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 assembling 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.