“I’m going over that in my head right now.”

“Well, you should be prepared, because I’ve been informed that she is waking up. You need to go and see her. As I mentioned, we like things to be quiet around here. Not that anyone will hear what is happening, but we dislike disturbances of any kind. I hope you understand.”

Berman nodded, and Jimmy Yan returned to the house. Berman listened to the songbirds another minute, then followed him inside.

—

She was standing in a room, but the light was so blinding she couldn’t make out any details. When she tried to turn away from the light, she realized she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, her arms and legs glued to her side, and she couldn’t even close her eyes to offer some protection against the light. Then the lights went off, and she was in complete darkness. All she could hear was her own breathing, until she heard voices and people moving around in the room. What were they doing? She couldn’t speak; she couldn’t see; she couldn’t move.

The lights came back on, but not so bright, and she could see a body lying submerged in a glass tank of liquid. The person was dead, surely, as half of him was missing. From the waist down, there was nothing. She couldn’t look away, so when the half figure turned in the water and stared at her, there was nothing she could do but scream silently. Then she felt a punch on her arm, and she was falling, falling straight down into a black nothingness.

—

Very gradually Pia could make out her surroundings more clearly, but what she was aware of most of all was a restraint on her right arm. She was lying on a bare mattress, shackled with a length of chain connected to a ring on the wall in a large, damp, musty room. It was hot as Hades, and Pia’s head pounded in time with her racing heartbeat. Where the hell was she? What had happened to her?

Pia picked up snatches of a dream.

She remembered being inside Nano and seeing the dreadful tanks with half-dissected people inside. Paul. She had seen Paul and made him go somewhere with her, but she couldn’t remember where. Then it was as if she were looking through a powerful microscope, but she didn’t know what she was looking at. Paul came to mind again; Paul was going to help her, but he couldn’t because she never made it back to him. Zachary Berman had stopped her, and now she was here, wherever here was. She felt fear grip her throat, and she started to shiver despite the heat. I’ve got to get ahold of myself, she thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. The shaking stopped.