Pia looked around. The room was perhaps twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and as high as twelve feet, lined with red brick on all four walls. On the wall opposite the bed was what looked like a planked oak door with no details. There was a sheen of condensation on every surface. Next to the platform-style bed was a toilet with no seat. Next to that was a sink with a single faucet. In the corner of one wall, where it met the ceiling, was a tiny window, but the light in the room came from big fluorescent lamps that hung incongruously from above. There was no clue as to where she was, and Pia had no memory of being taken anywhere. But she thought time had passed. There was daylight outside, but what day was it from which she remembered those events? Monday, perhaps.

Pia closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on something other than her throbbing head. Sunday. Yes, that was the day she went to see Berman at his house. With that, the memories came back in a rush: Berman, the camera, what she saw at Nano, Paul Caldwell, the blood sample from the ER lounge, Nano again, seeing the spherical nanorobots and being stopped by the police on the way back to Paul’s. Now she knew what had happened. She had been kidnapped by Zachary Berman. She knew she had to think hard about those events to recall all the details, but she was unable to concentrate.

In addition to her headache, Pia was stiff all over, especially where her injuries from the car wreck were still healing. Her broken left humerus in particular felt as if it had been broken all over again. The sling was still in place, as was the gauntlet cast for her left radial fracture. That felt fine. With some effort she got herself up into a sitting position on the side of the bed. She could see that there was enough chain for her to reach the toilet and the sink but that was about all. Sitting up made her left arm feel better.

When she was able to think a bit more clearly, Pia tried to figure out if anyone could possibly have seen her being kidnapped. Paul Caldwell must be expecting her back, but unless someone saw her getting taken, she would have simply disappeared. But she had been stopped by Boulder cops! They looked like Boulder cops, in what appeared to be a Boulder police cruiser, which was why she had pulled over to the side of the road, so unless Berman had bought them off, they would know. Pia considered the possibility, then sank back on the mattress. The cops had been in on it, she realized. The cops had stayed in their cruiser while Berman took her. If they were real cops.