One, two, three... Hannah rushed down the brightly lit corridor passing numbered, windowless doors; even numbers on the right, odd numbers on the left.

"Hannah... Wait!"

"What, Tucker?" She couldn't help but snap at him, annoyed to find him trailing behind.

"I'm just not sure if this is a good idea."

She laughed, "Of course it is; the guard has gone."

"No, no... that's not what I mean... your parents... they could be..."

For the first time that day, her friend looked scared.

"Tucker, it's thanks to you that we have got this far. Don't for one minute think I am going to stop now, no matter what happens, or what I might find behind ..."

Hannah shook her head trying to clear dark scenes and then set off down the corridor once more. After a moment, she heard the sound of Tuckers footsteps following her and the knot in her stomach eased slightly.

At the next door, they passed through using the grey card again, their pace slowed as they approached room seven. Hannah's heart thumped wildly, her gut pained by the ratcheting tension.

Please be okay, please.

Hannah took the grey card from Tucker and pressed it against the black box on the left of the door; nothing happened. She pressed harder and still the door didn't move.

"Give it to me," Tucker said, rolling his eyes at her. He took the card and swiped it gently over the box; the familiar hiss and click followed.

Tucker stood back and let Hannah enter first. The door moved too slowly, so she gave it a shove, the heavy door swung forward revealing a brilliantly white room. A strong disinfectant smell assaulted her nose, the same odour in the room where she'd recently had her SPR review. From the dullness of the orange tinted bulbs in the corridor, the overhead strip lighting seemed unnecessarily bright, its fluorescence reflecting back off the glossy white walls and floor making her squint. In the centre of the room lay a body on a trolley bed, covered over by a thin white sheet. Next to the bed, on either side was an array of machines, one of them bleeping continuously. A large monitor was fixed upon the back wall with random sequences of numbers and symbols speeding across the screen.

Hannah took a step further and shivered, the coolness of the room not the only reason she felt so chilled. Despite wanting to see who it was under the sheet, she found she couldn't move her feet further. A whooshing sound made her jump, followed by a fast ticking noise and the data on the screen flashed wildly. The sounds then stopped as suddenly as they had started, leaving just the low beep, thumping with regularity, just like a heartbeat. She felt her own heart beating its own frenetic, haphazard rhythm in reply.

Hannah felt the warmth of Tucker's hand in her own as he gently pulled her towards the bed. A multitude of colourful wires trailed over the bed, a stark contrast to the white all around. At the top of the bed, she saw the person's head almost encased entirely in a large, white helmet with more wires protruding through the top. Closer still, she could see it was her father's face in the small uncovered section of the helmet. A thick, clear tube protruded from tape placed around his mouth, a small white clip pinched his nostrils closed. His skin, what little she could see of it, looked pale and thin and although clean shaven, he looked tired, unkempt and old.

"Dad," she whispered, her hands found the metal bed rails for support. He remained still. "Daddy, are you ok?"

She tentatively lifted her hand and caressed his cheek with her index finger.

"He's so cold Tucker," she said snatching her hand back, the sensation of touching him still tingling in her fingertips.

Tucker moved forward, having held back to give Hannah some space.

"What're they doing to him?" He asked, his eyes wide and mouth agog at the strange helmet the man on the bed was wearing

"I thought... I thought they were being interrogated. I expected... I didn't expect this."

Pull yourself together. She touched her father's cheek again, stroking it gently. His eye lids fluttered briefly and a machine to her left cheeped twice.

"We have to get him out of here, Tucker."

"Agreed, but how the hell do we do that?"

"Maybe we can remove all of these wires and he'll just wake up."

"Possibly, but we could do more harm than good. That machine there is monitoring his pulse and that I imagine ...," he said pointing to the hose, "his helping him breath. We don't even know how long he has been like this."

"I have to do something, Tucker, otherwise all this will have been for nothing. I could try one ...," she said carefully picking up a grey wire which had a pink fleck running through it.

"I wouldn't do that, Hannah if I was you."

Hannah and Tucker spun around.

"His brain is connected to that machine," Scott said pointing to the largest of the boxes on the stand behind Hannah. "That box is directly wired up to the helmet your father is wearing. If you pull those wires out, you run the risk of brain damage. "

Scott moved forward and stood at the foot of the bed. Zeke stood in the doorway looking back down the corridor. Hannah stared hard at Scott, his steely eyes glared back.

"How do I know you are not lying to me again?" Hannah asked, looking back to her father's face. "Why should I believe a word you say?"

"Because, Hannah, I haven't lied to you yet and I don't intend to start now."

"What! You haven't lied. We both know that's not true. So what is all of this then, you told me my parents would be alright? Look at my father, just look at him," she said, her breaking voice, giving away too much. "Does he look okay to you?"

"Hannah, I know this doesn't look good, but your father is perfectly safe. This is just a simple procedure."

"Procedure! You told me they were being interrogated."

"This is interrogation, Hannah. What did you think we were going to do, beat the crap out of him until he talked? Our society has come further than you think, Hannah. We don't need to raise a finger to anyone to find out what we want to know these days; he is just simply being downloaded."

Hannah gawped at Scott and her mouth opened a couple of times, but words failed her so looked over at Tucker for help.

"Downloaded! What the hell does that mean?" Tucker said and waved his hand towards the machines.

"I'll take that," Scott said, retrieving the pass-card still in Tucker's grip. Then ignoring Tucker's question, he moved closer to Hannah.

"Downloading is really a simple procedure, and when done under controlled conditions the outcomes are very successful to both the interrogator and the interrogated. By using probes and a translation program we are able to elicit any and all information we require without causing pain to a subject."

"You sound like a salesman, trying to persuade me to buy one for my own personal use," Hannah scoffed.

"History has shown us that using physical and psychological interrogation techniques on the very committed rarely provides information of any use. This technique, barbaric though it might appear, allows us access a person's memories or MemDat as we call it, which we then convert into useable intelligence. The data recovered using this technique has over the last twenty years had gone on to save hundreds upon thousands of lives."

Hannah looked at her poor father's face. What had they seen whilst scanning his mind? I belong to an organisation that is trying to change things. His words, until now a vague memory flung themselves back at he; words she almost thought she'd imagined. Her father's revelation came in the immediate aftermath of Shane's death, when nothing seemed real and everything seemed dark. Parity! That was it, the name of the organisation. Did they know of his involvement in Parity, whatever that may be? Her throat tightened and her heart fluttered in her chest. She hardly dare as, but knew she needed to. "So what data has my father given you?"

Scott shifted on his feet, looked up at the screen overhead, then back at Hannah. A machine bleeped and she grasped her father's hand waiting for Scott's answer.

"Your father is innocent of all charges put towards him, as is your mother. They are in the process of logging off.

Hannah's head switched round at another term, she had only recently heard for the first time in her Computer Studies class at school. "Logging off?"

"Logging off, or in other words, 'shutting down'. In a few hours they will both be up and about. They should be released tonight."

Hannah thought she heard a fragment of doubt in his voice. "What are you are not telling me?"

"Scott, we don't have long," Zeke interrupted.

"We'll talk about this later Hannah, but right now we need to move."

"No, tell me."

Scott looked towards Tucker for support.

"Don't look at me," Tucker said with a smirk. "I ain't making Hannah do anything. The quicker you tell her, the easier it'll be."

Scott raised his hand and ran it through his cropped hair, stopping to rub the back of his neck.

"Your father had no direct involvement in the attack the other night. However we have learned that he has links to an organisation we've been watching for some time. He's provided us with some information about one person in particular, but the information isn't as clear as we would like."

Hannah couldn't help but look over at Zeke, whose eyes were firmly fixed on the corridor outside the room. Who had her father given away?

"Who is it?"

"The downloading process doesn't just look at complete memories, Hannah, it also scans for anomalous thoughts, patterns, trends if you will; thoughts your father might not have fully realised. We call it Brain Chatter."

"So who is it?"

"I am not at liberty to say. Now we really must go."

Hannah sat down on a small white, three- legged stool by the side of the bed. "No Scott, I'm can't leave him here like this. I don't want them waking up alone and I need to know that they are able to leave here, free of all this mess. Maybe I could go with them for a while, help them start over."

Scott rolled his eyes and visible tense.

Please, Scott, I would only been gone a few days."

"Don't be so naïve, Hannah," Scott said quietly. "Briggs isn't going to let your father walk away completely from all of this. For one thing, your father will now be considered an asset and his connections will be utilised to their fullest. Over the coming days, Briggs also has plans for you too, big ones."

"But..."

Scott cut her off immediately. "Haven't you realised yet that the more you fight this, the harder Briggs will make it for you and your family. And as for Tucker...," he said, annoyance rife in his voice, "well, I don't think Briggs is going to react too kindly to your friend's activities here today. What we do need to do is get you back to your room and hope that no one has noticed your absence and we need to get him out of here," he said, pointing at Tucker.

Hannah looked at Tucker, who tried to give her a reassuring smile. She looked down at her father; she'd put him through so much and the thought of causing him any more pain and suffering cut her deeply.

"Okay, but first I need to see my mum."

"Hannah, we don't have the time," Zeke called out to her.

"Please, Scott" she asked.

Scott looked at Hannah and sighed. "This way," he said and then walked out of the room. Hannah and Tucker followed quickly behind and made their way to room nine.

"You have two minutes Hannah and then we leave. I'll carry you out if I have to."

Hannah nodded at him, pushed open the door and entered alone, immediately recognising the pungent, clinical smell. The room before her was identical in every detail to the one that held her father, all except one. The machines that had thrummed with electrical purpose two doors down were silent and inactive. The bed lay empty.