Читать книгу Thrive - Mary Borsellino - Страница 18

The next book that Olivia loves, another ratty paperback she buys from Sam, is called It and is by somebody named Stephen King. The horror and fear of the story, the unhappy children and the terrible, bloodthirsty clown, are a huge and unexpected comfort to Olivia's hungry heart. The idea of frightening things hiding in the dark is a security blanket for her. Better a nightmare than nobody.

Sam has three ports in his wrist. Olivia has almost never seen anybody with a port before, apart from in movies and shows. And Hannah. Hannah had five.

The ports in movies and shows are mostly prosthetics, stuck on with spirit gum and peeled off when the actors are finished playing. If any actors in the shows and movies have real ports, the ports are hidden with bracelets or watchbands. Paparazzi photographers sneak around trying to get a picture to sell to the entertainment sites for lots and lots of money. Nothing sells as well as shame and secrets. No rich person wants the world to remember how poor they used to be. To have a port is to be marked forever.

'Which is complete nonsense,' Sam points out when she muses aloud on the subject. 'Sixty-five percent of the population is ported, and a full hundred percent use port-interfaced technology in their everyday lives, whether we make use of that aspect of it or not.'

She tells Sam about Hannah, about the whole horrible, thrilling, weird experience that altered something inside Olivia forever, made her who she is now.

'I worry about what Hannah had to do to get away. Who the people she called were, and how much they cost her. It feels like it was my fault she had to do that, because my father hired the men.'

'I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining Stockholm Syndrome to you,' he replies in a dry voice, giving her a pointed look. 'But even accounting for that, feeling guilty because you got rescued from being kidnapped is pretty outrageous.'

Olivia sighs. 'Shut up.'

'She probably didn't call anyone. I bet if you'd asked to see the phone logs, it would have been a dead number.'

'No, it was definitely someone. She told them her name was Lissa, and then that's what the lady at the hospital called her.'

'She would have used a phrase or word, a trigger that connected the call to a monitoring station. That's how spies do it, isn't it? And government agencies. The machinery picks up the trigger and starts listening in.'

'Oh.' Olivia thinks hard, trying to remember Hannah's hoarse, rapid words. 'She called someone "little red riding hood". That might have been it. So that clicked the connection on, and then she pretended to be talking while someone listened, and had to trust that they'd understand and help her?'

'Yeah.' Sam nods. 'I hear about things like that sometimes, from my suppliers. I never use them. Reliability like that — knowing for almost certain that someone will come pick you up on nothing more than a hospital name muttered down the phone ten minutes before the needed rescue — that comes at very, very high prices, from what I hear. It would have to. I don't want anything to do with that.'

Olivia's stomach is leaden, cold and heavy. She wishes she knew what happened to Hannah. If she wound up safe and okay. She may never know for sure, and this new piece of information — the first she's had since it all happened — is nothing but bad news.

Late that night, instead of staying up with a book as usual, Olivia lies in bed and screws up as much courage as she can find. This is so dumb. What's she going to say? So, so dumb.

She punches a random number into her phone and hopes she isn't about to wake up someone. There are way more numbers than phones, right? So this has a good chance of working.

Before anyone can answer, she takes a breath and blurts: 'Little red riding hood! Uh, I hope that's still the right words. I guess it probably isn't, since Ha—, Ah, Lissa used it in front of people. But, um, if you're listening, don't make her pay a lot or anything, okay? It was my fault she got caught in it. So if there's a way for you to give the bill to me instead, if you can find me, do that please. And if you talk to her tell her I'm sorry, and that I, um, tell her...'

Olivia can't think of anything to say, and the phone is only silent empty air beside her ear. She ends the call, and wants to cry.