I say. “I’ll die first.”