Metafire

"Fine." After Jill contacted Jack, Jack asked to take the next shift listening in on the capsule. It took an hour of careful listening and searching, but Jack could track her voice. Only occasionally would he hear a distinct word."

During this time, Ferguson had failed to notice that the FBI censor had asked for permission to stop the email from Ferguson. This was the first message that had been routed to him. He had assumed, without reading the additional message from the censor, that the censor would stop the mail. It simply did not occur to him that it would be any other way. But the censor, on not receiving a response, had let the mail go through.

At her desk, Wendy Peeples had just gotten off the phone with John "Smith" of the FBI when she got the email from customer support at Metafire. She read the mail in astonishment. Wendy was a small, pretty, girl in her mid twenties. Her ambition was to be a news reporter on assignment. The FBI call made her acutely aware that this was either a carefully orchestrated trick by someone or something significant.

She figured that if it was a trick, it had to be a friend, since nobody would be crazy enough to try to get through to USA Today through Metafire computer support! It wouldn't make sense. But Wendy just didn't have any friends that would do this. It was unimaginable. She was left with the idea that this had to be something real. This girl, Erisa, was kidnapped by Metafire and was in their space colony, and Erisa says these are the terrorists. "But what terrorists?" Wendy wondered if it was the terrorists. She couldn't be that lucky, she thought.