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 the plug from the socket.
The horrible strangled screaming sound stopped.
Sam hit the ground on 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 forwards 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 towards 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 hell 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 raised 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-set!”
Kiwi stuck out a hand, pointing a finger at Sam like a schoolboy telling on his classmate. “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 Ranger, followed by four of his soldiers, was running across the atrium from their offices on the other side. There could only be one place they were heading.
He looked back at Kiwi. There was a glazed look in his eyes and when he 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 towards the doors. Below in the atrium, the soldiers disappeared from sight as they entered the stairwell up to the control centre.
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 towards 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 towards the double doors. Just as they got there, Kiwi stepped in front of them. His neuro-set was still in place, but the cable hung loose, idly swinging below his thighs.
“Kiwi, thank God,” 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, crap,” Sam said and, without warning, pushed Dodge right at Kiwi. Kiwi stumbled backwards under the weight of him and Sam slid his keycard through the reader.
Nothing happened. The door remained locked.
“Crap!” 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 forwards again, sending both of them crashing against the wall, then grabbed at the keycard and wrenched. The keycard, curly wire still attached, came away in his hand.
Desperately, he swiped it through the reader, and the doors opened.
He could hear running bootsteps.
He pulled Dodge off Kiwi and thrust him through the doors, like some oversized puppet.
A hand pulled on his shoulder and he swung around instinctively, his fist connecting with Kiwi’s face.
Kiwi jolted backwards, blood spurting from his nose.
Sam ran through the doors and grabbed hold of Dodge. Like an automaton, Dodge had walked across to the far side of the corridor and simply stopped, waiting for the next command to execute.
Ranger ran across the atrium at the head of his men.
“Hurry it up,” he shouted, and sprinted for the stairway.
He took them two at a time.
There was a small landing between each floor, which made four flights of stairs in all, but he was barely sweating when he reached the top.
He snapped his keycard off his belt and flicked it at the reader in a casual, cool gesture, like a card shark spinning a card from the deck.
The keycard caught the edge of the reader and flipped out of his hand into the stairwell below.
“Keycard, now.” Ranger raised his hand and snapped his fingers. There was a brief pause and a card was thrust into his hand.
The bootsteps were on the landing at the top of the stairwell now. Behind Sam the doors to the control centre started to close automatically.
He turned Dodge in the opposite direction and steered him around the corner at the end of the passageway just as the stairwell door opened.
In this part of the corridor was a service elevator that nobody used.
Sam stabbed at the buttons frantically. The elevator was on the lower level and there was a whirr as the motors turned and it started to rise.
The double glass doors to the control centre opened and Ranger ran inside to a scene of chaos.
Kiwi lay on the ground in front of him, blood pouring from his nose. The others were spread around the room in various stages of shock.
Dodge and Sam’s desks were empty.
“Which way?” Ranger shouted. Several people shrugged their shoulders.
Ranger thought quickly.
The door to the left led to the stairwell and past that, the washrooms and rest area. That was a dead end. To the right lay … the service elevator!
“On me!” he yelled and raced back to the doors. They had closed and he lost half a second swiping the keycard through them.
Ranger made the end of the corridor in three lunging footsteps, and turned in time to see the doors of the elevator starting to close.
He dived forwards at full stretch.
His fingers impacted on solid metal.
The elevator began to descend.
Ranger picked himself up and returned to the corridor, racing for the stairs.
Kiwi stood in the doorway of the control centre, highly agitated.
“They’ve got my keycard,” Kiwi shouted, gesturing at his belt. “They got my keycard!”
“They’ve got Kiwi’s keycard,” Ranger echoed back to his command post. “Lock it down, now.”
Sam bundled Dodge out of the elevator in the basement. He put his shoulder under Dodge’s arm again and tried to run. Dodge ran with him, somehow responding to the physical stimulus, although his face was blank and he did not speak.
They emerged in the entrance lobby, the stairwell to their left. In front of them was the airlock – the secure area, packed with sniffer and scanning equipment. Sam swiped Kiwi’s keycard and the door opened. He pushed Dodge through and somehow they stumbled across to the outer door. He slid the keycard into that reader. The light changed to green, but before the doors could open it quickly snapped back to red.
He swiped the card again, but this time the light stayed resolutely red. Again he swiped it with the same result. From the corridor behind him he heard the sound of boots.