Relieved first, Sadie concluded. After, he would slip back into anger and somehow turn it against himself, deciding that he should have been there, it was his fault.
Curtis gave her a hand to help her out of the Stas-Case, and Sadie wobbled against him. “Sorry.”
“Totally normal,” he assured Sadie.
Sadie felt Catrina’s eyes boring into her. Her legs felt jittery, like someone had replaced her knees with uncalibrated gyroscopes. “What happens now?”
Catrina looked up quickly from the monitor at Curtis, then back down. Curtis said, “Now you rest. And later we’ll do your debrief.”
“How long does that last?” Sadie suddenly felt tense. What did the glance Catrina had given Curtis mean? Why were the lights so bright? Why was everyone looking at her?
Curtis gave her a bland, pleasant smile. “They’ll ask you some questions and then make their recommendation. Strictly routine.”
“You mean about whether I continue,” Sadie said, remembering what he’d said about only half of the Minders making it past the first week. It had seemed hypothetical then, no big deal, but now—
She looked frantically from Catrina to Curtis. Catrina was busy on the computer, but Curtis said, “I’m on the Committee myself. Don’t worry.”
Was there something off about his smile? Sadie wondered. Was it… condescending? Nervous? As the adrenaline from her return faded, everything was becoming hard to read and opaque. Even when she didn’t know what a sensation meant in Ford’s mind, at least it was real, raw. From the outside people seemed so carefully processed and bland.
Catrina cupped her chin in her hand. “Interesting. This wasn’t the first 5-29 at your Subject’s residence. There was a similar fire before, the dog barked, and a complaint was filed. Under the Domestic Animal Security and Safety Code, if there is another incident the dog will be terminated.”
Sadie had learned through Ford’s collection of mental images that Copernicus had been James’s dog—their last living connection to the golden boy. “It would be a real blow to the family if they lost him.”
Catrina’s eyes lit up. “You could get lucky then.”
Sadie steadied herself against the edge of the Stas-Case. “What?”
“If termination is ordered. The removal of a pet from a family is a perfect catalyst for mild to low trauma.”
Sadie’s mind stumbled over that. “I’m not sure I would wish that on someone.”
“This isn’t someone, it’s your Subject,” Catrina reminded her coolly. “That’s why we don’t personalize them.”
Sadie felt like she was at sea, floating somewhere out of her body.
“What Catrina is referring to is the tendency of trauma to work like a crucible.” Curtis made a cup with his hand. “It concentrates underlying family dynamics, burning off the extraneous elements so you can blow them out of the way.” He gave a puff and his pretend cup vanished.
Catrina looked at Sadie, critically. “Progress comes from being unafraid to make hard choices. Science is brutal.”
Her words chimed within Sadie’s memory, but it was only when she was walking to her assigned guest room that she realized what it was: They reminded her of her own words in her Mind Corps interview.
The debrief the next day was scheduled for eleven in the morning on the garden terrace of the manor house. Sadie rode alone in the elevator to the surface, still disoriented by her removal from stasis. It wasn’t just the change in viewpoint without Ford’s additional four inches. Getting out of the shower she’d looked in the mirror and almost screamed at seeing a stranger in the bathroom before realizing she was looking at her own reflection.
A man in a dark suit escorted Sadie through a set of French doors onto a flagstone terrace bordered by a rolling lawn that sloped down to the lake. After the uniform, sterile atmosphere of stasis and subbasement fourteen, being outside was like waking up with new senses. She felt the air on her skin and experienced a touch of vertigo at so much empty space, so much green. It was amazing how quickly your perspective could shift. Sadie couldn’t see City Center from where she stood, but she felt it.
It was a pleasant Saturday morning, little clouds whipping across the sky above the bend in the river where it met the lake. A table with a white cloth was set with a gilt-edged teapot and cups for five, but she was the first one there. She was hovering awkwardly near the table when a voice from the French doors said, “Sadie Ames,” and she turned and saw Miranda Roque.
Miranda was dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit with a large gold necklace. She wore a mammoth sapphire on her second finger, easily an inch in diameter, but no other jewelry. Her face was tanned and lined and beautiful, Sadie thought, from years of actually using it, without relying on the fillers that Sadie’s mother and her friends all used.
“Come chat,” Miranda said, sitting down in one of the seats around the table. “If the others can’t be on time, that’s their problem.”
“Hello, Ms. Roque.” Sadie took a seat near her, catching the scent of roses and wood smoke.
“Miranda,” she corrected, pouring tea. She pushed a cup toward Sadie. “So, are you enjoying it?”
There was no reason to ask what “it” was, but Sadie had to think a little before answering. “Yes, although I’m not sure if enjoy is the right word. Syncopy is amazing, though. I’m anxious to get back.”
Miranda gave a little cackle. “Don’t try to butter me up, Ames. Not good for my arteries.”
Sadie felt herself blushing. “I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, yes you did. Don’t do it again.” Miranda put a plate of butter cookies between her and Sadie. “Tell me about your Subject.”
Sadie plunged in. “He’s impulsive, which can be maddening. And—”
“Be specific, Ames,” Miranda barked. “What do you mean by impulsive? He speaks without thinking? He’s spontaneous? Those are not the same.”
Sadie had never thought about that before. “I suppose both.”
Miranda nodded. “Often go hand in hand, a continuum. It’s the sign of a consciousness that’s still growing. He must be passionate.”
Sadie was sorry to see the others arrive then. Miranda was the only person she’d encountered since she’d been back she felt comfortable talking to.
The rest of the Committee came together in a single elevator load: Curtis, a woman with auburn hair and olive skin named Naomi from Neurotraction, and a guy with short curly dark hair and tawny skin named Johann from Paracartography. Miranda tapped the table impatiently while they were introduced and then jumped back into her questions.
“What was the first emotion you identified from your Subject?” she asked.
“Anger,” Sadie answered without needing to think. “He’s very angry.”
Miranda stopped drumming her fingers, and her eyes sparked with interest. “Anger. So potent. I once funded a project about creating fuel out of anger. Never came to anything, but the premise was sound. Biggest untapped energy resource in the world.”
Sadie tried to imagine that. “How would you harvest it?”
Miranda laughed. “Getting the anger was the easy part. You can do that on a street corner for free. No”—she leaned closer to Sadie—“the challenge was converting it once you had it. Anger is like oil, it bubbles up from the subconscious and is available to be collected at a fairly superficial level. It may feel like it’s the basis of all your subject’s actions now, but anger is just a sign of much richer and more complex veins below.”
“Like what?” Sadie asked, riveted.
Miranda shrugged. “Most common is probably guilt. Very, very rich source because it’s directed inward. A good vein of guilt will produce forever, providing no one messes with it.” She rolled her eyes upward, thinking. “Thwarted wishes and hopes are good too, but those weaken over time.” Her eyes came back to Sadie. “In general it’s the damage we do to ourselves that lasts the longest. We love to take responsibility for things outside our control and then blame ourselves when they fail.”