"Ok, thanks Sara". Lincoln hung up the phone. Sara wished he would've stayed on the phone longer. It would've been nice to just talk to someone who was fully conscious and she wasn't afraid would kill Michael if she said the wrong thing. Well, really it would be nice to talk to someone at all. She had only been here for a day, and already boredom was setting in.

When the orderlies switched shifts at around dinner, Sara studied the new one for a while. It was a woman, they always sent women overnight, and she seemed to be in her early fifties. She had light brown hair that was starting to grey in places, and she seemed as safe as anyone from the company could seem. Sara wasn't fool enough to think she could befriend her and use her somehow to help herself and Michael, but she hoped that this woman would be willing to at least talk to her, or maybe give her options on breaking the boredom. Sara didn't regret her decision to stay with Michael, but she did wish she could do something other than sit in the same chair and talk to someone who clearly had no idea she was there.

After a few minutes, Sara cleared her throat. The orderly didn't look up from what she was reading. Gathering up her courage, Sara cleared her throat again and said, voice shaking slightly "What're you reading?"

The orderly looked up at her in surprise. "You're talking to me?"

"You see anyone else in this room who would answer a question when asked?" Sara hadn't meant to be so snide, but the stress of worrying about Michael combined with boredom hadn't left her in the most friendly of moods, which, she reflected, was not going to be helpful in trying to have a conversation with someone.

The woman actually looked rather sympathetic. She glanced at Michael before replying. "No, I suppose not. I'm reading Nancy Drew, actually. My granddaughter is reading it for the first time and wants to talk to me about it, but the last time I read one of these books I must have been thirteen years old. I haven't got a clue what happened in them."

That surprised Sara. Not only that someone working for the Company would read something like Nancy Drew, but also that they would allow something personal about them to be known by a hostage, even something as small as the fact that she had a granddaughter. "How old is your granddaughter?"

"Oh, Meghan? She's nine. Smart as a whip that girl too. She can read well above her age level, although I don't know if Nancy Drew counts as above a nine year old or not. But she can't get enough of them. I don't have a chance of keeping up to her with how fast she's going through them; I just hope I can jog my memory a little by re-reading the first few."

Now Sara didn't know what to think. This woman was easily sharing details about her life, seemingly unconcerned about Sara would do with that information. Was that because she wasn't worried about being found? To be fair Meghan wasn't exactly a unique name and Sara had no idea what this woman's name was. Or did she know something? Were she and Michael never getting out of there? Or was she just being paranoid? After all, there had to be some friendly people who worked for the Company, right? They couldn't all be high up executives and murderers. There had to be a few normal people for whom this was just a job.

The orderly seemed to sense her confusion, because she smiled at her. "You must be getting lonely here, all by yourself. I know you have him", she nodded at Michael, "but he doesn't seem to be very good company."

Sara could feel the tears that always seemed to be just below the surface building again, but she forced them down. "Why are you doing this to him?"

The woman sighed. "Sweetie, you know the answer to that. That boy has an incredible mind, and an incredible will. As much as the Company would like to believe that it's impossible, he would find a way to escape and take you with him. The only way they can prevent that is by making it so that he is physically incapable of it. And seeing as Lincoln would not likely be very willing to look for Scylla if he dies, or is seriously injured, this was the best option."

Sara turned away, making sure that her voice was steady before she replied. "Well, you're right. He would find a way to escape. But this? He could still experience complications from the surgery, especially if his brain isn't being stimulated. He died while they were operating on him. I don't want him to do it again."

"We're taking good care of him. I know how difficult it is, but he isn't going to die or experience any complications, so long as you and Lincoln keep up your parts of the deal." Sara nodded. She would never admit it, but hearing the words out loud made her feel a little better. She realized just how much she missed talking to people. Talking to Lincoln on the phone hardly counted, seeing as they were both so afraid of making the Company suspicious that they were attempting something that they kept their conversations as brief as possible.

"Look, you don't have to stay here you know", the woman said after a few minutes of silence. Sara looked at her in surprise. "I don't mean you can leave, but you don't have to stay in this room. You're allowed to wander around this floor as much as you like, you just can't leave it. Might do you some good to get out of here for a bit."

This hadn't even occurred to her. Sara had just assumed that she wasn't allowed to leave Michael's room, but as she thought about it she realized that the General hadn't said anything about that. He had just said she couldn't leave. Still…"I want to be here for him when he wakes up. He needs me."

"I won't disagree with you on that one, but he's only awake for an hour. There are twenty three more where you have to occupy yourself. This floor might surprise you. You aren't the first visitor we've had here, and not all of them were hostages."

Sara mulled this over for a while. "Alright", she said at last, "maybe tomorrow I'll have a look around. After he's awake. I don't want to be out of the room and miss it." The woman nodded and returned to her book.

Long after Sara had gone to bed she lay awake thinking. The opportunity she had just been presented with was certainly tantalizing. She knew that what she was considering was a risk, and if she got caught it wouldn't be her who had to pay the price for it, but she also knew that she couldn't continue to sit around and do nothing. Michael wouldn't want that, and if the situations were reversed he certainly wouldn't just sit around while she lay helpless under the influence of whatever they were pumping him full of. Sara didn't have the same kind of mind that he did, and she had no experience with what she was beginning to plan, but she wasn't completely useless. After all, this was nothing more than a hospital. And she was very good at finding the little hiding places in hospitals.