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 implements, 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.