Brain Storm (US Edition) by Nicola Lawson Page A

minimal setting anything more in that environment would have killed you." The dark one pulled a rag from beside the shower cubicle and dropped it on top of her.
    "We've seen everything you have to show us so there's no need for you to play about conserving your modesty while you get dried. Just do it as quickly as possible and put this on."
    A baggy orange prison all in one was dropped just outside the cubicle. Carla stood and ran the rag over her quickly just as a cursory effort to remove the moisture. Then, still sodden, she climbed into the overalls eager to get her body back under cover.
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    Sara Fox waited as the shower of hot water, she liked her showers just the right side of scalding, slowed and gave ways to jets of warm, drying air. When the cycle finished she was clean and dry, refreshed. She started pulling the spare set of clothes out of the small cupboard and stepped into the underwear.
    She was just pulling a tight sweater over her head when the internal communications screen built into the side wall of her office chimed to let her know that she was wanted. Sara finished adjusting the sweater, pulling it down at her waist and checking that the neck was straight, as she stepped over and hit the button to let the transmission continue. She was just pulling the last strands of her frizzy red hair out of the sweater when the screen came alive.
    "We are ready for your debrief, agent Fox. Report to room 132 level negative twelve in five minutes."
    They didn't wait for her to respond, the communication simply came to an abrupt end and the screen went back into standby mode.
    On her way out of the office Sara grabbed a comb from the drawer of her desk. She would have to do what she could with her hair on the short journey to the debrief. If she didn't the frizzyness caused by letting it be dried in the shower cycle would drive her mad.
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    The debrief wasn't overly long. It was just about average, but as usual the seemingly endless going over of every minor detail over and over again soon started to wear on Sara's patience. She kept her composure through years of having to deal with these sorts of things. The debrief itself was entirely routine and the only surprise for Sara was one of omission. No mention was made of the events after the operation was concluded that Sara had also had a hand in.
    While it wasn't obviously connected to her operation she had thought that a security mech going crazy and trying to kill an innocent civilian that ended up killing many more civilians and wounding numerous members of the security forces would have warranted attention. Even if they didn't expect Sara to be able to offer any wonderful insights into what went wrong they should still have questioned her   about it, to give them as much information as possible so that they would stand a chance of discovering what had happened.
    As she rode the elevator back up to the fourth level where her office was located Sara kept trying to tell herself to let it go. The fact that they hadn't questioned her about that incident had meant that she could get out of there that much sooner. But the fact that they hadn't brought it up had robbed her of the chance to ask them what they thought had happened. They probably wouldn't have given her the information outright but she would have been able to assess what they were thinking based on the questions they asked and the information they were most interested in seeing if she could provide.
    The elevator doors opened and Sara stepped out into the corridor. It was entirely functional as everything else in this division of ECSIS with no expense wasted on creating a comfortable atmosphere. There were no potted plants or pictures anywhere in the division unless they were in private offices brought in by those who worked in them. The floor of the corridor was plain concrete, no carpet or other covering. The budget only allowed for carpets inside the offices and even then they were