Outrage Read Online Free PDF Page A

facility. First of all, you need anonymity. There are a couple of different ways you can go with that….”
    They talked about it as the sun went down, running the company, and the search, from their encrypted cell phones. Since the holding facility would function as a disguised prison, and would require armed guards to move the experimental subjects when needed, Cartwell delegated the search for a new facility to Thorne, who would run it, with oversight from Sync. Sync suggested that Thorne look closely at Stockton, California, a large but nearly bankrupt city with a tiny police force. Stockton was convenient to Singular’s San Francisco–area headquarters, as well as the Sacramento research center.
    They were still talking about it when Cartwell’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen of his secure phone and frowned: the number was unknown. That just didn’t happen. He hesitated, then punched answer. “Hello.”
    A woman’s voice, weak, thready, tentative. “This is Charlotte. Help me. Help me.”
    Cartwell said, “Who is this?”
    He listened for another twenty seconds, heard commotion on the other end, and then the connection broke off.
    Cartwell said, “Jesus,” and stared at the phone.
    Sync: “What?”
    Cartwell looked at the others. “She said she was Charlotte Dash. Dash has this number—but it wasn’t her. She sounded foreign.”
    Sync blurted, “It’s the Chinese girl! She was implanted with the Dash persona. We know some of it took; the whole reason we brought her here was to try to figure out how much.”
    “But she’s—”
    Harmon: “With the Rembys. Could the implanted personality have enough control to call us? Or is that crazy?”
    Cartwell said, “It’s somewhat crazy, but not entirely. We’ve had hints of things like this. Oh, Christ, she said something about her bones….”
    Harmon said, “Give it to us, word for word. Best you can.”
    “She was so damn hard to understand. She said she was Charlotte, but she sounded…Mandarin,” Cartwell said. “But she would…wouldn’t she?”
    Sync nodded. “Language and accent are separate….”
    “Then she said ‘Help’ or ‘Help me,’ ” Cartwell said. “She said that a couple of times. And then something about…her bones? The bones? Something like that.”
    “Bones,” Thorne repeated. “Could that be code for something?”
    Cartwell cocked his head. “Code? I don’t know, maybe. Nothing I know about. But we know the girl has seizures—maybe she’s hurt.”
    Sync pressed his hands together. “This could be a break.”
    Cartwell was less certain. “If it really was this escapee…can we figure out where she was calling from?”
    Harmon said, “Give me ten minutes.” He took Cartwell’s phone and walked into the bedroom, pulling a laptop from his briefcase.
    Cartwell turned to Sync. “Should I call Charlotte?”
    “You know her better than I do,” Sync said. “If she knew there was a Dash double out there, how would she react?”
    Cartwell rubbed the side of his face, thinking, then said, “I don’t know. She’s got half a billion dollars with us so far, and she’s already had two rounds of chemo, so she knows we’re working on her as a priority. But the reality of what that means—”
    “Is she stable?” Sync asked. “Mentally stable?”
    “She’s got a lot going on. The cancer, the stink from her husband’s hedge fund, and trying to work out his estate…” He did the lip-scraping thing again, then: “Maybe we’ll let it go for now. Admitting we lost the girl won’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
    They were still talking about it when Harmon came in from the bedroom and handed Cartwell his phone back. “She’s in Reno,” he said. “The Bones Motel and Casino. Some kind of low-rent place on the edge of town.”
    Sync: “The Bones?”
    “Like in ‘rolling the bones’—rolling the dice,” Harmon said.
    Thorne punched the air with his fist, then looked past Sync and Harmon at Cartwell.