A million bolts of lightning flashed behind his eyes. A searing pain ripped at his temples. A spasm of pain pulsed through his arms, which jerked wildly, flicking the headset from his scalp. It clattered onto the floor by his chair.

"Get your headset off, now!" Sam shrieked, turning to Dodge.

Dodge's eyes were white, turned upward in his skull. His hands were claws, gripping the arms of his chair, and the tendons in his neck strained as his head thrust backward. His mouth opened in a cruel, demonic grin, and he began to scream.

WISDOM

28

TYLER

Cuthbertson, the watch officer, met Tyler at the door. "It's a full team scramble."

"What's the alert?" Tyler asked.

"Something going on in the main control center," Cuthbertson said.

Tyler strapped on his weapons kit and crossed to the operations computer.

"'Arthur Philip Dodgerson and Sam Robert Wilson,'" he read off the screen. "Dodge and Sam. No way. I've known Dodge for years."

"I don't know what they've been up to," Cuthbertson said, "but Jaggard wants us to bring them in, and to do it now."

"Okay. Where is the team?" Tyler asked.

"Already a.s.sembling in the Go Room."

"Good. Let's take these guys down now and worry about what they've been up to later. Lock down their keycards so they can't get out."

Tyler picked his neuro-headset up off his desk and pulled it firmly down over his head, squashing his hair.

This doesn't make any sense, he thought. He plugged his neuro-headset into the waistband receptor unit and switched it on, immediately immersing himself in the flurry of questions and messages flying back and forth from his team.

"This is Tyler," he communicated. "I want a team of four. Sergeant Hutchens, you pick three others. We go in two minutes."

There were confirmations from the team.

Surely not Dodge? The other kid is new and maybe hiding something, but not Dodge. No way.

There seemed to be something wrong with the headset, and he repositioned it slightly on his head. There was a buzzing, low and annoying, inside his head, as if a blowfly had flitted in one ear and was trying to find a way out.

He checked the connection at the receptor unit, but it was firm. The buzzing continued, a tickling at the base of his brain. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and after a moment it faded.

He checked the position of his headset again and retrieved his sidearm from the equipment locker.

What had he been thinking about?

Dodge and Sam, of course. Sam had looked shifty from the start, he remembered. And several times he had caught him accessing unauthorized information.

Why hadn't he remembered that before? The memory was vivid, with the clarity and focus of a dream you had just woken up from.

And Dodge. He had always had his suspicions about Dodge, with his bald head and tattoos. He was too anti-authority. He could not be trusted.

Tyler checked his weapon and headed for the Go Room.

29

JAGGARD

John Jaggard stared at the alert message on the screen in front of him. A seize-and-detain notice for Dodge and Sam. What was that about?

According to the screen, he was the one who had given the order. But he hadn't. Unless he was going mad. It had been a mad kind of an afternoon, but he'd know if he had given an order like that!

He'd remember remember something like that. something like that.

According to the notes on the action command, Dodge and Sam were implicated in the attack on Swamp Witch. But they hadn't been involved as far as he knew.

He would have remembered something like that too.

The terrorists were back. That was the only solution that made sense. They were back, and they were using the system, his system, to issue fake orders.

A flashing alert on his computer screen warned him of an incoming message. Urgent. A neuro-communication. He grappled with the headset, still not used to the technology.

He plugged it in and waited for the message.

And then he remembered everything.

30

ESCAPE

Sam launched himself off his chair, his arm stretched out in front of him. His fingertips caught the thick black cable that extended from the base of Dodge's skull, wrenching it sideways.

Dodge's head snapped to the side. The screaming became a strangulated gurgle as his windpipe choked. There was a cracking sound from the plug in the receptor unit, and the casing fractured, pulling it from the receptor socket.

The horrible strangled screaming sound stopped.

Sam hit the ground at an angle, and there was a crack from his shoulder and a twist of pain that ran from his neck to his rib cage.

Dodge's head snapped back, then lolled forward onto his chest.

Sam got back to his feet, ignoring the pain that shot through his body, and lifted Dodge's head with his hand.

"Dodge!" he shouted.

Dodge's eyes moved toward Sam, but he said nothing.

His eyes were dull but not vacant like Swamp Witch's had been.

That was a good thing, wasn't it?

"What the h.e.l.l did you do that for?"

Sam looked up. It was Kiwi's voice. He had risen to his feet and was staring.

Around the room, everybody was staring, their faces pale.

"It wasn't me, it was-" Sam broke off.

Kiwi was still wearing his neuro-headset. If he told Kiwi the truth, then Kiwi might become a target.

"Take off your headset," Sam ordered. "Now."

Kiwi raised an eyebrow and said, "Why? And what have you done to Dodge?"

"I didn't do anything," Sam pleaded. "It was...a headset malfunction. Get yours off-now. The same thing happened to Swamp Witch earlier."

Kiwi's other eyebrow rose in an expression of shock, and he reached for his temples. He grasped the headset, and that's where his hands stayed. His eyes suddenly shifted up and to the left as if remembering something. His shocked expression eased.

"Kiwi!" Sam shouted.

Kiwi looked back at him. "It was you all along, wasn't it?"

"No, Kiwi, it's-"

"All these attacks and weird stuff, it all happened after you arrived."

"Kiwi, listen to me-take off your neuro-headset!"

Kiwi stuck out a hand, pointing a finger at Sam like a schoolboy telling on his cla.s.smate. "It was him all along!" he shouted to the room. "Sam's the one doing all this."

"Kiwi!"

"I saw you coming out of the swamp just before Swamp Witch started screaming." He looked confused for a second, then said, "That's right, I saw you. I remember, I saw you."

"I was never in the swamp before...."

On one of the overhead security monitors, a movement caught Sam's eye. Special Agent Tyler, followed by four of his soldiers, was running across the atrium from their offices on the other side. There could be only one place they were heading.

He looked back at Kiwi. There was a glazed look in his eyes, and when Sam looked at Socks, on the other side, the same look was there.

Around the circular room, people were fixing him with accusatory stares. Every one of them wore a neuro-headset.

"Can you hear me, Dodge?" Sam said, holding Dodge's chin and shaking his head slightly. Dodge said nothing, but his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. He had at least heard the question.

"We've got to get out of here now," Sam said. "Can you walk?"

Dodge didn't reply. Sam put his arms under Dodge's shoulders and began to lift, but as he did so, Dodge stood up under his own steam.

"Okay, come on," Sam cried, and started to run toward the doors. Below, in the atrium, the soldiers disappeared from sight as they entered the stairwell up to the control center.

He glanced back. Dodge was standing motionless, right where Sam had left him.

"Come on, Dodge!" Sam shouted.

Dodge didn't move.

Sam ran back and put Dodge's arm around his shoulders, trying to drag him toward the door. There was no need. As soon as he started walking, Dodge started walking, too, as if someone had pressed a switch.

Sam steered him toward the double doors. Just as they got there, Kiwi stepped in front of them. His neuro-headset was still in place, but the cable hung loose, idly swinging below his thighs.

"Kiwi, thank G.o.d," Sam cried. "Now give me a hand with Dodge."

"I know what you did," Kiwi spat, barring their way. "And I know who you are. You're going nowhere."

Sam looked at Kiwi's glazed eyes. Somehow Kiwi had been got at. Fed false information, directly into his brain. Sam said, "It's not true, Kiwi. Whatever you think you know, it never happened."

"I know what I saw," Kiwi said, unmoving.

"Oh, c.r.a.p," Sam said, and without warning, he pushed Dodge right at Kiwi. Kiwi stumbled backward under the weight of him, and Sam slid his keycard through the reader.

Nothing happened. The door remained locked.

"c.r.a.p!" Sam said again. They had shut off his keycard. Dodge's, too, no doubt.

Kiwi was struggling to push Dodge off him, and Sam saw his keycard on a long, curly wire attached to his belt.

Sam shoved Dodge forward again, sending both Dodge and Kiwi crashing against the wall, then grabbed the keycard and wrenched. The keycard, curly wire still attached, came away in his hand.