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Chapter Eleven

Summary Edit

In the Dark People's Library, the White Dragon is quietly reading when she hears a noise from behind her. She asks if it's Crow; turning in her chair, she reacts with mild surprise and asks "Are you looking for something?" She then recoils with horror - as the scene blacks out we hear a scream, and a flapping sound, like wings or a falling book.

Zoe Castillo wakes up in Damien Cavanaugh's apartment, right where she left. But despite his promise, Damien's nowhere to be seen. Her attention is grabbed by the beeping console in the corner: it contains a message. Damien apologises for leaving her, but says WATI traced the Data Worm back to him and he had to flee. Zoe shouldn't stay there too long either. But he had time to finish getting the coordinates. The corruption in DreamNet began in Russia, just outside Saint Petersburg. She can get there by Scramjet. Damien wishes her luck but says he has to go into hiding for a while.

As she gets changed, Zoe checks her voicemail. There's a message from her father. He's been calling and getting no reply, and he's worried. Zoe calls back and leaves him a message, pretending she's at home and was just too lazy to pick up. She promises she hasn't spoken to Reza either. Once she's ready, Zoe leaves Damien's apartment.

We arrive at the coordinates in Russia with Zoe, a location that turns out to be an abandoned doll factory. Zoe manages to break in and explore, but apart from a security bird on the roof, there's no sign of life. Tracking the coordinates, she realises she's standing above them, and uses the factory winch to get into the lower levels through a grate. Below, she discovers a long-abandoned laboratory, with computers and an observation room, made up like a child's bedroom. Zoe looks curiously at the drawings on the walls, and at a doll's house still standing on a table, a very familiar house. Inside it, she finds a data cube and puts it into one of the computers. It contains the notes and journal of a Dr. Jeanine Park.

As Zoe watches, the story of this place unfolds, the story of a little girl who was brought here for an experiment by WATI. Over the weeks and months, this child was used as a test subject for Morpheus. She spent most of that time drawing and playing with her house, watched by the scientists from beyond a one-way wall, as she became more and more ill. Dr. Park chronicles how the girl's heart weakened under the strain until, after a massive dose of Morpheus, the girl died. Just as she passed away, the screens in the lab flickered with a massive burst of static, showing the doll house - or a version of it, anyway. After that, the experiment was cleared away and everything covered up, kept quiet. But Dr. Park resolved to leave the data cube behind, so something would remain of what happened here, of the life that was lost.

The little girl's name was Faith. Finally Zoe has a name for the child from her visions.

There's nothing more she can do here. Zoe leaves, and heads for home.

Themes & References Edit

As would be expected, this chapter deals with faith, both the child essentially killed by WATI, and the concept of faith. For Zoe, her faith in Damien takes a blow when he leaves her alone, and she gives Gabriel reason to lose faith in her because she leaves a lie on his voicemail. But her discovery of the truth behind Faith's death is the most important event in this chapter.

When leaving a message for her father, Zoe's insistence that she hasn't spoken to Reza and that she's staying out of trouble seems to be a direct reference to the cut 'Rain Conversation' back in Chapter Three.